Authors: Andromeda Romano-Lax
I planned to play two cello pieces, the first solo, the second with piano. Justo asked if I didn't mind having someone else accompany me, just to draw a clearer distinction between my performance and his original work, to follow. The Queen Mother was bothered by this—Spanish musicians were like fashion accessories to her, to be mixed and matched at whim—but Queen Ena helped to placate her.
One week in advance I wrote to him:
We haven't rushed yon? Yon are sure you're ready? Yon are satisfied?
His immediate response:
As satisfied as a cat dragging home a bird in its month. The satisfaction of instinct brought to fruition. Of course, we all know that when the cat arrives, the lady of the house might give it quite a beating. The audience's response can never be assured. But yes, Feliu, I am satisfied—as satisfied as I know how to be.
That week, the newspapers reported that General Silvestre, who had cultivated a reputation as daring, was marching his men forty miles across the desolate Rif highlands, from Melilla to Alhucemas, to suppress Berber tribesmen and occupy the area. King Alfonso was eager for a victory. He'd grown impatient with his minister of war and had decided to direct operations himself, over the heads of the War Office.
I traveled to Burgos two days early, to arrive before the royal procession. Stepping off the train, I went to buy a newspaper. There were none available. After checking into my hotel, I found a café. Near the back of the room, a circle of men were arguing violently, one of them holding up a newspaper and smacking it with his open palm. Another man reached up to take his arm and spilled a cup of coffee. A chair tipped as a third man tried to evade the flow. An explosion of swearing erupted.
"Excuse me," I said, barely audible above their shouts. "Abd-el-Krim? Are you talking about the Berber chieftain?"
"Another disaster," one of the men said to me and pushed past my seat, his pants soaked. Did he mean the spilled coffee, or something that had happened overseas?
I heard Silvestre's name, and then King Alfonso's, appended with a few unrepeatable words. "Anual?" I asked, trying to intrude upon their fiery conversation. "Where is Anual? Please? Damn it!" And I banged my fist on the table, making the silverware jump. "May I see that, please?"
I wrested the newspaper from a young man's hand and spread it out on my own table, soaked as it was. The headline read:
THOUSANDS
POSSIBLY DEAD....TERRITORY GAINS SINCE 1909 LOST OVERNIGHT. ACTION CONTINUING....
I walked back to my hotel, stopping at every newsstand along the way. One newspaper carried no reports at all, only a puff piece about the King's planned festivities. Another newspaper's banner headline: tribesmen on the rampage. I held the coffee-soaked newspaper in my left hand, and this one in my right, unwilling to discard either, hoping that somehow they'd cancel each other out, that the news from Morocco was simply wrong.
The details filtered in slowly over the next two days. Garrison after garrison, slaughtered—by the thousands. Other garrisons remained under siege, without water, forcing the trapped men to drink their own urine, sweetened with sugar. Some soldiers who had managed to escape had deserted the army. Silvestre himself had either killed himself or been murdered. Could it all be true?
OVERCONFIDENCE, LACK OF PREPARATION BLAMED
, said the left-wing papers.
REPORTS UNRELIABLE
, said the right-wing papers.
On July 25, St. James's Day, I met my partner coming off the train: "Justo, have you heard?"
He walked past me, anxious to count his trunks.
"It seems to get worse by the hour. They're saying it's the worst defeat Morocco has ever known. Some young men made a scene in the Plaza Mayor last night, throwing rocks, breaking glass, but the Civil Guard cleared it out quickly. Justo—we have to do something about this."
"The King hasn't canceled the festivities, has he?" Al-Cerraz asked.
"No. For his own safety he should, but I think he's trying to put a brave face on it."
"Thank goodness," he said, and headed off the platform, guiding a small army of porters. At the waiting car he added, "It would be just my luck to have this premiere wrecked by a battle in—what is this place called? Anual?"
"It's not one battle."
He opened the car door, started to get in, then stepped back. "You know what Jesus said about the poor—that they'll always be with us? It's like that. Morocco will always be with us. This is the most important night in my life."
"Please," I said. "I think we should—"
He wouldn't listen. "No matter what happens, everything changes tonight," he said. "Now get in."
The rest of the day was a blur of frantic preparations. Streets blocked off. Cameras clicking. Hammers pounding all day, constructing the stage in the square just under my window. I sent a message to Queen Ena, begging to see her. Instead of a letter, I got congratulatory flowers in response—flowers!
And then I was in the square, the sky darkening, a lower false sky of twinkling lanterns strung in zigzags above my head, the spokes of streets fanning out from the square packed with people as far as the eye could see. Voices rumbled ceaselessly.
King Alfonso and Queen Ena sat to one side, on their own higher dais, strung with lights. The royals were formally announced. Applause, at first tepid, then wilting, while the rumble rose and overtook it—catcalls and that one repeated word: "Anual! Anual!" I could feel the collective anger like a vibration under my feet. Alfonso ignored the jeers, stood smiling, and said a few words that faded before they reached my seat. He lifted an arm in my direction, introducing me. The rumble quieted; applause erupted. Someone shouted, "
El Rey!
" Confusion. I looked around. Applause again. "
El Rey del Arco!
The King of the Bow!"
They were cheering for me—and insulting the King. But still he smiled—shrewdly—one side of his mouth lifted, under that thin dandy's mustache. He lifted an arm again, as if to join the throng, as if to command them to do what they were already doing. The crowds pressed forward, and despite the cordon of soldiers pressing back, I could feel the platform beneath my feet tremble.
I tried to acknowledge the crowd with a wave. I stood and faced the King, bowing to him. Where was my cello? Back inside, at the end of a protected corridor that ran from the stage into a hotel where Al-Cerraz was waiting, warming up on a second concert grand inside the lobby. It wasn't like him to warm up. First, though, came the children's choir. I was meant only to introduce them.
I said a few words. No one could hear me. The children began to sing. When the crowds quieted, I darted back into the hotel.
"We have to do something." I laid a hand on the piano to get Al-Cerraz's attention. "At least
say
something. To go along with this party, as if nothing has happened—it's the worst thing we can do, endorsing all this."
Al-Cerraz stopped playing. "All what? Who knows what's happened?"
"It 's our responsibility."
"This"—he gestured to the piano—"is our responsibility. There will be more bad news tomorrow. Let them forget their cares tonight. Or do you want all those people to take over the stage and pull the King and Queen down with them—and probably trample us, too?"
I paced back and forth. "We cancel the rest of it. Send everyone home, peacefully."
"Cancel it? You've lost your senses."
I sat on the edge of the piano bench with my back to him and buried my face in my hands.
He said, "A moment of silence, is that what you want? Nothing political. Just silence?"
"They say it's Silvestre's fault, and Alfonso's fault—this was all just an arrogant demonstration, revenge against the parliament."
"
Cálmate.
"
A young woman from the hotel shuffled toward me, breathless. "It's a telegram for you, Señor Delargo."
"He'll take it in one hour, after the concert," Al-Cerraz said. "He needs quiet."
"It has a military stamp. From Africa," she said.
"Africa!" I jumped to my feet.
"It's from"—she squinted at the form—"Francisco Franco."
"Franco? I don't know him." And my stomach lurched. "Oh, Francisco—Paco, she means. My brother's friend. Paquito."
"Don't read it now," Al-Cerraz said, but I already had it in my hands.
The crowd outside was cheering for the children, momentarily assuaged. They exited the stage and filed into the hotel past me as I read the telegram. It informed me that my brother Enrique, the last of my three brothers, was now among the dead.
I told Al-Cerraz my plan, and he—a genius at music, oblivious to more basic and practical matters, even simple multiplication—said nothing, only shook his head and turned away, battling his own demons.
Onstage, I held up my hand until the crowds quieted. I explained the news I had just received. I said I would have rung all the city's bells if I could. But failing that, I intended to play one bow stroke for every soldier dead, as far as we knew.
Each meditative, unadorned bow stroke took perhaps a second. Sixty of them in a minute. There was respectful silence for the first few minutes, then a rising tide of whispers. Some angry shouts erupted; more jeers toward the royal dais; a shot into the air from a guard. But I wouldn't give it up. One bow stroke each second. Over three thousand in an hour. The open D string, unvarying. Al-Cerraz hadn't done the calculation, and neither had the crowd.
By the end of the first hour, my shoulder ached, but I hadn't built up stamina all those years for nothing. The crowd reacted in different ways, as people will. Some walked away peacefully, bored, disappointed. Some gave angry catcalls; a bottle missed my head by centimeters. A third of the crowd, at least, remained, some unable to leave without knowing how the drama would end; some struck with grief. A woman at the front of the crowd started wailing—a primal wail, out of time with my bow strokes, a terrible syncopation.
Heavily guarded, the King and Queen left their dais. Someone—who, I don't know—stood behind me and put a hand on my shoulder. I lost track of the strokes; no one could count them all; they outnumbered the stars. But that was the point. That was precisely why I couldn't play, and couldn't let Al-Cerraz play. All that death, my brother's included. I couldn't bear the thought of everyone overlooking the scope of the tragedy, absorbing and accepting it, allowing the next week's news to overshadow what had happened. True silence might have been even better, but I hadn't learned true silence yet—only this. A protest of monotony. Three hours passed before I stopped.
When I stumbled into the hotel, eyes blurred, I couldn't understand what I was seeing. Then the shapes resolved. It was the grand piano, lid open, with the bench tossed inside—my partner's frustrated demolition attempt. The musician who had been chosen to accompany me was asleep on a couch in the corner, head tipped back, mouth gaping. The girl who'd delivered the telegram was sitting on the marble floor, mascara streaks on her cheek.
I didn't see Al-Cerraz again that night, or for another eight years.
My secretary sat on the edge of my desk, reading me the mail as I shaved over a bowl in the corner, preparing for rehearsal:
My daughter and I greatly enjoyed the article of August 15, in Madrid's
ABC.
It reminded me of the felicitous similarities between—
"Is that the same woman who sent me her daughter's lock of hair?"
The same.
"Skip that one, please."
Rita speared the letter dramatically on the phone message spike. Then she ripped the edge of the next envelope and blew into it. "Here's one from the same reporter who interviewed you for
Diario de Bilbao.
"
"Why doesn't he call?"
"He did. Four times. You haven't called him back. He included some clippings with his byline."
"Not more 'Portraits of Courage'!"
"I liked that one he did on Colonel Franco, the same issue he did you ... Are you all right?"
I dabbed at my neck, wincing. "
General
Franco," I corrected her.
"They were good photos—both of you," she continued, oblivious to my expression. "He was clever to put you together, with all the quotes that sounded so alike—humility and
Patria
and neither one of you liking public attention or politics to begin with."
I groaned.
"I don't see why it bothers you." She sighed. "Did you see that other article last month, about him and his wife, in
Estampa?
I hated her dress. Black crepe—it looked like a nun's habit. But Franco seemed nice. He said his real 'inclination' was painting. That's good, right?"
"The frustrated artist—I don't believe it."
"Why don't you like him?"
I pressed my lips together and made a last swipe at my neck.
"If he writes to you again, will you write him back?"
I mumbled into the hand towel: "The reporter?"
"Franco."
"What leads you to believe he's written to me?"
Rita had worked for me a year. I'd given her permission to open the current mail, but not to pry into my old correspondence. Now she pretended to study her painted nails, lined up along the envelope's edge.
"I'll call Bilbao," I said. "I promise. Next, please. The letters on the bottom are a week old."
She squeezed the pile to her chest. "We could just throw them away, and tomorrow, start at a café instead, take the morning off. Your matinee performance isn't until two."
I tried to look stern, but she didn't notice.
I liked Rita: the sound of her slow two-fingered typing, and the way she faced the big black machine with hunched shoulders and a brooding expression worthy of Beethoven. I told her that once, and she said, "How can you know what Beethoven looked like? He's dead, isn't he? I mean, I suppose there are drawings, but drawings can lie..."
"His death mask," I interrupted her. "I've seen it in Germany."
"Oh." She shivered. "Even dead, he looked mad?"