Esi Edugyan - Half-Blood Blues

‘That’s awful,’ she said. ‘It’s so awful. Poor Ernst. Poor Fritz.’

The elevator light come on. Its car start to descend.

‘Fritz can fry in hell with them Nazi bastards,’ Chip hissed. ‘Don’t waste you worry over him.’

We was silent then. I felt scoured out, gutted.

But Chip, he just looked round, give a little grunt like he changing dials on the wireless. ‘So Louis sick? He goin see us in bed?’

‘There’s that,’ she said. ‘And I figured his room would be safer for Hiero.’

‘Safer than what?’

She furrowed her brow, looked at Chip like he was off his nut. ‘Than a café. Aren’t you worried about him?’

We ain’t understood.

‘Hiero?’ said Chip. ‘They got a problem with blacks here too?’

‘Not blacks,’ she said. ‘Germans.’

But she sort of stopped then, stared at us like we some downright incredible sight. ‘You haven’t heard? For real? You really don’t know?’

The elevator door banged open, the mesh gate clattered back. I ain’t hardly noticed. I was watching Delilah’s lips.

‘We’re at war,’ she said. ‘We declared war on Germany. Yesterday afternoon.’

Ain’t made one shred of damn sense. Yesterday afternoon we still been rolling through the French countryside, past slumped barns, brindled cows on the roadside, folk cycling slowly by with groceries wrapped in cloth in their baskets. Hell. It was heaven on earth, damn pastoral. We been half blind with relief, bringing our guilt with us like a packed bag we all stowed under our seats. Thinking we’d outrun the dark trains moving at night. The papers scrawled thick with lies, the wireless and its frightening speeches. The shadows of Berlin. But you know, even with the madness miles and miles behind us, we ain’t felt no safer. Maybe we known, even then, what was coming.

We step on out of that elevator and Delilah pull Chip aside, wave us on.

‘What you two doin?’ I said.

‘Go on,’ said Delilah. ‘Lou’s waiting for you.’

But my legs wasn’t working right. Hell. Louis Armstrong . I caught sight of my face in a brass fixture and damn near died. Poor damn gate looked long in the jaw with terror.

The door to 301 was cracked open. Hiero come to a abrupt stop, stood just outside the door, staring at it. I felt the dread rising up in me. Like something coming I wasn’t ready for.

‘Sid,’ Hiero whispered.

I stopped, looked at him.

‘I need you do me a favour. Before we go in.’

‘What?’

‘Don’t laugh.’

‘I ain’t goin laugh. What is it?’

‘Will you pinch me?’

He was already rolling up his sleeve. I thought I ain’t heard him right. I looked at his sweaty forearm. It like a side of glazed pork.

‘I ain’t touchin that,’ I said.

‘Go on,’ he whispered. ‘Tell me this real.’

‘Uh-uh. Tell it to youself.’

But he just stared at me with that damn frightened look he gets. I glanced at the door, glanced back to where Chip come into view. Hell.

I pinched him.

He pull back his arm quick like he been stung.

‘So?’ I said with a sigh. ‘You dreamin? Or we get to go in now?’

He grinned, rubbed the sore skin. ‘Aw, it a damn lifelike dream if I am.’

‘They the best kind, buck,’ said Chip. He come on up, put a big hand on the kid’s shoulder. He eyed the open door. ‘Especially when they got a jane in them.’

‘If they lifelike for you, ain’t no way there be janes,’ I said.

‘You funny,’ said Chip.

‘Maybe there be a gent or two,’ the kid said.

‘Aw, you just a regular Laurel an Hardy. You goin show that act to Louis?’

‘Three oh one,’ Delilah called, striding up the corridor. Seeing us, she slowed. ‘Oh, you found it. Well go on in, don’t be shy.’

Ain’t none of us moved.

‘You reckon he got any French nurses in there?’ Chip smiled, but he look nervous.

There was a dry cough from the room. A voice called out, ‘Who that? Who out there, now?’

Man, that voice — it was like gravel crunching under tires.

Delilah shook her head at us. ‘He likes to think he’s sicker than he is. Don’t mind him. You know exactly who it is,’ she called through the door. ‘Just be glad it’s not your wife. You can’t afford her and the doctors.’

Delilah, she just push on past us, kicking open the door with one sharp heel.

That room, man, it was so vibrant, drenched with the light coming in those big windows. We stood blinking like damn fools. The peach curtains, all etched in lace, been drawn back, tied off. Fat ivory chairs been set along one wall. A blond brass vanity — so old-looking seemed to be pining for the powdered wig — glinted by a second door. Whole place smelled vaguely of damp flowers. And there, by a big window frosted like a cataract, his skin dark as weeds against the sheets, lay Louis Armstrong.

He give a hot laugh. ‘Come on in, all a you,’ he said. ‘Let me get a look at you proper. Come on now.’ And then, to Delilah: ‘I thought maybe you wasn’t comin back.’

She snorted, all scarves and clicking beads. ‘I wasn’t gone an hour, Lou.’

Armstrong drawn a deep rusty breath. ‘ Sweeeet Delilah Brown ,’ he sang. ‘ My sweet Miss D. Brown, she is my flower, my rosest of roses. My Isle of Delile, I goin be your Samson… ’

She just whipped the blue tassels of her turban in his general direction. ‘Hush, you. Just cause you sing so pretty doesn’t mean you should . Now. What’d the doctors say?’

Armstrong sat hisself up a little in bed. ‘Oh, it ain’t good, girl. It ain’t good.’

‘Mmm. It never is.’ She give us a look.

‘Everyone,’ she said simply, ‘this is Louis.’

A man ain’t never seen greatness till he set eyes on the likes of Armstrong. That the truth. Those hooded lids, that blinding smile: the jack was immense, majestic. But something else, too: he looked brutally human, like he known suffering on its own terms. His mouth was shocking. He done wrecked his chops from the pressure of hitting all them high notes over the years. His bottom lip hung slightly open, like a drawer of red velvets. He lift a handkerchief to his mouth, wipe off a line of spittle. I seen something in him then: a sort of devastated patience, a awful tiredness. I known that look. My mama had it all her life.

‘I be a sight, I know,’ said Armstrong, grimacing till his eyes wrinkle up. ‘But the King of Spain I ain’t. Now stop you gawkin and come on in here.’

Man, his voice! It was huge, glass-shattering. Full of rocks and splinters, rich as cream. One by one, we all start smiling.

‘You gents hungry?’ He gestured over to the vanity. ‘I got matzos.’

‘Matzos, Lou?’ said Delilah. ‘Really?’ She ain’t sounded happy.

‘You get a taste for them yet,’ he chuckled. ‘You just ain’t et enough of them.’

She wrinkled her face up.

Matzos? I shared a glance with Chip. Did he get them cause one of our gates was Jewish?

‘Louis likes them for a late night snack,’ said Delilah. ‘Always has.’

‘Since ever I got teeth to eat. Now who we got here?’

Delilah cleared her throat. ‘Louis, this is Sid Griffiths. The bass player.’

‘This ain’t the Sid Griffiths?’ he chuckled. He give me a look. ‘Oh, I heard some things bout you. Things I ain’t like to repeat to you mama.’

Delilah blushed.

I couldn’t find my voice. Hell. ‘It’s a honour to meet you, Mr Armstrong,’ I said uncomfortably. ‘You been a mentor to me my whole life.’

‘ Louis ,’ he said, narrowing fierce eyes at me, like I offend him. ‘Call me Louis .’