Esi Edugyan - Half-Blood Blues

‘You reachin now, brother.’

Ernst shifted in his chair. ‘What do you know that we don’t, Fritz?’

Fritz pressed his lips tight together.

‘Fritz?’

‘Nothing. But I know a bad feeling when it comes.’

‘Alright, that’s enough,’ yelled Chip, banging a raw hand on the table. A glass clattered. ‘Ain’t no one sayin nothin more to Fritz until he done workin on my damn head. Alright?’

‘I don’t know about Paris,’ said Ernst. ‘But we can’t stay in Berlin. Not now.’

Fritz looked across at Ernst. ‘This will pass. It will.’

Ernst stood, frowning. ‘Well. For now, you’ll stay here at the Hound. At least until we find out how serious this is. Maybe the boy didn’t die. Maybe no one recognized you.’

‘They recognized us,’ I said.

‘You don’t know that,’ said Fritz. ‘Not for sure.’

‘There ain’t three jacks in the whole damn city you size, Fritz. Never mind takin a stroll at midnight with a couple a black gents. They known us. For sure.’

That night we slept rumpled and sore in our clothes. With the club’s long, narrow shape, its one strangely angled wall, felt like we was in the hold of a ship. Or maybe it was just that old sofa I was stretched out on, its cushions slanting badly. Room was lined with old chairs, a long mirror across the far wall, a mash of chipped tables set end to end. A huge copper sink like a old kettle drum stood in one corner, catching the tracelights reflected by the mirror. A high, barred window been covered with a gold curtain, but street-light still spilled whitely through its seams.

I was roused by a steady tapping on my foot. Slowly opening my eyes, I thought, Hell. Delilah Brown was standing over me, nudging me with the toe of her high heel. Decked out in a white skirt and a white blouse and with a white headwrap twisted like gauze round her head. She held a paper sack in the elbow of one arm.

‘You look awful,’ she said.

‘Morning,’ I muttered, closing my eyes again. Breathing hurt , brother.

Paul lift up his head from under the far table, his oiled yellow hair flying at weird angles. ‘Mmm. I know that voice.’

Hiero was still snoring away in the big armchair beside the mirror.

‘Sid, where’s Ernst?’ Delilah ask more softly, like not to wake no one else. She crouched down in that tight skirt, her knees pressed hard together.

I wasn’t thinking clear.

‘Ernst,’ she said again. ‘Where is he?’

‘He ain’t here?’ I blinked, glancing sleepily at Paul. In German I said, ‘Brother, where Ernst get to last night?’

Paul’s voice sounded thick. ‘Maybe he went back to his flat. I think he said it was safer. It’d look too damn strange, him not going home.’ He ran a scarred hand through his hair, and sat up spastically, like a marionette. He stretched his stiff neck. The bruise on his cheek just made him look more rugged, more chiselled, like a debonair Bogart. The bastard ain’t even able to get beat up without looking good.

I grimaced, rubbed my sore ribs. ‘So he get to sleep in a bed? Hell.’

There was a clatter in the doorway, and Chip come in. He got a big white bandage wrapped round his head. ‘Ernst in his office,’ he grunted in German. He looked at Delilah. ‘You lookin for Ernst, girl?’

She looked at me. ‘What did he say?’

But his face was so swollen, so cut up, I started grinning and didn’t translate. He look like a plate of mashed black beans, trying to talk.

‘What you smilin at,’ said Chip. ‘You seen you own face, buck?’

‘Sid wasn’t hit in the face,’ Paul mumbled.

‘You sure?’ Chip paused, looking Delilah up and down. He switch over to English. ‘What, the whole damn circus in town?’

‘It seems so,’ she said, looking him up and down. ‘Mr Jones, I suppose?’

He started to smile then stopped, grimacing in pain. ‘Charles C. The gents call me Chip. But you can call me anytime, day or night.’

‘Charming.’

‘Aw, you got to excuse him,’ I said. ‘He got hit on the head awful hard.’

‘She ain’t goin be worried bout that part my anatomy,’ he said in German, smiling.

Paul snorted. He gestured at Delilah’s white headwrap, at Chip’s bandaged scalp. ‘All you two need is a camel.’

Delilah ain’t understood the German, but she got the gist of it. ‘You can tell Mr Jones I have some extra skirts too, if he’d like,’ she said curtly.

‘Oh, he be interested. Chip look real cute in a skirt.’

Chip come all the way into the room then, kicking the kid’s armchair so that he like to fall out of it. ‘Rise and shine, brother,’ he hollered. ‘It a new day.’

‘Let him sleep, buck,’ I said.

But the kid was already opening his frightened eyes, staring at Delilah where she crouched beside me. She give him a wink. Flustered, he looked quickly away. Seeing his discomfort, the brutality of last night come back in a rush. I sat up, rubbed my face.

‘So you the famous Delilah Brown,’ said Chip. He sat on the far sofa, propped his feet up one at a time on the stained coffee table, crossing his ankles. ‘All the talk since yesterday been bout the famous Delilah Brown. Famous Delilah Brown the singer.’

A faint frown flickered across her face.

‘Chip,’ I said uneasily.

‘Anytime you’re done,’ she said, ‘you just let me know.’

‘Aw, I just gettin started, girl,’ Chip grinned. ‘When I done, you be seein the back of my head.’

‘Hope it’s better than the front.’

I laughed.

I felt Chip’s rocklike eyes on me, his sudden irritation so intense felt like webs on my skin. My heart tripped in my chest. I glanced at Delilah but she wasn’t looking at neither of us no more. She was watching Hiero.

Chip gestured at the rolled paper bag she was still holding. ‘What you got there, Famous Delilah Brown? You got some fuel for our old engines?’

She ain’t said nothing for a long moment, just studied Chip with her hard green eyes. Then she smiled. I could see her crooked little teeth. ‘You and me, Charles,’ she said, ‘we’re going to get along just fine. I can see it already.’

Old Chip wasn’t sure just how to respond to that.

She opened up the brown bag, pulled out a folded morning paper, six marzipan croissants.

‘Now you on the trolley,’ said Chip, smiling. ‘How’d you know we was—’

‘Your saxophonist. Fritz. I met him coming out of the club this morning. He told me about last night. He said maybe you might want something to eat other than salted peanuts.’ She was staring across at the kid. He stood at the sink, turning on the old spigot and waiting for the brown water to run through. He start to washing his face, his arms, the water shining like beaten silver on his dark skin. ‘Is he alright?’

‘Hiero?’ said Chip. ‘He fine. The damn Boots beat him with feathers .’

Delilah looked unconvinced. My old ribs started aching all over again.

‘Wait — you said you run into Fritz?’ I said. ‘Where was he goin?’

But maybe she ain’t heard me.

Chip was already tearing apart one croissant with his fingers, stuffing the flaking pastry into his mouth. Paul grinned at me, gleefully showing off his bread-filled teeth. He reached for the morning paper and begun pulling it to pieces, scouring it for some word.

‘I always hungrier when I ain’t slept,’ said Chip. ‘Is that strange?’

‘No,’ said Paul.

‘Why ain’t you slept?’ I said. ‘What you doin awake so early?’

‘What you jacks doin asleep be the question. Ain’t that damn cat kept none of you up?’

Hiero was drying hisself with his own shirt. He turned shyly. ‘Cat?’