Authors: Esi Edugyan
Paul run a finger along his thin moustache, watching me. ‘I bet Sid here could discuss a few things with her.’
‘In what language?’ Hiero smiled slyly.
‘In the language of
love
.’
‘You both asses. Both of you.’ I cleared my throat, stepped down from the stage. ‘Miss Brown?’ I said. ‘Sid Griffiths. This is Paul Butterstein. And—’
‘Hieronymus Falk,’ she said. ‘Yes, I know.’ She was staring at the kid with this wolfish look. Her eyes was amazing – a weird pale green, translucent almost.
‘She likes
you
, buck,’ said Paul, smiling at the kid.
Hiero dropped his gaze.
She give Ernst a quick glance. ‘Where are the others? The Hot-Time Swingers had six, didn’t it? This isn’t all of you?’
I sort of flushed, hearing that. Like we was the
stuff
.
‘Where’re Chip and Fritz?’ said Ernst.
Paul shrugged. ‘Fritz said he had a meeting. Chip, hell. He’s probably sleeping it off somewhere. What’s she want, Ernst? Who is she?’
‘They said they’d meet us later,’ said the kid, his voice shaking a little. ‘At the baths.’
‘First, sit,’ said Ernst. And then in English, ‘Please sit, sit.’ He pulled out a chair, and the jane sat at one of the blue-clothed tables under the stage. ‘What can we offer you? I’m afraid all we have is the czech.’
She glanced across at Paul, who was rummaging at the bar. ‘The czech?’
Paul was already returning with a cloudy bottle gripped in one fist, five shot glasses pinched in the fingers of his other hand. He held the czech up to the light, shook it. Then he poured out a finger for each of us, set our thimbles down with a soft click. He poured one for her, too.
She held the liquid up to the dim light, her brow wrinkling. ‘You’re kidding. You drink this stuff?’
Ernst smiled. ‘Chip sometimes inhales it. But generally, yes.’
I smiled, took a sour swipe of it. Felt like gasoline scraping out my throat.
The kid turned his thimble in his long fingers.
‘It ain’t really Czechoslovakian,’ I said, coughing. ‘We used to call it the
Cheque
. Like, you drink it up now, you pay for it later.’
‘When the cheque comes, you pay,’ Ernst smiled. He put his shot back with a elegant shiver. ‘Go on.’ He gestured at her thimble.
‘Hieronymus hasn’t touched his,’ she said suspiciously.
‘She says you drink like a girl,’ I said.
The kid ain’t reacted, just looked at her.
‘Go on,’ Ernst said again.
She lifted her thimble, give a sly little nod at the kid, punched it back.
We all watched her face.
She opened her eyes. ‘Jesus,’ she croaked. Her lips twist up, and she give a soft little shudder. We all started laughing. ‘That’s even worse than it looks. No wonder Hitler’s so angry, if he’s drinking
this
.’
There was water coming from her eyes.
It
was
damn wretched, that czech. I bet it ain’t even legal in half the states back home. The kid, he start laughing that high, broken, hiccuping laugh of his. Then he give her a startled look from under his hat brim.
But that jane just leaned forward, the low lights catching the ghostly rye of her skin, and all at once I seen it clearly. This girl was high yella, like me. A
Mischling
, a half-blood. She got the kind of mixed-race face only a keen eye can see.
‘Boys,’ she said, crossing one long leg over the other. I watched that blue hemline inch up, felt myself flush. ‘Boys, I’d like to invite you to Paris. To cut a record. We’re looking for exactly what you’ve got.’
Ernst said in German, ‘She wants us to go to Paris. To cut the wax.’
‘Paris,’ Paul repeated, frowning.
I was still staring at her slash of pale thigh when, glancing at her face, I seen she was watching me. I blushed. ‘You in the
business
?’ I said. But it come out sounding sort of lewd.
There was a flash of impatience in her eyes. ‘I’m Delilah
Brown
.’
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Of course.’
‘The
singer
,’ she said after a moment. ‘
Black-eyed Blues? Dark Train Song?
’
I was nodding hard. ‘Sure. Of course. Delilah
Brown
.’
But I glanced over at Ernst, like to see if she was joking. Ain’t no singer I ever heard of.
‘She represents Louis Armstrong,’ said Ernst.
Hell. Now
that
we understood. Our whole table fell silent.
‘What she want?’ the kid said at last. His voice was real soft. ‘She a agent?’
‘You his agent?’ I said to her.
‘No.’
Paul brushed a golden lock back from his forehead, fixed his clear blue eyes on Ernst. ‘What are we talking about? She means Armstrong the horn-blower? For real?’
I shook my head. ‘No. She mean Armstrong the
court jester
.’
‘That was Archy Armstrong,’ Ernst said distractedly. ‘And yes. It seems she’s for real.’
I looked at him. ‘There a jester named Armstrong? Really?’
He nodded. ‘King James the First.’
‘Hell.’
That jane just watched us, not understanding a word. I guess she must have thought we was discussing her proposal, by the severe set of her jaw. ‘Well? What is it?’
At last Ernst give her a long, slow look. ‘You’re asking us to leave our lives, Miss Brown. It’s a difficult choice. If we go to Paris, we won’t be coming back.’
Her face tightened. ‘With all due respect, Mr von Haselberg. If you don’t go now, you won’t have lives to leave. You’re drowning here, we both can see it.’ She give a faint smile, like to soften her words.
Ernst brushed a fleck from his trousers. ‘We’re surviving.’
‘But not
living
. You know the difference. You don’t need to decide now, of course. But I’m offering you a chance to
live
again, to play your music. To walk the streets of a city not afraid of being arrested. Or worse, for god’s sake. Berlin is like a locked room to you boys. I’m offering you a way
out
.’
I barely caught all that. I was still looking at her thigh.
Jazz. Here in Germany it become something worse than a virus. We was all of us damn fleas, us Negroes and Jews and low-life hoodlums, set on playing that vulgar racket, seducing sweet blond kids into corruption and sex. It wasn’t a music, it wasn’t a fad. It was a plague sent out by the dread black hordes, engineered by the Jews. Us Negroes, see, we was only half to blame – we just can’t help it. Savages just got a natural feel for filthy rhythms, no self-control to speak of. But the Jews, brother, now
they
cooked up this jungle music on
purpose
. All part of their master plan to weaken Aryan youth, corrupt its janes, dilute its bloodlines.
We lived with that for ten damn years. Through the establishment of old Joe Goebbel’s
Reichsmusikkamer
, his insistence that all musicians ‘register’. Through that ugly Düsseldorf exhibit last spring. Hell, let me help you picture it. Take ‘37’s Degenerate Art soirée in Munich, replace the paintings with posters of jungle minstrels squawking on their saxes, and flood the rooms with beautiful music, and you got the idea. We was officially degenerate.
And like a shadow running beneath all that, there was gates scrubbing cobblestones with rags, gates getting truncheoned just for sitting in a damn café, gates reduced to eating from backstreet garbage bins. And the poor damn Jews, clubbed to a pulp in the streets, their shopfronts smashed up, their axes ripped from their hands. Hell. When that old ivory-tickler Volker Schramm denounced his manager Martin Miller as a false Aryan, we known Berlin wasn’t Berlin no more. It been a damn savage decade.
So, Paris sounded pretty tempting.
Problem was the papers. Wasn’t no way folks like us was getting the right papers to go to Paris. It ain’t been possible for years now.
Don’t get me wrong – I loved Berlin. I ain’t saying otherwise. And for awhile the Housepainter didn’t even seem as bad as old Jim Crow. Least here in Europe a jack felt a little loved for his art – even if it was a secret love, a quick grope in the shadows when no one was looking. I ain’t took it personal. Truth was, I didn’t look all that black, and to those who suspected the truth, well, congratulations. Pour youself a drink.
Cause blacks just wasn’t no kind of priority back in those years. I guess there just wasn’t enough of us.
The Jewish baths was half-falling down, half-broken, most of the pools already closed to the public. But it was the only baths some of us still legally allowed to use, and sometimes a jack just ache for the fragrance of boiled stones, for the hot and freezing waters. The clear green pools sunken like craters in the earth. We’d just put our heads back and glide, naked as the day we was born.
Chip and Fritz was waiting for us in the changing room. Chip had his shoes off, stood wriggling his damn toes on the stone floor.
‘You ain’t gone in yet?’ I called. ‘We reckoned we smelled you from the street.’
‘You smellin Fritz, maybe,’ said Chip. He lift up his chin, waft the air from under it. ‘Unless you smellin Dr McMorran’s Special No. 9.’
Paul sniffed the air. ‘What is that? A cough syrup?’
‘It medicine alright,’ I said. ‘For head cases.’
‘It’s the scent drive the ladies
wild
,’ said Chip.
‘It the scent drive the ladies out the
room
,’ I whispered to the kid.
Hiero grinned, thrilled to be in on the teasing.
Big Fritz sat slumped on the hard wooden bench, huge, flushed and tired-looking. He was a massive Bavarian, with thick fingers, straw-like hair, and a strong, hawkish nose. He was broad as a damn trolley to boot. He lumbered upright, breathing heavily in that hot change room.
‘You alright, Fritz?’ said Ernst, coming over. He set his hat down gentle on the bench, begun untying his laces.
Fritz waved one hairy hand. ‘I’m fine. Just worn out.’ His low voice boomed throughout the room – you almost felt the rafters shuddering. He blinked his slow lids, the sweat shining on his hairline.
‘Old Fritz ain’t built for the heat,’ said Chip, smiling.
‘Not like you jungle monkeys,’ said Fritz.
Hiero give him a uneasy look.
I grimaced, even though I known he only joking. It was just his way. Fritz was rough at times, sure, but he ain’t meant nothing by it.
Chip asked Paul bout his two janes. Paul been running with two ladies for a month now, sometimes slipping away from one to be with the other in the same damn
night
. One evening, he was even on a date with both of them in the same
restaurant
. And neither found it out. Chip said it was his piano hands – one ain’t never doing the same thing as the other. Hell. I thought Paul got to be near exhaustion. Chip thought he was a beautiful son of a bitch. The kid, well, I think he was just a little frightened by it all.
‘You’re going to have to choose sooner or later,’ said Ernst. ‘If only to keep yourself from collapsing.’
‘Chip doesn’t think so,’ Paul smiled. ‘He thinks I should introduce Marta and Inge to each other. See what comes of it.’
I laughed. ‘Marta’s a tasty little dish alright. But you be a damn fool you risk losin Inge. Girl got a chassis like, well, hell.’ I held out my arms like to measure a iron boiler. ‘Brother, you got to pull back you own eyelids just to get it all in
view
.’
‘I still ain’t clear on why you got to
choose
, buck,’ Chip said.
Fritz chuckled, his enormous red cheeks juddering away. But it seem to me his eyes looked small, hard.
‘What you think, kid?’ said Chip. ‘Inge?’
Hiero shrugged shyly.
‘Speak up, brother.’
‘Marta,’ the kid said, reluctant. Then he blushed. ‘Or Inge. Aw, they both nice.’
Chip peeled off his trousers. He stood with one foot propped on the bench, his hairy bits swaying like a bell. ‘Marta!’ he laughed. ‘Hell, brother, there ain’t nothin on the front, and too much in the back.’
‘She got a nice smile,’ said the kid, trying not to look Chip’s way.
‘Old Inge, though.’ Chip grinned. ‘She get you hot behind the ears just by takin a breath. She make you
motor
smoke.’
‘You’re making
my
motor smoke, buck,’ Paul called across. ‘Put on a towel, or come on over here and give us a kiss.’
‘The towel, please,’ said Fritz.
Chip ignored them. ‘Nice smile won’t pick the locks, brother.’ He was leaning forward and I swear he
liked
his old calabash clapping there. ‘A nice smile won’t get you any nearer the treasure at all. Less it’s one hell of a smile. Like old Mona Lisa. Now there’s a attractive jane – she got
mystery
.’
Ernst hung his tie over the door of the locker. He turned, give old Chip a long appraising look. ‘Charles C. Jones,’ he said with a slow smile. He unfastened his cufflinks. ‘Every so often you say something absolutely astonishing.’
Chip chuckled. ‘Sure. Wouldn’t kick old Mona out of bed. She ain’t got no eyebrows – ain’t you curious where else the hair’s missin?’
Ernst blinked. ‘Every so often,’ he said, shaking his old head. ‘And then you just keep on talking.’
I twisted out my shirt without even bothering with the buttons, kicked free my damn drawers. I looked up to find Hiero staring at me.
‘You just ain’t my plate of steak, buck,’ I said. ‘Don’t you get no ideas now.’
Chip looked up, smiled. ‘Hell, Sid, you got to do more sport. I seen better legs on a Georgia chicken.’
I swiped at him with my towel. And then we was running through the long corridor where the older gents lounged on benches, wrapped in sheets like they ready for burial. Wet stones slapping under our feet. We run howling past two wrinkled old jacks leaning in robes over a chess set, the mulchy smell of their wet skin, their damp towels coming off them. And then we was out, running in the dimly lit caverns of the bathhouse, its cathedral ceilings vanishing overhead in shadows and steam. Huge and vaulted like a opera house, with its haunting acoustics, its crumbling arched galleries along the walls.