Oscar

by Mauricio Segura

  A few days later, along with his friends, who were treating him with the respect usually reserved for the war-wounded, Oscar gave in to the wishes of one of them and bribed a cook into gaining them entry to the Twilight Station Bar’s kitchen. In single file they skirted the employee preparing salads, then the one grilling steaks, and barely dodged the eagle eye of the owner’s wife, a stout woman garbed always in a dress bearing the colours of her home island’s flag; they took the corridor leading to the artists’ dressing rooms, and, as deceptively casual as a lizard who’d just swallowed a cloud of flies, edged into the smoke-filled room where the show was taking place and where a drum solo was reaching its climax thanks to the shuddering cymbals that seemed an artefact of far-off galaxies. Oscar and his friends positioned themselves so they could see the pianist’s hands, but a doorman spotted them and shooed them into the street. Once back home, he set himself to reproducing the pianist’s phrases until Prudence grabbed him by the ear and dragged him to his room.

  Meanwhile, as he complained to all and sundry in a petulant voice, the tedium induced by his school could only be compared to that he had known at the hospital. However much he laboured over his notebook, he could muster no enthusiasm for the soporific multiplication tables or the irregular verbs with their unpredictable variants. His father slipped into his coat pockets bits of paper with proverbs meant to alter his attitude: grains of rice make for sacks of rice. Oscar nodded yes, but deep within him he saw his father the porter again and again coming home, his uniform bloodied, after having been beaten by a passenger who was “racist”—that was the word he scribbled angrily when his wife asked him what had happened. Rawtid, there was no way he was going to become a porter.

  Oscar played the piano every morning before leaving for school, at noon in the school’s music room, and at home at the end of the day. His father, it’s said, was delighted not to have to hound him and administer slaps so he would do his exercises. Was it Oscar’s imagination playing tricks on him, or was his mother more sound of mind the longer he sat at the piano, miraculously freed, one might have said, from her stuttering on like a scratched record. One Saturday morning, if one could believe Prudence, while he was practising his C-major arpeggios and had pulled on a brown shirt and grey pair of pants having belonged to Brad, Davina came into the room, stopped short, and went as white as the inside of a coconut. It’s not possible, she managed to say in a little girl’s voice. She went over to stroke his face with her trembling hands as if he were Christ himself, and murmured “Brad,” until Oscar extricated himself from her embrace. He returned her gaze with a stare that in no way concealed his growing irritation: I’m Oscar, Mudda. Oscar. His measured retort froze Davina where she stood, and though, returning to her kitchen, she did not deviate from her practise of never excusing herself, she never again called him anything else but “Oscar.” She wasn’t stupid, she confided to her friends, she knew very well that her son’s inspiring music set her head in order and silenced the voices bickering there; it was just that from her point of view she didn’t have to explain herself to her brood. Shortly after this incident she began again to predict the future, not without causing some consternation among her family members. According to her, Oscar’s destiny would lead him to Himalayan heights, but be careful, his journey would be marked by terrible temptations. When Oscar asked her to describe those temptations, she closed her eyes, moaned as if imaginary hands were kneading her shoulders, then said, It’s too unclear, I have no answer.

  Over the following days, a few people in the neighbourhood were witness to the experiment Oscar was conducting. He sat down and played the piano looking perfectly relaxed, often humming the melody, and having first opened the door to the house, he suddenly rushed outside to see what the weather was like. But from the steps going down to the sidewalk he saw, to his chagrin, that it was neither more nor less sunny than before. Bloodseed, what was he doing wrong? Wasn’t he now playing just as well as Brad? Was he kidding himself about his talent? He sighed deeply and vowed to work harder. As if to catch Mother Nature unawares, he sometimes pretended to go back inside, then spun around, scanning the skies for something abnormal, but no, there was nothing to report.

  The Depression, provoked by Davina’s handbag at the bank, had only just ended when another misfortune, also a serious setback, befell the city’s population. War broke out in the mother countries, which, frankly, very few people they knew had ever seen, but to which they remained deeply attached, although for reasons that everyone had forgotten. Davina assured the members of her family that this conflict had not escaped her notice; for several weeks she’d been having frequent dreams of dozens of owls hooting their heads off in a concert as mesmerizing as it was diabolical. Only, she hadn’t wanted to alarm them. When Chester, one of Oscar’s older brothers, declared that he wanted to enrol in the army, his news was greeted with delirious enthusiasm. Oscar, not wanting to be left behind, announced in a trembling voice that he would go with his brother to the military barracks and enlist as well, which provoked another round of cheering. That night, however, he fretted in silence, wondering what had got into him.

  The next day, although he had not yet reached the age of majority, he was appalled to learn that even snot-nosed kids like himself could be invited into the ranks. It’s said that, at the end of his medical exam, he breathed a sigh of relief when the doctor informed him that his lungs were too weak for him to go off and fight in the trenches. May the white plague be praised, bloodseed! he exclaimed inwardly as he left the barracks. Chester, on the other hand, who was healthy as a horse, would be setting off to defend his country, and his parents made him promise to write every day. For the first few months, he kept his word. When they received one of his letters, they all ran to the living room and listened in rapt silence to Prudence reading it aloud, standing in the middle of the room. No one was surprised by his exploits, and even less by his bravery, thanks to which he was able to shoot down dozens of the enemy, win several hand-to-hand battles, and thwart an attack by intercepting enemy radio transmissions. His daring in battle and his resourcefulness were a surprise to no one; after all, he was a worthy member of their family, rawtid!

  During this time, Oscar’s marks at school declined with the regularity of a thermometer at the start of winter. On one of his days off, according to his sisters, Josué tailed his son, either hiding behind a streetcar or in the narrow entrance to a snack bar, when he saw him turning his way. When Oscar took an alleyway, then another, to slip into a neighbourhood bar, Josué had to admit, with some bitterness, that his suspicions were well founded. From what he could tell from the sidewalk, his son was being allowed to practise the piano during the day, when the instrument was free. Right at noon, Oscar made his way to school to have lunch with his friends as if everything was normal, after which he installed himself at the piano in the auditorium for a show that charmed both teachers and students. Apparently, as Josué learned from listening in on a conversation between two of the schoolgirls, that was a daily routine. The realization that his son’s entire life centred around the piano hit him like a thunderbolt. After hearing a few pieces, he had to acknowledge, not without a certain pride, that his son, already a celebrity at school, was regarded as a kind of public entertainer you could ask to play any song that was then in fashion. On his way home he began to question his misgivings where his son’s passion for the piano was concerned, and that night he told no one about his expedition.

  When Chester announced in the postscript to a laconic letter that he might soon be coming home, the family members looked at each other with astonishment, because, if you could trust the news bulletins on the radio, the fight was still raging in the mother countries. One Sunday morning, as the family was getting ready to leave for church, there was a knock at the door, and when they saw him standing there on the rubber doormat, their blood went cold: rawtid, he’d lost a hand to that barbarous war! For weeks, the family’s morale was lower than low, even
though no one talked about it, whether Chester was present or not. But what is this I hear! cried the minister right in the middle of his sermon, having heard about the blow to their family. What is this I hear! he repeated in a ringing voice that made the church windows shake. We must thank the Lord for having spared him on the field of honour! And he launched into a paean—in which he rather lost his way, as often happened—celebrating physical courage and the will to power, which alone could vanquish tyranny and evil! What would Jesus Christ have done in his place, huh? Would he have talked things over with the enemy? He gave a little laugh before going on: You don’t talk with the devil, no! This speech gave some comfort to the family members, if only because many of the faithful applauded them in front of the church. But Chester, since his return as sad as raindrops on a grave, took in the familiar faces around him with eyes whose light had been snuffed out.

  When Oscar went to a bar in secret to see a pianist playing bebop, the new style of jazz that didn’t really appeal to him, there he found Chester. Unrecognizable, in a stupor, he was always with his wolf pack of brothers in arms. Often, making his way between tables, he’d take a punch at someone who’d looked at him askance and rush from the premises to howl into the night that he’d been treated like dirt in the army because he was a “negro.” Sometimes he pulled off his clothes to walk stark naked in full view of a pack of revellers doubled up in laughter, before hurling at everyone in sight a volley of curses that made your hair stand up on end. He slept for whole afternoons, often until Oscar came home from school, and barely dressed, wandered into the living room scratching his head and his sex, scandalizing his parents. He asked Oscar to play a frantic boogie-woogie and, after popping open a beer, installed himself in Josué’s armchair, fully aware that he was committing a crime of lèse-majesté. Bit by bit, he sank into a deep depression, and in the end began to cry while stroking his stump. Oscar stopped playing to approach his brother, but Chester just got angry and ordered him to get lost.

  It’s said that, after a few weeks of this behaviour, Josué took his notebook and wrote to Chester, in his usual laconic style, “A shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats,” before showing him the door. Chester advanced on his father, as if to prove that he could strike him down if he wanted to, and each held the other’s gaze without flinching until Chester at last backed off and left the house. That night, her anger barely contained, Davina upbraided her husband in no uncertain terms for having turned away her son. In the name of God, had he forgotten their island ways? Josué, true to himself, remained unmoved. That night, Oscar dreamed that in a deserted alleyway the neighbourhood thugs were beating Chester up, after which, against all expectations, his head bloodied, his eyes protruding from their orbits, he rose up, to the stupefaction of his assailants, who all took to their heels, clacking their teeth like bone-cold skeletons.

  Months went by before Chester reappeared, clean-shaven, a wry smile on his lips. He sat himself down on the living room couch and crossed his legs like a gentleman, announcing, with a certain detached pride, that having hit bottom—he was born under a lucky star, you had to believe—Providence had sent his way a Good Samaritan who’d convinced him that he had to make the best of things. Despite his infirmity, the Samaritan had found him an opening in a metallurgical business where he was the union leader. By day, like everyone else, Chester honourably earned his daily bread; at night, he forced himself to curb his taste for alcohol, even if that meant crossing the street when he passed a bar. He’d rented a room a few streets from the family home, determined to make himself a burden no longer. Josué went up to him, expressionless, and for a long while no one knew if he was going to slap him or shake his hand. Finally, he embraced him, and scrawled in his notebook that the door of his house would always be open to him, assuming he’d conquered his demons.

  Chester’s progress gave Josué so much to think about that one evening he called Oscar and Davina into the living room. As his father scribbled in his notebook, Oscar realized, astounded, that he’d been following him everywhere for months. Did he want to do penance on earth and end up like Chester? Didn’t he know that he was heading straight towards poverty and that this was not a desert crossing from which he might emerge victorious? Oscar saw that the time had come to show his mettle. I want to be a pianist, he heard himself say. While he ran through his mind the arguments he would present in the case of a refusal—as a part of the community, the options available to him were limited, and since he didn’t want to be a porter or a metalworker, there was only one choice left, the only activity that gave him pleasure—Davina declared that it was normal that he play the piano for a living; would he not be fulfilling Brad’s foreshortened destiny? Whether one liked it or not, events would unfold according to an implacable logic, and she reminded the family members, as if it were necessary, that you cannot escape God’s will. So it would be foolish not to seize this second chance that was being offered. Josué looked Oscar straight in the eye and scribbled one last sentence: Fine, but promise me that you’ll be the one to shine brightest in the firmament of piano jazz. A flash of joy lit up Oscar’s face, and he promised to do his best not to dishonour the family.

  In the months that followed, Oscar observed that bebop, the new jazz characterized by rapid shifts in tonality, virtuosity, and eccentricity—all manifested in the studied dishevelment of the musicians’ clothes—only appealed to a clique. That was not where he was at ease. For him jazz was music both for listening and dancing, an art that brought people together, as in the time of his childhood. One night, when he and Prudence were listening to a special program on CBC Radio featuring the new wave of swing that was taking the country by storm, the host announced a cross-country piano competition. When she suggested he enter, Oscar could see that the contest represented a perfect opportunity, but the prospect of having to perform before thousands of listeners was unnerving, to say the least. Yet when his sister summoned the rest of the family, he swallowed hard and, seeing them all come running, had no choice but to lend himself to the adventure. Did he screw up his courage, hoping against hope that Marguerite would be listening to the broadcast? In any event, he chose to play a ragtime with a heavily syncopated right hand, because he remembered the carefree time when Brad was still the neighbourhood’s shooting star, and he, his will-o-the-wisp.

  The day of, in a softly lit studio with state-of-the-art microphones, two men in jackets, with artificial smiles, interviewed him before his performance. He knew, did he not, that it wasn’t fair for the other contestants, because he had music in his blood? Sardonic sniggering followed. What would he do if he won the prize? Would he help out his family? How did he spend his free time? Could he not see that his community’s customs and way of life were largely foreign to his listeners? When he ventured an answer, they interrupted to ask if he had given any thought to what he was saying. Clearly the interview unsettled him. When, seated at the grand piano, he was about to attack the piece he’d tirelessly rehearsed for two weeks, his stomach was in such knots that he became an automaton unable to shade his performance, accelerating pointlessly in the moderato passages, playing the prestissimos robotically. When he left the studio he ran to the washroom where, snot-nosed, he emptied his guts, and was seized with a vertigo that had the walls reeling around him. His face deathly pale, he waited for hours in the corridor where smartly dressed people came and went. When it was announced that he’d won the competition, he thought it was a bad joke, and showed no enthusiasm when the organizers took turns shaking his hand and presented him with a generous cheque. The studio telephone was ringing off the hook. People adored his style, which made them want to dance and forget their cares; you would have thought we were back in the great days of swing, declared a lady who was bubbling over with enthusiasm. Back home he was greeted with cries of joy and endless accolades. It’s said that he choked back as best as he could his sour saliva, visibly saddened that Marguerite had not shown herself as he’d secretly hoped.

>   The end of the war was marked by a deluge of parties and balls, at which Oscar and his friends desperately wanted to be present, since the great names of swing would be passing through town. But how to set foot in these vast halls without knowing anyone, and being minors and penniless to boot? One night, near a popular cabaret in the centre of town, one of the radio hosts, who had earlier treated him with supreme condescension, saw right away what they wanted; he whispered something in the doorman’s ear, who, with a strained smile, invited them in. The scene took their breath away: Benny G., the clarinetist of the hour, was playing, even more unreal and charming than on the radio, and the atmosphere was electric; the music lovers were following the beat, nodding their heads, while the dancers, all spiffed up, moved with a feline grace; finally, the girls, like models out of the magazines, were pretty enough to die for. Oscar followed the pianist’s every note and deep inside saw that he could easily take his place, so humdrum was his playing. Johnny H.’s orchestra, the town’s most prestigious, then took over the stage, so energized and driven that the musicians played on until dawn. As he later remembered it, Oscar that night determined that his jazz would be swing or nothing.

  Soon, against all expectations, the CBC began cozying up to him. The hosts constantly praised his rapid playing, asked him about strides and cadenzas, about his favourite pieces and his hobbies. His neighbourhood was the source for all sorts of questions, as the hosts struggled to believe that O.P. had emerged from this territory where they had never set foot. His answers gave rise to many other queries, and finally it was agreed that he had to be asked back. He was given a late-night show where he first played pieces of his own choice; in the second hour, he invited local musicians into the studio and, despite his youth, schooled the listeners in the rudiments of jazz. When he turned up at a jazz bar with one of his two recently acquired jackets, the owner draped his arm around his shoulders, teased him by letting him know that he was the only minor in town who was accorded such special treatment, and gave him a few taps on the cheek. Musicians who had never deigned to address a word to him rose in his path to introduce themselves, bowing and scraping. Once Oscar left, the envious, secretly pained, lashed out at his success: Why him? He’s a lousy interview, no? And a lower blow: If you want my opinion, he’s the perfect token Negro.