Paris
1936 TO 1938
UNCLE MICHAEL IS GONE FROM US, DROPPED DOWN DEAD AT Mass and sure, maybe, that was a grand way for him to go. He was good to us always, God rest him.
Jim is now in a powerful rage with Miss Weaver for she falsely claimed Lucia had cancer, on top of everything else, after catching a glimpse of the doctor’s notes at Saint Andrew’s. The doctor says it was merely a questioning note to himself that Miss Weaver saw and it means nothing. But Jim can’t contain his anger at her for upsetting us all.
“I am finished with that woman,” he says. “By her actions, Harriet Weaver is pushing Lucia further into insanity’s abyss.”
I close my lips and stay my tongue. Because Jim won’t certify Lucia as lunatic, St. Andrew’s say they cannot detain her any longer so, in late February, back to Paris she comes, to stay at the Jolases. Living where I am would be unhealthy for Lucia, the doctors say. And for me. My heart is shriveled to a raisin with the burden of everything. Normally I am all go and Jim is all stand still but, now, it’s the other way around. I am brought to a halt by Lucy’s illness and I stay at home doing little while Jim rushes around, researching this doctor and that, this treatment and the other one. I can’t quite fathom how our lives have come to this.
LUCY’S FACE IS ALMOST CONSTANTLY SET IN A DEEP FROWN. IT hurts me to see her. I don’t go often to the Jolas house. Soon, I don’t have to. Lucia violently attacks Maria Jolas with her fists, breaking a tooth in the poor woman’s head, and she’s straitjacketed and taken away. Doctor Delmas, at the maison de santé at Ivry, is her new man.
I’M LIFTED A LITTLE WHEN GEORGIE, HELEN, AND STEPHEN RETURN from New York, though Helen looks peaky and seems to jump when anyone speaks.
I take Georgie aside. “Is Helen all right?”
He scowls. “She’s just tired, Mamma.”
We sit to table and it’s my delight to have little Stephen by me, babbling now in a Yankee accent and grown so big that I stare at him in wonder.
“You’re a proper little maneen, Stephen James Joyce.” I pet his head. “A handsome lad.”
“More goodies, Nonna,” he shouts, and I feed him bits of heart-shaped palmier from my fingers.
Giorgio asks for the latest news of Lucia and we tell him how she has been—not that I’d know firsthand. The doctors say, because of her hostility toward me, that I should stay away from Ivry. In case she wallops me, I suppose. Or sets fire to the place. Jim goes to see her each Sunday; he finds great comfort in walking with her and coddling her, telling her all will be well.
“We play piano together,” he tells Giorgio. “E balliamo insieme.” Jim lifts his arms in a waltz.
“Stop speaking Italian,” Helen snaps, and we all turn to look at her, shocked by her tone. “You’re such a rude family. I’m a Kastor but we don’t sit around speaking German. What are you saying when you speak Italian? Is it about me?”
“Babbo just said that he and Lucy dance together at the maison de santé.”
Helen laughs sharply. “Oh, Giorgio loves to dance, too, don’t you? With all the young ladies. All the young beauties.” She lights a cigarette with shaking hands. “I’m just the old hag he happens to be married to.”
Silence descends and we all, even little Stephen, look at our plates. Anywhere but at one another. I try to think of something to say, to soften the atmosphere, to comfort Helen, even, but not a single sentence will form in my head. The clock ticks into the quiet and eventually I just get up and clear the dishes.
JIM AND GEORGIE GO TO IVRY AND, NO SOONER ARE THEY IN THE room with her, than Lucia leaps from one to the other, trying to strangle them.
Still, that night, Jim dreams that Lucy’s cured, that her mind is restored and she is normal again. He wakes unhappy.
Jim and I go to Zürich for his eyes. I light a candle in every church I pass, for our Lucia. I light one for Helen.
JIM IS MY WHOLE LIFE NOW, THAT’S WHAT OCCURS TO ME TODAY. Our children have passed out of our hands, for better or for worse, and there’s just we two again. And we have to get on with things as best we can, as a pair, and with Giorgio back and Lucy safe, we can saunter on, me and Jim. There’s nobody like him and that’s for sure. With things quieter, he’s back writing Finnegans Wake. I hear him laughing at night when I’m in bed and he stays up to write; he chortles at his own wit as he scribbles, the soft, silly man.
I knock on the wall. “Stop writing, Jim! Or do a serious bit so you’re not hooting like a steam engine at all hours of the night, keeping me from sleep.”
He knocks back. “Yes, my goose, yes, yes.”
GIORGIO AND HELEN ARE FALLING ASUNDER AND PAUL LÉON makes an enemy of us by suggesting that it’s Georgie’s fault because he is, according to Léon, heartless.
“Giorgio doesn’t seem to care that Helen’s mind is fragile, that she needs his support,” Paul says. “He needs to show Helen his love. I mean, demonstrate it to her. Physically, if necessary.”
“How dare you,” Jim says. “How dare you try to direct my son’s actions, his life.”
“That woman was never right for our boy,” I say, acid on my tongue.
WE DINE AT FOUQUET’S OFTEN, JIM AND I. LOBSTER AND CHAMPAGNE. Omelette norvégienne to finish—ice cream and meringue and sponge in a glorious heap. The sweet has always been our favorite part of any meal. One night I spot Marlene Dietrich nearby and urge Jim to send his compliments to her. She comes over and we say hello.
“My wife admires you enormously,” Jim says, and I look at her shyly and smile. “We saw you in The Blue Angel.”
“Then, Monsieur Joyce”—she nods to each of us in turn—“Madame Joyce, you saw me at my best.”
I grin to myself for a week after this encounter.
GIORGIO AND HELEN GO AGAIN TO NEW YORK AND I’M NOT ONE bit happy about it.
“She’s pushing him around,” I say to Jim, hovering over him at his desk. “How can Georgie stand to be directed like that?”
“But isn’t that what wives do?” he says, his face almost bewildered, and he goes back to his writing.
HERR HITLER ANNEXES AUSTRIA IN MARCH.
“We’re facing another war, Nora,” Jim says, gloomily, peering at me above Le Figaro.
“But what can we do about it?” I say. “Nothing! We can do nothing about anything, it seems to me.” And I start to cry because I feel helpless about how life unfolds in its own pattern and how little we as people can do to stop or sway it.
Gas masks are issued. Candles are in short supply. People raid the shops for tinned goods. We’re heading back into the madness of battles and bloodshed again, for sure. I could fall apart thinking about it all—war, Lucy, Georgie—or I can get on with it. I decide to choose the latter.
OUR FRIENDS TRY TO GUESS THE NAME OF JIM’S NOVEL. MRS. JOLAS comes closest with Fairy’s Wake. Jim is shocked at how near she is. Her husband, Eugene, guesses the correct name. He storms into Fouquet’s the evening following Maria’s nearly right stab at the title and, before we can even say hello, he whispers fiercely, “Finnegans Wake!”
Maria Jolas stands behind him, eyes bright. “Well?” she says.
Jim shakes his head. “You’re a pair of clever cats,” he says, handing over a pouch of money, the promised reward.
We celebrate with bottles of Moët & Chandon and it feels good to toast and laugh and forget about all troubles for a spell.
GIORGIO AND HELEN RETURN FROM AMERICA, AND HELEN IS clearly under a grim cloud. Before long she’s admitted to a mental clinic in Montreux.
“She’ll brighten herself, for Giorgio’s sake,” Jim says. “For her sons’ sakes.”
“If only it were that easy,” I murmur.