Lovely War(68)

But James hadn’t slept in a proper bed in months, and Hazel had spent most of the prior night sitting up on a train. So it wasn’t many moments after each found their way between lavender-scented sheets before they succumbed to a sleep that was deep and nearly dreamless, save for one lovely image that filled the hours between “good night” and seeing each other again.





HADES


     Midnight Train—February 13, 1918





AUBREY EDWARDS’S MOTHER always said nothing could keep that boy down for long. He was buoyant, like his music. He was flexible, like his piano-playing hands. Whatever pushed him under, he popped to the surface like a rubber ball.

She worried about damage that would push him back down. That it would come was certain; Aubrey was a confident young black man growing up in a segregated America.

Not that New York wasn’t better than Mississippi. Lord, yes. In New York, you had a chance. You got jobs with better pay. Not great, but better. You could vote. You could get a government job. You might even get a fair trial, or at any rate, a real trial in a courtroom with a judge who’d listen. You could usually buy groceries where whites bought theirs. You didn’t have to call whites sir and ma’am and pretend to like it when they groped you or kicked you or spat at you in the street.

But make no mistake: Theaters were segregated. Public pools were segregated. Restaurants, clubs. Schools, neighborhoods, churches. The military. The police force. There was prejudice, there was discrimination, there was hateful language, there was brutality.

There was, at least, in New York, the possibility of building a life for oneself in Harlem or Brooklyn. There was schooling to be had. Art, poetry, and music. Thriving entrepreneurs and entertainers, newspapers. There was energy. There was Jim Europe and his band. And in spite of everything, there was hope and faith that in God’s own time, justice would prevail, and a better day would come.

Even so, there was no way to steer her Aubrey toward adulthood without his outrageous confidence being battered and scarred by hostility. She only prayed they’d be the kinds of scars he could survive. The kind where getting up and walking away was at least possible.

If she could see her boy now, leaning against the window of a midnight train, watching dark France roll by in the light of a waxing crescent moon—if she could know how muffled and silent was his soul, cycling between memories of Joey alive and Joey dead, her heart would break. If she knew what violence he’d witnessed firsthand, she’d be shattered. If she knew that Aubrey’d been the intended target of that violence, she would fall to her knees, thanking God he was spared. And lie awake nights, trembling with fear for the next time, when he might not be.





APHRODITE


     Valentine’s Day—February 14, 1918





THEY WERE UP before you were, Apollo, when morning was only a murmur along the cobblestone streets of the city. Neither wanted to lose another moment to sleep.

Tante Solange’s guest bedroom had its own salle de bains, so James bathed, a luxury he no longer took for granted. He shaved and dressed in record time and ventured out into the flat. Hazel surprised him in the kitchen.

“Good morning,” she told him.

He took his time returning the wish. Who knew “good mornings” were so heavenly?

They heard the sound of stirring coming from the direction of their hostess’s bedroom and were both seized with the desire to be alone. They found their coats and scarves, and James grabbed his pack, leaving a pile of francs on the little stand beside his bed.

They crept down the stairs and out into the streets to an awakening city. A brisk walk back to Gare du Nord warmed their bodies but dampened their spirits. They would have to come back before this day was done. For now, they checked James’s bag at the claim counter and scanned the schedules. The last northbound train left at midnight. James purchased a ticket. Only one day, and one day wasn’t anything like enough, but they’d squeeze as much into it as they could.

They found a patisserie and ate a breakfast of decadent pastries, each as elegant as it was delicious. Did you know food is infinitely more scrumptious when you’re in love? And Paris is a good place to be hungry. Even with wartime rationing, there was cream and butter to be had if you could pay a premium for it, and for this one day together, James and Hazel could afford it.

They wandered around the streets of the city, admiring the sights, the showy buildings, the carvings, the stylish curves and contours of the Capital of the World.

They passed by a women’s boutique where a pink spring coat, displayed in the front window, caught Hazel’s eye. She didn’t say a word about it, but James noticed, took her by the hand, and led her into the shop. Before she could even protest, James and a very knowing shop woman had gotten Hazel out of her gray coat and into a perfectly fitting pink one. James slipped the woman the money while Hazel studied the coat in the mirror.

What was three months’ worth of army pay for, if not for moments like this?

“You look like a tulip,” James told her.

“I feel like one,” she said. “You shouldn’t have.” Her smile clearly said otherwise.

They came upon a photographer’s studio where the gentleman was about his business early, preparing for a Valentine’s Day wedding, and had him take their portrait together, and mail prints to the addresses provided. Feeling quite hilarious, they posed beside a plaster model of a statue of my precious Cupid.