CHAPTER

8

“Do not mention Barcelona,” I was warned by a lady dressed in bumblebee stripes of yellow satin and black lace as we stood in the palace antechamber.

“Don’t mention Catalonia at all,” an older woman added. She had red satin flowers pinned on top of her head and held a matching fan to the bodice of her red ruffled dress.

“Nor even the train ride here,” the bumblebee lady said. “It upsets her terribly to think about the rails being blown up. She’s ridden on those same rails—in her own private car, yes, but on the very same rails!”

Not Barcelona, not Catalonia, not the train, I thought.

The count parted the throng of women with an outstretched hand, steering his way with surprising skill for a man who was nearly blind. “Music, Master Feliu, that is all you need to discuss.”

The count nodded in the direction of the halberdiers as we passed into the official chamber. It was as elaborately furnished as all the rooms we’d passed through so far. Cherubim floated between puffy clouds on the painted ceilings; chandeliers hung from bunched satin ropes.

Another man introduced the count. The count introduced me. The ladies took their seats against the wall. The Queen Mother, Maria Cristina, gestured toward an overstuffed, tapestry-covered chair. I had to jump up a little to sit on it, and my heels hung slightly above the floor. Two small dogs with bulging, black-olive eyes circled my feet warily before returning to recline at their mistress’s feet.

“You had a good trip here, I hope?” the Queen Mother said, enunciating each word slowly. She had a pinched nose, thin lips, and ashen eyebrows. Her hair was silver and tightly curled. It seemed as if every ounce of color and life had been drained from her—cut off at the wasp waist molded by her tight ivory bodice.

I didn’t know how to answer her without mentioning the train. I tensed my shoulders slightly—an unintentional, exhausted twitch—which she accepted as my answer.

“I look forward to hearing you perform soon with our Conde Guzmán’s dear daughter. Until then,” she continued, expelling the words with what seemed to be a great effort, “let us set aside the topic. Talking about music without hearing it is nearly as dull as talking about food without eating it, don’t you think? Tell me about yourself.”

My mind sifted and discarded numerous possibilities. I glanced back quickly, searched the room for clues, and tried to send a meaningful and beseeching glance the count’s way, but that was a wasted effort. I looked up and nearly lost myself in the mural high overhead—muscular arms and babies’ bottoms and tunics billowing everywhere. How could anyone stand being stared at so relentlessly? Perhaps it was easier to be blind in a room such as this one.

The count’s cough brought me back to the present moment. The Queen Mother gazed into the middle distance, her eyes avoiding mine.

“One man has suggested I offer you an allowance,” she said finally. “This man believes you have something to contribute to your country.”

I did not know how to respond without mentioning music, a subject she had already dismissed.

Finally she snapped: “Tell me dear, where are you from?”

Not Barcelona, not Catalonia. I stammered, “From near the sea, Your Majesty.”

She pressed her lips together, which made the skin of her soft jaw-line quiver. “And which sea would that be?”

“The Mediterranean.”

I heard the shuffling in the back of the room, the stiff rubbing of the ladies’ gowns as they stifled giggles.

“Your father, what does he do?”

“A customs inspector,” I blurted, eager to have stumbled into safe territory. But the relief didn’t last. “Except he died. In Cuba. El Desastre.”

“I am certain he served Spain well.” But she looked unsettled. “And your mother? Was she also in Cuba?”

“No, in Catalonia.” I winced at the mention of it, and kept going. “But yes, she was raised in the colonies, and moved here only later.”

“Marvelous. And how did she compare the two places?”

I paused again, but the Queen Mother’s hard dark eyes seemed to caution against obfuscation. I rambled, “Mamá’s uncle was hanged. Plus, there were the diseases. She never wanted to go back, even before Papá died. So I guess she thought Spain was better.”

The count rushed up behind me, guided at his elbow by the bumblebee lady. Now he was the one stammering. “Feliu, why don’t you say something about your musical training?”

The Queen Mother waved him away. Her two dogs launched into orbit around her legs, their little black paws beating at the floor in excitement. “No, it’s quite all right. I’m more interested in knowing what this boy is like, even when his cello is in another room.”

“Actually,” I mumbled, “I don’t have my own cello.”

“What’s that?”

The count put his hands on my shoulders to silence me, but the Queen Mother had heard. “We do have a royal luthier, if you need a cello made. A gift to welcome you to Madrid. Unless you insist on something German or Italian.”

“Spanish is fine. I would be grateful.”

“Very good,” she said, pleased to have ended our interview on an efficacious note.

 

Count Guzmán made me recount the whole episode for the condesa to hear. I had joined my new teacher and his wife at their royal apartment for the midday meal, as I would join them often for the next several years, before I returned to the small room in the servants’ quarters, one floor above, that I shared with an architecture apprentice from a small town outside Lisbon.

“Well, at least we’ll always know what this boy is thinking,” the condesa laughed. “A far cry from some of the students that Maestro Guzmán has had.”

I wanted to hear about these other students and their illustrious careers. But just then, the count’s daughter entered the room.

She was wearing a simple white sheath that bunched just under her breasts, and an open neckline that revealed perfect rosy skin. Her auburn hair was swept away from her forehead and dropped to the sides in long sausage curls.

“Don’t you stand when a lady enters the room?” she asked. I stumbled to my feet and waited for some acknowledgment. She prolonged my discomfort by studying me from head to foot.

“You looked much taller sitting down,” she said.

“Isabel,” her mother chided, and nodded at me to return to my seat. “Come hear this funny story.” And I had to repeat it all over again: my insipid conversation with royalty, and my tactless mention of family sorrows, which had ended miraculously with the offer of a cello.

Count Guzmán’s daughter feigned huffiness. “We’ve had family tragedies, haven’t we? If I’d known it was so easy to get a royal instrument, I would have cried to the Queen Mother myself.”

The count humored his daughter with a smile, the dark skin around his sunken eyes crinkling. Except for his impairment, he was a handsome man, clean-shaven, with a sharp jaw and a fine wardrobe that his wife and daughter fussed over, just as they took turns satisfying all his needs.

“I’ve played for the royal family at least two hundred times. Haven’t I, Papá? I mean, really . . .”

The count wiped his mouth with his napkin and then set it aside, raising his palm, commanding full attention before he spoke. Isabel stopped talking. The condesa set down her fork. I had just loaded a toolarge bite into my mouth and it took me a while to finish chewing, which evidently he could hear. Giving up, I swallowed hard, and winced at the knot of food caught in my throat.

“Now seriously, Feliu,” he said. “About the Queen Mother. You were lucky today. But be careful. In this palace, she is the one to impress. She loves music, and she loves her musicians, and she loves her private chamber-music parties. But don’t make any mistakes.”

I nodded and swallowed again, my throat still aching slightly.

“If she asks you your favorite cellist, the answer is Boccherini. He was court composer a century ago, but she acts as if it were yesterday. If she asks you what foreign language you are learning, the answer is French.”

“That’s true,” I started to say, my mouth empty at last. “French and English, and a little German—”

“The answer is French,” he repeated. “Now, what else?” He tilted his face towards the condesa’s. She didn’t answer, but he nodded tersely as if she had.

“If she asks you about the weather outside, fine,” he continued. “But if she asks you about the temperature inside, play dumb. Every winter, there is some disagreement about whether the palace is too cold.”

“Every winter for the last three years,” Isabel interjected.

“What happened three years ago?” I asked. The count, the condesa, and their daughter all stared at me.

Of course. The royal wedding.

“All the members of the royal family have their own apartments, obviously,” the count continued, and I nodded again, because I had heard it was so, and I had puzzled over the idea of a young man sleeping in a bedroom far from his young wife.

“And likewise,” he said, “each has his own friends. And the friends of one are not necessarily the friends of the others, if you understand me. So be careful what you say, and to whom; or better yet, say nothing at all.”

The condesa smiled heartily and lifted her glass for a toast. “Here’s to the luck of being a musician—someone who does not need to speak, and so may live a long and happy life!”

Isabel lifted her goblet in front of her nose, so that her face was mostly hidden. But from the side, I saw her clowning, her lips puckered and her nostrils flared. She noticed me noticing, and made a show of becoming sober again, as if she’d only been fighting a sneeze.

Setting my glass back down I asked, “But why do I need to impress the Queen Mother most? Doesn’t the King care about music?”

At this, Isabel guffawed, a spray of wine leaked from the condesa’s mouth, and even the count chuckled tenderly, reaching out with fumbling hands to offer his own napkin.

“The King cares about polo,” Isabel said.

“He doesn’t go to the opera?”

“He goes, but not for the music. The problem is that he doesn’t always come back.”

The count’s fond smile faded again. “You see why my not-so-young daughter hasn’t married yet? She always takes things just one step too far.”

Isabel looked down at her lap. I persevered: “And the Queen?”

This time, Isabel knew better than to speak. Finally the condesa, her chin wiped and her calm restored, answered me. “She does love music, actually. She hosted her own private concerts before Alfonsito, Jaime, and Beatriz were born. But three children in three years—I suppose she’s tired. And even so, she hasn’t done what they brought her from England to do.”

The count cleared his throat, and for a second time conversation stopped. When it resumed, the subjects were dull and safe: “How are your accommodations? Have you written a letter to your mother yet?”—leaving my mind to continue mulling what had been left unsaid.

I was not too provincial and slow-witted to know what the condesa had meant, about the unfinished duties of Queen Victoria Eugenia—Ena for short. Her firstborn, Alfonsito, was a hemophiliac who had nearly died at his own circumcision. No one was supposed to talk about it, but it was hard to ignore the fact that he lived in his own corner of the palace, tended by nurses and doctors, rarely seen. Something also seemed wrong with one-year-old Jaime, who did not babble or turn his head at the sound of a clap. At least the infant Beatriz seemed healthy enough.

As for Queen Ena herself, she was said to carry herself as gloomily as had her grandmother and namesake. Though only twenty-one, she had a heavy weight on her shoulders. Bourbon heirs had always been scarce—King Alfonso himself had been born just months after his father had died—and the quest for healthy male children had become a national preoccupation.

Toward the meal’s end, a footman came to the door and the count excused himself. Changing the subject, the condesa asked, “Your roommate, Rodrigo—is he a good match for you?”

“He says he spends most of his time traveling between Madrid, Lisbon and Paris. I suppose that means I’ll have more privacy for practicing.”

“How convenient.”

I nodded, but I was still thinking about the royal family. “May I ask you one more question?”

The condesa leaned forward, eager to indulge in gossip before her husband returned.

“Do you like Queen Ena?”

“It’s not our place to like or dislike,” Isabel recited.

The condesa smiled at her daughter gently, then turned back to me. “Even if it were our place, and she were not our Royal Majesty, and she spoke our Castilian tongue with greater ease, I’d have to say . . . we simply don’t know her. That’s the problem. No one does.”

Pescado frito, Isabel mouthed silently to me, forcing me to focus on her lips.

Taking my leave of them both after dinner, I waited until the condesa had turned away. I took Isabel’s hand, shook it awkwardly, and said under my breath: “The Queen likes fried fish?”

“Frío. The Queen is a cold fish, you imbecile.” But she winked at me before closing the door.

 

My new cello was lustrously varnished, the color of amber. Its sound, however, was somewhat thin and brittle. “It must warm up,” the luthier explained. “Every time you play it, you’ll be vibrating the wood, changing its sound, helping it to mature like a fine wine.” All the same, I was glad to have one familiar and constant thing: my bow.

I had lessons every day with the count in both cello and piano, as well as music theory. Unlike Alberto, a seasoned cellist who rarely played, Count Guzmán was a well-rounded dabbler who could pick up any instrument and play it competently, if not expertly. He had no stifled ambitions or regrets. Even his near-blindness, which had developed slowly over the last decade, didn’t seem to dampen his spirits. He could still make out the occasional note or key signature on a page by holding it a centimeter in front of his brown eyes and moving it around slightly. On rare occasions, I saw him study a person or a painting in the same way, putting his face directly up to it and moving back and forth in small, irregular circles, like an insect pollinating a flower.

Most of the time, however, the count relied on his memory and his ears. That was his one regret, he told me cheerfully: that his sense of hearing hadn’t become more acute as his vision failed. Wasn’t that the expected compensation?

But no, he hurried to reassure me, not wanting me to think him morose. The true compensation was his family. Isabel and the condesa doted on him more every year, just as he needed them more every year. In a royal setting, this kind of intimate servitude was nothing strange—anyone of any rank had someone following after him, refilling his glass or pressing napkins into his lap, or bowing to his commands. “And if you think a blind man—or a king—is the only person who needs a retinue,” the count told me pointedly, reading my thoughts, “then you are only beginning to understand the musician’s life. A musician relies on people of all kinds: patrons, publishers, the audience. If you’ve brought any notions from Catalonia about the artist being an independent soul, leave them at the gate—they’re rubbish.”

Count Guzmán toyed with composition, but most of all he loved to teach. He had tutored many court musicians and even King Alfonso XIII, from the time the boy King was old enough to sit at a piano bench. The scores the count had used with royals and court prodigies were still marked from those long-ago lessons.

“That’s where His Majesty would always stumble; counting was not his strength,” the count would say nostalgically, listening to me play. “He couldn’t wait to quit lessons.” Or, “The Queen Mother let me help her with this piece. The fortes and pianos are all circled to remind her; she had a way of making every measure sound the same.”

Had he ever taught the young Queen? Did she play? The count shook his head once, without clarification. Given the little that anyone would tell me, I imagined that if she did play piano, she would play quietly, timidly, without passion. On her wedding day three years earlier, a dramatic attempt had been made on her life. Everyone had marveled that the new Queen had shown no emotion at all, but continued to wave to the frenzied crowds from the palace balcony, her pale blue eyes blank as cornflowers. If she had sobbed, the gossips said, the people would have loved her more. But what did they know? Volume wasn’t everything. Barcelona’s streets had taught me that.

“Here is something different,” the count interrupted my thoughts, extracting a worn sheet of piano music and running his fingers over its wrinkles. “Don’t tell me—I recognize the paper. This is the Liszt piano concerto I kept from my last lesson with one of my best students. It was—what? Seven years ago. He never stayed anywhere for long. Anyway, this piece opens with some grueling hand positions. It’s not for you, not this one.”

“Why is it so . . . creased?”

“That’s where he stomped on it.”

“Because he couldn’t play it?”

I enjoyed the idea that even the count’s best student couldn’t play everything.

But he corrected me. “Oh no, he could play it. I think he was upset that he hadn’t thought to write it.”

 

Youthful brilliance didn’t intimidate the count; nothing did. Unlike Alberto, he had a method for everything—unwavering steps he expected students to follow. He didn’t spend much time marveling at my lack of formal training. In his experience, most students arrived in poor shape, their training often worse than no music education at all. He set about scrubbing me blank in order to begin our relationship fresh. It was invigorating at first, as any good scrubbing can be, until the flesh becomes raw.

Isabel frequently observed our lessons, as ready as her father to point out my failings.

“Solo, he plays like an angel,” she announced one day after I’d played, with the count accompanying on piano. We were in the music room attached to the count’s palace apartment, the tall doors drawn closed, the warm air thick with the smell of cut flowers.

“But in duet, or ensemble”—she turned her head dramatically—“it’s not his fault, I know. Somehow he is . . . stunted is the word that comes to mind.”

I sat up straighter in my chair and tried to look unconcerned.

“Isabel is right,” the count said. “You’re talented. But you have played alone for too long. Inconsistent tempi, unpredictable dynamic shifts, insufficient communication. They all point to the same thing. You have not learned to adjust to other musicians playing with you.”

He rubbed his hand back and forth along his cheeks, his fingertips absentmindedly massaging the barest shadow of new stubble. “What I should do, really, is take him back to the beginning; just the cello, to start—there are problems even there. Best to delay any kind of ensemble work.”

Isabel’s mouth dropped. “That’s the opposite of what I meant! We’re playing together in less than two weeks, in the royal salon. He needs more duet practice, not less. I’m not an accompanist for hire; he’d best learn to play as equals, and soon.”

A maid entered to serve us hot chocolate. I welcomed the interruption and I knew the count would, too; he loved sweets almost as much as he disliked seeing his grown daughter upset. But Isabel continued her protest over the maid’s beating of the whisk within the spouted silver pot. There was something artificial in her tirade, but I didn’t yet recognize it for what it was: the invented drama of a palace-dwelling courtier’s life, neither personal nor truly passionate. And yet my own passions felt inflamed, in response. I would have listened to hours of abuse, if only to watch her chest heave and her fists curl.

Finally the count stepped in. “She is trying to say that a duet is like dancing. You can’t step on each other’s toes. De acuerdo?” He paused for his daughter’s agreement. She shrugged, then opened her mouth, ready to lecture me again.

But he preempted her. “Feliu, have you ever ridden a horse?”

“A mule,” I said quickly. “I’ve ridden a mule.”

Isabel groaned.

“A mule,” the count repeated thoughtfully. “No, I don’t think a mule moves as gracefully with its rider. That won’t help here.”

Finally he said, “I’m not a poet. What I am trying to describe is not just cooperation, but two voices becoming one; not suddenly, but in dynamic stages. Do you understand?”

“Yes, I think so.”

After a few sullen minutes, the maid came and cleared the cups. I stared forlornly at Isabel. Even with a thin mustache of chocolate above her lip, she was lovely. Isabel caught me looking and brushed the back of her hand against her face. Then she smiled—finally, one smile! It made me happy and dizzy, all at once.

“I will teach Feliu,” she announced suddenly. “Let me have him for a week, and I promise our duet will not sound the same.”

“If you think it will help him. And if it will please you,” the count said.

“It will please me. But you may not interfere. No one must bother us. This is a matter for artists to resolve privately.”

The count tilted his head to one side, the dark orbs of his unseeing eyes fixed on me with what, in earlier days, might have been a puzzled glance. Then he screwed up his face in mock horror. “You’re not going to torture him, I hope?”

“Oh, Papá.”

Hearing her tone soften, he exhaled, dropping the subject. He patted his vest pocket. “I almost forgot—another addition to our small royal recital! A former student will be in Madrid that day. He is looking forward to joining us and hearing you both play.”

Isabel, a moment earlier haughty with confidence, now blanched. “Which student?”

“If you must have secrets, then so should I,” he laughed. “I think I will leave you guessing.”

But we both knew the name of the count’s most famous student, the one whom everyone still talked about all these years later, the one who had stomped on Liszt. It had to be Al-Cerraz.

 

The next day, I entered the count’s private music room. Before we exchanged greetings, I heard Isabel turn the lock. I immediately pulled a chair into place, next to the piano, and began tightening my bow.

“No,” she said, and gestured to a brocaded divan at the other end of the room. “Sit down. We barely know each other. Tell me about your village. Tell me about your family.”

I was wary, but I began to talk, and soon I was telling her everything—about living in Barcelona with Alberto and my mother, about the coast near our home where we’d gone on vacations so long ago, about the strange divide, between people who knew and loved me and thought my music making was nothing unusual, and strangers who seemed to expect great things of me—what exactly, I did not know. I told her I wasn’t yet sure where I stood in the world, or what might happen next.

She responded with her own confession. “I’ve never been afraid of being the world’s worst pianist, or the world’s best. It’s the middle ground I dread.”

“Yes,” I said, hoping she would continue.

“These days, every woman in the world plays. I recently heard one of Madrid’s most eligible bachelors say he plans to marry the first woman he meets who says that she has never touched a piano.”

We both laughed, and she laid a hand, gently, on top of mine. I pressed my hand harder into the satiny surface of the divan, so she wouldn’t notice I had developed a slight, discomfiting shake. I’d never spent even a minute alone with a young woman behind a closed door. I put a second hand on top of hers, and we sat that way, stiffly, for several more minutes, until I pushed myself to my feet.

“I care for you enough that I would hate to embarrass you,” I said.

“You were thinking of embarrassing me?” Isabel replied with a peculiar eagerness.

“By playing poorly, I mean. In front of the Queen Mother. At our recital.”

“Oh.” Her shoulders slumped.

Recovering, she said, “You must think you’re lucky to have found your way to the palace. But the truth is, the court is always desperate for fresh blood. My parents are happy with their routines, but really, a young person doesn’t belong here.” She smiled coyly. “I see that look. You’re probably thinking I don’t look so young.”

I resisted the urge to take a step back. “No. I was thinking that you’re very pretty. Especially with your hair that way.”

This comment pleased her. Shoulders lifted, she crossed the room to the piano, her curls bouncing. Then she sat down and played the first measures of the piece we were working on, a Schumann fantasy for cello and piano. It was a romantic piece—overromantic, I thought, requiring lots of hand-flopping excess, though there were a few nice passages where the piano part settled down and followed the cello.

At one point, mid-measure, Isabel stopped and turned. “Schumann was ten years older than Clara when they married, against her father’s wishes. I don’t think age differences matter, do you?”

My mind was still engaged with the music. I said, “I don’t know. I suppose it matters less when the man is older. A middle-aged woman with a young man would seem strange.”

Isabel turned back to the piano. But over her shoulder she said, “Clara may have been younger, but she often said that Schumann reminded her of a little boy.”

We started again, but after a few minutes Isabel pushed herself up and strode away from the bench. She paced a few times behind me. I could hear the spiccato rhythm of her little hard-soled shoes against the parquet floor.

I’d been too nervous to warm up properly when we’d started; even now, my fingers felt a little slow. So I began with scales, while I waited for Isabel to return to the piano. Instead, she approached from behind my chair. I could feel her standing back there. After two scales, I stopped.

“No, go ahead,” she said, and I felt a warm tingle on the back of my neck. Even after she stopped speaking, I was sure I could feel her breath. I closed my eyes and resumed playing.

“You deal well with distractions,” she said.

I dug my bow into the string a little fiercely, then found my rhythm again. “When everything is just right, I don’t notice the outside world at all.”

“Really,” she said, and without looking, I could picture the upturned corners of her lips. “Nothing bothers you.”

“When everything is right. This wouldn’t count—I’m just playing scales.”

“Then play something you love.”

“All right.” And I started the short, sprightly gigue from Bach’s first unaccompanied cello suite.

“Solo again—an interesting choice. Not everything can be done solo, you know,” she said. And I felt her fingertips on my shoulders.

I was grateful I had picked a fast-moving piece. My back muscles, already tense as I executed the gigue’s short bow strokes, tightened further in response to the downward motion of Isabel’s hands. Near the bottom of my rib cage, her hands crept forward.

I yelped and jumped to my feet. “This isn’t a good idea!” Trying to sound calmer, I continued, “You know, we really should practice our duet. Tomorrow will be better. We can make up for lost time.” I stumbled toward the door, holding my cello before me, to hide the physical effect her attentions had produced.

“This isn’t lost time, Feliu,” she said. But I was already out the door.

 

Afternoons with the count at his home—and that week, alone with his daughter—were not the only part of my education in Madrid. Count Guzmán and the Queen Mother, who was sponsoring my stay, both believed that a court musician should be immersed in Spain’s glories: her arts, her architecture, her history, and even her modern-day government. Mamá, who had been worried about my nonmusical education, would be pleased.

Most mornings after my solo cello practice time, I was dispatched on assignment, to roam, research, and report. I was sent to the Cortes, Spain’s parliament, to observe speeches, and to the national library, to read about famous people and events. I visited the mausoleum of King Alfonso XII, the present King’s father, who had reigned for only ten years. In the Sala árabe, at the Army Museum, I saw the sword of Boabdil, the last Muslim ruler of Granada, who surrendered that stronghold in 1492. There was much to learn, though most of it seemed to concern rulers and wars. Enrique would have liked Madrid, I thought to myself. As for me, I wasn’t sure.

Barcelona had seemed like a city pushing toward the future. Madrid—dustier, dowdier, hardly a capital—seemed mired in the past. Women coiled their hair in fancier chignons and wore more lace; some men still wore antiquated capes. There was no place in Madrid as open and free as Barcelona’s Ramblas. There were public places, certainly, like the Parque del Buen Retiro, where one could rent a rowboat and paddle among the ducks. But the count and his wife warned me to stay away from the lower classes’ haunts. They escorted me around the city in a carriage, pointing out the hazards: that’s where young men have been knived; that’s where a lady never goes; there’s the bridge that suicides use—the river beneath it so shallow that the bodies often beached themselves in plain view.

In Barcelona, bombs exploded and dead bodies washed up along the seacoast, yet people there didn’t seem half as fearful as the Madrileños. I suppose that in the capital, where the power of the throne resided, people sensed there was more to lose. The fear drove people inside—entertainment was a private affair, lessons were learned in museums instead of on the streets, dramas were played out in private salons. Though café culture thrived in Madrid as well, it seemed less vital.

My favorite mornings were when I was sent to the Museo del Prado, the grand, century-old art museum. There, alone, I would behold the paintings of Velázquez, El Greco, and Goya. Even here the paintings featured battle scenes—like Goya’s painting of Madrid’s defenders being executed by Napoleon’s troops. From the museum I would hurry directly to the palace, trying to hold the images in my mind so that I could discuss the Spanish Masters with my tutor.

“What did the King and Queen look like?” he quizzed me over the midday comida after the morning I first viewed the Prado’s most famous painting, Velázquez’s Las MeNiñas. In my mind’s eye, I can still see the canvas edge that runs along the left side of the painting, so that the viewer feels he is peering from behind, glimpsing something more real and candid than a stuffy palace portrait. At the center, framed by deep shadow, is a blond girl, the Infanta Margarita, surrounded by two playmates, two dwarves, and a dog. The King and Queen, who were sitting for a portrait when Velázquez decided to capture the scene, are not in the foreground at all, but are shown only in the hazy background, reflected in a mirror. More prominent than the royal couple is a man off to the left side, who is eyeing the front of the canvas, which the viewer cannot see.

“The King and Queen were small and blurry, I think,” I said.

“And Velázquez?”

“Where was he?”

“He was the painter, of course. The man on the left, just next to the children.”

“He painted himself into the picture? More prominent than the King?”

“He did,” the count laughed. “What do you think of that? The artist more prominent than his intended subjects—do you think that is appropriate?”

I had learned from observing Isabel and the condesa that the count admired strong opinions—to a point. I’d always been opinionated, at least as far as the cello was concerned, but was only just learning to feign verbal confidence on other topics.

“I don’t believe it’s right. The painter, musician—artist of any sort—should not project himself into the work so arrogantly. He should not destroy the integrity of what he is painting, or what he is playing. The artist is only a servant.”

The count nodded, but did not react to my pronouncement.

“And anyway,” I said, “I’m sure the King was angry.”

“Which King?” Count Guzmán asked.

“The one in the picture.”

“But what is his name?”

“Not Carlos. Felipe . . . the Third?”

“Almost. Felipe the Fourth. You couldn’t remember. But you can remember the name of Velázquez.”

“Of course! He is famous.”

“More famous than a king? Only because he painted himself into the picture?”

“No. He’s famous for many paintings, of many places and people, not just the King or Queen.”

“I think so,” the count said at last. “There was a time when all art was for royalty only, or the Church; all serious music played for them, all paintings made of them. Even Velázquez would have had a hard time imagining it otherwise. But that time is past. I can imagine one day when there won’t be a king at all, when a painter, or a writer or a cellist”—here he winked—“will be as powerful as a king.”

It was as close as Guzmán ever came to admitting Republican or anti-monarchical leanings. I glanced around the room, searching furtively for eavesdroppers.

“But I thought you said a musician is not independent.”

The count smiled. “True—and I meant it. Even someone who is powerful is dependent, perhaps even more so. Whenever we need support and acceptance, we are dependent.

“Anyway,” he continued, “this question of where the artist stands in relation to his subject, of how much he adds of himself, whether he tries to affect the world he is portraying, how wildly he interprets—that is something to ponder. I think you are both behind and ahead of your time, Feliu—a classicist with modern hands.”

I loved the way the count could relate everything to music, and make me feel as if Spain’s masterpieces had a personal message for me. I basked in his words, and would have preferred to end our conversation about art there, before I muddled things with another ignorant comment. But then he asked about one more work: the double portrait of the Maja, the Duchess of Alba.

I knew from my museum visit that Goya had painted the duchess twice, in the exact same position, reclining provocatively—one clothed, one nude. When the count pressed me, I had no trouble recalling the latter painting, in embarrassing detail: the way the Maja’s pale torso gleamed and her small toes pointed, the orangelike roundness of her breasts. By the time I’d spent several minutes describing the painting, I realized the count was doing more than teaching me. He was using me as his eyes, as an extension of something he had lost. I didn’t mind it too much. But I made note of the feeling—the sense of being appropriated—which, in my courtly duties, would become increasingly familiar.

“It’s rumored that they slept together,” the count said, continuing to relish this day’s discussion. “In the nude, she wears a ring that says ‘Goya.’ More of the artist inserting himself into the picture.”

He paused, and belatedly I realized he was waiting for me to laugh. When I didn’t, he said, “Forgive my play on words.”

“The lesson from Goya?” I asked, to change the subject.

“There are hundreds of lessons, I’m sure. But when you go back, notice how poorly the nude’s face is painted. Flat and yellow. So much less realistic than the clothed Maja portrait. This is not a statement against women, Feliu, but it may be a caution for men. Even an artist seems to have a hard time seeing well when a woman is undressed. Remember that.”

“Yes, I promise,” I said, grateful that the day’s lessons finally could turn to grammar.

 

That afternoon I had my second session with Isabel. She opened the salon door wearing the same simple white dress she’d worn the first time I’d met her, but this time cinched with a bright red sash. My throat tightened.

“Have you thought about me?” she asked.

I thought about the hours I’d lain awake the night before, replaying the day’s encounter, regretting my shyness. “You look like the Maja,” I whispered.

“Who?”

“The Duchess of Alba.”

Isabel smiled slyly. Leading me to the divan, she said, “My father has been sending you to the Prado. Do you mean the painting of the duchess standing, with the little white dog?”

“No, the one where she is leaning back. On a narrow bed. Against some pillows.”

“Like this?” She tucked her feet behind her and reclined.

“With her arms up, I think. Hands over her head.”

Her smile widened as she tucked her hands behind her hair. The neck of her dress gaped, and I could glimpse the swell of one breast. “Was the Maja beautiful?” she asked.

“She had . . . small feet.”

“Do you like feet, Feliu?”

“Not particularly,” I said, voice cracking.

Isabel stood suddenly, flashing a satisfied grin, and strolled to the piano. “Ready to begin?”

We played for an hour. When passion for the music stirred my soul, when the tunnel of light began to blur my vision, I forced myself to focus on Isabel, studying her body for cues—the lift of her chin, the tension in her shoulders, the arch of her back, the sound of a note being extended, waiting. I’d never felt more alert to another’s reactions and desires—even if the expression on my face, and in my playing, had all the sophistication of an obedient mastiff awaiting its reward.

After we’d finished playing, Isabel returned to the divan and resumed the Maja pose, gesturing to the floor. I looked around my feet to see what she had dropped. She gestured again, less patiently, until I understood and dropped to one knee in front of her. I lifted my left hand toward her bosom but stopped short until Isabel arched her back, moving herself closer to me, inviting me to trace her loose neckline with one finger.

“They’re rough,” she said, closing her eyes.

I responded with a quizzical grunt.

“Your fingers.”

“Calluses,” I mumbled, trying to breathe more slowly. “From pressing on the strings.”

She laughed at the animal desperation in my voice. That set me back. But then she lifted the shiny white dress above her knees, and I moved closer.

“So this is what you meant by making up for lost time,” she said.

“So this is what you meant by private lessons,” I replied, trying to mimic her confidence.

“What if I did?”

I was grateful for everything she knew, and everything she would allow. Neither of us spoke again for several minutes, until her breathing was as ragged as mine.

“The other hand,” she moaned.

“What?” I said, reaching for her hands.

“Not mine. Yours,” she said impatiently. “Use your right hand.”

And with her sighs, squirms, and own fingers guiding me, I switched hands and traveled as far as I dared, under layers of silk and cotton, into places I had not known existed.

At one point, she began to moan instructions, but I didn’t comprehend—I didn’t want to comprehend—until finally, she switched to musical Italian and barked a command I knew better than to ignore: “Adagio!”

Finally, she shivered and her knees clamped tightly, trapping my arm for a moment. I thought I had hurt her, or done something wrong, but her dreamy expression reassured me, and she pulled me up and onto the divan, until I was on top of her.

As soon as my weight was atop her, everything was over. My pleasure lasted only seconds before it was washed away by a flood of embarrassment. I started to roll away and pull my pants together, but she pulled me back.

“Like everything, it takes practice,” she said.

“It should last longer.”

“Fast is fine once, but now for the slower part. Sonata form.”

“So this is still part of the music lesson.”

“What did my father say?”

“Oh, please, don’t mention your father,” I groaned, and I tugged at her dress, trying to cover her exposed breasts, which really did look like the Duchess of Alba’s, only softer. But Isabel shrugged off my attempts to clothe her.

“‘Not just cooperation, but two voices becoming one.’ That is what he said. That is what I am supposed to teach you.”

I started to laugh, but her face was serious. “If you don’t know when to wait, when to hurry, how to please, you won’t be a good lover or a good musician.”

“Do you care for me, Isabel?”

She rolled her eyes. “Am I not helping you?”

No matter how I tried to elicit a profession of affection she remained disarmingly lighthearted about the whole affair. Finally I said simply, “Can we crescendo again—this time, more slowly?” At last I had found the words that lifted her smile and unlocked her legs.

 

“I haven’t heard much music coming from the salon,” Count Guzmán said at dinner the next day. “Is my daughter not keeping her end of the bargain?”

I swallowed hard and said, “She is.”

At that moment, Isabel spoke up—“More, please”—and gestured for her mother to pass her the tureen of rice.

“Your appetite certainly has increased,” the condesa said warmly.

“Has it?” Isabel said, shoveling large spoonfuls onto her plate.

 

That afternoon, we were already on the divan together—Isabel’s dress askew; all my clothes except for my black socks in a pile at my feet—when the tall salon doors opened. We sat bolt upright and Isabel called out brightly: “We were just chatting on the divan, Papá, but we’re ready to play now.”

He turned slowly to face us, smiling, no sign of suspicion in his shadow-circled eyes.

“You’re breaking your promise,” Isabel said teasingly, “but I suppose you can stay to listen—just this once.” She skipped across the room to the piano, giving her father a wide berth. Her scent was still in my nose, a flood of complex feminine smells that I hoped wouldn’t carry his way. I reached down toward my pants, but realized I’d make too much noise trying to put them on. I looked up and saw Isabel glaring at me, gesturing frantically that I should come and take my seat.

The count declined his daughter’s offer of a chair and positioned himself several steps away from us both, the third point in our musical triangle, with his hands clasped behind his back. As we played through the first part of our recital piece, I began to breathe easier, astonished to be surviving this close brush with exposure. Then out of the corner of my eye, I saw the count’s face tilt to one side. He lifted a finger tentatively, then lowered it; lifted it again and said, “It’s good work. Very fine. But I hear a buzzing—there, against the cello.”

Isabel and I stopped playing.

“No,” the count said. “Keep going. Don’t let it interrupt.”

Now I heard it, too—a faint vibrating sound.

The count took one step closer.

“It must be a button,” he said, while I continued to bow. That was a common problem: a jacket or shirt button pressing against the cello’s wooden back.

The count twitched and stepped closer again. “Feliu—adjust that.”

I was sweating now. There was nothing to adjust. I wasn’t wearing any shirt—or pants. Or undergarments either.

“We’ll skip the repeat,” Isabel said over our playing as we neared the end of the piece.

“Don’t,” the count ordered, visibly annoyed by the sound. Perhaps his hearing was more acute than ours, after all. Or perhaps his fatherly instinct had detected something additionally amiss, compounding the aural imperfection.

He was at my shoulder now, bending forward slightly to bring his eye close to where my shirt should be, even as I bowed, my right elbow on a collision course with his torso.

“We’re almost done, Papá,” Isabel said, looking over her shoulder as she rushed through the repeat.

It was maddening—nothing was touching the cello, and yet the buzzing was still there. We came to a passage where Isabel played several chords while I rested.

“Perhaps it’s the cello itself,” I said, leaning forward quickly, hand over the bridge. Then I remembered the garters holding up my socks—the only clothed part of me. I reached down, found the small metal clasp that secured the left garter, and twisted it away from the cello rib. The buzzing stopped.

“There,” I said quickly, “just a loose tuner at the bridge. Sorry.” And I rejoined Isabel, only a measure late.

The count commented little on our performance, only smiled and wished us continued good luck, then took his leave. Isabel was giddy over the close call, the danger of discovery, the hilarity of my nakedness. She was even more frisky and eager to take our chances on the divan again.

I wasn’t as gleeful. We seemed to have gotten away with it, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that the count had known—that whether or not he had seen me, he had seen through me. I already had the sense that Isabel was toying with me, that her game would be a short one, and that I might be indulging one kind of pleasure while sacrificing another: the gratification of a mature and long-lasting mentorship with her father.

Still, our lovemaking really had made me more aware and more accommodating as a musician. I learned to follow Isabel, to chase her, to turn away, to draw her to me. I knew when to hurry and when to delay, how to read pleasure in the movements of her face and fingers, how to satisfy her.

After one session on the divan, I lifted my head from her heart and said, “You were right about learning this way. I promise never to play selfishly again.”

She laughed, gasping for air beneath my weight. “Don’t feel bad. Some things are difficult to learn, or to teach.”

“And who taught you?” I regretted the words as soon as they escaped.

“Taught me . . . ?”

“Piano duets, I mean. Not the other thing.”

“Don’t worry, Feliu,” she said, pushing herself up, and rearranging her curls around her shoulders. “I’m not shy. It was one of my father’s students who taught me both things. His most celebrated student, in fact—”

“Don’t tell me. I think I’ve heard of this famous student more than enough already.”

“He convinced me that a virgin can understand music only so well. He did the favor for me, and I am doing it for you.”

“Favor?”

“Certainly.”

I was standing already, pulling on my clothes. “I’m sorry I asked.”

“Why are you upset? You didn’t think I’d never been with another man, did you?”

“Not that.” I balanced on one foot, trying to push the other foot into my shoe without bothering to loosen the laces. “But I don’t like to be compared. And I didn’t realize this was merely an exercise for you.”

“What’s wrong with exercises?”

“I suppose it depends on how many people you exercise with.”

“What are you implying?”

I grabbed my cello case and bow tube. “If this is how you practice for a duet, I’d hate to see how you prepare for a symphony.”

Before she could respond, I slipped out of the music room and closed the door. I heard the sharp thud of flying objects on the other side, followed by her muffled rejoinder. “You’re still a child, Feliu!”

Something heavier hit the door, making it tremble.

“Worse than that, you’re still a soloist!”