onscreen, my body went real tight, the theatre seat squeaking beneath me. I could hear myself breathing through my mouth.
I gave a taut laugh on camera and said, ‘Well, it been right terrifying. I mean what else could it be? We gone out for a cup of milk, gone out to quell our bellies, and we end up in Café Coup de Foudre with the Nazis. It was right terrible.’ I licked my lips, my eyes flickering. ‘Listen – nothing I could say now would get at just how terrible it was.’ I grown emphatic, using my hands. ‘I mean nothing I could say to you now could begin to bring home how harsh, how awful it been.’ I paused like a man who’d made a great point. I remembered then that Caspars hadn’t reacted to what I’d said. ‘Only thing I can say is that being there with him during the ordeal, seeing his courage, it was an honour.’
A long silence fell over the theatre as my face faded out. My heart had inched up my throat till I could hear the blood in my ears. That odd feeling come over me so strong I near couldn’t breathe. Hell, I thought. What is it. The dark felt soft and hot, like an animal crouching on me.
Then Chip come onscreen, and that bad feeling in me just grew. He looked rough, old, holy in his ice-white suit, like a Mississippi Baptist spent his life preaching on the delta. Staring at his burnt-out face, his swollen cheeks and his eyes rusted from horse, I seen him with eyes afresh. He looked wrecked, and what’s worse, wholly blind to his frailty.
‘When Hiero got arrested in that café,’ he was saying, ‘they’d had to make up a reason for it. So they branded him a race-polluter, a stateless race-polluter and an immigrant and a Commie. All sorts of things. Hell, if anyone was a Commie it was Sid. But they held Hiero for two weeks at Saint-Denis, no trial, nothing, before putting him on a transport to Mauthausen. Mauthausen . Very name of it give you the shivers. Poor kid was hauled off there, and no amount of money, talk, or pull could get him out. Not that Delilah had any kind of influence no more – she was even on thin ice herself.
‘Sidney Griffiths,’ said Chip, shaking his head. Something in me died at that gesture. It seemed so contemptuous.
‘A shame, the trust we all put in him.’ Chip took a long, deep breath, reflecting. ‘But he’s a lesson, really. A lesson in what jealousy’ll do to a man. To betray such a genius musician, and a kid at that, over a woman. Over the kid’s talents, and over a woman. I mean, there he stood, denying his friend, pretending he didn’t even know him, while they dragged the poor boy away. I ain’t saying he pre-arranged it. I ain’t saying that. But handing Hiero over to the Boots, to the Gestapo, like that…’ He shook his head. ‘That’s mind-blowing, ain’t it? I don’t have to tell you what a great blow that was to the legacy of jazz. I mean, here we was on the verge of that groundbreaking recording… I know, I know, we still got a pretty good take, but imagine what it could’ve been. Hell. It’s a crime. It’s a crime for which Sid ain’t never been held to account.’
I ain’t saying I seen it coming.
But hearing Chip onscreen, all a sudden that crushing hot feeling in my chest just drain right away. It like I ain’t even there no more. Like something just finished. Just ended. This blood trapped in my head, the slow dim throb of it deep inside.
I closed my eyes.
And then I was waking in some other room, a room cool and alien to me, the windows letting onto an old Baltimore street I don’t barely recognize. Lying on a bed in the damp sheets of a lady who ain’t my wife. The room white as wheat with early sun, a dry smell like cinder coming off her body. I wanted to turn to her, to gather her small limbs into me way I done just hours ago, kissing the joint at her throat where her collarbones meet, her wet dirty curls. But I didn’t. Something was rising up in me like bad digestion. Dust on the bedside table, a
I gave a taut laugh on camera and said, ‘Well, it been right terrifying. I mean what else could it be? We gone out for a cup of milk, gone out to quell our bellies, and we end up in Café Coup de Foudre with the Nazis. It was right terrible.’ I licked my lips, my eyes flickering. ‘Listen – nothing I could say now would get at just how terrible it was.’ I grown emphatic, using my hands. ‘I mean nothing I could say to you now could begin to bring home how harsh, how awful it been.’ I paused like a man who’d made a great point. I remembered then that Caspars hadn’t reacted to what I’d said. ‘Only thing I can say is that being there with him during the ordeal, seeing his courage, it was an honour.’
A long silence fell over the theatre as my face faded out. My heart had inched up my throat till I could hear the blood in my ears. That odd feeling come over me so strong I near couldn’t breathe. Hell, I thought. What is it. The dark felt soft and hot, like an animal crouching on me.
Then Chip come onscreen, and that bad feeling in me just grew. He looked rough, old, holy in his ice-white suit, like a Mississippi Baptist spent his life preaching on the delta. Staring at his burnt-out face, his swollen cheeks and his eyes rusted from horse, I seen him with eyes afresh. He looked wrecked, and what’s worse, wholly blind to his frailty.
‘When Hiero got arrested in that café,’ he was saying, ‘they’d had to make up a reason for it. So they branded him a race-polluter, a stateless race-polluter and an immigrant and a Commie. All sorts of things. Hell, if anyone was a Commie it was Sid. But they held Hiero for two weeks at Saint-Denis, no trial, nothing, before putting him on a transport to Mauthausen. Mauthausen . Very name of it give you the shivers. Poor kid was hauled off there, and no amount of money, talk, or pull could get him out. Not that Delilah had any kind of influence no more – she was even on thin ice herself.
‘Sidney Griffiths,’ said Chip, shaking his head. Something in me died at that gesture. It seemed so contemptuous.
‘A shame, the trust we all put in him.’ Chip took a long, deep breath, reflecting. ‘But he’s a lesson, really. A lesson in what jealousy’ll do to a man. To betray such a genius musician, and a kid at that, over a woman. Over the kid’s talents, and over a woman. I mean, there he stood, denying his friend, pretending he didn’t even know him, while they dragged the poor boy away. I ain’t saying he pre-arranged it. I ain’t saying that. But handing Hiero over to the Boots, to the Gestapo, like that…’ He shook his head. ‘That’s mind-blowing, ain’t it? I don’t have to tell you what a great blow that was to the legacy of jazz. I mean, here we was on the verge of that groundbreaking recording… I know, I know, we still got a pretty good take, but imagine what it could’ve been. Hell. It’s a crime. It’s a crime for which Sid ain’t never been held to account.’
I ain’t saying I seen it coming.
But hearing Chip onscreen, all a sudden that crushing hot feeling in my chest just drain right away. It like I ain’t even there no more. Like something just finished. Just ended. This blood trapped in my head, the slow dim throb of it deep inside.
I closed my eyes.
And then I was waking in some other room, a room cool and alien to me, the windows letting onto an old Baltimore street I don’t barely recognize. Lying on a bed in the damp sheets of a lady who ain’t my wife. The room white as wheat with early sun, a dry smell like cinder coming off her body. I wanted to turn to her, to gather her small limbs into me way I done just hours ago, kissing the joint at her throat where her collarbones meet, her wet dirty curls. But I didn’t. Something was rising up in me like bad digestion. Dust on the bedside table, a
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