The House of Silence

by Blanca Busquets

  That day when I lost my head, I also lost what had saved my life at the age of seven. I didn’t get anything out of it, except for a thank-you and a sarcastic smile. At our last class, I placed it gently in her hands. Since it was a magic violin, I thought that it would allow Anna to find her soul in music. But that wasn’t the case: in her hands, the Stainer turned into just another instrument, nothing more, it no longer made magical music, it lost its enchanted aura I had seen at the dump. But she didn’t refuse to accept it, she took it immediately. I was left without Anna, without the violin, and, a few years later, without Maties as well.

  Now, she pulls the Stainer out as often as she can in front of me, to rub my nose in it, and I think I’ll never find another like it. Giving it to her was so stupid of me—so, so stupid. But Anna is the one who lacks true music, with or without the Stainer. And I’ve got it.

  Anna

  This second movement is for sappy, sluggish people like Teresa. It’s too easy for me. Sure, it’s pretty, and Teresa goes wild for that kind of thing; you can see it a mile off, it looks like she’s about to burst into tears. I won’t look at her now, I’ll wait until the last movement, when it speeds up again, when I can fly while she just hops along trying to keep up. I don’t understand what Karl saw in her, I don’t understand what so many conductors see. Playing the violin has been a race since Vivaldi’s time, and anyone who thinks otherwise isn’t meant for this instrument.

  Teresa wasn’t meant for Papa, and Papa wasn’t meant for Teresa. That’s why their relationship ended the way it did, suddenly. Things that don’t work, end; that’s obvious. And, sometimes, the ones that do work end too, because the relationship between me and my father did work. During a simple part of my life, for a few years, it was as if I wasn’t myself because I was living atop a cloud; it was as if the sky had opened up just for me, after so long living without a mother and without anything, without anyone, just Clara. Papa explained with tears in his eyes how he couldn’t be there for me, that Mama had said either you or I, and didn’t even want him to see me. And, as he had already told me on other occasions, he preferred it that way, not seeing me, because if he had he wouldn’t have been able to stand leaving me there with her. He had told me that so many times and asked for my forgiveness so many times that, in the end, one day a spurt of water came up from inside me, one I couldn’t keep from traveling up through my neck. I broke out into tears and that was when I hugged him close and told him that I had never been able to do that with Mama. I don’t know why I fell in love with her, he told me, she wasn’t all there; all she did was flitter about from one party to the next and from one lover to the next. I was one of many, but I wanted to think it was something different, I believed that for a while. And he would look at me with those damp eyes and say, forgive me, please.

  And then it was like the first movement of this concerto, a joy that ran through my body every day as I got out of bed, that sent me to school and to violin and harmony lessons with a smile on my face, a smile I’d never worn before. My goodness, Teresa would say, you have a very pretty smile. You have a lovely smile.

  Tomorrow, come hell or high water, I have to see the Spree. Maybe that’s where my soul has ended up. Ten years ago it seemed that it was escaping into that very river. Mark has no time for anything, he says, he’s always rehearsing; that’s what comes with being the conductor. And I can’t help being drawn in by the water, in a way that nothing else draws me in, except for the feeling of vertigo that takes hold of me when I play the Baroque composers so fast; I can’t resist it. But apart from that, nothing draws me in the way water does, and everywhere I go I have to visit the water, if there is any; it’s like a courtesy visit to my own soul, because I feel it, I sense its presence, and I think: Perhaps today it will come back to me, and then I say hello, how are you, dear, and my taciturn soul stays quiet, silent, keeping me from knowing where it is exactly—so I don’t catch it unaware and take it with me. And, I really hate when, while I’m looking for it, someone comes over to play with the water, skipping stones or setting off a toy boat or sailing by. At which point I’d like to say, hey, where do you get off talking to my soul; it’s mine and mine alone, you go talk to yours, if you have one. But I can’t say anything. Sometimes I’ve found people staring because, without realizing it, I’ve spent ten minutes looking at one point on the pond, river, or lake. Not the sea, which I never visit because the motion of the waves wears me out, and I’m quite sure my soul isn’t there.

  But I have to find it, because I can’t live without a soul.

  The day I realized that there was something between Teresa and Papa, my world fell apart. I wanted to go find Teresa and scream that Papa was mine, that she and her Stainer needed to back off, leave, and never come back. I couldn’t stand the way she looked at me, somewhere between tender and compassionate, which is to say that for some years she was a comfort, I’ll admit that; Teresa was more than a violin teacher, she was a support for me, and even though we spoke little of subjects other than the violin, I knew that I was her favorite student and I even thought she loved me.

  And then, when she took Papa from me, she showed her true self. They started to meet up, seeing each other both in and out of the house, and I didn’t want to know anything more about it; I made sure to leave before she came over. Suddenly, Papa wasn’t there for me the way he had been, he wasn’t around, he disappeared for entire weekends, and when he returned, his mind was on dates with Teresa and waiting for the phone to ring, and luckily, social media didn’t exist yet, because otherwise he would have spent his nights chatting online the way teenagers do now. And when he was with me, he seemed to be in another world, and sometimes he would drift off when I was talking to him, and I’d realize that he wasn’t listening.

  My world fell apart, it really did. I had given him what I’d never given anyone, and he had taken it and made me believe that he was going to give me his all in return. And it turns out that that wasn’t the case, that he hadn’t given me anything, he had just tricked me. I felt as if I had been torn in two, Papa had been with me when he didn’t have anyone else, but now that he’d found Teresa, I meant nothing to him; I was just a bother he was forced to put up with, that was painfully clear.

  I spent my days playing the violin and looking at the lake. I spend hours just staring into it. And I put in a request at the conservatory for a change of teacher, because I couldn’t bear being around Teresa and I couldn’t stand her correcting me or telling me what to do. What I did like was turning my back on her when she feigned interest in me, and she would make a pathetic face, as if she couldn’t live without that smile of mine that she’d been so fond of. And I enjoyed making her suffer, that was my only joy, and I loved thinking that she would burst into tears when I left the classroom. I got her so distraught that, on our last day of class together, she gave me her Stainer, which now I flaunt in front of her every chance I get. It goes without saying that her gift was the confirmation of my victory over the enemy. All I said was a polite thank you. Now I had totally beaten her, I’d left her with nothing, just Papa, there was no way to snatch him from her clutches, and I thought, Why don’t you leave him, if you love me so much, don’t you realize you’ve taken from me the only thing I’ve ever had? But no, she realized nothing, she gave me everything except for the only thing I really wanted: Papa.

  After some time, when I no longer studied with Teresa, Papa finally reacted. I mean that his initial infatuation with her passed and he remembered my existence. He sat me down to have a talk. He told me that I’d been acting strangely, that it seemed I didn’t like his relationship with Teresa and he wanted to know why, when he thought my former teacher and I got along so well. First, I was evasive and did my best to change the subject. But then, since he kept insisting, I broke down, shouting and crying, I told him that he didn’t pay any attention to me, that he didn’t listen to me, that he wasn’t there for me, that he only talked about her and only wanted to be with her. I let it all out
in a rush, and I think he was a bit shocked. Maybe he wasn’t expecting that. He came over to me, said something like one thing didn’t cancel out the other, that he loved me very much, and he tried to hug me like he used to. And I was dying for his hug, but I didn’t want him to do it because if he did, I would dissolve into tears in his arms and he would console me and the next day he would return to Teresa and we’d be back where we started, and I would have hurt myself, because these things hurt a lot and sometimes it seems no one realizes that. So I told him to leave me alone, and I left him there with mouth hanging open.

  Every time I look at the maid, sitting there in the concert hall, I have the feeling that her eyes are drilling into my brain. And she’s just a maid who’s dying of old age anyway, and I don’t know what it is about her, but her gaze makes me nervous.

  Papa didn’t come near me for a couple of days. Finally, on the third day, he came over with his eyes gleaming and some airplane tickets in his hand. Look, he said, let’s you and I go on a trip together alone, for a whole week, how does that sound? Then I was the one surprised, I hadn’t expected that. The idea was very tempting, the possibility of having my father to myself for a week. On the other hand, if I did that, the inevitable return would be terrible, we’d be back to square one, I didn’t trust him or anyone anymore. Where? I asked to buy some time to think. To Monte Carlo, he said. Look, here are the tickets, and we’ll rent a car when we get there, what do you think?

  We went. I was filled with contradictory feelings like hatred and desperate love that began and ended with that man who was everything to me. It wasn’t like it’d been before, not even close—but it could have been, in time, if we’d continued in that vein; he was sweet and affectionate with me, and I didn’t see him call Teresa even once.

  But I didn’t trust it; I knew full well that it would all end as soon as we got back to Barcelona. Papa only wanted to patch things up with me, probably just to ease his conscience. And I would be alone again. I couldn’t stand being alone anymore. Life was over for me, there was nothing that made me feel alive, not even the violin and the fastest passages by Vivaldi, Bach, and Veracini. It was all over, everything.

  One night during that week, at the casino, I drank too much, on purpose. Papa didn’t realize, he was busy gambling. When we left, I pretended to be sober, and I asked if I could drive us to the hotel. I had just gotten my license and was always asking him to let me use his car, so he didn’t see anything strange in my request. He sat shotgun and started chatting about his bets, how he’d done. I stepped on the accelerator. I remember that he warned me about speeding on a winding highway beside the sea. I remember wanting to go headfirst off the cliff and drown us both in the sea, so Papa would never again belong to Teresa. And that’s it, I don’t remember anything more.

  Mark

  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.

  Teresa

  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.