Lovely War(107)

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.