Clifford's Blues (16 page)

Then there's Ernst; I know he prefers the flute to his clarinet, and he woodsheds with Bach, too—Sonata in A Minor and Sonata in C Major. Thing that gets me about their music is that if you put down the right time to it, it can swing, which is exactly what my colonel once said. Seems like two thousand years since I knew him. Lord, how long? Maybe once I start writing and hearing from Willy Lewis on a regular basis, who knows what might happen? Who knows? All this made me think of Sam. Long gone by now, with his guitar, without looking back once, and I don't blame him. I hope his whole family, if he had one, got the hell outa here. The Germans are death on Jews, the way Americans are death on Negroes. I really don't understand that shit, but I know I can't like it, don't like it. I just wish I had the geetz, the
gelt
, the money, that Sam was able to come up with. I hope he can do another book, like Beimler, tell about Dachau, get us out of this place. But, you know, mostly, when a joker's got his, it turns out he's not too worried about anybody else.

It's Eric Ulrich, though, who intrigues us the most. When he sets up we don't have no time to worry about no Sam or anything else. The music is all. Did he really play with those jokers? We can understand that he's gotta be careful. He don't say shit but see you tomorrow or next week. Then gone. Then back again. Last Friday I thought I'd put some questions to him. I mean, who the fuck he think he is, just slipping in and pulling up a chair? Didn't nobody
invite
him to sit in. Sure, Bernhardt probably told him it was okay, if he was careful, but Bernhardt's probably already got some kind of bag to put Ulrich in by now. Like I got Baum.

So here he comes. I saw him. But I just took myself another sandwich in the kitchen and let him wait out there. Of course, when I went out and found him sitting on the stand, I pretended to be surprised. All right. I sat down and ran up and down the keyboard and he ran up and down his stops. Franz sneaked up and settled his cheeks. Danko just sort of floated up beside the drums. Oskar and Alex grabbed their Hohners, and Ernst and Teodor sidled up a respectful distance from the
Oberleutnant
. Moritz stayed in the kitchen with Fritz. I never said what I'd be playing because I didn't know myself until I was already into the intro. Friday it was “The Man I Love.” I played that intro like a lawyer laying out his case, slow and serious, heavy on the chords to let the
Oberleutnant
know they were questions I wanted answers to. In the dim house lights—Ulrich never sat directly under lights—I saw from the corner of my eyes (it's not only in Dachau where some things are better seen from the corners) his head turn toward me, his bright hair, like new hay tossed in going-down sun, sparkling as he moved. I finished the melody, statement, and questions, and started a series of ad-libs. The first was “What's Your Story, Morning Glory?” How come you play like you know the
lyrics
, the kinda poetry in the words some of you jokers don't even know are there? And if you
are
the greatest thing since fried chitlins because you played with Duke, Chick, and Jimmy, how come you wearing that Nazi shit, and how come you can't understand my—and here I gave him some melody from “Mood Indigo”—? And I kept playing, finding melodies within crazy long lines of improvisation, losing everyone on the changes but Danko, throwing him “They Didn't Believe Me,” “Body and Soul,” “You Rascal You,” “I Ain't Got Nobody.”

Even with all the Chinese—the band trying to find the changes—I heard Eric Ulrich's feet slide into a wider position. His lips went funny into a little smile when he inhaled around his mouthpiece. Right in between Danko's beat he blew very quickly the seven notes that intro “I Cover the Waterfront,” then back into the melody of “The Man I Love.” But before he finished that, I
thought
I heard (and I looked around quick to see if anyone else thought he heard, too),
“Deutschland, Deutschland, Über Alles,”
played hard like running over stones, and cynical and made-fun-of, the way some of those Masters of Ceremonies sometimes introduced acts in Berlin: daaa-daaa, dee-dee, dum da do-do. I
thought
I even heard a goose step in there. But before anybody could know for sure, he found a spot to fit in “Way Down Yonder in New Orleans.” He loved jazz and where it came from and how it made him feel. He hit some notes that were solid and on time (da da da-da da, ba tha ba da-ba da) … “I can't believe it, it's hard to conceive it …”

Danko swiveled his head from me to the
Oberleutnant
and back; he scowled at the others, What's going on? I know he didn't get any answers. Franz was whisking those brushes around so soft that I knew he didn't want to miss any answer that might come. It was just me and Ulrich. In phrases that just ran beside the melody (and I knew he was searching), he found the reprise of “My Buddy.” “Buddy” my behind, I thought, and threw him “I'll Never Be the Same.” He got to his feet and planted them, and damned if he didn't cut the rhythm right in half to play um humm-humm da da da-da da dummmmm, um humm-humm da da da-da da dummmmm … “Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen, Nobody Knows My Sorrows.” I led him back to “The Man I Love” and gave everybody time to get in, and we closed out. The
Oberleutnant
sat back down waiting for the next number. Everyone else sort of shuffled around trying not to look at each other. We had been doing some good things with “Tea,” so we worked out on that and then “Honeysuckle Rose.” Never forget that session. With the exception of Teodor soloing on “I Can't Get Started With You,” me on the vocal, of course, the sets didn't go so hot that night, not that anyone but us knew it, because we were all thinking of Ulrich getting to his feet and the way he played and what he played. Everybody in the band knew I knew what he was saying, but they knew better than to ask. Maybe Bernhardt did notice. He thought we should add a conga and a rhumba to our repertoire.

Wednesday, June 30, 1937

Dieter Lange isn't fooling me. He's spooked because Himmler said not long ago that
SS
men caught in homosexual acts should be “shot while trying to escape.” But he also said that actors and other artists who were caught plugging the hole or anything like that could not be arrested unless he approved. I been peeking at Anna; she sure doesn't look like she's anywhere near pregnant. I thought that last edict would have scared her and Dieter Lange into making a baby, but maybe they can't. And, even if she did get pregnant, dime to a dollar it wouldn't be Dieter Lange's kid. Hell, I
know
she's not pregnant.

I've managed to keep him off me a few times just by saying, “Shhh! What's that noise?” Or, “Listen—is that Anna?” There are always those times, though, when, whatever happens, I have to get mine, too, and there's no one else but him to give it to me. Yeah, he's scared. But he's been scared before.

Wrote this long letter to Willy Lewis telling him how much I cost and did he know people who could help get me out without the money, maybe because they got connections. Told him not to send anything because I wanted to keep the mail simple and not suspicious, and that he should send his letters to the woman whose return address is on the envelope. She would see I got his letters. Gave the letter to Baum in time for his wife's visit. He told me she was nervous, but he'd told her if she didn't take care of the letter, the answer, and other letters that would be going out and coming in, they'd bury him under Dachau. She just had to do it, he told her, and the less she knew why, the better off she'd be.

The new crematorium is finished.

We put in the conga and the rhumba. Then we threw the rhumba out, but kept the conga—da-da da-da doomp da, da-da da-da doomp da. (“Am-per Riv-er Con-ga!” “Am-per Riv-er Conga!”) We got some maracas and gave them to Fritz. He found a sassy line inside the rhythm, and the conga line formed at least twice each set. I made up lyrics in my head, like the “Amper River Conga” and (also in my head) “Shake Yo Booo-ty
This Way
, Shake Yo Booo-ty
That Way
.” Or, “Girl You Got Some
Big Ones
, How You
Get
Such
Big Ones?
” Or, “Hit-ler Is a
Fag
-got, What a Big Mouth
Fag
-got.” New words came whenever we did a conga. It got to be fun. I was explaining the conga to Dr. Nyassa. When I finished, he said, “They do the same dance in Western Africa, only they call it the “High Life.” Africans carried the dance to South America when they were made slaves.” He laughed. “And look at the supermen and super-women, the Aryans, dancing,” he said growling, “like
niggers
.”

Friday, July 9, 1937

It's a hot bright day and it's quiet in the canteen where I'm writing today. Found myself a hiding place for you under the floorboards in the back room where we keep most of the stock. It gets very, very hot in here. There are no side windows, just front and back, and when they're open all the dust from the work that's always going on drifts in and settles everywhere—even under the floorboards. Outside: singing, running, marching, working, the loudspeaker, sometimes, and the dogs snapping at prisoners, right along with the guards.

The only time we hear the radio over here is when the big shots speak, but in Dieter Lange's house we listen to it just about every night. Goebbels, Hitler, this one, that one, some news of the fighting in Spain, a lot on how great Germany and the Germans are. The news about Martin Niemoeller being arrested and brought to Dachau was never broadcast. Werner told me. This man was captain of a submarine during the war and was pastor of the Protestant Free Church in Berlin. An anti-Hitlerite. Werner doesn't think he'll be here long. This is just to teach him a lesson. And if he doesn't shut up when he gets out …

Dieter Lange has everything set for the opening of Buchenwald on the 16th. He hates the work he has to do when a new camp is opened, but he likes the money he can rake off. And he and Anna have lots of that now, which is another reason why, whatever happens, they have to stick together. I even know where they hide the lock-box.

Baum should be due at any minute, so I've got to end this and gather the other sheets I sometimes have to leave here, and get over to Dieter Lange's. As usual, there'll be a session with Ulrich and two sets at The Nest tonight.

Tuesday, July 13, 1937

As soon as I came in the door last Friday, Anna called me from upstairs. She sounded high. “Cleef, Cleef!
Kommen sie hier!
” Something told me this was going to be trouble. “Dieter is in Munich, and it is two hours before the truck picks you up. Come!” she hollered. She would listen to no excuses. I wondered why she didn't come to the head of the stairs at least. I wasn't too happy walking upstairs. She had her head stuck out of her bedroom door, and it seemed to me, since I couldn't see any collar around her thick neck, that she might not have anything on. I stopped and said I was not feeling good and that I should rest before the truck came, but she kept saying, “Come on, come on,” signaling with her finger. I asked what she wanted. “Come here,” she said, “just come here.”

I said, “But I'm afraid.” And I was. Now I was close and she took my hand (I could see by her bare shoulders that she wasn't wearing clothes, at least not on top) and pulled me into the room she shared with Dieter Lange. I tried not to look at all that heavy white flesh and so looked elsewhere in the room and damned if Ursula Winkelmann wasn't laying there without so much as a button on. She smiled and held out her arms. Anna pushed me down to the bed and followed me there. “Frau Lange—” I started to say, but she shushed me.

“You remember our visit downstairs?” Ursula said. “When you were sick?”

I told her I didn't. They laughed. Anna began undoing the buttons on my clothes. She pressed hard on my skin and slid her hand over it. Ursula was at my shoes. I felt like I would throw up. “There,” Anna said when they were finished. “Lie here between us.” I was barely able to control my heaving stomach, but I knew I couldn't get up and run out; I knew what they could do and say. No different than back home, and they knew it.

First Anna kissed me with her thick lips and heavy tongue, and she was waiting for me to give her mine. Then Ursula, humping her high behind, wanted a kiss, too. So there I was, flat on my back while they crawled over me like bugs, panting and slobbering and grabbing my piece and jacking it up and down, first one, then the other, and then without a word, just all this breathing and sighing, took turns on the clarinet until I thought it would turn into a bar of steel. Then they shifted around on the bed, snatching and pulling at each other and me until Ursula was flat on her back and Anna was flat on her stomach, crawling right up into her with her mouth, while Ursula jacked me and thrashed around, legs flying, spit spattering,
“Mein Gott! Mein Gott!”
until she took one great breath and then, shuddering, let it out. Quick as a flash, Anna twisted over and Ursula was on top, burrowing between those heavy thighs. Now Anna was jacking and muttering, mumbling, licking, sucking. I thought to grab my clothes and leave, but Anna really had me, and the closer she was to coming, the harder she squeezed as she jacked. I kept looking at Ursula's behind, the sassy way it curved up and out. (There'd been times when I thought mine looked like that.) I unloosened Anna's hand and I felt her tense. She looked at me, her eyes glazed. But I got up on my knees and moved around behind Ursula. She felt me coming and raised herself up high. Anna was like some heifer now with all her racket and bouncing around. I pushed my hips forward, brought up the clarinet, fiddled (I'd never done this), found the place and ran it in as Ursula tightened like I'd nailed her to a board. But she never left off what she was doing and she was about to come again, which she did as she forced her butt as far back on the stick as it'd go. After that round we had to have another, but the clarinet had to play Anna. When they finally let me go I went downstairs and threw up.