A poster at the entrance to the theater informed the worthy public that this week there would be two concerts by the national symphony orchestra, one on thursday, that is, the day after tomorrow, the other on saturday. It's only natural that the curiosity of anyone following this tale with scrupulous and microscopic attention, on the look-out for contradictions, slips, omissions and logical faults, should demand to know how death is going to pay for her tickets to these concerts when only two hours have passed since she emerged from a subterranean room where there are, we believe, no a.t.m.s or banks with open doors. And now that it's in an interrogative vein, that same curiosity will also want to know if taxi drivers no longer charge women who wear dark glasses, have a pleasant smile and a nice body. Before that ill-intentioned suggestion begins to take root, we hasten to say that not only did death pay the amount on the meter, she also gave the driver a tip. As to where that money came from, if this still worries the reader, suffice it to say that it came from the same place as the dark glasses, that is, from the shoulder bag, since, in principle, and as far as we know, there is nothing to stop one thing coming from the same place as another. It could be that the money with which death paid for the taxi and with which she'll pay for the two tickets to the concerts, as well as the hotel where she'll be staying for the next few days, is now out of circulation. It wouldn't be the first time that we go to bed with one kind of money and wake up with another. It must be assumed, therefore, that the money is of good quality and covered by the current legislation, unless, knowing as we do death's talent for mystification, the taxi driver, not noticing that he was being tricked, accepted from the woman in the dark glasses a bank note which is not of this world or, at least, not of this age, bearing the picture of a president of the republic instead of the venerable and familiar face of his majesty the king. The theater box office has just opened, death goes in, smiles, says good morning and asks for two seats in the best box, one for thursday and the other for saturday. She tells the attendant that she wants the same seats for both concerts and, more importantly, that the box should be on the right and as close to the stage as possible. Death stuck her hand into her bag at random, pulled out her purse and handed over what seemed to her the right amount of money. The attendant gave her the change. Here you are, she said, I hope you enjoy the concerts, it's the first time, isn't it, at least I don't remember seeing you before, and I have an excellent memory for people, in fact, I never forget a face, although it's true that glasses do change a person, especially dark glasses like the ones you're wearing. Death took off her glasses, What do you think now, she asked, No, I'm sure I've never seen you before, Perhaps because this is the first time that the person standing here, the person I am now, has ever had to buy tickets for a concert, why, only a few days ago, I had the pleasure of attending an orchestra rehearsal and no one even noticed me, Sorry, I don't understand, Remind me to explain it to you one day, When, Oh, one day, the day that always comes, Now you're frightening me. Death smiled her pretty smile and asked, Tell me frankly, do I look frightening, No, that isn't what I meant at all, Then do as I do, smile and think of nice things, The concert season will last another month yet, Now that is a piece of good news, perhaps we'll see each other next week, then, Well, I'm always here, I'm almost part of the theater furniture, Don't worry, I'll find you even if you're not, All right, then, I'll expect you, Oh, I'll be there. Death paused and asked, By the way, have you or any of your family received a violet-colored letter, The letter from death, That's right, No, thank god, but our neighbor's week is up tomorrow and he's in the most terrible state about it, What can we do, that's life, Yes, you're right, sighed the woman, that's life. Fortunately, by then, more people had arrived to buy tickets, otherwise, who knows where this conversation might have led.
Now it's a matter of finding a hotel not too far from the musician's house. Death strolled down into the center, went into a travel agency, asked if she could study a map of the city, on which she quickly located the theater, and from there her index finger traveled across the map to the area where the cellist lived. It was a little out of the way, but there were hotels nearby. The assistant recommended one of them, not luxurious, but comfortable. He himself offered to make the reservation over the phone, and when death asked him how much she owed him for his efforts, he replied, smiling, Just put it on my account. What could be more normal, people say things without thinking, they utter words at random and it doesn't even occur to them to consider the consequences, Put it on my account, said the man, doubtless imagining, with incorrigible masculine vanity, some pleasurable encounter in the near future. He risked death replying with a cold eye, Be careful, you don't know who you're talking to, but she merely gave a vague smile, thanked him and set off without leaving a phone number or a visiting card. In the air hung a diffuse perfume, a mixture of rose and chrysanthemum, Yes, that's what it smells like, half rose and half chrysanthemum, murmured the assistant, while he slowly folded up the city map. Out in the street, death was hailing a taxi and giving the driver the address of the hotel. She didn't feel at all pleased with herself. She had frightened the kindly lady in the box office, she'd had fun at her expense, and that's an unforgivable thing to do. People are quite terrified enough of death without her appearing before them with a smile and saying, Hi, it's me, the latest version, the familiar version if you like, of that ominous latin tag memento, homo, quia pulvis es et in pulverem re-verteris, and then, as if that weren't enough, she had been about to skewer another extremely nice, helpful person with the stupid question that the so-called upper classes have the barefaced cheek to ask of those beneath them, Do you know who you're talking to. No, death is not pleased with her own behavior. She is sure that in her skeletal form she would never have behaved like that, Perhaps it's because I've taken on human form, she thought, these things are catching. She glanced out of the window and recognized the street they were driving along, this is the cellist's street and that's the ground-floor apartment where he lives. Death seemed to feel a tightening in her solar plexus, a sudden agitation of the nerves, like the shiver that goes through a hunter when he spies his prey, when he has it within his sights, it could be a kind of obscure fear, as if she were beginning to feel afraid of herself. The taxi stopped, This is the hotel, said the driver. Death paid him with the change that the woman at the theater had given her, The rest is for you, she said, not even noticing that the rest was more than the amount on the taxi meter. She had an excuse, this is the first time she has used the services of this form of public transport.
As she went over to the reception desk, she remembered that the man at the travel agency hadn't asked her name, he had simply said to the hotel, I'm sending you a customer, yes, a customer, right now, and there she was, this customer who could not possibly say that her name was death, with a small d, please, or that she didn't know what name to give, ah, her bag, the bag over her shoulder, the bag out of which came the dark glasses and the money, the bag out of which must surely come some identifying document, Good afternoon, may I help you, asked the receptionist, A travel agency phoned a quarter of an hour ago to make a reservation for me, Yes, madam, I was the one who took the call, Well, here I am, Would you mind filling out this form, please. Death knows what her name is now, she found it on the identity card that lies open on the desk, and thanks to her dark glasses she will be able to copy down the facts discreetly, name, place of birth, nationality, marital status, profession, without the receptionist realizing, Here you are, she said, How long will you be staying at the hotel, Until next monday, May I make a photocopy of your credit card, Oh, I didn't bring it with me, but I can pay now, in advance, if you like, No, no, that won't be necessary, said the receptionist. She took the identity card to cross-check the information on the form and, with a puzzled expression on her face, glanced up. The photo on the document was that of a much older woman. Death took off her dark glasses and smiled. Confused, the receptionist looked again at the document, the photo and the woman before her were now a
s alike as two peas in a pod. Do you have any luggage, she asked, drawing one hand across her perspiring brow, No, I came to town to do some shopping, replied death.
She stayed in her room all day, taking both lunch and supper in the hotel. She watched television until late. Then she got into bed and turned out the light. She didn't sleep. Death never sleeps.
WEARING THE NEW DRESS THAT SHE BOUGHT YESTERDAY IN a shop downtown, death goes to the concert. She is sitting alone in the box, and, just as she did during the rehearsal, she is looking at the cellist. Just before the lights went down, when the orchestra was waiting for the conductor to come, he noticed her. He wasn't the only musician to do so. Firstly, because she was alone in the box, which although not rare, wasn't that frequent an occurrence either. Secondly, because she was pretty, possibly not the prettiest woman in the audience, but pretty in a very particular, indefinable way that couldn't be put into words, like a line of poetry whose ultimate meaning, if such a thing exists in a line of poetry, continually escapes the translator. And finally, because her lone figure, there in the box, surrounded by emptiness and absence on every side, as if she inhabited a void, seemed to be the expression of the most absolute solitude. Death, who had smiled so often and so dangerously since she emerged from her icy subterranean room, is not smiling now. The men in the audience observe her with ambiguous curiosity, the women with keen disquiet, but she, like an eagle diving through the air toward a lamb, has eyes only for the cellist. With one difference, though. In the gaze of this other eagle who has always caught her victims there is something like a tenuous veil of pity, eagles, as we know, are obliged to kill, that is their nature, but this eagle here, now, would perhaps prefer, faced by the defenseless lamb, to open her powerful wings and fly back up into the sky, into the cold air of space, into the untouchable flocks of the clouds. The orchestra has fallen silent. The cellist starts to play his solo as if he had been born for that alone. He doesn't know that the woman in the box has in her brand-new handbag a violet-colored letter addressed to him, he doesn't know, how could he, and yet he plays as if he were bidding farewell to the world, as if he were at last saying everything that he had always kept unsaid, the truncated dreams, the frustrated yearnings, in short, life. The other musicians stare at him in amazement, the conductor with surprise and respect, the audience sighs, a shudder runs through them, and the veil of pity that clouded the sharp gaze of the eagle is now a veil of tears. The solo is over, the orchestra washed over the cello's song like a great, slow sea, gently submerging it, absorbing and amplifying that song as if to lead it into a place where music was transmuted into silence, into the merest shadow of a vibration that touched the skin like the final, inaudible murmur of a kettledrum on which a passing butterfly had momentarily alighted. The silken, malevolent flight of acherontia atropos fluttered quickly through death's memory, but she brushed it away with a wave of her hand which could as easily have been the gesture that made the letters disappear from the desk in her subterranean room as it could a gesture of thanks to the cellist, who was now turning his head in her direction, his eyes seeking a path through the warm darkness of the theater. Death repeated the gesture and it was as if her slender fingers had perched for a moment on the hand moving the bow. However, even though his heart had done everything to make the cellist miss a note, he did not. Her fingers would not touch him again, death had realized that one must never distract an artist while he is practicing his art. When the concert was over and the audience burst into loud cheering, when the lights went up and the conductor brought the orchestra to their feet, and then indicated to the cellist that he alone should get up in order to receive his much-deserved quota of the applause, death, standing, smiling at last, pressed her hands to her breast, in silence, and just looked, that's all, let the others clap, let the others cry bravo, let the others call the conductor back ten times, she just looked. Then, slowly, as if reluctantly, the audience began to leave, at the same time as the orchestra was packing up. When the cellist turned toward the box, she, the woman, was no longer there. Ah, well, that's life, he murmured.
He was wrong, life isn't always like that, the woman from the box will be waiting for him at the stage door. Some of the musicians stare at her intently as they leave, but they realize, without knowing how, that she is surrounded by an invisible hedge, by a high-voltage fence on which they would burn up like tiny moths. Then the cellist appeared. When he saw her, he started, nearly took a step back, as if, seen from close to, the woman was something other than a woman, something from another sphere, another world, from the dark side of the moon. He bowed his head, he tried to join his departing colleagues, to run away, but the cello case, slung over one shoulder, made escape difficult. The woman was there before him, she was saying, Don't run away, I only came to thank you for the excitement and pleasure of hearing you play, That's very kind of you, but I'm just an orchestra player, not a famous concert artiste, the kind for whom fans wait hours just to be able to touch them or ask them for their autograph, If that's the problem, I can ask you for yours, if you like, I haven't got my autograph album with me, but I have here an envelope that would serve perfectly well, No, you misunderstand me, what I meant was that, although I'm flattered by your attention, I don't feel I deserve it, The audience seemed to disagree, Well, I obviously had a good day, Exactly, and that good day just happened to coincide with my appearance here tonight, Look, I don't want you to think me ungrateful or rude, but probably by tomorrow you'll have got over tonight's excitement, and as suddenly as you appeared, you'll disappear again, You don't know me, I always stick to my resolutions, And what are they, Oh, only one, to meet you, And now that you've met me, we can say goodbye, Are you afraid of me, asked death, No, I just find you rather troubling, And is feeling troubled by my presence such a small thing, Being troubled doesn't necessarily mean being afraid, it might just be a warning to be prudent, Prudence only serves to postpone the inevitable, sooner or later, it surrenders, That won't, I hope, be my case, Oh, I'm sure it will. The cellist moved his cello case from one shoulder to the other, Are you tired, asked the woman, It's not the cello that's heavy, it's the case, especially this one, which is the old-fashioned kind, Look, I need to talk to you, But I don't see how, it's nearly midnight, everyone has left, There are still a few people over there, They're waiting for the conductor, We could talk in a bar, Can you imagine me with a cello on my back walking into a crowded bar, said the cellist, smiling, imagine if all my colleagues went there and took their instruments, We could give another concert, We, asked the musician, intrigued by that plural, Yes, there was a time when I played the violin, there are even pictures of me playing, You seem determined to surprise me with every word you say, It's up to you whether you find out just how surprising I can be, Well, that seems clear enough, That's where you're wrong, I didn't mean what you were thinking, And what was I thinking, may I ask, About bed and me in that bed, Forgive me, No, it was my fault, if I was a man and I'd heard those words, I would certainly have thought the same, one pays the price for ambiguity, Thank you for being so honest. The woman took a few steps and then said, Come on then, Where, asked the cellist, Me to the hotel where I'm staying and you, I imagine, to your apartment, Won't I see you again, So you don't find me troubling any more, Oh, that was nothing, Don't lie, All right, I did find you troubling, but I don't now. On death's face appeared a kind of smile in which there was not a shadow of joy, Now is just when you have most reason to feel troubled, she said, It's a risk I'm willing to take, that's why I'll repeat my question, What was it, Will I see you again, I'll be at the concert on saturday and I'll be sitting in the same box, It's a different program, you know, I don't have a solo in it, Yes, I know, You seem to have thought of everything, Indeed, And how will all this end, We're still only at the beginning. A taxi was approaching. The woman hailed it and turned to the cellist, I'll take you home, No, I'll take you to your hotel and then go home from there, Either we do as I say, or I'll take another taxi, Do you always get your own way, Y
es, always, You must fail occasionally, god is god and he's done almost nothing but fail, Oh, I could prove to you right now that I never fail, OK, show me, Don't be so stupid, death said abruptly, and there was in her voice an obscure, terrible, underlying threat. The cello was placed in the trunk of the taxi. The two passengers spoke not a word during the entire journey. When the taxi stopped, the cellist said before he got out, I simply can't understand what's going on between you and me, and I think it would be best if we didn't see each other again, No one can stop it now, Not even you, the woman who always gets her own way, asked the cellist, trying to be ironic, Not even me, replied the woman, So that means you'll fail then, No, it means I won't fail. The driver had got out to open the trunk and was waiting for the cellist to remove his cello case. The man and the woman didn't say goodbye, they didn't say see you on saturday, they didn't touch, it was a heartfelt parting of the ways, dramatic and brutal, as if they had sworn on blood and water never to meet again. Carrying his cello, the musician stalked off and went into the apartment block. He didn't turn round, not even when he paused for an instant on the very threshold. The woman was watching him, clutching her bag. The taxi drove on.
Death with Interruptions Page 18