Authors: Esi Edugyan
Old Chip run straight for the far pool and leapt, smacking the water with his belly.
‘Hell, brother,’ I said, laughing. ‘You must have a stomach of stone.’
‘Man, that
hurt
,’ said Chip, grinning. He shot a long stream of water through his foreteeth.
I crouched down, slipped in. Our voices echoed back to us off the walls. Around us the steam rose in panes, distorting everything, making it shimmer. Felt like you was standing in a autumn field, trying to see through thick fog.
The others come out slow like, Ernst dropping his towel from his soft waist and wading in, gleaming pale and waxy. Paul, he stood like a crane on one leg before putting both feet down. Fritz’s enormous gut, already red from the heat, just grown pinker and pinker, and he heaved it in both his hands as he come down into the water, his cock like a red slug under it.
Ernst splashed across to the wall. ‘Where’s Hiero?’ He wiped the water from his face.
‘Aw, he just bein shy,’ I said.
‘He all anyone care bout?’ said Chip.
‘He’s probably going through Chip’s wallet for his middle name,’ called Paul through the steam.
‘I’ll give you a middle name,’ said Chip. ‘And by middle name I mean a kick in the teeth.’
Big Fritz coughed, his grunts rumbling off the walls.
And then the kid come in, clutching his towel against him. His skin look real dark against the white cloth, his skinny chest heaving a little with his breathing. Kid seemed nervous as hell, but wasn’t no reason for it. I felt bad, seeing him like that.
‘We just talkin bout you, kid,’ called Chip.
Hiero waded in, looking alarmed.
‘We was wonderin if you black
all
the way down.’
‘You need to learn which hole the shit’s
supposed
to come out of, Chip,’ Paul called across.
Hiero glanced over at Paul. All a sudden he laughed.
‘Aw, you think he funny?’ said Chip, smiling. He splashed on over to the kid, set both muscular arms over his narrow head, dunked the kid in a single violent thrashing of foam. Kid’s body look like windblown ashes under that water. ‘Keep on laughin, buck,’ Chip hollered. ‘You still laughin?’
‘Chip,’ I called. ‘Stop that.’
‘That’s enough,’ said Fritz. He reached across, and gripping Chip’s underarms, dragged him off the kid like he lifting nothing heavier than a sandwich. Chip squirmed against Fritz’s belly. ‘Leave him alone, now. You’re too rough with him.’
A rise of water surged back, and the kid shot up, coughing and spitting snot. He shook his head to clear the water. Smiling in a way supposed to be casual, he looked embarrassed, terrified and angry.
Chip was struggling in that massive grip, making a disgusted face. ‘Hell, I can feel how happy you is to see me,’ he hollered. ‘Get
off
, get
off
.’
‘You sure that what you want, buck?’ I laughed.
But Fritz let him go, and he splashed out of reach at once. ‘You be careful, brother,’ he called. ‘I like to slap you face, if I could just figure out which side of you to start climbing.’
Ernst stood abruptly at the edge of the pool, a great wave of water slapping his pale chest. His deep black hair was slicked back. ‘So let’s talk about it. Do we go or not?’
‘To Paris?’ Paul called out. ‘Of course we go. Why wouldn’t we?’
Chip and Fritz both glanced from Paul to Ernst and back to Paul.
‘Do you know what they’re talking about?’ said Fritz.
Chip shrugged.
‘We have an offer, gentlemen,’ said Ernst. ‘A lady came by today to ask if we’re interested in cutting a record with Louis Armstrong.’
Chip give a low whistle.
‘What did you tell her?’ said Fritz.
‘That we needed to discuss it. What else would I tell her?’
Chip grunted, splashed in the steam. ‘I can’t believe you even
askin
.’
‘Is that a no, Jones?’
‘It a
yes
,’ he said. ‘And I addin a
hell yes
on top of it. Paris? Armstrong?’
Big Fritz frowned. He loomed up out of the steam like a dark boulder. ‘How do we know this is real? Who is she? She could be anybody.’
I chuckled. ‘What you think, brother. You think Boots goin take the trouble to
trick
us into goin to Paris? You thinkin that more
likely
?’
Fritz ain’t said nothing, just shifted massively in the water.
‘She’s with Armstrong, Fritz,’ said Ernst. With his slicked hair lifting up, spiking in all that steam, he looked like a fiercer version of hisself. He stretched out his long blue arms along the wall, let his ghostly legs drift up, tilting his face back to stare at the ceiling. ‘I have no doubts that she is who she says she is. That’s not the question here.’
Fritz was still frowning. ‘She came down here to find
us
? She came to Berlin for
us
? With the Führer going on the way he is?’
‘You mean the Housepainter,’ I said.
Fritz give me a look.
‘She’s not here for us,’ said Ernst. ‘She’s down here to collect some money owing to Armstrong. We’re just the butter.’
‘I think you mean the cream,’ said Paul. He floated lazily over toward Fritz. ‘Listen, Fritz, Armstrong’s a fan. He’s got our records.’
‘Which records?’
‘Do it matter?’ I said.
‘We didn’t ask,’ said Paul. ‘She said Arthur Briggs caught some of our shows a few years ago. And Bechet told Louis how fine we sounded when we opened for him back at Vaterland.’
‘Bechet?’ Chip grimaced. ‘Hell. He still owe me fifty bucks.’
‘She sort of acts as Armstrong’s manager in Paris,’ said Ernst. ‘I don’t know. Sorts out his affairs, I guess.’
‘
Affairs
,’ whispered Chip.
Paul grinned, the tip of his tongue peeking between his teeth.
‘What are you, ten years old?’ Ernst frowned. ‘I guess Armstrong’s been following us for years. When he heard we were still here, and not playing live anymore, I guess he thought maybe there’d be some incentive for us to come on over.’
‘What Ernst ain’t tellin you,’ I said, ‘is what all she said bout the kid. Armstrong wants to play with the kid
especially
. Rumour is he the best damn horn blower this side the Atlantic. Some sayin he even better than Briggs. Henry Crowder said that. Crowder told Armstrong Hiero reminded him of King Oliver in his prime.’
I don’t know, I guess I reckoned we’d all start to joke about that. But ain’t nobody smile at all.
‘So do he even want us?’ said Chip. ‘Or it just the kid he want?’
‘She said he wanted to play with the Hot-Time Swingers,’ Hiero said nervously. ‘She said all of us.’
Fritz looked over at me.
I shrugged. ‘She
said
that, sure.’
‘She called us
iconoclasts
,’ said Paul.
‘And you ain’t slapped her?’ Chip smiled. ‘Usin language like that in front of the kid?’
‘What does it pay?’ said Fritz in his blunt way.
Ernst lift up his head. ‘What does it
pay
?’
‘Hell, brother, ain’t no way it goin pay less than what we makin now.’
‘Sid’s got a point,’ said Paul.
‘A little one, maybe,’ said Chip, splashing water my way. ‘At least, that what all the ladies say.’
‘Haw haw,’ I said.
We was silent then, all of us adrift in the warm blue light. The water sloshed against the stone walls, the soft murmur echoing high up in the ceiling.
There was a thin cough. Then the kid stood, water streaming off his bony chest. ‘I think we should go,’ he said softly. His upper lip was trembling.
‘We just got here,’ said Paul.
‘I think he means to Paris,’ said Ernst.
Hiero looked embarrassed, dipped back into the water.
‘You think we should go?’ said Chip. ‘You think we should go to Paris, get away from the Housepainter? You think Armstrong enough of a reason? You reckon walkin about the streets of you own damn city without bein afraid you goin get killed be worth it? You think so?’
Hiero looked direct at Chip. ‘Yes,’ he said simply.
‘Aw, kid.’ Chip laughed. ‘You priceless.
Course
it is.’
‘The problem,’ said Ernst, ‘is
how
, exactly.’
‘Slow down,’ said Fritz. He sounded almost angry. ‘I’m not convinced. I’m sorry gents.’ He waded over to the shallow end, sat on the low steps, the water spilling over the walls of his thighs as he leaned on his knees. The hairs on his chest was plastered in a thick gluey rug. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said again. ‘But I won’t jump just because she says it’s time to jump.’
‘It’s alright,’ said Ernst. ‘We’re only discussing here.’
‘It’s
Paris
, buck,’ said Chip. ‘Hell.’
‘Where would we stay?’ said Fritz. ‘How long would we go for?’
Ernst shook his head. ‘I don’t know. I don’t have all the answers. I don’t even know that we could go right away. We’d need visas.’
‘Give him a hour or so,’ said Chip. ‘Ernst always come up with something.’
‘Louis’ jane goin be here through the week,’ I said. ‘We ain’t got to decide nothin now.’
‘Good.’
Ernst cleared his throat. ‘Alright, then?’
‘Alright.’
But something in Fritz’s hesitation given us all pause, darkened the very waters we was floating in. Hell. We grown quiet then, and just splashed softly for a time. Finally Ernst cleared his throat, and with a old sadness in him, said, ‘Well, gents. I suppose I’ll be getting back to the Hound.’
‘Working late again? I can’t understand why you still write those articles, buck,’ said Paul. ‘No one gives a damn about jazz anymore.’
Ernst paused. ‘I do.’ He climbed gleaming white from that water like it done leeched all the blood from him.
We ain’t stayed long after that.
Outside, under the gas lamps, the square in front of the baths glowed like talcum. Folks strode dumb through the gloom. Back of my neck was still wet and I could feel the cool air across it. Chip give me a soft punch on the shoulder.
‘Let’s ankle, buck.’ He sounded gloomy.
I felt it too. I nodded.
The roads was dark. We kept our heads down, shoved our hands all up in our pockets, our hair damp in the night air. We walked slow, like we dreaded getting back. We could see Fritz, the kid and Paul some feet ahead in the darkness, and then they vanished in the shadows and we couldn’t see them no more.
I always adored Berlin at this hour – the stillness, the way the shadows crowded the shop windows. We passed a toy store with swastika balls in the window, a butcher’s with the iron gate dragged down. There was a thin silt on the air, a taste like dirt, and I snorted to get it out my nose. Then we heard the clatter of sharp voices, and down one hazy road we seen street crews at work in the dim light. Young urchins clutching steaming black pitchers, pouring tar between the uneven cobblestones. Vapour rising from the lines. Men in thick coveralls wiping the grime from their faces.
We slipped back into shadow, took another route.
I got to thinking how small we come to be these last months, me and Chip. Even two years ago, we like to holler through these damn streets like we on parade. Now we slunk in the shadows, squeamish of the light. I thought of the two of us listening to Armstong’s records back in Baltimore when we was kids. And I thought of my ma’s family back in Virginia, fair as Frenchmen and floating like ghosts through a white world. Afraid of being seen for what they truly was.
Then we heard it. A sort of high-pitched screech. It come gusting past us like a dark wind.
Chip gripped my sleeve. ‘That wasn’t Hiero?’
I listened for something more. Nothing.
‘Hell,’ Chip hissed.
And then we was both running.
We come round the corner breathing hard, and I stopped. Everything slowed right down. Under the faint lamps of our building, in the middle of that alley, three Boots got the kid by his hair, like they hauling a steer by the horns. Trying to drag him off his feet. But somehow the kid ain’t gone down, he just flung about like trash in the wind. A fourth bastard, tall and thick through the neck, was holding Paul by the throat. My stomach lurched, the sick inching up. Felt like a light was going out in me.
‘Chip,’ I hissed. ‘Holy hell.’
He already taken off his hat, was wriggling out of his jacket. He strode right on up to the nearest Boot, and leaning down low, kicked the bastard’s left knee in. There was a curious crunching sound, then a high ugly squeal. And then Chip start to kicking him in the throat where he lay writhing. A second Boot turned, swung back, cracked a bottle over Chip’s head. Old Jones gone down clutching his skull.
‘Goddamnit,’ I hissed.
‘Jewkikes!’ the Boot start hollering. ‘Jewfuckers! Nigger kikes!’
I waded on in. In a flash I seen the shadows under the far building stir, begin to heave, and it was like the whole damn doorway just shuddered on out: Big Fritz. He seized the Boot brawling with Paul by the back of the neck. Lifting him clean off his feet, he thrown him down on the cobblestones like a sack of meat. Started stomping him shitless.
I was punching that son of a bitch with the bottle hard in the teeth, his face twisting up. I kept trying to get hold of his collar but he kept slipping away from me, spitting blood, clawing at my damn cheeks, at my ears. ‘Where’s your racial pride,’ he screamed. His mouth was like a torn hole, filling with blood. ‘Niggerfucker! Niggerfucker niggerfucker niggerfucker!’
His eyes was jagged glass in the weak light.
I hit him again. And again. Then something struck me sharp in the ribs and I fell in a rush, trying to twist away from the damn boot heels I known was coming. I could hear the kid screaming, just screaming and screaming. No kicks come. I winced, glanced up. Big Fritz was standing over me, shuddering.
‘Fritz, you sweet son of a bitch,’ I shouted. ‘You fightin like a
bastard
.’
But when he turned his face I seen he was crying.
Footsteps echoed from far off in the dark alley. I stumbled up, groaning. I wasn’t thinking clear. Three more Boots was coming hard at us, all plain-dressed but for the damn jackboots under their long pants.