Clifford's Blues (10 page)

She had some
Life
magazines from America. I don't know anything about them, but there are lots of pictures with writing underneath. This beats books. She asked about things in the pictures, too. Sort of like “This is a table, this is a chair” stuff again, but the magazines are more interesting. This was the first time we'd been alone like this in a while, and the first time since the fight. I didn't feel nervous with her, and I thought I could ask some questions.

“What's going to happen to me?”

“What should happen to you?” she asked back.

“But you know,” I said.

“And you know, too,” she said.

“What?” I asked her.

“Bernhardt,” she said. “I know you know. Don't you?”

I didn't answer. It's always dangerous to say you know something about white people, whether they're Germans or Americans, French—it doesn't matter.

Anna laughed. “You're smarter than I am. I shouldn't have said anything last week, but I was feeling reckless, you understand. And anyway, I have him over a barrel and you could have me over a barrel,
nicht wahr?
Paaa! One word to Bernhardt and down the toilet he would go like a turd—but then I must have a husband, Cleef, because Bernhardt has a wife, understand?” She didn't know how well I understood.

“But if you could get me out of here, then you wouldn't have to worry about me saying anything about your husband. Not that I would,” I said.

She got up for a cigarette and came back to the table where we were sitting in the kitchen. She blew out a big blue cloud. “I've tried,” she said. “If only you hadn't been with that boy from the American embassy!”

I was surprised. “You've known about that all along? How come?” We were becoming like two bitches sitting at a bar exchanging gossip on a slow afternoon.

“Bernhardt,” she said.

“Bernhardt!”

She smiled. “Oh, he won't do anything. He wants you here for Dieter, so he can have Dieter over a barrel. It was Dieter who saw you got the green triangle instead of the pink one, but Bernhardt found out about the whole business. See, this thing with
Entartete Musik
… and nobody coming to help you, and you not helping yourself with the big names, and the American embassy under quiet, proper blackmail by our government because of you and that boy.…” She shrugged and pounded out her cigarette in a cheap ashtray that had figures in
Lederhosen
on it. “You are an example. The prisoners who are released talk about you and the power of the government when it can hold an American, you see? They do not say that you are a
black
American because no one would care,
verstehen Sie?
Yes?” She reached over and patted my hand. “Your skin is so smooth,” she said, and she gave me the strangest look and said, “Don't worry. All is in a balance now. Remember, Bernhardt loves jazz music.” We went back to studying with the
Life
magazines.

Thursday, January 9, 1936

Christmas and New Year's have come and gone. In the house here, things go on like always. But yes, something's changed. It's like a Saturday night in a saloon, late, when the tough guys start drifting in. You know something's going to happen before the night is out, so you're playing and singing and watching out the back of your head all the time, 'cause you never know. But now I can understand a lot of things. I think Dieter Lange's got over wanting me gone from the house, since he knows Bernhardt and Anna won't let that happen. If Dieter Lange doesn't know about Bernhardt by now, he's a bigger fool than I thought. We didn't have any parties for Christmas and New Year's, but they were out a lot—Dieter Lange had to get the canteens reorganized at Oranienburg and Borgermoor, and Anna's father came down with pneumonia—so I was alone and on the piano many hours and playing the phonograph.

Music sounds strange in this place, stranger when it's empty. But playing what I want to play makes me feel not so blue all the time.

Over in the camp, new ones come in and some of the old ones go out. But the Reds stay. No release for them. Some of the Greens get out, but they're small potatoes. The smart ones like Gitzig they still keep, and sometimes they get good details. When I cleaned the house a couple of days ago, I noticed among the papers on the desk in the small room off the kitchen where Dieter Lange does his work, that 85,000 people were arrested last year, 15,000 more than the year before. Werner likes to know things like this. No wonder Dieter Lange is so busy running from camp to camp. In our camp they are still working, making it bigger and bigger, and details still come out here every day to work on the
SS
quarters. The
SA
is back with some changes in their uniform. They aren't so rowdy now; Himmler is boss over everything having to do with the cops and the
SS
. He can kick everyone's ass, almost.

I feel sorry for the details when they're marched out here singing or yelling out songs. It's bitterly cold. The wind seems to search you out around corners. It's like a knife. Now it's hard to work in the swamps or on the plantation where they grow vegetables. But not too cold to work the quarry. Of course, they have to work the 4711 details all the time to make sure the latrines don't fall apart. In winter the problem is pipes freezing and breaking. In summer it's shit and piss and too much paper that clogs up everything. The prisoners who work inside have it good during weather like this. They're in the
SS
quarters or officers' homes, like me, or the kitchen, the laundry, or offices; or, like Menno and Dr. Nyassa, in the Infirmary. Then there are those
Koppeln
, the men who pull the wagons. There are attachments on the wagons for two men to pull, like horses, and four men to push from behind. The wagons are filled with rocks and gravel and machinery. Right now the mud is frozen, but they still push and pull, grunting just like animals. The lucky inmates get the wagons that are on tracks, but the prisoners are still the engines.

This morning when I got up to stoke the stove and start breakfast, I heard the details singing down the road as they marched up to the
SS
barracks. There was ice on the windows and the sky was growing lighter and bluer. The sun was coming out, shining on the ice and snow. The song, cracking through the cold and icicles that hang from the houses, was
“Moorsoldaten,”
and soon I could hear the footsteps of the men hitting the frozen ground like one big metronone, cr-ump! cr-ump! Louder and louder:

Wo-hin auch das Au-ge blicket

Moor und Hei-de nur rings-um
.

Vo-gel-sang uns—nicht er-quick-et

Ei-chen ste-hen kahl und krumm
.

Wir sind die Moor-sold-da-ten
.

Und zie-hen mit den Spa-ten ins Moor
.

Dann zieh'n die Moor-sol-da-ten

Nicht mehr mit dem Spa-ten ins Moor!

Then two details peeled off and came down our street.
CR-UMP! CR-UMP!
As usual, the men were four abreast. One of the middle two in the very first rank was Menno Becker. Menno! I thought as I ran quietly from window to window to make sure. What'd happened? Why was he on detail and not in the Infirmary? Oh, damn! I hadn't been in the camp for a week. Something was going on. Oh, he looked so cold and red in the face. And was there a bruise or two on his face? Oh, Menno! And the breaths of all of them made a white vapor that drifted back between the ranks. Oh, Jesus, sweet God, I thought.

Sunday, January 19, 1936

For a week Menno was on that detail—it was to lay new sewers for one of the
SS
barracks. The prisoners marched out in step, their feet banging the frozen ground, their songs hanging like icicles on the morning air. Then I didn't see him again, and I just couldn't get into the camp until today. Things seemed to have quieted down around the house. Dieter Lange has started picking at my ass again and Anna seems friendlier to him, so he sent me to the camp. I walked so fast one of the guards thought I was running. He laughed and said something about how I must still be used to warmer weather.

There wasn't much business. Everyone was trying to stay warm, I guess, huddling around stoves in those drafty blocks. I worked on the stock for a couple of hours and then, because no one came in so I could send word to Werner, I went out to find him. I ran into him and Hohenberg in one of the streets. The wind was
walking
those streets, too. It was
cold
. I pulled Werner away and we went back to the canteen, and before I could say anything about Menno, he said, “They caught him with a
Puppe
, one in that last batch of Bible students. They haven't sent him to the Prisoner Company or given him the pink—yet—because everybody's got the grippe and they need him in the Infirmary. Stay away from him. One whole day they beat him. In the Bunker. Forget him. He's trouble now. They put the pink on the boy. Pink and purple.” Werner leaned on the windowsill and looked out. “Everybody's mean,” he said. “When it gets so cold and it's hard to stay warm, they get mean.”

I had gone back to the stock and the shelves. I asked him about his family, had he heard anything lately. He didn't turn around, just said “Nothing.” Then he asked if I'd brought anything for him, and I told him no, because of the problems back at the house. Then he left. He looked older and more tired. Winter does that. I kept working, thinking, I've become an old queen, the most sorry of queers, hauling around age like a chain-gang leg iron, but still thinking and acting, sometimes, like fifteen years younger, always competing, never quitting, deaf to the low rates other faggots put on you, and deaf to the laughing. I thought it was different with us, me and Menno. It was a half-assed, hurry-up, sneak-on-in-here life, but I thought it was a life. I also wonder, again, what Dieter Lange would do about me. He could only do so much plucking now. All he had was me, really, if he wanted to be careful. Hell, he
had
to be careful now. Bernhardt could do us both in. It was very quiet in the canteen; the snow and ice outside made even inside feel cold.

Tues., June 23, 1936

It has been a long, long time. I've been so blue I could hardly hold my head up. I asked myself why I was writing this, what's the point, who cares—but then, for some reason, I began to miss you. I know why. There's no one else I can really talk to. So here I am.

Looks like the cat-trailing-cat game has cooled down. Made me a nervous wreck but also kept Dieter Lange away from me. But I think he's starting to feel his oats again, seems more confident. The rumor out here is that Bernhardt has been assigned to the
Sicherheitsdienst
, the brain boys, the
SD
—the Gestapo. Not a man to fool with, and I think Dieter Lange has his own grapevine about that. There are a lot of grapevines to tap into around here. Germany went back to the Rhineland and took it, and the French just let them. Wonder what happens now to Hohenberg's lass who's so nice in the ass. Not a shot fired. You'd think the prisoners wouldn't give a shit about what happens anywhere but here, but they're happy; they cheered when the announcement was made, and they cheered when that boxer Max Schmeling knocked out a colored fighter named Joe Louis back in New York over a week ago.

“Proves absolutely Aryan supremacy,” said Dieter Lange and Hohenberg and Karlsohn over in camp. Shit, I guess they all said that except me and Dr. Nyassa. Guess they never heard of Jack Johnson and Battling Siki and Joe Gans. They're all so full of shit. Even the guards at the
Jourhaus
run up to me when I go in and out and put up their fists and laugh and shuffle around. “Put 'em up, put 'em up,” they say. They sure don't give a colored man a break, even if they're just as bad off—or worse.

Sunday, July 5, 1936

This afternoon Bernhardt and his wife stopped by, then Anna and Lily (Bernhardt's wife) went for a walk down to the soccer field to watch the officers play. I served them some iced tea and Lily said their Gitzig made splendid iced tea and tapioca, too. Better than their cook. This was before they went for their walk. Was all I could do to keep from throwing up. As soon as the women had gone, Bernhardt and Dieter Lange settled down for a talk. I didn't make myself so scarce that I couldn't hear what they were saying. The talk was about me and something called
Lebensborn
, or Spring of Life, some more of that high-falutin' Nazi shit. I got scared and went the hell away from the window where I was listening. Last person I wanted to catch me listening in was Bernhardt. I went out back and pulled a few weeds from the lawn, waved to some of the other calfactors who were also pretending to work. It was a fine, warm, clear day, and it was Sunday after all, the time to recover from hangovers, for the prisoners to worship.

“Cleef! Cleef!” Oh, shit, I thought. What's he want now? Dieter Lange didn't want me; Bernhardt did. There was going to be a
Lebensborn
club between the camp and the town. A place where strong young
SS
men and Aryan young women could meet and get to know each other. The women would be the best German types, just like the
SS
. Bernhardt laughed. They are supposed to make babies. First, though, to like each other and then … Well, that was all I needed to know, but he thought a band could play music, not
jazz
music, but swing music. Jazz was, he said, heh, heh,
Entartete
, but swing was all right. “From what I hear from the States there are two or three white kings of swing, so I guess that the music is all right to play here,” he went on. What he wanted was for me to lead the band. He could get from camp a drummer, an accordion player, a harmonica player, a guitarist, a cellist/violinist, a man who played the French horn, and someone who could double on clarinet and flute. No saxophones, trombones, or trumpets. What did I think? I would continue to stay with Dieter Lange and Anna and still work in the canteen. At first, there would be rehearsal, of course, so some time would have to be taken from the regular duties, but once everything was in order, I'd go back to them, just like everyone else in the band. Dieter Lange didn't look all that happy, but I guessed there wasn't too much he could do about it. I didn't feel that I had to tell him I couldn't write music; I couldn't even
read
music. But he must have known because he said some of the others could do the arrangements. I could tell them how to make things—uh—
swingy
. But mainly I would just lead and play jazz things like swing. I said okay. What the hell else could I say? No? Or even dare tell him that both were from the same big old black tree?