Lovely War Read online

  She shook her head. “No, you haven’t,” she said. “You sprang from the ground.”

  “No,” he said simply. “That was you.”

  Both of them realized, then, that Hazel’s two hands had found their way inside James’s. The discovery took them both by surprise. Neither remembered having done it.

  They hadn’t. That was me. I wasn’t about to be idle, now, was I?

  And, no, that was not interfering. Hazel’s hands were cold.

  James looked down at the numb fingertips pressed between his own, and instinctively folded the whole bundle under his coat, to the warmth over his heart.

  Perhaps, for James, it was his heart, but for Hazel, her hands had just been placed over the muscular chest of a handsome youth who, it seemed, had played an active role in the building trade this past summer. A series of little explosions began firing throughout her brain, and spread quickly elsewhere.

  She snatched her hands away—I won’t deny I was irked by this—and groaned.

  He closed the distance between them. “What’s the matter?” he cried. “Are you all right?”

  She shook her head. “Who are you?” she said. “What are you? I go to a dance, and suddenly I’m sneaking off to meet a young man, and saying things to a perfect stranger that I would never, ever say.” She tapped indignantly at her collarbone. “I am a nice, quiet girl who plays the piano. Mostly for old ladies. And you’ve got me—”

  “Kissing a chap you just met on the cheek?”

  She covered her eyes with a hand. “Did you have to say that?”

  He gently pried her hand away. “It’s all I’ve thought of since.”

  Hazel’s innards writhed like Medusa’s hairdo.

  I whispered in her ear. “Don’t be afraid of him, Hazel.”

  “I’m afraid of you, James Alderidge,” she told him, the naughty girl.

  He backed away, palms raised in surrender. The look of dismay on his face broke my heart. Hazel’s, too.

  “No,” she said. “You’re a perfect gent. I’m afraid of me when I’m with you.”

  “Come with me tomorrow,” he said. “To the Sunday concert at the Royal Albert Hall.”

  “All the way over there?”

  He shrugged. “What, is it far?”

  She shook her head. “You really don’t know London, do you?” She looked up into his dark brown eyes and blinked at all she saw there. She smiled and nodded. “All right, then.”

  His dimples flashed. He bent and kissed her forehead.

  “There,” he said. “We’re even. Feel better?”

  Hazel made her choice. She could be who she ought to be with James. She decided instead to be that terrifying person who she evidently wanted to be.

  It was the dimples. Empires have swiveled on less.

  APHRODITE

  Goodbye—November 24, 1917

  JAMES WALKED HER to a corner within sight of the striped barber’s pole outside the King’s Whiskers. Neither of them knew how to say goodbye.

  “Tomorrow,” he reminded her. “The concert. We can get some tea after, maybe?”

  “When should we meet?” She chewed her lip. And what do I tell my parents?

  “Let’s meet at one o’clock. Right here.” He glanced at her. “So I’ll get tickets?”

  She nodded. “Get tickets.”

  It was time to part. They both knew it. Neither moved.

  “What’s your Sunday morning like?” he asked her.

  “St. Matthias’s. I play for the choir,” she told him. “The organist is . . .”

  “Overseas?”

  She nodded, then shook her head. “He died there,” she said. “So he’s not there, but he is, because he’s buried in Flanders.” She couldn’t meet his gaze just then.

  He understood. He tried to lighten her mood with a spot of poetry.

  “‘If I should die, think only this of me, that there’s some corner of a foreign field . . .’”

  “‘. . . that is for ever England,’” Hazel muttered. “It’s rot.” Don’t die.

  “It’s all right,” he said. “I’m all right. About going.” A lie and a truth, becoming every minute more of a lie. “So many have gone, and if I don’t . . . Somebody’s got to stop the Kaiser.”

  What could she say? That she wasn’t all right with him going? Not one bit?

  James tried to break the silence. “Was he a good organist?”

  “Not especially.” She wrinkled her nose. “At his memorial, you’d have thought he was George Frideric Handel himself.”

  The rest of the day stretched before James as a yawning chasm of Hazel-lessness. He longed to bury his face in her neck. Even if it was wrapped in a scratchy wool muffler.

  But that was too soon, too much to ask of a girl he’d known less than twelve hours, a girl with whom he’d shared two dances and a cup of coffee. (Excellent coffee, but still.)

  So he squeezed her hand. “Guess I’d better be moving along.”

  She bowed her head. “You’ve got loads to do, I’m sure.”

  Would he kiss her? Hazel waited to see. Did she want him to? She tried not to stare at his mouth.

  So pretty. She was so, so pretty. At first it was the music, and then her eyes, and her hair, but now he saw how entirely adorable she was. He should be beating off other lads with a stick.

  Kiss her, I told him.

  With a curled finger he gently, quickly brushed her cheek and the tip of her nose.

  Leave now, or you never will, he told himself.

  “Till tomorrow,” he told her. He turned to go.

  No kiss. “One o’clock!” A brave attempt at sounding like she cheerfully didn’t mind not being kissed. I wasn’t fooled.

  There was no point in resisting or explaining it away. James wasn’t sure what he dared call what he felt, but he knew his happiness belonged to the piano girl. Whether she would take and keep it safe for him, or not.

  APHRODITE

  In Between—November 24, 1917

  HAZEL RETURNED HOME to find her parents had stepped out for an errand, so no awkward confessions were needed. Not yet. She sat at the piano for a good long practice session. Just the solid, practical remedy she needed after twelve hours in the clouds. But she trailed off in the middle of pieces and stared out the window. What was James doing now? She made ridiculous mistakes. She played maudlin, sentimental ballads. She was hopeless.

  James was little better. He went with his uncle Charlie to an army supply depot to purchase his uniform and kit. Pack up your troubles in your old kit-bag and smile, smile, smile. The constantly sung war ditty spun through his head. An oily old salesman listed all the trench ailments he’d need products to prevent or treat. Trench foot. Lice. Bitter cold. Incessant damp. Rats. Mud. Shrapnel. Hunger. Gangrene. Venereal disease.

  James wanted to vomit.

  “Never mind,” James’s uncle said over a cafeteria lunch. “You may end up in one of the colonies. Or you could have domestic duty.” Uncle Charlie had seen service in the Second Boer War, but not combat. Supply and transport.

  “Besides,” he added, “the Americans will be coming over as soon as President Wilson gets ’em recruited and trained and fitted out. Maybe this year it’ll be over by Christmas.”

  Unlike 1914. Everyone thought so then.

  “How was the dance last night?” his uncle said. “Dance with any pretty girls?”

  James looked at the floor. He felt his uncle’s eyes on him.

  Uncle Charlie chuckled. “Met someone, did you?”

  There was no need to answer this, so James didn’t.

  “Good for you,” his uncle said. “You’re about to report. You deserve your bit of fun.”

  James winced at this. Miss Hazel Windicott was no “bit of fun.” He finished his food quickly, thanked Uncle Charlie, and l
eft to wander about London. He ended up at the cinema, alone, watching a mediocre film, until it ended and he could go home and go to bed.

  Hazel’s evening involved a lecture with her mother. An army chaplain, sharing inspirational stories about how God watched over the British faithful at the Front.

  Just not our organist, Hazel thought.

  Her father was at the Town Hall, which was the name of the Poplar theater and music hall where he played Saturday night. When the lecture ended, Hazel walked her mother home, then stopped in at the Town Hall to pass the evening with her father.

  “It’s no place for a young lady,” her mother protested. “Your dad won’t be pleased.”

  “I’ll turn pages for him,” Hazel assured her mother. “I’ll stay right on the bench.”

  And she did. It was a cozy night, tucked in next to her father in his bowler hat, striped shirt, and bow tie. His flying fingers embellished “Bicycle Built for Two,” “I’m Henery the Eighth, I Am,” “Burlington Bertie from Bow,” and, of course, “Tipperary.”

  Hazel knew her father’s way of playing would make Monsieur Guillaume, her instructor, queasy, but she still loved watching him. When she was a tiny thing seated on his lap, her daddy had played with his long arms encircling her, as though his curly-headed girlie wasn’t blocking his view. The spread of keys seemed flexible under his spell, full of bounce in the sprightly, giddy tunes popular with the stars of the music halls.

  And, oh, they were stars. One after another, the performers claimed the stage and the hearts of Poplar. They performed, they bowed, they took an encore, then they dashed offstage to a car waiting in the alley to zip them off to the next nightclub to perform again. The most popular might sing or dance or joke or pantomime a dozen times and more in a night. In garish costumes, in army officers’ uniforms, in cutaway coats and gleaming waistcoats, and glittering gowns. And, for some of them, in blackface.

  The blackface performers brought down the house. “Look at the crazy coon!” women would shriek. “Sing it again, darkie!”

  But Hazel’s father didn’t like it. When the men painted black performed, his mouth hardened and he stared at the ivories. Normally the man didn’t ever seem to need to look at the keys.

  “Your father’s a coward, Hazy,” he told her. “It’s wrong, what they’re doing. It’s disgusting. It’s unchristian. If I were a man, I’d quit in protest.”

  She took his hand in hers. “What would you do then?”

  “That’s just it,” he told her. “I’m a coward. I support this trash to pay my bills. Remember, we’re all God’s children. Be braver than I’ve been.”

  Hazel couldn’t fathom a scenario that would require such bravery of her. But she would remember her father’s words before long.

  DECEMBER 1942

  First Witness

  “I’D LIKE TO call my first witness,” Aphrodite tells the judge.

  Ares pulls a pillow over his bare chest. “You’re not summoning mortals here, are you?”

  “Get ahold of yourself,” she tells him. “Your Honor? May I?”

  Hephaestus wonders what he’s agreeing to. An escape plot? A ploy to summon help? But she’s come this far with her story. He’s curious. He nods.

  She glances out the window. A bright streak of light arcs in the sky. Moments later a knock sounds at the hotel room door.

  “Come in,” calls Aphrodite.

  The door opens, and a tall man in a pin-striped blue zoot suit strolls in, lithe and athletic. He sports a wide fuchsia necktie, loose at his collar, brown-and-white Oxford shoes, and a white fedora tipped low over his brow.

  There’s an awful lot of male perfection in that hotel room all of a sudden. The newcomer is a stunner of a specimen. Greek profile, muscular frame, golden glow. He’s got it all.

  He surveys the captive pair and snorts with laughter. “I can’t begin to imagine what’s been going on here.” He holds up his palms. “But I don’t judge. I do not judge.” He notices Hephaestus’s gavel. “Apparently, you do, though.”

  He doffs his fedora to Aphrodite. “Evening, sis.”

  “Good evening, Apollo,” she says. “A spectacular sunset tonight.”

  “Nice of you to notice.” He bounces on the bed a few times, testing its springs. “So what’s going on, anyway?”

  “A jealous husband’s tribunal,” declares Ares. “His wife chose the better man.”

  “Go dunk your head,” adds Hephaestus.

  “She’s telling a story,” Ares tells Apollo, “to explain to him why she’s ditching him for me. Why Love loves War, so to speak.” He feels clever. A rare occurrence, off the battlefield.

  “Have you heard a single word I’ve said?” snaps Aphrodite.

  “‘Why does Love love War?’” echoes Apollo.

  “That isn’t the question at all,” Aphrodite protests.

  But Apollo is intrigued. “I’m crazy about War.”

  Ares wrinkles his nose. “Well, this is awkward—”

  “Some other time, perhaps,” Apollo says with lazy grace. “I didn’t mean you.”

  “There’s no coliseum big enough to hold your two egos,” mutters Hephaestus.

  “Athena’s more my style,” Apollo explains. “Fierce, fair, fantastic. War, wisdom, and craft. We’d be perfect. Artsy and hip. Bohemian but grounded. Think of the little godlings we could make.”

  “Forget about it,” says Aphrodite. “Athena’s not falling for you or anyone. Believe me.”

  “I’ll win her over yet,” says Apollo. “But, to your question, what’s the attraction of War?”

  Hephaestus raps his gavel. “Overruled. Don’t care.”

  Apollo strokes his chin. “There’s plague. During the last war, my so-called Spanish influenza was a triumph. Reaped twice as many souls as your ‘Great’ War, Ares.”

  “You’re proud of that?” demands Hephaestus.

  “It’s not the body count, Volcano God,” says Apollo. “It’s the terrible beauty of a massively destructive force. When Poseidon shakes the earth and tsunamis wipe out the coastline, it’s something to see. You loved Mount Vesuvius. Admit it. You took pride in Pompeii.”

  Hephaestus tries to look modest. “They’re still talking about it, two thousand years later.”

  Apollo shrugs. “We’re artists.” He conjures a platter of grapes, figs, and cheeses, digs in, then addresses Ares. “Don’t tell me you didn’t glory in the Battle of the Somme. Or Verdun. You were drunk on blood.” He offers him the platter. “Snack?”

  “You’re a fool,” says the god of war.

  “All I’m saying”—Apollo is still chewing—“is that my little flu virus, in its own microscopic, contagious way, was a thing of beauty.” He smacks his lips. “Annihilation has its own je ne sais quoi. We’re all guilty of it. So spare me the sermons.”

  “I’m not guilty of it,” says Aphrodite. “Destruction has nothing to do with me.”

  The male gods stare, then explode laughing. Aphrodite turns her back on them all.

  “Then there’s the poetry,” says Apollo. “Another reason to love war. Why, in the Great War . . . Not since the Trojan War has a conflict inspired such verse. Here, let me recite for you—”

  “No!” Three divine voices sound together, for once in perfect accord.

  Apollo looks genuinely surprised. “You don’t want me to?” He plucks a ukulele out of the air. “Well, I’ll be darned. Anyway,” he says, “there was the music. The Great War lit a musical fire that engulfed the world.”

  “We were just talking about that,” says Aphrodite.

  Ares frowns. “No, we weren’t.”

  “We were about to,” the goddess says. “Apollo, I summoned you here to tell your part of a particular story.”

  “Which story?” Aphrodite looks intently at him, and he nods. “Oh. That story.”

>   APOLLO

  Carnegie Hall—May 2, 1912

  COME WITH ME to Carnegie Hall.

  It’s May 2, 1912. The Great War is still two summers away.

  James Reese Europe’s Clef Club Orchestra is about to perform, to a sellout crowd, a “Concert of Negro Music.” The audience is packed in like well-dressed sardines.

  For the first time ever in America, black musicians will perform black music at a major concert hall. An orchestra of over a hundred performers will play brass, winds and strings, banjos and mandolins. The Clef Club Chorus, 150 voices, packs in, as does the Coleridge-Taylor 40 voice choir. Ringing the back of the stage are ten upright grand pianos. Ten.

  The audience, black and white, waits for the show to begin. They’re about to hear a sound so new, so energetic and rhythmic and harmonic, so syncopated, so alive, that music will never be the same. This sound will reverberate around the world—following, though nobody knows it yet, the drums of war.

  The ten pianos must be a joke, some people think. What could the Clef Club Orchestra possibly want with ten pianos?

  They’re no joke to fifteen-year-old Aubrey Edwards, seated behind the third piano from the left. I’d had my eye on him since he was still sucking his thumb. One of the youngest musicians on the stage, Aubrey’s got the confidence of ten pianists. Give him enough fingers, and he play all ten of those instruments at once. There’s nothing about harmonies Aubrey doesn’t understand.

  The fathomless darkness of Carnegie Hall gapes at him like a gigantic mouth, waiting to devour him, piano and all. The footlights, lower teeth. The wooden stage, a tongue. Each balcony, another row of fangs.

  He hopes his parents and his sister, Kate, are out there somewhere. No telling if they got tickets. When Aubrey arrived, lines were already wrapping around the block. Young as he was, and not carrying an instrument, he had to work to persuade the door guard he was in the band.

  The other pianists take their benches. The orchestra’s so keyed up with excitement, you can smell it. The air is heavy with cologne and the wood-and-brass-and-oily-velvet smell of instruments.