Authors: Andromeda Romano-Lax
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 every-thing—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.