The first part went well. And the second sounds amazing so far. All our rehearsing paid off. The audience is silent, and I wipe the sweat from my forehead with my white handkerchief, like my father used to. It has to be white, always, it’s more elegant that way. That was what the great Karl T. said, and whether out of genetics or admiration, Mark T. says the same thing.
Be careful with your heart, these things are hereditary, said Maria, before we said goodbye ten years ago. She said it with tears in her eyes. The poor thing hated to leave, but in my new apartment, even though it was large, we would have been on top of each other. I would ask you to come iron and tidy things up, but now you have money and you don’t want to clean apartments anymore, right? She was quick to say, oh, yes, Mr. Mark, of course I’ll come. Mark, I corrected her with a smile, and she said, sorry, Mark. Maria was so beloved to me, and she still is, she brings back such memories of my father, they lived together for forty years and knew each other inside and out. My father wasn’t easy to live with, he was a strange man, who only lived for music, and no one understood him. I’m not even sure I ever came to understand him myself, in all the years I spent by his side.
When the will was read, I was left without a doubt that he and Maria had understood each other well. It was a will that he had amended a few years earlier, when I had come to Barcelona. So I was also included. If it weren’t for me, he would have left everything to Maria. Since my father had everything paid for, he was able to save every penny he earned, which was a lot. So Maria was able to buy herself an apartment and quit working. And I also bought an apartment, but I didn’t stop working. In fact, that was when I started to get a ton of work, mostly things my father couldn’t do. All of a sudden, I got all kinds of offers, I was traveling all over, like before, but now not to study or perform, but to direct, with the orchestra my father had left orphaned.
When I met Anna I told her about Maria and what my father had left her, and she didn’t understand it. How could you let your father do that, you’re his only son, how could you not care that he left half of his fortune to a maid? Anna’s take on it left me shocked, especially when I saw how strongly she felt about it. Her eyes were flashing with anger as if it were her own father. I took a long, hard look at her, sure that it wasn’t a question of money, because she had plenty. What could it have been, then? I don’t know. What I do know is that what had happened really didn’t bother me; it seemed appropriate to me that Maria should inherit a good part of my father’s money. Well, I would have been upset if I hadn’t gotten anything, sure, I answered Anna, but I have enough with what he left me. It seems like a lot to me. Besides, the most important part of the inheritance was the last name, it suddenly opened up so many doors for me that allowed me to make music, my music.
Anna came into my life about five years ago. I had only seen her once before, at my father’s house on one of the very rare times when I was there. Her presence made a real impact on me, it’s true, but I didn’t say a word to her. And five years ago, I called her for a concert and she showed me how she was capable of playing. She drove me wild, both the way she played and the way she was. When I saw her enter the room where we were rehearsing, her hips swaying and that gaze that was so deep and so dark, I felt lost and I had to make a superhuman effort to concentrate on what I was doing. I think that she could tell, because she seemed amenable. Right then, and from that moment on.
And now I don’t know how to get rid of her. I know that it’s not nice to even think this, but that woman is suffocating me. I feel obliged to ask her to do all the violin solos, and she does play very well, but there are also other violinists that I’d like to try. And she never lets me walk alone, I can’t take two steps without having her at my side. It’s like I’m always dragging along a complicated burden. And every time there are other people around, she comes over to take my hand. All the love, all the tenderness that I wanted to give her in the beginning has vanished. There is none of it left, nothing of those first days in her house, when I would walk her home after rehearsal and she would say, come on in, I won’t bite. But it was a lie, she ate me up, and I liked it, it drove me wild. I don’t know what she did to me, but she had me blinded. And now she’ll come out and play Bach with Teresa, whom she loathes and wants to see fail. What is it with you and Teresa? I asked her one day. Nothing, she answered quickly. Well, you are always attacking her, and she seems like a good person. Then Anna got up suddenly, as if the button on a spring she had inside had been pressed, turning her so terrifying that even I was scared. Don’t be taken in by appearances, she said, pointing to the heavens with that tiny, decisive nose of hers. And I laughed a little, at that point I still found her funny, I still loved her, I still believed her.
Tonight, after the concert, I’m going to tell her that it’s over. I’ve made up my mind.