The House of Silence (15 page)

With trembling hands I took the instrument and began to play. I already knew that when Mr. Karl said “one of those songs,” he meant the ones from his country and particularly the one about the peasant girl and the shepherd. So that was the one I played. I was captivated, because it turned out that the violin made magic: It was as if it held the sun inside it or something like that. My God, I exclaimed, stopping after a few bars. Oh, keep playing, please,
said Mr. Karl, exasperated, as if I had cut short the ecstatic state he seemed plunged into. Yes, I said, yes, slowly and gently. And I started playing again. I played alone, without the piano. I closed my eyes and let the Stainer do it all. And I reached the end of the piece as if I had traveled in an enchanted ship. Finally, I opened my eyes and said, sir, this is a magical violin. He said yes, without even looking at me and my heart sank a little because lately he was so odd.

It seemed like I should leave, and that was when I thought of something even stranger, which was that when Miss Anna played there was no magic. When Miss Anna played the Stainer, it sounded like a normal violin. So it was obvious that the Stainer wasn't always magic; it depended on who was playing it. I went to the kitchen, perplexed and silent as the grave, and Mr. Karl just kept staring at the piano without even saying goodnight to me.

I was able to play the Stainer from then on, but only occasionally, when he wasn't there, because he didn't allow it when he was. No, play the student violin, he would say, that's what it's for. And he gave me the other one, and I played like always, and I went through the lessons he had told me to learn. I played as best I could, but obviously I noticed a big difference between that violin and the Stainer; it was like night and day.

That was a very unusual period. Mr. Karl wasn't himself, and the Stainer was back. But I was starting to think that, despite the magic it made, maybe it would have been better if that violin had stayed wherever it had been. Because now that we had it back it was as if it had cast a spell on us, like the ones Andalusian gypsy women would cast if they didn't like you or if someone asked them to bring harm to you. Everything had changed color and we, he
and I, were getting old. And it made me sad because I thought that maybe Mr. Karl had expected more of me when I played the Stainer and I'd disappointed him because, after all, I was just a maid, and maids aren't violinists, not in or out of uniform.

And that day came when Miss Anna and Miss Teresa met up, and then they began the rehearsal. And there were no sofa scenes when they were both there, and I don't know if he was thinking of having them both on the sofa at the same time, but if that was his plan, it didn't come to pass, because they obviously couldn't stand each other. And, of course, in order to do certain things with another person, you have to really be able to stand them.

So from then on, I only heard music when he was with those two women, the same ones who will play at the end of this concert, and it was always one piece of music in particular. I got used to hearing them rehearse Bach's double concerto, a live version in addition to the recordings played every Sunday morning. Miss Teresa would come in first, a sweet but decisive entrance, compelled by a force that, despite everything, that woman obviously had in her. And, shortly after, Miss Anna would make her entrance, and it seemed she was competing, even though I knew they would both reach the end of the piece at the same time. And they went on like that, with Mr. Karl interrupting them every once in a while and making them repeat certain bars and passages, all very serious, all very strict. And then, when they'd finished, they'd each head off in their own direction, and Mr. Karl would stay there staring at the piano, and I would think, there's something wrong with this man.

And that was when he said, we're leaving next week. I'll be away for fifteen days.

I hear Anna doing scales in her dressing room. We're opposites, she and I. I leave it for the very last minute, just warm up my fingers a little bit, while she spends those last moments walking. She did the same thing when we were on tour here ten years ago, too. I don't know if she'll do it today. I take a look and it's raining, and all the leaves on the ground have turned into a skating rink. And anyway, you can't see a thing. This country is so dark . . . I don't know if the concert was a good idea, opening up old wounds that took so long to scar, at least for me. Every time I see her, that dark, painful story comes into my head, and every time I have to pull myself together and bite my tongue to keep from saying something I'll regret.

But this concert wasn't anything like that first time. Karl had been being a bit mysterious about it all, he hadn't even told me whether the other violinist was a man or a woman, all he would say was that I would like them. First, he said he didn't want to tell me because he was still choosing between a few options, but then, when he had her chosen, he still wouldn't tell me. He just said, tomorrow
I will introduce you to your rival in the double concerto. Rival or complement, depending on how you look at it, of course, and I think that the two melodies weave together and complement each other, sure, but they also play at outdoing each other until they reach the end at exactly the same time. In the case of Anna, though, our game was pure rivalry; there was no possible complementing each other. When I saw her there, when Maria escorted me to the piano room, all I could think was, my God, stop the world, I want to get off. But God didn't stop the world. It was as if the earth was sinking, as if I'd been hit head-on by a catapult. I cursed the moment when I'd neglected to say I'd only go on that tour once I knew who the second violinist would be. But until I saw Anna, I didn't care who it was; I knew that Karl would get what he needed to out of whoever it was, that he would get the best possible sound out of them, that he would make us both sound as close to the way Bach intended, as only Karl could. But I never imagined he'd choose Anna, who had, it's true, earned a reputation as a top violinist in recent years. She was somewhat in style for her ability to play the fast parts dizzyingly fast, but, I don't know, I never imagined that she was the sort of musician that Karl was looking for. And yet, she was.

She was also surprised, in fact, she seemed completely shocked. Neither of us knew what to do or say; we were alike in that at least. Karl had just mixed oil and water without realizing it, and Anna mumbled that we already knew each other, and I said something like, it's been a long time, to break the ice. Maria realized that something was wrong, because Maria, even though she hides it, is very, very clever. But Karl didn't even notice. It seemed he couldn't care less, and he said, come on, let's rehearse, and we began to rehearse
and said nothing more. But playing with Anna was strange and very unpleasant, and I was very distracted that day—playing a bit mechanically and thinking that I might have to abandon the project. But, of course, I couldn't, because the tour was about to start and I would have really left Karl in the lurch.

What surprised me was that Anna didn't use the Stainer, not that day and not during the tour. I found it really odd. This tour was the obvious place to show off an instrument like that, playing in Vienna, Rome, Madrid, and Paris. But first came Berlin. Where would she play with the Stainer, if not in these European capitals?
Maybe she doesn't have it anymore,
I then thought, but she'd have to be a fool to part with it, as foolish as I had been. I also thought that there was something between her and Karl, but honestly that didn't surprise me at all. I was already counting on it, because Karl had a reputation for getting involved with any musician who worked with him and wore a skirt, even if she was much younger than him, like Anna. I had been counting on it since the very first day we got involved on that black sofa; I had always had it crystal clear and, since I had it crystal clear, I signed on to the mutual game—in which we both got our needs met. I was just happy making music with him, and I didn't demand anything more. I was content with touching heaven with my fingers thanks to his genius. What I didn't know, and would have liked to, was if Anna was aware of Karl's behavior, because Anna had always searched for people who could be hers and only hers. And Karl had never been one for monogamy.

The truth is when I went home after that first meeting with Anna at Karl's house, I thought that it's true that fate can play some dirty tricks on us, but this was truly one for the history books.

Intermission. The audience is riveted and applauding passionately. That's rare here, because this isn't Barcelona, where audience members really show their feelings. It's really strange: At first you're surprised by the different reactions between audiences from place to place when your performance is almost exactly the same. Later, you realize that the Mediterranean spectators show more feeling than the Nordics. It must be something in our blood; it runs hotter and we get emotional more easily, and we also get annoyed faster, and we have less tolerance when someone tries to pull a fast one on us. Here, on the other hand, they give a few claps and that's it, no matter how great the performance is. Well, that's what they usually do, because from what I'm hearing, tonight this concert hall is really spirited.

The rehearsals with Teresa and Karl were spirited too. Luckily, we only did two before joining the entire orchestra. And this time we just did one, right before the first orchestra rehearsal.

I pick up the violin and leave my dressing room. I see Teresa
from a distance, and again I think that she's not what she used to be, I remember, not many years ago, envying her impressive physical presence. I was slim and stringy, and she was tall and strong. But now she's showing her years. And it's too late for her to have children; maybe she thought my father could have given her one, I could have had a little brother or sister. Not from that woman, ugh, what a horrible thought.

Now Mark leaves the stage, wiping the sweat from his forehead with a white handkerchief—one of those he always carries in his pocket, asking me if they're clean, and I've given the maid special instructions to prioritize Mark's handkerchiefs, to put them before even his shirts. He has an obsession with them. Now I smile at him and ask if it went well. He doesn't answer, just nods. I run to his side, to walk him to his dressing room. He doesn't pay much attention to me. He must be tired.

“Can I bring you anything?” I ask at the last minute when I see he wants to hole up in the dressing room.

“No, thanks,” he says with a half-smile. “See you later, sweetie,” he says, gently getting rid of me.

The door closes and I am left outside. I feel deeply wounded, run through with a blade that hit my lungs, and suddenly, I can barely breathe. It makes me think of the hospital and when I was released, because I felt that way then too. I had trouble taking in a deep breath, and the maid had to come with me everywhere because I was afraid to go alone. But that ended, and now it was happening again. It's not the first time. Sometimes Mark will do something that makes me feel like that, as if I've been hit in the lungs, hit badly. I turn around slowly and make sure no one saw the
scene. I put the violin down onto a chair, carefully so that it's protected from blows, and go outside, mechanically putting one foot in front of another. There are musicians who've gone outside to smoke during the intermission, even though it's raining. Yes, it's raining, small but constant drops, the kind that fall silently and slowly soak everything, making the leaves on the ground shine. Really, it's my soul, breaking into bits and pieces; I watch it lengthen and come apart as it hits the ground and mixes in with the colorful leaves that are dark now because there's no light.

Yesterday, at the Spree, my soul flowed rapidly downstream. Not now, now it's broken into pieces.

I liked that Karl lived so close to my house, but he must not have had the lake drawn on the ceiling of his room because it wasn't as close to him as it was to me. I'm not sure; I never found out because he never showed me his bedroom. He insisted we stay in the piano room. Karl would devour me with his eyes every time we finished playing; his whole being gave off flames, and I felt myself burning, too. He was nothing like Mark, who'll never know what it's like to feel inside another person the way I felt I was inside Karl and he felt he was inside me; we were one, it was as if we didn't need anyone else in the world, and it didn't matter that he was so much older than me. I only worried about the maid showing up—but, even though she's a horrid witch, she's discreet, I'll give her that. She never walked in on us and we never heard a peep out of her.

And then there was that scene with the violin. I showed up with my Stainer to impress Karl, and he certainly was impressed—but not the way I'd hoped. He grabbed the instrument from me, looked
at it carefully and asked if he could borrow it for a moment. I said yes and he left. And I thought that he must be checking something that he wanted to see alone—because there was no one else in the house, except for Maria. I still don't know what he was doing, but when he came back he was looking at me so strangely that I felt myself blushing as if he were accusing me of something. So I said the first thing that came into my head, which was that my father had given it to me, and I didn't know where he'd gotten it. And then he blurted out: How much do you want for that violin? I was shocked and, after a few seconds of silence, I answered, nothing, it's not for sale. He wasn't fazed and made me an offer. No, no, it's not for sale, I shook my head, thinking that the poor man didn't know that the only thing I had was money, that I'd lost my father and my mother, but that I was surrounded by wealth. It seemed he had let it go and we began to play. And, after we'd finished, he came over and kissed me. I had never been kissed by a man because I never let one come near me, I didn't want anyone to touch me, I didn't want anyone to profane my physical solitude, and I was already almost thirty. But I couldn't say no to him, he had me hypnotized; we were still under the effects of the outpouring of music, of that which only music can achieve—and something held me where I was, and then I felt what it was like to be kissed by a man, and not just any man but him. A man I thought was old enough to be my father, and when he died I found out that he could actually have been my grandfather. But that didn't matter in those moments: Karl kissed me passionately and, being so large and tall, it felt like he wanted to swallow me up entirely. He pushed me onto the sofa. At first I resisted a little, but he gently moved my hands away, and finally I gave in. I succumbed
and I liked it, and I liked it that day and all the others that followed. I liked it until everything was ruined by the person who always ruins everything: Teresa.