Florence Adler Swims Forever(78)
Anna wondered how she could bear it any day. On Sunday, Florence would have been dead two months. Anna tried to imagine what it would be like to lose a child and then to trudge over to the hospital each day, sit with Fannie, and pretend everything was fine. It had to be exhausting.
Then there was the issue of Fannie’s room, which was so dark and depressing it would make anyone want to avoid visiting. When Anna arrived, she dragged the chair close to the window and pulled the blinds up six inches so she’d have enough late afternoon sun to read the book’s fine print.
Fannie looked as if she were dozing but the moment Anna raised the blinds, she heard a quiet voice from the bed say, “You’re going to get us in trouble.”
“Am I?” Anna asked. “Should I lower them?”
“God no. It’s nice to get a little light.”
“What does your mother do when she reads to you?”
“She doesn’t.”
Anna looked at the book in her hand. The way Esther had talked, Anna assumed Fannie couldn’t go a single day without being read to.
“Well, I’m just here to keep you company, so I’m happy to do either.”
“What did you bring?”
“Tender Is the Night.”
“I haven’t read it.”
“Neither have I.”
The book might as well have been set in Atlantic City, Anna realized as she began to read, “?‘On the pleasant shore of the French Riviera, about half way between Marseilles and the Italian border, stands a large, proud, rose-colored hotel. Deferential palms cool its flushed fa?ade, and before it stretches a short dazzling beach. Lately it has become a summer resort of notable and fashionable people—’?”
Anna read until the sun sank in the sky, until Rosemary Hoyt had been drawn into the Divers’ circle of friends and Dick Diver had acknowledged the girl’s attraction to him. Rosemary wasn’t just attracted to Dick Diver—she was completely infatuated with him. And Anna found herself wondering if the feeling was so different from the buzzy sensation she got when she looked at Stuart.
Once, when she thought Fannie had fallen asleep, she folded down the page and placed the book on her bedside table. “Don’t stop, please,” Fannie had whispered, so Anna picked up the book and continued, squinting her eyes to make out the words in the evening’s fading light.
“Isn’t it interesting that Rosemary’s mother wouldn’t be a proponent of marriage?” said Fannie, at one point, when Anna paused to pour herself a glass of water.
“I guess marriage didn’t work for her. Remember, she’s got two dead husbands.”
Fannie leaned on her elbows in bed. “But I don’t think Rosemary’s mother is referencing her own experiences. It’s bigger than that.”
“Lie down.” Anna went back and skimmed the pages she’d just read. “I suppose Mrs. Speers believes Rosemary is special, deserving of the chance to earn a living and stand on her own two feet.”
“Do you think that’s a better kind of life?” asked Fannie. “Not being beholden to anyone?”
Anna thought of Joseph and the money he’d deposited in the bank account at the Boardwalk National Bank. “We’re all beholden to someone.”
“You know what I mean,” said Fannie. “A husband. Someone you’ll never please.”
Anna tilted her head and looked at Fannie. Was Fannie’s marriage so imperfect? She couldn’t stop herself from asking, “Is Isaac hard to please?”
Fannie just nodded and stared at the ceiling. Suddenly, she seemed very far away. Anna didn’t know what to say to her, found it hard to defend a man whose company she did not enjoy. Eventually, Fannie was the one to speak: “Sometimes I feel as though I’ve spent the last eight years holding my breath.”
Anna understood the sentiment—what it felt like to lose control of one’s own destiny. “I think most women make some sacrifices for their own security, or the security of the people they love.” She looked at Fannie’s round belly.
“Not Rosemary Hoyt,” said Fannie with a short laugh.
Anna flipped the book over and studied the photograph of Fitzgerald on the dust jacket. He was a handsome man, with features that weren’t unlike Stuart’s. “I think it’s possible that Mr. Fitzgerald wrote a woman who doesn’t exist.”
* * *
Anna arrived home from the hospital to find a familiar airmail envelope waiting for her on the dresser in the Adlers’ front hall. The front was littered with stamps, most of which had Hitler’s face on them.
The contents of the letter, written in her mother’s native Hungarian, were brief.
Dearest Anna (and Joseph),
We provided the bank deposit slip, along with the letter indicating that the account had been established in our name and that we had permission to draw a hundred dollars monthly in the first year. The consul-general laughed and asked what we’d do in the second year. He is demanding that some amount of money be put in an irrevocable trust in our name and wants us to show evidence that we have permission to draw from its earnings. We tried to ask how much money would be enough—to which he replied, “I’ll tell you when it’s enough.” Not very helpful. We know people who have gotten visas with nothing more than an affidavit from a distant cousin, so this new development is particularly disheartening.