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Half-Blood Blues: A Novel
Half-Blood Blues: A Novel
Half-Blood Blues: A Novel
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Half-Blood Blues: A Novel

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

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Winner of the Scotiabank Giller Prize

Man Booker Prize Finalist 2011
An Oprah Magazine Best Book of the Year


Shortlisted for the Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction

Berlin, 1939. The Hot Time Swingers, a popular jazz band, has been forbidden to play by the Nazis. Their young trumpet-player Hieronymus Falk, declared a musical genius by none other than Louis Armstrong, is arrested in a Paris café. He is never heard from again. He was twenty years old, a German citizen. And he was black.

Berlin, 1952. Falk is a jazz legend. Hot Time Swingers band members Sid Griffiths and Chip Jones, both African Americans from Baltimore, have appeared in a documentary about Falk. When they are invited to attend the film's premier, Sid's role in Falk's fate will be questioned and the two old musicians set off on a surprising and strange journey.

From the smoky bars of pre-war Berlin to the salons of Paris, Sid leads the reader through a fascinating, little-known world as he describes the friendships, love affairs and treacheries that led to Falk's incarceration in Sachsenhausen. Esi Edugyan's Half-Blood Blues is a story about music and race, love and loyalty, and the sacrifices we ask of ourselves, and demand of others, in the name of art.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateFeb 28, 2012
ISBN9781466802841
Author

Esi Edugyan

Esi Edugyan's Washington Black has been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2018 and The Scotiabank Giller Prize 2018. Her previous novel, Half Blood Blues won the Scotiabank Giller Prize and was a finalist for the Man Booker Prize, the Governor-General's Literary Award, the Rogers Writers' Trust Prize, and the Orange Prize. She lives in Victoria, British Columbia

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Reviews for Half-Blood Blues

Rating: 3.7035713457142854 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Really interested and well written. Hard to find a completely original Holocaust book- this is a great one!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Sid Griffiths was a bi-racial jazz player who could easily pass for white. Hieronymus Falk is German having been born to a white mother and African father; he is an outstanding trumpet player and appears very black. These two along with three other jazz players find themselves in Germany before the war. Jazz is frowned upon by the Nazi's. The story jumps between times before the war in Berlin to contemporary times when Sid and his childhood friend, Chip, are returning to Germany to see Hieronymous who Sid thought had been killed in the war. Sid is very reluctant because of a decision he made while in Berlin that kept Hieronymous from leaving with the group to Paris. Known as the Hot-Time Swingers, the group meets with Louis Armstrong in Paris due to the workings of another bi-racial woman names Delilah.I enjoyed almost all of the book although there were some times that I got bogged down. The ending was superb.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Wonderful audio book, worth reading for the metaphors alone.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    3.25 starsMost of this book is set in 1939 and 1940 in Germany and France. It follows a group of boys trying to make a jazz record. The book does switch back and forth to 1992, as two of those “boys” are making their way to Poland to find one who had gone missing during the war. Not a very good summary, but then, I wasn't all that excited about the book, so am having a hard time coming up with a summary (and overall review!). I've been waffling between 3 stars (ok) and 3.5 (good). 3.5 because mostly it seemed interesting while I was reading, but as soon as I put it down again, I had no interest in picking it back up. Ok, so it's not a very helpful review...
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I am still not sure about this book. There were parts that had me hooked, and parts that I had trouble getting through. I have read a lot of "war books" but this was from a very different perspective. A group of jazz musicians are in Germany when the war breaks out. They are all considered undesirables, Jews, Black, degenerates etc. One of them is arrested in Germany, one joins another group, one enlists and the rest escape to France. Of course we all know that is not safe either as the Germans invade France. While trying to cut a record with Louis Armstrong, getting involved with a woman, and trying to keep alive, the story evolves about life during the war for this group of people. Definitely a book that makes you think.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Tormented, jealous and grief stricken.  Sid Griffiths is an ordinary person caught up in an extraordinary time with the freakishly talented Hieronymus Falk.  Jazz players in the same band, Hiero is "the kid", a genius everyone except Sid recognises, until the chasm between their talents becomes blindingly obvious.

    This story flicks between Germany and Paris in 1939/40 and Europe in 1994.  It's a heart tearing story of selfish betrayals mixed with real tenderness. These complicated people are so alive, and it is so well written you can almost hear the soulful music blaring from the kids horn, the crunch of the Boots marching past, of their terror.

    Sid's horrible secret stays so until a climactic finale.  I actually gasped when I learnt what his desperation to be part of something real, something beautiful, something that will live forever drives him to do. 

    Great book, recommended for anyone.

    ...

    Armstrong’s voice got real gravelly, real deep and soft, like a pelt carpet. ‘There is a whole lot of talents, Sid. You a mighty fine rhythm boy.’
    ‘But I ain’t got the stuff.’
    ‘You know what you got. Ain’t no one tell you otherwise.’
    I shook my head in disgust.
    ‘It don’t matter much bout all that anyway,’ Armstrong added. ‘You think it do, but it don’t. A man ain’t just his one talent. Little Louis needs you. And Jones look to you like you his brother. You got the talent of making others your kin, your blood. But music, well it’s different. I reckon it got its own worth. But it ain’t a man’s whole life.’

    Aw, hell, Louis, I thought. Ain’t nothin else I want
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The story of the Jews in the Holocaust is an all too familiar and terrible one. In 'Half-Blood Blues', Esi Edugyan tells the story of a lesser known but equally persecuted people. The Hot Time Swingers was a jazz band in Germany in the 1930's. The members of the band - African Americans from Baltimore, Germans, Jews and a mixed race (mischling) German bond over their love of Jazz. As this type of music becomes banned in Germany, it becomes dangerous for the musicians to remain there. One by one, they are arrested or abandon the band for their own safety. The two Americans and the young black German escape to Paris where they have the opportunity to meet and record music with the great Louis Armstrong. He immediately recognizes the genius of Hiero, the 19 year old trumpet player. When the invasion of Paris becomes imminent, the three must find a way to escape. This book travels back and forth between present-day Baltimore, where Sid and Chip now reside. Hiero's music exists only in a 3 1/2 minute recording. It is so brilliant that he has a large group of followers. A documentary is made and Sid and Chip travel back to Europe for the premiere. The book is told through the eyes of Sid. Sid is a talented musician - not an inspired one. Against the backdrop of Europe in the '30's and early '40's he relates the story of the band, their struggles, envy, jealousy, fear and eventually, possibly, redemption.Hot Blood Blues was shortlisted for nearly every major book award - eventually taking home the 2011 Scotiabank Giller Prize. Well deserved!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Esi Edugyan is an absolutely gorgeous woman and she has written an absolutely gorgeous book called Half-Blood Blues. I am ashamed to say I had never heard of it despite the fact it was a finalist for the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, the Governor General's Literary Award, and the Man Booker Prize and a winner of the Scotia Bank Giller Prize. Add to that, I was messing around on amazon.ca and discovered that the amazon powers-that-be list this gem among the top 100 books of 2011. Still I approached the first page with some trepidation. I'm not always on the same wavelength as the literary powers-that-be.Turns out there was nothing to fear, Half-Blood Blues is now my favourite book of 2012 and it's going to be mighty hard to knock it out of first place. The story is told by Sid Griffiths, bass player, jazz musician and black man. As he tells us the story of surviving Germany and occupied Paris during the onset of WWII, interspersed with the reality of his life in the present day, we get to know his friends, his lover, and his fellow musicians. I admit, I have read books that jump between time periods that have lost me in the jumps. This is not one of those books. It was easy to navigate the changes in time. The characters are well developed and I fell completely in love with Sid. He wasn't perfect but he was real and easy to love. Some of the other characters annoyed me a little but I feel like they were supposed to. No one in this book is perfect.I am so not doing this book justice. Critics have used the words 'beautiful', 'stunning', 'gripping and original'. I would add 'haunting', 'lovely', 'surprising', 'moving'. This is a serious must read.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    It is such a terrible time. It is war time in Germany, Poland and Paris. It is a time when one man ruled as dictator. It is his, Hitler's, decision to destroy certain groups of people. In "Half-Blood Blues" by Esi Edugyan, a German American band is the focus. We meet guys who love Jazz along with their lady friend, Delilah. There are many hardships. Their race becomes a thing of danger. One in the group, Chip, is German and Black. Sid is Black, etc. All of a sudden ethnicity becomes an intricate thing of beauty, and it is realized race mixtures are as different as cake batters. If you are open to racial harmony, you will see the novel in one way. If not, you will see it in another way. It is your call, your decision.Within the pages, there is the one and only Louis Armstrong. Ultimately, he will leave Europe and go back to America because of the fast movement of troops throughout Europe. However, he does not leave before trying to make a disc or record with the group. Louis Armstrong becomes more than just a famous face and name. He becomes a man born with a special talent to hear who can play an instrument and who is off and going down another path where the group does not want or need to go. Louis Armstrong's special love for one race of people is unforgettable. Their kindness is always remembered by him. To keep them ever in his mind he eats their food and wears their symbolic jewelry.It is a wonderful Historical novel about friendship, music, romance, jealousy and unfortunately, brutality. There are men who act as gentle as a woman. One friend will not leave another friend while he is near death's door. There is also the woman, Delilah called Lilah. She finds a hiding place for the guys when it is most needed. In order to leave the country, they need specific papers. She fights to get them. Each one in the band knows she will never leave Louis Armstrong. She becomes like Ruth with Naomi. She will follow him wherever he goes.All of these people whether they must go to a concentration camp or hear their racial name defamed or just totally disappear due to the men in boots show war time too can become a time of growth and bonds between men and women can deepen while their country is under siege. In the end, love is as powerful as water. It can overcome evil.If I had to stay on a deserted island and needed to take only a few books, this is one I would take with me. I feel each character is layered. I only had time to peel back one layer. It is also another view of World War II. It is seen through the eyes of those who love music, in this case, Jazz.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Two black jazz musicians from Baltimore, Chip and Sid, narrowly escape Berlin in 1939 only to find their dreams come true in meeting up with Louis Armstrong in Paris, but also their nightmares as they watch the Nazis march into the city even as they are struggling to record their finest disc, “Half-Blood Blues”. In the aftermath of the occupation, Sid does something that will haunt him all his remaining days, but which he will not reveal until fifty years later at the end of a quest of reconciliation in Poland.Esi Edugyan’s story is rich with history and horror. Jazz greats file past and interact with the characters. And the tension between individual glory, even if that glory is just a jazz record, and conscience is achingly portrayed. The prose is saturated in what passes for early 20th century Baltimore dialect. But while that at first locates and brings the characters to life, it later loses its effectiveness and starts to seem like affect. It is unclear why they speak in this apparent dialect even in German (Chip and Sid are fluent). And other characters, such as Delilah and Hiero, sound remarkably similar to Chip and Sid. But that is part of a more general concern in that we don’t really get to know any of these characters in any depth. The structure of the crisis and its milieu is adequately portrayed but Sid’s critical action is hard to judge given that we don’t really have a strong sense of him. However, maybe these are minor complaints. Because in general I did enjoy the story and I was, throughout, fascinated to learn about these black musicians in those dark days.Gently recommended.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    By the time I finally picked up a copy of Half-Blood Blues, Esi Edugyan’s novel already had quite a reputation going for it, the result of having won Canada’s Giller prize and having been a short-listed candidate for Britain’s Booker Prize. I am happy to report that this story of three black jazz musicians, who find themselves trapped in Paris when Hitler’s Nazis overrun the city, largely lives up to that reputation – except for a quibble or two I will mention later.Sid Griffiths and Chip Jones have known each other forever. The two grew up together in Baltimore where they honed their musical talents to so a high level - Sid on base and Chip on drums - that they would become popular in Berlin as the core of a jazz band they called the Hot-Time Swingers. But they really hit the big time when they add trumpeter Hieronymous Falk to the mix. Hiero, a mixed-race German, is so special a talent that he catches the attention of one Louis Armstrong - who invites the band to join him in Paris to cut a record.The tough decision to shut things down in Berlin is made easy for the band when Hitler labels jazz as “degenerate music” and bans public performances of it. When the Hot Swingers, including its German members, realize that more than their mere livelihood is at stake, the scramble is on to find papers good enough to get them across the border and on their way to Paris. Little do they know, that Hitler’s army is not all that far behind them.Sid Griffiths, the book’s narrator, tells this intriguing story from the perspective of just over fifty years in the future. Sid and Chip are old men living in 1992 Baltimore with plans to attend the imminent Berlin debut of a documentary film honoring the now legendary jazz trumpeter Hiero Falk. Hiero, caught in a Nazi roundup of “undesirables,” has not been heard from since the day of his arrest and is presumed to have died in a Nazi death camp. The mystery surrounding his end, details of which only Sid knows, have turned Hiero into the kind of musical legend that only dying young can do for a musician. But Sid knows the whole story, and even though the truth is still eating at his soul, he does not really expect, or want, to go public with it. Surprise, surprise, Sid.Esi Edugyan has Sid speak in the vernacular of jazz musicians of the thirties. While this initially slows the reader down, once the speech pattern becomes familiar, this technique gives Half-Blood Blues a feeling of authenticity it otherwise would not have had. This does, however, bring me to my first “quibble.” When Sid is thinking out loud for the reader, he sounds nothing like he does in conversation with his friends - even in 1992 – and that is sometimes a little jarring to the reader’s ear. But more importantly, the book’s ending does not quite measure up to the hugely dramatic build-up leading to it. Perhaps unrealistically, I was hoping for more. I did very much enjoy this one, and I suspect that I will be thinking about it for a good while, so if you like WWII history from a civilian point-of-view, you will likely love Half-Blood Blues. Esi Edugyan is most certainly a talent to watch.Rated at: 4.0
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I warmed to this book as I got into it. The novely of thinking about how jazz musicians were treated in pre and post Nazi Germany was interesting--espeically given how reverent Germans come to be when it comes to jazz. Also enjoyed the references to actual Jazz legends. A few of the plot twists seemed unlikely and this was a bit of a distraction, but overall, enjoyed the read.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Suspenseful story of two American jazz musicians in prewar Europe took a little getting used to because of the intriguing but odd dialect -- a mix of American slang and musician-speak as translated by the rather unreliable narrator from the German this mixed combo spoke. Like complex music, this novel might require another listen before the reader can make sense of what really happened to the rising young star in the group. I'd also like to learn more about the horrifying human zoo in Hamburg, and about Louis Armstrong's presence in France in those volatile years.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Edugyan’s Booker Prize shortlisted novel evokes Berlin and Paris during World War II through the eyes of a rag-tag bunch of jazz musicians looking for their big break. Having achieved some limited notoriety in Berlin during the Weimar era, the Hot-Time Swingers—two black ex-pat Americans, a Jewish pianist, and a couple of Germans, one of whom is black himself—are now struggling to stay alive in a Berlin that has turned against jazz and turned against half-breeds, or mischlings, Jews, and black people of all nationalities. When a jazz singer from America shows up to find them with word that she represents Louis Armstrong, the band thinks their fortunes are made. But first, they have to get from Berlin to Paris—and not all of them are going to make it. Eventually hitting Paris just in time for the Occupation to catch up with them, the group has to keep their heads down even further while at the same time trying to cut a record—the Half-Blood Blues, an anthem rejecting everything Nazis stand for. But it’s only a matter of time before the Boots—the Gestapo—catch up with them.Cutting between 1940 and 1992, Half-Blood Blues is a story of race, friendship, secrets, and betrayal. Showing a side of World War II not often written about—that is, the story of the other, non-Jewish ethnic groups persecuted by the Reich—it is fascinating and textured.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Half Blood Blues is a beautiful story about a horrendous time in the history of the world. This is a story that moves from the Paris & Berlin of 1939 to the Baltimore, Berlin & Poland of 1992 and back, with Sid as our narrator. It is the story of extremely talented Black Jazz musicians playing in the ratty closed & boarded up clubs of Nazi Berlin. They have to hide and slink about to be able to play but play they must for this feeds their souls. They hang together day and night with one or the other going out to find booze, food or whatever their needs may be if it can be found. A French woman, Delilah, comes into their lives; sent from Paris by Louis Armstrong to find them and bring them back to play with him. But the timing is very tenuous because of Nazi Germany and the "boots" (S.S.) stalking the streets of Berlin. And so they hole up and play. The 19 year old Hiero is masterful on the horn, Chip on the drums, Sid on the Bass, Fritz on alto sax, Ernst on the licorice stick (clarinet) and Paul on piano. They spend their time playing and hiding from the S.S. Then Paul is taken, not to be seen again.As times go from bad to worse, they get their papers in order and hightail it off to Paris. But not all are able to go. Their world turns to madness when one day they waken to hear the German army marching, unhindered by the army of France, into Paris. As I read this book I could hear their disagreements, feel their pain when they hurt one another or the world hurt them and see the ugliness of their world along with the beauty of their music.I highly recommend Half Blood Blues and rated it a 5 star read. Oh, that my next one could be as good.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    War novels and historical fiction has always intrigued me but in the past, I have found that most literature based in World War II concentrates on the fighting and the soldiers, rather than civilians and the other problems that surrounded the less-known aspects of the war. This novel switches between the group of characters when they were younger, in the war era, and them in the ‘present’ 1992, when they are looking back at their past. I think that it is great that although obviously their lives were affected irreversibly during the war, the book is very character driven and you see how they view aspects of the war and the prejudice that they suffered. This switching between times meant that sometimes you knew what was going to happen before it happened which in most books would spoil bits, but I think that in this case it really added a lot of depth to the plot and the characters.

    The first thing that struck me about this novel was the writing style. It is written in a very unique way, completely capturing the language and colloquialisms of the protagonist, Sid. I love the historically accurate details and the mix of facts with Sid’s opinions and thoughts about the events which take place. Once you get used to the way it is written, it flows really well and is paced perfectly, making this an almost effortless and enjoyable read.

    This is a unique mix of fact and fiction, full of love, identity, friendship, loyalty and memory. I found this to be an emotional and gripping read full of mystery and heartbreak, and I would definitely recommend it to anyone.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Berlin, Paris, World War II, jazz, jealousy, reconciliation
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Wow. The writing in this novel is amazing! American jazz slang and style is interesting enough. The addition of the descriptions, clean and direct yet so evocative. The story is full of humanity and emotion, but also history and culture, the perspective of the latter is not often associated with WWII fiction.
    A worthy award winner!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    After an initial difficulty with language, I grew to really enjoy this book. I had put it on my to-be-read list back when it was up for the Booker, but then it was chosen for The Readers Summer Book Club and that became my impetus to read it sooner rather than later. Plus, I had my Paris-themed book salon coming up, although much of the book takes place in Berlin.

    The author does a great job of capturing what I imagine the banter of 1930s jazz musicians might be, as well as their love of music. It also presents a little-seen side of World War II, so don’t let that part of the blurb drive you off if you hate war stories. Much like in Skeletons at the Feast, I appreciated the new perspective. It gets a bit sappy at the end, but I think it’s a sappiness that is well-earned.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This book is absolutely entrancing... First of all, because of the subject matter -- Black jazz musicians in pre-war/WWII Europe. Second of all, because of the voice that it's written in. There's a natural rhythm to the prose, a perfect turn of phrase, that is absolutely a joy to read.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    This was just OK. It was an interesting time to read about and about an aspect of history I knew nothing about. But I felt there was a much better book lurking in here somewhere. I didn't like the characters and they were mostly very flat. And the explanation for what happened to Hiero as a 1 page dream at the end - What?!! Seriously!!Not me, I'm afraid.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I love Canada Reads -- especially when it introduces me to a book I would not have otherwise chosen to read. Such is the case with Half Blood Blues -- I'd decided not to read it when I first heard of it, but picked it up when it was shortlisted for Canada Reads. And I loved it!Ms. Edugyan has given us a page-turner of a story. She alternates in time between 1939-40 and 1992, and makes expert use of that technique. I knew the outcomes of some plot elements and gained a deeper appreciation as I learned what was behind them. Other parts of the story remained a mystery until the end. This all contributed to making the story so intriguing!I loved the character of the narrator, Sid, and what his story says about friendship, loyalty and the longing to be part of something beautiful and lasting.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I anticipated this book as a good read for a few reasons. Jazz, World War II, Europe, and CanadaReads 2014 Donovan Bailey; however, I was somewhat disappointed. 3.5 stars because I just found the idiomatic language and phrasing so disruptive. It was like like Miles Davis. I know he is good but not my style. No offence, no apologies it just didn't tap my soul like I thought it would. The bluesy setting and jazzy characters were a delight but the melody wasn't there.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    AMAZING. I wasn't into it for the first quarter or so, but by halfway through, I couldn't put it down. This is going to give Annabel some serious competition for Canada Reads 2014. It's the better book, but doesn't feel as "Canadian" - merely due to the setting and whatnot. Either way, one of my favorite books I've read this year.

    Edit: just finishing up Margaret Atwood's The Year of the Flood. At this point, with only The Orenda left to read, Half Blood Blues is my favorite out of the Canada Reads finalists.

    Edit 2: It has been a little while since I finished the book. It has really stuck with me, so I came back here to make sure that I gave it five stars instead of four. Yep, I have it five. It really deserves it.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Sid Griffiths is a octogenarian former jazz bassist of modest talent and reputation, who was enjoying the peace of retirement in his home town of Baltimore until an old friend and fellow jazz man, Chip Jones, informs him that they have been invited to Berlin to attend a festival in honor of their late friend, the legendary trumpeter Hieronymous Falk. They and several others played together in the Hot-Time Swingers band, which was popular in Berlin in the 1930s until the Nazis deemed that jazz music was a form of degenerate art. As African-Americans, Sid and Chip were also viewed unfavorably by the fascists, but Hiero, born to an African father and a Aryan mother, was despised even more.By 1939 the band is no longer allowed to perform in Berlin, and the mostly non-Aryan band members find themselves unable to find work. Rescue comes in the form of Delilah Brown, a stunning singer who has been sent from Paris to Berlin by Louis Armstrong to recruit the boys to play in his band. Sid is enraptured by Delilah, but he becomes jealous when she seems to pay more attention to the young Hiero. As the boys are deciding whether or not to go to Paris they find themselves in even more danger, as they fall afoul of local Gestapo agents. They and Delilah are forced undercover, to avoid deportation to concentration camps, as the opportunity to escape progressively dims.Half Blood Blues was a tedious and painful book to read, due to its use of black vernacular throughout the characters' dialogue and Sid's narration, the often inane and sometimes juvenile conversations between the band members, and the petty jealousies that Sid and Chip displayed throughout the book. The descriptions of the characters' troubles in Berlin and harrowing escape to Paris were gripping, but those were the only portions that I enjoyed. I was very interested in this story of black jazz musicians in Germany and Europe preceding and during World War II, but this was another disappointing novel, one that should never have been included in this year's Booker Prize longlist.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is a story of the death of jazz at the dawn of Nazism in Germany. The name 'Half-Blood Blues' takes its inspiration from the book's hero and a jazz legend in the making Hieronymous 'Hiero' Falk is just nineteen when he starts playing with the 'Hot Time Swingers' alongside Charles 'Chip Jones and Sidney 'Sid' Griffiths, the narrator of the tale. The son of a German woman and a French African brought in to marshal the Rheinland after that part of Germany was ceded to France after the Treaty of Versailles. Hiero is a half-breed or 'mischling'.The story is set both in the 1940s in Berlin and Paris as the Trio try to stay one step ahead of Hitler's ever advancing army but also in the 1990s in a newly reunited Germany at a concert in Hiero's honour. At the heart of the story is the secret Sid harbours as to how Hiero's fate was sealed.I didn't expect to enjoy this book and it starts slowly but it is a tale that draws you in. Literary takes on music rarely seem to work but Edugyan is able to render the atmosphere of 1940s jazz, the language of the trio and banter between them feels authentic. The plot is a little weak to sustain the length and the potentially most interesting of the characters, Hiero, is the least well developed but by the end of the book they seem like minor complaints as is the rather random and quite pointless inclusion of Louis Armstrong who makes an appearance. A more major complaint on my behalf is that the list price for this trade paperback is $24.95 which seems like daylight robbery especially since the text is littered with typos and printing errors; if you're going to charge that much then at least earn it with some better proofreading. However I shall not hold the publisher's problems against the author.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    For some reason I feel obligated to open this review with a comment about how the Holocaust claimed far more victims than just Jews – notably blacks – but that would be pointless, because despite being about a bunch of black musicians in Nazi Germany, the book barely touches upon Nazi perseuction. It’s mostly about jazz, friendship and creative talent (or lack thereof), with Nazi Germany – despite being responsible for the book’s pivotal event – never really becoming more than a historical backdrop.Half-Blood Blues is narrated by Sidney Griffith, an African-American from Baltimore, who came to Europe with his old friend Chip Jones to seek out a career in Germany’s blossoming jazz scene. Here they met Hieronymous Falk, a half-black German born to a white mother and Senegalese soldier, part of the French army occupying the Rhineland. In the novel’s opening scene, which takes place in occupied Paris in 1940, Sid bears witness to the Nazis hauling Hiero away – and never sees him again.The book jumps back and forth in chronology, beginning with this scene and then returning to Berlin the previous year, and intersparsed with flashbacks to Sid and Chip’s childhood, and scenes set in 1992 when the two friends – now old and grumpy men – return to Europe to find out what became of Hiero. Most of the novel’s more interesting parts are set in 1939 and 1940, particularly the band’s flight from Germany and their short-lived life in Paris.This was a very difficult book to get into. This is largely due, I think, to Sid’s first-person narration, which Edugyan renders in phoenetic black slang. At the same time she tries to slip in typical literary metaphors and descriptions, which don’t quite gel with the words of a black jazz musician:Even awake I was sleeping. Dumped in a foreign city, where I ain’t known hardly a soul, the language a constant door in my face. It weighed on me, the loneliness, the jealousy. I took to avoiding Delilah when I could, eating in strange cafes no gate like to turn up in. I blocked the kid out entire. I ain’t certain he even notice.The streets of Paris turned white as mould under the cold blare of gas lamps.Edugyan is certainly capable of some choice turns of phrase, however, like when she describes the swastika as a “dancing black spider” or a bad memory as “a burn in my mind, a darkness at the edge of my thoughts.” It’s a testament to her skills that she could make this kind of language work with her chosen narrative gimmick at all, and towards the end of the novel I had grown accustomed to it. But it was disconcerting for at least the entire first half.The other reason I found it difficult to get into – aside from my own disinterest in the jazz period – was that the premise didn’t seem to have been executed quite right. Maybe that’s the fault of my own expectations, but there’s surprisingly little in Half-Blood Blues about Nazi persecution of the blacks – or, for that matter, anyone. They only seem like a tangible threat after the war begins and the army is advancing on Paris (easily the best stretch of the novel). Half-Blood Blues is more of a character drama with Nazi Germany as a backdrop – and I can’t fault that, I suppose, given that it’s not half-bad. The novel largely revolves around Hiero’s fate and to what extent Sid was responsible for it. It’s a novel about rivalry and jealousy, and how much more horrible they are when the rival you are jealous of is a close friend and loved one. Sid is well-developed enough as a sympathetic character that even when he does something truly monstrous and selfish you can’t help but feel sorry for him.This is clearly a novel born out of a passion, the author indulging in her desire to explore the niche period of black German jazz musicians. I can see it taking a different track to what many people might expect, but it’s a good book, and a better one than we should have any right to expect from such an odd subject matter.BOOKER PREDICTIONNot good enough, alas, to make the shortlist. Half-Blood Blues is an ultimately uneven novel, taking far too long to get moving and having a somewhat truncated emotional resolution. Certainly deserving of its place on the longlist, but not to progress any further. (Although, for the record, still a superior book to The Stranger’s Child.)
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Can’t say that Half Blood Blues was really what I expected. I expected it to primarily be about the second world war and what it was like to be a black person living in a Nazi occupied country. The book of course did have an element of this in, and the setting of the war was important for the story, but really it was a book about a group of friends, and about music. At first I found the voice of Sid (the narrator) really annoying but as I got used to it, and started getting into the story, it ceased to be a factor that really mattered to me. I did come to enjoy the book, mainly because I wanted to know what Sid did, but once I knew I was still interested in continuing to read.I can’t say I really connected with the characters. I wanted everything to turn out right for Sid but only because I felt sorry for him.I found the ending was a little abrupt too, especially as they rest of the novel looked to that pont, I just felt it could be expanded upon.Would I recommend it? Yes I suppose so but I don’t think it’s really award winning material, just a decent read.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I picked up this book 'cause the blurbs indicated it was about the underground music and club scene in Germany before WWII, which is something that interests me. However, there isn't really much of that in the book. There's a passing mention of Max Ernst, and mention of some musicians and dancers - but it doesn't really paint a wide picture of that demimonde. Rather, it focuses on the relationship between three jazz musicians, both at that time, and in the 'present' day (1942 and 1992). It actually does a great job of portraying how a group of musicians can form its own tiny world, to the exclusion of everything outside... and the trauma of that world breaking.
    The book was not precisely what I expected, but that's not a criticism of it. Actually, it was a far better book that I anticipated. Edugyan has a masterful touch with creating voice - the subtle similarities and differences between how the narrator speaks in the different time periods was impressively well done. The characters of Sid, Chip and Hiero fully come to life, with all their passions and flaws. My only (teeny) criticism is that Delilah, the woman who 'discovers' their band, remains in a sort-of-interstitial position somewhere between being a major character and a minor one. I wanted to know more of her motivations and background.
    Still, the book is an incisive exploration of friendships and betrayals.
    I'd highly recommend it. I've already ordered Edugyan's previous novel.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Never got used to the voice of the first person narration -- lots of 'aints' and double negatives. It was a barrier to immersion in the story. The author throws out some placating colorful metaphors -- "he was an ancient old raisin of a man" -- but it's not enough to carry a good book. It was a long slog to the end. The characters weren't particularly interesting, they felt so contrived. This book had too many ideas and didn't know where to focus, so it felt watery and weak. Disappointing.

Book preview

Half-Blood Blues - Esi Edugyan

I

Paris 1940

Chip told us not to go out. Said, don’t you boys tempt the devil. But it been one brawl of a night, I tell you, all of us still reeling from the rot—rot was cheap, see, the drink of French peasants, but it stayed like nails in you gut. Didn’t even look right, all mossy and black in the bottle. Like drinking swamp water.

See, we lay exhausted in the flat, sheets nailed over the windows. The sunrise so fierce it seeped through the gaps, dropped like cloth on our skin. Couple hours before, we was playing in some back-alley studio, trying to cut a record. A grim little room, more like a closet of ghosts than any joint for music, the cracked heaters lisping steam, empty bottles rolling all over the warped floor. Our cigarettes glowed like small holes in the dark, and that’s how I known we wasn’t buzzing, Hiero’s smoke not moving or nothing. The cig just sitting there in his mouth like he couldn’t hear his way clear. Everyone pacing about, listening between takes to the scrabble of rats in the wall. Restless as hell. Could be we wasn’t so rotten, but I at least felt off. Too nervous, too crazed, too busy watching the door. Forget the rot. Forget the studio’s seclusion. Nothing tore me out of myself. Take after take, I’d play sweating to the end of it only to have Hiero scratch the damn disc, tossing it in the trash.

Just a damn braid of mistakes, Hiero kept muttering. "A damn braid of mistakes."

"We sound like royalty—after the mob got done with em," said Chip.

Coleman and I ain’t said nothing, our heads hanging tiredly.

But Hiero, wiping his horn with a blacked-up handkerchief, he turn and give Chip a look of pure spite. "Yeah, but, hell. Even at our worst we genius."

Did that ever stun me, him saying this. For weeks the kid been going on and on about how dreadful we sound. He kept snatching up the discs, scratching the lacquer with a pocket knife, wrecking them. Yelling how there wasn’t nothing there. But there was something. Some seed of twisted beauty.

I didn’t mean to. But somehow when the kid turned his back I was sliding off my vest, taking the last disc—still delicate, the grooves still new—and folding the fabric round it. I glanced around, nervous, then tucked it into my bass case. The others was packing up their axes.

Where’s that last record at? said Hiero, frowning. He peered at the trash bin, at the damaged discs all in there.

It’s in there, buck, I said. You didn’t want it, did you?

He give me a sour look. Ain’t no damn point. We ain’t never goin get this right.

What you sayin, kid? said Chip, slurring his words. You sayin we should give it up?

The kid just shrugged.

We lined up the empty bottles along the wall, locked up real quiet, gone our separate routes back to Delilah’s flat. Curfew was on and Paris was grim, all clotted shadows and stale air. I made my quiet way along the alleys, dreading the sound of footsteps, till we met up again at the flat. Everyone but Coleman, of course, Coleman who was staying with his lady. We collapsed onto dirty couches under blackout curtains.

I’d set my axe against the wall and it was like I could feel the damn disc just sitting in there, still warm. I felt its presence so intensely it seemed strange the others ain’t sensed it too. Its wax holding all that heat like a altar candle.

It was the four of us living here. Delilah, Hieronymus, Chip and me. Couple months before we’d spent the day nailing black sheets across the flat’s windows, but damn if that grim sun didn’t flood through anyway. The rooms felt too stale to sober up in. We needed to sweat it out in the fresh air, get our heads about us. Ain’t been no breeze in weeks.

Hiero was draped in his chair, his scrawny legs dangling, when all a sudden he turn to me. His face dark and smooth as an eggplant. Christ I feel green. My guts are pure gravy, man.

Amen, I said.

"Man, I got to get me some milk."

Amen, I said again.

We talked like mongrels, see—half German, half Baltimore bar slang. Just a few scraps of French between us. Only real language I spoke aside from English was Hochdeutsch. But once I started messing up the words I couldn’t straighten nothing out again. Besides, I known Hiero preferred it this way. Kid hailed from the Rhineland, sure, but he got old Baltimore in the blood. Or talked like he did.

He was still young that way. Mimicking.

Something had changed in him lately, though. He ain’t hardly et nothing since the Boots descended on the city, been laid up feverish and slack for days on end. And when he come to, there was this new darkness in him I ain’t never seen before.

I gave my old axe a quick glance, thinking of the record tucked away in there. It wasn’t guilt I felt. Not that exactly.

Hiero sort of half rolled onto the patchy rug. Aw, Sid, he groaned. I need milk.

In the cupboard, I reckon. We got milk? Chip?

But Chip, he just open one brown eye like a man half-drowned. His face dark as cinder in this light.

Hiero coughed. I’m tryin to clean my stomach, not rough it up. His left eye twitched all high up in the lid, the way you sometimes see the heart of a thin woman beating through her blouse. "It’s milk I need, brother. Cream. That powdered stuff’ll rip right through you. Like you shittin sand. Like you a damn hourglass."

Aw, it ain’t that bad, I said. Ain’t nothin open at this hour anyway, kid. You know that. Except maybe the Coup. But that’s too damn far. We lay on in silence a minute. I tossed my arm up over my mouth and man if my skin didn’t stink of rancid vinegar—that was the rot, it did that to you.

In the bad light I could just make out the room’s last few chairs huddled by the fireplace. They looked absurd, like a flock of geese hiding from the hatchet. Cause they was the last of it, see. This been a grand old flat once, to go by Lilah’s stories. All Louis XIV chairs, Murano chandeliers, Aubusson tapestries, ceilings high as a damn train station. But the count who lent Delilah the place, he done urge her sell what she could before the Krauts come in. Seemed less bleak to him. And now, the flat being so empty, you felt only its depths, like you stranded at sea. Whole place nothing but darkness.

Across the room, Chip started snoring, faint like.

I glanced over at Hiero, now all knotted up in his chair. Kid, I said thickly. Hey, kid. I put a hand to my head. You ain’t serious bout givin up on the record. We close, buck. You know that.

Hiero opened his mouth, belched.

Good mornin right back at you, I said.

He didn’t seem to have heard me. I watched him heave hisself up on his feet, the chair moaning like a old mule. Then he sort of staggered on over to the door. Least I reckon that was his idea. Looked more like he heading for the fireplace, stumbling all about. His shoulder smacked a wall.

Then he was on the floor, on all fours.

What you doin? I said. Hiero, what you doin, kid?

What you mean, what my doin? You ain’t never seen a man put on his shoes before? Well, stick around, cause it’s bout to get excitin. I’m gonna put my damn coat on next.

Hiero was wrestling his old houndstooth coat. It’d gone all twisted in the sleeves. He still ain’t stood up. I need me some daylight right bout now.

I pulled on my fob, stared at my watch till it made damn sense. This ain’t no kind of hour, kid. You ain’t youself.

He ain’t said nothing.

Least just wait till Lilah wake up. She take you.

"I ain’t waitin till my foot wake up, never mind Lilah."

You got to at least tell her what you doin.

"I ain’t got to do nought."

A soft moan drifted over from the window, and then Chip lifted up onto one dark elbow, like he posing for a sculpture. His eyes looking all glassy, the lids flickering like moths. Then his head sunk right back on his shoulders so that, throat exposed, it like he talking to the ceiling. Don’t you damn well go out, he told that ceiling. Lie youself down, get some sleep. I mean it.

You tell it, buck, said Hiero, grinning. You stick it to that ceilin.

Put that old cracked plaster in its place, I said.

But Chip, he fallen back and was snoring along already.

Go on into Lilah’s room and wake her, I said to Hiero.

Hiero’s thin, leonine face stared me down from the doorway. What kind of life you livin you can’t even go into the street for a cup of milk, you got to have a nanny? He stood under the hat rack, leaning like a brisk wind done come up. Hell, Sid, just what you expect Lilah to do, you get in real trouble? She got a special lipstick I don’t know bout, it shoot bullets?

You bein a damn fool, buck. Pausing, I glanced away. You know you don’t got any damn papers. What you goin do you get stopped?

He shrugged. I just goin down the Bug’s. It ain’t far. He yanked open the door and slid out onto the landing, swaying in the half-dark.

Staring into the shadows there, I felt sort of uneasy. Don’t know why. Well. The Bug was our name for the tobacconist a few blocks away. It wasn’t far.

Alright, alright, I muttered. Hold up, I’m comin.

He slapped one slender hand on the doorknob like it alone would hold him up. I thought, This kid goin be the death of you, Sid.

The kid grimaced. You waitin for a mailed invitation? Let’s ankle.

I stumbled up, fumbling for my other shoe.

There won’t be no trouble anyhow, he added. It be fine. Ain’t no one go down the Bug’s at this hour.

He so sure, I said. Listen to how sure he is.

Hiero smiled. Aw, I’m livin a charmed life, Sid. You just stick close.

But by then we was slipping down those wide marble stairs in the dark and pushing out into the grey street. See, thing about the kid—he so majestically bony and so damn grave that with his look of a starving child, it felt well nigh impossible to deny him anything. Take Chip. Used to be the kid annoyed him something awful. Now he so protective of him he become like a second mother. So watching the kid slip into his raggedy old tramp’s hat and step out, I thought, What I done got myself into. I supposed to be the older responsible one. But here I was trotting after the kid like a little purse dog. Hell. Delilah was going to cut my head off.

We usually went all of nowhere in the daytime. Never without Delilah, never the same route twice, and not ever into Rue des Saussaies or Avenue Foch. But Hiero, he grown reckless as the occupation deepened. He was a Mischling, a half-breed, but so dark no soul ever like to guess his mama a white Rhinelander. Hell, his skin glistened like pure oil. But he German-born, sure. And if his face wasn’t of the Fatherland, just bout everything else bout him rooted him there right good. And add to this the fact that he didn’t have no identity papers right now—well, let’s just say wasn’t no cakewalk for him.

Me? I was American, and so light-skinned folks often took me for white. Son of two Baltimore quadroons, I come out straight-haired, green-eyed, a right little Spaniard. In Baltimore this given me a softer ride than some. I be lying if I said it ain’t back in Berlin, too. When we gone out together in that city, any Kraut approaching us always come straight to me. When Hiero’d cut in with his native German, well, the gent would damn near die of surprise. Most ain’t liked it, though. A savage talking like he civilized. You’d see that old glint in their eye, like a knife turning.

We fled to Paris to outrun all that. But we known Lilah’s gutted flat wouldn’t fend off the chaos forever. Ain’t no man can outrun his fate. Sometimes when I looked out through the curtains, staring onto the emptiness of Rue de Veron, I’d see our old Berlin, I’d see that night when all the glass on our street shattered. We’d been in Ernst’s flat on Fasanenstrasse, messing it up, and when we drifted over to the curtains it was like looking down on a carnival. Crowds in the firelight, broken bottles. We gone down after a minute, and it was like walking a gravel path, all them shards crunching at each step. The synagogue up the block was on fire. We watched firemen standing with their backs to the flames, spraying water on all the other buildings. To keep the fire from spreading, see.

I remember the crowd been real quiet. Firelight was shining on the wet streets, the hose water running into the drains. Here and there, I seen teeth glowing like opals on the black cobblestones.

Hiero and me threaded through Montmartre’s grey streets not talking. Once the home of jazz so fresh it wouldn’t take no for a answer, the clubs had all gone Boot now. Nearly overnight the cafés filled with well-fed broads in torn stockings crooning awful songs to Gestapo. We took the side roads to avoid these joints, noise bleeding from them even at this hour. The air was cool, and Hiero, he shove his hands up so deep in his pits it like he got wings. Dawn was breaking strangely, the sky leathery and brown. Everything stunk of mud. I trailed a few steps behind, checking my watch as we walked cause it seemed, I don’t know, slow.

Listen. This sound slow to you? I yanked the fob up and held the watch to the kid’s ear.

He just leaned back and looked at me like I was off my nut.

As we walked, tall apartments loomed dark on either side of the street. Shadows was long in the gutters. I was feeling more and more uneasy. Nothin’s open this hour, man. What we doin, Hiero? What we doin?

Bug’s open, said the kid. Bug’s always open.

I wasn’t listening. I stared all round me, wondering what we’d do if a Boot turned the corner. Hey—remember that gorgeous jane in Club Noiseuse that night? That dame in a man’s suit?

You bringin that leslie up again? Hiero was walking all brisk with them skinny legs of his. You know, every time you drink the rot you go on bout that jack.

"She wasn’t no leslie, brother—she was a woman. Bona fide."

You talkin bout the one in the green suit? Nearest the stage?

"She was a Venus, man, real prime rib."

Hiero chortled. "I done told you already, that been a leslie, brother. A man. It was writ plain as day all over his hairy ass."

I guess you’d know. You the man to see bout hairy asses.

Keep confusin the two, Sid, and see what happens. You end up in bed with a Boot.

We come round the corner, onto the wide square, when all a sudden my stomach lurched. I been expecting it—you need guts of iron to ride out what all we drunk last night. Iron guts I ain’t got, but don’t let that fool you bout other parts of my anatomy. My strength, I tell you, is of another stripe. I shuffled on over to a linden tree and leaned up under it, retching.

You get to know this here corner a bit better, said Hiero, smirking. I be right back. He stumbled off the sidewalk, hopped the far curb to the Bug’s.

Don’t you be takin no fake change! I hollered after him. With you eyesight, the Bug like to cheat you out of you own skin. A white sun, tender as early fruit, stirred in the windows of the dark buildings. But the air, it still felt stale, filled with a grime that burned hot in you nostrils. I stamped my feet, then doubled over again, heaving. The goddamn rot.

A real racket started up across the street. I looked up to see Hieronymus yanking on the Bug’s door like he meant to break in. Like he reckoned he got the power to pop every damn lock in this city. When it didn’t open, what do he do but press his fool face up to the glass like a child. Hell, though, he was a child. Stupid young for what all he could do on a horn. You heard a lifetime in one brutal note.

He run on back over to me. Closed, he said, breathing hard. You reckon all these stores be closed? What time is it?

Half nine or so.

Check you watch.

Half nine.

Don’t make no sense. Frowning, he looked all around. A white car passed through the shady street like a block of ice skimming a river, its pale driver turning to us as we turned to him. I shivered, feeling all a sudden very exposed. That gent looked dressed for a funeral, all that black and white plumage.

Hell, it’s Sunday, fool, I said, hitting Hiero’s arm. Won’t nothin be open. You got to go to Café Coup you want milk. On Sundays, the streets belonged to the Boots.

Hiero gripped his gut, giving me a miserable look. "Aw, man, the Coup’s so far."

You right, I said. We got to go back.

He got to moaning.

I ain’t goin listen to that, I said. I mean it. Aw, where you goin now? Hiero?

I got a hard knot in my gullet, watching the kid wander off. I just stood there in the road. Then I swore, and went after him.

You goin get us both pinched, I hissed at him when I caught up. I could feel my face flushing, my shoes slipping on the slick black cobblestones. Kid?

He shrugged. Let’s just get to the Coup.

Coup’s halfway to hell from here. You serious?

He give me a sort a sick grin, and all a sudden I got to thinking bout that disc I’d took and hid in my case. I was thinking of it feeling something real close to guilt. But it wasn’t guilt. I give him a quick look.

Tell me somethin, I said. You serious bout quittin that record?

He didn’t answer. But at least this time he look like he taking it in, his eyes dry and hard with thought, two black rocks.

Lucky for us, Café Coup de Foudre done just open. The kid slunk in gripping his gut like he bout to spew his fuel right there. Me, I paused on the threshold, looking. I had a strange feeling, not sickness no more, but something like it. The low wood tables inside was nearly empty. But the few jacks and janes here made such a haze with their cigarettes it was like wading through cobwebs. Stink of raw tobacco and last night’s hooch. Radio murmuring in the background. At the bar it smelled, gloriously, of milk, of cafés au lait and chocolats chauds. The kid, he climbed up onto a flaking red stool and cradled his head in his hands. The barkeep come over.

A glass of milk, I said in English, with a nod at Hiero.

Milk, Hiero muttered, not lifting his head.

The barkeep propped his thick forearms on the counter, leaned down low. We known him, though, it wasn’t menacing. He spoke broken German into the kid’s ear: Milk only? You are a cat?

Hiero’s muffled voice drifted up. He still hadn’t lifted his face. Ain’t you a laugh factory. Bout near as funny as Sid here. You two ought to get together. Take that show on the road.

The barkeep smirked, mumbled something more into Hiero’s ear. Something I ain’t caught. Then I seen the kid stiffen in silence, lift up his face, his lips clenching.

Hiero, I said. Come on, man, he kiddin.

Going over to the icebox, the barkeep stare at me a second, then glance on up at the clock. I check my own watch. Five to ten. He wandered on back with a glass of milk, his voice cracking against the silence like snooker balls hitting each other. But I warn you, he said. You drink all the milk in France, you still not turn white. He laughed his strange, high, feathery laugh.

Hiero brought the glass to his lips, his left eye shutting as he drank. A sad, hot feeling well up in me. I cleared my throat.

The kid, he suddenly reached back and touched my shoulder. Might as well do another take, he said. The disc ain’t all bad. And my damn visas ain’t come yet. What else I got to do?

I swallowed nervously.

Then he give me a long, clear look. We goin get it right. Just be patient, buck.

Sure, I said. "Sure we will. But wasn’t that last one any good, kid? Good good? Would it make us?"

The kid set the glass down on the counter, and pointing at it, hollered, Encore!

My stomach lurched, and just holding it together, I said, I be right back. You ain’t goin leave without me?

In the basement john, I got down to business. I felt sick as hell, the bile rising in me. For a second I stood there clutching the filthy basin, yellow grime all caked up on its porcelain. Head down, just breathing. I ran the faucet and splashed my face with cold water. It smelled of hot iron, the water, making my face feel alien to me, like I ain’t even in my own skin.

Then I could hear something through the ceiling, sudden, loud. I paused, holding my breath. Hell. Sounded like Hiero and the damn barkeep. The kid was prone to it these days, wired for a fight. I dragged in a long breath, walked over to the dented door.

I ain’t gone out though. I just stood there, listening to the air like a hound. After a minute I reached for the knob.

The talk got softer. Then the whole place seemed to shudder with the sound of something crashing. Hell. I couldn’t hear the barkeep’s voice. My hand, it was shaking so bad the knob rattled softly. I forced myself to turn it, take a step into the stuffy corridor. I made it up three steps before stalling. The stairs, they was shaded by a brick wall, giving me a glimpse of the café without betraying my shadow.

All the lights was up. I ain’t never seen all the lights up in the Coup, ever. I never known till that moment how nightmarish so much light can be.

The place went dead quiet. Everything, everyone, felt distinct, pillowed by silence. One gent turned to me, slow. He got creases like knife wounds in his face. I glanced under his table—only one leg. His hands gnarled like something dredged from a lake, they was both shaking like crazy. He was holding dirty papers. I watched ash from his cigarette fall onto his pants.

I looked around sharply. On every occupied table sat identity papers. A few crisp as fall leaves, others almost thumbed to powder. A young brunette slapped hers down so nervously she set it in a puddle of coffee. I stared at the bloating paper. She was chewing a loose thread on the collar of her heavy tweed coat, her jaw working softly. I remember thinking, ain’t she warm in that.

The barkeep begun cleaning quietly, rubbing down the bar with a gingham towel.

There was this other chap, though. Sitting in the window’s starched light, his expression too bright. A coldness crept over me.

Then the talking started again, and I glanced up.

Two Boots, in pale uniforms. Used to be just plain black: at night you seen nothing but a ghostly white face and an armband the colour of blood coming at you over the cobblestones. But Boots was Boots.

One was tall and thin, a tree branch of a man. The other, he short and thickset. With his back turned to me, I could see a fat roll of muscle at his neck.

I dropped my eyes, and like I was letting it occur to me for the first time, I looked for Hiero. He standing on over at the front door, staring at the Boots. Another kid stood at his side, Jewish I reckon, a look of terrified defiance on his face. The taller Boot was making a real show of thumbing slow through his papers, not saying nothing. Just licking his thumb, turning a page, licking his thumb, turning a page. Like that Boot could pass a summer’s day doing it. I looked at his quiet grey face. Was a face like anyone’s. Just going bout his business.

Foreign, the shorter Boot was saying, his voice so calm and soft I almost ain’t heard it. Stateless person of Negro descent.

Hiero and that Jewish kid, they stood there with their hands dangling at their sides, defiant schoolboys. It ached to watch, the both of them so helpless, their hearts going hard. With the broad pane of glass shining bright behind them I couldn’t see too clear. But even from here I could hear them. Their breathing.

The tall Boot done soften his voice, too. It was odder than odd: these Boots was so courteous, so upstage in their behaviour, they might’ve been talking bout the weather. Nothing like how they’d behaved in Berlin. There was even a weak apology in their gestures, like they was gentlemen at heart, and only rough times forced them to act this way. And this politeness, this quiet civility, it scared me more than outright violence. It seemed a newer kind of brutality.

Foreigners, said the short Boot calmly. Hottentot.

Stateless, said the other. Foreigner, he said. Jew, he said. Negro, he said.

I wanted to close my eyes. My legs was shaking softly, I couldn’t feel nothing in my feet. Don’t you drop, boy, I told myself, don’t you damn well drop. Get you wits together, for god’s sake, and go out there.

I stood there, rooted to the spot.

Hieronymus, he stared down them Boots. When their hard gazes forced his away, he look at the tiled floor. He never once look in the direction of the toilets, and I understood. Hell. He, of all people, protecting me. I couldn’t let him do it.

But just then the Boots yanked wide the Coup’s door, its chain singing. Taking Hiero’s arm, they led him and the other boy out into the street. I stood there. Stood there with my hands hanging like strange weights against my thighs, my chest full of something like water. Stood there watching Hiero

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