Ours is from 1672, I explained. I continued with some additional facts, things I remembered about the instrument maker, oh, and at the start of the 19th century, his instruments were considered better than the Italians’. Than the Italians’? She repeated, looking at me with wide eyes. Yes, the ones from Cremona. Stradivarius, Amati, you know. But she must not have known, because she made a confused expression, and so I explained myself better, yes, well, Cremona is a part of Italy where the finest, most prestigious violins in the world were made. Ah, was all she said. Oh, their locations are all well pinpointed, I said, but the Stainers, not so much.
She smiled, but she seemed absent. She must not have been very interested in what I was telling her. I could feel my head starting to spin, and I finished by saying, well, most of the Stainers ended up first in Austrian monasteries and then were sold to private collectors. I coughed a little, the cava’s bubbles were tickling my throat. She urged me on, but Miss Anna told me that the violin was really hers. I nodded, and then I explained what had happened. I told her that I hadn’t bought it, that I never would have been able to, that when I was a girl I lived in a world of utmost poverty, and I explained how and why that world was shattered. You know, the violin was magic, I added after another sip of cava.
I looked at her to see if I could tell how she was taking everything I’d been explaining. But she showed no emotion, not in the slightest. She was there, before me, with her eyes like saucers, staring into mine, as if she had never seen me before. I didn’t know whether or not she was understanding what I was saying. Maybe she didn’t believe it. I swear that I found the violin at the dump, I ended up saying at the sight of her sitting stock-still; you don’t believe me? Then, she emerged from that static pose: oh, yes, I do believe you. She got up and said, excuse me for a moment, I’m going to the bathroom, I’ll be right back.
When she returned, I could tell, from her expression, that the cava she had drunk hadn’t sat well with her. And she’d had very little. I, on the other hand, had drank so much, and it was doing me a world of good. And now that the faucet of confessions had been opened, I didn’t want to stop: Listen, but that’s not all, I told her, half-forcing her to sit down and listen to me. She didn’t put up a fight, her eyes were still wide, as if she’d just been dazzled by a camera flash. I told her about Anna and her father, I explained everything, everything. I let it all out, and in the end, the unburdening turned into grief and I ended up crying. I had never told anyone all that, and then I realized that I had kept it stored like a prickly ball inside me and that it would have been better to talk about it because that would have made it easier to overcome. Maria gave me some tissues and stroked my shoulder. I thought that she was a very good woman. She may not have understood the value of the instrument I’d found at the dump, but she did understand my tears and feelings. She wasn’t like Anna, not at all.
Maria touching my shoulder like that, her gentle caress, reminded me of how Karl had asked me to hug him two days before he died. We all need human contact, we all need caresses to a greater or lesser extent, even when we act as if we don’t. I didn’t know then that Karl was at risk of dying, and I didn’t know that the doctor had told him not to fly. I didn’t know anything. And he, who did know it and who could tell he was at the end of his life, got up the next day and conducted a concert, and then boarded an airplane to Vienna. But first he asked me to hold him. Karl T. was human, too.
Mark
“Mark, listen, I didn’t know anything about this!”
“Anna, leave me alone, just leave me be!”
We’re making a scene in front of everyone. And with good reason. My wife is following me down the stairs to my dressing room, or more accurately, hounding me. And shouting that she knew nothing about this other violin. When the concert was over, Teresa, Anna, and I looked at the instrument. It is identical to the Stainer, down to the last detail, an exact copy, with the same color, the same little repaired flaw, everything. The only difference is that the signature isn’t a Stainer. Inside the violin is the name of a luthier in Barcelona. I believe Anna, but I’ve had enough, this is the last straw. I don’t know what happened, I don’t know who could do such a thing to my wife, even though deep down I think she deserves it, but the rest of us didn’t deserve it, after all, there are at least three of us who’ve been on the receiving end of this punishment, or, at least, the initial shock. The orchestra concertmaster also came over to have a look and ask us what had happened. We told him that we didn’t know, and he had left after saying, the old switcheroo. He said it offhandedly, and I sensed a chuckle in his tone. He and the rest of the orchestra must be having a good laugh now, because the truth is they can’t stand Anna.
“Mark, it’s not my fault!”
“I know it’s not your fault, but please, leave me alone!”
Our words, our shouts, echo off these whitish walls, and that huge abstract drawing halfway up the theater stairs suddenly strikes right at my soul. I don’t know what the figures represent, all I can see in it are poorly rendered birds. What is going on, my God, what’s wrong, why is everything so strange, why is everything so surreal? And Anna is obsessed with the waters of the Spree, she made me walk on the banks last night, and it was freezing, but she was riveted, looking down at the water, not listening to a word I said, she just watched the water and clung tightly to me. She clings to me because I’m the only one who can stand her, I’m her husband, I love her. Or I loved her.
I reach the door of my dressing room, turn around and blurt out, “Anna . . . why do you treat everyone like they’re beneath you?”
I know that’s not the question, that it has nothing to do with the violin, but this whole incident was the trigger that made me realize what’s really going on. She is silent for a moment, surprised, and looks at me with transfixed eyes I now find cruel. Finally, she bites her lip and then, instead of answering, says, “I have something to tell you, Mark.”
She says it in her usual seductress tone. The tone that made me fall into her clutches long ago, the tone she’s used all this time to keep me tightly bound to her, I now realize. I inhale deeply and answer, “Fine, Anna, I have to tell you something, too—listen up: I’ve had it. This is over. I’m sorry, I can’t take any more. I don’t love you. I’m sorry.”
That’s it, I said it. I step into the dressing room. I can hear that she is still by the door with the fake Stainer in her hand, her gaze fixed on the nape of my neck, I can feel it stuck there, hers is a gaze that speaks of a life of suffering she was never able to overcome, which is now taking its toll. I turn and see that she wants to tell me something. She moves her lips, but in the end says nothing. She lowers her head, turns, and starts to walk away slowly. She holds on to the railing to go down the stairs. Goodbye, Anna.
Anna
It’s not raining now, but the ground is slippery. I’m going to fall, I’m going to fall, I’m wearing stilettos. En souffrant, always en souffrant. And I forgot my coat, I left still dressed for the concert. I don’t even know where I’m going, I don’t know what I’m doing, I don’t know what comes next now, I don’t know what to do. I look at the ground, and even though it’s dark, I try to make out the traces of water, those damp paving stones that are a threat to my balance in these heels. I kneel down and touch the cold, damp, gleaming ground with my fingertips. No, no, my soul isn’t here, it’s not possible, it’s not here.
I didn’t tell Mark. I didn’t tell him that I’m expecting his child because then I would lose the child too. At the last moment, I held my tongue and that way the child will be all mine. Fine, then, I’ve lost Mark and the Stainer, but at least I’ll have the baby, if all goes well, because I’m up in years, and I’ll have to be careful, no excesses or risks.
And where is the Stainer, who’s taken it? I look around me, the audience has left, and there, in a corner, some members of the orchestra are laughing. Maybe they’re the ones who switched the instruments. But it was an exact copy made in Barcelona, with prem
editation. It was the Stainer but not, because you were fooled until you started to play it. When I picked it up from the chair where I’d put it down, I didn’t notice any difference. And yet it was there where the change took place, where someone switched the silk purse for the sow’s ear when I went out to get some fresh air and see the rain. This was done by someone who knows my habits. Yes, but who? It couldn’t have been Teresa or Mark. Even though Mark has left me and as much as I hate Teresa, I don’t think it was either of them. But if it wasn’t them, then who was it? I can’t think of anyone else, unless someone I don’t know has followed me in order to steal my violin, and studied my moments, attending concert after concert for some time. Some dealer in antiques, and by now they must have sold the Stainer to someone for a king’s ransom.
“Don’t you think you should bundle up more, Anna?”
The voice came out of nowhere and gave me a start. I certainly wasn’t expecting to turn and see Mama. She’s even older, she’s shrunken, she’s just a slip of a thing with a scarf, hat, and coat. Suddenly, I have a suspicion and I just blurt it out, before even greeting her.
“Did you take my Stainer?”
She starts to laugh. “No, no. What could I do with a violin, or even the money I might get for it?”
Then she stops laughing and hesitates briefly before saying, “But I did hear that you weren’t playing with your violin. I noticed a difference and I thought that something was wrong—they’ve stolen your Stainer, I see now.”
I am silent. Of course, Mama noticed it too because, according to what she told me that day, even though we haven’t talked since then, she’s been coming to all my concerts. What devotion. Then she slowly added, “I came to talk to you because I see that you’re having problems—”
“Don’t tell me! Now you’ve come to help me solve them—do you know what’s been my main problem since I was fourteen years old?”
I lashed out at her like that, I couldn’t help myself. And now I see that she’s crying. She covers herself with her scarf, but tears flow from her eyes, tears that gleam under the Berlin streetlights. I look at her carefully, and suddenly, I realize that she is no longer Mama, just an old lady crying because her conscience is so burdened that she can hardly bear it.
“Goodbye, I’m going to get my things.” I say, just to say something. In fact, I don’t know what to say, I don’t know what to do.
And I turn around and start to walk. And then from behind me I hear: “Do you want me to wait for you?”
I stop. Something changes inside me, I don’t know exactly what, but it is something that, all of sudden, disrupts the course of my life. I touch my belly, where there is a being I’ll have to learn to understand. And I will have to do what Mama never did for me. But maybe I won’t be so alone if—
“Anna—”
She has come to stand before me. I won’t hug her, I can’t. But I just discovered that there is a moment in life when all we have left is what’s planted in front of us, and then we have to choose. Looking for the Indies and finding America. Mama is no longer Mama, she is an old woman who’s emerged from the dark past, a woman who has dried her eyes and only has one treacherous tear slipping down her face. And when it lands on her scarf, it ceases to exist. And that happens just as I realize that in that tear is my soul, the soul I’ve been searching for over so many years.
As if we were coworkers who saw each other every day, I say, in a perfectly neutral tone, before entering the theater, “Please, wait for me—I’ll be right out.”
The
Peasant Girl
and the Shepherd
Maria
“Good morning, Maria, dear . . . Can you hear me? Good morning—”
Good morning, Mr. Karl. And gut’n Tag, Herr Beethoven. You’re both here together, oh, how wonderful, Mr. Karl, don’t look at me like that, you’re making me blush. What lovely colored clouds, eh, they appear and disappear, they’re like cotton balls. Like those colorful cotton balls used by one of the ladies I worked for before I came to live with you. And I had never seen them before, those were other times, and I thought I was having visions when, as I cleaned her bathroom, I found those soft little balls that were so different from the ones I was used to. They were so pretty . . . You, of course, never had any of those things. When I bought cotton balls for you, I bought the regular white ones, because I thought that if I bought them in colors you would ask me why I had, or you wouldn’t recognize them as cotton balls. Because, you have to admit, Mr. Karl, for you it was always all about the music, little else. Well, okay, a few other things, that’s true, and the big surprise came when I read your letter, Mr. Karl, my heart skipped a beat and, you know what, I didn’t know how to react until they told me that you were dead. Then, of course, I didn’t need to think it over any more, I didn’t need the fifteen days you gave me to make a decision that I had already made anyway, because there are some decisions, Mr. Karl, that you don’t make, decisions that you carry already etched on your heart, and no matter how hard you try to make another, there’s no way around it.
And then, so many tears. I couldn’t play the violin for a long time, you know, probably a year had already passed. At first I did try, when I still had the Stainer, when I still lived in your house, but I cried so, so much that I soon gave up. Later, in my new home, I tried again, I dusted it off and tried to play that song, but that didn’t last long, soon I gave up trying to overcome the impossible to overcome. And I put the instrument down, next to Beethoven, they kept each other company and both got covered in dust. Every day I would stick my head into what had become a storage room, thinking today will be the day I can do it, and I tried to screw up my courage, and nothing came of it, and I would just shut the door again. And, when I went back there a year later, Beethoven, who was gray, had turned brown, and the violin case, which was dark brown, was then whitish.
“Maria, how are you? Don’t move, just relax, I’ve taken care of everything, don’t worry. Don’t worry about a thing, dear . . . don’t worry.”
If the nurse says so, then everything is prepared and I won’t worry anymore. I never would have thought I could do what I did. But there was no other way. Don’t come back, Mr. Mark told me, because my wife would rather that . . . Mr. Mark couldn’t get the words out because he was just making up an excuse to justify the fact that Mrs. Anna didn’t want me around. Don’t worry, I won’t come back, I said, cutting off his stupid sentence that had gotten stuck on the way out of his mouth. He bit his lip and then he said, I’m sorry. Keep the keys, he said, as if he were doing me some big favor, adding, you never know. It was sad, he didn’t know how to fix the situation, he didn’t know what to do to avoid dumping me like that, like an old rag, without the possibility of returning to that house, to the apartment, as he called it. Now that was an apartment; it made mine look like a rabbit hole, because there was no comparison, his looked like a palace. Even though Mr. Mark had known hardship, it seems that living well was easy to get used to.
But what happened with Mark was later, I had already dusted off Beethoven in my little room in my little apartment, and gone back to playing the peasant girl and the shepherd, years before. I get the dates mixed up, I no longer know what happened when, and Mr. Karl, I get all the women that you entertained on the sofa mixed up, too. Those were other times, and when there were women on active duty, you didn’t pay me any mind, and you forgot to teach me classes. Later, everything changed, but that was how it was at first, you remember, right? Don’t try to change the subject, I’m not trying to admonish you for it, that’s not it, but that’s how it was, Mr. Karl, admit it. What’s that? You didn’t see me? I know you didn’t see me, but don’t worry, I always knew somehow, always. And I don’t know if you saw me, but you seemed mad at me and you didn’t say anything and you left, and, ay, I know, you already explained that in your letter. I know, Mr. Karl, when I read it, I started trembling all over. I was trembling all over, yes, I was. And I cried too, Mr. Karl, but not in sadness like
when you died. Then there weren’t these colorful clouds. There was no pointy tree. I had to go, I had to go. The tree was yellow, I saw it because the moon was bright and so I saw it, and that was where I put down the case and I started to play, and no one came, Mr. Karl, because it was very dark. And my stomach hurt so much, my stomach hurt so bad that in the end all of me was a ball of fire.
“Maria, how are you feeling?”
I would say fine, but I can’t answer. I cannot speak, I only make a strange noise that comes out of where I felt the fire. Now that’s it, I have no fire or anything inside, only peace, an unfamiliar peace that leads me to the paradise of the cottony clouds and the Beethovens that give me an unfriendly look, with one eyebrow raised. And beside them, you, yes, I know, Mr. Karl, no need to say more, I already know, I can see.
The House of Silence Page 16
