Esi Edugyan - Half-Blood Blues

Chip grunted.

‘Fritz won’t be happy,’ said Paul.

‘Fritz will live,’ said Ernst.

Ain’t nothing to be done then but wait.

Whole damn club grown subdued after that. I got to feeling uneasy, pausing in whatever I was doing to listen for noises at the door. Paul and the kid spent their time cleaning up the mess. I ain’t seen Chip for some time, and then I seen his bandaged head lurking at the bar, and then I ain’t seen him again. The hours passed.

It was late summer outside. But here in the club, all its lights down, it felt cool, nearly cold. I lived in my overcoat. The stage was dim, the houselights real low, and the broken chairs was piled up in the shadows under the stage. The air reeked eerily of old roses. I glanced up as I stepped into the wings and seen Delilah sitting up in the flies, at the edge of the platform, staring down at me.

Hell. I crossed the boards, picking my way between the cords and loose axes, then climbed up that creaking old ladder. My ribs throbbing as I hauled myself through and onto the rough wood platform. Delilah give me a look, then glanced away. She was balled up against one railing, her head made magnificent by a huge golden headwrap. The fabric shimmering every time she turn her face.

‘You changed you hat,’ I said.

She shrugged disconsolately.

‘You okay? We goin be alright.’

‘Ernst is scared. I can tell.’

‘Shoot, girl, Ernst ain’t scared of nothin. ’Cept when Chip get goin on his licorice stick. That scare all of us though.’

She looked away. ‘Where did he come from?’

‘Who?’ I said foolishly. I followed her eyes down to the kid, dragging a old trunk into the wings. He look small, vulnerable from that height. ‘Hiero? He from Köln, I reckon.’

She turned, studying me. ‘But where did he come from? He just appeared, out of nowhere, without having played with anyone? Just showed up like this?’

I wanted to ask, like what. But I ain’t wanted to hear her answer.

She shook her damn head, her spidery eyelashes downturned. ‘Lou was like him. When he was young. Would you say Lou’s talented ? Do you still call it talent, if it blooms without any kind of nurturing? That’s got to be something else.’

She made talent sound like a damn insult. I felt something sour and gravelly in my throat. I set my scratched palms against the rough planks.

‘Paul brought him down to us,’ I said after a moment. ‘Paul discovered him.’

‘No one discovers that.’

I shifted uneasily.

‘What was he doing in Köln?’

I shrugged. ‘Paul’s aunt lived in the same neighbourhood. Paul was out visitin her when he heard Hiero playin from a window across the way. His aunt said somethin like, Oh, that’s that poor little Falk boy. He’s black. Somethin like that. Paul gone right on over, ain’t even put on his damn shoes.’

‘The poor little black boy,’ she muttered. ‘Jesus. Imagine if he hadn’t been practising just then.’ She give me a look. ‘Or maybe he’d have found his way to the footlights regardless. A gift like his, it leads, don’t you think?’

‘Aw, he good ,’ I said cautiously. ‘I ain’t sure he ready to lead so much yet.’

She narrowed her sleek green eyes. ‘He’s the best player I’ve heard since I first heard Lou. And that’s the truth. He’ll be famous long after you and me are forgotten, Sid.’

There wasn’t no sorrow in it, no regret. Just some slow-burning excitement. Hell. I felt sick, rubbed my sore ribs, stared down at the kid. He was pulling out a blond wig, setting it on his head, turning side to side in front of the costume traces. He do a little curtsey, cocked one hip, then took it off and kept rummaging through.

‘What is it with you and Hiero?’ I said, hearing a sourness come into my voice.

She give me a odd look. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Nothin, nothin. Just, you watchin him a awful lot.’

‘Oh.’ She stared thoughtfully down at him.

‘Like that,’ I said.

She looked at me, then smiled distractedly.

What I was really thinking was, maybe the damn kid known she up here. Maybe he was messing with that damn trunk there in the wings cause he wanted her watching him. The son of a bitch.

‘He talk like us, you know,’ I said all a sudden. I ain’t sure why.

She ain’t understood. ‘He speaks English?’

‘No. No, I mean his German. It’s this weird sort of mix. Like he catchin our old accent, mine and Chip’s, mimickin it. Like he ain’t got his own way of talkin. His horn playin’s a bit like that too.’

Down in the damn wings he’d put on my hat, was tipping it with one finger down at a rakish angle. Hell. What he doing with my hat? He slouch his shoulders in a exact imitation of me. His suit look damn filthy.

‘He looks up to you so much,’ she said, smiling.

‘Hell he do. I reckon he just tryin to provoke me.’

Delilah shook her head. She put one cool hand on my wrist, and a fierce thrill coursed up through me. Holy hell . ‘There’s a real goodness in you, Sid. I could see it right away. I understand why he follows you like he does.’

I felt a quick surge in my chest. I stood abruptly, nearly shaking her hand off.

‘Sid?’ she said, startled.

‘Hold up,’ I said. ‘Just a minute.’ I climbed down that rickety ladder, jogged over to the bar, pulled up a bottle of the czech from its sheath. Put two small glasses in my suit pockets. Then I come back up the ladder, that bottle gripped careful in one fist.

‘Oh, what’re you doing?’ She smiled.

‘Just warmin our old bellies.’ I grinned and poured us each two fingers. ‘Where I from, folks call this a Cossack Conference.’

‘You’re not going to start dancing on me, are you?’

‘Up here? Shoot. Not till we get deeper into the bottle.’

We clicked glasses. I still able to feel the burn of her fingers on my wrist, like it left a sear there.

‘How you get together with old Armstrong?’ I said.

‘We’re not together. Not like that.’

‘No. I meant, how you and Louis meet?’

‘I know what you meant. Everyone sees us and thinks it.’

I could feel the heat emanating off my face.

‘Lou discovered me,’ she said with a soft shrug. ‘Well, Oliver discovered me. Lou, he just was the one who knew what to do with me. He taught me how to sing.’

‘ Lou ,’ I said softly, shaking my head. ‘You call him that, for real?’

‘What I call him I can’t repeat in public,’ she said, smiling.

I give a quick laugh. ‘Aw, can’t figure at all why folks would think there be anythin between you two. So you ain’t from Orleans?’

‘I’m from Montreal. I met Lou in Chicago. Before him, I was just running around Little Burgundy, singing at weddings and such. The church choir.’

‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Sure. Me and Chip use to play railway stations. We ain’t had no axes, just made the sounds up with our mouths. We was kids though.’

‘You been together a long time, you two.’

‘We ain’t together. Not like that.’

She laughed, soft, unexpected. It sound a little like stepping down a river bank, through the soft reeds, like air bending and lifting some green thing.

‘It been our whole lives. We grown up on the same damn block. Chip got me into jazz.’

‘So it’s his fault.’

‘He the guilty party.’ I smiled. ‘So, old Chicago. When was you in Chicago? We like to been there same damn time. Eddie Condon was there? Earl Hines?’

‘You know Eddie?’

‘Aw, not personally,’ I said quickly. ‘He a dazzlin gate though. Chicago used to seem so damn glamorous.’