Felisberto Hernandez - Piano Stories

“What’s this? A doll head? A dog? A chicken?”

I heard her answer:

“No, it’s one of those yellow flowers that. .”

He interrupted her:

“Haven’t I told you not to bring anything in with you?”

The girl said: “Idiot!”

“What? Who are you?”

“I’m Julia,” a firm voice said.

“Don’t ever bring anything in your hands,” my friend answered feebly.

Returning to the counter, he said to me:

“I like to know there’s a yellow flower somewhere in the dark.”

Just then I felt something graze my jacket. I immediately thought of the gloves, as if they could get up and walk, but also of a person, and said to my friend:

“Someone just went by.”

“Impossible! All in your mind! Everyone imagines things in the tunnel.”

And, when we least expected it, we heard a powerful wind blow. He shouted:

“What’s that?”

Curiously, we heard the wind but did not feel it on our hands or faces, and Alexander said:

“It’s a machine that imitates the sound of the wind. I borrowed it from a prop man in a theater.”

“Fine,” my friend said, “but it’s not for the hands. .”

He was silent for a minute and then suddenly asked:

“Who turned it on?”

“The first girl — she moved back after you’d touched her.”

“There — you see?” I said. “She was the one who brushed by me.”

That same night, while changing a record, my friend said:

“I enjoyed myself today. I got things mixed up, everything reminded me of something else and I had unexpected memories. As soon as I started to move my body in the dark I felt it was going to bump into something unusual, as if it lived differently in there and my head was ready for some important insight. And suddenly, when I turned my body from an object to touch a face, I realized who had swindled me in a business deal.”

I went to my room and lay in bed thinking of a pair of kid gloves neatly filled out by a woman’s slender hands. I was planning to peel off the gloves as if undressing the hands. But, as I fell asleep, the gloves turned into banana skins.

I must have been asleep for a long while when I felt hands touch my face. I woke up screaming, floated for a minute in the dark and finally realized I’d had a nightmare. My friend came running up the stairs to ask:

“What’s the matter?”

I started to tell him:

“I had this dream. .”

But I caught myself, afraid that if I mentioned the hands he might try to touch my face.

He backed out and I lay there, wide awake. But a few minutes later the door opened softly and I cried out in a failing voice: “Who is it?” — and heard paws pattering down the stairs.

Once more my friend appeared. I told him he had left the door open and a dog had come in. He started down the stairs again.

The following Saturday we were just inside the tunnel when I heard what I thought was a puppy whining for attention. One of the girls began to laugh and we all chimed in. My friend got worked up and started to rage at us, and we immediately broke off. But when he stopped to catch his breath the whining grew louder and we all laughed again, and suddenly he shouted:

“Out of here! Get going! All of you!”

Those of us near him heard him panting — until, in a muffled voice, as if hiding his face in the dark, he added:

“Except Julia.”

I had an urge I could not resist: to stay in the tunnel. My friend waited for everyone to leave. Then, from way off, Julia started to signal him with her flashlight. The light blinked on and off regularly, like a beacon. He went toward her with heavy steps, unaware of me keeping step not far behind him. When I caught up Julia was saying:

“Are you reminded of other faces when you touch mine?”

He lingered over his answer, dragging out each word:

“Wellll. . At the moment I’m reminded of a Viennese woman I knew in Paris.”

“Was she a friend of yours?”

“Her husband was. But one day he was thrown by a wooden horse. .”

“You can’t be serious!”

“Let me explain. He’d always been weak and sickly, and a rich aunt in the provinces wanted him to exercise. She had brought him up. He kept sending her pictures of himself in sports clothes, but all he ever did was read. Soon after he got married he decided to have a picture taken on horseback. He was very proud of himself in his cowboy hat. But it was an old moth-eaten wooden horse and its leg broke, and he fell off and broke an arm.”

Julia let out a short laugh, and he went on:

“So I visited him at home — that was how I met his wife. . At first she had only a playful smile for me. He was surrounded with visitors, with his arm in traction. She brought him some broth, and he said he had lost his appetite since his fracture. All the visitors agreed that fractures did that to you. It sounded to me as if they’d all had fractures: I could see them waving swollen arms and legs in the darkened room, wrapped in white bandages.”

(At that unlikely moment, we heard the puppy whine again, and Julia laughed. I was afraid my friend would go after the puppy and trip over me. But in a minute he went on with his story.)

“When he was able to get up he walked slowly, with his arm in a sling. Seen from behind, with one jacket sleeve on and the other dangling, he was like an organ grinder telling fortunes. He invited me down into the basement to fetch a bottle of his best wine. His wife wouldn’t let him go alone. He led the way, with a candle, scattering spiders as the flame burned through the cobwebs. She was right behind him, and I was behind her. .”

He stopped and Julia asked:

“Did you say that at first she had only a playful smile for you? And later on?”

He started to get annoyed:

“I never said I was the only one she was playful with!”

“You said she was at first.”

“Well, and later on. . nothing changed.”

The puppy whined and Julia said:

“Don’t think it bothers me. But. . you’ve made my cheeks burn.”

I heard the prayer stool being dragged aside, then their steps as they went out and shut the door. I ran to the door and banged on it and kicked it. My friend opened and asked:

“Who is it?”

When he saw it was me he sputtered:

“I don’t want you in my tunnel ever again. . you understand?”

He was going to add something more but instead he turned and left.

That night I caught the bus into town with Alexander and the girls. They rode in front and I in the rear. Not one of them looked back at me, and I felt like a traitor.

A few days later my friend called on me at home. It was late and I had gone to bed. He apologized for getting me up and for his outburst in the tunnel. I soon cheered up, but he still looked worried. And suddenly he said:

“Julia’s father came to see me in the shop today. He won’t have me touching his daughter’s face any more, but he let on that he wouldn’t object to an engagement. I glanced at Julia and she was looking down and scraping polish off a fingernail, and that was when I realized I loved her.”

“Well, then,” I said, “why don’t you marry her?”

“I can’t. She doesn’t want me to touch any more faces in the tunnel.”

He sat leaning his elbows on his knees, and suddenly he hid his face — a tiny lamb’s face, it seemed to me at that moment. I reached out to put a hand on his shoulder and inadvertently touched his curly head. It felt like one of the objects in the tunnel.

A few summers ago I began to suspect I had once been a horse. At nightfall the thought would stir in me like a horse in a barn. As soon as I put my man’s body down to sleep, my horse memory would begin to wander.