The Aviator's Wife by Melanie Benjamin
Finally Charles rose, and every voice in the cavernous arena fought to shout the loudest. “Lindbergh for President!” “Lindbergh for President!”—the chant started in some far-off corner, building and building until my face throbbed from the intensity of it.
Charles did not acknowledge the chant; he simply stood tall, full of purpose and right, and in that moment I knew I was seeing my husband finally make the transition from boy hero to monument. He was giant, he was granite; he was supported by the stone foundation of his convictions. And despite my fears and misgivings concerning the entire situation, my heart thrilled at the sight of him; no one but him could have rallied such a mismatched group of people. Communists, Socialists, anti-government radicals, pacifists; left on their own, they would simply have languished and died.
But Charles had rallied them all; he had taken up the mantle of leadership as easily as he had slipped into his first leather flight jacket. America First, that was his cry. America First—Lindbergh would keep us out of war.
“My fellow citizens,” Charles began, and then waited for the crowd to settle down. “We are assembled here tonight because we believe in an independent destiny for America.” A frenzy of foot stamping, hand clapping, cheering filled the hall. Charles stood humbly, accepting it, before he continued with his speech; his plea for America to stay out of the war now raging all across Europe.
“We deplore the fact that the German people cannot vote on the policies of their government, that Hitler led his nation into war without asking their consent. But have we been given the opportunity to vote on the policy our government has followed? No, we have been led toward war against the opposition of four-fifths of our people. We had no more chance to vote on the issue of peace and war last November than if we had been a totalitarian state ourselves.” Charles didn’t mention Roosevelt by name, but he didn’t have to. And only I heard the sadness behind the bitterness in his voice.
What many people forgot was that my husband was, first and foremost, a military man. His training had been invaluable. He believed, passionately, in the future of a military air force, and in his allegiance to his commander in chief.
But when his commander in chief publicly likened him to an appeaser, a Copperhead, he could no longer remain loyal. Most fatally, President Roosevelt had questioned the Lone Eagle’s courage. “That young man would have wanted Washington himself to quit, given the odds,” the president had recently told a newspaper reporter. “ ‘We can’t possibly win’ is no reason for an American not to stand up against aggression.”
So Charles had resigned his military commission only a couple of weeks ago; it had troubled him greatly, but ultimately he could think of no other option. And he turned his considerable powers of concentration and charm to the aid of the America First Committee, flying all over the country, making speeches like this on its behalf. With me, naturally, by his side.
I sat there. I sat there, listening intently to his words, increasingly sure, always measured, never giving in to the frenzy that inevitably greeted him. I was ever mindful of the cameras, for I was suddenly a politician’s wife.
I see myself now, from a distance, sitting there, a grim smile on my face, so different from that jaunty, carefree grin of the daring aviatrix I once had been. A young woman, yes—barely in her thirties, her mind almost always on her children at home. But that was no excuse.
A mother who had lost her firstborn in the most horrific, public manner, and whose vision was still often clouded with the residue of tears. But that was no excuse.
An eager young wife who had been shaped, just like every other eager young wife of my generation, by her husband, but I was a wife who had wanted to be shaped, had willingly put herself in his hands and demanded he make her over in his superior image.
But that was no excuse.
Just as I ran out of people and events and coincidences to blame for my son’s death, I have run out of excuses for sitting there and publicly endorsing my husband’s views. Even if, inside, I questioned, even if I wondered, worried, saw the inevitable outcome long before he did and despised myself for not doing enough to prevent it; despised him even more for not being able to see it, too—
I did it. I sat there and nodded and clapped.
And I’ve regretted it every day of my life since.
Charles looked out at the crowds, more and more frenzied as time went on, and spoke straight from his heart. Recognizing this, I questioned my morals, not his. At least, I knew—and I also understood that this knowledge would have to remain foremost in my mind and heart, if we were going to survive the next few years—that he spoke only what he truly believed.
I, however, did not.
That night, after we left Madison Square Garden for the refuge of our Manhattan hotel room, having fielded phone calls from the press, supporters—Frank Lloyd Wright sent a telegram congratulating Charles on his fine speech; William Randolph Hearst invited us to a weekend at his castle, San Simeon; Henry Ford offered him a job for life—Charles was the one who slept the peaceful slumber of those whose hearts and minds are untroubled.
I did not find such peace that night, and I knew I wouldn’t the next night, either.
Nor had I, for many, many endless nights before, and I could not blame only my husband for that.
WHEN WE FIRST RETURNED from Europe, Charles had been able to keep his political thoughts separate from his military duties, and in the beginning, the press backed down, as if to let him prove his patriotism. But after Great Britain and France declared war, Charles could not remain silent. After the Battle of Britain, he began to write articles and give speeches cautioning against any rush to take sides; at first, he was given as much airtime as he wanted by the various networks. After all, in this time of crisis, America wanted to hear from its hero.
But as time went on, he more than cautioned; he became an outspoken critic of the administration. Soon he had become the de facto spokesman for America First—that ragtag group of individuals bent on keeping America out of the war for a number of reasons that didn’t really matter, at least not then, because a significant number of Americans agreed with them. The war in Europe was not our business.
But most of our friends and family, East Coast elites—and many, like my brother-in-law, Aubrey, with family overseas—were appalled; they sniffed, long before it was verbalized, the unspoken anti-Semitism of my husband’s cause. Initially, I was exempt from this; my friends sometimes asked me, point-blank, how I could betray my father’s legacy, but they did so with the indulgent disbelief you would give a child having his first tantrum.
In late 1940, however—finally pregnant again, after years of trying—I did my best to alienate them for myself.
“Anne,” Charles said one autumn evening, “I need you.”
Those words. They would never fail to sway me. They were uttered so seldom, and I couldn’t resist responding to them in a physical way—my body flushing, as if from desire; my nipples even tingling, my pulse racing, reaching.
We were seated in the den of our rented home in Lloyd Neck, Long Island; the boys were in bed. The radio was tuned to Amos ’n’ Andy, a show that Charles loved for its childish humor—he would laugh, slapping his knee, whenever the Kingfish would exclaim “Holy mackerel!” at Andy’s latest misadventure. To all appearances, we were just any American family, and in our hearts, that’s how we saw ourselves. No one else did, however, and I was increasingly lonely and scared, wondering when—if—this madness would stop, when would Charles cease cultivating controversy, when would we once again be the First Couple of the Air, adored, admired. The only thing that would stop it, I knew, was war—and lately, I had almost been longing for it. And then chiding myself for thinking such a thing.
Charles turned the sound down on the radio and came over to the sofa, where I was seated, lazily paging through Life magazine, even though I had to be careful. These days there were too many articles vilifying Charles glaring at me, accusingly, from the pages of every
“You know how I’ve always felt that you’re the writer in the family,” he continued—and he put his arm about my shoulder.
“I am?” I asked mildly—although I was pleased beyond reason to hear him say so.
“Yes, you are, and don’t be coy; it doesn’t suit you, Anne. What I need now is for you to turn the tables on the press. I was thinking that it would be powerful if you wrote an article about our position. Clarifying it, really, for naturally the press keeps getting it wrong, simplifying the reasons to further their own views. But you were in Germany. You saw what the future can be—and you saw what democracy did to us, to our baby. This ridiculous march to wage war against a power that is greater than us—maybe even better than us—I need you to write about it. From our point of view.”
Those shared goggles! My heart ached at the memory of how we used to fly together; after coming home to America, I had gotten my wish, we had settled down—or I had, anyway. The last time Charles had asked me to fly with him, I had refused.
“What do you mean, you want to stay home?” he’d asked, incredulous.
“The children need me. I’m their mother.”
“You’re my wife.”
“Yes. And I love being with you! And we will take many trips together. Just not this one. Land has a cold.”
Charles had looked down at me, a perplexed purse to his lips, a disapproving furrow to his brow. Then he went off to make preparations for his trip—to San Francisco, I believe it was. Watching him make his preflight checklist, pack his old calfskin travel bag that he’d had since we were married—he never let me pack for him; he said women didn’t know how to pack things efficiently—I sensed the passing of an era, not just in our marriage but in the world at large. Aviation was no longer romantic, hopeful, bringing countries and peoples together; it was about to tear the world apart.
Tucking Jon and Land into bed at night, I rejoiced that I would be able to do so the next night, and the next, and the next; that they would no longer greet me warily after a long trip, as if they weren’t quite certain they should get attached. But sometimes, I remembered—and longed for—the time when it was just the two of us, above. Not Charles, flying solo. Not Anne, worried about the children. But Charles and Anne; a glorious creature, mythic.
Adored.
I continued to page through the magazine, not seeing, not reading. The glossy pages were slippery in my fingers. I felt my husband’s need—his surprisingly desperate, and desperately cloaked, need—pulling me toward him, irresistibly as always.
But for the first time ever, I was suspicious of it.
“Why me? Why can’t you write it? You’ve written other articles; you’ve written your own speeches. You know how difficult this would make things between Mother and me—not to mention Aubrey! Mother has been awfully good about not criticizing you publicly. Do you want me to break her heart?”
Charles didn’t answer, not at first. He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his chin resting in his hands. He stared at something, something I couldn’t see, something I could never see. I always had assumed it was too brilliant and fine for my eyes. Now I wondered if it was really there at all.
“I don’t mean to sound vulgar,” he said finally. “But—so far no one has dared to attack you. You’re—you’re always going to be the baby’s bereaved mother, and so above reproach. Which is why you are in the perfect position, really. If you give our cause your voice, your name, you will elevate it. Even more—than I can …”
I knew this last wounded him, for his voice trailed off. Yet I flinched, and my heart—my poor, put-upon heart that was still stretched and patched beyond reason—stiffened against this latest indignity. The baby’s death was terrible, but it was sacred; it was mine. Not Charles’s. I’d always felt that; I’d always hugged it to me, selfishly unwilling to share it with him. Or with the world. How many times had I been asked to write about it? To give the “bereaved young mother’s” side of the story? Never, I’d said. And Charles had supported me.
Now he was asking me to trade on it. And for what? Europe was in flames, Stalin was now allied with Great Britain, and I knew the sentiment in our country—in the heartland that had, at first, agreed with Charles—was slowly turning; there was a sense that our involvement in the war was not just inevitable, but righteous.
Still, I didn’t respond, and Charles did not press me. I knew he would not; he never did. He stated—or much less frequently, asked, just once. And then withdrew, as if it was beneath him to repeat himself.
“Anne, please,” he said, his voice suddenly a whisper. “Please. I would very much appreciate it if you would do this for me. I can’t do it for myself.”
My hands—my heart—fluttered, then were stunned into absolute stillness. Only once had I heard my husband ask like this. And that was for the safe return of our son.
I heard myself say, “Yes. Yes, I will do this for you,” before I could fully comprehend the consequences.
Charles nodded. He did not thank me. He did not ask what he could do for me. He simply went back to his chair by the radio and turned the knob up. The accents of Amos and Andy, thick as molasses, exaggerated as the funny papers, filled the suddenly oppressive air of our den.
I picked up the copy of Life, and began paging through it once more. An old photograph of Charles, young, grinning, just landed in Paris, caught my eye. Beneath the photograph it said, “Lucky Lindy—No Longer Can We Count on Him to Know Right from Left. Or Wrong. Where Did Our Hero Go?”
The country missed him. I missed him.
My husband, sitting upright in his chair—for he never slumped—chuckling at the radio, missed the hero, as well. With his lean, bronzed body, high forehead, chiseled jaw, he did not look ordinary; he never could. But he did look lost, somehow; smaller. For so long he had stood tall against the endless horizons of our country’s possibility; now they threatened to engulf him. More than anyone else, Charles Lindbergh missed the hero he had once been; the boy who only needed himself and his machine, beloved by all the world simply for doing what he knew was right, and for doing it better than any man alive.
It was not that easy anymore. And for the first time I felt him passing over the controls of our marriage to me, trusting me to steer us both out of this storm, acknowledging that at least for now, he did not know how.
I had been a passenger in our life together for far too long. And so it was because of this—my desire to restore my husband back to himself, to his countrymen, and, yes, to me—that I sat down at my desk the next day and began to write. Still a devoted diarist, I remained unable to understand my thoughts and emotions until I could write them down, play with them, move them about on the page.
Now, I prayed, I could do the same with our lives, although even then, I suspected that there was no page big enough, no ink powerful enough. But I tried; I had to. My husband, the hero of all heroes, amen, had asked me to.
But the words did not come easily. And when they did, they looked wrong on the page.
“AMBASSADOR MORROW WOULD WEEP”
“BOTH LINDBERGHS SHOULD BE BEHIND BARS”
“TREASONOUS TRACT TARNISHES TRAGIC TIARA”
“MRS. LINDBERGH’S MOTHER DENOUNCES DAUGHTER”
I was not surprised by the reaction. And my mother did not denounce me.
She did, however, burst into tears when she first read my little book, a pamphlet, really, called Wave of the Future. Con told me this, later, after she refused to take the money I earned from it for Bundles for Britain. And I couldn’t blame her. I tried to have it both ways, fooling myself into believing I could please both my family and my husband. Of course, I ended up pleasing no one. Least of all myself.
I wrote of the past, and the future; of democracy and its legacy of chaos, of turmoil, of leaders elected promising one thing and delivering another. I compared the democratic leaders to the modern dictato
I decried the treatment of the Jews in Germany, neatly failing to mention my husband’s views about the Jews in America. I said I could not be loyal to the Nazi government as it existed now, but that beneath its tainted flag had been something good, something optimistic, before it got derailed.
I explained how people who loved this country—people like my husband—spoke out against the futility of fighting this future precisely because of their patriotism; how they wanted America first to be healed, to be protected, to be set on its own glorious path to the future. Not destroyed by a war that was probably unwinnable—or by coming to the aid of an empire long past its usefulness.
I signed my name to all of this. I posed for a photograph at my desk, looking pensive. My husband embraced me and assured me I had done the right thing not only for my country but for myself. This would be the beginning of a true literary career, he enthused, just a tad too eager. Hadn’t I always wanted to write a great book? I was well on my way now.
He was wrong, of course. Although he never admitted it. But reaction against my essay—more than five thousand words, reproduced as a slim volume, most of which ended up in bonfires—was most strong in the very literary community to which I had always aspired. The dreamy young men of my youth were now editors and publishers and critics. More than one wrote to me personally, asking how someone as bright as myself could be poisoned so thoroughly by someone as evil as my husband.