J. D. Salinger_ A Life - Kenneth Slawenski [79]
Trouble soon erupted in Salinger’s marriage. The passion that had drawn the couple together transformed into confrontation. Theirs was a union of extremes. When they were happy, they were ecstatic; but when they disagreed, the aggression became vicious. Both were stubborn and obstinate, and it was not long before they began to clash. Salinger’s penchant toward gloomy sarcasm and Sylvia’s apparent intractability would prove the couple’s undoing.
Around this time, Salinger began to show signs of estrangement, chronically avoiding communication with people he had known for years. An avid letter writer all his life, when he married Sylvia, he suddenly stopped corresponding with family and friends. Apart from infrequent notes to his mother, Salinger’s letters home ceased and he habitually ignored those he received. His disregard became an ongoing joke within the Salinger family, but his friends assumed something had happened to him; some even feared he was dead. After sending numerous letters and receiving no reply, one friend was so convinced that Salinger had met a foul end that she contacted his mother in desperation. After Miriam gave the woman the Gunzenhausen address, she wrote expressing her relief, congratulating him on his marriage. Though this letter is available to researchers, Salinger’s reply is not, if he answered it at all.
Not all of Salinger’s friends were as lucky or so resourceful. In March, Basil Davenport (who was an editor at the Book-of-the-Month Club) finally got in touch after months of effort:
Well, for God’s sake, it’s nice to know you’re alive at least! You may not believe it, but it’s the truth that I was honestly worried about you.… I wrote a couple of letters to your military address and got no answer; then I saw a story of yours in Collier’s and wrote you care of them; then, still not hearing, I found a name that looked like yours in the New York telephone book, and called a number of times to make inquiries.9
In April 1946, Salinger’s contract with the Counter Intelligence Corps came to an end. After spending a week in Paris, where he obtained immigration papers for Sylvia, the couple proceeded to the port of Brest. There, on April 28, they boarded the USS Ethan Allen, a naval vessel bound for New York. On May 10, after four long years of war, Salinger finally arrived home at Park Avenue with Sylvia and Benny.10
Exactly how he imagined he could live with his new wife in his parents’ apartment is a mystery. Sylvia and Miriam locked horns immediately. Lost in the strangeness of her husband’s world and unable to live under Miriam’s scornful domination, by mid-July Sylvia had returned to Europe and soon filed for divorce. Benny remained. The very existence of Salinger’s first wife quickly became a forbidden subject within the Salinger family, along with Miriam’s parents and assorted great-grandfathers. For the rest of his life Salinger would resurrect the subject of Sylvia when he found it convenient, either to mock her severity or to talk of her magnetism. But others were never allowed to broach the subject to him uninvited.
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When Sylvia left for Europe, Salinger judiciously traveled to Florida to avoid the possible gloating of his family. On July 13, while staying at the Sheraton Plaza Hotel in Daytona, he wrote to Elizabeth Murray about the collapse of his marriage. He and Sylvia had made each other miserable, he said, and he was relieved to see the relationship end. He also confessed that he had not written a word in the eight months they were together.
In Florida, he managed to complete his first story since early 1945. He considered the piece unusual and named it “The Male Goodbye.”