The Piano Cemetery

by José Luís Peixoto

  come

  winter on the patio, the sky clean and cold. I entered that endless picture. I disappeared. I came out of that endless picture. I walked over to my carpentry bench. The smell of the inside of the wood. I was holding the plane with both hands when the lady came in. Her face

  Kilometre twenty-three

  wasn’t smiling. Frightened, hurt, concerned, she was a different person. A gold pin on the collar of her black jacket, and she was a different person. Small, thin, a different person. She asked me to go and look at the piano. When she noticed my surprise, or my discomfort, or my shyness, she begged me to go and look at the piano. I looked at her, not understanding. I had seen the piano the day before. I had been lying down, naked, underneath it. I couldn’t understand how after just one night the piano could have caused such distress. I invented a thousand possibilities — perhaps it was a desperate subterfuge to make me come back, perhaps she needed me, or, more likely, perhaps there really was some problem with the piano, perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. All these ideas were accompanied and overlaid by the memory of her look when I told her it was the last time we’d be seeing one another, when she remained lying there for ever, naked; they were accompanied by the weight that sank my heart in my chest, in a well that I had inside my chest. I couldn’t understand how something could have happened to the piano, but I told her I’d go. I didn’t ask her what had happened, but I told her I’d go. I told her I had to wait for my brother, and that as soon as he arrived I’d go and take a look at the piano. Satisfied, but still frightened, still hurt, she went out. My head was filled

  came into the carpentry shop without a word, extinguishing an uninteresting conversation. Her husband, who had been in the piano cemetery with Maria, looked at her and became annoyed. Our father looked at her without curiosity. Her husband asked her, ‘What are you doing here?’ Marta’s voice was the voice of a clear, almost invisible shadow, and she said in a voice that was very worn, ‘I’ve come to fetch a hammer.’ And she was interrupted. ‘Didn’t I say I was coming? What’s the hurry?’ And with the same aggressiveness, the same disdain, he asked, ‘And you left the girl on her own?’ Marta made herself look him in the eye. Her voice, pale — ‘She’s stayed with Francisco.’ Simão’s name couldn’t be spoken. Set apart from it all, it was only then that, without fretting, without saying anything, my father noticed my absence. In such a brief moment of silence, less than the space between words, Marta felt herself tremble inside. Her husband, severe, said to her, ‘I’ll get the hammer, I’ll be right home.’ Marta made herself look him in the eye. She wanted to see his cruelty. Mute, silent, she walked home. The world, within her and without, was a construction of blades she couldn’t touch. At home she didn’t see my face, or Simão’s face. We talked about something or other, and we didn’t really see her. Elisa got excited at her arrival — Mummy, Mummy, Mummy. Marta picked her up, and with her in her arms gave her a hug, her eyes closed, that lasted a long time. I said, ‘I’ve got to go.’ Simão came out with me. At the door to Marta’s house, I went back to the workshop, Simão went off in the opposite direction. The afternoon was fragile over the city, over the distant vegetable gardens, over the streets and over the workshop road. The afternoon aimed its brightness at things. The afternoon came in through the windows of Marta’s house and hurled itself in a torrent on to the floor. Elisa’s short legs went round and round the kitchen table, her little hands looking for something they didn’t know. Though no one knew it, without thinking about it herself, that was the day that Marta began to get fat. With slow movements she opened the door to a cupboard, took out a tin of lard cakes, hard and dry and covered in cinnamon and sugar, and sat down to eat them. Her gaze misted up in the empty air. She couldn’t think about Maria. It was unbearable to her. Still chewing the last lard cake, she took two steps to the bench under the window and picked up an enamel plate filled with cold roast bacon. She took a knife from the cutlery drawer, got the bread basket and sat down to eat. When she started feeling full, she struck her closed fist against her chest.

  with possibilities and contradictions. My brother arrived mid-morning. No sooner had I heard his steps on the earth of the entrance hall than I put down my tools and moved away from the carpentry bench. When he reached the carpentry shop I was shaking the sawdust from my trousers and the sleeves of my sweater. As he took three steps into the carpentry shop, opening his mouth, before he’d said a word I was past him, saying, ‘I’ve got to go out, I won’t be long.’ He turned his whole head to watch my back with his wide-open left eye. Benfica was alive. Carts and motorcars passed, people passed, pigeons passed.

  as though I had brought my hands too close to the fire, almost touching it, as though my whole body, this body, was my hands

  passed by my sister Maria’s street. It was late afternoon. There weren’t many days left before I was off. My mother was at the window waiting for me, holding Íris in her arms, and as I passed she held her little hand at the wrist and they waved to me. From my mother’s face, from her smile, I could tell that she was proud of me. It didn’t take me long to reach São Sebastião de Pedreira. I was still taking it easy when I turned back. As far as Benfica, high on hope, I overtook every motorcar I met. I passed my sister Maria’s street again. I couldn’t make out any movement in the light beyond the window and the tulle curtains. I wanted to imagine that on that day my sister wouldn’t fight with our mother, nor with her husband. I could remember when Maria and our mother started fighting about something or other. They’d begin by saying casual words, things that they didn’t feel, hurting one another. Then they’d put on their tearful voices, accusing one another, and they might bring Maria’s husband into the argument or they might bring in the children, Ana and Íris, who were also crying or who stayed together, hand in hand. I could remember when Maria and her husband started fighting. She might — or not — say two or three things that insulted him, or accused him. He’d start pushing her, or throwing plates on the floor, throwing glasses. Once, using his two hands, he split the porcelain tureen that had always adorned the centre of the kitchen table. Ana and Íris cried, or just stayed together, hand in hand. As I ran past I imagined that, on that day, neither Maria, nor her husband, nor our mother would fight. Two or three times a week I used to stop by, drink a glass of water and see if everything was all right. But that wasn’t a day for stopping. That was a day to run and not stop.

  Kilometre twenty-four

  didn’t smile. She had the frightened, hurt, worried expression that she’d shown me at the workshop a little over an hour earlier, but she was still distant. A distant lady. I followed her along the corridor. I’d known the way for a long time, but there was a pattern that we couldn’t change, it was too late. For her I’d always be the image that I myself didn’t know, millimetrically exact. We snaked our way along the hall in silence. Our steps were quick, there was a breeze that passed us, that we passed through. We reached the doors to the big hall. When she opened them in front of me, there was what I’d expected to see and there was what I saw — the piano, burned, destroyed, without legs, set on the floor. The walls near the piano were black with soot. The ceiling above the piano was black. The carpet around it was burned. I walked over, incredulous, and bent down to look at the piano which was almost completely burned up, its grey insides crossed by pieces of blackened metal, the sheets of wood that were still cooling off as embers, the surface of the varnish deformed by blisters where the wood hadn’t been incinerated completely. Behind me the lady was a small, thin, old statue, and I didn’t need to ask her any questions. I could imagine the moment when she hurled the lit oil lamp on to the piano. I could imagine the despair. I could imagine her standing there, her face turned to the piano in flames. The white skin of her face lit up by the flames. I could imagine the strings snapping inside the fire. I don’t know what the lady expected me to say. I said nothing. I walked along the corridor alone, knowing that somewhere in the house she was there — the body I loved, the skin I knew com
pletely, that I still know. The streets of Benfica didn’t exist. I arrived at the workshop, went into the carpentry shop and Simão, absorbed in his thoughts, was startled at the speed of my return. Without letting him catch his breath, I asked him, ‘Can we go and see the piano you were talking about yesterday?’ In wonder, he looked at me with his left eye as if to say yes, as if not to say no. I grabbed him by the arm and we went out. I closed the big door and we walked together. He explained to me what it was like, the piano, the condition it was in. I didn’t hear him.

  the air boiling as it comes into me. I breathe boiling air

  night was beginning on all the streets. In the kitchen my wife had her arms stretched out over the pan. Her pregnant belly meant that she had to keep this distance to shred parsley, coriander or any kind of herb. Having lost track of time, she said to me, ‘You’re here already?’ I walked towards her to kiss her. As my lips approached and my chin ran along the skin of her shoulder, she shrugged her shoulder against her neck and with words broken by giggles she repeated, ‘I don’t want any sweaty kisses here, go and wash first.’ But I kissed her, I kissed her again, and my kisses reached the surfaces of her skin that while she laughed she couldn’t hide.

  and I see the other runners in the distance. Like me, they’re being punished. I know that they also used to be children who ran without fear. They were young lads, and they believed. In other places time has stopped for them, too, when their lips met lips. All over the world, in squares, on staircases, in tunnels, on bridges, the simple gesture of lips getting closer, skin that begins to touch at the threshold of its outlines, that joins, slowly and completely, and remains, skin against skin, lips lips; all over the world, under many, so different trees, under the ringing of so many bells, on the banks of rivers big and small, locks of hair that touch a cheek, the strength of a face felt by another face, the taste; all over the world, people of all sizes and all races, houses of wood and stone, gardens, the warm weight of eyelids over eyes, breathing that touches skin, lips lips, morning or afternoon or night or now, fields, cities, people, two people, the whole world frozen for two people all over the world. In the distance, the back of a runner. Now it’s as though it were simple

  love you too much, almost too much, I love you too much, almost too much

  sisters. Marta never spoke to Maria about that afternoon in the piano cemetery. There was a single Sunday lunch at our parents’ house when Marta, angry and hurt, ignored Maria. Then straight away they went back to being as they had always been. Marta knew how to forgive, and she made herself forget. When Maria arrived to see Elisa, who was still small, Marta smiled at her and they were just sisters, ever sisters. It happened sometimes while Elisa was taking her nap, or when she was spending the evening alone, that the memory of that afternoon came to her. For a moment the image of her husband’s face, between pianos, behind pianos, and her sister’s back. For a moment, again, the image of her husband’s head sinking into the neck of her sister. Marta, alone, grimaced and fled from this image, ate a whole pan of boiled potatoes, roasted a pork sausage. With no one else there she would walk through the house’s enormous afternoons. Her husband would come in, and go out. Maria would follow him with her eyes, go after him, try to talk to him in a sweet voice, but he wouldn’t stop, wouldn’t wait for her, didn’t see her, didn’t hear her. In the morning, when her husband had already gone out, when Elisa was still asleep, Marta would stand in front of the mirror. With the tips of her fingers she would move aside the straps and let her nightdress drop to her feet. And she would look at her body — the thick skin enveloping shapes of stone that grew in extravagant ways. In a few months her body was deformed. When I arrived, I was able to make her laugh. Between our conversations, between the little games with Elisa, I witnessed the changes to her body. My mother would arrive to see her granddaughter and witnessed the changes to her body. Simão, when he turned up to see her, witnessed the changes to her body. My father, Maria, all of us witnessed the changes to her body, but we said nothing. On Sundays, when Marta arrived bringing Elisa by the hand, when her husband arrived a few minutes later and we all sat down at the table for lunch, no one commented on the way Marta held blocks of pork and gnawed at them, quickly, one after another with her lips greasy and her eyes getting smaller and smaller, sunk in her round face.

  Kilometre twenty-five

  the springs of the cart. Simão and I and three men from the taberna unloaded the piano. Earlier, at the man’s house, standing at the piano, when he named his price, my brother came up to my ear and whispered, ‘Take it.’ I remained silent, as if thinking. I looked at the piano, I looked at the man, I looked at the piano, I looked at the man and said half the sum he’d asked for. He accepted at once. As we crossed the entrance hall of the workshop with the piano — a weight crushing us against the floor — I could see that the men couldn’t cope. We stopped. We had a breather, and started again. We put it down in the carpentry shop. We went to the taberna and drank two glasses of wine. As we came out, it was January. In the carpentry shop, the upright piano, varnished, with secret scratches. Simão was talking, telling stories, making up futures. I walked round and round the piano, I concentrated. Then, at a given moment, I stopped and put my index finger on a key — a lame note. With that note began a whole week of me and Simão spending all our mornings and all our afternoons around the piano. Hours followed one another slowly, I thought about her, my brother would go to the piano cemetery to look for parts and would come back satisfied with pressure bars, hammers, rods. I felt a tenderness towards Simão’s blind, smiling face, my brother, my brother. Then I’d leave him at the taberna and go to train. I ran in a time that was constant combustion, a flame blowing inside me. Like blood I ran through the veins of Lisbon, touched its heart, penetrated its heart, and then, more slowly, extracted myself, undid myself and came out. A secret from myself. I’d arrive home and find a place held in suspension. My wife under the oil lamp, her belly, our child forming, slowly growing, waiting for a moment. Like now

  a given moment in time. Now. Now is a stake, driven into the surface of time, just as it might be stuck into the earth. All the cords of time are supported by this stake and they can hold up a tent as huge as the sky. The gardens around the entrance to the stadium have been left behind a long time or short time or long or short time ago. With each step, a different now. I run, carrying time. I take a step, now, another step, another now, and on I go — now, now, now. I’m not scared any more. I’m alight with my certainties. I can accept naturally that, now, my father has just died; just as, now, my sister Maria has fallen off the bicycle at the Monsanto picnic; just as, now, my niece Elisa has just been born; just as, now, I am here, frozen in this moment, at this step, replaced by the next, replaced by the next. Wherever my wife is, that moment exists. It’s so different and it’s just the same, the same moment. Wherever my mother is, there’s this moment which for her lasts much longer or much less time. Where I am. Here, on this road. Here, where I could be if I closed my eyes. All time, the years and decades I’ve lived, that I’ve not lived, that I will live and that I won’t live, it all exists in this moment. I fall — my cheek to the floor, the sun pushing my shoulders and not letting me get up, now, time, my knees burning, the palms of my hands on the ground, an incandescent sheet, red-hot, the heavy boiling air that fills me up

  don’t leave me

  and I get up. Slowly. Slowly. The weight of my body — a mountain — on my arms. My knees — the trunks of the plane-trees in the garden — bend. I go on

  together. We looked at the piano proudly. Once again we were aware of being capable and of being endlessly brothers. We were made of the same impossible, unpronounceable words. Simão left me to go and fetch the man with the cart. When the sound of his steps had disappeared, I put a stool down in front of the piano, sat down, and played a piece with notes spaced out, that I made up, and that I felt. Time. Afternoon. My brother came back, already with a few men from the taberna. I was seated facing the silen
ce. I sat down next to the cart man. He held on to the bridle, I had my hands resting in my lap. People were frozen on the pavements to watch the piano, tied up, solemn. Behind us, my brother went with the men from the taberna, on foot, chatting about nothing, their phrases left unfinished. The lady stood amazed when she opened the door. The lady stood amazed as she followed us with her gaze. In the corridor we huddled so as not to knock off any pictures, so as not to scratch any furniture. When we came to corners we’d manoeuvre backwards, forwards, backwards, forwards. In the hall, the place of the grand piano was empty and clean. The burned part of the rug was covered by another rug, like a patch. The walls around the piano were clean, but worn down from having been scrubbed. We put the piano up against the wall next to the window. The lady’s eyes shone. She stood there, arms down by her sides. The men left, led out by Simão. The lady looked at me for another moment, and went out. She came in. Her hair was still long and smooth, her lips perfect, her skin white. Inside I was slowly trembling. I was about to tell her I still wanted her, I still felt the same way, but my will was stopped in its tracks

  Kilometre twenty-six

  because I heard the front door open and close, because I could make out the silent footsteps along the hallway runner. And the lady came back into the hall, followed by the tuner. He knew I was there, and said my name — Francisco. His voice disappeared into the air. The tuner, blind, couldn’t see our serious faces, and maybe that was why he smiled. I gave him my hand to lead him. Suddenly it was me, her and the tuner. She had her hands on her stomach and she was beautiful. I remembered the first day I saw her. I tried, struggled to think of other things, but I looked at her and all I could remember was the first day I saw her. And at that moment there was so much I wanted to tell her. I wanted to tell her everything I thought, I had been, I still was, but I remained silent, passed through by each isolated note that the tuner played, by the cry, almost inaudible — but unique, unique — of the piano strings being stretched — the groans of flowers dying. At the sudden moment when I walked out of the hall, the tuner turned his head, not understanding. She — hurt, wounded — didn’t look at me. And I, wounded by myself, continued to walk, to flee, continued along the corridor, along the streets until I was even more lost to everything, until I had lost myself completely.