Clifford's Blues

by John A. Williams

  Saturday, June 2, 1934

  Some carving going on for sure. This morning Dieter Lange and a bunch of his friends sat around drinking coffee and schnapps, laughing and shouting. The SA cannot wear uniforms this month. I don’t know what it means, but if Dieter Lange is happy about it, it’s bad for Friedrich. Haven’t heard from him anyway. Know Dieter Lange didn’t like taking orders from him that sent him away more often than he wanted to go. No group is as loyal to the Third Reich, they said, as the Schutz-Staffel, the SS. The Sturm-Abteillungen, the SA, had no discipline, was not devoted. And the army, well, Hitler would take care of those fucking Prussians. I could feel that they were talking themselves up on some Horst Wessel, and sure enough, in a couple of hours Dieter Lange called me up and had me play some of those goddamn patriotic and marching numbers while they tried to sing—not a one could carry a tune.

  Wednesday, June 20, 1934

  When Dieter Lange is away and I stay in the back of the canteen at night and work in the front during the day, I see all the prisoners going and coming, coming and going, always marching, always in step. We do roll call mornings and evenings in the Appellplatz, facing the administration building (Wirtschaftsgebaude) where there’s also the kitchen and the laundry. (Dieter Lange’s trying to get me excused from the roll calls.) The prisoners with their metal bowls march to get their food and march away. They march to details and back from them. They march to build the walls and to dig out the moat. They march to the garden, to the swamps, to the pigsty, to the quarry. They are in step when they push or pull wagons. Only when the work is done, the roll call over, can they sit on benches outside the blocks.

  Even so, things go on underneath all the German discipline: money’s passed, there’s bartering; if you know the right guards you can get almost anything, even sex. Dieter Lange has apparently made arrangements for some women from town to be slipped in. At night the shadows are filled with men shifting and sliding along the blocks to get to the women and to some of the Pinks who are, like me, literally working their asses off to stay alive. I get a lot of propositions—I’m a pretty rare piece here—but they aren’t serious ones. Everyone seems to know that I am Major Lange’s Neger, like in the slavery days (and after, I suppose), when So-and-So was was Mr. So-and-So’s nigger. I’ve heard about that. If you belonged to the right white man, you could kill and the killing would be ignored. You just had to belong—to the right someone. It’s the way the Nazis work, too. You have to belong or you wind up in trouble in Dachau. So I guess I do belong to Dieter Lange, but in some ways he belongs to me. He’s a busy man and I’ve learned how to make him reach the major key quickly, make him groan and hammer my chest or back to stop bringing him up so quick and so good. But shit, I can’t have that man romping and stomping in me when Annaliese got to get hers, too. If not, trouble. (I have to think for all four of us all the time, but she’s sure found herself something in that Major Bernhardt.)

  Sunday, June 24, 1934

  I was in camp yesterday, in the canteen. I was blue, deep down blue, thinking about being here and wondering again if I’ll ever get out. I felt like talking to God. I felt He was near and would talk back to me. I thought of church services back home, and singing and the raggedy old piano that Sister Grubbs beat so bad that music actually came out of it while her huge behind hung off the bench. People would get religion like lightning hit them, and they’d jump up happy, jigging in little circles, smiling, crying, and talking to God, and you could almost hear God asking questions because of the answers they always spoke. “Yes, Lord! My Jesus, yes!” Answers just laying out there on the air, Sister Grubbs, chin up like she was proud she’d brought God and the people together, playing softly, the congregation humming, not knowing whether to go or stay, but their eyes sure glued to the people touched by the Spirit (including the Loas, the charms, and curses).

  In the corner of my room in the canteen I got down on my knees. Before I could start to pray, I began to cry, cried like someone had come along with a big scraper and just jooged it into my soul and dug out all the evil. I must’ve cried about an hour before I could think of any words. Then I prayed another hour, but that didn’t help, either. So I went down to 26, the Priesterblock, hoping to talk to one of them. The priests and ministers and Bible students try to put the best face on everything, so it isn’t bad to be around them except when the guards have it in for them.

  A young man, white as fatback, lean as the first shadow, came out of the block. He saw me and stopped. In good English he said, “Hello, Brother.” He gave me his hand and smiled. His hand was thin and long, like something still growing. He said he was Menno Becker and waited like I would know him. He smiled again. He was beautiful. He asked my name and I told him. He looked at my triangle, then into my eyes. “Do they treat you badly, Brother?” His voice was so soft and low that I guessed he had figured everything out just like that. My eyes grew water and I couldn’t talk. “God loves you,” he said. He took my elbow and we started to walk. Inmates walked up and down, down and up beside us, maybe trying to believe that walking was being free. He asked about America, if I had a family, what I did, how long I’d been here. When I answered with the emptiness of what my life was, recognizing its sound—like a bass drum being hit in a closed saloon—the tears came again. Again he said, “God loves you, Brother.” I said that was hard to believe. He said Dachau and the other camps were a sign that the Lord was about to bring mankind to judgment. The Great War, the Depression, Mussolini, Hitler—they were all signs of His coming. Menno said God gave us the signs to give us a chance to repent, to find the Truth and the Faith. Up we walked and down we walked.

  He worked in the Infirmary. (It’s also called the Revier.) He’d learned English from a tutor because he’d wanted to go to America to work with the Brothers and Sisters there. He was named after the man who founded the Mennonite faith, he said. The Mennonites did not believe in slavery and had opposed it. He did not know how he’d become a Witness, but he was sure it had to do with most of his family being Mennonites. He said to me that as a musician, I should try whenever I could to make a joyful noise unto the Lord. “The Lord understands travail,” he said, “how a man can be made to suffer. But if a man has musics—although Witnesses do not use it—he should use it in the service of God.” I asked if he was a minister and he said, “All Witnesses are ministers.” Then he took my hands in his. My fingers relaxed; his fingers caressed mine.

  I dreamed of Menno last night. He had long brown hair and a soft brown beard and a full mustache. He came near me and his breath smelled like magnolias. I woke up. I stared out at the camp, so silent its walls stabbed by lights, and thought about the dream. I decided that I loved Menno Becker, but there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.

  Mon., July 2, 1934

  Between catching parts of radio broadcasts, overhearing Dieter Lange and Anna and especially Dieter Lange with his SS buddies, and exchanging news with the other calfactors, it seems that Hitler’s man, Ernst Roehm, and Roehm’s boyfriend were killed Saturday night in Munich. Gitzig says there were shots way out in the camp swamp Saturday night, too. A bunch of SA leaders were executed at Lichter-fede, and generals have been wiped away like snot, I heard Dieter Lange say. “Hundreds of people killed, leaving the SS in charge and completely loyal to Hitler, and Hitler totally in charge.” I always thought he was anyway. Dieter Lange and his friends sang marching songs and toasted each other, Hitler, the SS, Roehm’s death, and victory. Victory?

  Sunday, July 22, 1934

  I have not seen Menno Becker in a month. I can’t ask too many questions, and when I am in the camp I can’t hang around Block 26 or the Infirmary. But we have exchanged notes—some of them pretty hot—through Werner. Of course, we must destroy these.

  Anna almost caught me writing in this diary. She has taken to walking softly about the house, so I loosened a couple of the steps on the stairway to my room; now they creak when anyone steps on them. I am very nervous when she comes down to talk. S
uppose Dieter Lange started down, or the Gestapo man, Bernhardt? Anna still doesn’t understand the way things work. She wanted to practice her English. She always wants to practice her English, since she thinks it will make her high-class. But if Bernhardt caught her down here, there’d be hell to pay. He’d go tougher on me than Dieter Lange, ’cause she could sweet-talk her way out with him. They ought to know I don’t want any trouble. But they’d kick my ass anyway.

  When I heard the creak on the stairs, I just managed to slip my sheets of paper behind the picture of Hitler that hangs on my wall. Then I started to go out and made believe she startled me. She said she had something for me that maybe I could read to her. That would be a good way to help her learn English, she said. She showed me a magazine. I said we should go upstairs where the light was better. The magazine was two years old: International Literature. It had a picture of Langston Hughes in it, and some of his poetry. It was printed in Russian, German, English, and French. Would I please read the English? Langston Hughes was the famous writer friend of my cowboy. He seems to have liked Russia, judging from the poems and what the magazine said about him. I hated Moscow. I wonder if Hughes is still in Russia, if I could write to him care of this magazine for help.… Of course, I had to try to explain the poems to Anna (not that I understood all of them), as well as the words used in them. She sat very near and paid close attention. When we were finished, I told her Dieter Lange would be angry to find such a magazine in his house, a magazine with “Revolution” appearing at least once on every page. But, I said, if she could bring me anything written in English, we could do much better with her lessons. (And maybe I could find out more about what was going on, even if it was too late to do anything about it.) Anything would be better than that “This is a table, this is a chair” shit.

  Thursday, Sept. 27, 1934

  Word about Prosecutor Winterberger. Looks like I struck out again. Winterberger’s been replaced by Prosecutor Barnickel, and all the cases Winterberger brought against the SS (and the SA) have been dismissed. The SS can do anything it wishes, Dieter Lange said. Anything.

  Saturday, November 11, 1934—Armistice Day

  It seems that most of the inmates coming into camp right now are fruits. A few Reds and Greens, but mostly queers. “Filth,” they’re called. Even Dieter Lange calls us that. “Filth.”

  Tuesday, December 25, 1934

  When Dieter Lange and Anna are out of the house, there’s not much for me to do. When they are around, they don’t care how good I do things, if the things I do look okay. Like playing the piano: you can make shit sound good without trying. Just throw in a lot of dinkles. Arpeggios and glissandos, my colonel called them. Drunks don’t care. And I’m tired of playing for drunks. But I can hold out as long as I can play for myself. Like I did today. All day.

  They went to Anna’s folks for Christmas. Back day after tomorrow. Dieter Lange gave me a bottle of cologne, and Anna gave me a chicken to cook for my dinner, which I did, with stuffing. Of course, I helped myself to the best of Dieter Lange’s liquor and wine stores.

  About the playing: Dieter Lange thinks that practice makes me play better at parties, but, like his guests, he just likes the beat. He thinks that’s the main thing about music, and that Negroes play it better than anyone else, because the beat is like tom-toms. What a dumbbell. Sometimes I ask myself, if this nightmare ended tomorrow, would I be able to make music, to play with a band or be good enough to play in a cabaret? Would I be any good at all?

  Today the music started to come out slow. Blues and shuffle, sad stuff. I didn’t want to play that. I moved to some faster stuff, but that only sounded frantic and scared, which is how I am most of the time. But I wanted to remember the good times and to hope that this situation won’t last much longer. I think I was listening, for the first time, to the echo of the church in my music. Had it always been there, the heavy low-down weeping spiritual for funerals, the happy, ripping sanctified church beat that bounced along all by itself? I let myself out on “Joy to the World,” and threw in extra “joys” wherever I found space. And the chicken was cooking and smelling through the house. I filled up my glass again with some Cliquot. Why not “Jingle Bells”? Then I got into the melody of “Joy” with the harmonics of “Jingle.” You always hear other music in the music you’re playing. I just joyed and jingled up a storm. Let the champagne get warm, too, but Dieter Lange has plenty of it. And the chicken sure was smelling good, man.… Chicken. Dieter Lange was really looking over the chickens that came in last month. He told me so. I said to myself that I’d better study this war some more, otherwise Dieter Lange would have my ass right over there in the camp. If he found a better ass than mine. But Anna would say no. She wanted to learn English. Maybe I could even give her more time to be with Bernhardt—if she liked my cooking—and I was sure going to leave them some of my roast chicken with stuffing and gravy. Sir! Play the piano, sing a little, give English lessons, turn a trick, and cook. Shit, The Cliff would be indispensable.

  All this time I was bruising the board, matching keys and jumping from one number into another, and I started to find secret places between, before, and after notes and chords. I started a tune with harmonics instead of doing melody followed by the ad-lib, and I thought listeners should be able to track the tune without the melody, just by the harmonics. I felt good when I got up to check the chicken and get myself another bottle. I wondered what those poor bastards over in the camp were eating.

  It was getting dark. I saw The Cliff ease outside and start walking into town. Everybody’d be inside having Christmas dinner. No one would see me. Walk clear to Switzerland, into the Alps with the snow on top of them. I could do that if I was white, like that snow up there, just walk until someone asked for my papers. Maybe no one would. I sat down again and discovered sounds between sounds that I’d never played before, because I’d never thought about listening to them. It was like discovering that within a forest the trees had branches and limbs and leaves and roots, and the leaves had veins and the roots had hairs. I played around with some quarter notes, backing the pedal and ending runs up instead of down, so they sounded like questions instead of answers. I put a little stuff on some notes, stretched and bent the tones of some, and squeezed others. I braked, cutting off timbre, and the beat, the rhythm, was there. It has to be, but I found that it could be in no sound as well as sound. I played so long that the chicken got cold, but I think I found something. I know Dieter Lange and his gang won’t like it. For me it is a precious fountain. A Christmas tree. A Merry Christmas.

  Wed., Dec. 26, 1934

  I had this dream when I went to sleep: I had finished my dinner. I was high and feeling very good. I put on every sweater I could find, then put on one of Annaliese’s dresses, her heavy jacket, and her hat. I pulled on her everyday overshoes. I stuck bread and sausages and cheese into every pocket. Then I left the house. The road was empty and everything was white with snow and ice. I tried to stay in the shadows. My breath curled out in white balloons. My steps made crunching, squeaking noises. With each sound, a light in a window went out. And, as I passed each streetlight, it, too, went out. Light was always just ahead of me; darkness lay behind me. I smelled myself as I walked. I smelled of Anna’s perfume, and I walked like a woman. I felt silk things move and slide on my body, even though I didn’t remember putting them on.

  The road runs into Dachau, and in my dream I knew I had to keep veering to the west to avoid it, and also Munich or other, smaller towns. I kept walking, and the lights kept going out behind me until, down past where all the SS homes were, there remained one great, bright light, and standing directly under it was a man in a uniform. He was a huge man and the whitest person I’d ever seen. He stood with his hands on his hips and his legs very wide apart. He carried a great sack between his legs; his pants bulged with it. The white circle armband seemed three times the normal size, but there was no swastika in it. I wanted to turn back into the darkness, but I couldn’t; the darkness seemed a living
force. Then I found myself slipping on the snow, slipping as though it had turned to ice, and I was heading right toward the man. He didn’t move. If he had a face, I couldn’t see it; there was just a whiteness, very dull and very bright at the same time. The dream ended there.

  Friday, December 29, 1934

  This morning, about eleven, Dieter Lange came home, stomping and hollering and banging around in that nasty, loud way he sometimes has. “CLEEF! CLEEF!” Scared the shit out of me. Anna looked at him as though he’d gone clear crazy. What it was all about was this: there was a special representative from the Rote Hilfe who was asking for me. Dieter Lange was hot on the drive back to the camp.

  As soon as we got inside the guardhouse, I saw this tall, slender, cold-faced man. He was very well-dressed, and I could see that he was not at all afraid of the guards. They were walking around on eggshells. They were not joking, laughing, farting, or running around goosing each other. And they weren’t beating up the few new prisoners who’d just come in, either; they just led them into another room. The man looked like a Prussian faggot; you never knew they were, though, until they dropped their pants or asked you to drop yours. He said he wanted a private office, and in one minute they led us up the stairs. I could feel Dieter Lange’s eyes burning into my back. Could it be he was afraid of losing me? That made me feel good for a minute. The office overlooked the Appellplatz, and I could see the blocks all in a row to my left, and the Wirtschaftsgebaude, the kitchen and laundry and storerooms on my right. I could see the guards and inmates bending against the cold, raw wind that blew through the camp streets.