by Julie Berry
Hazel remembered her father’s words. Be braver than I have been. “I wouldn’t mind playing in all the huts,” she said. “I’m sure black soldiers enjoy music.”
Mrs. Davies peered over the rims of her spectacles at Hazel. “There is simply no need.” She attempted a conciliatory smile. “These American Negro soldiers supply their own music. It’s natural to them. Instinctual. In fact, their band is performing here tomorrow. But as for you going there, your more refined musical sensibilities won’t be to their liking.”
Hazel’s pulse thrummed in her ear. “I thought all the troops needed entertainment.”
Mrs. Davies sighed and rolled her eyes heavenward. “Young idealists,” she muttered. “They’re all the war cause seems to attract.” She faced Hazel resignedly. “I don’t like using language of this sort, Miss Windicott, but you leave me no choice; Negroes can’t be trusted to behave like gentlemen toward young ladies.”
Hazel was about as comfortable challenging authority as she was deep-sea diving. To make Mrs. Davies dislike her on her first day seemed foolish in the extreme. But she had to.
“That may be true for a few,” she said, “as I’m sure it’s true for a few in any large group of soldiers. But I’m sure most are as much gentlemen as anyone else.”
Reverend Scottsbridge’s cough made little effort to conceal a chuckle. “My dear,” he said, “you haven’t seen enough of the world to know its dangers.” He gave a knowing nod to Mrs. Davies. “You’ll have more than enough soldiers to entertain, and handsome ones at that.”
Hazel thought she might be sick. Black soldiers were less handsome? So that should appease her concerns—because she wasn’t truly concerned on principle; the reverend knew best. She was only here for handsome boys. Her mind roiled.
Father McKnight gave Hazel a sorrowful look, then closed his eyes as if in prayer.
Mrs. Davies had clearly had enough with delays. “This way, please, girls, to your rooms.”
DECEMBER 1942
Second Witness
APHRODITE ADDRESSES the bench. “Your Honor, I’d like to call my second witness.”
“Not again,” groans Ares. “How many immortals are you dragging in here? We should’ve gone to Olympus. Besides, I thought the whole ‘court’ thing had fizzled out.”
“Overruled,” Hephaestus tells Ares. “The defense may proceed.”
“I call,” Aphrodite says, with courtly theatrics, “Ares, God of War.”
Ares sits up straighter, and shoves his arms into his shirtsleeves. No point in buttoning the shirt; his magnificent chest would be hidden. He feels he’d better keep his attractions on full display. But a court appearance demands decorum.
Lacking a court officer, Hephaestus administers the oath. “Do you solemnly swear to limit boasting, tell the facts and only the facts, and otherwise keep your great yap shut?”
“Hey,” Ares protests, “you didn’t swear in Apollo.”
“I grew up with you,” says Hephaestus darkly.
“Ares,” Aphrodite says soothingly, “he’s piqued, is all. Won’t you tell us the story now, from your point of view?”
Ares rises and addresses the court. “Not for his sake, I won’t,” he says, “but if you want me to, I’ll tell it. Just to set this sappy record straight.”
ARES
Bayonet Practice—January 4, 1918
PRIVATE JAMES ALDERIDGE lined up with his squadron in the training grounds at the Front to practice using a bayonet. They were a few miles behind the trenches. James still hadn’t gotten used to the constant roar of artillery guns.
“Bayonets on!” barked the commander. James screwed a blade onto his Lee-Enfield rifle.
“Guard position!” He snapped his gun upward with his left arm and braced it against his side with his right. He aimed the point at an imaginary German’s throat.
“Alderidge,” someone said. “Spread your feet wider.” It was Private Frank Mason, a fisherman from Lowestoft. He was retraining after recovering at home from a combat leg wound.
The training commander strolled down the line, correcting men’s imperfect form.
“Rest position!”
Down went the rifles, and up went everyone’s backs.
“I didn’t say take a nap, soldier!” At six foot two and seventeen stone, Private Billy Nutley, a Shropshire farm lad, should’ve been a deadly fighter but seemed more like a large target.
“Guard!”
Up snapped the bayoneted rifles.
“Aim for their throats, ladies!” The trainer’s face was red. “When you’re down in Jerry’s trench, it’s kill them before they kill you. Germans show no mercy. Points at the throat!”
James licked his lips and pointed for the unseen throat.
“Long thrust!”
Rear legs lunged forward. Blades jabbed and sliced upward.
“Thrust and twist! Screw their guts out!”
James thrust and twisted. Nutley puffed away. Beyond him, Chad Browning, a wiry Welsh ginger, jabbed at the air. Young, nimble, and talkative, but barely nine stone soaking wet.
“Throat and armpits, vulnerable!” their trainer said. “Face, chest, and gut! At their rear, go for the kidneys. Or have you geniuses forgotten where kidneys are? Rest position!”
Rest position.
The trainer paraded up and down the line. “Now, find your dummy.”
They moved closer to the line of rickety wooden gallows from which hung straw dummies—pillow-like stuffed effigies of Germans.
“The German soldier is a ruthless killing machine,” said he. “A lethal weapon in the Kaiser’s hands. A fraction of a second is the difference between your throat cut, or his.”
James’s fingertips brushed against his Adam’s apple.
“Survival at the Front,” the trainer cried, “requires the will to kill. Guard!”
Bayonets low and at the ready.
“High port!”
Rifles snapped up over the shoulders.
“Guard!”
Ready.
“Long thrust!”
Lunge and jab, right at the dummy. It swayed at the impact.
“Guard!”
Back to the beginning.
“Long thrust! Twist! Kill, kill, kill! You say it!”
James gulped. “Kill, kill, kill!”
“Not like that, you pathetic sops! They’ll wipe the floor with you!”
“Kill, kill, kill!”
Just say it, James told himself. Just do what they want you to do. He lunged at straw-filled Fritz like a ruthless killing machine. Like a lethal weapon in King George’s hands.
“Rest position. Bayonets off. Tomorrow we’ll spar and engage in hand-to-hand.”
They headed back to their barracks. Ambiguous smells wafted from mess kitchens. James was hungry enough today to eat bully beef.
Private Chad Browning began to sing in a high-pitched, nasal, comical voice.
OH, OH, OH, IT’S A LOVELY WAR,
WHO WOULDN’T BE A SOLDIER, EH?
OH, IT’S A SHAME TO TAKE THE PAY. . . .
“What pay?” muttered Nutley. “When do we ever see that?”
UP TO YOUR WAIST IN WATER,
UP TO YOUR EYES IN SLUSH,
USING THE KIND OF LANGUAGE,
THAT MAKES THE SERGEANT BLUSH.
OH, WHO WOULDN’T JOIN THE ARMY?
THAT’S WHAT WE ALL INQUIRE!
DON’T WE PITY THE POOR CIVILIAN,
SITTING AROUND THE FIRE.
“Someone’s gonna hear you, Browning,” warned bowlegged Private Mick Webber, a bricklayer from Rutland. “If the wrong sergeant does, you’ll spend a night in the chokey.”
OH, OH, OH, IT’S A LOVELY WAR,
WHAT DO WE WANT WITH EGGS AND HAM,
WHEN WE’VE GOT PLUM
AND APPLE JAM?
“I don’t mind the plum jam so much,” admitted Billy Nutley.
“You will,” muttered Mason, “when it’s the only sweet thing you’ve had in six weeks.”
“Mason,” James said. “Is it really as bad as they say out there?”
Mason took in the lot of them. “You’ll soon see for yourselves.”
“This war was supposed to end before I got old enough for it.” Everything Browning said came out as a joke. “Who do I submit my complaints to in writing, is what I’d like to know.”
“Sorry we were slacking on the job, sonny boy.”
“How about the food?” Nutley asked the old campaigner. “Is it as bad in the trenches as here?”
“Worse.” Mason elbowed Nutley. “But you’ll be lucky if food’s your main problem.”
Webber chimed in. “I want a nice Blighty one like you got, Mason,” he said. “An injury bad enough to send me home to my girl, but not so bad she won’t love me anymore.” He grinned. “How’d you manage it, getting pelted in the leg?”
James tried not to picture the horribly disfigured faces he’d seen near base hospitals. He pictured Hazel’s sweet face. How many scars would it take to change the way she looked at him?
Thrust, twist, kill.
“How often, Mason, do soldiers use their bayonets?” he asked.
At this, Mason smiled. “They make good can openers, and candleholders when you stick ’em into the trench walls. And there’s nothing like a bayonet for toasting bread over a little fire.”
DECEMBER 1942
Third Witness
“IF I MAY,” Aphrodite asks, “summon one more witness?”
“Do we need to move down to a ballroom?” asks Hephaestus.
“Ooh, get one with a grand piano,” says Apollo. “I’ll sing.”
“That won’t be necessary,” says the goddess smoothly. “I summon my third witness.”
Outside the window, clouds obscure the moon and stars. The earth rumbles and shakes beneath them. It feels as though a subway train is hurtling by, the size of an ocean liner and traveling at the speed of sound.
A single knock sounds at the door of the hotel room. It opens, and a figure enters.
“That’s all right,” calls Hephaestus to the shadowed figure. “Just let yourself right in.”
“I always do.”
At the sound of the voice, Apollo and Ares freeze.
The new arrival glides down the corridor as noiselessly as a cat. His dark clothing calls to mind an undertaker. But when he removes his coat, they see a long black cassock stretching to his ankles. The square in a clerical collar forms his only speck of white.
They gape at him.
“A priest?” bleats Ares. “The god of the Underworld is a Roman Catholic priest?”
“Good evening, Uncle.” Aphrodite makes a deep bow.
Hephaestus sinks down onto one knee, and Apollo, sliding off the bed, follows his lead. Ares, muttering, genuflects as well, after a kick from Aphrodite.
“I thought you played professor when you visit mortals,” says Apollo. “My lord Hades.”
“IRS auditor,” says Hephaestus. “‘The only things certain are death and taxes.’”
Hades smiles. “I dress in the role that suits me.”
He surveys the room and finds no seat to his liking, so he produces one. A black leather chair, rather Spartan in appearance. He sits, crosses one leg atop another, and interlaces his fingers over his knee. His face is clean-shaven. His nails, manicured. His glossy black hair, sleekly combed straight back from his forehead.
Like Ares and Apollo, Hades, Lord of the Underworld, is a man of striking beauty, though serious and grim, with a bloodless precision to his aquiline features. Handsome, though you’d more likely stamp his face on a coin than hope he asks you for a dance.
“Why are you a priest?” demands Ares. “Your, er, Holiness?”
“Good evening, my nephews, my niece.” Hades’s voice, like the rest of him, is smooth.
“But why a Catholic priest?” War is persistent. As always.
Hephaestus coughs. “Doesn’t this create, for you, some, er, theological difficulties?”
Hades looks thoughtful. “I don’t think so,” he says slowly. “I enjoy being a rabbi just as well, possibly more. I honor the mortals’ worldview, and I speak from within their frame of reference.” He looks slightly injured. “The life of a cleric suits me. I spent the better part of a happy century as an abbot. I think I make quite a good priest, actually.”
“Nothing has ever been quite so spiritually motivating as Death,” says Aphrodite.
Hades smiles. “The work of the priesthood, preparing souls to cross the river to my domain without undue fear, is a great help to me.” He grimaces slightly. “Unprepared souls are sticky. Most inconvenient.”
Hades produces for himself a tin of mints and selects one carefully. “Mortals are so very fleshy. Ruled by appetites. They gurgle. Bulging with fluids. You, Love, and you, War, find these quite useful in your work, but my interest in humans is entirely spiritual.” He shudders. “Bodies don’t interest me in the slightest.”
“Bet that’s not what you told Persephone.” Ares laughs like a boy in a locker room.
“And who was that nymph again . . . ?” Apollo scratches his head.
Hades favors them with a wan smile. “Boys, boys.” He can indulgently say, “Boys, boys,” in a tone that also says, I could disintegrate you if I wanted to.
He studies the room.
“Oh dear,” he murmurs. “Have I wandered into an unfortunate marital moment?” He fingers the golden net enclosing the cheating lovers between two fingers. “As a man of the cloth, Hephaestus, I can’t condone your methods, much as I admire your handiwork. ‘If you love something, you must set it free.’”
“Bet that’s not what you told Persephone.” Ares thinks he’s even funnier the second time.
Aphrodite intervenes to save Ares from an untimely end.
“My lord Hades,” she says sweetly, “I’ve been telling these gods a tale of love. To demonstrate, among other things, the vital role death plays in making true love possible. We’ve always understood each other, you and I. Would you share your part when the moment comes? The story is”—she nods to him—“this one.”
Hades smiles regally. “You honor me, fair Aphrodite,” he says. “It will be my pleasure.”
Colette Fournier—July–August 1914
APHRODITE
I’LL BEGIN WITH a girl and a boy climbing an extremely tall set of stairs.
It was a hot summer day in July 1914. The air was still; only bees were at work. Everyone else had the good sense to find a shady spot to avoid working.
But not Colette Fournier, and not her companion, Stéphane. Colette was determined to reach the top despite the heat. Stéphane was determined to stay within arm’s reach of Colette, and his master at the docks, taking a midday nap, had given him just that chance.
The stairs, cut into rock, mounted a dizzying ascent up the high stone outcropping overlooking the town of Dinant, Belgium. At the top stood a medieval citadel, a fortress of hewn stone that for centuries had protected the town. The view from the citadel plateau was breathtaking, showing a broad curve of the peaceful Meuse River winding through bright-green farmland, now bursting with the yield of high summer.
The girl’s sweaty hair stuck to her forehead, and her blouse clung to her damp body. She didn’t care, and neither, I might add, did Stéphane.
The carillon of bells in the tower of Notre Dame de Dinant, directly below them, played a bright melody. Just part of the color of Dinant, that jewel hugging the Meuse, its rainbow of homes reflecting like crystals on the surface of the river’s smooth waters.
Colette was sixteen, Stéphane eighteen. Stéphane lived near Colette’s family an
d had been underfoot forever. Colette knew Stéphane like she knew her brother, Alexandre, and her cousin, Gabriel. Stéphane was always there, like a stray dog one makes the mistake of feeding.
There was nothing unusual in Stéphane challenging Colette to climb the citadel stairs. They’d dueled in footraces and boat races and breath-holding contests since they were small.
But there was something unusual about the way Colette had caught Stéphane watching her lately. Quietly, slowly, in the midst of the usual clamor, as if he’d never seen her before.
Which was ridiculous.
Also curious were the sensations Colette had begun to recognize whenever Stéphane appeared. When she realized that she missed him when he didn’t show up as expected, and that when he did appear, she had no idea what to say to a boy as familiar as an old sock, she knew she was in some kind of trouble. When she began studying Stéphane, noticing how his dark hair curled at his temples, and how new things were happening to his cheekbones, his collarbones, his neck, she knew she was in grave danger.
Which was even more ridiculous.
So when Stéphane appeared, this hot summer day, and teased her into climbing to the citadel, she left a sinkful of dirty dishes and accepted the challenge. Maybe, once they reached the top, she could confront him about what on earth was going on, and put a stop to it.
Stéphane also intended to confront Colette at the top. If he could find the nerve.
The stairs would’ve exhausted athletes, but Colette was young and strong and resolute. Even so, muscling her way to the very top left her breathless and boiling, so rather than enjoy the view, the first thing she did upon arrival was pass through the stone courtyard and flop down into the tall, cool grasses, beyond it, stretch out, roll up her sleeves, and fan her face.
