Authors: Esi Edugyan
As we come through I took her arm. I surprise myself, how hard I held it.
‘Sid,’ she said. ‘Not here.’
But I ain’t hardly heard her. ‘I thought you was dead,’ I murmured. ‘Lilah? Girl, we thought we lost you.’
But Hiero was already pushing through the glass door, staring nervously around at all that damn opulence. She pulled away.
Chip stood near the elevator, turning his hat uneasily in his hands as we approached.
‘I didn’t want to ask.’ Lilah swallowed hard and looked at him. ‘Where are they? Where’s Ernst and Fritz?’
‘Ain’t you forgettin someone?’ I said.
She give me a hurt look. ‘I know about Paul,’ she said quiet-like. ‘I was there.’
Hiero watched us, nervous.
‘Ernst still in Hamburg,’ said Chip. ‘He with his family. He goin be alright, his pa awful damn powerful. Ain’t got him no visa to get out, though. I reckon the old bastard got us visas just to clear us out of his boy’s life.’
‘He could’ve just had us pinched,’ I said. ‘He ain’t done that.’
Chip shrugged. ‘If you seen Ernst’s face,’ he said to Delilah, ‘if you just seen Ernst’s face. It like to have broke you cold Canadian heart, girl. You seen everything he wanted just gone, just scraped out of him. You know, he love old Louis. And he give that up when he say goodbye to us.’
‘You wasn’t even there, Chip. What you know about how he looked?’
‘You told me bout it. Hell. I just sayin what you said, Sid.’
I shook my head.
‘And Fritzie?’ she said.
Chip’s face closed over. ‘That damn Judas gone over to the Golden Seven. He ain’t one of us no more.’
Delilah look real sad.
‘If it up to me I’d scrape his damn name off every record we ever cut. Erase his fat sound off it like he ain’t never been born.’
‘That’s awful,’ she said. ‘It’s so awful. Poor Ernst. Poor Fritz.’
The elevator light come on. Its car start to descend.
‘Fritz can fry in hell with them Nazi bastards,’ Chip hissed. ‘Don’t waste you worry over him.’
We was silent then. I felt scoured out, gutted.
But Chip, he just looked round, give a little grunt like he changing dials on the wireless. ‘So Louis sick? He goin see us in bed?’
‘There’s that,’ she said. ‘And I figured his room would be safer for Hiero.’
‘Safer than what?’
She furrowed her brow, looked at Chip like he was off his nut. ‘Than a café. Aren’t you worried about him?’
We ain’t understood.
‘Hiero?’ said Chip. ‘They got a problem with blacks here too?’
‘Not blacks,’ she said. ‘Germans.’
But she sort of stopped then, stared at us like we some downright incredible sight. ‘You haven’t heard? For real? You really don’t know?’
The elevator door banged open, the mesh gate clattered back. I ain’t hardly noticed. I was watching Delilah’s lips.
‘We’re at war,’ she said. ‘We declared war on Germany. Yesterday afternoon.’
Ain’t made one shred of damn sense. Yesterday afternoon we still been rolling through the French countryside, past slumped barns, brindled cows on the roadside, folk cycling slowly by with groceries wrapped in cloth in their baskets. Hell. It was heaven on earth, damn pastoral. We been half blind with relief, bringing our guilt with us like a packed bag we all stowed under our seats. Thinking we’d outrun the dark trains moving at night. The papers scrawled thick with lies, the wireless and its frightening speeches. The shadows of Berlin. But you know, even with the madness miles and miles behind us, we ain’t felt no safer. Maybe we known, even then, what was coming.
We step on out of that elevator and Delilah pull Chip aside, wave us on.
‘What you two doin?’ I said.
‘Go on,’ said Delilah. ‘Lou’s waiting for you.’
But my legs wasn’t working right. Hell.
Louis Armstrong
. I caught sight of my face in a brass fixture and damn near died. Poor damn gate looked long in the jaw with terror.
The door to 301 was cracked open. Hiero come to a abrupt stop, stood just outside the door, staring at it. I felt the dread rising up in me. Like something coming I wasn’t ready for.
‘Sid,’ Hiero whispered.
I stopped, looked at him.
‘I need you do me a favour. Before we go in.’
‘What?’
‘Don’t laugh.’
‘I ain’t goin laugh. What is it?’
‘Will you pinch me?’
He was already rolling up his sleeve. I thought I ain’t heard him right. I looked at his sweaty forearm. It like a side of glazed pork.
‘I ain’t touchin that,’ I said.
‘Go on,’ he whispered. ‘Tell me this real.’
‘Uh-uh. Tell it to youself.’
But he just stared at me with that damn frightened look he gets. I glanced at the door, glanced back to where Chip come into view. Hell.
I pinched him.
He pull back his arm quick like he been stung.
‘So?’ I said with a sigh. ‘You dreamin? Or we get to go in now?’
He grinned, rubbed the sore skin. ‘Aw, it a damn lifelike dream if I am.’
‘They the best kind, buck,’ said Chip. He come on up, put a big hand on the kid’s shoulder. He eyed the open door. ‘Especially when they got a jane in them.’
‘If they lifelike for you, ain’t no way there be janes,’ I said.
‘You funny,’ said Chip.
‘Maybe there be a gent or two,’ the kid said.
‘Aw, you just a regular Laurel an Hardy. You goin show that act to Louis?’
‘Three oh one,’ Delilah called, striding up the corridor. Seeing us, she slowed. ‘Oh, you found it. Well go on in, don’t be shy.’
Ain’t none of us moved.
‘You reckon he got any French nurses in there?’ Chip smiled, but he look nervous.
There was a dry cough from the room. A voice called out, ‘Who that? Who out there, now?’
Man, that voice – it was like gravel crunching under tires.
Delilah shook her head at us. ‘He likes to think he’s sicker than he is. Don’t mind him. You know exactly who it is,’ she called through the door. ‘Just be glad it’s not your wife. You can’t afford her
and
the doctors.’
Delilah, she just push on past us, kicking open the door with one sharp heel.
That room, man, it was so vibrant, drenched with the light coming in those big windows. We stood blinking like damn fools. The peach curtains, all etched in lace, been drawn back, tied off. Fat ivory chairs been set along one wall. A blond brass vanity – so old-looking seemed to be pining for the powdered wig – glinted by a second door. Whole place smelled vaguely of damp flowers. And there, by a big window frosted like a cataract, his skin dark as weeds against the sheets, lay Louis Armstrong.
He give a hot laugh. ‘Come on in, all a you,’ he said. ‘Let me get a look at you proper. Come on now.’ And then, to Delilah: ‘I thought maybe you wasn’t comin back.’
She snorted, all scarves and clicking beads. ‘I wasn’t gone an hour, Lou.’
Armstrong drawn a deep rusty breath. ‘
Sweeeet Delilah Brown
,’ he sang. ‘
My sweet Miss D. Brown, she is my flower, my rosest of roses. My Isle of Delile, I goin be your Samson…
’
She just whipped the blue tassels of her turban in his general direction. ‘Hush, you. Just cause you sing so pretty doesn’t mean you
should
. Now. What’d the doctors say?’
Armstrong sat hisself up a little in bed. ‘Oh, it ain’t good, girl. It ain’t good.’
‘Mmm. It never is.’ She give us a look.
‘Everyone,’ she said simply, ‘this is Louis.’
A man ain’t never seen greatness till he set eyes on the likes of Armstrong. That the truth. Those hooded lids, that blinding smile: the jack was immense, majestic. But something else, too: he looked brutally human, like he known suffering on its own terms. His mouth was shocking. He done wrecked his chops from the pressure of hitting all them high notes over the years. His bottom lip hung slightly open, like a drawer of red velvets. He lift a handkerchief to his mouth, wipe off a line of spittle. I seen something in him then: a sort of devastated patience, a awful tiredness. I known that look. My mama had it all her life.
‘I be a sight, I know,’ said Armstrong, grimacing till his eyes wrinkle up. ‘But the King of Spain I ain’t. Now stop you gawkin and come on in here.’
Man, his voice! It was huge, glass-shattering. Full of rocks and splinters, rich as cream. One by one, we all start smiling.
‘You gents hungry?’ He gestured over to the vanity. ‘I got matzos.’
‘Matzos, Lou?’ said Delilah. ‘Really?’ She ain’t sounded happy.
‘You get a taste for them yet,’ he chuckled. ‘You just ain’t et enough of them.’
She wrinkled her face up.
Matzos? I shared a glance with Chip. Did he get them cause one of our gates was Jewish?
‘Louis likes them for a late night snack,’ said Delilah. ‘Always has.’
‘Since ever I got teeth to eat. Now who we got here?’
Delilah cleared her throat. ‘Louis, this is Sid Griffiths. The bass player.’
‘This ain’t
the
Sid Griffiths?’ he chuckled. He give me a look. ‘Oh, I heard some things bout you. Things I ain’t like to repeat to you mama.’
Delilah blushed.
I couldn’t find my voice. Hell. ‘It’s a honour to meet you, Mr Armstrong,’ I said uncomfortably. ‘You been a mentor to me my whole life.’
‘
Louis
,’ he said, narrowing fierce eyes at me, like I offend him. ‘Call me
Louis
.’
‘Louis,’ I repeated, swallowing hard.
‘Aw, I just foolin with you.’ He laugh from deep in his chest. ‘You look like you cat just got run down by the milk truck.’
I just smiled and smiled, like I too damn simple to speak.
Delilah was putting her hand on Chip’s shoulder real gentle, like to start next with him, when he thrust hisself forward, his hat angled like a sail on his head, and sat hisself down on a chair at Armstrong’s bedside.
He said, ‘We heard you been feelin bad, Louis, real bad.’
Armstrong looked at Delilah. ‘Oh, nothing a few matzos ain’t like to fix.’
‘We glad to hear it, glad to hear it.’
‘You must be the other rhythm boy.’
Chip sort of cleared his throat at that. He set his hat back on his crown, put out his massive hand for Armstrong to shake. Then just as quick he pulled it back. ‘You ain’t contagious, are you?’
Armstrong laughed. ‘Ask Delilah. She been sayin I sick ever since I known her.’
Chip seemed to think about this a minute. Then he put out his hand again. ‘Well, I reckon that’s alright. Charles C. Jones, Louis. You just call me Chip.’
‘Chip?’
‘Yes sir. Ever you lookin for percussionists, ever you want to class up you rhythm section, you know we you men. Me and Sid.’
I stared at Chip in horror. What was the damn fool doing, talking like this to
Louis
goddamn
Armstrong
? That cat got his pick of geniuses and here Chip was offering him our talents like we doing
him
a favour? I felt sick.
‘Alright, Chip,’ Delilah said quickly. ‘You’re going to tire the old man out.’
Armstrong started laughing, all gravelly, like he clearing his damn throat. ‘Old is right, girl. Old as the moon.’
‘Louis?’ said Delilah, catching his eye. ‘Isn’t there something you want to ask?’
Armstrong cleared his throat. ‘What the C stand for, Jones?’
Chip, who been getting up from his chair, froze. ‘The C?’
‘Sure. In you name. What it stand for?’
Man oh man, I ain’t seen this coming. I smiled at Hiero. ‘He askin what the C stand for.’
The kid got this crooked smile on his face.
‘Aw, Louis,’ Chip was saying. ‘It don’t really matter, do it?’
But I was watching the kid. His face, it was all twisted up, like he was holding his damn body too tight, like he got to go to the damn toilet.
‘Kid?’ I whispered. ‘You alright?’
I figure he ain’t took a breath in a long minute.
‘Kid?’
And then,
hell
. He give out the weirdest damn laugh I ever heard.
I started to laugh.
Delilah looked over with a smile. ‘Hiero? You alright?’
‘Hell, buck,’ said Chip. ‘Come on, get youself under control.’
Kid put a hand over his mouth, hiccuped again.
Armstrong narrowed his eyes, smiling. ‘You sure he alright?’
‘Aw, he be fine,’ I said. ‘It happens.’
But the kid was mortified. He turned to face the door, clutching the handle, his shoulders shrugging every few seconds.
‘Now Chip,’ Armstrong said in his low scratch, ‘you still ain’t answered my question.’ He looked around, making like he stymied. He pulled his cream bedspread higher up his chest.
Delilah smiled, faint-like. ‘Charlie –
Chip
– is very discreet about his middle name.’
There was a weak, muffled hiccup from the corner.
‘How long you been swinging with these cats they don’t know you name?’ said Armstrong. ‘Give you head a shake. Out with it now, come on.’
You might’ve heard ice cracking in Alaska, it got so quiet then. Chip look off at the window, like he trying to find some way out of this. Like maybe it wasn’t such a long drop down. I seen him glance at Armstrong, glance away, his fingers fidgeting with his cufflinks. Then his face fell, and he just sort of deflated. He lean in and mutter something real soft only Armstrong could hear.
‘Say what?’ said Armstrong.
‘You got to speak up, Chip,’ said Delilah.
Chip give Delilah a sour look. ‘Chippewah,’ he said, louder. ‘It Chippewah.’
‘
Chippewah!
’ Delilah cried.
Old Hiero, he damn near fell out the door, yanking so hard on the knob it swung open. Embarrassed, he banged it shut, the whole wall shuddering. He give me a look of astonished pleasure. Hell, if that name ain’t killed off his hiccups.
I shook my head. All these years he been a Chippewah?
‘Well, Charles Chippewah Jones,’ said Armstrong. ‘My condolences.’
That got Lilah laughing harder.
But Armstrong was already looking at the kid, a different light in his eyes. ‘I known you the minute you walked in here,’ he said. ‘You is Falk.’
The kid stopped smiling, glancing at me, his eyes flaring wide.