Call Me Zelda (39 page)

Wallace eyed my camera. “Would you like a picture of us for Zelda? You can tell her we’re her admirers.”

“I think she would like that very much,” I said.

They all put their arms around one another and smiled their winning, charming smiles, and it suddenly seemed as if I were looking into the past at a group of young soldiers on a dance floor, vying for Zelda’s attention.

Yes. She would like it very much.

THIRTY

There is a unique solitude found in cities that I crave.

The shadows of New York’s buildings cloaked me with a pleasant anonymity. It felt good to blend in, to become indistinguishable from the patter of many moving people, where no one would notice me.

After living in Baltimore for so many years, I had become suited to urban living. It was as if all of the motion from the taxis, people, business, and culture had nudged me along and kept me afloat during the dark years, when my impulse had been toward stagnation. But in that motion, I was able to bob along, undetected.

Now I began to believe I might actually succeed on my journey, and it was right for me to take it. The last time I was here, Zelda was at my side, crumbling in my very grasp as we looked from her paintings to O’Keeffe’s. How I longed for the young flapper Zelda to be at my side now, calling taxis with a whistle and a slit skirt, riding on cars, splashing through fountains, moving from party to party full of waxy-haired men before the wars burned us all out and left us dried up and lost.

I soon arrived at the Biltmore Hotel on Madison Avenue,
where Scott and Zelda had lived after their wedding until they were asked to leave for their antics. As I checked in, I was greeted with a wonderful surprise. Sorin had received my telegram and left me a message at the front desk asking me to meet him in front of the Plaza Hotel for dinner at six thirty. Now I would have something to look forward to after my day of searching.

Since I had a lot of ground to cover, I quickly bathed and put on my sharpest dress. Snow boots and orange scarves would not do for New York City. The dress was one I’d worn to a holiday charity ball Peter had arranged. It was dark green and crossed at the neck, and the A-line skirt extended just below the knee in a quiet green-and-black plaid. It was perfect for wandering in and out of posh New York hotels, asking to see the lost and found.

As it turns out, however, lost items—even in posh New York hotels—are often found by going down creaky cargo elevators with strange men to moldy, rat-filled basements. After sneezing my way through dozens of basement boxes and crates in the Biltmore, the Commodore, and the Plaza, I was not only forlorn because I had not found the objects of my searching, but I was distressed over the amount of cobwebs and dirt covering me and my beautiful dress.

I caught sight of myself in the lobby mirror of the Plaza and groaned. I did not want to meet an old friend looking like this, so I stepped into the opulent bathroom in the lobby, smoothed my hair, wiped a streak of dirt off my face, and fixed my makeup. Thankful for modern conveniences and good lighting, I continued to the entrance, and pushed through the swivel doors into the bitter winter afternoon.

The round clock on the corner showed that it was nearly six thirty, so I was right on time. I was thankful that I had reached out to Sorin, because my mood would have been low after my day of fruitless, uncomfortable searching for Zelda’s diaries. I walked over to the fountain, but it was nearly empty of water except for
a thin, frozen sheen of leaf-covered scum in its base. I snapped a picture of it as I imagined Zelda frolicking in its spray, and couldn’t help but smile.

I felt someone watching me, and turned to face Central Park. My heart lifted when I saw Sorin. He had trim dark hair, a tailored wool coat, and small neat glasses. He carried a violin case in his left hand. We hurried to meet each other, and I couldn’t stop myself from hugging him. He seemed bashful when I pulled away.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s been a long couple of days and it’s so nice to see a friendly face.”

“I knew you immediately,” he said. His accent hung only faintly about the corners of his words, now, no doubt smoothed out over the years of living in the United States. “You have barely changed.”

I laughed aloud. “I don’t know if that’s good or bad,” I said. “I’ve been poking around in hotel basements all afternoon.”

“It is very good,” he said.

“And you,” I said. “So sophisticated. Where is the mad violinist from the bottom apartment who rescued me from the criminal?”

It was his turn to laugh. “Did I really do that?” he asked.

“You really did,” I replied. “Doesn’t it seem a lifetime ago?”

“Yes,” he said.

He held out his arm and led me back toward the Plaza Hotel.

“I’m so glad you received my message,” he said. “I’m taking you to the Oak Room here. It’s quiet.”

“Are you sure?” I asked, cringing inside at the thought of how expensive our meal would surely be. I had already spent more than I’d budgeted by stopping in Princeton.

“Yes. I insist. My treat.”

I began to protest, but Sorin shook his head, walked me back into the Plaza, and to an intimate restaurant with dark paneling
and detailed murals on the walls. The host greeted Sorin as “Mr. Funar” and led us to a table in a back corner of the room.

“The usual, Mr. Funar?” asked our server.

“Please,” said Sorin.

“And for you, ma’am?”

“I’d like some Irish coffee, please.”

“Right away.”

“Caffeine and alcohol?” asked Sorin with a smile.

“It’s been a long day,” I said. “A long couple of days. And you—‘The usual, Mr. Funar’?”

He smiled as I teased him, and raised his hands. “What can I say? I do not cook much and this place is convenient.”

“Clearly you’ve done well for yourself,” I said. “I’m so happy for you.”

I glanced at his ring finger and saw nothing. He caught my gaze.

“Never married,” he said. “Close, several times, but it never worked out. Musicians are fickle and tempestuous.”

I laughed and placed the napkin on my lap as the waiter arrived with our drinks and to discuss the menu. We listened and ordered: tomato and fennel soup and lamb for me, bisque and the fish of the day for Sorin. When I looked back at him he was staring at me.

“I was happy and surprised to get your telegram,” he said.

“I wanted to see a friendly face in the city, so I had to try.”

“You are still married to Will?”

“Yes. We have three children.” I could not hide my smile.

He raised his eyebrows and looked me over. “How can that be? I would never guess.”

I laughed at his flattery, and we began catching each other up on our lives.

For the first time, I told him about everything: about Ben and Katie, Zelda at Phipps, Zelda at La Paix, and life without
Zelda. Then how Will had shown up at my door, and we had married, and how I had learned to live again. I spoke to Sorin of my work in music therapy with shell-shocked soldiers.

“You deserve every happiness, Anna.”

“I don’t know if I deserve any of it, but I’ll surely take it. It’s such a strange thing to have lived two lifetimes.”

“In some ways,” said Sorin, “I think perhaps I have not started living.”

“Why do you say that?”

“It has always been me and the music, but no one constant to share it with. When I spoke of tempestuous musicians, I was also speaking of myself. I have never been able to balance the art and my life outside of it.”

The waiter brought our dinner, but instead of eating, I listened.

“Art is a form of madness, I think,” he said.

I felt his words wash over me, but I hadn’t yet achieved full connection to and understanding of what he was trying to say, or how I could use it to help Zelda.

“I am sorry to go on like this,” he said.

I placed my hand on his arm. “No, please. Keep going.”

He nodded and took a sip from his wineglass before continuing. “When I am in the creative place, I am outside of this time and space. It is jarring to come back—almost painful sometimes. I feel hollow and exhausted, and as if I need to return to it to feel complete again. Almost no one, not even another musician, has been able to understand that or live with it. Or if she has, our creative cycles were off and we were forever hitting each other at highs and lows in the process.”

“Then art is addiction,” I said.

“Yes. Yes, it is an addiction. And just the way that some are able to handle their liquor and others are not, some can handle their art and others cannot.”

I shook my head. “But then, for someone like Zelda, does
this mean that she should not create because of what it does to her? I can’t believe that is so. The act of art is so important. It is expression, identity. It helps others cope. I use music therapy with war veterans. Sometimes it is their only sanctuary. It’s a safe place where they can confront their demons and conquer them.”

“That is beautiful, Anna.”

Sorin was leaning across the table, gazing at me with adoration, and I suddenly felt wary. We were wading in too deep, and I could see and feel that he thought someone like me would understand him. I had to pull back. It wasn’t fair to encourage him, though I could not pretend that his admiration did not warm me. I sipped from my Irish coffee and began to eat. Sorin seemed to sense my retreat, and started on his dinner.

We didn’t say much after that. How do you talk of the weather and other small matters after you speak as we had spoken? As our meal drew to a close, Sorin wiped his mouth and cleared his throat.

“Tonight is our final rehearsal for this weekend’s performance of Mahler’s
Kindertotenlieder
,” he said. “It is a powerful composition that I think would particularly touch you, in light of what you have told me about your own past.”

“Why is that?”

He hesitated for a moment, as if he were worried that he had said too much. “It is about the loss of a child.”

I flinched. Though I would always hold sadness in my heart for Katie, I had experienced true peace after Ben’s burial next to her. But now, forever lurking beneath my life was the deep, wrenching fear of losing another child. It made me wary of cold winds, sickness, and separation. And here I was, so very separated from them. Offering them no protection.

Sorin reached for my arm. “I have upset you. Please do not worry about coming tonight.”

I shook my head. “No, I am already here. Just tell me, is there hope in the song? At the end?”

He smiled broadly. “Yes, Anna. A peaceful, resigned hope. A letting go.”

I
t is quite a thing to sit alone in a darkened theater, with an entire symphony orchestra playing a message that you need to hear.

The exquisite irony of the music therapist finding healing through a symphony played by a friend did not escape me, and it was at that moment, more than any other in my life, that I was convinced of the existence of God and great goodness. Peter would be so glad.

When his rehearsal was over, Sorin came to me and held me. I tried to send him many words I could not say aloud but hoped to convey in my embrace—words of his extreme worthiness, his beauty, and his good soul. I think he understood.

I was still caught up in the music as I returned to my hotel that evening, taking an extra spin or two in the revolving door in honor of my darling Zelda and her beau, Scott, and returning to my room, where I got a deep, restful sleep.

I had no idea how much I’d need it for the rest of the journey.

THIRTY-ONE