The House of Silence (16 page)

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.

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.

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.

The last time I saw him, he went out through the door, backlit, with his suitcase, to the waiting taxi. I would have liked to hug him, I don't know what I wanted to do to him, I had a Stainer in one hand and I couldn't believe it was mine, and I had no idea what it said in that mysterious letter, but it must have been something big because Mr. Karl wasn't the writing type. He never wrote anything except for notes on the staves.
Maybe he has written a score for me,
I thought. And I went into my room to solve the mystery that had me so intrigued, trembling with excitement, the violin in one hand and a white envelope in the other.

The first part went quite well and there was a lot of applause. Mark left wiping his forehead and went to the dressing room followed by Anna. It seems he doesn't like her always keeping such a tight rein on him. I know why she does it; I know that Anna is, really, an unhappy soul searching for someone who will be there for her, because she had no mother and she thinks she had no father either, but that isn't true, she did have a father. Still, a normal father/daughter relationship wasn't enough for her. She needed to have him all to herself, and, now, the only thing she has all to herself is the Stainer. So I guess I have to think of my gift as an act of charity. I don't know what to think about that girl, I just don't know what to think.

Mark insisted that I come to this concert. Ten years since Karl's death, it's an homage and they wanted everyone who played with him then to perform. He had called me up. Is Anna coming? I finally asked. Yes, he said in a thin voice. I let out a discreet uh-huh to give myself time to think. Finally I asked, and she has no
problem with me coming? Mark answered immediately, oh, she wants it to be a success, like me and like everyone.
In other words,
I thought,
she doesn't want me to come.
But I knew that the idea was for the homage to be with both of us, and if I didn't go, Mark would have a real problem. And, after all, it wasn't his fault. Okay, I'll come, I agreed in the end. And on the other end of the line, I heard a relieved sigh and a thank-you that made me smile. I could put up with Anna if I had to; it wasn't like I was marrying her, it was just one concert.

The rehearsals ten years ago turned into real chess matches. Since Anna and I don't speak to each other, it was as silent as a tomb when we were together in the piano room of Karl's house. We just listened to him, we were both very attentive, and when he'd told us what he needed to, we began to play. Anna picked up her bow nervously, lines appeared on her forehead, the same ones she'd had as a child, and she played nervously as well, as if she wanted to defeat me with the notes. She really didn't have to get so worked up, I'd never be able to play as fast as her. I had other virtues, but speed wasn't one of them. I'm still not very fast, and she knows it, and she shoots me a defiant look before the start of the first and third movements, it's always the same, and I just ignore her, there's nothing to be done, and then comes the second movement, which is where I shine, because when it comes time to play with soul, Anna's lost, since she has none.

I looked at the black leather sofa and thought of days gone by, of Karl and I embracing and kissing, of Karl and I pretending we loved each other. When Karl hypnotized me for the first time, I told myself that it was a good thing and a good solution. I knew
that he didn't have anyone either, that he went from woman to woman, and that there were women everywhere who were bitter after he was through with them. He paid them no mind, I think he was unable to realize the pain he caused when he moved on. Since he gave no importance to the scenes on the sofa, how was he going to imagine that his ending them abruptly could be important to anyone else?

When I sensed that Anna had also spent time on the sofa, I said to myself, Teresa, that's the end of that. My heart shrank a little, but just a little. I figured I would get over it, since I had always seen it as both of us just getting our needs met. But I knew that Anna wouldn't take it that way and that the day he was finished with her, there would be hell to pay. But on that day, I would do my best to not be around. I could see in her eyes she had Karl, that feeling of possession gave her a special glow, it was clear she lived for that right then, that she was happy in her way, the cruel way she had been taught by life and circumstances. Anna hadn't ever believed in human beings and that hadn't changed.

I'd like to say I had no part in what happened that day on tour, but I have to admit some of the fault is mine.

All the musicians were on the same plane except for Karl, who had left two days earlier so he could lock himself in his hotel room and rehearse. Obviously, on the flight, Anna and I sat as far away from each other as possible. Mark wasn't there, Mark was a nobody; his career only took off when his father died. These things happen, it's human to make an example out of someone, when that example is no longer there, we check to see who's waiting in line and we say, next.

When we arrived in Berlin, we didn't see Karl. We didn't know if he was in the same hotel, we were set to meet twenty-four hours before the concert for a sound check in the concert hall, and there he was. We rehearsed for barely half an hour, and then we each went our own way. As I was putting my violin in its case, he came over to me and said, come with me, please. And I turned and I didn't like what I saw in his eyes, it was need but not like the other times, not like in the past, it looked to me like he wasn't feeling well, and I quickly said yes and went with him to his hotel room. I didn't know he was ill; he never mentioned it to any of the musicians, including me, until that moment. He told me that a few days before the trip, he had spent two nights in the hospital with heart problems. Suddenly, he was drinking whiskey every time he made an extra effort, in other words, every time he had to conduct a concert. And he had an expression which I still hadn't identified with anything, and which I later understood was an expression of the pain of someone who needed medicine to keep going. It was an expression that scared me, even though I didn't know why at that point.