by Roxi Harms
"I've already explained it, Mr. Baumann. Now if you'll excuse me."
That evening, Adam gave his share of the dinner to George, and sat silently on his bed, his back against the wall. No other job site had even considered him after asking about his union membership. Now Dave Pipe couldn't keep him on. Running his hands through his hair, he sighed. He'd have to look for labourer work again.
Adam didn't sleep that night. Maybe it was time to consider going back to Germany. Or a different country. Or Ontario. The only things that he had succeeded at so far in Canada were working in the bush and down a mine shaft. He wasn't about to do either of those jobs for the rest of his life. Towards dawn, Adam dragged himself out of bed and went outside where he sat down heavily on the front step and lit a cigarette. At starting time, he would go to the job site and collect his cheque, he thought dejectedly. Hopefully Dave would pay him for the last few days.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THREE
"Well, sure, that's the way it works," said Dave when Adam recapped what had happened. "But there's a way. Paget just didn't want you to know because there are guys that are paying their dues with no work. A job going to a new guy in town makes him look bad. But there's a rule that says if a union contractor, such as myself, wants a particular worker and promises to keep him employed, the union has to accept you. I'm gonna write you a letter to take back to Paget."
Half an hour later, Adam headed back to the union office, letter in hand. He wasn't convinced. Paget had been adamant and he seemed to be in full control of the bricklaying job market in Vancouver.
Mr. Paget read the letter quickly, then looked up over his glasses and fixed Adam with an unfriendly stare. "There is a fee of $120 to join," he said, then held Adam's gaze silently for a moment. "Do you have $120?"
Adam didn't have anywhere close to $120. He hesitated.
"Not today, but I can get this money," he responded, holding
Paget's gaze.
His annoyance clear, Paget reached into his desk drawer and slid some papers across the desk.
"The next union meeting is Thursday night. Come back with these papers filled out, and your $120," he said curtly, and resumed writing little numbers in the ledger spread open on the desk. As Adam was about to turn away, Paget looked up and added, "Don't come back without the money, and do not work until you are a member or I will bar you for life."
On Thursday, Adam was back in front of Paget's desk.
"Here it is," he said, placing the papers on the desk. "And I have
the money."
He'd borrowed all of George's money and gotten loans from four other guys at the boarding house. He glanced in through the door to the big meeting hall while Mr. Paget reviewed his forms. A blue haze of cigarette smoke filled the room where the union members stood talking and laughing in small groups, waiting for Mr. Paget to come in so the meeting could start.
"Your forms aren't filled out correctly. You need signatures here from two union members in good standing, vouching that you're qualified and of good character. Come back next month, third Thursday." Paget jabbed a finger at the date on his wall calendar. "And remember what I said about not working until you're a member. I'll bar you and you will never work as a bricklayer in this town."
Mr. Paget stood up and walked into the meeting hall, shutting the door behind him before Adam could digest what he'd said.
Adam stood in the quiet of Mr. Paget's little office for a minute, then walked out into the hallway and sank into a chair. A month. Dave wouldn't wait a month. There went that job. Exasperated, he got up and paced the hallway a few times, then sat back down. The huge clock at the end of the hall ticked loudly. He wasn't going to let Paget win.
A quarter of an hour later, a string of curse words and a loud laugh echoed through the hall as the front door opened. Adam watched as two men stumbled in, one of them tripping on the door ledge and nearly falling. They walked towards Adam, a bit unsteadily.
"Has the meeting started?" one of the guys asked.
"Yes," Adam replied. They must have been waiting for the meeting time to roll around in the beer parlour across the street by the look and smell of them. And they must be union members if they were going to
the meeting.
"Hey, fellas, maybe you will help me? I am trying to join the union and I need two good guys to sign the form," Adam explained as clearly as he could.
"Sure buddy, we'll vouch for ya!" the other fellow said and reached out to steady himself against the wall.
"Thank you!" said Adam. "Here and here," he pointed to the two signature lines and reached into his shirt pocket for his pen.
Adam was waiting at Mr. Paget's desk when the meeting finally finished.
"Here you go Mr. Paget, here is the form with the two signatures, and here is my money."
After scrutinizing the form, Mr. Paget put it down on his desk and sighed heavily, then scribbled his signature across the "Approved by:" line. He looked up at Adam. "Your union card will be mailed to you in the next week or so."
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED FOUR
Over the summer, Adam got to know Dave and the crew. They were hard workers, good guys. Even Jimmy lightened up once he saw Adam's union card. When Dave began to understand the extent of Adam's training, he took to discussing the best approach to each phase of work with Adam and asking his opinion. They'd barely started the next job, a fancy church built from sandstone and Roman tile, when Dave took Adam aside to talk. He wanted Adam to be his superintendent.
Mrs. Kalanovich beamed when she heard the news. That weekend, Adam received the first of many invitations to join the family at the supper table. The oldest Kalanovich girl, Violet, would be finished high school next year, the landlady explained, and ready to move back to Saskatchewan with a husband, to farm the half section of prairie land they had there. Violet and her husband would inherit that land, Mrs. Kalanovich emphasized, looking directly at Adam. Although Violet was really just a child, he couldn't see any harm in taking part in the home cooked meals.
Letters arrived regularly from Germany, Theresa's husband having taken over the role of family secretary. Everyone was working steadily, and Adam tucked a few bills into the envelope each time he wrote back, so everyone at home had plenty. George's painting job was going well too, and Adam was sure his brother must have a nice little nest egg started. They'd run into Willy a month or so after settling in Vancouver, and the three of them explored the city on the weekends, usually finding a dance or some kind of party to go to. The immigration officer at the Canadian embassy in Frankfurt had been right. Vancouver was full of opportunity.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED FIVE
The sun was warm as Adam and Willy walked along Kingsway from one car lot to the next. Willy had asked him to come along and help him buy a car. It was no wonder Willy still needed a translator. Adam never heard him practice. Willy and George – German, German, German – they'd rather talk to each other and the other Germans in the boarding house than to any locals or immigrants from other places. Not Adam. If he was going to find real opportunity and be successful in Canada, he needed good English and he spoke it at every opportunity. It was paying off. Dave was letting him talk to suppliers now, and giving him more responsibility, even though he stopped in at the job site an awful lot to check up on things.
"Let's have a look in here," said Adam. The lot was crammed with used cars of every size and colour. Adam and Willy meandered through the rows, reading the prices scrawled on the windshields.
"There's one!" Willy pointed to a black Willys.
"Take me home for $50!" teased the bright yellow words scribbled across the windshield. Adam and Willy walked slowly around the car, sizing it up.
"Looks pretty good," said Adam. "Maybe it's Willy's Willys." The two young men chuckled.
The door of the showroom opened and a salesman headed towards them.
"Can I help you boys?"
"Yes sir, we like this car," Adam answered in his best English.
"That's a good-look
ing car and a very good price," the salesman said as he reached them. "Let me start it up for you." He climbed in and turned the key. After a couple of tries, the engine roared to life. Willy grinned.
"Is good," said Willy, when the salesman shut off the motor.
"Well then, let's write it up and get you boys on the road!" beamed the salesman.
"Your driver's licence please," said the salesman a few minutes later, not looking up from the paper he was filling out at the desk in the corner of the showroom.
"Do you have a driver's licence, Willy?" Adam asked in German.
Willy's face fell. "No, is it important?"
Adam turned back to the salesman. "My friend has no driver's licence, and I don't too."
The salesman put down his pen. "I'm afraid I have to see a driver's licence before I can sell you a car," he said.
There was a pregnant pause as the three men looked at each other.
"There is a driver's examination office on West Georgia where you can get a licence," offered the salesman finally.
Willy nodded enthusiastically as Adam translated. The salesman scribbled the address on a slip of paper and handed it to Adam.
"Good luck," he called after them as they headed out the door.
Twenty minutes later they were at the licensing counter.
"This is the written part of the test. Answer all the questions and bring it back to me when you are finished," said the clerk as she handed them each a form.
Adam and Willy sat at the table she'd directed them to and examined the paper.
"Well, what now, Willy?" whispered Adam. "I can't read this and I'm pretty sure you can't either. You got any ideas?"
"Nope."
Adam stared down at the paper in front of him, looking for anything he recognized. "It looks like they are all Yes/No questions. Maybe if we fill it all out and where I answer yes, you answer no, maybe one of us will get enough right."
The dejected look lifted from Willy's face. "That's a good idea Adam."
"Okay, I'll mark Yes for the first one and you mark No, see right there," Adam pointed to Willy's form to show him where to mark his answer.
It only took the clerk a few minutes to mark their tests.
"Willy Fleischmann," she called. Adam stood up and accompanied his friend to the desk.
"I'm afraid you have too many wrong answers. You can take the test again in two weeks if you wish."
"Are you Adam Baumann?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"You passed. Have a seat in the Driver Examination waiting area for your driving test. It's down the hall on the left."
"Yes, ma'am. Thank you."
When they were seated in the next waiting area, Adam leaned over and whispered, "Can you drive?"
"Sure. I drove my grandfather's tractor lots of times."
"Well, if you want to buy that car, when they call my name, you're going to have to go in there because I've never driven a car, or a tractor, in my life."
A half-hour later, Willy came back through the door, smiling from ear to ear, and sat down beside Adam.
"There were two tests. One for traffic lights and signs, and then a real driving test in a car. I think I did pretty good."
"Adam Baumann!" called a voice from a wicket to their left.
Adam nudged Willy to get up, and then followed him to the wicket.
"Your form please, and the cost will be five dollars," the clerk said to Willy. Willy pushed Adam's form towards the clerk, then fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a crumpled five-dollar bill. Whap! The clerk stamped the form, and slid it back to Willy.
"Okay, so this is your official driver's licence, Mr. Baumann," she said to Willy. "Make sure you have it with you when you drive."
Willy just looked at the clerk.
"Take it," Adam said quietly in German.
"Thank you, ma'am," Adam said to the clerk, then to Willy in his clearest English he said, "Let's go, Adam."
Back at the car lot, Adam held out the paper to the salesman. "We got a driver's licence," he said, then grinned at Willy.
"Now we buy the car," said Adam.
"That old Willys was such a good deal, I'm afraid it sold right after you left." The smile fell from Adam's face as the salesman spoke. "But we've got some other quality vehicles you boys should take a look at. The next best priced car I can offer you is showing for $150."
"No, thank you. That's too much money for my friend." Adam got up and shook the salesman's hand, then switched to German. "Come on Willy. They sold your car. We'll find one another day. And you don't have a driver's licence anyway," he said with a laugh.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED SIX
"I'm the boss on this yard, Dave, and I give the orders, not you," Adam announced loudly enough for the crew to hear. Dave had turned up at the site and was wandering around as usual, criticizing the work and giving the guys a hard time. He'd just ordered one of the guys to put out his cigarette while he worked. Adam had had enough.
"What? You're fired!" Dave yelled back in response.
Adam stared at him for a moment. "Okay," he replied, "you can do it all." He stomped off the site and went home, too mad to be worried about being out of work.
Dave telephoned the boarding house the next morning to ask him to come back. When Dave asked him, a few weeks later, if he would be interested in supervising some out-of-town work, Adam jumped at it. Being in another town, away from Dave, sounded like the perfect solution.
"You'll have to haul the equipment up to the job site in Clearwater, near Kamloops. It's a day's drive. You can take my two-ton. You have a driver's licence, right?" asked Dave.
"Of course," he replied. He had the paper with the stamp on it in his wallet.
When Dave left the job site that afternoon, Adam climbed hesitantly into the two-ton flatbed truck parked in the yard. He'd watched other guys drive. After a few failed attempts, he figured out he needed to push in the clutch to start the engine. Thankfully the site was big and he could practice out of sight of the crew. A couple of hours more and he was making it around the yard, stalling only occasionally.
By the time he finished navigating the truck full of scaffolding along the winding road that hugged the cliffside through the Fraser Canyon the following week, across narrow wooden bridges hundreds of feet above the river and sections of road built from planks cantilevered off the side of rock bluffs, he was shifting perfectly.
After the Clearwater job, Adam continued north almost as far as Prince George, supervising a series of small jobs for Dave throughout the summer and early fall, exploring the little towns dotted around the interior of British Columbia. In the fall, Dave called to discuss a big job he'd secured, building a hangar for the Canadian Air Force in Comox on Vancouver Island. Although Adam had only been a superintendent for a few months, Dave wanted Adam to run the hangar job and have full responsibility for the high-profile project.
Two weeks later, whistling a catchy polka he'd heard on the radio, Adam drove to Comox in the well-used, but newly painted, pickup truck he'd purchased. That Friday and every Friday after, he drove back to Vancouver to spend the weekend with George and Willy, looking for places to dance and girls to dance with. He'd found his rhythm on the work front. His personal life, on the other hand, felt empty. It was time for some sort of change.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED SEVEN
They'd heard there was a dance on at the Swedish Hall. It was a chilly Saturday evening in early December, Violet Kalanovich's 16th birthday as a matter of fact. After a bite to eat and a quick appearance at the birthday celebration in the Kalanovich living room, Adam left George mooning over his new girlfriend, and met Willy in the street outside the Hall.
The girls at the coat check giggled and batted their eyelashes when Adam handed his coat and hat across the counter with a wink, before heading into the dimly lit dance hall. A waltz was just ending. The next song was a polka. Tapping his foot to the music, he scanned the crowd for someone to dance with.
When he
first saw the girl, she was dancing with a much older man. They danced well together. Her father? She threw back her head of short dark curls and laughed. Adam smiled. He watched patiently as they circled the dance floor, the petite girl gliding gracefully within the circle of her partner's arm. As the song began to fade, Adam stood up tall from where he'd been leaning. She was heading towards a table full of people on the other side of the hall.
"I'm going to dance." He tossed the words over his shoulder to Willy without taking his eyes off the girl. He'd only crossed half the distance when a young man swooped in from the other side and led her back out onto the dance floor. Adam turned and moved out of the way of the couples making their way onto the dance floor. He'd have to be faster next time. Looking around, he found an empty chair closer to the table she'd been heading for. He sat down and waited again, watching her dance.
On the last note of the song, he sprang to his feet and intercepted before she could reach her table.
"Hello. I am Adam Baumann. I'm pleased to meet you," he said in his clearest English.
Surprised, the girl drew back the tiniest bit, and looked up at Adam.
"Would you like to dance?" he continued, giving her his most charming smile. The first notes of a waltz filled the hall.
She hesitated another moment, then agreed.
"What is your name?" Adam asked as he took her left hand in his and put his other hand lightly on the small of her back.
"Jean Nordstrom," she replied as Adam began to guide her around the floor.
You smell nice, Jean Nordstrom, Adam thought.
They fell into silence as they weaved among the other couples.
"Do you come here with some friends?" Adam asked.
"My friend Mary and I are here with my father and stepmother who are celebrating their wedding anniversary. They are all sitting over there," Jean tipped her head in the direction of the table she'd been heading towards when Adam stopped her. "What about you? Are you here with your friends?"