Oscar

by Mauricio Segura

  One particularly grey afternoon, while his wife was breastfeeding the baby in the kitchen, he went into the room and sat himself in front of the door to the alleyway, as if to bear witness to the dying day. In a zombie-like voice, he told her that he was going to send all his employers packing. But why? she asked him. What had happened to him? Why did he refuse to talk to her, his comrade in arms? If you could believe Oscar’s sisters, he looked at her with compassion, and might even have asked himself if he’d not senselessly underestimated her. Oh, nothing has any importance anymore, he said. And what are we going to live on now? she exclaimed. After a long silence, he turned about and resumed his wanderings through the neighbourhood.

  One day, as he was roaming around the port, mesmerized by the gulls performing their spiralling trajectories against a backdrop of puffed-up cumulus, he happened on a demonstration where hundreds of strikers were brandishing placards and banners, and chanting slogans he had never before heard: No to paupers’ salaries! For human working conditions! Duplessis, enemy of the workers! No to the Padlock Law! Suddenly, a man broke away from the demonstrators to rush towards him. What are you doing here? asked Chester, who, faced with his silence, told him about the picket line, whose purpose was to support the metalworker comrades who were threatened with massive layoffs. And you, what’s happening with you, O.P.? Look at you, said Chester, worriedly taking in his haggard appearance, his straggly beard, and the mud-stained clothes he’d been wearing for weeks. What did I tell you, eh? You can’t trust the capitalists, they’ll always screw you in the end. When invited to take part in the demonstration, Oscar replied that his heart wasn’t in it. Unity is strength, when are you going to understand that, O. P.? Faced with Oscar’s lack of enthusiasm, Chester asked him about his financial situation. In a neutral tone, as if he were talking about someone else’s life, he confessed that he’d exhausted his savings, that his little family was now making do thanks to Beverly’s father, a man who, even when he was working, had no particular affection for him, but who now felt free to mock him in front of everyone. When Chester suggested that he find work as a docker, he was silent for a good while, looking about him, then half-heartedly nodded his head. Why did he accept the offer? Did he feel that he’d sunk so low that he had nothing more to lose? Or that he could at last drown his sorrows in fatigue and live in peace, with no dreams or illusions? Whatever the case, Chester arranged to meet him in the port the next day before joining the demonstration.

  Two days later, Oscar began working at night. He filled crates in the hold of a cargo ship. As he might go down and climb back up as many as a hundred times a day, he left the port depleted in the cool light of morning, just as the city was waking and its citizenry was flowing in the opposite direction. Once home, he didn’t have the strength either to talk or to take a shower, and he just lay down fully clothed. Beverly disapproved and reprimanded him, but he only heard a few words before falling asleep. This routine suited him: he couldn’t bear to think back on his former artistic ambitions, and even less on his dreams of grandeur, which he now saw as storybook fantasies.

  When his old neighbourhood friends ran into him and asked how things were going, O.P. walked on without replying, as if he’d gone deaf. Bloodseed, did you see the zombie face on him? Has he broken with his lovely wife? Or with his father, a puzzle if there ever was one, always sitting on the front steps of his house, with his death mask? Is it true what they say? Did he have a falling out with the buxom wife of the Twilight Station’s owner? What? Did fate strike him a blow, as some of the neighbourhood’s elders thought? It’s said that every morning he hoped with all his heart to have changed his life, but amidst the familiar shapes of the furniture in his room, what loomed up before him straightaway was the puffy, bristled face of Art T., just like on his record covers, one eye closed, the other half shut, the mouth disdainful and always agape, as if caught in mid-breath. Despite himself, he heard again his rival’s headlong musical phrases, the bursts of machine gun fire, the deranged carousel. Were the gossipmongers right to claim that Oscar was even, the ultimate sacrilege, questioning his faith? In any case, rumour had it that he resented God for having played a double game, telling him one thing through the preacher’s voice and the opposite the following day.

  One day at noon, knowing that his mother wasn’t working, he stopped by his parents’. After having greeted him with a kiss, and as she was turning back to her stove, Davina declared: So it’s true what they say, my boy, you look like a ghost. Despite Oscar’s objections, she poured into a bowl a chicken stock she’d prepared the day before, diced up in a flash a carrot and a pumpkin, garnished it all with a bunch of coriander, and heightened the soup’s flavour with a strong pepper purée she put together every Sunday after church. True to her habits, she was content just to sit in front of her son and watch him eat; after a while, she asked him if it was true what she’d heard, that he wasn’t giving shows anymore? That he was working as a docker? She acknowledged his sense of responsibility; a man, a real man, did whatever it took to feed his family.

  To her mind, times were tough for everyone, especially in this part of the world, where the Chef controlled everything. Although she was a proud believer, she wasn’t stupid; in any case, she was smart enough to see that the Church was too often seduced by the smell of money. As for their community, everyone was convinced that they were on the same side as the English Canadians. There, she gave a little laugh followed by a sucking noise: If they could only take a look at how they treat us, they wouldn’t come out with such rubbish. She sighed and, in conclusion, said dreamily and without self-pity: The cows out front always get the clean water. Soon, as she began talking to herself again, it’s said that Oscar, not without remorse, began to wonder whether his mother’s delirium was not due to his abandoning the piano. He took hold of her and looked her straight in the eye: Mudda, I need you to read my hand. A sly smile appeared on Davina’s lips, and she studied Oscar’s left hand, because as everyone knows, that’s the one that tells the future for right-handed men. She mumbled some gibberish, closed her eyes, opened them several times as if to spy on Oscar, declared imperiously that his mental landscape was far too murky, but wait, it’s getting clearer. I see an uneven future, you’re smiling widely, but your lower lip is trembling with cold and unease, you’re afraid of a shadow that’s grazing the walls of your house. Whose shadow is it? he asked. Davina leaned in closer to her son’s hand before finally shrugging her shoulders, letting her own hand drop, and resuming her dialogue with the voices that haunted her. Oscar asked himself what he was doing there. Did he doubt, if only for an instant, his mother’s powers? He got up, leaned down to plant a kiss on her brow, and left.

  According to a number of witnesses, he began again to roam around like a pariah. Now he walked with a sense of purpose, stepping with determination, as if seeking to die of exhaustion. He stalked all the neighbourhood’s streets, all its alleyways, all its parks, crossed all its intersections in every direction possible and, if need be, against red lights. At dawn, a few people saw him heading down towards the canal, where he was soon wrapped in the arms of a thick fog, God’s breath, always conducive to reflection, and that brings us back to the beginning of our story. He leaned on the railing bordering the canal to take in the sinister vista where a forest of assorted chimneys was fuming away and where garbage was strewn over water as leaden as the air. A short time later he climbed over the railing, his coat pockets, according to some, filled with stones. He fixed his eyes on the waves, as if his gaze could pierce straight through to the bottom of the water. At that moment, so it was said, he had a look on his face that went beyond suffering.

  Just as he was collecting himself to leap, feet together, into the canal and to say farewell to this wretched world, just as he was mustering the resolve to turn his back on life and to obey the siren call of death, a shadow stretched itself out on the ground beside his own. Too absorbed in his own suffering, Oscar didn’t even turn his
head towards this restless being who, in a bewildering tango, edged towards him only to back away, making him think that it was probably a stray dog. But suddenly the shadow that he’d taken for a canine turned into a very human silhouette. Still, at that precise moment, perhaps because of the storm raging in his heart, Oscar did not choose to turn in its direction. Only after many seconds did he glance that way out of the corner of his eye, seconds during which, we must believe, he realized that he didn’t have the courage to jump. What he saw was a slender silhouette, dressed in an elegantly cut black raincoat and a fedora that was just as black, from which there drifted a languid plume of smoke, like an adorning feather veiling the entire face.

  It’s likely that the aforementioned silhouette began by asking him, in a deep but relaxed voice: How is it that the sky is so low today, as if it were going to fall on our heads? In all probability, Oscar gave no answer. This weather has lasted for days, the silhouette observed, lifting his eyes to the sky before taking a long puff on his cigarette. Is that when the man, whose face was still swathed in the vaporous cloud rising from beneath his headgear, called him by name? Some say that Oscar recoiled; others believe that he did nothing, since so many people knew him. What’s certain is that just as Oscar lifted his head, more as a reflex than to see if the man spoke the truth, the ashen heavens magically transformed themselves into a cloudless sky aglow with a light that was close to summery. It would seem that only then did Oscar become fully aware of the man’s presence.

  He was a jazz impresario from Los Angeles who was passing through town to supervise the tour of some of his musicians. He didn’t say “musicians I’m taking care of,” or “the musicians I’m working with.” He said, quite simply, “my musicians,” which might have tipped Oscar off. Now it seems that initially he took this possessive form as a mark of affection, a sign that this man treated the artists as members of his family. A few months earlier, the impresario went on, as he was leaving Montreal in a taxi for the airport, he’d heard a brilliant pianist on the radio and asked the driver who he was. The driver didn’t know, but informed him that it was a concert being broadcast directly from the Twilight Station Bar. The impresario told him to turn around and make straight for the bar in question. He described all this to Oscar in a velvety voice, and sometimes interrupted his sentences to take a puff from his cigarette or give free rein to his luminous smile, now that Oscar could make out his face. Attentive to every note, the man had listened to the rest of the performance, leaning against the bar at the back of the room, extremely impressed but, if all were to be said—because he wanted to start off on the right foot—convinced that his playing had yet to mature like a wine that’s robust but well-balanced. And then, just the previous day, he’d acquired his record to discover, to his great delight, a clear improvement, even if some adjustments would be desirable, which they could talk about when the time came. He’d been looking for him all day, until the owner of the Twilight Station told him that he hadn’t been performing for months. As a last resort, he’d gone for a stroll in his neighbourhood, and he’d talked to some boys he’d met in a park, who’d told him that Oscar was not doing well, that he was struggling with his inner demons, whose exact nature they did not know. I’m catching a plane this afternoon, and I decided to try my luck this morning. And here you are.

  Seeing Oscar hesitate, he pushed the issue: he didn’t want to interfere in his private life, but all the same, it was too bad that such a talented musician should stop performing. What a waste, he said a bit more softly, as if just to himself. The man came closer and held out his hand to introduce himself: I’m Norman G. All are agreed that Oscar’s attitude radically changed; the proof was that he turned right around. He must have recognized the name, since this was the most famous impresario in the world of jazz.

  Faced with Oscar’s obstinate silence, the man smiled, nodding his head and turning his back before letting drop, as if it were nothing at all: Fine, I’ll leave you in peace, but what will Marguerite say when she learns the news? Oscar tilted his head, as if to ask himself if he’d really heard the question. I’m sorry? he murmured. The impresario froze in an attitude of mock anticipation, still facing away, his back straight. Bloodseed, who are you? said Oscar. The man slowly swivelled on his heels, approached him, and answered: I will be everything you want me to be. Some claim that to counter Oscar’s dubious air, he added, with just the suggestion of a smile on his lips: Know that I am the sacred fire, but that I am also as malleable as gold. Oscar himself is of no help to us here, because in his interviews on this, as with other crucial events in his life, he chose to keep his own counsel.

  Just as the morning light began sending forth enough energy for the city dwellers to at last start bustling about, a few people spotted the two men, side by side, walking away from the canal. They passed alongside warehouses and factories, and crossed a residential neighbourhood where a fifty-year-old in overalls, straight from his truck, was doling out piles of newspapers to young newsboys, and two or three, later, swore by all the gods to have caught a glimpse of them. By the time they reached the old town, Oscar was already walking with more of a spring in his step. Finally, when they entered the street of Norman G.’s hotel, they were sauntering nonchalantly, as if they were old friends who had been separated for far too long by unforeseen and unhappy circumstances. From now on this man would be Oscar’s constant companion, and as such would become, from the point of view that will be ours, both his blessing and his curse.

  4

  The night Oscar performed at Carnegie Hall in New York, the concert was broadcast live on the CBC, where he had been working only a few months earlier. Even if most people in the neighbourhood had a radio, or at the very least a rudimentary receiver that you had to take a fist to every so often to keep it going, the rumour mill had done its work, and all you had to do was to follow the electric wire that unspooled from sidewalk to sidewalk, from street to street, fording rivulets of urine, skirting brothels where one fornicated loud and clear, bisecting the din on the jazz-club strip, and slicing right through the baseball diamond where the last holdouts were trying in vain to complete a ninth inning that refused to bite the dust—all you had to do was follow the wire leading to the set perched on the rise at the north end of the park, deposited there by Oscar’s brothers and sisters, to hear, in the company of other enthusiasts, the shower of notes from the piano-playing prodigy. There were at least two hundred, perhaps three hundred souls huddled together like wasps around an upset honey pot, their ears straining to hear all the cascades and arpeggios. Not a bit nervous, he played as if he were in his parents’ living room and once more twelve years old: he performed his music not only with youthful passion, but with a joyous vitality and a light touch that has always been the mark of greatness, of courtesy wed to intelligence.

  Of all the pieces he played, the one that from one day to the next raised him to glorious heights was a slow swing, restrained, tinged with mischief, shot through with swoon-inducing staccatos and legatos. It was called “Tenderly.” How did he manage that tour de force, transmuting piano chords into human vocal chords with such gentle grace? Bah, said the brothers and sisters to whoever asked the question, it runs in the family. Still, it was this subtle amalgam of sophistication and simplicity that won the hearts of all the music lovers in the park, such that at the end of the concert, while everyone prepared to disperse, several made a show of wiping some irritant from their eyes, powerless to hide the feelings that had welled up in them, as if Oscar had miraculously interpreted the scores of their inner lives.

  Norman G.’s great innovation was to have his protégés—about fifteen of the most prominent musicians in the world of jazz—play in concert halls usually reserved for classical music, and to bring in box office receipts far exceeding the meagre sums offered by nightclubs. According to him, not only would jazz be profitable in those prestigious venues, but it would also free it from its reputation as a marginal art form promoted by a f
ew mobsters trying to redirect their activities into music, a reputation recently enhanced thanks to the boppers, whom neither Norman nor Oscar held in very high esteem.

  From the very beginning, Oscar’s appearances in the United States made him rich. He was like a pirate finding a treasure on his first ocean voyage. From one day to the next, he was able to stop worrying about survival and to concentrate on his art. It’s said that on rainy Sunday mornings, when he looked back on the turbulent days when he wanted to drown his sorrows in the canal, he couldn’t believe that he was really this man who saw his reflected image in the filthy water. Unbeknownst to his father, he provided for his parents, slipping wads of bills into envelopes that he mailed every month to his mother. When he had her on the phone, Davina assured him in a whisper—backed up with winks of the eye that she forgot he couldn’t see—that she had respected to the letter his request that she talk of the money to no one, and promised on his next visit to prepare a meal he’d never forget. She neglected to tell him that she was sharing out the money to those of her children who were in need.

  More importantly, everything indicated that his collaboration with Norman G. had turned Oscar’s view of himself upside down. What exactly was going on in his head? Anyone who ventured an answer would have to be very shrewd. What is certain is that never again would anyone surprise him on the edge of the canal. Rather, you saw him in concert hall lobbies, dressed in a powder-blue three-piece suit, eyes sparkling, his smile as gleaming as the Chevy Bel Air Deluxe he’d just bought, while photographers blitzed him with their flash bulbs and journalists with their crafty questions. The next day you found his photo in the newspaper as he held out his hand to a theatre owner or a municipal politician, displaying an affability too radiant to be believable, especially for those who had encountered him during his weeks of distress. Who was he trying to kid, after all? Had he swept under a carpet of denial all the questionings as to his worth as an artist? And the spectre of Art T.? The neighbourhood residents could only speculate, since, what with his constant travelling, almost no one saw him. Certainly, the wound was still open, infected even, but apparently he made a huge effort to pretend that all was well in the best of all worlds: in interviews he readily praised the quality of Art T.’s music, then quickly steered the conversation towards his own musical universe, his own ambitions.