Lovely War

by Julie Berry

  James and Hazel, both stunned and bashful, welcomed the food as a way to busy themselves with something other than words, after the avalanche that had just landed upon them.

  As for myself, well, I don’t mind telling you, I was a complete mess. I had to borrow a cloth napkin to dry my eyes. I knew from the start that these two belonged together. But that doesn’t make it any less wondrous when I’m proven right.

  Let them start their dreadful wars, let destruction rain down, and let plague sweep through, but I will still be here, doing my work, holding humankind together with love like this.

  DECEMBER 1942

  A Kiss Is Just a Kiss

  “SO HELP ME,” thunders Ares, “if that boy doesn’t kiss that girl and soon, I’ll—”

  “You’ll what, Ares?” asks Hades.

  Ares fumes. “I’ll kiss her myself.”

  Aphrodite begins to laugh. “Not for nothing am I the Goddess of Love,” she purrs. “I can make the God of War himself woozy for a girl he’s only heard about in a story.”

  Apollo produces for himself a sumptuous piano, trains a light on its gleaming surface, and begins to play.

  “You must remember this,” he sings. “A kiss is just a kiss. A sigh is just a sigh. . . .”

  “Would you stop that noise?” Ares has never particularly appreciated music.

  “Hephaestus’s net may hold you, Goddess, but your story holds us all captive,” says gallant Apollo. “I can understand Ares. Your Hazel does seem to cry out to be kissed. Metaphorically speaking.”

  “What was that about a dragon?” asks Ares. “Was she calling me a dragon?”

  “Never mind, Ares.” Aphrodite actually pats him on the head. “Just listen to the silly little love story.”

  APHRODITE

  About Time—February 13, 1918

  THEY ATE. They gazed into each other’s eyes. They fed each other bites of their dinner. They did all the adorable things a young couple does together in public, when they imagine they are subtle and discreet. In fact, they brought a great deal of warmhearted amusement to many at the restaurant, who loved seeing a young British soldier and his petite amie. The lovebirds were blithely oblivious.

  But it was time. Ares, Apollo, I know how you feel; I felt the same way. James and Hazel both felt it.

  But where? Once upon a time James had wanted to plan something perfectly romantic.

  Paris, I told him, is romantic enough. Get on with it.

  So when the genial server finally brought their bill—he had not charged them for the profiteroles for dessert—James paid the tab, and they ventured out into the cold. Ostensibly they were walking home, toward Colette’s aunt’s home, but in reality, they were both looking for the right spot.

  They found it. A tiny park, just a corner, really, with a few naked trees, and an empty fishpond, and a statue of my own dear Cupid, bless the darling child. Made to order, and in fact it was, though I do not like to tip my hand. It was dark, but I parted the clouds overhead and painted the sky with stars. It was cold, but I sent the wind rushing past on either side of the park and left a comfortable bubble of stillness there.

  The duffel bag and the flowers found their way to a park bench while the two sweethearts strolled a bit about, arm in arm. Dried leaves crunched under their feet when they left the cobblestone paths. They both knew what came next. They would not allow hurry or urgency to get in their way.

  “Hazel?”

  “Yes, James?”

  “Dance with me.”

  So they danced in the park to Hazel humming a tune. And when she forgot how the next bit went, and the silliness of what they were doing caught up to them, and they began to laugh, nothing could be easier than folding themselves into each other’s arms.

  “Oh, you,” he whispered. “How can you be real?”

  “When I’m with you,” she said, “I’m not sure that I am.”

  And before he knew it, he had slid his hands behind her ears, and threaded his fingers through her hair. He kissed her forehead, there, and there, and found her cheek and kissed it, there, and her nose. Then slowly, slowly, he brought his mouth to hers, and gently, reverently, kissed her.

  DECEMBER 1942

  An Answered Prayer

  “THANK GOD,” sighs Ares.

  Aphrodite says: “You’re welcome.”

  APHRODITE

  When We Were Young—February 13, 1918

  WAS THERE EVER a time when we were young?

  We’ll never grow old, of course; we have eternal beauty and passion and vigor, but was there ever a moment when we were new? When had we any firsts?

  Can you recall your first real kiss? All that rushed upward from your feet to your face, all that awoke in you that you hadn’t realized was sleeping?

  There’s nothing like the rightness of it. Nothing like its wonder. If I see it a trillion more times before this world spirals into the sun, I’ll still be an awed spectator, right to the last, drinking in its nectar in holy jealousy.

  * * *

  How shall I waltz you through the next twenty-four hours?

  I don’t want to embarrass James and Hazel, yet I don’t want to miss any of it.

  James had kissed a girl or two before. They were statues, in a way; they held their breath, they allowed themselves to be kissed, passively, coolly, without response. Perhaps it was a feminine fad. Some fellows even seemed to like it. This ice maiden, they seemed to feel, could be melted; it was a challenge that could be conquered by dint of manly effort.

  Not so, Hazel. She kissed him back. Any other girl he’d ever kissed eroded into dust.

  Well.

  A good time was had by all.

  They eventually found their way back to Colette’s aunt’s home. There were many, many stops along the way, but I leave these to your imagination. Colette and her aunt Solange had stayed up, keeping themselves awake with violet-flavored candies and endless rounds of Le Tourn’oie, a board game Hazel knew as the Game of the Goose. It would be the hospitable thing, Tante Solange insisted, to wait up to greet them, no matter how late.

  “Pah,” was Colette’s reply. “You want to see how handsome is Hazel’s British soldier.”

  Tante Solange shrugged. “Bien sûr,” she said, without a speck of apology.

  When Hazel and James finally rang the bell, Tante Solange availed herself of that dubious privilege of older Continental women to comment upon his height, kiss his cheeks, pinch them, admire his shoulders, and generally mortify her guest till he was redder than a tomato. When he produced francs to pay for his lodgings, Tante Solange waved them away and showed him his room. That matter settled, she retired to bed. Colette followed her lead.

  The kitchen was the farthest from the bedrooms, so James and Hazel found their way there. Left to their own devices, they discovered that kisses sans overcoats were an entirely new pleasure to be explored, and they might be in that kitchen still, had Tante Solange not emerged for an urgently needed pair of nail scissors kept, naturally, in the utensil drawer. So they bid each other adieu for the night, each certain that sleep would be utterly impossible

  But James hadn’t slept in a proper bed in months, and Hazel had spent most of the prior night sitting up on a train. So it wasn’t many moments after each found their way between lavender-scented sheets before they succumbed to a sleep that was deep and nearly dreamless, save for one lovely image that filled the hours between “good night” and seeing each other again.

  HADES

  Midnight Train—February 13, 1918

  AUBREY EDWARDS’S MOTHER always said nothing could keep that boy down for long. He was buoyant, like his music. He was flexible, like his piano-playing hands. Whatever pushed him under, he popped to the surface like a rubber ball.

  She worried about damage that would push him back down. That it would come was certain; Aubrey was a confident young
black man growing up in a segregated America.

  Not that New York wasn’t better than Mississippi. Lord, yes. In New York, you had a chance. You got jobs with better pay. Not great, but better. You could vote. You could get a government job. You might even get a fair trial, or at any rate, a real trial in a courtroom with a judge who’d listen. You could usually buy groceries where whites bought theirs. You didn’t have to call whites sir and ma’am and pretend to like it when they groped you or kicked you or spat at you in the street.

  But make no mistake: Theaters were segregated. Public pools were segregated. Restaurants, clubs. Schools, neighborhoods, churches. The military. The police force. There was prejudice, there was discrimination, there was hateful language, there was brutality.

  There was, at least, in New York, the possibility of building a life for oneself in Harlem or Brooklyn. There was schooling to be had. Art, poetry, and music. Thriving entrepreneurs and entertainers, newspapers. There was energy. There was Jim Europe and his band. And in spite of everything, there was hope and faith that in God’s own time, justice would prevail, and a better day would come.

  Even so, there was no way to steer her Aubrey toward adulthood without his outrageous confidence being battered and scarred by hostility. She only prayed they’d be the kinds of scars he could survive. The kind where getting up and walking away was at least possible.

  If she could see her boy now, leaning against the window of a midnight train, watching dark France roll by in the light of a waxing crescent moon—if she could know how muffled and silent was his soul, cycling between memories of Joey alive and Joey dead, her heart would break. If she knew what violence he’d witnessed firsthand, she’d be shattered. If she knew that Aubrey’d been the intended target of that violence, she would fall to her knees, thanking God he was spared. And lie awake nights, trembling with fear for the next time, when he might not be.

  APHRODITE

  Valentine’s Day—February 14, 1918

  THEY WERE UP before you were, Apollo, when morning was only a murmur along the cobblestone streets of the city. Neither wanted to lose another moment to sleep.

  Tante Solange’s guest bedroom had its own salle de bains, so James bathed, a luxury he no longer took for granted. He shaved and dressed in record time and ventured out into the flat. Hazel surprised him in the kitchen.

  “Good morning,” she told him.

  He took his time returning the wish. Who knew “good mornings” were so heavenly?

  They heard the sound of stirring coming from the direction of their hostess’s bedroom and were both seized with the desire to be alone. They found their coats and scarves, and James grabbed his pack, leaving a pile of francs on the little stand beside his bed.

  They crept down the stairs and out into the streets to an awakening city. A brisk walk back to Gare du Nord warmed their bodies but dampened their spirits. They would have to come back before this day was done. For now, they checked James’s bag at the claim counter and scanned the schedules. The last northbound train left at midnight. James purchased a ticket. Only one day, and one day wasn’t anything like enough, but they’d squeeze as much into it as they could.

  They found a patisserie and ate a breakfast of decadent pastries, each as elegant as it was delicious. Did you know food is infinitely more scrumptious when you’re in love? And Paris is a good place to be hungry. Even with wartime rationing, there was cream and butter to be had if you could pay a premium for it, and for this one day together, James and Hazel could afford it.

  They wandered around the streets of the city, admiring the sights, the showy buildings, the carvings, the stylish curves and contours of the Capital of the World.

  They passed by a women’s boutique where a pink spring coat, displayed in the front window, caught Hazel’s eye. She didn’t say a word about it, but James noticed, took her by the hand, and led her into the shop. Before she could even protest, James and a very knowing shop woman had gotten Hazel out of her gray coat and into a perfectly fitting pink one. James slipped the woman the money while Hazel studied the coat in the mirror.

  What was three months’ worth of army pay for, if not for moments like this?

  “You look like a tulip,” James told her.

  “I feel like one,” she said. “You shouldn’t have.” Her smile clearly said otherwise.

  They came upon a photographer’s studio where the gentleman was about his business early, preparing for a Valentine’s Day wedding, and had him take their portrait together, and mail prints to the addresses provided. Feeling quite hilarious, they posed beside a plaster model of a statue of my precious Cupid.

  Don’t scoff at them. Young lovers may be ludicrous creatures, but I’ll have no sarcasm at their expense. Anyone who’s never been where they are is only to be pitied. The photographer kept any opinions to himself. He made his living off the love business and was paid up front.

  I made sure the sun was as warm as it could be in mid-February. I didn’t want cold to rain on their day. Though it hardly needs my help to do so, I wanted Paris to shine.

  They wended their way toward the Eiffel Tower. James gaped at its towering height. “Now that’s something I’d have liked to see being built.”

  Hazel threaded her arm through his. “Can you imagine what it was like for the workers?”

  Her nearness immediately eclipsed the steel monument. “You’re not volunteering to paint the top of the tower, are you?” he asked.

  “I already told you,” she said. “My price is the Crown Jewels.”

  James smiled. She’d remembered.

  They purchased tickets and stood in a long queue. The colossal tower, looming beside them, made them feel very small indeed. The use of riveted steel felt so wonderfully modern. To James, it signaled change, new materials, new vistas, new possibilities for building a cleaner, stronger world. If there was anything left with which to build one in years to come.

  There is something wonderful about being in love in a city where you know no one. Public opinion of your behavior isn’t worth a trifle. So, if you want to kiss your girl at the esplanade of the Eiffel Tower, you do.

  And at the first-floor observation level, which might as well be the moon.

  And at the second floor, from which all of Paris stretches before you in spectacular detail.

  Then you board the hydraulic elevators that carry you all the way to the tower’s dizzying top, and you kiss like there’s no tomorrow.

  From the top, you can see forever. The River Seine, winding about the city. The beautiful Trocadéro palace across the river from the tower. The gaudy dome of Napoleon’s tomb. The long, elegant green spaces of the Champ de Mars reaching away in the other direction.

  Champ de Mars. Field of Ares.

  They descended in the elevators, then found a café for lunch.

  They strolled arm in arm along the banks of the Seine, an absolute requirement.

  As they ate and walked they talked of their parents and families. Stories of Maggie and Bob, and Georgia Fake and Olivia Jenkins. About childhood summers spent at the seashore with grandparents, and year-round childhood in Poplar with no living grandparents. A great deal about Colette and Aubrey and their music, and about Frank Mason, Chad Browning, Billy Nutley, and Mick Webber. About Pete Yawkey, and the more battle-seasoned lads from 2nd Section. About American soldiers and American accents, and Mrs. Davies. About sniping, and life in the trenches, about artillery fire and the flowing river of wounded men, and the shell-blasted wasteland of no-man’s-land.

  It helped so much to talk about it all. It helped James to have someone to tell.

  They came upon chocolate shops draped in Valentine pomp and made the most of them. If James were a couple of decades older, he would’ve regained all the weight lost in the war that day alone. They decided to get in out of the cold by catching an afternoon film at a cinema. Neither one of them cou
ld tell you one thing that happened in the movie. Any language barrier had nothing to do with that.

  They found their way to an elegant restaurant for supper. Might as well go out with a bang, James thought. He’d barely spent a farthing on himself since leaving London, and today was worth any cost. They surrendered their coats and found a table. A waiter greeted them, took care of the essentials, then left them to their solitude.

  “There’s so much of Paris left to see.” Hazel sank her chin into her hands.

  “We’ll come back.” He slipped his arm around her waist. “I promise.”

  She buried her face in his neck. They’d had such a lovely day, and so much fun, but now, as darkness settled over the city, Hazel found it hard to keep sadness at bay. For his sake, she thought, she ought to stay cheerful and hopeful. She failed.

  “Don’t go,” she whispered.

  “All right,” he said. “Let’s run away together, shall we?”

  She sat up. “In a hot-air balloon?”

  “With a poodle for company.”

  “A poodle?”

  “Why not a poodle?”

  She could think of no reason why not. “All right. A poodle.”

  “We’ll pack chocolates for food,” said James.

  “And roses for beauty,” said Hazel.

  James shook his head. “We’ll have you. You’re all the beauty we need.”

  She gave him a pointed look. If she hoped he’d believe she was irked, he was smarter than that.