The House of Silence

by Blanca Busquets

  But this concert wasn’t anything like that first time. Karl had been being a bit mysterious about it all, he hadn’t even told me whether the other violinist was a man or a woman, all he would say was that I would like them. First, he said he didn’t want to tell me because he was still choosing between a few options, but then, when he had her chosen, he still wouldn’t tell me. He just said, tomorrow I will introduce you to your rival in the double concerto. Rival or complement, depending on how you look at it, of course, and I think that the two melodies weave together and complement each other, sure, but they also play at outdoing each other until they reach the end at exactly the same time. In the case of Anna, though, our game was pure rivalry; there was no possible complementing each other. When I saw her there, when Maria escorted me to the piano room, all I could think was, my God, stop the world, I want to get off. But God didn’t stop the world. It was as if the earth was sinking, as if I’d been hit head-on by a catapult. I cursed the moment when I’d neglected to say I’d only go on that tour once I knew who the second violinist would be. But until I saw Anna, I didn’t care who it was; I knew that Karl would get what he needed to out of whoever it was, that he would get the best possible sound out of them, that he would make us both sound as close to the way Bach intended, as only Karl could. But I never imagined he’d choose Anna, who had, it’s true, earned a reputation as a top violinist in recent years. She was somewhat in style for her ability to play the fast parts dizzyingly fast, but, I don’t know, I never imagined that she was the sort of musician that Karl was looking for. And yet, she was.

  She was also surprised, in fact, she seemed completely shocked. Neither of us knew what to do or say; we were alike in that at least. Karl had just mixed oil and water without realizing it, and Anna mumbled that we already knew each other, and I said something like, it’s been a long time, to break the ice. Maria realized that something was wrong, because Maria, even though she hides it, is very, very clever. But Karl didn’t even notice. It seemed he couldn’t care less, and he said, come on, let’s rehearse, and we began to rehearse and said nothing more. But playing with Anna was strange and very unpleasant, and I was very distracted that day—playing a bit mechanically and thinking that I might have to abandon the project. But, of course, I couldn’t, because the tour was about to start and I would have really left Karl in the lurch.

  What surprised me was that Anna didn’t use the Stainer, not that day and not during the tour. I found it really odd. This tour was the obvious place to show off an instrument like that, playing in Vienna, Rome, Madrid, and Paris. But first came Berlin. Where would she play with the Stainer, if not in these European capitals? Maybe she doesn’t have it anymore, I then thought, but she’d have to be a fool to part with it, as foolish as I had been. I also thought that there was something between her and Karl, but honestly that didn’t surprise me at all. I was already counting on it, because Karl had a reputation for getting involved with any musician who worked with him and wore a skirt, even if she was much younger than him, like Anna. I had been counting on it since the very first day we got involved on that black sofa; I had always had it crystal clear and, since I had it crystal clear, I signed on to the mutual game—in which we both got our needs met. I was just happy making music with him, and I didn’t demand anything more. I was content with touching heaven with my fingers thanks to his genius. What I didn’t know, and would have liked to, was if Anna was aware of Karl’s behavior, because Anna had always searched for people who could be hers and only hers. And Karl had never been one for monogamy.

  The truth is when I went home after that first meeting with Anna at Karl’s house, I thought that it’s true that fate can play some dirty tricks on us, but this was truly one for the history books.

  Anna

  Intermission. The audience is riveted and applauding passionately. That’s rare here, because this isn’t Barcelona, where audience members really show their feelings. It’s really strange: At first you’re surprised by the different reactions between audiences from place to place when your performance is almost exactly the same. Later, you realize that the Mediterranean spectators show more feeling than the Nordics. It must be something in our blood; it runs hotter and we get emotional more easily, and we also get annoyed faster, and we have less tolerance when someone tries to pull a fast one on us. Here, on the other hand, they give a few claps and that’s it, no matter how great the performance is. Well, that’s what they usually do, because from what I’m hearing, tonight this concert hall is really spirited.

  The rehearsals with Teresa and Karl were spirited too. Luckily, we only did two before joining the entire orchestra. And this time we just did one, right before the first orchestra rehearsal.

  I pick up the violin and leave my dressing room. I see Teresa from a distance, and again I think that she’s not what she used to be, I remember, not many years ago, envying her impressive physical presence. I was slim and stringy, and she was tall and strong. But now she’s showing her years. And it’s too late for her to have children; maybe she thought my father could have given her one, I could have had a little brother or sister. Not from that woman, ugh, what a horrible thought.

  Now Mark leaves the stage, wiping the sweat from his forehead with a white handkerchief—one of those he always carries in his pocket, asking me if they’re clean, and I’ve given the maid special instructions to prioritize Mark’s handkerchiefs, to put them before even his shirts. He has an obsession with them. Now I smile at him and ask if it went well. He doesn’t answer, just nods. I run to his side, to walk him to his dressing room. He doesn’t pay much attention to me. He must be tired.

  “Can I bring you anything?” I ask at the last minute when I see he wants to hole up in the dressing room.

  “No, thanks,” he says with a half-smile. “See you later, sweetie,” he says, gently getting rid of me.

  The door closes and I am left outside. I feel deeply wounded, run through with a blade that hit my lungs, and suddenly, I can barely breathe. It makes me think of the hospital and when I was released, because I felt that way then too. I had trouble taking in a deep breath, and the maid had to come with me everywhere because I was afraid to go alone. But that ended, and now it was happening again. It’s not the first time. Sometimes Mark will do something that makes me feel like that, as if I’ve been hit in the lungs, hit badly. I turn around slowly and make sure no one saw the scene. I put the violin down onto a chair, carefully so that it’s protected from blows, and go outside, mechanically putting one foot in front of another. There are musicians who’ve gone outside to smoke during the intermission, even though it’s raining. Yes, it’s raining, small but constant drops, the kind that fall silently and slowly soak everything, making the leaves on the ground shine. Really, it’s my soul, breaking into bits and pieces; I watch it lengthen and come apart as it hits the ground and mixes in with the colorful leaves that are dark now because there’s no light.

  Yesterday, at the Spree, my soul flowed rapidly downstream. Not now, now it’s broken into pieces.

  I liked that Karl lived so close to my house, but he must not have had the lake drawn on the ceiling of his room because it wasn’t as close to him as it was to me. I’m not sure; I never found out because he never showed me his bedroom. He insisted we stay in the piano room. Karl would devour me with his eyes every time we finished playing; his whole being gave off flames, and I felt myself burning, too. He was nothing like Mark, who’ll never know what it’s like to feel inside another person the way I felt I was inside Karl and he felt he was inside me; we were one, it was as if we didn’t need anyone else in the world, and it didn’t matter that he was so much older than me. I only worried about the maid showing up—but, even though she’s a horrid witch, she’s discreet, I’ll give her that. She never walked in on us and we never heard a peep out of her.

  And then there was that scene with the violin. I showed up with my Stainer to impress Karl, and he certainly was impressed—but not the way I’d ho
ped. He grabbed the instrument from me, looked at it carefully and asked if he could borrow it for a moment. I said yes and he left. And I thought that he must be checking something that he wanted to see alone—because there was no one else in the house, except for Maria. I still don’t know what he was doing, but when he came back he was looking at me so strangely that I felt myself blushing as if he were accusing me of something. So I said the first thing that came into my head, which was that my father had given it to me, and I didn’t know where he’d gotten it. And then he blurted out: How much do you want for that violin? I was shocked and, after a few seconds of silence, I answered, nothing, it’s not for sale. He wasn’t fazed and made me an offer. No, no, it’s not for sale, I shook my head, thinking that the poor man didn’t know that the only thing I had was money, that I’d lost my father and my mother, but that I was surrounded by wealth. It seemed he had let it go and we began to play. And, after we’d finished, he came over and kissed me. I had never been kissed by a man because I never let one come near me, I didn’t want anyone to touch me, I didn’t want anyone to profane my physical solitude, and I was already almost thirty. But I couldn’t say no to him, he had me hypnotized; we were still under the effects of the outpouring of music, of that which only music can achieve—and something held me where I was, and then I felt what it was like to be kissed by a man, and not just any man but him. A man I thought was old enough to be my father, and when he died I found out that he could actually have been my grandfather. But that didn’t matter in those moments: Karl kissed me passionately and, being so large and tall, it felt like he wanted to swallow me up entirely. He pushed me onto the sofa. At first I resisted a little, but he gently moved my hands away, and finally I gave in. I succumbed and I liked it, and I liked it that day and all the others that followed. I liked it until everything was ruined by the person who always ruins everything: Teresa.

  But that would come later. For the moment, I had Karl just for me, even though, sometimes, he didn’t remember that I was there, or he didn’t pay me any attention, or we would play and then I was the one who had to go after him. And that was when I had my great idea, when I figured out how to get him to be mine and only mine. And one day I just came out and said it, I’ll give you the Stainer if you marry me.

  Mark

  They told my father not to travel because his heart was weak. A few days before leaving for Rome he gave us a scare. Luckily, I was at home, because Maria got very flustered; she was frightened when she saw he couldn’t even talk about the pain in his chest. And I leapt to the phone, an ambulance arrived, and we went to the clinic. He was back home two days later, but with very specific orders from the doctor, which he obviously ignored because they included not going on tour. The doctor told him he should drink, and that a few sips of whiskey in moments of high stress would do him good. I don’t like whiskey, said my father with a scowl. The doctor got a bit angry: Well, suit yourself, I can’t do anything more for you. My father zipped his lip and said no more. It seemed that the doctor had given up on him; it was as if he’d said, you can start ordering the custom coffin, because you won’t fit in a regular-sized one. I wish he had because later, we really did have problems finding one that was big enough.

  He had been worried for some time—but, on the outside, he seemed the same as ever, Maria and I didn’t think much of it. But when he had that angina, Maria came to me and asked, tears streaming down her face: What are we going to do, Mark, how can we keep him from going on tour? We can’t, Maria, I said, shaking my head in resignation. Maria burst into tears. She was so loyal to him; that was why I insisted she had to come to this concert in Berlin, it was important that Maria come to commemorate that concert ten years ago here, on the eastern side of this city, with such a heavy past. That was the leitmotif of that whole tour: Karl T. had grown up in East Berlin, and it was very important that he return to do a concert there, once that the wall had been down for all those years. I tried to explain that to the maid, and I ended up saying: This whole tour is very important to him, but especially the concert in Berlin, and if he doesn’t do it, he’ll die from the disappointment. We looked at each other, and we understood each other without another word. Maria dried her tears. It was obvious that it was better he die doing what he wanted than staying home.

  And that was what happened. My father did the concert in Berlin. As he was flying to Vienna alone, because the rest of the orchestra, singers, and soloists had taken another plane, he died. There was nothing anyone could do; he only suffered for the briefest second, and by the time the stewardesses realized, he was gone.

  When they told me, I felt lost for many years. I mean, literally lost, because my father was my point of reference, the path I followed to reach some unknown destination in music and beyond music, since I had met him. I would have liked to have his austere lifestyle, cloak myself in that mysticism that impregnated his vocation and the rest of his life—if he had any other life, because my father lived for music.

  But I’m different. I need to also live outside that world, and I need friends and I need a wife. A different wife; this one is smothering me. I think that tonight, when the concert is over, after she’s finished playing, I’m going to tell her it’s over. I’m fed up.

  Maria heard me shout when I answered the phone, and she came running. Then she saw me crying and she heard me asking for details. With my eyes filled with tears, I moved the receiver away for a moment to tell her: He’s dead. She just stood there. For a few seconds, while the orchestra manager on the other end of the line explained what had happened, she didn’t move, her expression didn’t change, she didn’t even cry. Then she turned and vanished.

  Maria

  When Mr. Mark told me that his father was dead, I thought that all of a sudden the air around me had frozen. The priest had talked about the apocalypse at Mass the previous Sunday and he’d said that the heavens would fall and the earth would sink and if anyone was left alive, the angels would come down and start cutting off heads to make sure that we were all dead, because they don’t call it the apocalypse for nothing. So when I heard that Mr. Karl had died, I thought that the heavens were falling and the earth was sinking. And before the angels swooped down and started cutting off heads, I went to my room, closed the door, hugged the Stainer and the letter, and I just lay there, looking at the ceiling, stretched out on the bed, for a long time. I wanted to cry and I couldn’t. I had a thick, cold rock inside me that filled me up, a frozen rock that numbed me from inside. But it couldn’t numb me entirely, no, because there was still a hot drop somewhere inside me and that drop gradually multiplied, and it melted the ice and made more and more drops, so many that they became a sea and all poured out. It was hard for me to cry, but when I did I couldn’t stop for hours. And, as I cried, I thought of all those years, all the things that had happened, Mr. Karl playing, Mr. Karl on the sofa, and me throwing the violin into the garbage, and making hot chocolate, and doing everything for him. And that was how I greeted the dawn, dry after many damp hours throughout the night, breaking the silence that was always there, beside that park that changed so much over the course of a day.

  And it turned out that a new day had dawned, but without Mr. Karl.

  After a long while, Mr. Mark came to see me. He knocked on the door and I thought that I had to open the door. I wiped away my tears and hid the Stainer in the wardrobe first. Outside there was a boy who was also crying, a boy who had lost his father. And I didn’t dare to hug him, I didn’t know if I should, but I wanted to, I needed it as well. He was the one who reached out to me, and we embraced, both crying, for a good long while. I don’t remember having felt the warmth of another person so close in many years, I didn’t remember how warm a hug could be, and Mr. Mark’s hug reminded me of the ones my mother gave me when I was little, which made me feel sheltered from all the ugly things in the world.

  I’m going to get everything organized, he said, after drying his tears. I’ll call you for your help, okay, because we have
a funeral to set up. I nodded, swallowing my tears. If he had dried away his, I had to do the same.

  When Mr. Mark left, I went to the church to speak with God. God, I asked, how is it that just when you’ve given me everything, you take it all away? And God looked down at me from the cross he was nailed to on the other side of the altar, and he said, dear girl, complete happiness doesn’t exist. Well, I don’t know exactly if God said that to me, I don’t remember; maybe I said it to myself, but it somehow echoed in my ears, and I started crying again, with sobs that could be heard in every corner of God’s house.

  I went back to the house and opened the wardrobe in my bedroom. I pulled out the Stainer and looked at it. Then, I picked up the letter that I had read so many times. I looked at it, too, but without reading it, because now that the man who had written it was dead, I couldn’t find the strength—even though when he gave it to me, I read it a thousand times, at least. I saw him again, the way he had come to see me on the day he left for Berlin. He gave me such a special look when he said, come on, Maria, make me a hot chocolate with whipped cream. And I made him a hot chocolate with whipped cream. It had been a while since he’d asked me for one. I poured myself a little too and we both ate it in the kitchen, and he told me about the concert he’d prepared, and he told me he was very excited to perform that piece he always played on Sunday mornings, because he had conducted it many years ago in his country but never since then.

  He wiped his lips and told me not to move. He came back a little while later, already dressed for the trip, with the Stainer in his left hand, and the bow and an envelope in his right. He looked at me in such a special way, like when I would play the song of the peasant girl and the shepherd, and he put the violin gently in my hands. I got this back for you, he told me. I couldn’t believe my ears. At first I was struck dumb, but then I blurted out, Mr. Karl, you’ve lost your mind. But he shushed me and held out the envelope, and this is also for you. And I took the letter and was about to open it. No, he said, placing his hand on mine, open it once I’ve left, please. There are some things that have to be said in writing. I looked at him and, for the first time ever, I thought I saw him blushing.