Esi Edugyan - Half-Blood Blues

I passed them out to him. My hands was shaking like a pensioner’s, like I eighty-two damn years old.

He grunted, begun thumbing through them. His eyes was very black, like Ernst’s. He walk slowly round to the front of the Horch, studying the grill and silver headlights there like he ain’t never seen nothing like it. Then he come back.

‘What is your destination?’ he said flatly, still flipping through the papers.

‘Paris,’ I said, and coughed. I cleared my throat. ‘Paris,’ I said more firmly.

He peered in at me, then ducked his head, give old Chip and Hiero a good long look. His eyes alighted on the bass propped in the back seat.

‘We American musicians,’ I said nervous like. ‘We just passin through to play in Paris.’

He glanced up at that, stared across the canvas of the car roof at something on the other side. Then he said, ‘Wait here. Don’t move.’ He walked away, over to another guard, begun talking in a low voice.

The morning sun slanted in through the dusty wind-shield, heating up the old leather seats. I felt a line of sweat inching down my ribs.

Chip set a dark hand on the dash, like to feel the warm sun. ‘It ain’t nothing. Don’t you crack, Sid. They just tryin to make you nervous. They probably talkin bout the damn football scores.’

I wasn’t so sure. It looked pretty serious to me. Hell. What if Ernst’s old bastard of a father given us obviously false papers? There got to be something odd bout Hiero’s at least. The kid been stateless for years now. I tried not to swallow.

The Boot turned, shielded his eyes, glanced back at us.

Directly ahead of our car, behind a low mound of sandbags lying like shot dogs, crouched a Boot at a heavy machine gun, watching us. His helmet shaded his eyes.

That first Boot come back to us then, still thumbing through the papers. He squatted down at the window, give Hiero a long slow look. Don’t you crack, boy , I was thinking. Don’t you damn well crack .

He handed the papers back to me with a dismissive nod. He stepped away from the car, gesturing to the soldiers standing in the ditches. They come forward, drawn back the sawhorses, the weight of it straining the slender Boot on the right.

That Boot was still backing away from the Horch, waving us through.

It was a trick. They pretend to let you through, then they start shooting. They wait till you between the lines, so it ain’t no country’s fault. Sure, we heard the stories. I put a nervous foot on the gas, glided slowly past the dusty sandbags, past more barbed-wire sawhorses, past the jack behind the machine gun.

‘Easy,’ Chip murmured, ‘just go easy.’

We rolled real slow over to the French side. A Frog soldier step forward, waving with two hands for us to stop. The kid twisted round, staring back at the Krauts behind their guns. Chip snapped at him. ‘Turn youself round , boy.’

There was another machine gun set just off to one side, atop a small rise, fixed direct on our windshield. I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck prickling.

The Frog soldier who come forward stared at us with real animosity, like he eager to send us back over the lines. His eyes was old, shifty, jaded. In his hefty paunch and greying moustache you seen all the awesome slaughter of Verdun.

‘ Papiers ,’ he snapped. He held out one meaty red hand.

I fumbled at the dash, pulled them out a second time.

‘Vouz-allez où, la? Votre destination.’

I sort of looked at Chip, looked nervously back at the soldier.

‘You ain’t speak English, I reckon?’ I sort of lifted one hand off the wheel, toward him. He stepped swiftly back, levelling his rifle at me.

‘ Tes mains — dans la voiture, mains dans la voiture ,’ he barked.

I froze. I held my old hands up, terrified. ‘No, no. I ain’t meant nothin.’

He shook his old grizzled head, handing the papers back in to me. ‘ Non ,’ he said, frowning. ‘ Non, vous devez retourner. Ce n’est pas correcte, ça .’ He waved his gun back at the German lines, gestured with his hand for us to turn round.

‘Aw, no,’ I said. ‘Please.’

‘We A mer icans,’ Chip shouted at him. He leaned across me, over the seat. ‘Goddamnit. We A mer icans. We goin to Paris . Don’t you turn around, Sid. Don’t you do it.’

That grizzled soldier was glowering at me, like he wanted nothing more than to haul me out by the collar and line me up against a wall. I was shaking.

‘ S’il vous plaît ,’ Chip called out at him. ‘ Monsieur, s’il vous plaît . American.’ He picked the mess of papers off my lap, started waving them at the soldier out through the window. The soldier refused to take them, just stood shaking his head.

A second French soldier come across through the barricade, shouting something harsh. I start to sweating. Holy hell, I thought. This is it. This is it.

That second soldier leaned forward, yelling something at us I ain’t caught. He seized the papers from Chip’s hand, begun snapping through them fiercely.

The grizzled soldier with the hard eyes shook his head, muttering comments every few pages. ‘ Oui, oui ,’ the second soldier said, frowning.

I wet my lips. Don’t do this, I thought. Please god, don’t.

All a sudden that second soldier hand the papers back to us, and turning swiftly, gestured at the soldiers behind him. And then the barricades lifted, and we was being waved on through, into the black forested hills of France. I looked in amazement at Chip. Gripping the wheel, I couldn’t get my breath.

‘Go on, buck,’ he hissed. ‘Get us the hell out of here.’

I tapped the gas, and we moved forward, gliding on into the free west.

A fter a minute, Chip said, ‘You still mad, ain’t you. You still thinking about it.’

I ain’t said nothing, just shifted grimly from second to third, that Mercedes purring under my hands. We was pouring like syrup along those sleek Berlin roads, the bad white sun cut by the tinted glass. That seductive new leather smell around us.

Chip slipped out his old titanium cigarette case, flicked it open with a click. I gave him a long brooding look.

‘You ain’t smoking those in here,’ I said. ‘And put on you seatbelt.’

‘Aw, Sid. Don’t be like that. You allowed to be just a little excited, you know. Ain’t no law against it.’

‘Seatbelt,’ I said again.

He slipped an elegant cigarillo into his mouth, then reached up, pulled the old belt on. Then he turned to me and gave me this uneasy, hurt look. ‘Just so you know,’ he said. ‘Just so it been said. I ain’t got no hard feelings.’

I damn near bit my bridge in half, hearing that. I started coughing.

‘Sid?’ he said again, after a moment.

‘What?’

‘I said I ain’t got no hard feelings.’ He shifted his hips and the ribbed leather squeaked under him. ‘Ain’t you got something to say too?’

‘What is it I supposed to say to you? What exactly?’

‘Aw, I don’t know.’ He sort of brushed this fleck of lint off his sleeve. ‘This the part where you tell me you ain’t got no hard feelings neither. Hell, brother. Come on. You my oldest friend.’

‘You a son of a bitch, Chip. That’s what I got to say to you.’

He was silent for a minute but then he looked at me and gave me this sly old grin. ‘Most likely I am,’ he said. ‘I most likely am that. But I just wanted you to know. In my books you still golden, brother.’

Chip goddamn Jones. Like a damn bull terrier, when he got something in his teeth.