Lovely War

by Julie Berry

  Hazel puffed out her cheeks. Her petite passion wasn’t quite so tepid as that.

  “We could go to a symphony,” she said.

  “Ah.” Colette nodded very seriously. “Perhaps you would need a chaperone, after all.”

  “Oh, stop!” Hazel biffed her friend with the pillow. “We never had a chaperone. I always snuck out to see him.”

  Colette gasped. “Mademoiselle Windicott! You shock me!”

  Hazel rolled over. “You see,” she said, “I’m not quite so innocent as you think.”

  “I see,” said her friend, “that you are exactly as I think, and more so.” Colette watched Hazel turn lavender and wanted to squeeze her on the spot.

  “If anyone found out, there’d be such a scandal,” Hazel said. “When I’m around James, I do the most outrageous things.”

  Colette smiled. “Then I would like to meet this James. It is settled,” she said. “I’ll come, too. I’ll be your chaperone when you need one, and I will disappear when you don’t.”

  Hazel took a deep breath. The idea was even more frightening now that it took on a whiff of actual possibility.

  “But where will we stay?” said she. “How do we—”

  “Never mind that,” ordered Colette. “My aunt Solange will be delighted to have us, and will provide all the respectability your English heart could wish for.”

  With each word, this terrifying, tingling possibility grew more and more real. She’d have two, maybe three, days to spend with James. As much time as she’d ever had with him thus far. What might happen? With James Alderidge, anything was possible.

  She remembered the end of his letter. I owe you something.

  She seized her friend’s wrist.

  “Colette,” she whispered. “What if I do something dreadful?”

  Colette laughed. “I’ll hold the flowers. And the priest will be the one to read a Psalm.”

  Hazel decided to turn the spotlight off herself for a spell.

  “What about you, Colette?” Hazel said. “I think Aubrey likes you.”

  Colette busied herself with arranging her toiletries. “I don’t think so,” she said. “He’s just very friendly.”

  Hazel sat up and took notice. Colette was avoiding looking at her. Interesting.

  “I don’t know,” Hazel said slowly. “I don’t think you saw how he was looking at you. He likes you, Colette.”

  Colette frowned at her reflection and bunched up her nose. “Looking at this? Pah.” She turned and smiled at Hazel. “Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that he was looking at me. That he does like me, which I doubt.” She shrugged. “A soldier, looking for love on the eve of war? It’s as old as the hills. I’ve heard that song before.”

  Hazel knew when not to push a point. “Speaking of songs,” she said, “how about his piano playing?”

  Colette allowed herself a smile. “Now that,” she said, “is really something.”

  ARES

  Moving Up the Line—January 20, 1918

  “PRIVATE ALDERIDGE.”

  James woke in a dugout to a pair of boots in front of his face.

  He crawled out of the dugout, and stood in the shelter of the trench’s eastern wall, and saluted. “Sergeant McKendrick, sir!”

  “At ease, Alderidge.”

  The sergeant scrutinized him. Was he in trouble?

  It was his third day in the support lines. After a ten-day stint in reserve, his section had hiked through two miles of zigzagging communication trenches to the second line, support.

  “You’ve been working hard, Alderidge.”

  James held his head high. “Thank you, sir.” Should he ask about Paris leave?

  “I have a report on you from your training sergeant,” McKendrick said, looking at a clipboard. “Seems you acquitted yourself well.”

  James rocked on his toes and waited. A report?

  “I also see you were a crack shot in target practice.”

  This was all becoming a bit much.

  “Are you a gamesman?”

  “No, sir, Sergeant. I’ve never done much in the way of hunting.”

  McKendrick’s brow furrowed. “Is that so? Interesting.” He sized James up. “We need a new sniper at the front,” the sergeant said. “Lost a man at dawn. A German sniper identified our hidden loophole and took him out. Some mighty fine shooting there.”

  The sergeant admired the German shooter more than he mourned the British one. Not a comforting thought.

  James didn’t want to be a sniper. A cold-blooded killer. The enemy’s number-one target. But he did need to curry favor with the sergeant. His goodwill was James’s Paris ticket.

  “I’m putting you into sharpshooter training,” the sergeant said. “There’s a pay increase.” A pay increase for murder.

  James seized hold of training. A trainee wouldn’t shoot people. Not just yet. He’d probably head back behind the reserve line, to open country, where it was easier to take long aim. He could do poorly enough in training that he’d be moved back into the regular infantry.

  “May I ask a question, sir?”

  “You may.”

  James had no idea how to approach this. “Sir, when our rotation through the trenches is up, and we get some rest time . . .” he began.

  The sergeant’s eyebrows rose. James was already doomed.

  “Yes?”

  He swallowed. “I have a girl, Sergeant, and she can meet me in Paris for a day.”

  Sergeant McKendrick’s expression hardened.

  “You’re hoping after one tour through the trenches, you’ll be eligible for leave, to spend a day in Paris with your girl? As a new recruit? After likely seeing no combat to speak of?”

  No retreat and no surrender. “That would be,” he said, “what I was hoping. Sir.”

  Sergeant McKendrick studied James’s face, as if waiting for something to buckle or crack. For James to beg forgiveness and say, “Never mind.”

  “This girl of yours,” the sergeant said. “She pretty?”

  James gulped. “She is, sir. Very pretty.”

  “I see.” The sergeant began to pace back and forth. “And why would she be in Paris?”

  “Volunteer service, sir. With the YMCA.” Close enough to true.

  “Ah. They do good work.”

  James nodded. If you say so. If it helps my case.

  “Let me hear a good report of you, soldier,” the sergeant said, “and I’ll consider that request for leave.”

  James wanted to shake his hand. He stood tall. “Yes, sir!”

  The sergeant turned to go, then paused. “Redhead? Brunette? Blonde? What’s she like?”

  James didn’t want to pull Hazel out of his pocket to show to anyone. But he needed this.

  “Brunette, sir,” he said. “She plays the piano beautifully.”

  “A talented young lady of some quality.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “That’s grand. Make sure you write to her often. Right then. In half an hour I’ll have someone lead you up to the fire trench, to the snipers’ lookout post.”

  James’s mouth went dry. “The fire trench? Lookout?”

  “Precisely.” As if to say, What is your point?

  “That’s where training will take place?”

  The sergeant nodded. “Simulations are never adequate,” he said. “There’s nothing like training on the job.”

  APHRODITE

  A Headache—January 26, 1918

  PEBBLES ONCE MORE, and this time, Colette opened the door. Aubrey plucked off his cap.

  Her smile was all Aubrey needed. He’d face an entire marine company for that smile.

  “Bonsoir, monsieur,” she said.

  Aubrey hadn’t particularly cared for high school French class—lordy, if he could go back!�
��but he knew a welcome when he heard one.

  “Evening, mademoiselle,” he said, with a pronunciation he hoped wasn’t too awful. (It was awful.) “Safe for me to come in?”

  She drew back the door.

  “Where’s our friend tonight?” he asked.

  “Hazel had a headache,” Colette said. “She went to bed early.”

  Whump went Aubrey’s heart in his chest. Only Colette tonight.

  Whump went Colette’s heart. She was all alone with Aubrey.

  “That’s a shame,” Aubrey said. “I hope she feels better. There’s sickness going around.”

  Colette agreed. “I’m sure it’s nothing,” she said.

  It was, indeed, nothing I hadn’t caused to bring Aubrey and Colette together alone.

  Oh, for pity’s sake. It was a mild headache. The dear girl needed rest.

  “Do we play piano, then?” asked Aubrey.

  Colette laughed. “The senior secretaries know Hazel went to bed. If they should hear you playing, I can’t pretend it was me.”

  “Oh. Right.” Aubrey clutched his hat. “Suppose I ought to be moving along.”

  Oui. Go. Please. It is best, no?

  Stay, I told him. Invite him to stay, I told Colette.

  “We can sit and talk awhile,” Colette said. Mon Dieu, she’d said it. Idiot!

  Aubrey was out of his coat and on the couch in record time.

  She sat a cushion away. Her short hair drew his eyes to her graceful neck, and to the turquoise sheen of her dress, made of drapey silk. Like something worn by a goddess.

  That was all him. I didn’t even plant the thought. But I did visit her Paris dressmaker later on.

  “We’ve missed you,” Colette said.

  “You have?”

  “Hazel and I.”

  Oh. Safer waters. “That Lady Hazel,” Aubrey said. “She’s a great gal.”

  Colette smiled. “I adore her,” she said. “I’m so glad we met. She is sunshine.”

  “She feels the same for you,” Aubrey said. “You’re a good friend.”

  “Moi?” Colette looked thoughtful. “I just enjoy her, that’s all. I can’t help it.”

  I planted an idea, and Aubrey ran with it. “Has Hazel got a boyfriend?”

  Colette tried not to smile. “That’s not for me to say.”

  “She does!” Aubrey chuckled. “What do you know? Lady Hazel’s got a beau!”

  Well, the damage was done. “She’s extremely fond of her soldier,” Colette admitted. “His name is James. He seems to feel the same for her.”

  “He’d better,” declared Aubrey, “and he’d better treat her right, or he and my fist are going to have a conversation.”

  “You sound like a big brother.” Without warning, her face contorted with pain. Alexandre. He’d never learned about Stéphane. She would’ve fought him if he’d tried to play protector, but now, oh, what she’d give if Alexandre would walk through that door!

  The sorrow. It came in waves. Just when she thought the storm had subsided, it ambushed her all over again.

  Aubrey pulled back. Colette seemed on the verge of tears. Had he said something wrong?

  “I’m a little brother, as it happens,” he said at length. “My sister, Kate, doesn’t need my help with protection. She’s got the most boring boyfriend in the world. Ol’ sleepy Lester.”

  “Poor Lester.” Colette smiled, grateful for a change in the subject. “If your sister likes him, he can’t be so bad.”

  She still seemed fragile, somehow. Aubrey tried to think of a safer topic of conversation.

  “Anyway,” he said, “Hazel’s terrific. I’m glad I met her.” Extremely glad.

  Colette smiled again. “There is something . . . How do I mean? Pure about her. The war is so ugly, and humanity has gone mad, but then, there’s Hazel.”

  He took a chance. “And there’s you.”

  Colette’s eyebrows rose. “I’m not pure. The war has wiped her dirty boots all over me.”

  How could she say such a thing? She, so lovely, in every way, and not just to look at, though she sure was that.

  “What do you mean?” he asked. “Has somebody hurt you?”

  She hesitated.

  He actually cared. She could see it in his eyes, in the concern written on his face. It would be easier if he didn’t.

  “Kaiser Wilhelm has,” she said.

  She was covered in nails, all of a sudden. A brittle eggshell in broken, jagged pieces.

  “What happened?”

  Colette’s skin prickled. “Oh, you know,” she said. “The war’s awful. Life’s unfair.”

  Aubrey could write a book about unfair, but there was something she wasn’t telling him.

  Get close to him, Colette, and you will lose him, she warned herself. If your bleeding soul doesn’t drive him away, the war will snatch him from you.

  Colette took a deep breath. She was better now. Herself again. Music was what they had in common. Music. They could be musical friends.

  “What are you working on lately?” she asked. “Any new compositions? Jazz arrangements?” She paused. “That march you transformed into blues last time? Fantastique!”

  He knew she was steering him away. Changing the subject. But it gave him an opening.

  “The way you sing, Colette. It’s like nothing I know.”

  “Oh?”

  “I don’t just mean your voice.”

  It drove him wild, the cool amusement with which she took everything he said.

  “I am afraid to ask,” she said, “what else besides my voice affects the way I sing.”

  He turned as much toward her as he could without actually putting his feet on her lap.

  How had he drifted here? When what he really wanted to do was tell her how he thought of her all day, every day, with every swing of the pick and every crash of his hammer; how he’d filled notebook pages with ideas for songs that would be perfect for her voice, ideal for her register? Sultry, smoky, dark. Emotional.

  That was what she was. Colette was emotion.

  “You’ve changed how I think about music,” he said. “I’ve got some new songs in the works. I don’t know what the words would be, yet, but I’ve got the tunes, and maybe . . .”

  “I’ve changed how you think about music?” She shook her head in wonder. “I’m just a girl who sings French songs. You’re the one whose music is electric.”

  “That’s just it,” he said. “Man, I wish I could show you what I mean at the piano. Up till now, I was all about speed. Tricky harmonies. A show-off, you know? I was aiming for glitz.”

  “Glitz” was not a word Colette had ever learned, but she was too polite to say so.

  Aubrey knew he was boring her. “You’ve got me thinking more,” he said, “about how to pull the feeling out of a melody. Make it something you can sing with your whole life. Not just the body. That’s how you do it, every time.”

  I could see you there, Apollo. Waving in the window like a nosy neighbor. Go away.

  Aubrey Edwards, I told him, you’re not here to talk music theory or vocal technique.

  “You’re a mystery, Colette Fournier,” he told her. “That deep, dark place you sing from.”

  Colette didn’t know what to say. She didn’t think her singing sprang from some inner truth, some prior pain. Of course she was angry about Dinant. Anger didn’t even begin to describe it. She’d carry the rage to her grave. But every Belgian was angry. Aubrey, she feared, was swirling some fantasy around her in his mind because he liked her voice.

  “What did happen to you?” he said softly.

  Why must he persist? Run, Aubrey, run. I am too broken to be loved. All I love, I lose.

  And yet, here he was, this American with electric fingers and dancing limbs, sitting in a small cloud
of orange lamplight. Speaking low, asking her about her life, her actual life, and waiting to hear the answer.

  They were all alone in the dark. There was no one to hear them. There were dozens of ways a young man could try to take advantage of this situation. But he didn’t.

  So she told her story, about growing up in Dinant. About the magical village reflected like glass on the smooth waters of the Meuse River, about her happy childhood there, in the lilacs by the citadel, about her mama and papa and Alexandre; her oncles Paul and Charles; and her cousin, Gabriel. About the Rape of Belgium, and the annihilation of Dinant, about the convent, and about Stéphane.

  And when she sobbed until her eyes were bloodshot and her nose ran, he gave her a handkerchief and took advantage of nothing. Nothing but the chance to say, wordlessly, Here; you’ve been carrying that alone for a long time. Let me carry it with you awhile.

  * * *

  Colette’s story broke Aubrey’s heart. Without one ounce of push from me, he opened his arms to her, and she enfolded herself in his embrace. His tears fell into her hair.

  He ached to comfort her, but what could he say? “I’m here,” he told her. “I’ve got you.”

  He did have her. For the first time in years, Colette did not feel alone.

  Aubrey held her close. Who could hurt this girl? What devils would destroy the precious life of this lovely person—dash the happiness of this vibrant, kind, strong, funny girl?

  Now he understood, as he hadn’t, as deeply, before, why they needed to stop the Germans and win this war. Now he also understood that when his time came to leave Saint-Nazaire and face the trenches, it would be impossible to tell Colette goodbye, and go.

  It was hard enough to say goodbye that night. The brief kiss she gave him at the door was filled with neither passion nor desire, but sweetness, affection, gratitude.

  Aubrey returned a kiss to match and quietly slipped out the door.

  APHRODITE

  Stéphane—January 26, 1918

  THAT NIGHT, COLETTE dreamed of Stéphane.

  It was a simple dream. Just Stéphane, walking along with her in the grasses beside the citadel. He didn’t say anything. Just smiled and held her hand, and looked at her with eyes filled with love. All that she felt in his presence—he’s alive! All those horrors were only a terrible dream!—filled her limbs with joy and light. She knew it was real. As real as she herself.