A big storm was gathering. I felt relieved when I heard the first thunder. “Perhaps the flood will come once and for all and I’ll be saved from my shame,” I thought. I heard a lot of running around the courtyard, then the rain and the banging of shutters. I heard the bell at four o’clock, then the sound of teacups and spoons, announcing it was teatime. I didn’t dare leave my room. After a time that seemed an eternity to me, Mlle. Gabrielle came looking for me. I looked at her in terror. I soon saw that she wasn’t unhappy with me; I got off the bed to follow her, after combing my hair and getting dressed as fast as I could. In the pantry Esperanza was sitting at the table. I sat down without speaking to her; to calm myself I imagined I had dreamt the whole scene that afternoon. There were just a few more hours until Mrs. Celina would arrive. Mr. Ildefonso, Juan Alberto, and Luis would go to meet her in a carriage. I drank my tea meekly. After tea, when I was crossing the courtyard, I heard them talking about Horacio and then talking about me in connection with him. The story had passed from mouth to mouth and would reach Mrs. Celina’s ears and she would stop protecting me with her distant smile.
“We’ll have to tell her,” Miss Domicia was saying.
“Do you dare?” Doña Saturna responded.
“I couldn’t rest if I didn’t do it. I’d have it on my conscience.”
“And who’ll pick up the pieces?” Saturna asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t care,” Domicia said. “This will teach her not to collect what isn’t hers. They already have enough children without looking for more. I wash my hands of it all.”
The sound of a carriage, in the midst of the rain, interrupted the dialogue. The horses stopped before the entrance to the courtyard of the house. Mr. Ildefonso, wearing his glasses and holding an open umbrella, prepared to greet his wife. Esperanza ran to her mother’s arms before anyone else. Juan Alberto and Luis came out, banging the doors behind them. Horacio came last of all. I stood behind a column, watching what I thought was the beginning of a tragedy. All of them took the traveler’s cardboard boxes, packages, and suitcases out of the carriage, while she stepped on the footboard of the carriage wearing a green rubber raincoat. Mrs. Celina looked hard at the house, up and down, as if she were seeing it for the first time. She kissed her children, pausing to remove a glove, smooth her hair, and shake her wet raincoat.
When she kissed Horacio she saw me behind the column and called me. I slowly approached her to receive her kiss. She handed me a cardboard box, asking me to open it and see what was inside. Surprised that I was not provoking the aversion I expected, I opened the box and found the doll with brown curls, blue eyes, a straw hat, and a light blue organdy dress. I shook it. The doll said “Daddy,” “Mommy” in a soft moan. They advised me to take it out of the box by removing some strings that held it in place like a prisoner. Since I didn’t dare to do it, Mrs. Celina pulled it out of its prison herself.
“Witch,” Mrs. Celina told me.
“Sorcière,” Mlle. Gabrielle told me.
Both of them recognized the doll I had described.
That was how they pointed me toward the difficult art of soothsaying.
CARL HERST
CARL HERST had a very broad face, prominent cheek and jaw bones, and sunken eyes. My brother wanted to buy a dog from him. He lived in Olivos and we went to see the dog. When we arrived at the house, Carl Herst himself opened the door. He made us go straight to his study. There we sat down and drank cold beer; he spoke to us at length about his breeding program, how much work was involved, the animals’ pedigree, and the importance of proper feeding.
He went to the back of the yard in search of Fulo (that was the name of the dog he wanted to sell to my brother) and we stayed behind looking around the room. On the walls, there were photographs in golden frames, all of them of dogs; the picture frames on the tables had photographs of hairless dogs, hairy dogs, dogs in groups, by themselves, midgets, very tall ones, long ones like sausages, pug-nosed ones with moonlike faces, mothers and children, siblings, all ages. In a half-open album I glimpsed collections of snapshots, also of dogs: in the countryside, in the city, running, sitting, lying down. When Carl Herst arrived with Fulo, my brother and I were laughing, but I soon stopped laughing because the animal scared me. He had a huge jaw and cold, round eyes.
“Is he fierce?” I asked.
“He’s very good,” Herst answered, “and very loyal.”
After discussing the price, my brother decided we would come back the next day.
The next day there wasn’t anybody home when we arrived, but a neighbor told us that the gentleman had said we should walk around to the backyard if we wanted the dog. We went to the end of the yard where there was a cyclone fence and, inside the fence, a large and well-appointed wooden doghouse. Trembling, I followed my brother. We went in through a little iron door with peeling paint. The dogs looked at us in a friendly way, and Fulo came running over. Then he went into the doghouse, and my brother followed. I peered in from the outside. My eyes rested on a picture hanging on a white wall. I looked at it intently: it was a photograph of Carl Herst.
On the other walls there were plates hanging with inscriptions such as, “What dog is like a friend?” “Love men, take care of them, they are part of your soul.” “I have a friend—what else matters?” “When you feel alone don’t seek another dog.” “Man won’t betray you, a dog will.” “A man never lies.”
from
AND SO FORTH
THE MUSIC OF THE RAIN
THE PEBBLES on the road sang beneath the wheels of the stagecoach. In the awakened garden it was impossible to confuse the slow rhythmic sound of a horse-drawn coach with the dry quick sound of an automobile. That day everything seemed musical: the wheel of the well that brought up the bucket, voices, coughs, laughter.
“Who has arrived?” some shrill voices asked.
“Octavio Griber,” a deep voice answered.
“Who?” insisted the impatient questioner.
“The pianist,” answered the deep voice.
“In a stagecoach? It’s raining. Couldn’t they come by car?”
“The pianist is crazy for horse-drawn carriages and rain—he says they are musical. At least the horses were neighing.”
The people were sitting in the living room, in armchairs that were probably too comfortable, so comfortable that after a while it was hard for some of them to get up, making their posture look permanent. In the garden, from time to time there was a lightning bolt, followed by thunder, which lit up the room.
The owner of the house, who knew how to play the piano, stood next to the window. He was so used to wishing for his picture to be taken in that romantic pose that he adopted it frequently.
Illuminated by the lightning, the pianist finally entered. No shyness softened his face. He greeted all of the guests with a nod that left his hair in disarray. When he saw the enormous mirror next to the piano he ordered that it be covered up. (This demand caused a fuss. They didn’t have anything to cover it with. They finally found a flowered coverlet and fit it as best as they could over the mirror.) Then the pianist walked with great ceremony to a corner where there was a screen decorated with ears of corn, bunches of grapes, and doves, took a velvet jacket out of his satchel with golden clasps, and, after taking off his overcoat, shoes, and socks, slipped on his jacket.
At the pianist’s request, various hands with rings on their fingers opened the piano lid. The pianist took tiny pieces of white silk paper out of his pocket and carefully put them, one after another, on each of the felt hammers inside the piano, which he had examined before like a doctor examines a patient. The owner of the house concealed his anxiety when he saw all of the little pieces of paper on the hammers, but then could no longer contain his impatience and exclaimed, with an unexpected voice, “He is an eccentric.” And he warmly asked the pianist’s mother, “Why does he do this?”
“It’s a new system that makes the tones of the piano daydreamy. It sounds like a clavichord.”
“Sounds like, or dreams? One system cannot ever be any newer than another, since no system is new. The clavichord is an old instrument. What advantage can there be in using modern effects to achieve old ones? But what I especially dislike is his touching the insides of the piano. Enough moths have already gone in there.”
Octavio Griber looked severely at the owner of the house, lit a cigarette, and said, “I don’t play anything without the silk papers.” He continued to carefully insert his slips of paper and murmured in the direction of the owner of the house, “They have told me that you are a great pianist. Will you share some of your repertory with us?”
“Yes, but I don’t play with my feet,” answered the owner of the house, abruptly.
He was very jealous. When he became that way, his beard gave him away, turning so rough that no one would kiss him, no matter how much Brylcreem he put on.
“After these encounters, I feel older,” he whispered in my ear.
I noticed for the first time that he was cross-eyed from looking at his beard so much, and this trait, in fact, was the secret of his intelligent appearance.
The rain in the garden grew more intense. It could be heard hitting the windowpanes like stones instead of raindrops. That was when the programs were distributed, written by hand with neat handwriting. Various compositions of Liszt were included: “Beside a Spring,” “Saint Francis of Paola Walking on the Waves,” “The Fountains of Villa d’Este.” The names of Debussy, Ravel, Chopin, Respighi were written in green ink. The papers flew from one hand to the next.
When the programs stopped flying around they were used as fans. The pianist sat down at the stool, placed his burning cigarette on the edge of the piano, and swung around several times in order to establish the correct height. He looked at his feet, the pedals, his feet, the pedals again, and then started playing scales with one of his big toes. The notes poured out in a most unusual staccato. The guests didn’t know whether to applaud or laugh.
“How funny,” someone said. “I could do that too.”
“But why can’t he play like other people, with all of his digits,” said a woman’s voice, sharp as a pin.
“Because that would be difficult. He would have to be an acrobat to play with all five toes.”
“I meant with his fingers, for God’s sake. Why does he play with his feet?”
“There are people who paint with their feet or their mouth. What’s wrong with that?”
“But they are handicapped.”
“It is his way of playing—sometimes he only plays with his big toe. And he’s always faithful to the first composition he ever played, and likes to repeat it. The beginning of his career was brilliant. He never followed any teacher’s advice,” said Mrs. Griber, slowly, ecstatically. “When my son began studying he would say, while looking at his toes, ‘Why so many toes?’ It was useless for the teacher to give him orange, lemon, or raspberry drops, or even chocolate candies, which gave him a rash. He refused to touch the piano with all of his digits. He would play exclusively with his big toe. After that first experience he started using the slips of silk paper so as to achieve what he proclaimed were more natural sounds. A piano tuner revealed all the secrets of the instrument to him. He was in the habit of exclaiming, ‘I will make it out of tune in C flat and D minor.’ Nobody knew what he meant. Perhaps he himself didn’t know, but the sounds he produced were so extraordinary that once someone from the apartment below came up us to ask which of Wanda Landowska’s records we were playing because they had never heard anything so wonderful. Here he doesn’t dare, but in other homes he uses irregular tunings. It’s useless to debate with geniuses,” said Mrs. Griber.
Octavio Griber, who had switched to playing with his fingers, suddenly twisted around on the stool and looked at the audience as if to say, “Who dares to speak when you are here to listen?” Nodding his head without a word, he imposed silence for them to listen to his interpretation of Brahms’s “Ballade in B minor.”
“This piece of music has nothing to do with water,” someone chimed, who understood the liquid nature of the ballade down to its smallest details.
“With lightning,” answered Octavio, imperiously.
Debussy’s “Gardens in the Rain,” “The Sunken Cathedral,” “The Goldfish,” Ravel’s “Water Games” acquired a perfect sonority despite being muffled by the silk paper. When he played the song “At the Water’s Edge” by Fauré, another of his countless original ideas, he hummed the melody so softly that he provoked loud applause; Chopin’s “Raindrop” prelude was an even greater success. Without a doubt, the contact of the virtuoso’s bare feet on the keys influenced the interpretation of every work. They all agreed with the review that had appeared the day before in the newspaper; they had to admit his genius, just as the audience had applauded the last concert at the Colón Theater.
“But all of the pieces he plays are by French composers,” protested one lady.
“Chopin isn’t French, nor is Liszt, nor for that matter is Respighi.”
“Van Gogh was the first painter to paint the rain. Isn’t that strange?”
“What does painting have to do with music?”
“Van Gogh associated music with painting. And the first composer who made the rain sing was Debussy.”
“That’s not correct.”
“What isn’t?”
“That van Gogh associated music with painting. If he did it was during one of his fits, like when he sent his ear all wrapped up as a present. Besides, he wasn’t French. Handel, Grieg, Schubert, even Wagner in Das Rheingold were all inspired by water.”
“But that’s orchestral music, not piano music. Das Rheingold, what a strange idea.”
“What piece was that by Chopin?” a young man asked.
“Didn’t you read the program?”
“One of the études, the ‘Raindrop.’ ”
“Who has dropsy?” asked a lady who was sitting on the other side of the room.
“It’s a piece of music,” they answered.
“That’s the height of perversity, to be inspired by a disease.”
The piano resounded with a fresh mystery. Nobody was listening to it except for one woman who exclaimed, “There are melodies that kill!” She began to sob, her face in her hands. “I have never been able to listen to ‘Gardens in the Rain’ without weeping.”
Behind the windowpanes it seemed as if the trees in the garden were growing. Suddenly the performer stopped. He asked that the windows be opened and said, “At the very least I want the trees and the rain to listen to me.”
He saw a thousand beautiful eyes with tears, or rather tears with eyes. He smiled. If he could have gathered those tears in a test tube, he would have gathered them like orange blossom oil, as a bitter. “ ‘The Bride’s Tears,’ my next composition, will bear that title,” he thought. But they brought him some cold orangeade and a platter of strawberry tartlets. He drank the orangeade and ate the tartlets as if in a hurry. After every gulp he sucked on each of his fingers as if sucking on candy. They offered an embroidered silk napkin for his hands, brought on a tray. He looked at the tray, then took the napkin and stuffed it quickly into his pocket. He spun the stool around and set his hands on the keys again, looking at the ceiling as he had once seen Paderewski do at the Rino Bandini Theater. A woman approached him, took him by his chin, and said, “What a precocious boy: he’s as smart as his great-grandparents!”
When the music resumed, something disturbed him. He inclined his head until touching the keys with his ear. He crouched down to look at the pedals. One note was louder than the others. He stood up, examined the inside of the piano, discovered that one of the hammers had lost its slip of paper. Octavio Griber asked for a piece of silk paper. They looked for paper all over the house with flashlights because it was dark by now and the upper rooms were inaccessible without light. Finally they found some apples wrapped in green paper and brought them to the living room on a tray. Would this paper do, even thou
gh it’s not fine paper?
Octavio Griber put the strips of paper in the place where they were missing, carefully tested the notes and immediately recognized the superiority of paper used to wrap apples.
“Water Games” resounded once again on the piano, sounding as it had never sounded before, thanks to the new addition of the green paper. Sometimes lightning, followed by thunder, shook the fringes of the chandelier, but nothing shook the people who listened, speechless, to the sounds from the piano. The applause, cautious at first, filled the room with enthusiasm. Octavio, trembling with emotion, asked two young men who were near him to open the piano again. He indicated exactly what they were supposed to do. He took out of his pocket what looked like some small pliers, but it was a diapason; he came up to the young men who were energetically opening the insides of the piano.
“It will just take a moment,” said Octavio to the piano, as if about to do a surgical operation.
Someone protested, but shame overtook the protester. How could anyone prevent a genius from expressing his originality? To distract him, someone took the owner of the house to the foyer to look for some silverware that was needed. Octavio tightened or loosened some of the piano strings. At last he managed to detune the instrument completely.
It was impossible to recognize Schumann’s “Carnival” or Debussy’s “Gardens in the Rain” or Ravel’s “Water Games.” Each piece had become something different that he alone could play.
The storm didn’t let up. The rain beat against the windowpanes.
After the Spanish-style hot chocolate and pastries of various colors and shapes were served, and after asking the owner of the house to play his repertory, Octavio Griber, sighing, took off his velvet jacket in the same corner where he had put it on and packed it into his satchel, changed his clothes, smoothed out his hair, and put on a fresh pair of socks and then his shoes. When he looked at me to say goodbye, I showed him my album to get his autograph.
Thus Were Their Faces Page 29