Authors: Andromeda Romano-Lax
Exposure was inevitable. As the days grew hotter and the air inside the apartment stuffier, I drew my chair closer and closer to the French doors that opened onto Alberto's balcony. By June I was playing on the balcony itself, sweat running down my temples and into the neck of my shirt.
One day I had just finished the climactic, double-stop ending of the first suite when I heard a voice, three stories below.
"
Eso es!
" Alberto shouted up from the street. "That's it! But three measures back, if you will start on an upbow..." He turned at the sound of a horse-drawn cart advancing on him. "Just wait—I'll be right there!" And he bounded out of the way, through our building's black gate, and up the stairs.
As I listened to his advancing steps—his boyish eagerness to reach me, the measured footfalls as the first burst of energy waned, the slowing pace as he neared the top, winded, doubled over, becoming old again—I nearly felt sympathy for him. But I fought it. I thought of the Liceo, the gleaming Hall of Mirrors, the words high on the wall that were like a hand on my shoulder, pushing me toward perfection and success. I steeled myself to be silent, undemonstrative. And yet Alberto was barely through the front door when I found my feet and my voice. I stood in the center of the room, shouting: "Why didn't you tell me?"
Alberto lifted his head to me, laboring to form a puzzled smile as he caught his breath, hands on his knees. Then he stepped sideways and collapsed into a chair, still grinning.
"The Bach suites," he panted. "You've discovered them."
He gestured toward another chair. I stared at it for a few seconds; and then, relenting, backed into it, my arms crossed.
"You're angry with me for not teaching them to you? Well—you weren't ready, that's all. And now you are!"
He flapped a hand toward the kitchen, gesturing for a glass of water. I did not rise. He accepted my rudeness—too easily, it occurred to me, even then. He dropped his hand into his lap. "There's nothing wrong with waiting."
I asked again, "Why didn't you tell me?"
"A novice can't see the patterns. It's like a child who doesn't understand life—who thinks everything is black and white. With Bach, you have to see between the notes. Some people call them études, and without insight, it's true—they're not much more than that. But you're ready." Alberto sat up straighter now, taking a full breath. At last, he met my eyes. His smile faded. "You have something to say to me. Not about Bach, am I right?"
I inhaled deeply. "
Art has no fatherland.
"
He waited.
I tried again. "
Music is the only sensual pleasure—
"
He completed the phrase: "—
upon which vice cannot impose.
Yes, I remember those words, too. But vice
did
impose, did it not?"
"Ramón's hands..."
"And many other scars. Not all so visible. So you finally did go to the Liceo. And you know the whole story."
"Not the whole story."
Alberto gestured firmly for me to stay where I was, sitting in the main parlor. Then he disappeared into the kitchen. I heard a cupboard opening, a glass knocking against wood, a long silence as he drank and finished catching his breath—while I also caught my own, calming myself down, as was his plan.
He returned and took his seat. I waited for his nod before asking, "Did you help that man?"
"I never helped Salvador directly."
"But you knew of his plan?"
"I'd heard whispers of it."
He saw my scowl and countered it with his own raised voice. "Do you think it's easy going to work thinking someone might bomb the place where you're performing? It wasn't the first time we'd heard something might happen. If we stayed home every time, or told every audience, there'd be no concerts or plays in Barcelona. Do you think that's a better solution? There are threats every day here—it's been that way as long as I can remember."
I hadn't thought of it that way. But I didn't want to be convinced of his innocence.
Alberto continued, "If I'd told the Liceo's management, they would have canceled that concert—and many others. At the time, I believed that fear was not a way to live, that life itself should go on." A less charitable expression crept across his face. "I thought music was everything. Does that sound familiar?"
"You were a collaborator," I tried again.
"You will find," he said calmly, "that
collaboration
is an imprecise word. The longer you live, the more you know people from all walks of life—and sometimes their paths intersect yours in unexpected ways. Listen," he added, "I would never hurt anyone on purpose."
"But you
do
feel guilt. You stopped playing."
"I didn't stop because of the bombing, but because of what followed. The main tragedy of my life was personal, not political. All real sorrows are personal sorrows."
He went on to explain how the trial had shamed his daughter, who was nineteen at the time, and ruined her chances of marrying her true love: a young man from an illustrious family of Catalan bankers who could trace their professional heritage back to medieval times. The boy bowed to family pressure and withdrew his marriage offer. In the end, Alberto's daughter settled for a marriage of convenience arranged by second cousins, to an apothecary from Granada.
"She has not forgiven me." Alberto shook his head. "I don't believe that music can actually do bad, but neither am I sure that it can do any good. It didn't prevent the horror of what happened that day. I haven't seen it prevent any injustice since. I did not help Salvador. But I did begin to ask myself—what is the point? And without a point, I have not let myself play.
"But maybe you will find a way to do good with it, Feliu; just as you will find your own way to interpret Bach. Don't you see? Maybe you'll find a way not just to
be
good—the best—but to
do
good."
That night, I had trouble sleeping, thinking of what Alberto had told me, and feeling the residual smolder of some dark emotion. Was I angry because he would not accept blame for his involvement? Did I dare admit to myself that his situation reminded me of my mother and Don Miguel; that even if he hadn't helped Salvador, he hadn't stopped him, either, and that was enough to make me feel sick inside?
Or did I feel resentment that he expected me to do what he could not—to not only be good, but to do good? Perhaps I simply felt fear:
the fear that I might not be able to live up to his final wish for me, much as I wanted to.
I left the bedroom to use the bathroom at the end of the hall, and heard voices in the kitchen.
"A general strike—yes, all right," Alberto was saying. "But it will be more than that. The radicals want one thing, the anarchists another, the Republicans a third. Even my old colleagues are angry with me, because I refuse to join them in taking advantage of the chaos."
The conversation paused, and I started to creep back to the bedroom, trying to avoid the squeakiest floorboards, but then I heard Alberto say, "
Alma.
" I stopped. I'd never heard Alberto use my mother's first name.
"You will have to leave," he said, so softly I had to strain to listen. "Go home, now that you have that option."
"
Gracias a Dios,
" she mumbled.
"There will be problems in the villages, too. But at least there, you'll be among familiar faces."
"Feliu won't want to leave Barcelona."
"But he'll have to," Alberto said. "It's a good time for the audition. Regardless of the outcome, he will understand that we are done. If he passes, it will mean a different teacher, somewhere else. If he fails, he goes home—but at least he'll be safe."
"That's all I've ever wanted for him." Her voice dropped to a whisper.
"I know," he said, and the chair scraped, as if he'd moved closer, to comfort her. "But what about you?"
"Me?"
"What will you be looking for, when this is over?"
I covered my ears, not wanting to hear my mother's breathy voice and Alberto's reassuring masculine grumble. But near my bedroom door, just as I put my hand on the knob, I uncovered them again.
"It's just not the right time," my mother said.
"Will it ever be the right time?"
"Maybe not."
The next day, when we started our lesson, Alberto explained that he was thinking of contacting Don José.
"The sooner the better," I said.
Alberto lifted an eyebrow but said nothing. Then he reached for my stack of scores and tablets, which now stood knee-high.
"You should prepare something. Perhaps a Sibelius theme? And he will want a sonata. I leave the choice to you, but what about Chopin's Sonata in G Minor? The scherzo would demonstrate your bowing."
"Not Chopin."
"Lalo?"
"No."
"Then what do you want to do?"
Finally I said, "Bach's first cello suite. C Major."
"What movement?"
"I'll start at the beginning and play until he stops me."
"You're making this sound like a bullfight. The goal isn't to last until he tosses you out of the ring. It's to play well. Besides, the first suite is the simplest. It doesn't sound like a performance piece."
"It will when I play it."
"Don José might be more impressed with something modern."
"Then he should listen to jazz on a Victrola."
Alberto raised his palms, indicating surrender.
I continued to sit with my cello between my legs, tapping restlessly at the fingerboard with my left hand, baiting him to rebuke me. But he simply waited, and then said, "It's your choice, Feliu."
His pacifism only raised my ire. "Would you like to remind me that your reputation depends on this as well?"
"No, I would not," he said. "And it does not. My reputation depends on my own actions."
"So you have no expectations for me." My lower lip trembled.
"I have tremendous expectations. More than a man should have for a boy who is not his son. But only a few of them have to do with music."
My head felt impossibly heavy, my fingers fat and dull. A moment earlier, I had been testy, but now I felt only depressed. I was too upset to play, and I could not even understand the source of my sudden balefulness.
It was almost a relief when Mamá burst into the room, panting, "The music-shop man has sent his brother to come and take Feliu's cello! We were only a few days late, but he says he doesn't want the weekly payment now, only the balance—or the instrument."
Alberto stepped outside and returned a few minutes later, weary and resigned. "He's closing his shop and leaving the city, because of the rumors. He's collecting on debts and selling his instruments. Perhaps you could trade your bow, Feliu. It's worth more than the cello."
"Not my bow."
"
Está bien.
" Alberto placidly removed the cello from between my legs and put it in its case. The dropping lid reminded me of a coffin. I was seeing my first cello for the last time.
At the school, we waited outside Don José's classroom door, the three of us pressed together on a narrow bench. "They're ending the term early this year," Alberto whispered to my mother. "Vacations, they call it, but it's a week early."
To me he said, "Another few days, and you wouldn't have gotten to play for Don José at all."
Mamá was distracted. According to the newspapers, young men from across our region, men like Percival, might receive military notices any day. In addition, Mamá had received word that Luisa's boyfriend had already sailed for Morocco. My sister was distraught.
A secretary appeared. She ushered us into the room next door where Don José sat, once again surrounded by a half-circle of cello students. Alberto and José embraced, and I heard a murmur of
Mendizábal
go around the room as the students recognized this name, which had meant nothing to me two years earlier.
"Don Mendizáal, honor us." Don José held out his own bow.
Alberto clasped his hands together, studied his feet, and launched into an eloquent refusal. But Don José persevered. "I am doing you a favor today, is it not true? So first do
us
a favor. Play something. It has been too long."
I did not expect my tutor to relent. I'd badgered him the entire time I had known him, yet he 'd never played more than a few instructive measures at a time for me. But now he nodded deeply, pulled up an empty chair, accepted Don José's cello, and sat down to play. No introduction, no apologies, not even the name of the composition. He simply pulled the bow across the strings, and we all leaned forward to listen.
Alberto's playing mirrored his personality: It started slowly but built as he played, gained shape and discipline and volume, sounded noble and certain even when a note fell ever so slightly sharp, until the very end, when it became a whisper: a
pianissimo
ending that spoke of surrender. Mamá's head bobbed along the entire time he played, as if to say,
Yes, this explains everything.
If I had not already recognized that she was in love, that day I could no longer have denied it.
The only technical surprise was Alberto's pronounced breathing. He inhaled and exhaled audibly, filling his lungs at the more demanding moments, and I thought, Breathing, I've never even considered my breathing, and all the hubris of the last months drained out of me. I had underestimated him. I had thought he was a nobody, which made the mild praise and gentle direction he gave me worthless, and so I had underestimated myself. My egotism and insecurity and undeveloped sense of self were inseparable. I don't castigate myself for it. I was young. I had done nothing and been nowhere. I was no prodigy—not a Mozart, not even an El Nene.
The moment the last note faded, Alberto stood and handed back the cello, without glancing at his audience. He had no interest in applause, only duty.
"And now, the student," Don José announced. He gestured toward a lanky boy, who pushed his cello toward me with a dutiful nod. I was relieved the maestro had not asked me to explain my own lack of a cello.
"I did bring my own bow." As I struggled to extract it, the students all stared at the velvet-lined tube with interest, though one boy snickered.