“Frank Lloyd Wright built around thirty houses in Oak Park,” said Louise’s father. He had a more marked French accent than his daughter.
“And Hemingway was born here,” said Louise’s mother. “Switzerland is a great little country. Last year we went to Stanton.”
“St. Anton is in Austria, chérie,” said her husband, turning to me again. “I hear you’re a writer?”
“Louise has told us all about you,” said the mother, “she likes you. And we’re only too pleased if she settles down a bit. American men are so superficial. After all, I married a European myself.”
She winked at her husband, who smiled modestly and said: “We met in Paris. My wife had gone to Europe to catch herself an aristocrat. She had to make do with me.”
“I do hope you like turkey,” said the mother, “we’re having a traditional Thanksgiving dinner.”
I was relieved when Louise came, slipped her arm in mine, and dragged me away from her parents.
“I’m just going to show him the garden,” she said.
Her mother twinkled at me, and said: “I quite understand. You young people want to be alone together.”
We strolled around the garden. There was an aquamarine swimming pool under an enormous maple. The water was littered with its dead leaves. It was cold, and we shivered, but the sun still felt hot on my skin. The air was dry and crisp. When you looked up at the treetop, the sky between its bloodred leaves was almost black.
“I’m amazed by how much more colorful everything is here,” I said, “the leaves, the sky, even the grass. Everything has more vitality than its counterpart in Europe. As though everything was still young.”
“A man lives and dies in what he sees, says Paul Valéry, but he can only see what he thinks,” Louise observed ironically.
“I really do think the colors here are different. Maybe it’s to do with the air.”
“My little pocket Thoreau. Try not to be so naïve. This country is no older or younger than any other.”
“But I get the sense that more things are possible here.”
“That’s because you have no history in this place. The idea Europeans have of America is less to do with the place than with themselves. And of course vice versa. My mother’s grandfather was the editor of the Chicago Tribune. From an old English family that could trace their descent back to the fourteenth century. So in a way, there’s more history on my mother’s side of the family than my father’s. He came from a simple background. Made a good marriage. And there’s my mother, rather pleased with herself for her European husband, even though he’s exactly the sort of self-made man the Europeans suspect all Americans of being.” She laughed.
“What did you tell your parents?” I asked. “They treated me like a prospective son-in-law.”
“Oh, that’s nothing. They’d love to have me married off. And they’re pleased if I have a boyfriend who has some sort of sensible job. I told them you’re a journalist, and you write books.”
“Your mother said Hemingway was born around here.”
“Yes, I know. She’s a great name-dropper.”
“Do you like Hemingway?”
“I’m not sure,” said Louise. “I liked A Farewell to Arms, but that may have been because of the music and Gary Cooper.”
After lunch, she showed me the apartment her parents had set up for her at the top of the house. Then she took me for a drive around the area, and showed me where Frank Lloyd Wright had worked, and where Hemingway was born. In the bookshop of the Hemingway house I found a copy of A Farewell to Arms, and gave it to Louise.
“You ought to read it,” I said, “it’s better than the film.”
“And you ought to come and see me at work, so I can take you around our archives.”