The Game of Love and Death

by Martha Brockenbrough

The last note came, low and long. Henry let it hang in the air a moment. After the sound faded, he lifted his head and caught Ethan staring at him in a puzzling way.

  “What’s that look for?” Henry said. “I happen to like this piece.”

  Ethan shrugged. He leaned against a worktable that ran the width of the room and was covered with sawdust, lanterns that needed oil, and the odd bent nail. A window behind his head framed it perfectly, casting a halo of light around his blond curls. It was no wonder girls were always batting their eyelashes and whispering to each other whenever Ethan walked into a room. He looked like he belonged in a Hollywood picture.

  “The tune — it was great,” he said. “You’re getting all right on that thing.”

  Henry laughed. “Thanks for that ringing endorsement of my tune.”

  “I don’t want your head to swell or anything is all. You know you’re good.” Ethan pushed himself up so he was sitting on the table. “So, we have an assignment.”

  “We do?” Henry said. It was common knowledge that Ethan was heir to the Inquirer, and that Henry was … well, he was a charity case.

  “Yes, my father said it’s fine if you go along.”

  Henry tried not to bristle. It wasn’t Ethan’s fault how his father always set them on different levels.

  Ethan grinned. “It’s a good assignment too. About airplanes.”

  Ethan guided the Cadillac toward the airfield with the fingertips of his left hand while he draped his right over the front seat, near where Henry sat. They’d driven from the Thorne mansion on Capitol Hill and were crossing a green drawbridge that arched over the Montlake Cut, offering views of mountains on either side of the lake.

  “So this is the situation,” he said, looking at Henry out of the corner of his eye. “The Inquirer was scooped and Father’s spitting nails about it. There’s some airplane at Sand Point that’s supposed to be one of the fastest on the planet. A New York paper covered some modifications a mechanic made to the engine, and now our job is to show those East Coast boys they aren’t the only ones with ink in their veins.”

  “Sounds straightforward,” Henry said.

  “It’s straightforward all right. The beat reporter had his backside handed to him in his hat, and Father is using us cubs to heighten the humiliation. I feel lousy about it, actually. It’s not as though the poor sap missed a story about an airplane that could fly to the moon.”

  “As if that would ever happen.” Nothing sounded more horrible; Henry far preferred to have his feet on the ground.

  “You bring your notebook?” Ethan said.

  “Of course.”

  This was how they worked together. Ethan asked the questions, Henry wrote the answers. Then Ethan composed the story in his head and dictated it to Henry, who typed it so that it would be free of spelling and mechanical errors. It was their system, their secret.

  Mr. Thorne thought his son had long ago won his battle with the written word, but Ethan continued to struggle. It wasn’t due to a lack of intelligence or effort. He was one of the brightest people Henry knew, quick to see patterns and connections between things, quick to form a rational argument. But through some accident of wiring, the letters on the page confounded him. Henry had been secretly reading and writing Ethan’s work long before he’d come to live with the family — since the day he’d found him crying behind the school, the backs of his hands bloody where he’d taken a lashing from a teacher who’d accused him of laziness.

  Neither Henry nor Ethan was certain what would happen when Ethan took over the family business. A publisher who couldn’t read or write — it was unthinkable, unless they found a way to stick together. For now, they pretended that day was in the impossibly distant future, and that an answer would materialize when it was most needed.

  “There she is.” Ethan pointed out a yellow biplane with a glass cockpit and thick rubber tires. He stopped the car a distance away and hopped out, running a hand through his hair. Henry followed, but he wasn’t looking at the plane. He was looking at the girl crouching on its upper wing. Something quickened inside him as he studied her, and he wasn’t sure whether the feeling was good or bad.

  “Do you know her?” Henry said.

  “What? Who?”

  “The girl you were pointing at,” Henry said. Though he couldn’t imagine where he’d seen her before, he felt as if he knew her the way he knew the sound of a low D.

  “What girl? Where? I was pointing to the plane, numskull.”

  Of course Ethan was focused on the plane and the assignment. He never let himself get distracted by girls. Never. Henry tried not to, but without much luck. He was forever looking at them, forever looking for the one who’d make him feel as if he’d met his other half. He’d yearned for it his entire life, not that he could talk to anyone about it. And this girl … there was this … quality about her, something so alive. She walked from the tip of the upper wing to the middle, and then lowered herself to the bottom one as if it were nothing.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Ethan said.

  “Come again?”

  “Henry, you can be such a dope.” Ethan gestured toward his own face.

  Henry had no idea what Ethan was trying to communicate.

  “She’s not a possibility, Henry. Stop dreaming of your wedding. You’d give my mother a conniption if she saw you gaping like a salmon.”

  “I wasn’t. It’s just …” He’d noticed the color of her skin, of course. To his surprise, he did not care, even though he knew everyone else would.

  “Well, at least close your mouth.”

  Henry clamped his jaw shut, but Ethan was already walking toward a man in a navy-blue suit, his smile in place, his right hand extended. He dropped it immediately when he noticed what Henry had just observed: that the man in the suit had no right arm.

  “I am Captain Girard,” the man said in French-accented English. His tone was light, as if he were used to such gaffes. “I regret I cannot shake your hand, but mine was lost to me in the war. I see you’ve noticed the real story, though. The one those boys from New York missed.”

  “How’s that?” Ethan asked.

  “That girl right there. She’s a fantastic pilot. The best of her kind in the state. Perhaps even better than Amelia Earhart. It is not just the plane that is fast; it is the skill and daring of the pilot, and here, she is unparalleled. It is because she understands the workings of the engine as if they were an extension of her mind.”

  Henry pulled out his reporter’s notebook so he could take down what the captain said. Ethan, who did not have much of a poker face, was irritated. They were there for a story about a plane, not a girl. There wasn’t a teacup’s chance in a tornado that Mr. Thorne would let them write about a female pilot, especially one with skin the color of hers. But Henry didn’t care about that either. He wanted to hear everything the captain had to say about her.

  “Her papa fought with me in the war, when our troops joined forces with American ones. He was a brave man. Very good with his hands. Without him, I would have lost more than my arm. And the thing is, I cannot get any of the journalists interested in her. The reason for this is obvious, you see. Flora has the brown skin, and here in America, you pay so very much heed to that. And so they spend all their ink on Miss Earhart, who is also a courageous woman and almost as fine a pilot. But they are missing out on something here, something almost magical.”

  Henry wanted to volunteer to write the story himself, just so he could observe Flora at closer range, but the offer would get him into all sorts of hot water with Ethan, who worried endlessly that people would figure out Henry was helping him if the paper ever carried his solo byline, and who always changed the subject when Henry wanted to talk about girls.

  “That is fascinating, of course,” Ethan said, sounding not at all fascinated. “What can you —”

  “And so, she needs a spon
sor,” Captain Girard said. “Someone to provide enough for a plane and a trip around the globe. I pay her what I can but the times, they are bad. Nobody works harder. She takes the night shift to support her grand-mère… I honestly don’t know when she sleeps.”

  The captain tucked a cigarette between his lips, took a matchbook out of his pocket, and offered it to Henry. “Do you mind?” he said, shrugging apologetically at his empty right sleeve. “I forgot my Zippo in the office.”

  Henry struck a match.

  “Here,” the captain said, showing the matchbook. “This is its name.”

  “Come again?” Henry asked.

  “This is the club where she works. The Domino. It used to be her parents’, but alas, they were killed in an accident with an automobile when she was just a baby. She has the place now with her uncle. I am ashamed to say I have never been, but I am past the age of music and dancing. She does keep me in matches, though.”

  Captain Girard took back the matchbook and Ethan shot Henry a look. Henry shrugged and phrased a careful question to regain control of the interview: “What can you tell us about her airplane?”

  As the captain described a change Flora had made to the engine mounting so that the plane was better balanced, Henry took notes, but his mind was elsewhere. The captain seemed to notice.

  “The girl,” he said, smiling widely. “You really should take an interest. There is something there. Her name, it suggests she is rooted to the earth, but in truth, the girl has the heart of a bird.” A breeze kicked up, ruffling Henry’s hair, sending a gentle thrill down his spine. Henry swallowed. He looked at her, just as she looked at him. Neither looked away. For a fraction of a moment, it felt as though the earth had ceased its spinning, but his body moved on, dizzy with some unseen force.

  “We’re here for the plane,” Ethan said. “But maybe we’ll do another story later. You were telling us about the Staggerwing…”

  Henry transcribed the captain’s answers to the questions Ethan asked. But his curiosity had traveled ahead to the Domino. No matter what Ethan wanted, Henry planned to attend a show there, and soon. In a strange way, it felt as though his life depended on it.

  THE dress had been her mother’s, and so it was the slightest bit old-fashioned: a black-and-white harlequin-patterned halter that plunged in the back and made Flora feel self-conscious. The entirety of the silky fabric had been covered in sequins, so it was heavy on her skin in the way a fur coat might be, like something that had once been alive. She inspected her reflection, turning to make sure the seams were intact and that she wasn’t going to give more of a show than she intended. One of the waves in her chin-length hair was misbehaving, so she pinched it back into place, sighing in exasperation. She would have preferred to wear her flight coveralls everywhere, along with the braids she wore as a child. Such things were comfortable, practical, and practically invisible. Being togged to the bricks made her feel like a Christmas display.

  She’d asked Uncle Sherman probably a thousand times if she could just wear something simple and stay in the kitchen with Charlie, reminding him to go easy on the salt in the brisket rub, telling him to cut smaller pieces of corn bread because too much of that makes a customer too sleepy to drink.

  But Sherman wasn’t having it. “The Domino’s half your club, baby,” he’d told her. “You got to be out in front and on that stage. Nobody comin’ to hear Charlie’s corn bread sing. And there ain’t nobody in town who sings like you, and you don’t even half try.”

  She wasn’t bad-looking, she knew, but far from the stunner her mother had been. She compared her reflection to the woman in the picture frame on her bureau, glad to be not as lovely. Her plainness had shielded her from the interest of boys, except for Grady. Her own absence of beauty made her miss her mother more.

  She had no true memories of her parents. But she’d imagined being hugged and sung to so many times the memories felt like something made of truth.

  “Flora!” Sherman’s voice, calling from the parlor.

  “Almost ready.” She opened her top drawer, removed the pair of kid gloves that had been her mother’s, and slipped them on. Though it was no longer raining, the night was still cool. And she liked the look and feel of them, the way they still carried the shape of her mother’s hands.

  Sherman, dressed in his master of ceremonies tuxedo, whistled at her when she emerged from her room. “I always liked that dress.”

  “Thank you.” Flora felt embarrassed by the praise, although she knew it was his way of remembering his sister.

  On their way, she passed Nana, who was working on a quilt with patches of red and white.

  “Hello, love,” Nana said. “There’s a cake for you in the icebox.”

  “Chocolate?”

  “Does coleslaw give Sherman heartburn?”

  “Hey!” Sherman said. “It’s not my fault your slaw is so good I can’t stop eating it.”

  Flora gave him a friendly shove and stopped to kiss her grandmother’s head. “Thank you, Nana. I’ll eat it after the show. But you should have your piece now.”

  “I can wait,” Nana said. “I’m not so close to the end that I need to take my dessert first, you know.” She looked up at Flora over the tops of her glasses. “Don’t you look just like your mama.”

  “Not half as pretty,” Flora said, waving it off.

  “Half again prettier, child. But she would have liked for you to stay in school. Graduate. Not have to work two jobs the way you do. You’re only seventeen. Not old enough to be carrying the weight of the grown-up world on your shoulders.”

  “Oh, Nana. We’ve talked about that.” There was no point in school, not when the club was her future and most white folk were hell-bent on keeping colored folk in their place, even if they were polite about it. And not when Nana needed her the way she did. Taking care of the house by herself would be far too much of a burden, and Nana moved so slowly these days, as if every inch of her ached.

  “Girl’s right,” Sherman said. “The club needs her. We’ll be able to turn things around and be more like we used to be. And just wait till she sets that record in the airplane. Flora’s got all of Bessie Coleman’s fire, and all of Amelia Earhart’s ice. Miss Earhart won’t know what hit her, and people will line up around the block to hear her sing. There’s no kind of bad fame, you know.”

  “Tell that to Bonnie and Clyde.” Nana returned to her quilt.

  Flora waited until Nana had finished a slow, careful stitch. Then she bent and placed one more kiss on top of her grandmother’s head. “Don’t stay up too late.”

  “Sing your heart out tonight, child. Your mama’s buttons would burst if she could see you now, all grown up.”

  Flora found a light coat and stepped into the night. A black cat, the strange but elegant one that had stopped by every so often for years to beg a little supper, skittered from the shadows and wove through Flora’s ankles.

  “You again,” she said.

  The animal had odd black eyes and seemed to prefer affection on her own terms, never coming when she was called, often hovering near the edges of things, as if she merely wanted to observe. The strangeness of the creature softened Flora’s mood. She’d feed her when she got home. Maybe even some cake.

  “Come on, Flora.” Sherman jiggled his keys. “We got to go.”

  The cat blinked slowly before turning abruptly and disappearing into the night, as if she were done with Flora. But she’d be back. Flora was sure of it.

  On the short ride to the club, they went over the set list, adjusting things here and there based on how the audience had responded the previous night. They arrived a good thirty minutes before the rest of the band. Because Saturday was their biggest day of the week, Charlie had been at work since dawn, slow-cooking pork shoulder, brisket, and ribs. The scent was warm and wonderful, as much of home to Flora as her nana’s house.

 
“Hit the lights, baby,” Sherman called out from the kitchen as the double doors swung shut behind him.

  Flora turned and walked into the heart of the club, a room painted black to hide the many scars in the walls and woodwork — and to make everything in the room disappear save the stage. She flicked on the chandeliers that hung over the dozens of round tables filling the floor. The room went from dark to dazzling. She found a box of matches and struck one, and carefully set about lighting the sea of candles that lay before her, their wicks hungry for the light and heat that would by night’s end consume them. Then she went to her dressing room to warm up her voice.

  ETHAN rolled his eyes as he steered the car to the curb. Down the hill, past the International District, rose the Smith Tower, its lights glowing against the black sky. Beyond that, Puget Sound. It had taken the better part of two days, but Henry had convinced Ethan to go to Flora’s nightclub. His fingers twitched, playing the notes of the Enigma Variations.

  They exited the car and put on their hats, swirling mist into the light of the streetlamps. All along the sidewalk, sharply dressed couples strolled arm in arm toward a low brick building with a black awning that read THE DOMINO.

  “I don’t know why we’re doing this,” Ethan said. “We’ve got school tomorrow, and besides, Father won’t even let the arts reporters write about this music. He says it reduces people to an animalistic state. We’re not writing the story about the girl pilot anyway, so all of this is a waste of time.”

  “It’s just jazz,” Henry said. “We’ve listened to it a thousand times.”

  “Au contraire,” Ethan said. “We’ve listened to the uptown stuff. This is something else entirely. You of all people ought to hate it.”

  Henry wasn’t so sure. The notes that found their way outside intrigued him. There was a call-and-response aspect to them, the same thing an orchestra did when the melody circulated from the strings to the winds and brass. But this was simpler. More elemental. More like one person chatting with another, one hand reaching out to touch another. He didn’t know whether it was the music or something else, but the air felt electric, almost alive.