Clifford's Blues (6 page)

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

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

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

Wed., Dec. 26, 1934

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

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

Friday, December 29, 1934

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

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

The man told me to sit down. He seemed to be looking for things in the craziest places—inside the lights, behind a picture of Hitler, under a table. He finally straightened up and told me he was Count Walther von Hausberger, which didn't mean a damn thing to me. He had received word, he said, a few months ago from a friend who'd been stationed here. The count sat down and held his hands as though he had a piano in front of him. He moved his fingers, lifted his hands neatly, as if playing in concert, and raised his eyebrows, like he was asking a question. I nodded, yes. He'd heard from my colonel. Then he got up and dug a pencil and a small pad of paper out of a pocket. There was writing in English on the paper: The names of anyone in the
U.S.
or outside Germany who may assist in getting you out. While I thought, he talked. “Your German is quite good. But let's speak English. They're treating you well enough? I understand that you're assigned to an officer's quarters. Is there anything we can send you that's allowed under the rules?” I told him I wanted to know the length of my sentence. He shrugged and said he didn't know and no one else seemed to know, either. I was writing: Mr. Samuel Wooding, New York City. Mr. Langston Hughes, New York City. Francois Moreau, Pathe Studios and Polydor Studios, Paris. Carlos Bustamente, Parlaphone Studios, Madrid. Malcolm Bradford III, the
U.S.
Embassy, Berlin. Ada Smith, Paris. Mr. Paul Robeson, New York City. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Washington,
DC
. I gave him the list. I expected his sad little smile. “You have no better addresses?” I told him I didn't. He said that Malcolm was no longer in Germany. He sighed as he folded up the list. “We will have to do what we can from Germany,” he said, if he could not contact the other people on the list. He would even, he said, through the American Red Cross, try to contact the President, but he didn't think he could. I asked him for the paper and pencil. I asked about the colonel, and he dragged a finger across his throat. Then we went downstairs. Dieter Lange was still looking evil, but not as much as before, once he saw our faces. He made me stay in the guardroom until the count left. Then he made me walk back to the house through the wind, slush, and snow. But I knew the house would be warm as the blocks were not, because I took care of the stoves, brought in the wood and coal for them.

January 24, 1935

Major and Frau Lange (and me) are in a new, bigger house. It took a little while for it to come through after his promotion. The house is farther away from camp and so a little closer to Dachau—by two or three hundred feet. The cellar stairs don't creak, but I will make them. The cellar is a great big space, about half of which Dieter Lange has blocked off with heavy wire and filled with shelves and storing cabinets. He keeps this space locked and carries the key with him. Even Anna doesn't have one. They have had arguments about this arrangement. In the other house, things were stored everywhere—in the pantry, cabinets, the attic, in their bedroom under the bed, in china closets and armoires. Not even a can of turnips was ever stored in my old room, which was small to begin with, and I was grateful for that because they'd never run in looking for things and maybe find you, old diary, pushing out Adolph's face. Dieter Lange still stores things in the attic, which is larger, but I think mostly clothes and records and account books, stuff like that. The cellar now looks like one great big store, except for a huge new coal bin. In my room, which I think was once the old coal bin, there are plenty of hiding places besides the big picture of Hitler. There are dozens of spaces in the ceiling of the cellar, between the supports and behind the great furnace pipes. Nice and warm down here, and the smell of the hams and sausages that hang in a corner of the storage space is comforting.

Upstairs the piano is in a room that is larger, but then the kitchen, living room, sitting room, and dining room are larger, too. We are still moving things (I've helped Anna with the color schemes), so we haven't had a party yet. I don't think we will have as many now. Dieter Lange was explaining to Anna that the higher you move up in rank, the stuffier the officers and their wives become, because they don't want to take the chance of ruining a good thing, so they become more and more the keepers of Hitler's ideals. Dieter Lange is going to have to be very careful about having me play
Neger Musik
. Looks like foxtrot and croontune time. Now I'll be able to explore that tree I found on Christmas day, the one with all the bright new music on it.

Monday, March 18, 1935

Werner came into the canteen this morning. I sold him some Drummers. (They came from Dieter Lange's storage, so he gets the money.) I also gave him some of my own cigarettes. Smoking is not supposed to be good for Germans now, the Nazis say, but they smoke anyway. “German women do not smoke” is a slogan no woman around here pays any attention to. Anna smokes like a furnace. (We are now working from
Uncle Tom's Cabin
, which she got in both German and English.) Werner says bad business is up. Everyone outside now has to own an employment book. Conscription has started. Everyone has to do service in the army. They want to build up twelve army corps, thirty-six divisions. Unemployed people are being assigned to jobs the government thinks are important to the Reich. Whole gangs of men have been assigned to work on the new
Autobahns
the Nazis are building from the middle of Germany to the borders of other countries.

Werner said he'd been waiting for me to show up at the canteen. I told him I'd been helping Dieter Lange move into the new house. Also, to keep from being sent to the blocks, I was doing a lot of fancy cooking for him and Annaliese. Smart, he said, and then told me Menno Becker was looking for me. He wasn't busy just now, Werner said; he'd just left the
Revier
. He could tell Menno to come over, couldn't he? It wasn't too busy in the canteen. I hadn't had a customer since he came in. Werner kind of smiled. He said, “You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. It's the only way to get around these bastards.” He didn't wait for an answer; he left.

Five minutes later he returned with Menno. He pushed us both into the back. “Fifteen minutes,” he said. “I'll take care of the front.” For one of those fifteen minutes Menno and I just looked at each other; for the other fourteen we made love as quietly as we could. There was nothing to say. We just hurried. When we were finished, Menno left quickly. Werner lingered. I felt he wanted something. I waited for him to ask for it. “Could you bring some
wurst
once in a while?”

Tuesday, March 19, 1935

Boy. Just thinking about yesterday gives me goose pimples. It was like we'd rehearsed meeting like that for a long time. And I know
I
had, but I didn't know he had, too. So, now the thing is to—no. Just stay calm, Cliff, cool as a cucumber, Cliff. Don't let The Cliff get excited and let things slip out of control. Wind up in the Bunker where that
SS
looney Eichmann is in charge. Easy, Clifford. You're thirty-five, more a stewing than a frying chicken. But Menno is so young, so strong. And loving. As fast as it was, I remember his touch, his gentleness, the smoothness of his movements. I could tell by these that he likes me, maybe even loves me, if such a thing can be in a place like this.

Annaliese and I are still working on
Uncle Tom's Cabin
. I've spent
so
much time explaining the colored talk to her. And Legree's talk, too. She doesn't seem to understand that people don't talk that way anymore. Thank God we're close to the end of the book. We just read the part where Uncle Tom dies. Anna cried. I have heard that most Germans cry when they get to this section. I don't know why. “Who—who—who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” says Tom, and right away, boo-hoo, boohoo, boohoo. Christ has given this damned place up.