Lovely War

by Julie Berry

  Maggie came often on weekend breaks from business training college. Colette came when she could get away, until Aubrey’s division sailed for the States.

  Hazel taught youth piano lessons, and James found a post at an engineering firm. They burnt their dinner and ran out of money and figured things out as they went along. They invited their parents to come for tea. They took long walks in Hyde Park, remembering.

  Three years after they married, Hazel gave birth to a daughter, Rose. Her infatuated parents called her Rosie.

  James pulled another muscle relocating the spinet to a larger flat. A year later, Rosie learned to walk by clutching the poodle’s hair and toddling beside him.

  And then one day, a letter of acceptance reached James from the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College, London. A new flat was needed once again, in a different part of town. Hazel took on more piano students and resumed her studies with Monsieur Guillaume.

  There were nights when James woke up sobbing. Freak moments when a flashing light or a car engine backfiring set his body shaking. But Hazel was right there, to comfort and to listen. She urged him to reconnect with one of the doctors at Maudsley. Eventually James joined, and ultimately led, a service fraternity for Great War veterans. Once again, the boys in khaki served together by looking out for one another. Helping others cope, as Colette had learned years before, was a sound prescription.

  The same year that James graduated from architecture school, Hazel received a thick envelope in the mail from the Royal Academy of Music in London. She made her way through the degree program, taking a pause for a while when their second child, a son, Robert, was born.

  James secured a position as an architect, and the spinet grew overnight into a secondhand baby grand.

  Whenever James would ask her, teasingly, if she wanted to play the Royal Albert Hall, Hazel’s answer was a firm no. He never understood why. She played at smaller venues to lucky audiences.

  Some of her classmates wondered if her scars had hurt her career, or if motherhood had set her back. Hazel didn’t care a teaspoon. She had exactly the life she’d begged for.

  She never won major prizes or achieved great acclaim. But those who heard her play recognized her love for the music and her gratitude for life.

  Her greatest fan was James.

  There was a time, in their flat, when the position of the piano meant that while James played with little Rosie and held baby Robby and watched Hazel play, he saw only the left side of her face. She looked just like the girl he’d first seen at the parish dance in Poplar.

  But when a furniture rearrangement took place, on a whim, leaving Hazel’s right side on display, James decided he liked that view even better. She was his, from every angle. The scars were a reminder that she came back.

  Harlem Bound—1919 and Beyond

  ARES

  THE TRIUMPHANT SURVIVORS of the Harlem Hellfighters marched in a parade up the entire length of Fifth Avenue to a wild homecoming welcome. Never before had black soldiers been given a parade in New York City. Marching in perfect synchrony, in razor-straight formation, holding heads and rifles high, proudly sporting stripes and medals and dozens of Croix de Guerre, they dazzled the city. Families and sweethearts struggled and failed to keep to the sidewalks. They broke ranks and attacked their homecoming heroes with hugs and kisses and babies some fathers had never seen, except in photographs.

  They marched all the way to the armory where they’d enlisted to be processed for honorable discharge. The night was dark by the time Aubrey finally left the armory. He couldn’t wait to get home.

  APHRODITE

  But home had come to fetch him. His mother and father, Uncle Ames, Kate, and even sleepy old Lester, ambushed Aubrey as he left better than any German patrol had ever managed to.

  Six days later, Aubrey brought a Belgian beauty home for Sunday dinner.

  And there she stayed. Aubrey’s family loved her. Whenever Colette wasn’t auditioning for roles as a backup singer for a nightclub, or a low-budget show, and whenever Aubrey wasn’t playing with the 15th New York Army Band—which happened a lot—they practiced and wrote new songs together.

  APOLLO

  Lieutenant James Reese Europe had big plans. The fame of his music, and the Hellfighters’ legendary exploits, had made James Reese Europe a household name. He lined up recording sessions for the band to lay down tracks with Pathé Records. They recorded W. C. Handy’s “Memphis Blues,” and his own compositions, “Castle House Rag,” “Clef Club March,” and his biggest war hit, “On Patrol in No Man’s Land.” Europe scheduled the band for a nationwide tour, starting with the Northeast. The Allies had won the war, and now Europe was determined to win Americans over to his bold new sound. Everywhere they went, they were a sensation. Here was a chance to change not only musical tastes, but attitudes about race in America. Or so Jim Europe hoped.

  HADES

  But on the night of the Boston concert, just before they were to take the stage, Steven Wright, one of the “Wright twin” drummers, grew angry with Jim Europe for favoring the other drummer, as he saw it. When he protested, Wright, himself a victim of shell shock, stabbed Europe in the neck with a penknife. Europe instructed Noble Sissle to go ahead and conduct the show while he went to the hospital to patch up the wound. But the cut had severed an artery, and Europe died within hours. America had lost a jazz visionary on the cusp of what was sure to become a legendary career.

  Aubrey rode the train home from Boston in stunned disbelief. Jim Europe had taught him everything he knew about jazz. He’d picked up where Uncle Ames had left off and made a real musician out of Aubrey. He’d kept him alive at Saint-Nazaire after Joey died. And he’d put his broken pieces back together in Aix-les-Bains. He was going to be the express train that would carry Aubrey on to great heights of achievement. And now he was gone.

  James Europe was the first black person to receive a public funeral from the City of New York. Thousands lined up to pay their respects.

  APOLLO

  Aubrey and Colette auditioned at clubs and restaurants all over New York.

  Owners slammed doors in their faces, or blew clouds of cigar smoke at them. A few places let them play sixteen bars of a song, only to determine their customers didn’t want Negro music, even if a white gal was singing it. Many proprietors had no use for foreigners or “darkies” at all. Even so, Colette received more than a few lewd offers to come back later on, sans Aubrey, to audition for roles of a different sort, and Aubrey was frequently told that the kitchen was hiring busboys and dishwashers if he wanted to do an honest day’s work. He never touched Colette in their presence, but he was warned more than once to keep his hands off her.

  The rejection would’ve been too much for most people. It was almost too much for them. Until, one day, at an audition they went into halfheartedly, certain it was pointless, a café owner told them, “I think I could use you.”

  * * *

  I wish I could say it was smooth sailing from there.

  They scraped together a band and played a few weeks at that café, then the owner canceled them after a night when two of their horns never showed up. But another club owner had dropped a business card into the tip jar on Aubrey’s piano.

  Money was slim. Band members quarreled and quit. Audiences loved the music, or they hated it. Colette drew snide comments, and women warned her she wasn’t safe with black men.

  Aubrey pushed his anger aside and wrote new pieces. The more he performed, the better he composed. The more she sang, the bolder Colette grew, and the more collaborative she became in writing lyrics and arranging songs. She trained with dancers and learned the fox-trot.

  It was a hectic, chaotic, crazy, creative time. Aubrey flew high. Colette was the happiest she’d been since Germany invaded Belgium. She missed Hazel, and they wrote each other faithfully, but Colette was far from lonely. She adored Aubrey’s mother and
his sister, Kate.

  Then 1920 rolled around, and Prohibition became law. Restaurants and clubs struggled. Some became speakeasies. The Jazz Age began in earnest.

  Aubrey and Colette’s band grew, their song list grew, and their reputation grew, and their booking fees rose. They went on a Northeastern tour, and then a Midwestern tour, and even an East Coast tour. That meant Southern cities. It meant the Jim Crow South.

  Their booking agent mostly got them gigs in Southern venues where black musicians were welcome. But there were times where managers met them as they tuned their instruments, took one look at them, and sent them packing—unless someone other than Colette would sing.

  “Around here,” one manager told them, “we like white bands, and we don’t mind black bands, but a white lady singing with a black band? You must be out of your minds.”

  “Play without me,” Colette told Aubrey.

  “No chance,” he said. “We play together, or we don’t play.”

  They lost money on the canceled bookings. At other gigs, they learned to leave the club quickly, and all together, out the front door, despite the owner’s protests. The back door was what black musicians should use. Problem was, a handful of drunks—Prohibition or no—often waited for them outside the back door.

  “I fought the Huns in France,” Aubrey told Colette bitterly. “This is worse. I’d rather fight the Boche than play for bigots. In combat, you know who’s your enemy.”

  They returned to Harlem to studio recordings, albums, and sheet music sales. Soon they had their first radio gig. New York was beginning to know their names.

  APHRODITE

  “We’ve got a day off next Saturday,” Aubrey told Colette one morning over breakfast.

  “I know.” She searched for just the right rhyme in an American English dictionary. “That would be a good day to go look for that new suit you’ve been wanting to buy.”

  “Already bought one,” Aubrey told her. “I need it for Saturday.”

  She tapped her pencil on the tip of her nose. “Romance, dance, chance, glance . . . what else is there?” She jotted down notes. “When did you buy a suit?”

  “Prance.”

  “Non, merci.”

  “So,” Aubrey said, “want to get married Saturday?”

  Mrs. Edwards, peeking in through the kitchen, held her breath and squeezed every muscle in her body. She never heard Colette’s answer, but she could fairly well imagine it. Not the most elaborately romantic proposal ever concocted, but no less loving for that. Mrs. Edwards immediately started planning a menu. Lordy, if that boy could give a mother a little more notice! The cake alone would take days to plan.

  EXIT MUSIC

  DECEMBER 1942

  Closing Arguments

  “YOUR HONOR,” Aphrodite says, from her new seat by the fireplace, where she has stretched out her legs before the embers, “the defense rests.”

  It does, Hephaestus thinks. Beautifully.

  “Can we leave off with all this sham-courtroom nonsense?” says Ares. “This ceased to be a trial before it even began.”

  Apollo plays a riff on his piano. “Frog Legs Rag” by James Sylvester Scott. “As if you’d know,” he told Ares. “You were the one on trial, War. You’ve been convicted of being a Class A chump. Or did you never catch on?”

  Hephaestus’s eyes dart to Aphrodite’s.

  “All the harm in these two stories,” Apollo tells Ares, “was your handiwork. Colette’s losses. James’s traumas. Hazel’s injuries. Even Aubrey’s injustices trace back to war.” He frowns. “By way of bigotry, prejudice, slavery, and hate. But still.”

  Ares stands majestically, despite the golden mesh enclosing him. “Is he right, Goddess?” he demands. “Were you playing a trick on me?”

  Aphrodite smiles. “It’s a nice theory, Apollo,” she tells him. “Don’t flatter yourself, Ares. This wasn’t all about you. Though Zeus knows you had a finger in every pie.”

  Ares’s relief quickly yields to aggravation. “Look, just let me out of here, all right?”

  “If I release you,” asks Hephaestus, “how do I know you won’t rip my head off?”

  Hades’s voice reverberates with the authority of the ruler of the Underworld. “Ares will behave,” Hades says. “Or he’ll have me to answer to.”

  Hephaestus parts the net. His brother emerges, clenching his fists. Veins ripple along his torso as his unfettered powers return. He drinks in an exultant breath.

  “Well, I’m off,” he says. “But before I go . . .” He hesitates, and turns to Aphrodite. “Goddess. Your story. After the war ended. What came next?”

  She’s puzzled. “Next?”

  “For James and Hazel.” He shrugs like he doesn’t really care. “For Aubrey and Colette.”

  “What do you mean?” inquires Aphrodite. “They got married. Isn’t that obvious?”

  “Both couples,” Apollo says, “happily ever after.”

  “Well,” Hades says, “I wouldn’t use those words.”

  Ares’s brow furrows. “Why not?”

  “Life’s never quite like that,” Hades says. “Particularly, there’s the war. This one. The current one. It came along just as their sons—both James and Hazel’s, and Aubrey and Colette’s—would soon reach draft age.”

  “Really?” Ares looks pleased. “Good. Two generations in battle. I’ll keep an eye out for them.”

  Hades catches Aphrodite wearing a strained look.

  “Where to next, Ares?” he inquires.

  The God of War considers. “I need to visit the Pacific Theater,” he says. “Check on the latest developments. But then, Babycakes, I’ll be back at Olympus, waiting for you.”

  “You do that,” calls Aphrodite. Hades eyes her curiously.

  Ares disappears with a rolling boom like the firing of a Paris Gun. Hephaestus’s face relaxes, almost imperceptibly. His inhale sounds like it’s the first he’s had in a while.

  Aphrodite turns to her other two witnesses. “Thank you both,” she tells them, “for being here tonight. And for all that you give to my work.”

  Apollo bows like a concert pianist. “Don’t mention it, Goddess,” he tells her. “Wouldn’t miss it. Love and Art go together like baritone and alto, paint and canvas, like sunrise and a burning atmosphere. Anytime you want to tell a story, I’ll bring the soundtrack.”

  Aphrodite blows him a kiss. “Thank you, Apollo.” She nods toward the window. “Sunrise beckons. You’d better hurry.”

  “You know, Goddess,” Apollo says, shoving his argyle feet into his brown-and-white wing tips, “we should collaborate. Produce something on Broadway, maybe?”

  Hephaestus turns to his wife. “You really should.”

  Aphrodite’s jaw drops. “I . . . er . . .”

  “I’ll be in touch,” Apollo says. “We can bounce ideas over lunch sometime.” He winks at them both. “Later, you two.” With a flash of sunrise, he’s gone.

  Hades rises and dissolves his severe-looking chair. It vanishes with a faint pff.

  “You’ve got me wondering, Lady Aphrodite,” Hades says, “whether I was not, myself, perhaps, on trial tonight.”

  Aphrodite rises to a kneeling posture, a look of dismay written across her lovely face.

  “Then I have failed, my Lord Hades,” she tells him, “to show fitting gratitude. You are my crown and my glory.”

  Hephaestus is surprised to see what might—or might not—be a tear in Hades’s eye.

  “I scrabble in sticks and clay,” she says. “You make of my work a temple.”

  Hades bows to the goddess of love. “For such gracious words,” he tells her, “a boon, if it’s in my power to grant it. What would you ask of me?”

  Aphrodite presses her hands together. “If it pleases you,” she tells him, “look after their children, in this war. James and Hazel
’s. Colette and Aubrey’s. Bring them, I beg you, safely home.”

  Hades nods. “If the Fates allow me,” he tells her, “I will.” His brow darkens. “If the Fates don’t allow, we’ll have words, they and I.”

  Hephaestus would almost worry for the Fates, but they’re tough old cookies.

  “I promise this,” Hades continues. “When anyone from these families finds their way to me, I will make their passing painless. One way or another, I’ll bring them safely home.”

  He disappears, leaving husband and wife alone.

  “Not quite what you’d hoped for?” Hephaestus asks Aphrodite.

  She gazes into the glimmering coals. “One never gets quite what one hoped for from Death,” she muses.

  Hephaestus chuckles. “I mean, from the telling of your story.”

  “Oh.” She gazes into the fire. “That remains to be seen.”

  Oh?

  Hephaestus stretches his crooked legs. Divine though he may be, stiffness and aches are his to know. And he’s been sitting for a long time.

  Why did he do this? What did he hope to accomplish? It all feels so embarrassing. So utterly stupid to think that by confronting Aphrodite and exposing her unfaithfulness, he could make anything change. Had he gone mad? What could’ve come over him?

  And yet, here she sits, beside him. And all through her long tale, her stance toward Ares seemed to be—what? Not what Hephaestus would expect from a goddess to her lover.

  “I think you’re right,” he tells her. “About Olympians being unfit for real love. About death and frailty being essential.”

  She leans closer to the fire. “We say a building is made of brick,” she says, “but it’s the mortar, filling in the cracks, that holds it all together. That provides the strength.”