Last Night at The Sapphire

by Tamsin Marischal

One of the biggest influences on my early career was Harmon “Velvet” Knight, and now nobody knows who the hell he was. There wouldn’t have been a Band Royale without The Velvet Knight at The Sapphire Lounge. Oh my god, if he’d had more time, the music he would have created... such a loss. It crushes my soul to think I may be one of the last ones alive that can say I heard Harmon play that magic sax back in the 1920s.

- Excerpt from Jazz great Ernie Beleaux’s memoir From Harlem to the Hall of Fame

***

I snuggled up against my warm naked man and whispered “Paris,” in his ear.

A drowsy smile played across his face, and he watched me beneath heavy lids. “I will take my queen anywhere she wants to go... just as soon as the gig at The Sapphire’s done.”

“What if you found a club in Paris? Or anywhere in Europe. There’s a Harlem over there too. Spelled different though.”

Harmon’s hazel eyes opened wide, and he smiled up at me. “You are one hep doll. Have you lived over there?”

I fluttered my lips over his brow. “No. Why?”

“Your accent.”

“My what?” I laughed.

Harmon laughed too. “Not an accent really. Sometimes you say things in an odd way. Like you weren’t raised around here.”

The conversation was taking a dangerous turn. I steered it back where I needed it to go. “Paris. Le Grand Ecart. Moulin Rouge. They would fall in love with you. Just like I did.”

We shared a lingering kiss that was building heat until Harmon broke it off, frowning. “What is it about The Sapphire you’re not keen on?”

I sat up in bed. “It’s not about The Sapphire.” Liar.

Harmon sat up too. “And I can’t ditch Ernie and the other Royales. Not when things are just starting to click.”

“I understand,” I sighed. “It’s just...” And there it was, so many things I wanted to tell him but couldn’t. I was choking on all the unsaid words.

Harmon stroked the goosebumps on my arms. I watched his long café au lait-colored hands running over my darker skin. Like mahogany, Harmon said. Regal, exotic. At the moment his mahogany queen was getting desperate and trying not to show it.

I took a deep breath. “It’s nothing, Harmon. The little guy is working my nerves, and I get silly.” I rubbed the slight mound on my stomach that had just started to protrude in the last few days.

Harmon grinned and bent over my belly and kissed it. “Straighten up, Junior,” he joked. “Don’t be worrying your mama already.” He laid his head down against me and sang.

I listened. There were no lyrics, but he didn’t need them. The melody in his voice was enough. My heart swelled. My body and spirit vibrated with all the nuances and inflections of his deep and tender voice running through me. It wasn’t just his ways with the sax that earned him his jazz speakeasy name.

I stroked his curls with a lazy hand. “I haven’t heard that tune before.”

He looked up at me and winked. “Something special I’m working on.”

I winked back. “I know something else special needs your attention.”

I’ll be damned if we didn’t get so caught up in things he was almost late for his first set at The Sapphire that night. I guess if nothing else worked I could always fuck him out of a job.

***

I waited until Harmon left for the club before I took my stroll down Old Dutch Row. After his comment about my accented ways I took special care not to stare up at the clear empty sky or gawk over the open markets. I had already learned not to shoo kids out of the street unless there was an automobile coming. Where else were they supposed to play?

I passed by The Sapphire Lounge, already lighting up the twilight and drawing the early crowds. I would join them later to catch Harmon’s last set and walk him back home. My heart plummeted every time I saw the marquee advertising The Velvet Knight and his Band Royale.

He was safe for now, but I needed him out of there soon.

I stopped at a faded red door around the corner from The Sapphire. There was a sign nailed to the frame that read “Library Closed Until Further Notice” but I rapped on it anyway with the tips of my gloved fingers. A small slot opened in the door and a faded blue eye blinked at me. The slot closed and I heard the lock on the other side release. I looked both ways and opened the door wide enough to slip inside.

I nodded to Blue Eyes but kept moving across the marble floor to the deserted stacks and to another door in the far corner. It opened on a narrow dark stairwell.

At the foot of the stairs, I walked down a long hallway. There was a feeble electric bulb I could have switched on to guide me, but there was no need. There was plenty of bright light glowing at the far end of the hall where I was headed. I stopped where a metal ramp displaced the marble floor. The air rippled around the ramp as if everything beyond me rested inside a large bubble. Which it did.

Max waited for me from inside the bubble, leaning against the wall with his hands shoved in his pockets. I knew from the set of his mouth he wasn’t happy.

“Hey, Max. Why don’t you put on your pinstripes and raccoon coat and come over to The Sapphire tonight?” I smiled at his pale freckled skin and blond hair. “I’ll tell everyone you’re my uncle. Uncle Goldilocks could be your jazz speakeasy name.”

“Or, hey, Iris, how about we call it good? We’ve already gotten such great stuff.” Max’s face lit up and for the moment he forgot he was ticked at me. “That last recording you delivered – Knight was on fire!”

I asked, “And have you come up with a decent cover story yet?”

Max shrugged. “Maybe something about finding old timey wax cylinders buried in a cellar. Just details that nobody remembers anyway.”

“I’ll remember.”

Max studied my tight face and folded arms. “Then try to remember you can’t stop what’s going to happen. And if I were you, I wouldn’t stick around to watch.”

That damn Max didn’t miss much. The only reason I’d been able to stick around at all was because on my side of the library six months had passed, while on Max’s side it had just been a few days. More and more it felt like a century had really passed since I’d stepped through the portal carrying my ring mic and idealistic notions of being an unattached observer. Before I met Harmon Knight.

“Soon. Harmon is working on something new, and it could be his best yet.”

“Three days, Iris. September 29, 1924. Just after one a.m… He’s not got time –”

“Anything can happen in three days. Just ask Jesus.” I waggled my eyebrows to break the mood. “There’s an idea for your next secret project.”

Time displacement technology was new and classified, but The National Library was one of the agencies selected to “utilize it with noble intentions for the preservation of history and the cultural arts.” I was trusted just enough to cross a portal. I wasn’t sure if Max’s security clearance was any higher than mine, but I still fished for information.

He shook his head, irritated with me again. “I warned you not to get too close, remember? Just record Knight at The Sapphire and disappear. Not move in with the guy.”

I pressed my hands against the front of my satin dress and studied the bows on my shoes. “I’ve got some new performances. Do you want them now?”

He reached for a tablet lying on a counter behind him. I leaned through the portal just far enough to tap the stone of my ring against its screen to transfer the data. If I came any closer, Max might be tempted to pull me over and close the portal.

“Everything’s jake, but I’ve gotta blouse.” I turned back toward the stairway.

Max muttered after me, “And you’re starting to talk weird too.”

***

I hated The Sapphire. I loved The Sapphire.

I stopped just inside the entrance, taking it all in. Because come what may, I knew that night would be the last time I’d ever see it.

The story below me I knew to be the true speakeasy with any flavor of alcohol, woman and wager imaginable. Harmon said I had no business down there and I believed him. My business was Harmon Knight, and I stood and gazed upon his court.

It was a ballroom with crystal chandeliers and brocade-covered tables ringing the dance area. I breathed in the tobacco smoke drifting from pipes and long-stemmed cigarette holders and the linseed oil they used to bring out a glow on all the wood. I lost myself in a painting come to life made of peacock feather boas and pink pinstripe suits and beaded gowns that cast tiny shimmering rainbows over the room.

And over the low hum of tipsy laughter and clinking glasses flowed the jazz music of the Band Royale and The Velvet Knight. They ruled from the raised dais at the far end of the ballroom, right where I’d first laid eyes on Harmon six months and a lifetime ago.

And just like the night we met, everything else faded and stilled around me but Harmon and his saxophone. It was thrilling to watch Ernie on the piano, knowing his long and celebrated career was on the horizon. Jackson on strings and Frankie on the trumpet were masters. But the Velvet Knight was a magician, and he had everyone at The Sapphire under his spell.

I activated the mic on my ring and rolled with the tide of dancing bodies until they delivered me upon the shore. I stood at the edge of the stage, gazing up at Harmon.

His eyes were closed but he felt me there. He ended the song. His eyes locked on mine.

“This is for my queen and our heir.”

He played solo and the stage lights dimmed. Later I realized his saxophone singing to me was the only sound in the room. The only sound in the universe.

The music streamed from the horn in waves of colored ribbon, jewel-toned and glistening, then undulated into dark and smoky whispers that kissed my skin. The melody began soft and sweet but picked up in power and intensity. Then I felt the tears beneath it all, and my heart broke against its bittersweet edge.

Harmon Knight loved me. Loved our baby. And he had put everything of himself in that song because somehow he knew that’s all he could ever give us.

The last of the melody curled around me as it faded, saying goodbye. Harmon and I stared at each other with teary smiles, oblivious to the world around us until somebody grabbed me by the arm and pulled me away.

I heard Harmon scream my name and people shout when he dropped his sax and leaped off the stage.

We were across the ballroom before I realized it was Max that had me, wearing the raccoon coat I’d teased him about. But I was not in a teasing mood anymore.

“Dammit, Max!”

He didn’t answer and kept dragging me closer and closer to the back exit.

But Harmon caught up to us and grabbed my other arm.

“What the fuck, you crazy cracker! Let her go!”

I thought it was my rage shaking through me until I saw the lights swaying overhead and heard the growing boom I had been dreading for weeks rolling through the building.

I stood between Max and Harmon, and we all fought to keep our balance on the breaking floor. With each of them pulling on one of my arms, I decided my jazz speakeasy name was Wishbone. Torn between these two men and two eras. Torn between becoming the cold historian or throwing a flaming monkey wrench into time’s gearbox.

I had read the survivors’ interviews over and over. I knew the earthquake tore a line through Harlem that killed scores of people and destroyed half of Old Dutch Row. I knew many people were trampled trying to escape The Sapphire. That’s why Max had headed toward the alley. And I knew the lounge was minutes away from collapsing in a fire that would erupt on the ground floor.

And I smelled smoke.

Another roaring boom. So much screaming. The lights exploded and we fell. Everything went dark and I was alone.

“Harmon!” I screeched.

Max found my arm again and pushed me toward the faint glow of the back-alley entrance. “We can find you another musician to fuck that won’t cause a time paradox.”

“You bastard,” I hissed.

“I’m not the bastard you need to worry about. You’ve still got a chance to save his kid if we get out of here now.”

Guess Max had caught Harmon’s final number.

Fire was eating through the floor. I saw Harmon staggering to his feet and holding his bleeding head. He called for me.

And a cold realization sliced through me like a blade.

“It’s me,” I sobbed. “He’s in The Sapphire right now because he’s chasing after me. He dies because of me.”

I thought Max was going to slap me, but he held me by the shoulders until I focused on him. His harsh words rode beneath the confusion around us but there was grief in his voice. “Harmon was always going to die tonight. We were always here when it happened. Just because we’re only figuring that out doesn’t mean it’s anybody’s fault. But we’re not dying alongside him if I can help it. My heart’s breaking for you, but that doesn’t change a goddamned thing either.”

“Iris!” Harmon bellowed. Chunks of wood and plaster fell like flaming meteors around him as he skirted holes in the floor and dodged smoking rubble to get to me.

“Harmon – hurry!” I didn’t have to take him to Paris to save him. I could take him to the future with me. History would still count him among The Sapphire’s dead. He would become somebody new and claim the life that should have been his. Would be ours. I didn’t have to change history after all, just follow its lead.

My heart swelled with giddy hope as Harmon made it across.

Our eyes met and our fingertips brushed just as the ceiling crashed down and swept him along on a tide of bent metal and splintered timber into the fire below.

I fell back on what remained of the floor that was now more like a ledge, my breath gone, my bleeding hand still reaching for Harmon. But Max was the one who took it.

I don’t remember escaping The Sapphire. I remember finding my breath and my voice and screaming for Harmon until I lost it again. I remember fighting Max, beating at his arms and demanding to go back, then pleading. At some point, Max slung me over his shoulder and I floated down Old Dutch Row as it dissolved behind us in rumbling fire. I dissolved into black nothing.

***

Podcast Host: Here with me today is Max Crenshaw, newly anointed director of The National Library’s Discovery and Preservation division.

Max Crenshaw: Wow, that sounds both scary and dull at the same time. But thanks for having me on.

PH: For those of you that have been off the grid this summer, Max is the man responsible for bringing the Velvet Knight recordings to The National Library’s collection. Exciting times for both jazz fans and history buffs everywhere! Harmon “Velvet” Knight – the Lost Royale – is an overnight success!

MC: Yeah, just took him a hundred and thirty years.

PH: I saw his face on a t-shirt the other day. That’s official pop-culture icon status.

MC: It’s surreal.

PH: Before we play the signature piece from the collection... say, is its official title “My Queen in the Air?” His voice is muffled on the recording, and I’ve heard different interpretations.

MC: That works.

PH: Okay. Before we play it, tell us how you discovered the recordings. Were they on wax cylinders?

MC: Yeah, we found them stashed in the cellar just around the corner from where The Sapphire Lounge stood.

PH: Wild they survived all this time.

MC: There wouldn’t be any recordings if it wasn’t for our field researcher Iris Christopher.

PH: Any chance we can loop Iris in on this conversation today? I’d love to know what was going through her head at the time.

MC: Iris is currently on leave. Taking some well-deserved family time.

***

Harmon was teething and fussy. The video drones gliding near our balcony fascinated him most days. But not this one.

I pressed my cheek against his, crying with him. “I know what we need.” I stepped back into the apartment. “Surexa, play ‘My Queen and Our Heir.’”

My love’s voice and the first soft notes of his sax drifted into the room. I swayed with Harmon in my arms and closed my eyes, and I returned to the last night at The Sapphire.

I came back when I felt my little man wiggle against me. He smiled up at the ceiling, his one tooth shining. His chubby hands waved above us, fingers reaching.

“That’s it, Monnie. Catch those notes Daddy’s throwing to you.” We danced in the warm ribbons of sound that wrapped around us and caressed our skin, the three of us together in swirling bands of violet and gold.

___