Authors: Esi Edugyan
‘Put that old cracked plaster in its place,’ I said.
But Chip, he fallen back and was snoring along already.
‘Go on into Lilah’s room and wake her,’ I said to Hiero.
Hiero’s thin, leonine face stared me down from the doorway. ‘What kind of life you livin you can’t even go into the street for a cup of milk, you got to have a nanny?’ He stood under the hat rack, leaning like a brisk wind done come up. ‘Hell, Sid, just what you expect Lilah to do, you get in real trouble? She got a special lipstick I don’t know bout, it shoot bullets?’
‘You bein a damn fool, buck.’ Pausing, I glanced away. ‘You know you don’t got any damn papers. What you goin do you get stopped?’
He shrugged. ‘I just goin down the Bug’s. It ain’t far.’ He yanked open the door and slid out onto the landing, swaying in the half-dark.
Staring into the shadows there, I felt sort of uneasy. Don’t know why. Well. The Bug was our name for the tobacconist a few blocks away. It
wasn’t
far.
‘Alright, alright,’ I muttered. ‘Hold up, I’m comin.’
He slapped one slender hand on the doorknob like it alone would hold him up. I thought,
This kid goin be the death of you, Sid
.
The kid grimaced. ‘You waitin for a mailed invitation? Let’s ankle.’
I stumbled up, fumbling for my other shoe.
‘There won’t be no trouble anyhow,’ he added. ‘It be fine. Ain’t no one go down the Bug’s at this hour.’
‘He so sure,’ I said. ‘Listen to how sure he is.’
Hiero smiled. ‘Aw, I’m livin a charmed life, Sid. You just stick close.’
But by then we was slipping down those wide marble stairs in the dark and pushing out into the grey street. See, thing about the kid – he so majestically bony and so damn grave that with his look of a starving child, it felt well nigh impossible to deny him anything. Take Chip. Used to be the kid annoyed him something awful. Now he so protective of him he become like a second mother. So watching the kid slip into his raggedy old tramp’s hat and step out, I thought,
What I done got myself into
. I supposed to be the older responsible one. But here I was trotting after the kid like a little purse dog. Hell. Delilah was going to cut my head off.
We usually went all of nowhere in the daytime. Never without Delilah, never the same route twice, and not ever into Rue des Saussaies or Avenue Foch. But Hiero, he grown reckless as the occupation deepened. He was a
Mischling
, a half-breed, but so dark no soul ever like to guess his mama a white Rhinelander. Hell, his skin glistened like pure oil. But he German-born, sure. And if his face wasn’t of the Fatherland, just bout everything else bout him rooted him there right good. And add to this the fact that he didn’t have no identity papers right now – well, let’s just say wasn’t no cakewalk for him.
Me? I was American, and so light-skinned folks often took me for white. Son of two Baltimore quadroons, I come out straight-haired, green-eyed, a right little Spaniard. In Baltimore this given me a softer ride than some. I be lying if I said it ain’t back in Berlin, too. When we gone out together in that city, any Kraut approaching us always come straight to me. When Hiero’d cut in with his native German, well, the gent would damn near die of surprise. Most ain’t liked it, though. A savage talking like he civilized. You’d see that old glint in their eye, like a knife turning.
We fled to Paris to outrun all that. But we known Lilah’s gutted flat wouldn’t fend off the chaos forever. Ain’t no man can outrun his fate. Sometimes when I looked out through the curtains, staring onto the emptiness of Rue de Veron, I’d see our old Berlin, I’d see that night when all the glass on our street shattered. We’d been in Ernst’s flat on Fasanenstrasse, messing it up, and when we drifted over to the curtains it was like looking down on a carnival. Crowds in the firelight, broken bottles. We gone down after a minute, and it was like walking a gravel path, all them shards crunching at each step. The synagogue up the block was on fire. We watched firemen standing with their backs to the flames, spraying water on all the other buildings. To keep the fire from
spreading
, see.
I remember the crowd been real quiet. Firelight was shining on the wet streets, the hose water running into the drains. Here and there, I seen teeth glowing like opals on the black cobblestones.
Hiero and me threaded through Montmartre’s grey streets not talking. Once the home of jazz so fresh it wouldn’t take no for a answer, the clubs had all gone Boot now. Nearly overnight the cafés filled with well-fed broads in torn stockings crooning awful songs to Gestapo. We took the side roads to avoid these joints, noise bleeding from them even at this hour. The air was cool, and Hiero, he shove his hands up so deep in his pits it like he got wings. Dawn was breaking strangely, the sky leathery and brown. Everything stunk of mud. I trailed a few steps behind, checking my watch as we walked cause it seemed, I don’t know, slow.
‘Listen. This sound slow to you?’ I yanked the fob up and held the watch to the kid’s ear.
He just leaned back and looked at me like I was off my nut.
As we walked, tall apartments loomed dark on either side of the street. Shadows was long in the gutters. I was feeling more and more uneasy. ‘Nothin’s open this hour, man. What we doin, Hiero? What we doin?’
‘Bug’s open,’ said the kid. ‘Bug’s always open.’
I wasn’t listening. I stared all round me, wondering what we’d do if a Boot turned the corner. ‘Hey – remember that gorgeous jane in Club Noiseuse that night? That dame in a man’s suit?’
‘You bringin that leslie up again?’ Hiero was walking all brisk with them skinny legs of his. ‘You know, every time you drink the rot you go on bout that jack.’
‘She wasn’t no leslie, brother – she was a
woman
. Bona
fide
.’
‘You talkin bout the one in the green suit? Nearest the stage?’
‘She was a
Venus
, man, real prime rib.’
Hiero chortled. ‘I done told you already, that been a leslie, brother. A
man
. It was writ plain as day all over his hairy ass.’
‘I guess you’d know. You the man to see bout hairy asses.’
‘Keep confusin the two, Sid, and see what happens. You end up in bed with a Boot.’
We come round the corner, onto the wide square, when all a sudden my stomach lurched. I been expecting it – you need guts of iron to ride out what all we drunk last night. Iron guts I ain’t got, but don’t let that fool you bout other parts of my anatomy. My strength, I tell you, is of another stripe. I shuffled on over to a linden tree and leaned up under it, retching.
‘You get to know this here corner a bit better,’ said Hiero, smirking. ‘I be right back.’ He stumbled off the sidewalk, hopped the far curb to the Bug’s.
‘Don’t you be takin no fake change!’ I hollered after him. ‘With you eyesight, the Bug like to cheat you out of you own skin.’ A white sun, tender as early fruit, stirred in the windows of the dark buildings. But the air, it still felt stale, filled with a grime that burned hot in you nostrils. I stamped my feet, then doubled over again, heaving. The goddamn rot.
A real racket started up across the street. I looked up to see Hieronymus yanking on the Bug’s door like he meant to break in. Like he reckoned he got the power to pop every damn lock in this city. When it didn’t open, what do he do but press his fool face up to the glass like a child. Hell, though, he
was
a child. Stupid young for what all he could do on a horn. You heard a lifetime in one brutal note.
He run on back over to me. ‘Closed,’ he said, breathing hard. ‘You reckon all these stores be closed? What time is it?’
‘Half nine or so.’
‘Check you watch.’
‘Half nine.’
‘Don’t make no sense.’ Frowning, he looked all around. A white car passed through the shady street like a block of ice skimming a river, its pale driver turning to us as we turned to him. I shivered, feeling all a sudden very exposed. That gent looked dressed for a funeral, all that black and white plumage.
‘Hell, it’s Sunday, fool,’ I said, hitting Hiero’s arm. ‘Won’t nothin be open. You got to go to Café Coup you want milk.’ On Sundays, the streets belonged to the Boots.
Hiero gripped his gut, giving me a miserable look. ‘Aw, man, the Coup’s so
far
.’
‘You right,’ I said. ‘We got to go back.’
He got to moaning.
‘I ain’t goin listen to that,’ I said. ‘I mean it. Aw, where you goin now? Hiero?’
I got a hard knot in my gullet, watching the kid wander off. I just stood there in the road. Then I swore, and went after him.
‘You goin get us both pinched,’ I hissed at him when I caught up. I could feel my face flushing, my shoes slipping on the slick black cobblestones. ‘Kid?’
He shrugged. ‘Let’s just get to the Coup.’
‘Coup’s halfway to hell from here. You serious?’
He give me a sort sick grin, and all a sudden I got to thinking bout that disc I’d took and hid in my case. I was thinking of it feeling something real close to guilt. But it wasn’t guilt. I give him a quick look.
‘Tell me somethin,’ I said. ‘You serious bout quittin that record?’
He didn’t answer. But at least this time he look like he taking it in, his eyes dry and hard with thought, two black rocks.
Lucky for us, Café Coup de Foudre done just open. The kid slunk in gripping his gut like he bout to spew his fuel right there. Me, I paused on the threshold, looking. I had a strange feeling, not sickness no more, but something like it. The low wood tables inside was nearly empty. But the few jacks and janes here made such a haze with their cigarettes it was like wading through cobwebs. Stink of raw tobacco and last night’s hooch. Radio murmuring in the background. At the bar it smelled, gloriously, of milk, of cafés au lait and chocolats chauds. The kid, he climbed up onto a flaking red stool and cradled his head in his hands. The barkeep come over.
‘A glass of milk,’ I said in English, with a nod at Hiero.
‘Milk,’ Hiero muttered, not lifting his head.
The barkeep propped his thick forearms on the counter, leaned down low. We known him, though, it wasn’t menacing. He spoke broken German into the kid’s ear: ‘Milk only? You are a cat?’
Hiero’s muffled voice drifted up. He still hadn’t lifted his face. ‘Ain’t you a laugh factory. Bout near as funny as Sid here. You two ought to get together. Take that show on the road.’
The barkeep smirked, mumbled something more into Hiero’s ear. Something I ain’t caught. Then I seen the kid stiffen in silence, lift up his face, his lips clenching.
‘Hiero,’ I said. ‘Come on, man, he kiddin.’
Going over to the icebox, the barkeep stare at me a second, then glance on up at the clock. I check my own watch. Five to ten. He wander on back with a glass of milk, his voice cracking against the silence like snooker balls hitting each other. ‘But I warn you,’ he said. ‘You drink all the milk in France, you still not turn white.’ He laughed his strange, high, feathery laugh.
Hiero brought the glass to his lips, his left eye shutting as he drank. A sad, hot feeling well up in me. I cleared my throat.
The kid, he suddenly reached back and touched my shoulder. ‘Might as well do another take,’ he said. ‘The disc ain’t all bad. And my damn visas ain’t come yet. What else I got to do?’
I swallowed nervously.
Then he give me a long, clear look. ‘We goin get it right. Just be patient, buck.’
‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Sure we will. But wasn’t that last one any good, kid?
Good
good? Would it make us?’
The kid set the glass down on the counter, and pointing at it, hollered, ‘Encore!’
My stomach lurched, and just holding it together, I said, ‘I be right back. You ain’t goin leave without me?’
In the basement john, I got down to business. I felt sick as hell, the bile rising in me. For a second I stood there clutching the filthy basin, yellow grime all caked up on its porcelain. Head down, just breathing. I ran the faucet and splashed my face with cold water. It smelled of hot iron, the water, making my face feel alien to me, like I ain’t even in my own skin.
Then I could hear something through the ceiling, sudden, loud. I paused, holding my breath. Hell. Sounded like Hiero and the damn barkeep. The kid was prone to it these days, wired for a fight. I dragged in a long breath, walked over to the dented door.
I ain’t gone out though. I just stood there, listening to the air like a hound. After a minute I reached for the knob.
The talk got softer. Then the whole place seemed to shudder with the sound of something crashing. Hell. I couldn’t hear the barkeep’s voice. My hand, it was shaking so bad the knob rattled softly. I forced myself to turn it, take a step into the stuffy corridor. I made it up three steps before stalling. The stairs, they was shaded by a brick wall, giving me a glimpse of the café without betraying my shadow.
All the lights was up. I ain’t never seen all the lights up in the Coup,
ever
. I never known till that moment how nightmarish so much light can be.
The place went dead quiet. Everything, everyone, felt distinct, pillowed by silence. One gent turned to me, slow. He got creases like knife wounds in his face. I glanced under his table – only one leg. His hands gnarled like something dredged from a lake, they was both shaking like crazy. He was holding dirty papers. I watched ash from his cigarette fall onto his pants.
I looked around sharply. On every occupied table sat identity papers. A few crisp as fall leaves, others almost thumbed to powder. A young brunette slapped hers down so nervously she set it in a puddle of coffee. I stared at the bloating paper. She was chewing a loose thread on the collar of her heavy tweed coat, her jaw working softly. I remember thinking, ain’t she warm in that.
The barkeep begun cleaning quietly, rubbing down the bar with a gingham towel.
There was this other chap, though. Sitting in the window’s starched light, his expression too bright. A coldness crept over me.
Then the talking started again, and I glanced up.
Two Boots, in pale uniforms. Used to be just plain black: at night you seen nothing but a ghostly white face and an armband the colour of blood coming at you over the cobblestones. But Boots was Boots.