Hemingway's Girl (48 page)

Read on for an excerpt from Erika Robuck’s

“richly imagined,”* “haunting,”** and

“mesmerizing”*** tale of Zelda Fitzgerald

in the decades following the Jazz Age. . .

CALL ME ZELDA

Available now for preorder and for sale starting on May 7, 2013,

from New American Library.

“Brilliantly brings Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald to life in all their doomed beauty,
with compelling and unforgettable results.”

—Alex George, Author of
A Good American

*Beth Hoffman

**Alex George

***Maryanne O’Hara

Chapter One

February 1932, Phipps Psychiatric Clinic

Johns Hopkins University Hospital, Baltimore, Maryland

The ward was never the same after that February afternoon when Zelda Fitzgerald stumbled
into the psychiatric clinic with a stack of papers clutched to her chest, eyes darting
this way and that, at once pushing from and pulling toward her husband like a spinning
magnet.

I opened my arms to her. She would not look at me, her nurse, or allow me to touch
her, but walked next to me down the hallway to her room. We left Mr. Fitzgerald at
the desk preparing to meet with the resident in charge of his wife’s case, when Mrs.
Fitzgerald suddenly stopped and ran back to him, nearly knocking him over with her
force. Her husband wrapped his arms around her and kissed her hair with an intensity
that filled me with longing and squeezed my heart. They both began to cry like two
lost, scared children. They were not what I expected in any way.

As quickly as she’d run to him, she pulled herself out of his arms and came back to
me. It was then that I met his gaze—ice-green eyes underlined by dark circles, his
hair and clothing a rumpled mess. I was overtaken by a sense of pity for the two of
them and thought that he too might benefit from a stay with us.

“On my left, my left,” said Mrs. Fitzgerald.

“Pardon me?” I asked her.

“You must walk on my left. I can’t see out of the right eye.”

I knew the doctor’s notes said she claimed to have blindness in her right eye, so
I obeyed her wishes as we walked down the hall. I noticed a red rash creeping up her
neck that she scratched with her jagged nails. By the time we reached the room, she’d
succeeded in making her neck bleed.

As soon as we arrived, she collapsed onto the bed, still clutching her papers as if
they were a precious infant. She cried in a low moan. An orderly carried in her bags
and placed them on the shiny floor next to the door.

“Mrs. Fitzgerald, I’ll need to look you over for admission,” I said. “Is it okay with
you if I take your blood pressure and listen to your heart?”

“My heart,” she whispered. “My poor, broken heart.”

I walked to her and gently pulled her to a sitting position.

“May I place your papers on the bedside table?” I asked.

She looked at me with fear in her eyes, and then out the door.

“Don’t show him. He can’t see it,” she said.

I wondered who she was afraid would see the papers. Was she referring to her husband?
If so, why was she simultaneously distressed at being separated from him, but emphatic
that he not see what she clutched in her hands?

“If you’d like to keep the papers with you,” I said, “I can work around them.”

She nodded with some reluctance and put the papers on her lap. I glanced down and
saw pages of what must have been her handwriting, surprisingly straight but with the
loops and embellishments of a young girl. I was curious about their contents but didn’t
want to press her, especially since she began to wheeze.

“I have asthma,” she said while she gasped.

There was a note in the file about asthma, but here, watching her, I thought it more
likely that she had panic-induced breathlessness. Her heart rate was elevated and
her blood pressure high.

“There, there,” I said. “You are in a state. Let’s try to get you calm.”

The place on her neck that she’d scratched needed attention, so once she seemed more
settled, I stepped away to fetch some antiseptic and a bandage. When I returned, she
still sat on the bed, clutching her papers, crying out every now and then in anguish.
I cleaned her wound, but she soon began to recoil from my touch and questions as if
they were flames licking at her face.

I watched her eyes glass over and she entered into the catatonic state sometimes present
with schizophrenic patients. She looked through me with her large gray eyes in the
most unsettling way, and I had the distinct feeling of having encountered such eyes
before, but could not place them. Her limbs were stiff, but I helped her to lie on
the bed and moved the papers close to her heart. I covered her with a blanket, drew
the curtains, and locked her in the room.

As I left her, dread pushed down through my shoulders and into my chest. It was as
if someone closed a fist around my lungs, and sweat beaded along my brow. I stopped
and leaned against the door to catch my breath, wondering whether I was suddenly becoming
ill, when it hit me: Mrs. Fitzgerald’s eyes were like my own, reflected in the mirror
across from my bed years ago, after the war and my great losses.

Memories of my husband and daughter roared up like waves in my ears, along with the
crippling sensation that accompanied the remembrance of their absence. I could not
think of them here in this place, so I wished them away and they retreated.

Later. Later.

Mrs. Fitzgerald’s eyes, however, would not leave my mind. I had no idea what those
haunting eyes would lead me to do. If I’d known then, I don’t think I would have become
as involved as I did.

No, I still would have.

* * *

Mr. Fitzgerald’s strain was palpable in the room.

We sat near Dr. Meyer’s desk in his warm study—young resident Dr. Mildred Squires,
Scott Fitzgerald, and I. We let Mr. Fitzgerald talk while we took notes, each of us
judging him in spite of ourselves, and trying to understand his broken wife.

It was clear that Mr. Fitzgerald was near a breaking point himself. His hands shook
and he chain-smoked. He often stood to pace the room while he gathered his thoughts.
Then he would sit abruptly, cough, and continue. I listened to him with great interest,
for he spoke like a storyteller.

“She was born and raised a free and indulged child in Montgomery, Alabama,” he began.
“Her mother allowed her at the breast until she was four years old and never told
her no. Her father was a stoic and admired judge.”

“Was her relationship with her father difficult?” asked Dr. Meyer, a stern, spectacled
German in charge of the Phipps Clinic.

“Yes, I’d say so,” said Mr. Fitzgerald. “Judge Sayre was a practical sort of old Southern
gentleman. He didn’t understand his daughter.”

“But Mrs. Sayre did?” asked Dr. Squires.

“I don’t think she understood Zelda, either,” said Scott. “She encouraged her, especially
as a wild debutante.”

He stood again, walked to the window, and lit a new cigarette. His nervous energy
disturbed all of us. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught the usually steady and
solid Dr. Meyer squirming in his chair.

“Zelda is strong willed and stubborn. Hates taking instruction,” continued Fitzgerald.

“I know she was previously at Malmaison and Valmont clinics in Switzerland and diagnosed
as schizophrenic,” said Dr. Meyer. “What precipitated her first collapse?”

“There was a”—he faltered a moment—“relationship of mine with a young actress when
we were in Hollywood in ’twenty-six or ’twenty-seven that affected her. Entirely chaste,
mind you, but Zelda wouldn’t hear otherwise. This was following a relationship Zelda
had with a Frenchman. Then there was her suicidal practice of ballet. She’d dance
six, even eight hours a day until her feet bled and there were pools of sweat on the
floor. That’s the pattern, you know. She gets manic about some form of art, becomes
closed off from me, aggravates her asthma and eczema, then breaks down.”

I was fascinated by his justification of his affair and her behavior patterns. Was
either of them unfaithful? Was Zelda punishing herself through art or trying to find
herself? My thoughts again returned to the stack of papers she’d guarded so closely.

“What are the papers she brought?” I asked.

His laugh was bitter. “Her latest obsession: a novel. She thinks she will outdo me.”

His pretension could not hide that he felt threatened by her. Did he wish to be the
only one in their marriage with any accomplishment? Did he undermine her attempts
at expression? Or perhaps she antagonized him.

“Once she gets an idea in her head she won’t change it for a stack of Lincolns,” he
said. “Do you know she thinks I dallied with Ernest Hemingway?”

We all looked up from our notepads.

“I did not, of course, but she’s convinced.”

His weary tone caused me to believe him, though I wondered what made her make such
an assumption. I began to pity him again.

He returned to his chair and asked for a glass of water. His skin was pale, and sweat
formed along his upper lip. I poured him some water from a pitcher on Meyer’s side
table, and Fitzgerald met my eyes directly when he thanked me.

“
That is enough for today,” said Dr. Meyer. “It’s clear that you both need rest. Will
you be staying in Baltimore long?”

“No, I’ll return to Montgomery tomorrow. My daughter, Scottie, needs me. I don’t want
to uproot her again. Not yet, anyway.”

I knew in some vague way that they had a ten-year-old child. The fact was in a file
somewhere in black and white, and at the time I’d read it, I did not internalize that
information. Now, however, seeing the emotional state of the two of them, my heart
went out to the young girl. How did she manage with parents like these? Inevitably,
I thought of my own daughter, Katie, and that she would have been thirteen this year.
Just a bit older than Scottie.

Suddenly the room seemed very small and full of people. Mr. Fitzgerald’s wool coat
on the chair next to me scratched my arm, and the pungent aroma of his cigarettes
made me nauseous. The clock on the wall behind Meyer’s desk showed two o’clock. I
still had three hours in my shift.

I had to get out of the room.

I stood and placed my notebook on the desk. The others stood around me. The meeting
was over. There was a shaking of hands, discussion of a call, and an exchange of addresses.
Mr. Fitzgerald picked up his coat and again looked into my eyes.

“You’ll take good care of her,” he said. It was not a question, but a reassurance
to himself.

“Yes, sir,” I said. “The very best care.”

His face relaxed and he even smiled. I saw a hint of what he must have been in his
younger days. He kept his gaze on mine and reached for my hands.

“Thank you,” he said.

With that, he was gone.

I walked out after him and watched him move down the hall and out the doors. The afternoon
slipped in for a moment, then was shut out. Everything in the ward seemed different
now, and I no longer felt its calming presence. The Fitzgeralds stirred something
in me that had been dormant for a long time, and I was not prepared to face it.