Chapter 55 Dessi
FIFTY-FIVE
Dessi
Dessi and Cal are in the back seat of a car that zips through Paris. Dessi peers out the window as they pass the Champs-élysées, Arc de Triomphe, and other landmarks of the iconic Left Bank.
CAL
Would you like living over here?
DESSI (TURNING HER HEAD FROM THE brIGHT LIGHTS AND LANDMARKS PASSING OUTSIDE TO STUDY HER HUSBAND)
What, in the Eighth Arrondissement?
CAL
Yeah. Over here on the Left Bank.
DESSI
Naw. Gimme the Sixth, though soon we’ll be leaving Paris behind. You ain’t forgot, have you?
CAL (FROWNING, BUT NODDING)
Let’s get through this last set of shows, and then I’ll take you home to your precious Alabama.
DESSI
It ain’t Alabama that’s precious. It’s Mama. You know if she wasn’t sick, it would be a different story.
CAL
That country don’t want us, Dess. They’re lynching us. Why you think all our friends are here? We’re on our way to Hazel Scott’s apartment. Why you think she’s here in Paris? Look how they treated her.
DESSI
Remember watching The Heat’s On in London during the war? Boy, them soldiers never seen nothing like Hazel up on that screen in her fine gowns, playing two pianos at the same time.
CAL
You were just as magnificent, Dessi. We almost died in London. More than once! Singing and dancing for them white soldiers like court jesters, bombs flying overhead. All Hazel did for the war effort and then to be called un-American? A communist? To lose everything?
DESSI
It won’t right how they did Hazel, how they do all of us, but she’s in Paris now, and it’ll be good to see her again.
CAL
Yeah, but I’m just saying she shouldn’t have to flee her own country just to be celebrated, to feel safe. After all Black folks sacrificed in that war and we still had to have something like the Double V campaign. We mighta been fighting fascism here, but we still had to fight racism at home.
DESSI
There you go, getting riled up again.
CAL
If we going back to America, you better get used to it. We gon’ live in a constant state of riled up.
DESSI
I know that, Cal. I ain’t naive and I ain’t loyal to a country that ain’t loyal to me, but my mama needs me, and I’m going.
CAL (TAKING AND KISSING HER HAND)
Baby, we don’t have to fight about it. It’s just we’re going back to the South, to Alabama. We’re being hunted and strung up like dogs. Hell, New York ain’t much better. Even in the city, I walked around all tight, like I couldn’t breathe easy.
Cal looks out the window at the bright lights of Paris passing by.
CAL
It was just nice to breathe for a little while.
They both go quiet as the car pulls up in front of a stately building in the Eighth Arrondissement.
Inside Hazel’s gorgeously decorated apartment, the party is underway, filled with the brightest expats Paris has to offer: James Baldwin, Lester Young, and several other famous people converse and drink, relaxed and enjoying themselves.
Dessi and Cal grab drinks at the bar before settling on a white couch and striking up conversations with a few of the party guests.
DESSI (LEANING OVER TO WHISPER)
It’s a who’s who in here tonight, ain’t it?
CAL (LOOKING AT HER THOUGHTFULLY)
You do realize you’re a who, right?
DESSI (LAUGHING, LEANING INTO HIS SHOULDER)
Boy, hush.
CAL
I’m serious, Dess. You ain’t lived no ordinary life. You lived a big life. The name Dessi Blue will be in the same history books as all these folks in here. Your voice, your accomplishments, gonna live on forever.
DESSI
That’s sweet of you to say, but who gon’ remember this country girl from Alabama?
There’s a buzz of excitement as an older version of Hazel enters at the other end of the room. Dressed in white from head to toe, flowers in her hair, she stands by a white and gold baby grand piano.
CAL
It’s like déjà vu, ain’t it? Remember that night at Café Society? We saw her debut!
DESSI (WITH A WISTFUL SMILE)
We sho did. That feels like yesterday.
HAZEL
Bonjour, mes amis!
The intimate group cheers and urges her to play.
When she sits down on the piano bench and launches into one of her interpretations of swinging the classics, the camera closes in on Dessi’s face, which, as the song goes on, takes on a hint of melancholy.
The current shot dissolves into a flashback to younger versions of Dessi and Cal, seated with Tilda that night long ago at Café Society when Hazel debuted.
Hazel is playing the same song, and, at the table, Dessi looks from Cal to Tilda, the expression on her face so happy.
Later that night back at their apartment, Dessi, wearing a silk dressing gown, sits on the floor of a guest bedroom surrounded by boxes of old photos and keepsakes.
There’s a pile of items, and a few have been set aside, including a red and blue Ubangi Club program and matchbook and a Café Society flyer with a picture of Billie Holiday.
There are candid photos of Tilda and Dessi working at the Savoy and posing in front of the Lafayette Theatre, with MACBETH in big block letters on the marquee.
Dessi opens a jewelry box and a ballerina pops up dancing to an old tune called “You Made Me Love You (I Didn’t Want to Do It).”
Dessi hums along and then sings a few verses, her version slower and more poignant, her voice catching a few times as tears slip over her cheeks.
You made me love you
I didn’t wanna do it
I didn’t wanna do it
You made me want you
And all the time you knew it
I guess you always knew it
You made me happy sometimes
You made me glad
But there were times
You made me feel so bad
You made me cry for
I didn’t wanna tell you
I didn’t wanna tell you
I want some love that’s true
Yes, I do, ’deed I do
You know I do
Cal stands at the bedroom door, leaning against the doorjamb, watching her.
CAL
Love hearing you sing that song.
DESSI (STARTLED AND HASTILY WIPING AWAY TEARS, FORCING A LAUGH)
Boy, you gon’ give me a heart attack one day, sneaking ’round.
Cal walks fully into the room. He angles his head to study some of the memorabilia spread on the floor. He squats and gingerly sits beside her, picking up the photos of Tilda and Dessi.
CAL
She was something else.
DESSI (CHUCKLING AND GATHERING ITEMS TO PUT THEM BACK IN THE BOX)
She was indeed.
CAL
Was she… (LOOKS DOWN AT THE PHOTO AND CLEARS HIS THROAT) was Tilda the love of your life?
Dessi goes completely still and looks at her husband. She reaches over to cup Cal’s face and forces him to look into her eyes, presses their foreheads together.
DESSI
Weren’t you the one telling me tonight how I lived this big ol’ extraordinary life?
Cal smiles faintly and nods.
DESSI
Well, if my life was that big and important, surely there’s room for two.
He smiles and she leans in to kiss him. Camera closes on the ballerina.