Lovely War(101)

A gorgeous instrument. Never in her life had she come near one so deluxe, so pristine.

That, in fact, was still the truth.

Hazel approached the bench and sat down.

Houselights rose to the faintest glimmer. Just enough for her to see where she was. The grand room appeared in solemn majesty. An empty Royal Albert Hall in the middle of the night.

She touched the keys, playing tentative notes. As each bead of sound rang outward, her hesitation fell away. She began to play. “Pathétique.” The second movement of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata Number 8 in C minor, opus 13. “Adagio cantabile.”

The sound filled the empty hall and rushed back upon her like a revelation. Such purity, such sweetness of tone. Each hammer striking its string like a chiming bell, filling the darkness with beauty.

Tears fell from her eyes. Never, never had she played like this. Never had she had such an instrument nor such an acoustically divine space. Never had she felt such freedom to play as she longed to, without a nervous body getting in the way. No paralyzing fear from an audience—yet now, she saw, what a crime it was that no one else could be there to hear this music.

I sat beside her as Monsieur Guillaume. He wasn’t actually dead, but Hazel understood.

“Have I died, monsieur?”

She looked up, still playing, and saw, high in the balconies, right where she and James once sat, a small clump of people. Her parents. Colette, Aubrey. Tante Solange. Georgia Fake and Olivia Jenkins. Father Knightsbridge. Ellen Francis. Reverend and Mrs. Puxley. Maggie.

James.

They were far beyond reach, yet she could see them as clearly as though they were close.

Beside them were other people. Slowly spreading rows upon rows, filling the balcony. People she had yet to meet. People who would have come into her life and graced it, filled it, but now they would not. A young woman with dark curls. A sandy-haired boy.

“Please,” she asked me. “Might I go back for a little while longer?”

She waited for my answer while her fingers still played.

I am not unmoved by music. We need not all be you, Apollo, to appreciate it.

Nor am I unmoved by love, no matter how many loves I’ve been forced to cut short.

Hazel persisted. “Can’t you send me back?”

“It’s been known to happen,” I told her. “Though nothing would ever be quite the same.”

“Please,” she begged. “When you call me the second time, I’ll come willingly.”

I rose from the bench and retreated into the shadows. Much as it grieves me, I do understand that my company isn’t always welcome. Hazel continued to play, and I was glad to see it. Music was the best thing for her then. Nothing could do more to resign her to this painful transition.

Someone else appeared at my side.

“Why, Aphrodite,” I said, if you recall, Goddess. “To what do I owe the rare honor of your visit?”

You bowed. “If it pleases you, my lord,” you said. “If I have ever pleased you, I beg you to give Hazel back to me. Let her go.”

“Lovely Goddess,” I told you, “these are the fortunes of war. If every loved soul were snatched from death simply because she’d be mourned and missed, the universe would fold in upon itself.”

“Hazel’s not done,” Aphrodite insisted. “She has so much more to give and to do.”

“I can say the same for each one of war’s millions of fallen dead,” I said.

Aphrodite, you turned to me then, and fell upon your knees. “Please, give me Hazel,” you begged. “Hers is a love I’d only barely begun. James needs her. Her parents need her. Colette needs her. Please, Lord Hades, God of the Underworld, Ruler of All.”

I believe, if memory serves me rightly, I needed a handkerchief.

“She’s badly injured,” I told you.

“Not where it matters most,” you countered.

“The Fates will shriek in protest,” I warned. “They will dog her steps.”

“I’ll watch over her, my lord,” you said, Goddess. “I will shield her as much as I can.”

Though the mortals have long portrayed me thus, and I forgive them for it, mine is not a heart of stone.

I took your hand and raised you to your feet. “Passion, Love, and Beauty,” I told you, Aphrodite. “You know she can no longer have them all.”





APHRODITE


     Lazybones—August 20, 1918





TUBES OF RED blood dangled from jars mounted to a metal frame and ran, Hazel realized, into a needle injected into her arm. It burned where it stuck there, wedged into her flesh like an insult.

She didn’t know it, but she was in a field hospital.

Her body ached. Her abdomen—even breathing was agony. Things inside her that she couldn’t name cried out in protest. She turned her head from side to side in order to see. That slight movement sent ripples of pain up and down her body.

She tried to sit up, and fell back into her pillow with a gasp.

Colette was at her side in an instant. “Good morning!”

Hazel looked about. “Is it really morning?”

Colette kissed Hazel’s cheek. “Non, ma chère. It isn’t. But you’ve had a long night’s sleep.” She pulled up a stool and sat close by. “Does it hurt terribly?”