The House of Silence

by Blanca Busquets

  That one who speaks Catalan and Spanish came in, because all the other ones that come through speak that incomprehensible language and when they enter a room they say gut’n Tag. The first time I heard it, I made an enormous effort to open my eyes and see if there was a Beethoven in the room where they have me now. But no, there wasn’t, just a TV and a chair and a wardrobe, all the color of an old smear. And I thought, Where am I, and I tried to remember, but at first I couldn’t remember anything. Later, I did. And finally I was even able to speak to the one nurse who knows Catalan and Spanish, who told me that they had found me out cold on the ground in the middle of a square, with the violin by my side, and that I had been sleeping for three days, but that I didn’t need to worry about anything, and that the violin was in the wardrobe. But I opened my eyes and I said I was worried.

  Now everything is taken care of, Mr. Karl. After Miss Teresa told me where she’d found the violin, it was all easy as pie, because less than six months later, your son called me to ask for a favor. And, since I answered, as you wish, Mr. Mark, ay, sorry, Mark, he begged me to keep an eye on his apartment because he had to take Mrs. Anna to a spa for ten days, and he wasn’t comfortable leaving the jewelry and the Stainer there alone for so many days, because the doctor had told him that they couldn’t bring the violin with them, that Mrs. Anna had to forget she was a musician over those ten days. I think Mr. Mark didn’t trust the maid that Mrs. Anna had hired, because he told me, come a couple of times, no one will be here, you’ll be alone, and don’t touch anything, eh, so they don’t think that—he stopped short; when Mr. Mark talked to me, he would leave things half said, he didn’t know how to finish them, and I felt sorry for him because he was too sincere, he was like you, he had to learn to be a bit more diplomatic. Don’t worry, I said to reassure him. Thank you, Maria, he said immediately, you are worth more than all the jewelry and the Stainer put together. And I felt happy because I sensed him smiling at me on the other end of the line.

  Honestly, it hadn’t occurred to me before, but then a light went on in my head, a light like the one that lit up yesterday, or today, or ten days ago. I don’t know, because I’ve lost all notion of time, a light like the one that made me ask the one nurse who knew Catalan and Spanish—when I could still speak—to please take a piece of paper and a pen and write this down, Miss Teresa, as you will see in the attached letter from Mr. Karl, the violin is mine, and I was the one who threw it out, and now I am giving it to you. And I signed as best I could and I said to the nurse, please, when I’ve passed on, send this note that we’ve just written, and this letter from the drawer on the bedside table and the Stainer, all together, to this address for Miss Teresa. The Stainer, repeated the nurse, with a confused expression. The violin that you put in the wardrobe. Oh, yes, she said, slightly disconcerted. That violin, it has a name, I said. I think, Mr. Karl, that that’s the last thing of any length that I said, when I woke up at that point I don’t know if it was now or before; oh, how time flies, and how strange it all is. And you have no idea how hard it was for me to say that many things in a row to the one nurse who could understand me. But I managed to do it and then I was at peace.

  When I played the peasant girl and the shepherd again, by Beethoven’s side, after a year of living in the small apartment, first I had to dust off the plaster musician and the violin’s case. And then I had to tune the instrument. And there was a broken string, the E, and I rushed to find another. I knew a lot about that, remember, Mr. Karl, how you would send me to buy new strings, and how you taught me to replace them. And they were almost always E strings, because that’s the one that always breaks. Well, you should know that I had no trouble replacing it, not that day and not on any other. Since then I’ve played that song, that one and the others, without crying, but with so much feeling that I left the world, with that soul that you always said I had, and I would close my eyes and I would see you, and when I opened them again, I thought that I would see you before me, but no, it was just pokerfaced Beethoven. And I didn’t know if I had played it the way I should, because Beethoven was fine with everything.

  Everything in that apartment was small. And in Mr. Mark’s apartment, everything was big. Since I had spent a few years cleaning it, I knew it well, and I had little trouble finding the Stainer when I went there those days. I went straight for it, I had my plan all mapped out, I had gotten an idea in my head and I’m still not sure now whether it was a good one or a bad one, but, either way, what’s done is done and I did what I had to do. I became methodical and precise, Mr. Karl. I quickly went to the place where I bought the strings and I asked them if they knew someone who made violins. And they said yes, and they gave me a card, and I went there, and I found a man who looked me up and down when I told him I needed a special violin and that he only had a week to make it. That man responded in a slightly sarcastic tone, asking whether I thought a violin was a toy or what. I said no, not at all, and that I would pay him a lot of money to make an exact copy of another violin in a week. And then I mentioned a figure, which was more or less a quarter of all the money you left me in your will. Well, it seems I made him an exorbitant offer because his eyes grew wide as plates and, after a second of shock, he slowly got out the words, this much in advance and this much when you pick it up. I said okay and the next day I brought him the Stainer, and I picked it up a week later.

  The violinmaker, who at first had looked at me with distrust and mockery, was waiting for me with tea and cookies prepared, and he asked me to sit down and said things like, ma’am, I’ll bring out your instrument in a moment, it’s all ready, and I don’t know what else. But I felt like getting back at him and I said, no, thanks, give me the Stainer and the copy, I want to have a good look at it, and if everything is as it should be, I’ll pay you what I owe you and I’ll be on my way. And he bowed down to the floor, well, not to the floor, but almost, and then he went to find the violins and he brought them to me, and first I made sure that he hadn’t done anything to the Stainer and I checked the signature and everything, looking through the long hole, and then I looked at the other instrument and, God, it was really identical to the Stainer, it was hard to tell the difference except for the signature, and the sound, of course. And I know because I played it a little bit in front of that violinmaker, who stood there with his mouth open. And, with his mouth still open, I paid him what I owed him, and said thank you and goodbye. And I returned the Stainer to Mark’s house a day before they came back from their stay at the spa with his wife much better, and he called me to say, so, was everything in order? Everything in order, sir . . . I mean, Mark. I can never thank you enough for all you’ve done for me, Maria, he then said. No need, I replied, condescendingly, and to myself I thought, you’ve already thanked me, you have no idea.

  The other violin also had soul, I discovered. Mr. Karl, I still don’t understand how we can see violins’ souls and not people’s. But the form our souls take makes flying much easier, of course, and when mine leaves me it will rush off to find you. And, when we’ve found each other, we’ll have hot chocolate with whipped cream in the kitchen of our house made of colorful clouds. And, if you’d like, you can have ladies on active duty, sir, it doesn’t bother me at all. People can get used to anything. And it’s been so many years.

  I didn’t know when I could switch one violin for the other, and a lot of time passed, and finally I thought that maybe I never would pull it off because I was getting old, but, well, at least I could pretend I was playing the Stainer because it really did look so much like it, and now I practiced with the new violin—and even though it wasn’t the Stainer, it sounded good, very good. And when I’d pretty much accepted that I would never be able to get my violin back, because it is mine, because you gave it to me, well, when I thought I’d never get it back, Mr. Mark called me to tell me about the concert in Berlin and asked me to go, saying that it would please him very much. And I said, but what about Mrs. Anna? And it seemed he wasn’t so hung up on her anymore, pfff, forget
about her, he said, I want you to come. And I said no, and he said yes, and no and yes, and in the end the idea came to me and I said, okay, I’ll come.

  I was very tired and my stomach was starting to hurt. But just a little bit, and I didn’t give it much importance. And, besides, I wanted to do the job, and I wanted to do it well. I remember that when I was planning it, I would sing that bit about, “Here I go, cleaning the house, cleaning up the whole house . . .” because Mr. Mark had told me that in Berlin they would play the Sunday morning music, that that was the whole point, and it had lyrics because I had added them, except then they didn’t have the music in the background to go along with them. And one day, Mr. Karl, you know what, well, I went to a record store, and I asked if they had that music, and I sang a little bit of it, and the salesperson blushed and went to ask someone else who worked there, and finally the one in charge of classical music came over and said, oh, you mean the concerto for two violins, by Bach. Exactly, I exclaimed, because the part about the two violins fit perfectly with my idea, of course; you played that music with two violinists, so that must be it. And then I bought the record, actually it was one of those little ones, CDs they call them, one that I could play on my stereo, and I went home and from then on I had music to accompany my singing. But, Mr. Karl, every time I put on that Bach CD I would cry my eyes out because I could see you, standing there, big and tall, laughing and scooping up spoonfuls of hot chocolate, I don’t know why I saw you laughing and scooping up spoonfuls of hot chocolate. Like now, I see you dipping your spoon in it again, it’s as if you never do anything else, eh, you’ve never stopped doing it all these years, but I didn’t make it for you this time, because I can’t move, and I think I have something on my face, in my mouth and neck, right now I couldn’t swallow a thing. Blessed Virgin of the Macarena, I wish they’d take these things off me for a little while and I would go with you, I’m fed up with all this. If I could move, I’d take them off myself and end this story, but I can’t move, I can’t manage to make the effort I need to rip out this tube for once and for all.

  I bought a ticket for a flight one day earlier, and I told Mr. Mark that oh, I have a sister who lives in Berlin, and she told me to come the day before to spend some time with her. Of course, I have no sister here, I don’t even have a sister, and all of my family stayed in Andalusia when I went up to Barcelona, but Mr. Mark believed it hook, line, and sinker. He asked me if I had a ticket, and I said I did. He told me that he had also bought one for me, but that I shouldn’t worry, he could cancel it. But, Maria, you’re full of surprises, he said, slightly chiding me, I didn’t think you even knew how to buy a plane ticket. He told me over the telephone and I laughed a little as I thought, Who do you think bought your father’s tickets? but I didn’t say anything, no. I had gone to the agency, the same one as ever. I’d had to drag myself over there, that was a month ago, well, a month before I ended up here, of course. Because I don’t know how long I’ve been here, I don’t know if it’s been an hour or twenty days or three months, oh, lord, I’m so exhausted and confused. And I found another travel agency closer to my house, but I wanted the one I’d always used, and I went there. And when I was there I looked to see if I knew anyone, and yes, there was still an older man who I knew, oh, he wasn’t as old as you or I, Mr. Karl, but he was the man who’d replaced the woman who used to help me when she retired. And he helped me with everything, he gave me the tickets, both ways, apart from the group, because I don’t even know how many people came to Berlin. Boy, it was like when you came with the whole orchestra, but I didn’t buy the tickets then; it was too complicated. And the man at the travel agency, who had me sit down and treated me very well, he also found a hotel for me to stay in that one night before the others arrived.

  And that was how we did it, Mr. Karl. Are you surprised? I can see that you’re not. The day I came to Berlin I took the copy of the Stainer to the theater. I went there in a taxi, and they held it in the coat check for a modest price after a bit of back and forth in gestures with the girl in charge. In fact, I didn’t know when to do the switch, but I had gotten it in my head that I would do it here, in Berlin, for you and for everything, and also because Miss Teresa has suffered so much in this life, poor thing. It’s true that Miss Anna has also suffered, and maybe she’s suffered more than any of us, but you’ll agree with me that she needs to take a good fall so she can learn to get up again with a different attitude. Don’t look at me like that, it cuts me to the quick, and deep down you know I’m right.

  And they arrived the next day, and we all met up at the hotel, and Mrs. Anna made such a scene, you can’t even imagine, it was as if I gave her a rash, and all I was doing was sitting in a chair because all the coming and going had left me worn out, and they were discussing the details of how and when they would rehearse and how they would get to the theater and all that. And that was when, at lunchtime on the first day, they mentioned in passing that Miss Anna had the habit of rehearsing in her dressing room before a performance and then, at the last minute, she would leave her violin by the stage entrance and go out for some air. She even blushed when someone laughed a little, because the orchestra, I saw that clearly, made fun of her all the time, laughing under their breath, and I don’t know if she realized it. But she would lift her nose more and more, pointing it upward, and since hers is so narrow and small, it looked like a needle. I just don’t know, Mr. Karl, how you could have her on active duty, because that woman is just so stuck-up. Anyway, I’m not going to reproach you for that now, don’t worry.

  The rest was more or less easy. I wasn’t counting on not feeling well, that wasn’t in my plans, and I started to feel very bad, Mr. Karl, really very bad, because my stomach was on fire and it was terrible, worse and worse, and sometimes I couldn’t even breathe at all, but I had to last long enough to make the switch, and make it here, in Berlin, and I did it. When I had done it, I left because I could barely stand and I didn’t want to hear Mrs. Anna’s reaction when she started to play the Bach concerto. I had already had my fun, and that would have been too much, they would have found me dead right there in my seat, and that wouldn’t be right. It seems rude to die in a theater, and I was dressed in a very, very fancy long dress that I think is here in the wardrobe too, next to the violin. So I left, I went by the coat check, got back the Stainer that I had left there earlier, planning to pick it up the next day, but in the end I took it with me. I picked it up because I couldn’t take any more, Mr. Karl. Once I’d done what I had to do, I felt myself dying. I touched the letter, your letter, which I’ve been carrying with me ever since you gave it to me, the one that’s now in the drawer of the bedside table, ready to be sent to Miss Teresa, and I won’t tell you where I carried it because now I’m embarrassed. But you can imagine, and I said to myself that there was one more thing I needed to do before I left this world. And I stopped a taxi and I said, best I could, take me to Kollwitzplatz. And, I know it’s hard to believe, but he understood me.

  There was a tree with a pointy top, Mr. Karl, with a bench beneath it. A pretty tree, even though it was dark and had no real charm. I reached it along a path of leaves that blew up into the air with each step because I couldn’t lift my feet off the ground. The violin weighed heavily on me, I didn’t know how this would end, but I knew what I had to do.

  There, beneath the pointy yellow tree, I began to play the peasant girl and the shepherd. I could barely breathe, I could barely move, my whole body was in pain, but I put the violin on my shoulder, the violin that Mrs. Anna had tuned perfectly. Everything was wet, but it wasn’t raining and the moon had risen, round as an orange, a moon that caressed my face as if it were your hand, as if you were stroking me yourself. I closed my eyes and I played the Stainer. The violin did its magic, and all of a sudden, I was no longer in that park but beside the piano, in the living room, with you. And I imagined myself dressed up as a peasant girl, and you dressed as a shepherd. The hot tears warmed my freezing cheeks, because you know, Mr. Karl, this c
ity of yours is the city of cold. And I couldn’t stop crying. And the song continued, to its end. And, when it was finished, you got up and came by my side and you said, take off your uniform, please.

  And I don’t know anything more than that, I don’t know what happened. Now, look, I’ve managed to open my eyes. There is no one here and now that I’ve regained some consciousness, I realize that, with a bit of effort, I can pull out this tube that’s so uncomfortable. I’m going to give it a try. If I succeed, Mr. Karl, I’ll come to be with you forever among the colorful clouds, and not even my soul will be left down here.

  Maria,

  I’m not one for writing letters. I only write music and I’m not sure I can even remember how to string together an entire line. But there is something that I want to tell you and I haven’t dared in all this time, so I finally opted to write it out on this paper and, since I’m such a coward, I’ll give it to you right as I’m leaving for a few days.

  The violin that you threw onto the garbage cart by mistake forty years ago is now yours. I got it back for you. Keep it and play those German songs you play so well, as often as you can, especially the one about the peasant girl and the shepherd. You play with a delicacy that I’ve never heard from anyone else, ever. And all you were missing was a violin like the Stainer. When my father brought it back from Salzburg and gave it to me, I never imagined it would end up in the hands of someone who made it sound so lovely. Yes, I know that you don’t have the agility or the perfect technique of other violinists because you haven’t had the opportunities that other musicians have had. But you do have what many would kill for: the ability to leave breathless whoever listens to you play. Like me, for example. You’ve made me cry, Maria, and you don’t know how hard it is to make a musician cry . . .