Thursday was Christmas Eve, 1936, and after rehearsal, Thomas decided for the first time not to go home and practice, but to go out. He was not homesick, far from it; he remained glad to be far from America. Things here put his homeland to shame. Every day he woke up expecting to feel some nostalgia, yet it never came. He missed his mother, but that was different, for nothing was going to bring her back.
On Christmas Eve, he could not take the big house with its hovering servants. He had no privacy there, and no real company either. So he buttoned his overcoat and walked from the theater to Avenue Joffre, lit up with shops and restaurants. “Little Russia” was what the other musicians called this stretch, and beneath the signs in Cyrillic letters, the shop and restaurant windows were bright with holiday lights and crèches. The joy of it was touching; from the door of one restaurant, as it opened and closed around a laughing couple swathed in fur, he could hear clinking glass and the strains of a piano. Everywhere there were parties tonight.
Back on Creel Street, there would be lights in all the windows, and carolers up and down the sidewalks, and warm turkey smells in the hallways. A sharp sting went through him at the thought, and he pretended it was the cold, and clutched his coat collar a little closer.
He would go to hear another orchestra. Over in the International Settlement, which he had not yet visited on account of its race laws, white jazz groups from America were playing at clubs like the Vienna Garden and the Majestic Café. Those clubs, according to his band members, employed dance hostesses, mostly White Russians, which put them a rung below French Concession clubs like the Royal, the Saint Anna’s Ballroom, the Palais Café, and the Ambassador. Tonight he would pick a place in Frenchtown, with a black orchestra.
With the help of a city map he had bought, he saw it was a reasonably short walk to the Canidrome, where Teddy Weatherford was about to end his long engagement and move his orchestra to Calcutta for the winter season.
When he arrived, the gate to the complex was wide open, and most of what had probably been intended as lawn was filled with rows of boxy parked cars. He was able to stroll right in through the front door, which still exhilarated him. The Chinese hostess welcomed him with a smile, and, when he mentioned Teddy Weatherford, directed him toward one of the ballrooms.
By now, Thomas knew what to do. As soon as he entered the ballroom and spoke to the headwaiter, he had a tab, just as he did in every reputable establishment: Shanghai’s chit system. You signed for whatever you wanted-purchases, food, drink, women, anything that money bought. At the end of the month, messengers would come around with the totals, and he would dispatch Little Kong, the most junior of his servants, with payments. In this way, still awaiting his first paycheck, he was ushered to a table like any man of means, and a cold bottle of Clover Beer and a chilled glass were set in front of him.
The men in his own band had praised Teddy Weatherford, and he understood why as soon as the man strode out to cheers from the crowd. Weatherford answered them with calls for a Merry Christmas, then hopped on the bench and launched the set with a body-shaking burst of brio. Out walked his sidemen in a color-coordinated line, and Thomas recognized Darnell Howard on violin; he had seen him once with James P. Johnson’s Plantation Days Orchestra. They raised their instruments in perfect sync, while Weatherford drove his own piano storm system, thundering, crashing, clouds breaking, sun shining.
Thomas watched, mesmerized. He would never play with that kind of power. They were electrifying, and as soon as they took a break, he hastened over with congratulations.
Weatherford turned, whiskey in hand, face split in his trademark smile. “’Bout time you came up and said hello! Boys! This here’s the new bandleader over to the Royal.”
“Hello,” he said, “Thomas Greene.” He shook hands with each of the men who crowded around. “You were all terrific. I’d give anything to know how you do it. And you,” he said to Darnell Howard, trying to fluff up the appearance of connection, “I saw you on tour with James P. Johnson. Fine playing. Pleasure to see you on stage here. But I’m curious.” He turned back to the bandleader. “How did you know who I was?”
“Come on!” Weatherford laughed. “You think there are so many of us here? I knew you for fair soon as I saw you. Not Harlem, though-not from the look of you, or the way you talk. Am I right?”
“You are,” said Thomas, wondering what else about him showed. “I’m from Maryland, the Eastern Shore.” He was afraid to say Baltimore, in case Weatherford knew any musicians in the scene there. “A little place in the countryside near Easton.” At least that was true, for his grandfather’s farm was such a place, and a sort of home to him.
“Maryland! What’d I say?” Teddy exulted. “All-American, though.” Beneath his suit, congenially unbuttoned, Weatherford’s shirt showed spots of piano-sweat. “Let’s sit down,” he said, and they moved to an empty table. “Mr. Lin taking care of you?”
“Sure.” Everyone seemed to know Lin Ming.
“And you have somewhere to go tonight, for Christmas Eve? ’Cause you can go on out with us after midnight, if you want to stay around.”
“You’re very kind.” Thomas did not want to admit that he had nothing to do, that the only people he knew here were the fellows in the Kansas City Kings, none of whom had invited him over tonight. “I’m sorry-other plans. So tell me, where else do you play?”
“The whole circuit,” said Weatherford. “Here in the summer months, to the winter holidays. Then to the Grand Hotel in Calcutta, and the Taj Mahal Hotel in Bombay. Midwinter’s the big season there. In between we go up the Malay jungle.”
“You mean to Singapore?”
“We sail to Singapore. But then we get in cars and drive up the jungle.”
“To where?”
“Big rubber plantations. British planters. Man, they give balls you wouldn’t believe! White folks coming from hundreds of miles around, gowns, tuxedos, diamonds, glamorous as you please, ballrooms with marble floors and great big chandeliers bigger and finer than what they got here-out in the jungle! They love the way I pound it!”
“So do the people here,” Thomas said, rounding up the ballroom in a glance. “What about the International Settlement, with the race laws?”
Weatherford shook his head. “Mr. Lin tells everybody to be careful, and I’ve heard of a few fights, but sure, you can go there. You might want to steer clear of the big hotels or restaurants, they won’t let you in the front door, but private parties are no problem a-tall. The Brits have villas out there with lawns and gardens out of a fairy tale.”
“What about Japan?” Thomas nodded toward a small group of uniformed soldiers, lounging on the edge of the dance floor.
The bandleader gave them a long look. “They like jazz, don’t get me wrong, but I’ve seen what they do when they take over. They seize Shanghai, we’re taking it right off our circuit, man. Just like that.”
“What have you seen? What do they do?”
“They take a city, they take over the nightlife and ruin it. They have this new drug they are pushing, heroin they call it, it comes from opium and they inject it with needles-that’s why they want nightclubs. Don’t do it. They take over, you get out of here. What?” He looked up at a signal from Darnell Howard, and drained his glass. “Sorry, man. I got to go beat out some blues.”
“Thank you,” said Thomas.
“To your sound,” Weatherford said with a salute, and Thomas smiled as he tried to quell his anxiety. He had no sound, and he probably wouldn’t be finding it in the next six days, either. The Kings had a sound, a big one; their songs rode on riffing, bluesy backgrounds, punctuated by spontaneous solos from the reeds and brass. Arrangements were already tighter now, under him, but as yet he had no idea what his piano could bring to it.