Hemingway and Decan followed the route established by Lanham’s 22nd Infantry. They went north from Paris, through Senlis, and then around Compiégne, where they spent the night of the 2nd of September 1944 camped in a corn field watching German V2 rockets (the next phase in Hitler’s plan to destroy London and the advancing allied armies) roaring across the star-filled sky at speeds in excess of 1,500 miles per hour.

There is some confusion as to when the V2 bombardment of London actually started – most historians agree that it was the 8th of September – and if Hemingway did see V2s on the 2nd of September they were probably heading for Paris, and the ever growing number of allied service personal who were gathering there. By the 8th September London became the principle target.

As Hemingway lay back in the corn field, with Orion high above, he gave no thought to the V2’s designer, Wernher von Braun, in his bunker. Why should he, Hemingway had never heard of him. For Hemingway the guy who was sending those damn rockets overhead was just another kraut who’d be better off dead, and the sooner the better. After taking just one more slug of brandy Hemingway fell asleep and sank back into the Paris of 1925, and the memory of a young woman he once had a brief affair with.

As Hemingway’s friend, Kurt Singer, reminds us, in his book, Hemingway: The Life and Death of Giant, Heloise was a sculptor who always seemed to be where Hemingway was. She was a frail cigarette smoke wisp of a woman who could not, under any circumstances be considered beautiful, but had, as many women do, a dreadful allure that can either be the making, or the breaking of a man. Hemingway fell, and almost broke.

What the twenty-six year old Hemingway felt he really needed was somewhere to get away from the everyday feeding, crying and puking of baby John Hemingway, and, as he saw it at the time, Hadley’s constant nagging. He also needed somewhere he could put his trusty Corona typewriter and work on his first novel. Heloise offered one half of her studio. Ernest could sit and write for as long as he liked, she wouldn’t disturb him, as long as he didn’t disturb her. Agreed.

Both knew they were lying, but they went along with it.

The days Hemingway spent in Heloise’s studio were long, productive and happy, with each getting on with their work, with the sounds of children playing in the nearby Luxemburg Gardens wafting up into the fourth floor studio on the warm summer air.

It was an idyllic situation and during this time Hemingway completed, and sold his story Fifty Grand, to the Atlantic Review, and mapped out the first few chapters of what became his first novel, The Sun Also Rises (Fiesta). Both Hemingway and Heloise had agreed – even shook hands – that they would avoid each other, that under no circumstances would the relationship become sexual.

Heloise became part of the Hemingway set, sitting quietly drawing in the same cafes, listening as Hemingway talked to Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, never talking, or sharing the same table, but always within a few feet of Hemingway, watching, drawing, listening. For Hemingway it was the ideal relationship, that of a distant, undemanding admirer.

But the inevitable happened in the warm dying embers of a long summer’s day. As Hemingway completed another story he felt a hand gently caressing the side of his face. He realised it was Heloise, and that her touch was a question, and that he would be unable to answer no.

” Make love to me Ernest, make love to me now.”

” But…”

” I cannot watch you any longer, I must give myself to you, do you not understand?”

Hemingway took Heloise in his arms and devoured her on the rumpled heap of sheets and blankets she used as a bed. Heloise dug her red painted nails into his back like a picadors banderillas, smearing the blood across his sweating back.

Throughout the long warm night Hemingway and Heloise made love again and again, each time it became more and more gentle until, just before dawn, they were unable to move. And as he looked at his naked body, with the scars of his Italian wounds red and painful he reached out and touched
the sleeping Heloise.

” Hmm?” she responded.

” Good morning.”

” Good morning, my sweet love.”

Then, as Hemingway turned Heloise toward him, and tried to kiss her, she pulled away from him with a long, dry-boned scream of terror. Again and again she screamed. Suddenly someone was knocking on the studio door. Then an elderly woman’s voice.

” Madame? Madame?”

Heloise stopped screaming and went to the door, and through the keyhole told the elderly woman everything was fine, that she had seen a rat, and well, you know.”

When the woman had gone Hemingway – now washing himself from a basin of water on top of a small chest of drawers – asked Heloise what was wrong.

” What did I do, honey?”

” You did nothing, it is just…”

” Just what?”

” You are ugly.”

” Ugly? My god, that’s the first time anyone has called me that.”

” No, that is wrong. You are not ugly. The scars, the wounds on your legs, they are ugly.”

Hemingway moved across to the still naked Heloise and tried to take her in his arms, but she began to cry, pushing Hemingway from her, and then, from somewhere, Hemingway couldn’t tell where, she pulled a knife and came at him. But Hemingway could see there was no determination in her face, and determination was necessary if you were going to kill someone.

” Okay, honey, don’t get upset, I’m outta here as soon as I can get my clothes on.”

As Hemingway dressed, Heloise watched him, noting the new livid wounds on his back, and wondering who’d inflicted them. Once dressed Hemingway gathered up the pages of his latest story, put his Corona typewriter into its case and made for the door.

” Sorry, Heloise, but I got wounded in Italy.”

” My husband died at Verdun, we had only been married two weeks. Go, go now.”

Hemingway wanted to hold Hadley when he got home, but could not, wanted to kiss her, but could not. He wanted to ask how Bumby was, nearly did, but in the end could not.

Hadley wanted to ask him where heâ€TMd been all night, but could not, wanted to hold him too, and kiss him, but instead just touched him on his arm and went into their small kitchen and began to prepare some breakfast.

Hadley could smell Heloise on him, but said nothing.

They ate breakfast in silence and Ernest told Hadley about the story he’d finished and how he’d stayed at the studio all night to finish it, and that, walking home, he’d been attacked by a drunk, and had fought him off bravely even though the drunk had a knife and had cut Ernest’s back in a couple of places, but in the end Ernest had hit the drunk with his typewriter, which had flattened him. Ernest then told Hadley how he was going to give up journalism and concentrate on writing stories, and work on his first novel.

” But how are we going to manage, and with a baby?” Was all Hadley could think of saying.

Hemingway finished breakfast, changed his clothes, and left the apartment saying he was going for a drink somewhere, didn’t know where, and that he’d be back later, and that everything was going to be okay.

” Don’t worry, Hads.”

A couple of weeks later Heloise slit her wrists.

Hemingway awoke in the field shivering. The corn was wet, and the air cool, and in the distance he could hear sporadic gunfire. He felt awful, and the dream he’d had about Heloise, and Hadley, had left him feeling depressed. All he wanted to do now was get back to the Ritz, and Mary.

But first Lanham.