Impossible not to see it, things were booming since the end of the war. Posters all over the town touted a tsunami of shows: radio stars’ names were everywhere on people’s lips. You would have thought that this was the advent of a new society, determined that no one would huddle glumly in his corner. You did whatever it took to get each and all strutting their stuff twenty-four hours a day. To hell with the preachers’ temperance, our life on earth was just too short. When Oscar shared with Chester his sense of wonder at all these upheavals, his brother just laughed and shot back: No kidding, O.P., the war changed everything. Open your eyes for Pete’s sake, it’s made the con men rich. And he launched into an analysis of what he called our “society of pimps,” where the second-rate and the peddlers of all sorts were praised to the skies, and where it was seen in a positive light to spit on the humblest among us. In short, this society worked on the same principles that governed the relationship between procurers and prostitutes: either you did what you were told and spread your legs to sell what was most precious to you, or you were looked down on because you were poor. It’s as simple as that, bredda. Oscar listened carefully and felt guilty for not sharing his brother’s seething anger towards “the system.” Of course, Chester went on, you’re in good with them, because your talent helps them to fill their pockets. But watch out, O.P., as soon as they don’t need you anymore, they’ll drop you like an old shoe.
One night at the CBC studio, while he was slipping his score into his shoulder bag, he received, it’s said, a telephone call. Even before the caller introduced himself, Oscar recognized the fast-talking nasal voice of Johnny H., the famous bandleader, who, well known for his straight talk, asked him outright if he wanted to join his group as their regular pianist. Oscar was speechless for long seconds before managing to say that it would give him great pleasure. From that day on, as he had to get up earlier, he sometimes had breakfast with his father, learned two or three pieces on the piano, left for school, marked up his scores during his classes, delighted the crowd at noon, got to the radio studios, was witty during his show, and then made his way to the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, where Johnny H.’s band was rehearsing.
One Saturday morning, during a dress rehearsal, the maître d’hôtel turned up and took Johnny aside. The conversation began quietly, but as soon as Johnny raised his voice, the maître d’ began openly to make allusions to Oscar. Several times he said that he couldn’t do anything, that he had no choice, that distinguished guests would refuse to attend the show if Oscar were present. Johnny began to laugh, and asked why those people were making such silly demands. Faced with the maître d’hôtel’s silence, he turned, and himself singled Oscar out: But look at him, just look at him, he wouldn’t hurt a fly. After a moment, the maître d’ asked him calmly why he was trying to make things hard for him, he knew very well the reason for the request. Stop playing the innocent, he sighed, and went on like an impatient professor: It’s too bad, because up to now it’s been a pleasure working with you, but if you stop cooperating, you’ll have lost the one thing I require in a band leader. He knew what was hiding behind this ridiculous request, Johnny replied, but he’d wanted him to say it without beating around the bush. The band would only play with Oscar, otherwise they’d all pack up and go. Many years later Oscar told this story, and made it clear that ever since that day, he’d owed a lifelong debt to Johnny. The maître d’hôtel’s bright little eyes tensed to send forth daggers, after which he swivelled around and headed down a long corridor overhung by a string of crystal chandeliers.
So what do we do now? asked one of the trombones. We keep rehearsing, what else? Johnny shot back. One hand over his half-open mouth, Oscar for a long time didn’t move a muscle or reply to the questions he was asked. According to what he himself said, it was only then that he realized that he was the only black member of the band. Had he lost the last vestige of his innocence? Or on the contrary, did he resolve that a certain innocence, salutary and essential, would always be vital to the music he made? Those long familiar with Oscar’s music may provide the answer.
That same evening, an hour before the performance, the hotel owner himself phoned Johnny to tell him it was all a misunderstanding that should be immediately forgotten. That night, while the guests were stuffing themselves with snow crab swilled down with champagne, Oscar played with such furious virtuosity that he had the crowd on their feet for each of his solos. Once the show was over, as Johnny was treating the band members to a meal offered by the hotel, Oscar got his belongings together, pulled on his raincoat, and disappeared. Johnny rushed into the street to catch him. On the sidewalk, in the middle of a night lit by brand new electric streetlamps, and while dozens of cars trailed each other bumper to bumper along the road, the bandleader told him not to let himself be humiliated by an imbecile, that it wasn’t worth the trouble. O.P. replied that he appreciated the way he’d managed the situation, but really, he preferred to be alone. Okay, but don’t forget that the band needs you, Johnny called after him as Oscar moved away.
At the street corner, he raised the collar of his raincoat, walked at a brisk pace, and according to those close to him, as the first drops began to fall, he thought of Brad. He’d perhaps never be able to match the mathematical beauty of his playing, but, it would appear, the very act of thinking about his dead brother brought peace to his heart. A few steps later, he was asking himself if his imagination was playing tricks on him, or if the models of the cars driving by were really ten years out of date. A bit farther still, was he mistaken, or were the women he passed really wearing the kind of coats you used to see years ago? And then, why, in the shop windows, did he not see any of the vacuum cleaners and fans that only yesterday he’d noticed everywhere? Had his music disrupted both time and his own perceptions?
When he got onto the streetcar, it seemed that the effect of the music had already weakened; only half the passengers were wearing clothes from the age of swing. He then experienced an awakening both rude and cheering; though his heart was bleeding, his breast swelled with the sense of a mission accomplished. As he walked towards the back of the car, a few passengers stared at him doubtfully, others with indifference or sympathy. Had it always been that way? When he got down from the tram and strolled along, as much to take the air as to observe the passersby, there was no one, anymore, wearing clothes that brought back his cherished childhood years. As he advanced, head down, he tried in vain to unscramble his ideas, and to free himself from the anguish that tightened his throat. He arrived in his neighbourhood and entered his house.
The next day he attended church with his whole family. When the minister saw him among the faithful, he strayed from his sermon to vaunt the virtues of persistence. Without pronouncing Oscar’s name, he stressed how important it was for members of the community to step up and to serve as examples. We need models, God’s chosen, he added. What effect did these words have on Oscar? Was it nigh, the day when they’d no longer be looked down on like the plague, like less than nothing? continued the reverend. He truly wanted to know. Of course, we must arm ourselves with patience, our earthly paradise is not for tomorrow, and he emitted a laugh that stopped short just as fast, as if the flush of hope his reflections inspired had just met reality’s hard wall. Once the service was over, there were many who approached Oscar outside the church, girls to give him a kiss, men to shake his hand. As he later said, it was then that it first sank in that from now on he’d be addressed with the same deference as the community’s leaders.
3
Now Oscar had the wind behind him, and for those keeping track of his exploits it would have been hard to imagine that he was heading for a moral crisis that would bring him to his knees, transfixed by self-doubt. But that is to get ahead of ourselves. During this period, everyone in the neighbourhood who followed him, sometimes with amazement, sometimes wracked by envy, was wondering if he didn’t possess the gift of being everywhere at once. As soon as his radio broadcast was over he hailed a ta
xi to rush to the Ritz-Carlton, where, invariably, he stole the show from the other members of Johnny H.’s band, then dashed out to grab onto a careening streetcar heading to the lower town, got off at an intersection in the neighbourhood from which the alluring hubbub of the jazz bars could already be heard, and entered the Twilight Station with a small satisfied smile on his lips. It was there that, night after night, to sold-out crowds, he gave of himself heart and soul, confident that the music he was making was unique, in that it married the unifying spirit of swing to the intimate feel of the small group he led, a trio made up of piano, double bass, and drums; that was where, brick by brick, he was laying the foundations for his musical world.
It so happened that when Oscar was in his groove, odd things occurred that would have stunned a client wandering all unawares into the bar: all the women seemed to have agreed among themselves to wear long dresses and hats that would have been in vogue ten years earlier; the men, without exception, had pulled on baggy pants the likes of which you no longer saw, some going so far as to sport tweed caps, just like those of yesteryear. Both men and women, most of them, had rummaged in their attics in search of cigarette holders, holding them limply, as was proper, between the index and middle finger, so that the most pungent of aromas, just like those of the previous decade, permeated the room. Everyone drank gin cocktails like in the old days, and if you looked over your shoulder at a client leaning on the bar, you thought your eyes were playing tricks on you, because he was reading a newspaper ten years out of date. When, late in the night, the tables were pushed against the wall, people danced as they had in the past, with the same steps, the same gesticulations, and the same air of feigned incredulity, fed by a despairing energy that sought in movement, or so it seemed, to erase the trauma occasioned not by the Second World War, but by the First. What beat all, however, were the clients around tables who were exchanging ten-year-old memories as if they were events that had just occurred that very day. People setting foot in the bar for the first time were instantly transfixed; they asked the doorman, seriously, if all the customers were actors engaged in the dress rehearsal for a naturalistic play. At the first sign of dawn the avid music lovers dispersed, heading home, where some in their dreams prolonged their immersion in a long-gone world, before opening their eyes to a wash of the morning’s grey light, realizing, to their chagrin, that the magic had ceased to operate, and that Oscar’s music had faded away.
The newspapers outdid each other in eloquence and went overboard with their superlatives to incite the public to attend his shows, even though he hadn’t yet made a record. According to the critic of a French-language daily, Oscar’s jazz, never before seen, was something so perfect that it was the very embodiment of the city’s pulse. Another, a grouchy anglophone who had always longed for the great American cities, wrote: Who would have believed it, but at the heart of this lacklustre city, at the centre of its most unsavoury neighbourhood, and I’ll be damned if I could have foreseen such a miracle, there has been born out of the most abject mire, if I may term it thus, a genius, a true genius, I tell you! His playing was scrutinized in its every detail; all agreed on his matchless virtuosity, his music’s verve, his technical prowess, his fingers’ outright gymnastics—but was he an innovative pianist? How did he compare with New York’s bebop piano players, like the impetuous Bud P. who played with Charlie P., the shooting star of jazz saxophonists? Which is all to say that the ongoing debates surrounding the merits of his playing, which followed him all through his career, began very early on.
Meanwhile, it seemed that not a day went by without his thinking about Marguerite. Sunday afternoons, when he was free, there were many who saw him wandering alone, hands in the pockets of his raincoat, a fedora shading one eye. He advanced at random, but always ended up heading for the affluent neighbourhoods. There, he spent hours contemplating the castle towers on the mountainside, and in this dreamy state he meandered, once night had fallen, past the rich houses, to gaze on the windows opening into rooms with crystal chandeliers and muted light, imagining living there with Marguerite. He edged up to a house, his eyes wide, as if swearing to the gods above that the young woman seen from behind with her ebony hair really was Marguerite; but when the girl turned to reveal an angular profile, he sadly bowed his head. That could happen several times over in one night, so that by the time he turned for home he was exhausted and as downcast as could be. In the moonlight and under the luminous cone of a streetlamp, as if to shield himself from this sorrow that reached into his very depths, he tried to persuade himself to associate with other women, such as those, for example, who hovered about him after his shows.
As soon as he stepped outside, his childhood friends descended on him: what a pleasure to see him, because, seriously, O.P., were they ever proud of him! Oscar smiled politely, throwing a quick glance at his watch, and hey, you’re not going to start dodging us, are you? And him coming out with a forced laugh, pretending to be fascinated by the distant, stormy horizon over the mountain: No, of course not, but a guy’s got to earn his keep, no? Of course, O.P., but don’t forget us, that’s all we’re asking. We’ll go to your show at the Twilight Station next week, and we’ll have a couple of drinks together, like in the good old days, right? And while he was shaking hands with everyone to say goodbye, someone invariably came up to him: Don’t want to bother you, but you wouldn’t have some money or a cigarette, by any chance? Oscar was uncomfortable, his expression shifting from the sudden anger flushing his cheeks to a brotherly compassion, until finally he groped in his pockets and held out a few coins. O.P., you’re the best, and, once he was far enough away, Really, success hasn’t gone to his head, not one bit.
Every Sunday he went to church. It was good for him, it gave him the feeling that all his stress was slipping away, as he told his close companions. He saw that environment, crucial to his maintaining his mental balance, as the complement to the womb-like ambiance of the bars. There he worshipped with fervour, singing the gospels full-throated and sometimes going so far as daring, in all solemnity, to weep. He conscientiously recited the psalms, pausing at each word as if to grasp its hidden meaning so that divine mercy, mysterious, would enter into him. What was he seeking? What was going on in his precocious brain? Was he asking himself if he was an elect like Brad, as the reverend in his sermons claimed every time the occasion presented itself? Was God really looking down on him with benevolence? Had He invested him with a noble mission, to be a model for his community? Oscar sighed and bowed his head, it was hard to bear, all that. Oh, of course, like anyone else he would have preferred that God manifest himself unambiguously, if only through some object surreptitiously displaced. Lost in the maelstrom of these questions, he would suddenly notice a girl, usually rather plump, squinting in his direction with a kind of dreamlike longing, and it was only when he talked to her outside the church that he realized that she was a friend from primary school or a neighbour with whom he’d once read the comics in the daily paper.
It’s said that one Sunday morning, he felt the warmth on his cheeks of one of those vaporous gazes, and, turning his head, he was deeply troubled at the sight of a girl on the other side of the aisle with curly hair, high cheekbones, and eyelashes like ski slopes. This beauty drew his eyes to her with such intensity that he felt as if he were being flung in her direction. But who was this apparition? Outside the church, one of his friends informed him that her name was Beverly and that her family, more affluent than those of the neighbourhood, had just moved in nearby. He didn’t even have to manoeuvre to meet her: she’d arranged for a common friend to introduce them. She was flirtatious, nicely turned out, and, it seemed, adventurous. For their first date, he invited her to a popular diner in the centre of town, where there were wine-red banquettes and a windowed facade from which you could watch the passersby. She was a good girl, who dreamed of one thing only: starting a little family with a faithful man. Knowing she was attractive and from a good family, she had set her cap for
Oscar, beyond dispute the local star. Three months later to the day, as the first winter storm whitened the city’s rooftops and Beverly was at the Ritz-Carlton attending one of his shows, he knelt before her in front of the public and his colleagues to ask for her hand. When, her voice trembling, her eyes wet, she accepted, there followed a salvo of applause, and the same people who’d once opposed his playing under that roof came up to congratulate him, holding out their hands, a gesture to which Oscar, swallowing his pride, responded graciously, in appearance at least. Four months later, a week after he had attained his majority, they were wed in the neighbourhood church before a minister who seemed about to levitate with joy. It seems that that very night, she lowered her drawbridge, onto which Oscar threw himself with the ardour of an inexperienced young man accustomed to very short-lived pleasures. They bought a pretty white wooden house in the neighbourhood, a few streets away from that of O.P.’s parents. When their first child was born, Oscar, filled with anxiety at the prospect of being responsible for a life other than his own, wondered if he’d not made an irreparable mistake. The years that followed proved him wrong: his children, with whom he occupied himself very little, in no way impeded his artistic success.
Oscar Page 5
