Lovely War(23)
I’d eat a picnic someplace wild and hot. The Congo, perhaps, or the Amazon rain forest. But perhaps that’s just a French December talking. If Congolese or Amazonian ants invaded the meal, they might eat the picnickers and not just the cold chicken.
My turn for questions: What’s your favorite book? Tell me about your friends, and your piano tutor. If you had a little cottage with a garden, what would you plant in it? And, if you were going to do something absolutely shocking and outrageous, what would it be?
Your letters bring more cheer than I can express. Don’t stop.
Yours,
James
* * *
December 23, 1917
Dear James,
Thank you for the photograph. My mother took quite a shine to it. Dad said, “Humph.”
Books: Evelina by Fanny Burney. North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bront?.
My dearest friends are Georgia Fake and Olivia Jenkins. I went to school with them both, and we’ve been chums since we were small. They live here in Poplar. Georgia is quite hilarious, tough as nails, and smart as anything. She’s volunteering at a soldiers’ hospital here in London, with plans to become a trained nurse. Olivia’s just the opposite. Soft and tenderhearted. It’s odd that Georgia is the nurse and not she, for Olivia is so thoughtful and kind. She’d bring such comfort to the ill. Georgia, on the other hand, can keep a level head while someone’s arm is being sawn off. Perhaps she’s learned to be tough after a lifetime of people ragging her about her name, Fake. Olivia’s already engaged to a lad at the Front. It’s hard to comprehend. It seems only a moment ago that we were wearing our first fancy dresses to school teas.
My piano tutor is tyrannical and marvelous. Monsieur Guillaume. He’s in his sixties. He’s been my tutor since I was eleven, once I outgrew my first instructor. I know he loves me, as the best teachers love their pupils, and I love him. It makes it all the harder to sense his disappointment in me. I can’t ever live up to his hopes. The war has been terrible for him. To see France teeter on the brink of losing to the Huns has torn him apart.
In my cottage garden I would plant daffodils. Tulips in every color, and heavenly narcissus. And, when spring is gone, geraniums for cheer, and irises and lupines to sway in the breeze. Oh, now you’ve got me picturing it so clearly, and how can I be content if I don’t get my cottage garden someday? Such a spot would cost a mint in London. Even in Poplar.
My most outrageous scheme? I’ve already put it into motion. Soon after you left, I submitted my application to be an entertainment secretary in a YMCA relief hut in France. I shall play piano night and day for homesick soldiers. My parents are fit to be tied. They begged me to request a London hut, but I am determined to go where the soldiers are in greater need of diversion to get their minds off the war. I dread performing, but I can’t possibly fear it as much as soldiers dread the battlefield. I might as well divert the woes of actual soldiers as the woes of church ladies. I’ll be there soon after the first of the year. My parents are certain this will derail my path to conservatory. But if Europe is about to fall to the Germans, does that matter?
I’m sure you’re itching to finish your training, but I’m so glad you’re away from the German guns. Be safe and stay warm. Write and tell me about your comrades. And whether or not you enjoy fishing. It will mean a lot to Dad if you do.
Have a very happy Christmas. It breaks my heart to think of you spending it at a cold army base. May it be a festive one anyhow.
Yours affectionately,
Hazel
ACT TWO
APOLLO
“I Want to Be Ready”—January 3, 1918
JANUARY 3, 1918, two A.M. Thirty degrees below zero.
Aubrey Edwards and some forty other soldiers from the 15th New York huddled for warmth in straw strewn about the floor of a cattle car. They’d boarded the train in Brest, on the coast of France, an hour after disembarking from the USS Pocahontas, and now rattled, chuh-chuh-chuh-chuh, through the starlit dark over snow-covered countryside.
Cold, weary, and famished, they thought they were heading to the Front, and might see German combat by morning. Combat might have been better than where they were bound.
Locomotive wheels sang along the frigid metal rails. The rhythm was steady and would’ve been soothing, if the air weren’t so bitter, bitter cold. No whistles sounded and no horns blew. Even trains kept secrets during a war.
Harlem and home were so far away. Would he ever see his parents again? Taste his mother’s chicken pie? Smell the sweet tobacco of his father’s pipe? He’d give a lot to hear Kate squawk about him playing piano when her sleepy old boyfriend, Lester, came calling.
His father came home early from the paint factory, the day the Pocahontas sailed for France, to meet Aubrey at the docks and tell his only son goodbye.
“You conduct yourself with dignity and pride, young man, you hear me?” he’d said. “Nobody can take that away from you.”
Was that really true? Aubrey remembered Spartanburg. Hadn’t those vicious shopkeepers and farmers worked like the devil to do exactly that?
“And stay alert,” his father continued. “Anything can happen in a war, but it’s less likely to happen to the man who keeps his eyes open.” He held out his arms wide and crushed Aubrey in a hug. “Whip those Germans and hurry back to us.” Aubrey could still feel his dad’s whiskers and smell the chemical-clean scent of paint in his father’s collar.