Felisberto Hernandez - Piano Stories

“Wait, I know,” said Alexander. “Additive.”

That night Alexander was perched on the stool, next to me, playing his harmonica, when the teacher came in:

“Go on home, they must be waiting for you.”

“Hey, Miss, you know the pinto’s name? Additive.”

“In the first place, it’s adjective . And in the second place, that’s not a name, it’s a. . an adjective!” the teacher said, after hesitating for a moment.

One afternoon when we got home I was pleased with myself because I’d heard a voice behind a shutter say:

“There goes the teacher with her horse.”

Shortly after leaving me in the barn — Alexander was off that day — the teacher came for me and, unexpectedly — I’d never been so amazed — took me into her bedroom. She tickled me in that unpleasant way of hers and said, “Please don’t start neighing.” Then, right away, for some reason, she left. Alone in the bedroom, I started to wonder, “What does this woman really want of me?” There were jumbled clothes strewn on the chairs and bed. Suddenly I looked up and stared straight at myself, with my poor old forgotten horse head hanging mournfully. The mirror also showed parts of my body: my white and black spots were like more rumpled clothes. But it was my head that struck me most, and I began to raise it, higher and higher. I was so overwhelmed I had to shut my eyes for a moment to remember the self with which I had imagined my horse self before seeing it.

There were other surprises. At the foot of the mirror was the picture that Tomasa’s boyfriend had taken of us standing in the window. And suddenly my legs buckled, as if they had recognized the voice I heard talking outside before I did. I couldn’t make out what “he” was saying, but I caught Tomasa’s answer:

“He’s run away again. Just like he ran away from you. When they went to feed him this morning the barn was as empty as it is now.”

The voices moved away and, as soon as I was alone, all the thoughts I’d been having before came tumbling down on me and I didn’t dare face myself in the mirror. To think a horse could have such impossible dreams! Who would have believed it! It took her a long time to come back. And when she began to tickle me again it was painful. But even more painful to me was her innocence.

One afternoon, a few days later, Alexander was playing the harmonica next to me when he remembered something. He got off his stool and, putting the harmonica away, reached into his pocket and pulled out the picture of Tomasa and me in the window. He held it up to one of my eyes, then to the other, first close up, then — when I didn’t react — a bit farther away, and finally straight ahead, at a distance of about three feet. I sank into my guilty thoughts, bitterly.

One night, absorbed in listening to the river, I started at the sound of Candelaria’s steps, which I hadn’t recognized, and kicked over the pail of water. As she went by, the black woman said:

“It’s all right — your owner’ll be back for you soon.”

The next day Alexander took me swimming in the river. He was on my back, happily riding his warm boat. I felt my heart begin to shrink, and almost at once I heard a whistle that froze my blood. I pricked my ears right and left, like periscopes. Finally “his” voice reached me. “He” was shouting:

“That horse is mine!”

Without a word, Alexander yanked me out of the water and we galloped home. My owner came running right behind us so there was no time to hide me. I was stuck in my body as if I were wearing an oak wardrobe.

The teacher offered to buy me, and “he” said:

“When you have sixty bucks, which is what he cost me, come and get him.”

Alexander removed my head straps and bit, which belonged to him, and the owner put his on me. The teacher went into her bedroom and the last I saw of Alexander the corners of his mouth were bending down at right angles as he burst into tears. My legs were shaking, but “he” lashed me hard across the nose and I started to walk. Only then did I remember that I hadn’t cost him sixty bucks: he’d gotten me in exchange for a junky blue bicycle without tires or a pump. Now he had begun to vent his fury by beating me steadily and as hard as he could. I had to gasp for breath because I was very fat — Alexander had taken such good care of me! But I was also remembering the success that had led to my being welcomed into the teacher’s home and the happiness I had known there, even when it provoked guilty thoughts in me. Now an uncontrollable anger was stirring in my guts. I was very thirsty and I remembered we would soon be crossing a stream under a tree that stuck a dry arm out almost into the middle of the road. It was a moonlit night and from a distance I saw the pebbles in the stream shining like fish scales. Just before reaching the stream I slowed down. He knew what was coming and started to beat me again. For a few seconds I struggled with conflicting impulses: they were like enemies hurriedly sniffing each other over, probing in the dark. Then I aimed straight for the tree with the dry arm sticking out at us. He barely had time to latch on to the branch as I bolted out from under him, and the next moment it snapped and they fell into the water together, rolling over the pebbles and wrestling. I turned and ran back to him just when he was coming out on top, and I managed to trample on him while his body still lay sideways. My hoof slipped on his shoulder, but I got a good bite out of his throat and then a grip on the nape of his neck. I held on with the force of madness and waited without moving. In a moment, after twitching an arm, he also stopped moving. I felt the sour taste of his flesh in my mouth and his beard made my tongue prickle. I had begun to taste blood when I saw the water and the pebbles redden.

I crossed the stream several times, back and forth, not knowing what to do with my freedom. In the end I decided to return to the teacher’s house — but not before going back over my steps one more time to drink some water near the body.

I set out slowly because I was very tired. But my freedom made me fearless. How happy Alexander would be to see me! And what would she say? I used to feel so guilty when Alexander showed me our picture! But wouldn’t I have loved to have it with me now!

Trudging along I reached the house. I was on my way to the barn — but I heard people arguing in Tomasa’s bedroom. I recognized the boyfriend’s voice: he was carrying on about the sixty bucks she wanted to waste on me. I had just begun to cheer up at the thought that now I wouldn’t cost them a cent when I heard him talking about marriage, all steamed up until, finally, beside himself and already halfway out the door, he shouted:

“It’s either the horse or me!”

At first I let my head hang until it rested on her red windowsill. But, a minute later, I decided my life: I’d have to go. I had reached noble heights and didn’t want to breathe an air that would grow dirtier every day. If I stayed I would soon become an undesirable horse: even she would begin to have doubts about us.

I’m not too sure how I got away. But my one big regret at not being a man was not having a pocket so I could take our picture with me.

The day of my first concert I went through strange agonies and may have been granted some unexpected insights into myself. I had gotten up at six in the morning, which was unusual for me because I not only played in a café at night but had trouble falling asleep afterward. Some nights, late as it was when I reached my room — where the small black piano reminded me of a coffin — I couldn’t face going to bed and went out for a walk. I had taken one of those late walks the night before but nevertheless hurried out early in the morning to spend the day shut up in an empty theater — the one reserved for the concert. It was a fairly small theater with a balcony encased in short brass balusters painted white. The aging black piano was already on stage, between red and gold paper walls representing a parlor. A few dusty rays of sunlight shone through holes in the set, and cobwebs billowed in the hot air overhead. I distrusted myself that morning and started going over my program like someone counting his money because he suspects it has been stolen from him during the night, and I soon found out I didn’t have as much as I had thought I did. I had first suspected this some days before, the moment I had given the owners of the theater my word: I had felt strangely hot in the stomach and sensed imminent danger. My reaction had been to sit right down and study. But with several days ahead of me, I had fallen into my usual habit of overestimating what I could do with the time on my hands, and now I had realized I was so far from the goal I’d set myself, because of all the compromises I’d made along the way, that even if I spent another year studying I would never reach it. My memory was giving me the most trouble: no matter what passage I tried or how slowly my fingers groped for it, I simply couldn’t remember the notes. Desperate, I went out into the street. Rounding a corner I saw my name written large on two huge posters stuck on either side of a cart, and felt even more miserable. If the letters had only been smaller, perhaps less would have been expected of me. I returned to the theater, determined to keep calm and figure out what to do. Seated in an orchestra seat, I watched the stage, where the solitary piano awaited me with its black lid raised. Near me were the seats usually occupied by two brothers who were friends of mine, and behind them sat a family that had recently greeted a concert by some local girls with such loud jeers that in the middle of the show the girls had run out like frightened hens, clutching their heads. It was while recalling this incident that I had the sudden idea to rehearse the theatrical aspect of my performance. First I checked out the whole theater to make sure no one could see me, then I started to practice my entrance, crossing the set from the wing to the piano. On my first try I sped in like a delivery boy rushing to plop the meat on the table — that wouldn’t do. I had to exude weight and authority, like someone giving the twenty-fourth performance in the nineteenth concert season, almost bored with myself, not driven headlong by frightened vanity but carelessly bearing a mysterious something all my own, grown in unknown depths. I began a slow entrance, imagining all eyes on me, so vividly that I could hardly walk, and the more I concentrated on my steps the less control I had over them. So then I tried to imagine I was casually strolling somewhere else, far from the theater, and to imitate my own steps. At moments I caught myself acting almost natural — but even when I thought I was perfectly relaxed and unselfconscious I was mimicking different walks: swaying my hips like a bullfighter, stiff as a waiter carrying a loaded tray, or rocking from side to side like a boxer.