Lovely War(35)

Hazel folded her arms. “Oh, very funny.”

“There’s no piano in the Negro Y hut at Lusitania,” he said. “There was, but it’s busted.”

He began to play the melody line to Hazel’s romantic Beethoven sonata, tentatively, experimentally. “That’s right?”

She nodded. “You’ve got a good ear.”

“That’s not all I’ve got that’s good.”

He picked up the tempo, adding bouncing chord chops with his left and high octave frills with his right between the melody notes. Partway through, he added a driving bass line wherever the left-hand accompaniment found a pause.

Hazel watched in wonder. “Did you just do that, just now?”

His eyebrows rose. “You saw me, didn’t you?”

She shook her head. “I mean, have you done that before? With Beethoven’s ‘Pathétique’?”

He made a wry face. “Not if that’s French for ‘pathetic.’”

She laughed. “Not ‘pathetic.’ Wistful. Sad. Like missing the one you love.”

“All righty, then,” he said. “No, I’ve never played Mr. Beethoven’s ‘pathetic’ before. I’ve gone ahead and fixed up his mistakes.”

Hazel’s jaw dropped. “His what?”

“Who wants a sad song? Who’s got time for that? That’s pathetic, if you ask me.”

Hazel sat beside him and watched his hands closely. Seeing he had an appreciative audience, Aubrey let loose, owning the keyboard. Even Hazel, a pianist herself, couldn’t comprehend the loose agility and lightning speed of his hands.

“You’re not Aubrey Edwards,” she declared. “You’re Scott Joplin. The King of American Ragtime!”

“Hunh.” He snorted. “Don’t kid yourself. I’m Aubrey Edwards. Scott Joplin wishes he were me. Or he would. But he’s dead. So he’s probably wishing hard that he could be me. Or just about anybody, come to think of it.”

“You must be his reincarnation, then,” said Hazel. “Show me how you did that.”

“Nothing to it,” he said. “You play your tune, find its key, fill in the chord progressions, and the rest is applesauce.” Aubrey’s fingers roved across the keyboard. “If I’m Joplin’s reincarnation,” he went on, “I’d have had to grow up quick. He died last spring.” He shrugged. “My mama always said I was a big baby, though. So maybe.”

Hazel laughed. “You’re quite a character, Mr. Edwards.”

“Please,” he said, “if we’re going to be friends, I insist you call me ‘Your Majesty.’”

Hazel hooted with laughter.

“You said I was the King of Ragtime.” He waggled his eyebrows at her. “Actually, I’m the Emperor of Jazz.”

“You’re its jester,” Hazel said. “I’ve never met anyone like you before, Your Majesty.”

He switched tunes, playing something she didn’t recognize.

“Like that?” he asked her. She nodded. “That’s ‘The Memphis Blues.’”

“Something you wrote?” she asked.

He laughed. “I wish. Gentleman by the name of Mr. W. C. Handy. Also from Harlem.”

“Harlem?”

“The part of Upper Manhattan where I live. Where a lot of black folks live.”

She watched in fascination as he played. The fluidity of his style puzzled her. He looped through phrases and refrains. It was as if he understood how the music was built, and could build it again, re-creating it differently if he wished. Not playing it, but playing with it.

“When you say, Miss Windicott—”

“Hazel, please.”

“Her Ladyship, Hazel de la Windicott.” He glanced sideways at her. “When you say you’ve never met anyone like me before, do you mean that you’ve never met a black fella?”

Hazel leaned on the piano and looked at him earnestly.

“Oh, no,” she said. “I only meant that I’d never met anyone with your humor. And confidence.” She pursed her lips in anxious thought. “I’m certain that’s all I meant. Wasn’t it?”

He watched her for many seconds with the music marching on uninterrupted.

“I can’t know the answer to that,” he said. “Have you ever met a black fella before?”

“Well, of course I have,” she said. “London has people from all over the world. The Caribbean, and Somalia, and Nigeria, Gold Coast, South Africa, Kenya, and oh, lots of other places in Africa.”

“Places Great Britain has colonies?”

She nodded. “And where I live, in East London, there are loads of black dockworkers.”

“Know any of them well?”

“No,” she admitted. “Though I don’t know any white dockworkers either.”

He gave her a quizzical look. “Live in an ivory tower?”

She felt she deserved it. “If I did,” she said, “I came here to climb down out of it.”

Aubrey switched to another tune. Familiar, but with a dark thread woven through it.

Hazel recognized it. “That’s the wake-up call,” she said. “What’s it called? ‘Reveille.’”