Call Me Zelda (8 page)

“I’m in here, bathing, Mildred,” she called.

My voice felt stuck in my throat. Mildred? When had Zelda and Dr. Squires gotten on such good terms? I felt a sudden pang of something I did not understand.

“It’s me, Anna. Do you need assistance?”

Silence was all that greeted me. I glanced around the room and saw several piles of papers. It looked as if she had many writing projects under way. I wondered whether she had written anything about her illness or her past for me to read. There were some sketches on an easel in the corner of the room closest to me, and an assortment of tubes of gouache paint. I stepped closer to the sketches and flipped through them.

In the front rested several landscapes that appeared to be views from her window, though they were rather distorted. There was one strange drawing of a ballet dancer with such unusual lines and prominent feet that it looked as if the dancer were swollen with terrible pain. The last sketch was of Dr. Squires.

My spirits sank. Zelda had transferred her trust to Dr. Squires while I was away.

“Zelda, may I come in?”

When I heard no answer in the affirmative or negative I began to worry. What if she couldn’t make a decision and needed my assistance? What if she’d hurt herself somehow?

“Zelda, I’m coming in.”

Still no response.

When I stepped into the doorway of the bathroom, she was sitting in the bathtub with her arms around her knees, staring at the water.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

Her face was blank. She acted as if she hadn’t heard me. I felt like an apparition undetected by a human person. It was terribly unsettling.

“May I help you out of the bath?”

She sat still for another moment, and then she laughed as if I’d just said something funny. As quickly as she made the sound, it was over, and she looked troubled that she’d laughed at all. She finally looked at me and her gaze stopped me in my tracks. I had never been on the receiving end of such an accusatory, venomous glare.

“If it’s not too much trouble,” she said, with heavy sarcasm.

My fears were well-founded. She’d felt abandoned by me.

“Zelda,” I said, “I’m so sorry I wasn’t here this week. I’ve been…ill.”

She cocked her head to the side and regarded me suspiciously before looking away. I had prepared a lie for her, but I felt I owed her more than that. She was far too perceptive anyway.

“I was attacked,” I said. “By a man at night.”

That got her attention.

“Anna,” she said. “Are you all right? Did he…”

“No, no. Thank God,” I said. “My neighbor saw us out the window and came to help. Everything’s all right; I just hit my head and needed to rest for a few days.”

This seemed to soften her.

“And here I was thinking you were like all the rest,” she said. “What did Meyer say?”

“I’m not going to tell him,” I said. “I have a feeling that he’d force me to take off more time and possibly suggest some kind of therapy, but I want to be here. With you.”

She looked up at me with large, adoring eyes before her face darkened. She looked as if she wanted to cry.

“My friend. My dear friend,” she said. “Poor Anna.”

She stood up from the water and stepped onto the tile. I moved to wrap a towel around her and pressed it into her skin to absorb the water. She allowed me to help her dry off, but put on her underclothes and dressed herself. Then she sat at the mirror and handed me the brush. I began brushing her tawny blond hair away from her face, and she closed her eyes and put her head back.

W
hile Zelda wrote that morning, I sat in a staff meeting with Dr. Meyer and Dr. Squires, and they briefed me on what had gone on in my absence.

“Zelda’s making incredible progress on her novel,” said Dr.
Squires. “She’s allowed me to read it and it’s quite good. She’s calling it
Save Me the Waltz
.”

I felt the pang again, and forced a smile. “Really? How nice.”

“Yes, it’s quite unique and unlike anything I’ve ever read,” she continued. “It has a rambling, conversational tone to it, but is also highly literary. I’m afraid I can’t explain it.”

“Perhaps she’ll let Nurse Howard read it sometime,” said Dr. Meyer. “I know she won’t let me. She seems to have a deep distrust of men.”

“And yet a dependence on them,” said Dr. Squires. “It’s as if she both craves and resents the men in her life.”

I was interested to hear Dr. Squires expand on this.

“Has she spoken to you of the past yet?” I asked.

“No, not actually,” said Dr. Squires. “Her novel, though, is autobiographical. I’m learning a lot about her past through it.”

So Zelda did feel comfortable expressing herself on the page. I longed to read the book and at once recognized the pang I’d felt. It was jealousy gnawing at my belly. I could not loathe Dr. Squires, however. She was kind and open, and her support of Zelda was a good thing. I just hoped there was room for both of us in Zelda’s attention.

The meeting came to a conclusion and we all stood.

“I’m so glad you’re back,” said Dr. Squires just before she left Meyer’s office.

“Thank you,” I said. “It’s good to be back.”

Dr. Squires squeezed my hand and walked out the door, heading to her next patient meeting. I started to leave when Dr. Meyer called to me.

“Nurse Howard,” he said. “Please close the door.”

I did so, hoping he’d reveal something new to me about Zelda. Instead, I was the subject of his observation.

“Your headaches and cold,” he said with concern. “Are they better?”

I willed myself to keep eye contact with him. “Yes, Dr. Meyer. I hated being away for so long.”

“I see,” he said. “And how did you get that bruise on your cheek?”

I reached up and touched the fist-size, yellowing bruise. I’d prepared a story, but as I faced Dr. Meyer, it seemed preposterous. Still, I could not speak of the attack. In my years of psychiatric nurse training, my instructors focused so strongly on maintaining boundaries in clinical relationships. Without limits, relationships could become ambiguous or even corrosive to all parties involved. I told myself that these boundaries needed to extend to my relationship with Dr. Meyer to keep his confidence. I wouldn’t want him to think I was suffering emotionally. What I wouldn’t allow myself to recognize, however, was that I couldn’t stand the thought of being separated from Zelda.

“It happened at my parents’ place,” I said. “I ran right into a barn beam.”

“Really,” he said. “I wouldn’t have taken you for a clumsy one.”

“It was muddy.”

He smiled a little, as if I’d reassured him. “Well, I’m glad you’re back.”

I felt a pang of guilt over the lie and was able to manage only a nod. He turned from me and began shuffling papers on his desk.

Suddenly, an animal-like howl rent the quiet. We ran out of the office and started down the hall to Zelda’s room, where the sound originated. We reached the room just as Zelda was being restrained by an orderly while she shredded a piece of paper in her hands.

“Bastard. Goddamn him to hell!” she shouted.

Dr. Meyer ordered the attendant off Zelda and she slipped into the corner of the room and continued shredding the paper.

“I just gave her the mail and she started this,” said the man.

I stepped forward. “What is it, Zelda?”

She stopped shouting and started mumbling to herself. “No books, no fiction. ‘Stop your writing. You’ll put yourself over the edge.’ I’d rather hear that I’m his locked-tower princess than take all of his damned instructions and diagnosis.” She spit at the papers and flung them to the floor around her bare feet. Then she placed her head on her knees and exhaled. When she looked up again, her face was unlined and peaceful, as if nothing had just happened.

“What’s for supper this evening?” she asked. “I’d love a cucumber salad or some tomato sandwiches with a spray of parsley on the side to remind me of his eyelashes when I loved his eyes and they were like the Mediterranean Sea to me instead of the icy glare throwers they’ve become. I can see him looking out of the paper at me and I can’t stand it.”

At that moment, I had the eeriest feeling that Mr. Fitzgerald could see us. Zelda watched the goose bumps rise on my arms.

“You feel it, too,” she said. “I’m not alone.”

W
e returned to her room after lunch, and she walked to her papers and ran her hands over them as if she were stroking a cat. I stood at the window and watched her until she looked up at me.

“I’m glad these are under lock and key with me in this big safe so he can’t steal them,” she said.

“Do you really think he would steal your work?” I asked.

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” she said.

“What other times has he stolen your work?”

“
This Side of Paradise
,
The Beautiful and Damned, Gatsby…
”

“What are you saying?” I asked. “Did you write those?”

She stood to her full posture and suddenly became indignant.

“No,” she said. “No, you mustn’t think he’s not a great writer. He’s the finest writer of our generation.”

“I think he is a fine writer,” I replied, carefully choosing my words. “It’s just that I interpreted your words as an insinuation that he used your writing and passed it off as his own. I apologize if I misread you.”

“No, you didn’t. I flit like a butterfly. Can you keep up?”

“I can try,” I said.

She sat heavily on the bed and stared out the window. “But he is a plagiarist.”

That was a strong accusation. I didn’t want to further upset her, however, so I remained silent, waiting for her to continue.

“Sometimes I think if I could just find the diaries he stole…”

“He stole your diaries?” I couldn’t help myself.

“Yes,” she said. “I used to keep diaries, and when we first got married he took them and wouldn’t tell me where he’d put them. Said that I was done with all that now.”

“And have you seen them since?”

“No.”

“Do you think he still has them?”

“I hope so,” she said. “Otherwise there is no hope for me.”

“Why?”

“Because the roots of my soul are in those books. If they’re gone, so is my soul seed. I might as well die.”

My mind started racing. I felt something coming at me on a wave. Inevitability. A task. To restore her identity and present it to her.

“I have not forgotten what you asked of me,” she said. “Writing my past. My remembrances.”

“Aren’t you doing that in your novel?” I asked.

“I am, but it’s just a piddly small account of a portion of our timeline. I want to take you back, and I will. I just have to get this novel out of me.”

“I look forward to it,” I said. “But please know that there’s no pressure. Perhaps the novel will be enough.”

“It won’t be enough, because it’s for everyone. When I write for you, I will write
only
for you. My confessions.”

I decided, right there on the spot, that I would not share her confessions with anyone. She needed someone in her life not to betray or use her in any way. I would be that person. I could share my insights with Dr. Meyer, but not Zelda’s words.

“Of course,” I said.

“And then we’ll burn them,” she said. “Like the salamander.”

“I’m not familiar with the salamander,” I said.

“A mythic lizard, purified by fire,” she said. “A woman who burns through men to find her one true love.”

She struck a match and lit a cigarette, inhaling deeply and filling the space around her with her exhalations.

SIX