Felisberto Hernandez - Piano Stories

“I could use some arms and legs, if you have any left over.”

“Whatever for, dear boy?”

“I’d like the men to make up some scenes with loose arms and legs. For instance, an arm hanging from a mirror, a leg sticking out from under a bed, and so on.”

Frank, wiping his face, had watched him askance.

At lunch that day, Horace drank his wine and ate as calmly as if Mary were out spending the day with relatives. He kept congratulating himself over his good luck. He got up feeling elated, sat at the piano for a while, letting his fingers wander over the keys, and finally went up for his nap. On his way past the dresser he thought: “One of these days I’ll get over my dread of mirrors and face them.” He had always enjoyed being surprised and confused by the people and objects reflected in mirrors. With another glance at Daisy, who would simply have to wait until Mary got back, he lay down. As he stretched out under the covers, he touched a strange object with the tip of his foot, and he jumped out of bed. For a moment he just stood there, then he pulled back the covers. It was a note from Mary that said: “Horace, here’s what’s left of your mistress. I’ve stabbed her, too. But I can admit it — not like a certain hypocrite I know who only wanted a pretext to send her in and have those sinful things done to her. You’ve sickened my life and I’ll thank you not to look for me. Mary.”

He went back to bed but could not sleep and got up again. He avoided looking at Mary’s things on the dresser as he avoided her face when they were angry at each other. He went out to a movie. There he shook hands with an old enemy, without realizing it. He kept thinking of Mary.

When he got back to the black house, there was still a bit of sunlight shining in the bedroom. As he went by one of the covered mirrors, he saw his face in it, through the wispy curtain, lit by a glint of sun, bright as an apparition. With a shiver, he closed the shutters and lay down. If the luck he used to have was coming back, at his age it would not last long, nor would it come alone but accompanied by the sorts of strange events that had been taking place since Daisy’s arrival. She still lay there, a few feet away. At least, he thought, her body would not rot. And then he wondered about the spirit that had once inhabited that body like a stranger and whether it might not have provoked Mary’s destructive fury so that Daisy’s corpse, placed between him and Mary, would keep him away from her. The ghostly shapes of the room disturbed his sleep: they seemed to be in touch with the noise of the machines. He got up, went down to dinner and began to drink his wine. He had not known until then how much he missed Mary — and there was no after-dinner kiss before he headed for the little parlor. Alone there with his coffee, he decided he ought to avoid the bedroom and dinner table while Mary was gone. When he went out for a walk a bit later he remembered seeing a student hotel in a neighborhood nearby, and found his way there. It had a potted palm in the doorway and parallel mirrors all the way up the stairs, and he walked on. The sight of so many mirrors in a single day was a dangerous sign. He remembered what he had told Frank that morning, before encountering the ones in the bedroom: that he wanted to see an arm hanging from a mirror. But he also remembered the blonde doll and decided, once again, to overcome his dread. He made his way back to the hotel, brushed past the potted palm, and tried to climb the stairs without looking at himself in the mirrors. It was a long time since he had seen so many at once, wherever he turned, right and left, with their confusion of images. He even thought there might be someone hidden among the reflections. The lady who ran the place met him upstairs and showed him the vacant rooms: they all had huge mirrors. He chose the best and promised to return in an hour. In his dark house he packed a small suitcase, and on his way back to the hotel he remembered that it had once been a brothel — which explained the mirrors. There were three in the room he had chosen, the largest one next to the bed, and since the room that appeared there was prettier than the real one, he kept his eyes on the one in the mirror, which must have been tired of showing the same mock-Chinese scenery over the years, because the gaudy red wallpaper looked faded, as if sunk in the bottom of a misty lake with its yellowish bridges and cherry trees. He got into bed and put out the light, but he went on seeing the room in the glow that came in from the street. He had the feeling he had been taken into the bosom of a poor family, where all the household objects were friends and had aged together. But the windows were still young and looked out: they were twins, like Mary’s maids, and dressed alike, in clinging lace curtains and velvet drapes gathered at the sides. It was all a bit as if he were living in someone else’s body, borrowing well-being from it. The loud silence made his ears hum, and he realized he was missing the noise of the machines and wondered whether it might not be a good idea to move out of the black house and never hear its sounds again. If only Mary had been lying next to him now, he would have been perfectly happy. As soon as she came back he would invite her to spend a night with him in the hotel. But then he dozed off thinking of the blonde doll he had seen that morning. He dreamed of a white arm floating in a dark haze. The sound of steps in a neighboring room woke him up. He got out of bed, barefoot, and started across the rug. He saw a white spot following him and recognized his face, reflected in the mirror over the fireplace. He wished someone would invent a mirror that showed objects but not people, although he immediately realized the absurdity of the idea, not to mention the fact that a man without an image in the mirror would not be of this world. He lay down again, just as someone turned on a light in a room across the street. The light fell on the mirror by the bed, and he thought of his childhood and of other mirrors he remembered, and went to sleep.

VI

Several days had gone by. Horace now slept in the hotel and the same pattern of events repeated itself every night: windows went on across the street and the light fell on his mirrors, or else he woke up and found the windows asleep.

One night he heard screams and saw flames in his mirror. At first he watched them as if they were flickers on a movie screen, but then he realized that if they showed in the mirror they must be somewhere in reality, and, springing up and swinging around, all at once, he saw them dancing out a window across the street, like devils in a puppet show. He scrambled out of bed, threw on his robe and put his face to one of his windows. As it caught flashes in its glass, his window seemed frightened at what was happening to the one across the street. There was a crowd below — he was on the second floor — and the firetruck was coming. Just then, he saw Mary leaning out another window of the hotel. She had already noticed him and was staring as if she did not quite recognize him. He waved, shut his window and went up the hall to rap on what he figured was her door. She burst right out saying:

“You’re wasting your time following me.”

And she slammed the door in his face.

He stayed there quietly until he heard her sobbing inside, then he answered:

“I wasn’t following you. But since we’ve met, why don’t we go home?”

“You go on if you want,” she said.

He thought he had sensed a note of longing in her voice, in spite of everything, and the next day he moved back happily into the black house. There he basked in the luxury of his surroundings, wandering like a sleepwalker among his riches. The familiar objects all seemed full of peaceful memories, the high ceilings braced against death, if it struck from above.