Esi Edugyan - Half-Blood Blues

Holy hell. The entrance hall we come into just gone up and up, near twenty-five feet to the moulded ceiling. The floor was pearled marble, the walls lined with leaded glass windows doused in light. In the centre of the foyer stood a single dark table, holding a glass bowl of lilies floating in water, the buds rocking softly. There was corridors off to the left, the right, and straight ahead. Past tied-off green velvet curtains you could see a indoor winter garden. Curving up round either side of the entrance hall, wide steps led to the upper floors.

Hiero was staring at Ernst with a strange look on his face.

‘Yes, yes,’ said Ernst, ‘it’s big, I know. They don’t even live in most of it. It’s like a tomb. Come on. I hate coming in through this entrance.’

Chip give a low whistle. ‘Hell, buck. It amazing.’

‘Yes, that’s the point,’ Ernst said crisply.

He led us toward the right corridor and stopped at a small rounded alcove, glancing down at the curve in the hall. There was a tall window set in the facing wall, and we could see the white Horch parked far below, covered in dust. ‘I don’t know if they’ll be in the back garden, or in the sun room.’

There was a low mahogany bench set against the wall, and the kid sat down with a frown. Lifting his head, he listened.

Something was coming down the hall. Sound like the shifts of a dress rubbing together, the soft click of heels. And a mechanical squeaking, like a drinks tray. I got to wondering if we was intruding on some sort of afternoon tea.

But then a elderly dame come into view, wearing a elegant cream dress. She was pushing a girl in a wheelchair. Hell. I wiped a hot hand on my thighs. That girl was so damn pretty, all dark eyes and auburn hair, her slender hands folded in her lap. She look strange in that contraption, delicate-featured, and when she smiled it was like a ripple passing over a calm lake.

‘ Ernie! ’ she exclaimed. ‘I knew it. I knew it.’

‘Hi, Buggy,’ he smiled. He stood very still, waiting for them to approach. Chip give me a surprised look.

The older dame put her toe on the brake of the chair, punched it to a standstill. Then she straightened, smoothed her hands along her sleeves, give Ernst a careful look. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘Look at you. You look awful.’

Ernst chuckled.

‘Liesl thought she heard a motor in the drive.’

The girl smiled up. ‘I told you, Mother.’

Frau von Haselberg clasped her hands, turned to look at us. She was pale as spring cabbage, her face full of tiny wrinkles like the veins in a leaf. Her brown eyes the only spots of darkness on her. She looked a little sickly, strange, white as something churned up from the earth’s depths. ‘You must be Ernst’s Americans,’ she said. ‘We’ve heard so much about you. It’s a shame Ernst hasn’t brought you for a visit sooner. We of course have all of your recordings.’

‘Of course,’ Ernst said dryly. ‘But have you ever listened to them?’

‘ Ernst ,’ said his mother, like she shocked. But she was smiling.

Chip took off his hat as Ernst introduced us. I stared at his gouged knuckles, the scabs from that fight a lifetime ago. His oyster lips was still badly mashed up, split and scabbed over, and his one eye wasn’t focused quite right, narrow and squinting. Hell , I thought, he damn ugly. Like a Frankenstein .

Ernst gestured at the two dames with a smooth grace. ‘This is my mother, Mrs von Haselberg. And this is my sister Liesl. We call her Buggy. She’s a frivolous troublemaker.’

Liesl give us a startling smile. ‘It’s true. You’ll see.’

‘Are you here for a long visit?’ said Frau von Haselberg.

‘No.’

His mother seemed a little disappointed. ‘You drove all the way from Berlin? Today? You must all be rather exhausted. You’ll stay for tonight, of course. I’ll have Frieda make up some rooms.’

‘Exhausted, Mother? Strong men like them?’ said Liesl, her smile full of mischief. ‘I should hope not.’

‘I ain’t so tired,’ said Chip, grinning.

Liesl focused her gaze on him, her smile widening.

I looked warily at both of them.

‘Rummel said Father is away?’ Ernst said after a moment.

His mother sighed. ‘Near Saarbrücken. Working. He should be back soon, we hope. You’ve come to see him? Nothing is wrong, I hope?’

Ernst give her a quick look. ‘He didn’t say anything?’

‘About what?’

‘You know how he is, Ernie,’ said Liesl. ‘ Rummel knows more than we do.’

‘Ah, yes. The frail von Haselberg women. We mustn’t tax you, must we.’

‘Under no circumstances,’ said Liesl.

Frau von Haselberg just shook her head.

I was looking out the window at the sun, low over the wide green lawns. It was so damn peaceful here.

‘Let me get them settled,’ Ernst said to his mother. ‘We’ll find you in a bit. We’ll be hungry, if Anke could find a little something extra.’

Frau von Haselberg nodded. ‘Anke isn’t with us anymore. But the new girl will be able to find something, I’m sure.’

Ernst nodded. ‘Yes, yes. Fine.’

He led us deeper into the house, up a low flight of stairs, along a open passage with closed doors on one side, a view of a long sitting room below us on the other. Chip leaned over the railing, rolled his eyes at me, kept going.

‘What happen to you sister?’ the kid said quietly, as we went.

‘Polio. Four years old.’ Ernst cleared his throat. ‘She’s paralyzed from the waist down.’

‘Hell,’ said Chip. ‘Well. She seem alright.’

‘She’s not,’ Ernst said curtly. ‘Neither of them are. They’re bigoted two-faced snobs and they’d toss you into the street as soon as look at you. So would Rummel.’

‘Rummel? You butler?’

Ernst frowned. ‘Rummel’s not a butler. Rummel is — efficient .’ He slowed, give us a considered look, like he deciding something within hisself. ‘When something needs doing, Rummel does it. Without fail.’

‘I reckon you ain’t talkin bout the laundry,’ Chip muttered.

Ernst give a bitter smile. ‘No. There are others who do that.’

That night I slept a long time in the soft bed. When I finally woke in the late morning I found a clean suit set out for me, near my size. I wondered where Delilah and Paul slept. What they was waking to.

I found Chip and the kid out in a side courtyard, where the Horch been parked for the night. Both got on clean suits too. Someone done washed the road dust off the auto, and it gleamed like a bone in the sun.

I stood just inside the French doors, looking out at them. Hiero was sitting on the stone steps, his back to me, watching Chip run a hand along the shining Horch. It seem so ordinary, this scene. Then Hiero turn round, staring directly at me though I was standing in the shadows. ‘Sid?’

After Berlin, something happened between me and the kid. I ain’t understood it. But it was like he started looking out for me, watching over me, keeping a closer eye. Hell. He like a brother, baring his teeth at Ernst or Chip or anyone who bite too hard at me. Like we ain’t had a rivalry over Delilah just days ago. But something in me just wasn’t working right, cause even as it was happening, I ain’t felt nothing.

As I come down the steps into the white sunlight, I seen a movement from under the alcove. Ernst’s sister was wheeling herself slowly over to Chip.

‘It’s a beautiful automobile,’ she called to him.

He shrugged, said something I ain’t caught.

‘A Horch 853 Sport-Cabriolet,’ she laughed. ‘The 1938 models were nice, yes.’

Chip give her a quizzical look.