by Julie Berry
“That’s what it was,” he said loftily. “I’m fixing its mistakes.”
She laughed. “I’m glad to know you, Your Majesty.”
He nodded grandly. “You as well, Your Ladyship.”
“But you must take it back,” she said. “About Beethoven making mistakes.”
He gave her a pointed look. “Everybody makes mistakes.”
“I suppose, but—”
“Except me.”
She gasped. “You’re unbelievable!”
He winked. “You’ve got that right.”
Hazel smiled. Already she’d begun to mentally compose a letter to James about this outrageous young pianist. She doubted she could capture the humor of his jokes.
“You’ll come back and play more, won’t you?”
He nodded, jiggering with the reveille until a sleepy voice with a lovely accent spoke.
“Isn’t once a day more than enough to be dragged out of bed by that bugle song?”
It was a tousle-headed Colette, coming out of her bedroom. A wide-open robe was all that covered her very short silk nightgown and her long-legged frame.
The music stopped.
King Aubrey Edwards blinked.
Colette squeaked and clutched her robe around her.
Hazel jumped up, feeling she ought to do something, but it was hard to think, just then, which new friend of hers was more in need of rescue.
Colette stifled a giggle with a hand over her mouth. Her eyes sparkled.
Aubrey held out a hand for Hazel to shake without taking his eyes off Colette. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Windicott,” he said. “I will most definitely be back.” He tipped his hat toward Colette on his way out. “Ma’am.”
“And I,” Colette said between gasps, “will most definitely be dressed.”
“That’s all right,” said the unrepentant Emperor of Jazz. “I’ll still come back.”
APHRODITE
Midday Mail—January 9, 1918
ELLEN FRANCIS BURST through the hut door with a bang, waving a packet of letters. “Mail’s here!”
Hazel tried not to pounce. Surely, today, there’d be a letter from James.
Ellen passed them around. Four letters for Colette—her aunt in Paris, and three doughboys. Two for Ellen. Several for Mrs. Davies.
Two letters for Hazel. One from Georgia Fake. One from her mother.
It was treasonous to feel disappointed at that.
Hazel curled up on a corner couch and read her mother’s letter. It contained more questions than news. Pleas for Hazel to dress warmly, watch out for pushy Americans, be safe, and come home soon. Bits of parish gossip and news of Dad’s “old Arthur” flaring in winter, of the opera-loving spinster sisters in the flat above, and of the boisterous barber below. Hazel pulled a leaf of letter paper from her writing box and tried to form a reply.
“May I?”
She looked to see Colette. Hazel patted the seat beside her.
“Bad news?” Colette watched Hazel’s face. “Or . . . no news?”
Hazel couldn’t answer.
“Sometimes no news is worse,” said the Belgian girl. “At least, when bad news comes, there is no more wondering if it will. Is there someone special you hope to hear from?”
Hazel considered this delicious, dreadful thought. To tell someone about James! Telling her parents had been more of an apology than a revelation. Would Colette think she was silly?
I squeezed in between them on the couch. I didn’t want to miss a word.
“I met a young man,” Hazel said hesitantly, “right after he’d enlisted. Right before he had to leave for France.”
Colette, like the best of listeners, waited.
“He was lovely.” She found herself whispering. “We met, and we had such a good time together.” She gulped her embarrassment. “I only knew him for a few days before he left.”
“But you felt like you’d always known him.”
Hazel nodded.
“That’s how it should be.”
“It doesn’t even make sense to me,” Hazel confided, “how much I miss him. How constantly I think of him.” She blushed. “Feels like I’ve got no right.”
“What is your soldier’s name?”
“James Alderidge.”
“Do you have a photograph?”
She pulled it from her writing box. Might as well hand Colette her own beating heart.
Colette studied the picture. “Ah, Jacques,” she said. “Vous êtes très beau. Et très gentil.”
Hazel beamed. “Do you really think so?”
“But of course,” replied her friend. “He looks handsome. And kind.”
“Oh, he is.” Hazel sank back into the couch cushions. “The picture doesn’t half do him justice. He loves music and dancing, and he makes me laugh all the time. He’s thoughtful, and good, and ambitious, but in the right sort of way, and he wants to build safer homes and hospitals and . . .” She was rambling. Idealizing him. She couldn’t help it.
“He sounds like a dream come true.” I was ready to put Colette on my payroll.
“I just hope the war doesn’t . . . change him, you know?”
Colette watched her thoughtfully. “It’s unavoidable that the war will change him.”
Hazel’s heart sank.
“But that doesn’t have to change how you care for him. Nor how he cares for you.”
Hazel tried to imagine what the future might bring. She saw nothing but fog and smoke.
“His last letter was three weeks ago,” Hazel admitted. “I get so worried. That he has . . .”
“That he is hurt, that something has happened to him, non?”
Hazel couldn’t acknowledge the question, that it was even a possibility.
“Of course you do.” Colette answered her own question. “But cheer up. There are many reasons why letters are slow. Soldiers catch colds. Letters are misplaced. Misdirected. And you just arrived here, yes? Maybe his letters are going to your old address.”
“Colette,” Hazel said cautiously. “Have you ever been”—oh dear, say something else instead—“in love?” Too late.
My favorite question.
Colette hesitated. “Yes,” she said quietly, “I was.”
Sweet Stéphane. What a man he would have made. What I could’ve done with them.
“What happened?”
Colette was surprised Hazel hadn’t realized. “The Germans shot him.”
“Oh, God.” A sob burst from Hazel’s throat, and she clutched Colette’s wrist. The pain of this death, of this boy she never even knew, crashed down upon her like a tidal wave. “Oh, Colette, how can you bear it?”
Colette found a handkerchief and some chocolate. Hazel accepted both in good humility.
“How ridiculous is it,” she said between sobs, “that you sit there, calmly comforting me, while I bawl over your old beau?”
“Not ridiculous at all,” said Colette. “Your tears are for your Jacques. You pray that the worst will never happen, and then you meet someone to whom it has.”
The storm passed, leaving Hazel puffy and spent.
“How have you gone on, Colette?” she asked. “You haven’t shriveled up with grief.”
“Who says I haven’t?” She smiled, then her face sobered. “I light a candle each year for my poor Stéphane,” she said. “And my family.” She held up the photograph of James. “By day, I keep busy. But I don’t really sleep much. It’s at night when they come back to me.”
Hazel looked up in surprise.
Colette smiled sadly. “I don’t mean ghosts,” she said. “Unless ghosts are memories.”
Hazel wished she hadn’t dragged her friend into such a painful conversation.
“The Americans are wild about you. Why hasn’t one
of them swept you off your feet?”
“The ‘Yanks’?” Colette aped the accent. “Non, merci. They are only passing through.”
“Maybe one of them will come back for you, one day.”
She shrugged. “He’d be wasting his time.” She handed back the photograph. “You asked me how I have survived.” She looked around at the stage, the coffee station, the shelves of books and games. “It’s the work that has helped. Just having something to do each day. It’s very powerful. It requires me to help others with their troubles.” Colette paused. “To make them smile a little bit. It is a better cure than anything the doctor gives.”
Hazel waited.
“I think about the soldiers,” Colette said. “The war, it did not kill me. But it might kill them. So, I am the lucky one. I try to give a little kindness. A little patience.” She wagged her finger. “No patience, though, for when they get . . . what is your word . . . frisky.” She winked.
Hazel shuddered. So far, she’d been spared such unpleasantness. But Ellen had stories to tell nearly every night of some soldier more confident in his charms than he ought to be.
And I thought the soldiers wanted piano music, Hazel thought. I am so naïve.
Hazel unrolled the wrapper off her chocolate and popped it in her mouth. Colette took another piece and did the same. They sat there, sucking on the bonbons, and thinking. Each pictured a different face. Hazel’s was far away. Colette’s was gone forever.
“And then, of course, there’s the music,” Colette said, still at odds with a glob of caramel.
Hazel nodded. The music.
ARES
Target Practice—January 7, 1918
GUNS, GUNS, EVERYWHERE GUNS.
Guns slung against the sides of corrugated steel Nissen huts like rows of baseball bats.
Heavy guns at the Front booming, missiles shrieking.
The crack of Webley revolvers, and the bang of Lee-Enfield rifles.
Guns in the arms of not-so-new recruits, all lined up for target practice.
A gun in James’s hands.
His Lee-Enfield Mk III. A heavy wooden beauty, smooth and silky. He cradled it against his shoulder and peered through the aperture to the square that aligned his sights.
How many soldiers held you before? he asked it. Are they now dead? In hospital?
How many Germans have you shot? Did they die quickly, or suffer?
The weapon kept her secrets.
“Your rifle is your life,” the trainer said. “When you go on a raid. When Jerry raids you. In no-man’s-land. Keep her clean and loaded. Your speed with the rifle will determine whether Jerry gets to die for his country, or you. Let Jerry be the hero, and you go home to kiss your gal!”
Hazel’s face appeared. Gone was the neat young man who’d caught her eye. In his place, a filthy brute caked with dirt. Chapped hands, blackened nails, a grimy face, a scraggly beard.
His comrades had changed. Billy Nutley was leaner, more brawn than bulk. His rifle lay in his huge arms like a toy. Chad Browning, the skinny ginger, was still wiry but with a commanding stance. He knew what his gun was for. Mick Webber, bricklayer, had been strong, but now he was quick and agile, the first to finish each obstacle course.
Frank Mason was still Frank Mason. That was reassuring.
It was nothing now to throw the bolt, clear the chamber, shove the bolt back to load the new bullet and cock the hammer, take aim, and shoot. The bolt-action maneuver that had been so stiff and clumsy at first was now effortless, automatic. Less than a second on the clock. It turned British soldiers into ruthless killing machines. Lethal weapons in Field Marshal Haig’s hands.
It’s them or you.
“Load!”
He pulled strippers from his pocket and loaded them into the chamber.
“Take your sights!”
He peered through the aperture at his target. Some clever Tommy had painted “Wee Willie Winkie” on the rough wooden human cutout. One of many names for Kaiser Wilhelm.
“Take aim, fire, and note where the bullet goes. The difference between where you aimed and where it went is how much you adjust, each time. There’s no wind today, so the distance and direction gives you the tolerance you’ll need in the future, at this range.”
Soldiers looked to see if it was okay to reveal that they had no idea what he meant.
“Look. It’s simple. If you aim for the middle of the chest, but the bullet goes through his brain, your rifle shoots a foot higher than you think. It’s twenty-five yards. It’d be different farther out. So if you want to hit his heart, aim for his crotch. If you plug him in the crotch, that’s fine too! Rifles up! Cock position!”
James deflated his lungs and cocked the rifle.
“Aim!”
He centered the finder in the view hole, and steadied it on the two Ls in “Willie.” His finger brushed the curved steel trigger.
“Fire!”
Whump went the rifle butt against his shoulder. The bullet punched the wooden heart.
Webber, to his left, whistled. “Lookit you, Alderidge! Willie Winkie’s a dead man.”
James couldn’t believe his eyes. “Dumb luck.”
“Nah,” said Webber. “Good eye.”
Frank Mason shaded his face against the wintry sun. “Good gun.”
“Now, calculate what your tolerance should be,” the trainer cried. “Ready? Clear!”
Ka-chunk. Dozens of soldiers, in mechanized, deadly symmetry, threw back their bolts and shoved them in. Chambers spat out the last bullets’ empty casings. They fell into the slush.
“Calculate . . . aim . . . fire!”
Another perfect shot.
“Clear!” Ka-chunk. “Take this new margin into consideration. Average the two. Aim!”
James emptied himself of air. Straight at the heart.
“Fire!”
Two inches off. Still fatal.
“Clear!”
Ka-chunk.
“Aim!”
Out went the air.
“Fire!”
“Clear!”
“Aim!”
“Fire!”
“That’ll do. Rifles down!”
Spent casings lay scattered like birdseed at his feet. It felt like a horse had kicked his shoulder. But his pulse thrummed. He liked shooting.
Too bad, he thought, Germans couldn’t be made of wood.
“Off to dinner with you now,” the trainer said. He beckoned another officer and pulled him toward James’s target. They pointed to his results. A little flush of pride didn’t hurt on a cold day. Could he tell Hazel about it without sounding like a braggart?
He gathered his stuff and started to head for the mess hall with the others, when a call from the trainer stopped him.
“Hold up there, Private . . .”
“Alderidge,” said James. He stood at attention.
The trainer reached his side, along with the other officer. “You a hunter, Alderidge?”
James shook his head. “No, sir.”
“Shoot clay pigeons?”
“No, sir.”
“Really.” The trainer stroked his chin and glanced significantly at the other officer. “Impressive shooting, there. We’ll note that on your file.” He nodded to James. “At ease, Private. Off to mess with you.”
APHRODITE
Girl Singer—January 12, 1918
ANOTHER EVENING, a few days later, found Hazel and Colette at the piano, rehearsing.
Colette’s gravelly voice, sultry and low, was mesmerizing. Hazel couldn’t believe her talent. Her voice crackled with longing. Maybe, Hazel thought, one must suffer much to sing like that. She felt the power tingling down her spine.
Aubrey heard the siren’s song, even before he chucked a handful of pebbles against the windows. Who sang like
that? He had to know. Singing foreign, but with that voice, so what?
He tossed the pebbles, then waited. Nothing. He chucked another handful.
Hazel unbolted the door and peeked around the corner of the building. “Who’s there?”
“It is I,” said Aubrey, with a bow. “The King of Ragtime and the Emperor of Jazz.”
“Aubrey! You came back!” She beckoned him in. “It took you long enough.”
He leaned against the door. “Been too busy with concerts to get here sooner.”
“What fun! Aren’t you coming in?”
“I’m not allowed,” he said. “I tried to come this afternoon, but a lady turned me away.”
“Oh, Aubrey. I am so sorry.” Hazel felt sick about it. “Say, why don’t you come in now?”
Aubrey hesitated. “Won’t we get in trouble?”
“Who’s to know? Mrs. Davies has gone to bed.” What a rule breaker she was becoming! But some rules demanded it. “It’s revenge. She won’t let me play at the Negro hut.”
Aubrey followed Hazel inside. “Because you wouldn’t be safe there,” he said bitterly.
They reached the stage, where Colette sorted her music pages and hummed snatches of a song. Aubrey swept his cap off his head and made a deep bow. Colette was dressed, this time around, in her uniform blouse and skirt, but Aubrey was in no way disappointed.
“Aubrey Edwards, at your service,” he told her. “Pleased to make your acquaintance.”
“You haven’t, yet,” she told him.
“Then I will be even more pleased,” said the unsinkable Aubrey, “when you acquaint me.” He glanced at Hazel and back at Colette. “Was that you I heard just now, singing?”
Hazel watched Aubrey unleash his charm on Colette. This ought to be fun. She could be cool as ice. When doughboys tried to catch her eye, she just smiled and poured them lemonade.
The king glanced in Hazel’s direction. She could see his eyes sparkling. “Your Ladyship,” he said in a stage whisper, “are you gonna introduce me to this lovely friend of yours, or do I have to guess her name?”