Really the Blues

by Joseph Koenig

  “I wouldn’t cross the street to see Chevalier.”

  “Chevalier is old hat. Youngsters mock his cornball antics. A friend of mine is his piano player and is papering the house. Otherwise they will be playing to the previous generation.”

  “This explains my luck?”

  “Do you have a girl?” Weskers asked. “It’s hard to accept, but women adore him.”

  “Not hard,” Eddie said. “Impossible. You’re right, though, they do.” He slipped the tickets in his shirt. “Will you be there tomorrow night?”

  “Me? I’ve got no girlfriend,” Weskers said. “See you Tuesday.”

  Delighted with Eddie’s invitation to a show in which he wasn’t the attraction, Carla spent the afternoon shopping for him at the Printemps department store. When he arrived at her apartment, she presented him with a hand-painted silk tie, which he held up against his chest to show off how nice it looked but refused to wear. Carla wasn’t insulted. She knew that he would never put on a tie. Tomorrow she would return it and buy a maternity gown for herself. Tonight, though, he was quite the romantic, even paying for the taxi that took them to the Casino on the Rue de Clichy.

  The house was packed when they claimed their seats ten minutes before the curtain was due to rise. Chevalier had regained his status as a drawing card, or else Weskers’s friend had done an excellent job distributing tickets. Eddie stretched his legs into the aisle bordering the pit where the orchestra was warming up. The pianist, a stranger, picked him out of the crowd and smiled like they were old pals.

  The orchestra struck up a number, and the curtain rose. The show was a plotless trifle, an excuse for the performers to trot into the footlights to do their star turns. Chevalier came out in spats, a straw skimmer, and twirling a bamboo cane, hammed it up before breaking into “Ca Sent Si Bon La France.” Eddie was about to point out that he was singing on the beat, a cardinal sin for jazz singers, for any good singer, when he glanced at Carla brushing away tears. He shrugged a good Gallic shrug. You had to be French to appreciate Chevalier. At least white. Tonight was a reminder that he was lacking in both categories.

  The casino was packed with damp-eyed women and dry-eyed Nazis, Pétainists, and Germans in uniform. The SS probably shared his opinion of Chevalier and had stayed away, but there were plenty of high-ranking officers from the Wehrmacht and other branches of the occupation army. The audience was comfortable with the Germans. Chevalier, mugging shamelessly, bowed and scraped before them. Expecting boos, Eddie watched the crowd eat it up.

  Eddie called France home because he had no place else. The war wasn’t his; neither was the defeat. As a guest he refused to criticize the nation that embraced him, but more than bad singing made him want to grab his trumpet and move on. But where would he go from here? For Eddie Piron in 1941, the streets of Paris delineated the parameters of his world as precisely as those of New Orleans and Chicago had in the past.

  Chevalier eased into a lead-footed soft shoe. Carla didn’t seem to care that he was a clod. Catching Eddie looking at her, she patted his hand, and then leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. Why was he worried that their child would turn out to be black? The tragedy would be if it was like its mother.

  The Germans talked over the performers, laughed in the wrong places. They would enjoy themselves more serenaded with the rousing anthems of the bierstubes, Eddie decided, or martial music to send them marching over the next hill. Germans advertised themselves as the countrymen of Beethoven and Brahms, but closer to their heart were the torch songs of Marlene Dietrich and the cloying melodies of the Comedian Harmonists. No, that wasn’t right either. Dietrich was in exile in Hollywood, the Harmonists disbanded because half their members were Jews. Chevalier was a cut or two above what you would find in the Berlin music halls today. In Berlin now, there was no place for Kurt Weill or Bertolt Brecht. No place for Eddie Piron.

  At intermission, Eddie strolled to the men’s room. A line stretching back to the lobby caused him to wonder if Chevalier had unsettled everyone’s stomach. He stood at the end, advancing slowly when someone said to him, “Great show, ain’t it?” It was Simone tugging at his elbow. “Ol’ liver lips sure knows how to put a number across.”

  “I thought,” Eddie said, “you were a jazz fan.”

  “Crazy for all good music.” Simone nudged him ahead. “Line’s movin’.”

  Eddie took a half step. He wanted to get away from Simone but needed the toilet.

  “I was thinking,” Simone said, “’bout the conversation we had when I told you I seen you play in New Orleans, and you pointed out, you mentioned it was a Negro club, and what would you be doing there? Gave it a lot of thought. Want to know something?”

  “What’s that?”

  “You were right. The Dog Pound is a Negro club. But I was right too. Tried to figure out how we both could be. Give it all the thought I had, and come to the only conclusion.”

  Eddie waited. “Going to tell me what it is?”

  “It’d be impolite.”

  “You’ve got a rotten memory—”

  “So I have,” Simone said. “Which is why I made some calls to the U.S. to double-check. They put in these new trans-Atlantic phone lines, sounds like you are in the same room with the person you’re talkin’ to three thousand miles away. I mention it so you’ll know there’s no mistake. I was told the New Orleans police’ve got a strong interest in you about an altercation in the French Quarter some years back. I’d be surprised they are actively lookin’ for you. Nevertheless, here you are in Paris in these tryin’ times. Started me thinkin’, who else is after you in the States, what other stuff you have pulled. Black man passin’ for white here under the Nazi Germans.”

  “What do you want?” Eddie said.

  “What’ve you got I might want?”

  Eddie turned his back.

  “Don’t worry your head, you’ll come up with somethin’ nice, or everybody in Paris’ll know their ace trumpet player is a spade.”

  “Do you think that would be bad for my career?”

  “Ain’t talkin’ ’bout your career. Talkin’ ’bout your future. Your life. These Germans, they got primitive ideas ’bout the colored.”

  “Go ahead, tell everyone in Paris I’m not white,” Eddie said. “See if anyone believes it. The truth is, you’re wrong. I just might sue you for slander.”

  “I doubt,” Simone said, “you’d be happy with the attention. ’Specially after the verdict comes in.”

  Eddie was proud of the light skin and straight hair that allowed him to carve a niche for himself between the races. On occasions when someone suggested that he was other than the white man he claimed to be, he dropped the guise, often with raised fists. This was the first time he’d denied having Negro blood. After years in this city that had opened its arms to him, it was crazy to be in a situation where it seemed necessary. He really did need to use the toilet.

  The curtain was up when he returned to his seat, Chevalier oilier and more oafish as he launched into his specialty number, “La Chanson du Macon.” Carla said, “You were gone so long, I was beginning to think you weren’t coming back.”

  “Where would I go?”

  She shushed him, pulled him down beside her.

  “No, I mean it,” he said.

  “Mean what?”

  “Where would I go?”

  Mavis said, “You were gone so long, I thought I was never going to see you again.”

  “Ran into an old friend of mine by the john. We got to talkin’, and I forgot the time.”

  “You didn’t forget to pee?”

  Simone snapped his fingers. Grabbing the balcony railing, he hoisted himself out of his seat looking at Mavis, and then he sat down again.

  “An old friend from New Orleans?”

  “I didn’t know him there,” Simone said. “Met him for the first time a few nights ago at a club on Place Pigalle.”

  “You lost me,” she said. “Care to tell me who this old friend that you d
idn’t know before is?”

  Simone leaned forward, pointing down into the orchestra. “In the front row by the band. Next to the woman in the black dress. That’s him.”

  “The tall fellow? He must be awful good-looking.”

  “All I can see of him up here is the back of his head. It don’t look more good-lookin’ than the back of most heads. Why do you say that?”

  “While you were at the gents I couldn’t help noticing the girl he’s with, and she is one of the most beautiful I’ve seen in Paris. You expect one of these Frenchies that look like they were sawed off at the knees, that’s how short they are, to be her husband?”

  “She ain’t his wife either, I bet.”

  “Without seeing his face, it still makes me happy to hear.”

  Several rows behind them someone said, “Silence!” Simone whipped around, but no one looked back.

  “Know something, Mavis, you might have the right idea. Good-lookin’ single fellow like Eddie Piron, you and him were made for each other. Want to romance him I won’t stand in the way.”

  “You know I’m only teasing you,” she said. “Keep your shirt on.”

  A man who didn’t look like he was sawed off at the knees shouted “Faire taire!” Simone leaned close to Mavis. “A head turner such as yourself, you’d be first-rate competition for that gal he’s got. Everybody can stand a little competition, even her.”

  “What’s the catch?”

  “Ain’t no catch,” Simone said. “Oh, did I mention he’s a nigger?”

  Mavis shaded her eyes, and stared down into the orchestra. “He doesn’t look like one.”

  “Not all of ’em do where we come from.”

  “I always wondered what it would be like being with one,” she said.

  “You did?”

  “Sure, as long as somebody had to point out that was what he was.”

  “Be quiet, damn it,” someone said in English.

  Simone kept quiet. There was nothing left to say anyway.

  In the cab taking them back to the hotel, Mavis said, “You were kidding, right, about what you said about wanting me to sleep with a colored fellow?”

  “Did it sound like I was kiddin’?”

  “Not too much. That’s why I am asking. If you aren’t, why would you? You know they have all got cooties.”

  “Same reason I wanted you with that engineer from Germany.”

  “For his secrets?”

  “That’s right.”

  “This fellow has military secrets, too? What does he do?”

  “Plays trumpet at that club.”

  “You’re pulling my leg,” Mavis said. “What kind of secrets could he have?”

  “That’s what I want you to find out. They wouldn’t be secrets if I already knew.”

  “A trumpet player? The German, he knew about planes.”

  “Yeah, and you did a good job on him.”

  “I would say that he did it on me. But never mind. I did what you wanted me to, more or less. Where is the money from it?”

  “He must’ve figured he could live without you. He took a powder,” Simone said. “I’m not holdin’ it against you. You’ll do better with Piron.”

  “I’ll say it again,” she said. “A trumpet player?”

  “There were plenty of SS in his club the time I dropped in. They run this burg, and they love jazz. You’ll get some dirt on them, and maybe a few secrets about himself. He must have some racket, or what he be doing here?” To the driver he said, “Eyes on the road, Bud, you just run a red light.

  “Still with me?” he said to Mavis. “You ain’t said a word.”

  “I was thinking, how do I go up against a woman like the one he has now?”

  “You got me.”

  Mavis started to laugh, to laugh at him.

  “I mean, you got me.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The drunken Nazi wanted “Shine.” Gert Weskers said, “I am sorry, I cannot play this tune.”

  “You call yourself a jazz musician?”

  Eddie often had the same question. It didn’t make things better, being in agreement with a Nazi.

  “I . . . I have never played it before,” Weskers said. “I don’t know the part.”

  The Nazi, an SS Captain Krauss in Paris as part of a mission to facilitate the transfer of Jewish property to the Fatherland, said to Roquentin “Lock the doors. No one leaves until we hear ‘Shine.’”

  It was past 3:00, and Eddie was exhausted. Pounding the drums like the hopped-up viper the audience expected to see did that to you. The Nazi was soused more than a bit. A drummer himself, he tapped his fingers against a shiny holster on his hip as Eddie walked offstage, continued to the office, and returned with his trumpet, saying to Weskers, “Take my place at the drums.”

  “What do I know about them?”

  “You know the Heinie may kill you if he doesn’t like your playing.”

  Weskers picked up the sticks, examined them in his hands looking puzzled, and then swiped at the tom toms and snare, hammered the pedal against the bass drum. The piano player struck a few chords, and Eddie raised his horn to his lips.

  It was good to be front and center under the lights again, even while risking the displeasure of an SS man with a load on. The song was a bravura piece by the great Armstrong, and he hit a few clams in the opening cadenza. His lip stung when he blew hard, and the verse was ragged. The chorus was better as he slowed the tempo, improvising on the melancholy theme, developing it until the guitar stole a canny, single-string solo that lifted the mood. The gold standard was how Satchmo had recorded it with his orchestra, but that was beyond the Angels’ capabilities on their best day. And this wasn’t one of them. Eddie wasn’t playing for posterity, but for Nazis.

  A handful of Germans were scattered around the bandstand, most of them uniformed. A woman sat by herself at a banquette, good-looking in an unrestrained, American way. The SS invited her to their table, but she waved them off to devote herself to her drink.

  At the coda the SS broke into rhythmic clapping. Captain Krauss demanded to hear the tune again. Eddie didn’t have another bar left in his lip. The captain pounded his glass against the table, a Katzenjammer kid run amuck. Eddie put down the trumpet, letting Philippe carry the melody, and then he began to sing.

  “Oh, chocolate drop that’s me,”

  Krauss bellowed while his companions egged him on. Eddie fingered the valves, but didn’t lift the instrument to his face. He loved the melody as much as he hated the lyrics written for a Negro road show. Armstrong had made it the tragic anthem of a beleaguered race, or a coon song—take your pick—and his version was how it was known best. Mouthing Armstrong’s words, Eddie felt transparent, a black man impersonating a white man pretending to be colored.

  “Just because my hair is curly

  Because my teeth are pearly

  Just because I always wear a smile,

  Like to dress up in the latest style.”

  Lacking Armstrong’s gravel in his voice, he compensated with rawness as he tried not to choke on the words.

  “Just because I’m glad I’m living

  Take troubles grinning, never whine

  Just because my color’s shady,

  Slightly different maybe

  That’s why they call me Shine.”

  He finished covered in sweat, also Armstrong’s trademark. Captain Krauss’s companions hoisted him by the shoulders and walked him to the sidewalk under protest. Eddie told the other customers that he hoped to see them again soon. Everyone got up to go, all but the woman, who said to him, “Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

  It wasn’t unusual for Eddie to receive effusive praise from his fans. This was something else.

  “I’m flattered,” he said, “that you enjoyed my playing so much.”

  “That wasn’t too shabby either,” the woman said. “I’m talking about how you handled the Hun. He’d’ve started shooting if he didn’t get to hear what he wanted.�
��

  “Shooting at me.”

  “Just the same,” she said, “it wasn’t something I care to be around.”

  The lights flashed on and off, and then they dimmed.

  “No time?” she raised her glass toward Roquentin, who shook his head, tilted it at Eddie. “Not even for a quickie?”

  Eddie went to the bar. He was also relieved that the Germans hadn’t squeezed the trigger. It wouldn’t have been the first time they had done that for a song.

  “You’re a hero,” she said when he came back with a bottle.

  He poured for both of them, drank off most of his watching the band file out of La Caverne.

  “A real angel.”

  “During working hours only,” he said.

  “You don’t sound like a Frenchman.”

  “My playing?”

  “Your playing, your talking, how you don’t go down on your knees in front of Nazis. There’s nothing French about you.”

  Eddie didn’t answer.

  “I meant it as a compliment,” she said. “As three, actually. You’re American. Where are you from?”

  “The South.”

  “We have something in common.”

  “You’re a Southerner yourself?”

  “I have no use for Germans.”

  Looking at her, Eddie looked at his watch. She didn’t take the hint.

  “I’m Mavis,” she said. “You’re—?”

  “Dog-tired. I need to go home.”

  “Paris has changed,” she said. “People are afraid to be friendly. It’s no fun being in a foreign city without a friend.”

  Her eyes lingered against his, turned them away. Was that a blush on his cheek? She had never seen a colored man blush, but he didn’t look colored at all. Much too fair, not to mention good-looking, and how could he be colored if she found him attractive? She wouldn’t put it past Simone to lie about him to put a bug in her head about sleeping with him. She wondered why it was okay with Simone for her to jump into the sack with a Nazi, but to have second thoughts about a light-skinned musician who even the SS regarded with respect, the answer no doubt in the handsome face looking away from hers. She was dying to find out if he really was colored. More than whatever Simone had sent her to get, she wanted that question answered.