Esi Edugyan - Half-Blood Blues

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.

One was tall and thin, a tree-branch of a man. The other, he short and thickset. With his back turned to me, I could see a fat roll of muscle at his neck.

I dropped my eyes, and like I was letting it occur to me for the first time, I looked for Hiero. He standing on over at the front door, staring at the Boots. Another kid stood at his side, Jewish I reckon, a look of terrified defiance on his face. The taller Boot was making a real show of thumbing slow through his papers, not saying nothing. Just licking his thumb, turning a page, licking his thumb, turning a page. Like that Boot could pass a summer’s day doing it. I looked at his quiet grey face. Was a face like anyone’s. Just going bout his business.