Lovely War(70)

“That sounds cold,” she said.

James made excellent use of his eyebrows. “I’ll keep you warm.”

Delighted though she was, Hazel thought she’d better steer the conversation elsewhere.

She made a proposal. “How about a tropical island?”

He grinned. “Even better.” The naughty boy! I knew what he was thinking.

“I suppose the chocolate would melt there,” she said.

“We’ll live on coconuts.”

She offered a hand to shake. “It’s settled, then.”

He took her hand and held it a moment, and they both realized, at the same time, what they’d actually promised. What offering a hand meant.

She tapped her cheekbone with a finger. “You know,” she said, “we might run out of things to talk about. With just us two.”

He suppressed a grin. “We’ll talk to the children on the island.”

“Oh?” Hazel was intrigued. “What children?”

He shrugged as if the answer should be obvious. “The children who live there.”

She pursed her lips. “We’re going to an island full of children?”

“Not at first,” he explained. “It’ll get that way eventually.”

Hazel suddenly felt a great need to hide behind a sip from her water glass.

James kissed the back of Hazel’s hand.

Her shining eyes met his.

With impeccable timing, the server brought the soup course.





APHRODITE


     Letting Go—February 14, 1918





“I CAN’T LET you go,” Hazel told James as they departed the restaurant at about nine thirty.

“I’m not really leaving,” he said. “I’m just going away for a little while.”

Hazel studied signs. “This is the wrong way. This leads toward Colette’s aunt’s place.”

“That’s where I’m taking you.”

She stopped in her tracks. “I want to come with you to the train station,” she protested.

“And walk home alone at midnight, through the streets of Paris?”

“I can take care of myself,” Hazel said.

The concern in his brown eyes made her melt. “I know you can,” he said. “But it’s a long way. I couldn’t bear the thought of anything happening to you.”

Says the boy heading back to the trenches. “All right.”

Their steps led them past a door from which music spilled. “What do you say, Miss Windicott?” he asked. “Valentine’s Day isn’t quite over yet. Go dancing with me?”

She smiled. “I’ll probably trip and fall.”

“I won’t let you.”

I did all I could to make that hour last. Almost, James could imagine that he was back in that parish hall, at the benefit dance, dancing with Hazel for the first time. Perhaps he’d never gone to war. Perhaps that was all a strange reverie; perhaps they were dancing in Poplar still.

“What if you hadn’t agreed to dance with me, back at that church dance?”

Perish the thought! “What if Mabel Kibbey hadn’t made me do it?”

James chuckled. “Is that her name? I’ll have to thank her.”

The music wound on.

“You will write to me often, won’t you?” she asked.

Nobody was watching, so he answered her with a kiss. “Every day, if you like.”

“I do like.”

“Me too.”



* * *





I did all I could, but the moment came all the same. They had to leave the dance hall. Slow steps still led to Tante Solange’s door. The last moments they dared to stall were used up. Their lips were sore and their eyes stung. Hazel meant to be cheerful, but she couldn’t.

“Be careful,” she said, over and over again. “Be safe.”

“And you,” he said. “Be healthy. Be safe.”

It’s not what’s said at times like these. We don’t give prizes for rhetoric to the best goodbye. To thank each other for a wonderful time; to separate with a smile, or tears; to part with a final kiss or a final word—no one knows what to do. Even I look away and give couples their privacy.

When I look back, I see a girl on a doorstep, watching a uniformed soldier’s back as he hurries away, lest he give in to the unendurable temptation to turn around. I see a friend on the stairs, waiting to catch a brokenhearted girl in her arms after the girl has waited outside, long past reason, in the slim chance that he might.





Three Trains Again—February 15, 1918





HADES


A TRAIN DISGORGED Aubrey Edwards and the rest of the 15th New York National Guard’s band, the K Company Quartet, and a small troupe of dancing infantrymen at Aix-les-Bains.

It was the oddest place: a sumptuous, luxurious resort town nestled in the French Alps, with a crystal-blue lake and stunning mountain peaks, a glittering casino, an opulent theater, premium hotels and restaurants. All but empty. A desolate ghost town.

An army staff sergeant met them at the station and led them to the one hotel that could plausibly be called the lower-rent option for Aix-les-Bains. Even so, they were nice rooms and the general mood among the band was upbeat.