The House of Silence (11 page)

Third movement. I look at the orchestra and I look at my violinists. Anna and I understand each other perfectly. I know that Teresa had that with my father. He always kept his distance except where music was concerned. I think that, for him, each concert or opera was like a love affair with his soloist or star singer. He enjoyed working with women, it was curious how he always managed to get everything to sound better when he worked with women.

Sometimes I wonder if he ever touched Maria, I mean if he tried to get involved with her. I don't think my father was like that, and now it's impossible to imagine, with him dead and her so old that I'm not even sure she'll survive the trip back home alone, because she insisted on traveling by herself. It seems she has family here, even though she hasn't introduced them to us. She must be embarrassed, thinking we'd have nothing in common.

Maria and my father spent many years alone together in that house, until I showed up. Maybe there was something between them, I don't know. Either way, when I arrived in Barcelona, luckily
I had Maria to help me with the day-to-day stuff, because my father always had his head in the clouds and if I had to rely on him I would have run into problems everywhere. That strange, cosmopolitan city was filled with danger for a man like me who was used to a routine that included the security and tranquility of knowing that everything was in order. Because that's how it was on the other side of the wall: You didn't have to worry about a thing, there were no complicated or different situations, everything was always the same, it was like a
tout compris
trip; I always had food and clothes to wear. If I wanted to choose what I ate or wore, then things got more complicated. One of my mother's cousins, who lived in West Berlin, would sometimes manage to bring us some of the clothes we saw on TV. I didn't care how I dressed, but it made my mother happy. And there was also the color television that same cousin brought for Christmas one of my last years there. Our neighbors were shocked and dying of envy.

It's odd because now I'm in Berlin, and yet when I think of the city I grew up in, I think of a different city, when really it's right here, on the other side of a wall that no longer exists. I've played concerts in the Staatsoper that is now being renovated, and I remember the front rows filled with military men. But this place isn't the one I remember, not by a long shot.

Where are you going with that, Mr. Mark? Maria would scold, because I carried around a radio cassette player: Don't you see they'll steal it, you'll be mugged in some of the rougher neighborhoods? I was surprised, and she rushed to give me a bag to keep it in. And when the bus didn't come, I didn't know what to do, and I would be late for rehearsal, because in the East, when the bus
didn't come, everybody was just late for wherever they were going, but in Barcelona, when I explained that I was late because of the bus, they said I should have taken a taxi, and I would say that the idea hadn't occurred to me. One day I was mugged, and another time my pocket was picked on the Ramblas while I watched some jugglers. You are a bit naïve, Maria would laugh, fresh off the boat, like a kid with no sense of direction, Mr. Mark.

Please, don't call me Mr. Mark, I begged her for the millionth time. Oh, yeah, she said, tapping her head, forgive me, Mark, force of habit. Then, when she would do it again, I answered yes, Miss Maria, and that would make her realize she'd slipped the Mr. in again.

Maria managed to keep the house neat and in order, always to her taste, of course, because as far as domestic subjects were concerned, it was as if my father didn't exist. But Maria was something more, I don't know what; she had a special touch that I could never put my finger on exactly. It must be that same sensitivity that has her sitting out there now, watching the musicians with an almost sacred concentration. Maria is a special woman.

Every time I look into Anna's eyes, I remember her gaze and the last words she said to me in the hospital. They shook me up so deeply that it took me a long time to recover.

We are always slow to recover from a true wound. And I wasn't prepared for that, not in the slightest. When they called to tell me, I felt my world crumbling. They did it the way they do, we're sorry to have to give you bad news, it seems Maties had my phone number somewhere on him, the girl is seriously injured, and he didn't make it. They say he didn't make it, and you don't know what to do with yourself. You ask what happened, and they say an accident, it's a miracle they didn't end up in the sea because there was a bit of beach below, and the girl survived, for the moment, they say, because they always play it safe, they don't make any promises, in case the girl also ends up dying when they'd said she'd pull through. They said that she was driving, that she'd been drinking. And then you think,
Poor girl, with all those inner conflicts she had, it's no surprise,
and God knows what else you think as you grab your jacket
and rush out of the house and toward the hospital. Does the girl have a mother? they ask you. Yes, but she left her, she's gone, you explain, not knowing if you've said too much. And you think that now it's up to you to be her mother.

I arrived at the hospital with my heart aching over my tragic loss. She is in the ICU, there are visiting hours, they said, and you aren't family. She has no one else, I explained a bit curtly, except for the servants, and her father and I were involved. Oh, okay. Then they lowered their voices to say, I'm so sorry, they were referring to Maties, and my insides turned to jelly, and I felt myself floating in a sea of tears, and then they led me to that monitored bed where she lay unconscious surrounded by nurses and security measures, in case her heart or some other organ failed and they'd all have to come running. You have ten minutes, they told me, and I held her hand. She didn't open her eyes the first day, and then later, when she opened them she couldn't talk, she had tubes coming out of everywhere, including her mouth, and the tears flowed from her eyes only because there was no machine to keep her from doing that. And I would say to her, don't cry, and I would take her hand in mine and I could feel her squeezing and I thought that things would change between us from then on, sadly because of the death of the man we both loved most in the world.

The two of them taking a trip together had been my idea. I think she feels you aren't there for her anymore, I had said to Maties, worried by his daughter's attitude. And I added, it might be a good idea for you two to go somewhere for a few days, that way she'll see that nothing has changed and you love her the same as ever. It sounded like a good idea to Maties, and they took the
trip. I don't know how it went, I told him he didn't need to call me, that it would be best if she didn't see us talking, it'd be better if he focused all his attention on her. And I waited, trusting that it would all work out.

We are too trusting. Time has passed and she hasn't changed. Fortunately, I have. And now Anna is an adult, now she has Mark and doesn't need anything more. Maybe she's finally found what she was searching for.

There in the ICU, I wiped away her tears with the tip of a handkerchief, with the only dry corner I had left after drying my own tears, over losing the love of my life. I'd flirted with the occasional fellow teacher, but it had never gone past that. And then when I had found Maties, I'd lost him. As I haunted the hospital hallways, waiting for visiting hours to start so I could see Anna, because I didn't want to miss a single day, I didn't want her to feel alone if I could be with her; I wondered how I would tell her that she had lost her father, when the time came to do so. I can do it, I told the nurses. But not yet, they replied, you have to wait until she's out of intensive care; it is a risk to her recovery right now. I obeyed, when you're in a hospital you always obey the nurses, and that gives you the feeling that someone knows what is going on and is concerned for your grief. Later, when you've left the hospital, you miss that kindness that's inevitably habit-forming, because you feel bundled up in pillows at all times, surrounded by the smell of different medicines that you can't get out of your nose, but which inexplicably, on your first days out, you think you even miss.

And I waited for Anna to be out in the regular ward. That move out of intensive care is, in a hospital, like graduating, like
getting your basic diploma: Okay, now you can continue with your college prep. You haven't finished school, but you've gotten your first certificate so you can go out in the world and get a job and prove that you're good for something.

The day they told me that Anna was out of the ICU, I was so thrilled. I went running up the stairs; that was great news, even though next came the worst part, having to tell her about her father's death. I went into her room. Anna was a bit broken everywhere, but the danger of internal hemorrhaging had been resolved, and she lay in a white bed in a room for two. She no longer had tubes coming out of her, just the serum that went into a vein through a needle they'd stuck into her hand. And one leg in the air, and one arm in a cast. In the other bed, another girl with a leg in a cast was flipping through a magazine.

I went over to Anna's bed, with my back to the other girl for a bit of privacy. She looked at me as if she'd never seen me before. There was a mix of incredulousness and hatred on her face. What are you doing here? she asked. I was a bit shocked but finally answered, I've been with you in the ICU all these days, don't you remember? No, she said curtly. At first I was surprised, but then I recalled that no one ever remembers anything about the intensive care unit; God knows what they put into your blood to make you forget everything. So then I screwed up my courage to tell her, as gently as I could and fighting back my tears, Anna, your father didn't make it.

It wasn't the look she gave me then, but the one after that, that I'll never forget. This first one, her reaction to the information I had just given her, was blank; it conveyed nothing. She was like that for
a few moments, and then she turned her head to the other side, as if she'd had enough bad news and couldn't take any more. I touched her softly as I whispered her name. And that was when she lashed out, when she turned suddenly, as suddenly as she could with that arm and that leg, and that was when she spat venom at me, get out of here, you evil bitch, I don't ever want to see you again. And that was also when she gave me that look weighed down with all the hatred in the world. I'll never forget that look, which has evolved into this one here, a look somewhere between hostile and mocking that stays with you forever.

I got up and staggered out of the room. I felt as if I had been shot in the heart, in the lungs, I couldn't breathe, I could barely take in air.

I tried to go back the next day, but they told me that her doctor had banned visitors. It was clear that she really didn't ever want to see me again. It was over and I had to get past it somehow.

I had to forget Anna's conclusive and final goodbye that was so tragic and hurtful, but I also had to forget Maties. At first it was terrible, I saw him everywhere, around every corner. I imagined I saw him on the street, even though I knew full well he was dead because I was the one who had organized his funeral because, with Anna still in the ICU, there was no one else to do it. Accepting the loss of someone's constant presence in your life is a dreadfully grueling test, Maties had been always by my side and when he wasn't we spoke on the phone, checking in with each other about our concerns and problems. We had been together for a year and, if it weren't for Anna, we surely would have been living together soon. And every time I saw Maties in my head, I saw Anna next to him,
looking at me with that hateful gaze and saying, get out of here, you evil bitch. For the first few days, that hurt me more than losing Maties. Anna had known exactly where and how hard to throw her poison dart to wound me deeply, and forever.

So forgetting it all was a long, very difficult process. To tell the truth, I haven't forgotten any of it, but at least after the first year I began to be able to look toward the future and think that I had to find my own way to go on. Before that, I hadn't been able to walk without dragging that festering wound with me, reopening with each step, causing me excruciating pain. The image of Maties blended with the image of Anna. I told myself that one day, after much time had passed, I would talk to her again, because I couldn't stand to think that it had all ended like that. Sometimes, in the middle of class, I would leave my student alone, saying I had to go to the bathroom, and I would go cry because I couldn't take it anymore. The student would look at me afterwards with an expression of pity that spoke volumes; it was obvious that I had gone to break down in tears.

Later, I decided to let go of the problem with Anna. There was nothing I could do about it; it was a waste of my time and I had to accept that. And I think I did accept it. The wounds were starting to heal. It would still be a long time before I felt entirely better, but I learned to look ahead, to see what was around me and listen to the birds, smell the flowers, and make real music again. Some colleagues at the conservatory asked me to be part of a quartet, and I agreed. We started to perform concerts around Catalonia and then some farther afield. We did that for a few years, we had a good time, and that worked as a medicine on my pain. Between that and
the teaching, I was back to my old self. I didn't see Anna again, I suppose she was avoiding me, requesting a class in a time slot when she knew I wouldn't be around. And she must have been almost done with her studies anyway; that is if she continued them after the accident.

And a few years later, Karl called me. He left a message at the conservatory saying he wanted to talk. I called him back and, in his German-inflected Catalan, he explained that he had heard me in a couple of concerts and really liked my playing. That, if I was interested, we could do a test with several pieces he had to perform in a series of concerts. It wasn't the tour of Bach's double concerto yet—but, of course, I said that I would be thrilled to audition. I mentioned it to the other members of the quartet. Watch out, the cellist said with a smile, that guy stops at nothing. What do you mean, he stops at nothing? I asked. Just that; that he's broken the heart of every musician who's played with him. Come on, that must be an exaggeration, I said. Suit yourself, she replied mysteriously.