Oliver Jones. Marthe Sansregret
would organize and hire performers for these shows, which usually ran for two weeks.
Oliver also liked listening to jitterbug music – a new form of swing. When he went into an ice cream parlour, his eyes would open wide at the sight of young couples dancing to the jukebox. The girls, about thirteen to nineteen years old, were known as bobby-soxers, with their short, wide skirts, ankle-length socks, and ballerina shoes called “baby dolls.” Their partners wore dark blue jeans with the cuffs turned up, and shoes that slid easily over the floor. Their dancing was fast and creative; occasionally a young man would lift his partner and spin her around his waist.
When he reached home, Oliver’s mind would be full of everything he had seen and heard. However, all that pleasure was not for him, at least not yet: he had to practise classical piano. But no one could stop him from dreaming.
***
During the summer of 1942, Oliver realized that he wouldn’t have to accompany his mother to the Atwater Market for two whole Saturdays in a row. Mr. Jones, as a CPR employee, had a free pass to travel with his family in Canada or in the United States, and he had decided to take a trip to Nova Scotia with his son. Oliver, who only knew his mother’s family, was finally going to meet his father’s relatives in Cape Breton. He was excited at the idea of spending a few days with cousins who were born and raised in Nova Scotia, and who lived right on the seashore. Also, he was going to travel alone with his father. He felt grown up in spite of the fact that he was only eight years old.
On the train, Oliver Wesley explained that around nine o’clock that evening, they would lower the back of their seat to make it into a sleeping berth. From the moment the train left the station, for two days and two nights, Oliver was entranced by the animals resting in the fields and near the barns, the market gardens that made his father’s plot seem small indeed, and the farm houses. He drank in the country scenery with its uninterrupted vistas as only a city child could.
Although the panorama never lost interest for Oliver, he still found the trip very long. He asked his father at least a hundred times when they would arrive, what the Pyle family was like and what they did. Oliver learned that MacDonald Pyle, unlike Oliver Wesley, had married a White woman: Élisa Gressier from Boulogne-Sur-Mer, an important port of northern France. In 1916, she had come to Canada with her mother – also named Élisa – and her sister, Marguerite. Due to wartime conditions, they had taken a ship from France to New York City, and had spent some time on Ellis Island with thousands of other immigrants. They had been impressed by the Statue of Liberty, a project initiated by the chairman of France’s anti-slavery society, Edouard de Laboulaye, in the middle of the nineteenth century. From New York, the Gressiers went to Cape Breton, where the young Elisa met and married the handsome MacDonald Pyle.
But before Oliver had the satisfaction of seeing these legendary relatives, he was captivated by the CPR porters. Oliver, whose destiny – like that of many young men in his community – might have been to earn his living as a porter, thought that they looked very important. They seemed tall and strong in their smart uniforms. He remembered that the Glen Yards in Saint-Henri was also referred to as “the porters’ school,” and he wondered what they learned there.
Mr. Jones, having ample time to expand upon the subject, explained that the porters acquired notions of meteorology, geography, and history at the school. They had to memorize the names of the places on the train routes – towns, villages, mountains, lakes and rivers, and even the names of regional varieties of trees and other plants. The porters walked through the trains all day long, from one car to the other, carrying and serving drinks and food, helping people with their luggage, and answering questions about the schedule and the territory the train was going through. They made and served coffee, dispensed aspirins to relieve headaches, polished shoes, and cleaned compartments. This went on until they had a few minutes to catch their breath, sitting on a stool that was often too low for the length of their legs. But the minute a passenger called for service, they had to jump to their feet again. Oliver could see that it was a lot of work.
MacDonald Pyle (cousin of Oliver’s father) and his wife from France Élisa Gressier, their three sons, Peter, Charlie and Joe, and their two daughters, Marguerite and Lisa.
He was also impressed by their affability and good manners. Mr. Jones said that, in spite of their numerous tasks – including the preparation of baby formula for which they had to know the different varieties and the right mixing proportions – they were not allowed to complain. Even when things quieted down a little, they were required to keep accounting records.
Along with this intimidating job description, Oliver, who loved to eat, learned that porters had to be on guard against stomach ulcers due to nervous indigestion caused by the constant motion of the train. Not only that, a porter could only sleep after the last passenger had retired, which might be at dawn. When Oliver asked his father why some of the passengers acted condescendingly towards their porter, Oliver Wesley replied: “First, because his skin is black; second, because he is at their service.” In spite of this, Mr. Jones explained, whenever an emergency arose, people would call the porter before anyone else; he was like the captain of a ship in danger of sinking.
Following this brief but discouraging life lesson, Oliver was sure of one thing: he would never be a porter.
***
When Oliver Wesley and his son arrived in Cape Breton, Oliver was introduced to the woman he would call Aunt Elisa, although technically she was the widow of his father’s cousin. Macdonald Pyle had died of lung disease before he could see his five children grow up. Oliver met his three sons, Peter, Charlie and Joe, and his two daughters, Marguerite and Lisa. They spoke to Oliver in English, but their mother addressed him in French.
For the first day of their short holiday, Oliver Wesley, who had never seen his cousin again after leaving Nova Scotia for Quebec, suggested laying flowers and reciting a prayer at his grave.
The second day was dedicated to Oliver’s first fishing expedition in which he hoped to catch “many long and large fish.” But before he and his cousins set off, Peter asked Oliver to go down into the coldroom with him. He pointed to some lemon pies that his mother, an expert French cook, had prepared for supper. When Oliver saw them, he realized what was going on. “So Peter brings up this pie, we taste it, love it, and eat it all!” At suppertime, the family sat around the table while the baffled Aunt Élisa wondered why the number of pies for dessert didn’t correspond to the number she had baked. Oliver was frightened, thinking of the stolen toffee apples; he had gotten into a difficult situation again, this time under the influence of his mischievous youngest cousin. He managed to tell his father about it without the others hearing, and Mr. Jones reassured him by saying he would have a little talk with Aunt Élisa after supper.
The following day, Oliver saw a group of children and teenagers approaching the Pyles’ yellow house. Word of his prowess on the piano had spread in the vicinity. The young people sat cross-legged on the floor looking up at Oliver who was perched on a stack of books that Marguerite had piled on the piano bench. He played a boogie-woogie. It was a triumph.
Next morning, it was Oliver’s turn to be impressed. Hearing the other kids in the neighborhood talking, he realized that Charlie and Joe were up-and-coming boxers and were already well known on the circuit. He felt proud of his cousins, who were local heroes.
After a night of little sleep, Mr. Jones took Oliver over to the mines in Mingham. Coal Mine No. 9, where he had worked when he arrived in Canada, had been shut down, so the pilgrimage continued to Mine No. 12, still in operation. When they descended into the mine pit, Oliver felt very small and was increasingly afraid of what would happen next. When they walked in the underground passages, he thought that if he hadn’t been with his father, he would have fainted in those “corridors of Hell, just before the flames did the rest.” Feeling buried in this surreal place, Oliver told himself: “I will never, never work in a mine!” – this just a few days after he had sworn he would never work on a train. Although Oliver didn’t have any idea what he wanted to be, he now definitely knew what he didn’t want to be: a coal miner or a Pullman porter. Two