All Blood Runs Red

by Phil Keith

  “Where the hell is the doctor, anyway?” he groaned.

  “Be quiet, mon cher. He’ll be here shortly,” Kitty whispered in his ear.

  “You must get Leplanquais, Kitty. Now. He made me a promise, if I should die.”

  “Hush, hush. You’re not going to die.”

  “I know these things, ma cherie. I am dying. Please. Go get him. I must speak to him, tout de suite.”

  “Very well.” She kissed Bullard firmly on the cheek and disappeared.

  Nurses bent over him, fussing, sopping up blood, trying to dress the stubbornly bleeding wound. Each dab placed pressure on his abdomen causing new waves of scream-inducing pain; yet, he did not cry out. It’s best not to seem afraid, he told himself.

  * * *

  On the morning of the day he was shot, Eugene Bullard followed his usual routine. No matter how late he got back from managing his club, he would get up in time to have coffee with his daughters, Jacqueline, fifteen, and eleven-year-old Lolita. With their mother gone, the girls had been required to take on a great deal of independence given that Bullard was a single parent with a rigorous schedule. Morning coffee was sacred. He wanted to savor every precious moment they could be together.

  It was a perfect early July morning in what Bullard thought was the most beautiful city in the world. He and his daughters sat at a table that looked out at a sea of Parisian rooftops. The apartment had a small kitchen parlor with tall double windows that faced south, toward the center of the city. Behind them was an open living room which contained the modest but tasteful furniture his wife, Marcelle, had selected soon after their marriage. Bullard’s contributions to the decor could be found on the plastered walls—framed photographs, accumulated over the years, bearing the likenesses of the luminaries and friends (often, they were both) who had patronized L’Escadrille or its predecessor, Le Grand Duc. A casual scan of the pictures would reveal writers like Ernest Hemingway; F. Scott Fitzgerald, with his wife, Zelda; and Gertrude Stein. There were famed musicians such as Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong; composers and performers such as Cole Porter, “Bricktop,” and Josephine Baker; stage and screen stars like Fred Astaire, Gloria Swanson, and Edward G. Robinson; plus, prominent politicians, ambassadors, and even, as Kipling had written, a “man who would be king,” Edward VIII of England.

  To Bullard, however, there were no more important or beautiful faces in the apartment than those sitting across from him at that moment. As much as Jacqueline and Lolita could, without turning away in embarrassment, the girls tolerated their father’s gaze. Bullard reflected that if his own father, “Big Chief Ox” Bullard, were ever to meet them, he would be hard-pressed to believe they were his granddaughters. Unlike the dark, black skin of the Bullard African forebears and Bullard himself, the complexions of Jacqueline and Lolita had been influenced by Marcelle’s porcelain white.

  Bullard’s daughters fully accepted yet found it somewhat fascinating that their grandfather had been born to slaves in a place called Georgia, that their grandmother had been an American Indian and that their father—at an age younger than theirs—had run away to make his way in the world with powerful fists and a strong back. By contrast, with their modest but genteel lifestyle, neither girl could ever dream of running away from the hypnotic charms of the City of Light.

  Bullard was then in his forty-fourth year. Marcelle had been gone almost eight years. A decade earlier, poor Eugene Jr., their only male child, had survived for six short months before double pneumonia had taken him. Bullard and his wife had never quite recovered from that heartbreaking experience. So yes, every minute with his remaining children was priceless and could never be recaptured.

  Deep in his reverie, Bullard almost missed his daughters kissing him on both cheeks, grabbing their satchels, and dancing out the door with a cheery “Au revoir, Papa!” Even on a Saturday in summer, Jacqueline and Lolita attended the academy. It was the best one Bullard could afford, although he was contemplating sending them to England. The threats of war were becoming more strident, and he could not bear the thought of his girls being caught up in that.

  Thoughts of war reminded him of the Germans, and that he must get on with his day. After a quick washup, a shave, and a fresh shirt, he left the apartment at noon, off to meet his good friend, “Frisco” Bingham. They rendezvoused, as usual, at the Capital Restaurant where they had, as usual, onion soup and fresh baguettes. Bullard learned from his friend of yet another nightclub closing. Apprehension about the Germans was cutting into the nightlife crowd of Paris with the cruel irony that the one exception happened to be the Germans themselves. They had been flooding into France as though they owned the country, which few doubted they planned on doing.

  Bullard hoped his dangerous involvement in espionage would help him learn of any invasion in advance. He also prayed that, with luck, the Nazi war machine would choose a different victim—maybe Belgium, or Poland. The ever-increasing number of Germans who were enjoying Paris didn’t offer much for optimists to cling to, however.

  The sun shone brilliantly overhead as Bullard took his leave from Frisco and began the stroll that would eventually lead him to L’Escadrille. Early summer in Paris was nearly always sublime, one of the best times of the year. Temperatures rarely rose above seventy-five degrees in the daytime, and the nights were warm and languid. So it was on this particular Saturday, with the citizens of Paris enjoying splendid weather, the street fairs, and shopping. Many were preparing for the evening’s fancy dress balls or the clubbing they hoped to do in the cabarets that were still open.

  The avenues remained inviting, the cafés were doing their best to carry on, the gardens at Les Tuileries were perfect for daytime or twilight strolls. That month’s issue of Life magazine contained a stunning series by photographer William Vandivert which clearly showed a city draped in innocence and charm, pushing aside the dark shadows already roiling the eastern frontier.

  Despite the ominous signs, there were journalists who chose to ignore the growing apprehensions. “Paris has suddenly been having a fit of prosperity, gaiety and hospitality,” reported the American correspondent Janet Flanner, writing as Genet, in her fortnightly “Letter from Paris.” Her pieces were published in the New Yorker (for fifty years) and absorbed voraciously by readers throughout the United States. “There have been money and music in the air, with people enjoying the first good time since the bad time started at Munich last summer. There have been magnificent costume balls and parties, with dancers footing it till early breakfast.”

  Meanwhile, Prime Minister Edouard Daladier nervously jousted with the Soviets, the Germans, and his erstwhile ally, England. The year before he had reluctantly sided with Britain’s Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain on the Munich Agreement, which essentially ceded Czechoslovakia to Hitler without a fight. Unlike Chamberlain, however, Daladier had no illusions about Hitler’s goals—he had even said that Napoleon’s efforts to dominate the Continent would someday be seen as “feeble” compared to Hitler’s ambitions.

  The bands played on, but the storm clouds of war were already enveloping the border towns. Rattled residents from the countryside had begun packing up and streaming to safer regions to the west, many of them inundating Paris. Most Parisians willfully persisted in their routine lives, refusing to believe that months or years of carnage could come again only two decades after the last war.

  Even if war returned, the French Army stood behind its vaunted Maginot Line, confident the Nazis could not breach those fortresses. The government of Daladier concluded a contract for thousands of American combat planes to be shipped in early 1940. Even the most pessimistic Frenchmen could not have predicted that it would be too late.

  Not believing Janet Flanner’s cheery missives, officials at the American Embassy in Paris, the oldest of its brand, dating back to Benjamin Franklin’s mission during the Revolutionary War, were strongly urging Americans to leave while they could. Thousands o
f doughboys had stayed on after the war, settling into comfortable lives in the pleasant arrondissements of the capital city or scattering themselves across bucolic towns and farming areas from the Rhine to Normandy. American Legion Post Number 1, incorporated in Paris in 1919, counted hundreds of former American soldiers among its members, along with a few, like Eugene Bullard, who had served under other flags.

  In Montmartre, the carousing became edgy and almost frantic. Nightclub patrons behaved as if nothing would change. Ignorance remained bliss. Transformation became a sad reality, however, as one club after another shuttered, darkening marquees across the district. Some owners simply wanted to get away before it was too late. Others, like the club run by Bullard’s dear friend Bricktop, were forced to close as they hosted only empty tables.

  L’Escadrille remained a staunch exception, staying open and as busy as ever. The last determined partygoers had to go somewhere, after all; plus, in Gene Bullard’s case, a gym was associated with his club. Bullard’s place was also favored because he had an expansive policy on bar tabs: no one was refused at least one drink, even if they couldn’t pay. He maintained that, over time, everyone would pony up, and he contended that very few patrons ever stiffed him. Besides, the times were uncertain enough: he was not about to start refusing service to his many friends and loyal customers just because the Germans were rattling their sabers yet again.

  L’Escadrille harbored another motive for keeping its doors wide open—the 17,000 Germans in France, most of them in Paris. Many of them were Nazis out of uniform who had come to spy on the French. They had to gather somewhere, and Gene Bullard’s club had an excellent reputation and still held many revues.

  He was no fan of the Germans, having fought them nearly to the death some twenty years before, but he was happy to take their money. He did not put up with their politics, however—especially the Nazis.

  As he strolled through the streets, Bullard marveled at how Paris had turned out to be everything he had hoped it would be, and more. If he had remained in America, especially the South, he could well be nothing more than a laborer, a field worker, maybe a clerk in a shop. Or dead. The night the angry mob of whites had come for his father was just another demonstration that a black man’s life was cheap in the South. The drunken rednecks had nearly gotten to “Big Chief,” and if they had he would have been swinging from a tree.

  That had been the night Bullard made up his mind: he was getting out. He was leaving America and going to France, where his father had told him every man, no matter his race, was free. Leaving home at eleven years old was an enormous risk, but it had gotten him to one of the world’s most extraordinary cities—after barely surviving a war, of course. He was quite sure the Boche would insist on another. Bullard wondered if he could survive that one, too. No matter what, his daughters must be out of harm’s way. Damn you, Marcelle, he thought to himself, why did you have to go?

  He continued his walk down the streets of Montmartre to the city center, and the warm sun began to relieve the aches and pains in his muscles and bones. Ah, Gene, you are a tired old bird, he told himself. He longed for his younger self, the one who had been known, at times, as “the Sparrow,” and later, during the war, as the “Black Swallow of Death.” He was starting to feel all of his years, the fights, the painful wounds, and the physical and mental wear and tear. He was slowing down, and he knew it, and all the smoking, drinking, and late nights weren’t helping any.

  One stop, as always when he took these rambles, was to visit his son. Little Eugene was buried far in the back of the Cimetière St. Vincent, against the south wall. A small rectangular marker lay atop the well-tended grass. Bullard could still hear his son’s babyish laugh as he tickled him under his chubby chin. Then the crushing silence came, the awful day when fate placed him at St. Vincent’s forever.

  Bullard had purchased a single red rose along the way, and he bent over to place it on the grave. He was not religious in the least, yet he said a prayer for the boy, even though still bitter and angry with God for taking such a young innocent. Palming away tears, he continued his walk.

  He stopped for another coffee at the Brasserie Universelle. Had it already been sixteen years since this grand old palace hosted the magnificent reception his former father-in-law had thrown for Gene and Marcelle? What a happy day that had been—one full of promises and hopes, all dashed over the intervening years.

  As Bullard sat quietly at a sidewalk table, he marveled at the crowds. Young couples still smiled as they walked arm in arm. Matrons hurried past, juggling packages from the busy shops. A knot of chattering boys raced by, kicking a soccer ball back and forth. The café was full, the scent of fresh-baked bread was on the air, profusions of flowers bloomed in the sidewalk gardens and the flower boxes fixed to the walls. It was as if no one knew, and no one cared, about the increasing German infestation.

  After his coffee he strolled by a large public rally at the Circle Militaire on Place St. Augustin. He was impressed by the fervent patriotism of the speakers and the boisterous singing of “La Marseillaise.” Bullard could not help wondering, though, how such enthusiasm would stand up to the artillery and planes of the German military. He had felt the might of the German war machine firsthand, and it appeared, in the early summer of ’39, that the Nazis were more powerful and fanatical than the Huns of ’14 had been.

  Finally, late that afternoon, Bullard stepped through the narrow doorway into L’Escadrille. To his surprise, the house was nearly empty. Though not yet evening, it was a Saturday and that usually meant an almost constant ebb and flow of patrons, with the first wave hitting before five o’clock. Only two customers stood at the bar. His barman was nervous about something, but he would not make eye contact with Bullard. Simone, his cashier, seemed terror stricken. All she could do was point a shaky finger at the restroom, located at the back of the club.

  Clearly, something was very wrong. Bullard approached the restroom cautiously and slowly opened the floor-to-ceiling door. Inside stood the local Corsican gangster, Justin Pereti, staggering and drunk. He was shouting curses at the infinite reflections of himself provided by the restroom’s mirrored walls.

  Pereti was so incapacitated that Bullard could easily lock the gangster’s arms behind his back and frog-march him out the front door of the club and into the street. On the way, Bullard discovered that Pereti had hidden a long carving knife inside his jacket. It would seem that the “enforcer” had come for a purpose other than slicing into a steak, though. Bullard took the knife, and when he went back inside he tossed it on the bar. That was when he learned from his barman that Pereti had come in threatening to kill him for some unknown reason, and his belligerent behavior had pretty much emptied the club.

  During the scuffle to remove Pereti, a vase full of flowers had been knocked over and into the piano that Dooley Wilson had leaned against while he sang the previous night. Knowing that would not be good for the strings, Bullard set about mopping up the water inside the case. Once that was done, he noticed more patrons had finally started to wander in. Thinking more about Pereti, and not wanting to be on the wrong side of the local Corsican mob, Bullard reasoned the best plan of action would be to tell the gang’s leaders what had happened.

  The Corsicans hung out at another neighborhood bar, Café Lizeaux, and that was where Bullard found Pereti’s two brothers. Explaining what had occurred, and buying a round of drinks, he was assured by the gangsters that there was no problem: Justin had been a big loser at the races, was mad at himself, and had been drinking heavily for days. Thus relieved that there was no lingering discord, Bullard left.

  It was close to seven when he arrived back at L’Escadrille. The detour to and from Café Lizeaux had allowed Bullard the pleasure of experiencing l’heure, the period between five and seven much loved by Parisians as the time for romance. But it became immediately apparent that there was no romance awaiting him. Blink McCloskey, his beefy doorman, wit
h an accent unchanged from a childhood in Boston, blocked him from entering and said, “Hey, boss, that drunk Corsican is back and he wants to talk to you.”

  “I’ve had enough. Tell him to go home and sleep it off.”

  “Boss, he’s chasing away our business tonight. He says if you’ll just talk to him, no funny stuff, he’ll go away.”

  Bullard sighed and said, “All right, where is he?”

  Blink went inside, and moments later guided the unsteady Corsican out to the street, where Bullard waited, smoking. “What do you want, Pereti? You’ve caused enough trouble for me tonight. Can’t you just go home?”

  “Bullard,” Pereti slurred, as he wobbled unsteadily on his feet, “how long have we known each other?”

  “Why, I guess it’s been a few years, why do you ask?”

  “Because this is goodbye forever. This is your last night on earth.”

  Bullard laughed off this statement as an idle threat. Pereti seemed more a danger to himself, in his condition, than he was to anyone else. So, Bullard extended his hand and Pereti shook it. “Adieu,” the Corsican said. “Let me kiss you adieu.”

  He allowed Pereti, as was the custom among male friends, to kiss him on both cheeks. By this time Blink had hailed a taxi, and he poured Pereti into it. As the taxi drove away, the bouncer asked, “The hell with that guy. He wrecked the night’s business. I haven’t made a sou. Can I go get dinner now?”

  Bullard, who would soon regret saying that he could, allowed Blink to stomp away, sulking. Bullard returned to the duties of the club, trying to salvage something from what was continuing to be a listless evening.

  A half hour later, Simone screamed, pointing to the front door. Bullard ran toward the entrance, unattended because Blink had not yet returned. There stood Pereti, yet again, but this time the Corsican thug was holding a pistol, a German Luger. He had the gun aimed at Bullard’s midsection. Bullard did not know what to do other than to talk softly while slowly moving toward him. “Justin,” he said gently, “you know you don’t want my kids to be without a father.”