He laughed. “That may be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
“Nicer than ‘I love you’?” she said, taking his arm in hers and squeezing against him.
He looked down at her with surprise. “You’ve never said ‘I love you,’” he said. “Not to me.”
“I just did.”
“Very obliquely.”
“Then I will say it directly,” she said looking up at him with tears in her eyes. “I love you.
She cupped his face between her hands and barely touched his lips with hers. They brushed their lips together, their tongues flirting with each other, as the chauffeur drove them away to a park he had selected near the Seine on the edge of the Bois de Boulogne, where the track was located.
They spread a blanket and he wound up the Victrola and put on “Any Old Time” by Lady Day and she leaned back and sang along softly.
“I learned that song listening to Billie Holiday on the radio,” she said. “Have you ever seen her?”
“Once. A friend of mine, John Hammond, insisted I go up to Monroe’s, that’s a Harlem nightclub, to hear this new singer who turned out to be Lady Day. She was—I don’t know how to describe her—heartbreaking and heavenly at the same time. I remember we stayed there until dawn. She could smile and tear your heart out. You’ve got the same quality, Jen.”
He sat up suddenly. “Jesus, what’s the matter with me!” he said. “John Hammond is a good friend of mine.”
“Who is John Hammond?”
“He’s a top producer for Columbia Records, one of the biggest. He’s put some of the jazz greats on the map. Listen, I’m sure he would flip out if he heard you sing. We’ll call him from the hotel tonight. You can audition for him over the phone.”
“You are crazy . .
“Crazy serious. I promise you, one song and he’ll offer you a contract.”
“No, no. I couldn’t. . - not over the phone. Long-distance like that.”
“Jenny, stranger things have happened. America’s a funny place.”
“Do you miss it?” she asked.
“I don’t know, I guess I do,” he said. “ I think maybe I’ll have to go home for a while. I’ve been gone a very long time.” Then a moment later: “You’ll love New York.”
She sat up suddenly. “What?”
“I said you’ll love New York. We’ll go there on our honeymoon.”
“Honeymoon?”
“Marry me, Jen. I adore you. I will devote my life to making you safe and happy.”
She seemed troubled and did not respond immediately. “I want to marry you, Kee. And I thank you for asking me. I don’t know...”
“Jenny, in one night you’ll hear every great jazz artist alive. We’ll do the Apollo and the 1-larlem Opera House, the Savoy, Cotton Club
“I don’t think I’m ready to give up on Germany.”
Keegan barely missed a beat. “Okay, we’ll stay over here. You’ll be my wife, that makes you an American citizen. They can’t touch you.”
“Oh Kee, for such a worldly man you are so naive. Don’t you see, they can and will do anything they want to. Would you give up your citizenship and become a German? Stay here not knowing whether you can ever go home? Would you do that, Francis?”
He didn’t answer.
“The difference between us is that you know you can go home anytime you want to. If I went to America I could never come back. Kee, my father fought for this country just as you fought for yours. He died in 1916 fighting for the Kaiser. I cannot walk away from Germany thinking I did nothing to try to make it better. Did you give up on America because things went badly? Did you do that? Is that why you live in Germany now?”
“No,” Keegan answered. “That’s not why I
“Tell me, I want to know all about you,” she said softly. “Maybe it will help me.”
For all his adult life, Keegan had prided himself on never looking back. The past was the past, too late to change, so forget it. But in the last few months he had been forced into introspection, by Vanessa, by Vierhaus and now by Jenny. It all seemed far too complex to explain and even Keegan did not fully understand why he had left America to become a nomad in Europe. He had never discussed his past with anyone before, not even Bert. He didn’t answer her immediately and when he finally started talking it came out like a flood is he tried to put it all in context. His mind drifted back to the terrible summer of 1932, to Washington, and a night that had changed his life forever.
“I was in Washington,” he began. “I don’t even remember why. A hot summer night. I ran into n acquaintance of mine named Brattle from Boston and he invited me to dinner on his yacht. It was moored in the Potomac River, at the edge of the city.”
The night began with shock, shock at the sight of Bonus City, which they passed on the way to the dock. For
