Esi Edugyan - Half-Blood Blues

‘So what is this place?’ I said. ‘Is this an old Soviet commune?’

‘You got me, brother. Ain’t much now, whatever it was once.’

There was a big red sign hanging over the door of the far building. It been scratched out with what looked like a blowtorch. ‘What you reckon that was?’ I said, nodding toward it.

Chip didn’t even turn around. ‘Hell, Sid, I told you. I ain’t got no idea.’

I said nothing then. We was both tired, I known it. I didn’t see the old grandfather and the boy. Turning in my seat, I caught them making their slow way back down the road, carrying a sack each.

‘It’s just us now.’ I felt depressed somehow.

‘What?’

‘It’s just us now. All the other passengers is gone.’

Chip shrugged. ‘Long as this bus keep going, I don’t care if even the driver decides to get off.’

‘Hell, brother. Don’t it feel to you like they all know something we don’t?’

‘You mean, like rats on a sinking ship?’

‘No. Maybe.’

‘Sid, they getting off cause this is their stop. Ain’t nothing more than that.’

But there was something more. I could feel it, though I wasn’t able to explain it. You get old enough, you start to trust your damn instincts sometime. Or, least, you start to listen to them. I stood up unsteadily.

‘I be on the bus for a bit,’ I said. ‘Don’t mind me.’

Chip looked at me. ‘You want me to order something for you?’

‘I don’t much feel like eating.’

‘It’s alright,’ he said. ‘I’ll get you what I’m having. Go get away from these damn flies.’

The bus felt lower somehow, longer, the ribs of its chassis leaner. I climbed back onboard.

Then it was like something guided my eye, drawn my old hand down toward Chip’s carry-all. I dragged his bag out from under the seat, running a finger over its print of interlocking Ls and Vs, its precious leather. I unzipped it.

It didn’t take but a minute to find the envelope. The stationery Hiero had written on was brown as dishwater. Mr Charles C. Jones , scrawled in bad handwriting across the front above his address. That handwriting — I known it right away. With shaking hands, I fumbled open the flap, the paper rough as newly sanded wood. My Dear Friend , it began:

I hope this letter does not come as too much of a shock. If it is any consolation, it is probably just as much of a shock for me to write it. You see, until recently, I did not know you were alive. Please do not take offence at this. Last week someone told me about a Falk Festival taking place in Berlin sometime this year — imagine it! — and that you were one of its featured guests. I was also given some of your press. I must tell you, I was delighted to see how well you are doing — as we both know, yours is not an easy vocation. Congratulations on your continued success, your President’s Medal and the Hall of Fame citation. I am genuinely proud, if that is not too presumptuous to say.

I have a favour to ask. Seeing as how the festival will bring you to Europe, if it is not too much bother, I would very much like to reconnect with you. As you can see by the envelope, I live a little off the beaten path now. As I cannot travel — my health will not permit it — I would like to ask you to visit me here when it proves convenient for you. Actually, ever since I learned you were alive I have felt the urgent need to see you.

I eagerly await your reply.

Yours,

Thomas Falk (Hiero)

PS — I would appreciate if you did not pass on my contact information to anyone. My life is a quiet one; I could not bear it any other way.

I sat there, the paper’s grain harsh against my fingers. My god, he was really alive. Surely and truly alive. I’d believed Chip while at the same time not believing him.

My throat going dry, I glanced back down at the paper. Thomas Falk. He’d dropped his first name. And he didn’t sound like the old Hiero: his praise detached, his invitation to Chip warm but not boyish.

His invitation to Chip . Like that, it hit me.

The kid hadn’t asked for me.

And then it was like the bus tilted sideways and I couldn’t breathe. I felt dizzy, hot, sick with it. I stood up, the bag falling from my lap. The air coming in from the windows stank of mud and horses.

The bus creaked and rocked as I sat down. Chip was climbing slowly up the steps, his huge hand on the greasy rail.

‘You grub’s getting cold,’ he called in. ‘Sid?’

You right bastard, I thought. You old son of a bitch.

‘Sid? What you doing?’ He stopped when he got a look at me.

My voice was shallow. ‘Hiero didn’t ask for me. In the letters. He didn’t mention me.’

Chip was looking down the length of the bus.

‘In his letters,’ I said, louder now. I shook the envelope at him. ‘The kid didn’t ask me to visit him at all. Everything was addressed to you.’

‘Oh, hell, Sid.’ He seemed to relax. ‘Of course it was addressed to me. He didn’t have your address.’

I was near tears, frustrated beyond myself. ‘You don’t know that. You don’t know nothing about it. All you know is what’s in this letter.’

He ain’t understood none of it. ‘It don’t matter, does it? Of course he wants to see you. Hell, Sid, he probably don’t even know you still alive.’ He come slowly down the aisle. ‘Sid, you got to relax. Why wouldn’t he want to see you? Think about it, brother. We was all friends back then.’

I wasn’t able to look at him. ‘What have you done?’ I muttered.

‘Sid.’ Sitting down on the seat in front, he stared over the back of the headrest at me. ‘Sid, you got to calm yourself down. I mean it.’

I was shaking.

‘What are you worried about? The documentary? Hell, Hiero was there , brother. He knows the truth .’

‘I know .’

He grunted. ‘Right. Good. Now, we going to eat? Last I checked that driver was wolfing down some goulash mess and I reckon when he done, we done. His bus don’t wait for no one.’

‘No,’ I said, barely listening. ‘No I reckon it don’t.’

I looked out at the shabby grey hamlet we’d stopped in. It seemed to me we’d left something behind us, something essential, and we just kept getting farther and farther from it.

First night, we slept dreamless in the freezing car. In the early hours Montmartre looked sick, exhausted. I wasn’t half awake before the streetlamps gone out, one by one, the street cleaners clattering on past. I could see Chip’s head hanging at a bad angle in the seat beside me. Hiero whimpered in his sleep. Shivering so hard I could hear my damn teeth, I slept again.

In the morning, Chip’s neck was stiffer than cold molasses.

‘Hell,’ he said, squinting over at me. You could see his breath. ‘Don’t it never end?’

I looked in the rearview mirror. ‘Kid?’ My mouth felt thick with cotton. ‘Kid, you awake?’

He lift up his head, grimaced.

‘Hell,’ Chip said again, rubbing his hands together to get warm. ‘Paris, buck. City of lights. We got any scratch?’

‘Some,’ I said, yawning. ‘Ernst give us some.’

‘Good old Ernst,’ Chip smiled, his teeth chattering. ‘Good old goddamned Ernst.’

Hiero was fumbling around in the backseat, working his arms into his heavy overcoat, folding up his damn knees into the seatback with a thump as he did.

‘Hell, kid, did you have to bring your elephant?’ Chip grunted.

Hiero stopped, looked at him.