Felisberto Hernandez - Piano Stories

I was totally seduced: I even asked her to call me at six the next morning. That first night in the flooded house, I was so intrigued over what Miss Margaret might have to tell me that a strange restlessness kept me awake for hours. I don’t know at what time I finally sank into sleep. At six in the morning a short ring like an insect bite made me jump out of bed. I waited in suspense for the sound to repeat itself. When it did I grabbed the receiver.

“Are you awake?”

“I am.”

We agreed on a time to meet, and she said I could go down in my pajamas and she would be waiting for me at the foot of the stairs. At that moment I felt like a bellboy granted a short break.

The night before I had imagined the darkness almost entirely made up of trees; but they seemed to have dispersed at dawn, because now, when I opened the window, there was nothing but a vast empty plain under a clear sky: the only trees were the ones along the canal. A soft breeze rippled their leaves as they stretched across the “water avenue” from either side, stealthily touching overhead. Perhaps I would find a new life of quiet contentment among those trees. I shut the window carefully, as if to put away the view so I could return to it later on.

Up the corridor the door to the kitchen was open, and I went in to ask for some hot water to shave. Just then, Mary was pouring out a cup of coffee for a young man who wished me a respectful “good morning”: he was the man in charge of the waterworks, and I heard him say something about the motors. With a smile the Spanish cook turned me around by the arm, saying she would bring everything to my room. On my way back down the corridor I saw Miss Margaret’s tall, bent figure looming at the foot of the stairs, in her boat. She was very stout and overflowed the small boat like a plump foot in a low-cut shoe. Her head was bent because she was reading some papers. She had wound her hair up in a braid that looked like a gold crown. I took all this in at a glance, afraid she would catch me staring at her. From that moment until we came together I was nervous. The minute I put my foot on the stairs she began to watch me closely, with undisguised curiosity. I felt like a thick liquid squeezing down a narrow funnel. She stuck her hand out long before I reached the bottom and said:

“You’re not at all like I imagined you. . It happens to me every time. I don’t see how I’m going to get your stories to agree with your face.”

I tried to smile but could only nod like a horse fretting at the bit. I managed to say:

“I’ve been dying to meet you and to know what’s going to happen.”

Finally my hand found hers. She did not let go until I had climbed into the seat with the oars, facing the stern. With labored movements, she settled into her armchair, which had its back to me, breathing fitfully. She said she was studying budget estimates for a home for unwed mothers and would not be able to talk to me just then. I began to row, she controlled the rudder, and we kept our eyes on the wake we were cutting in the water. For a moment I thought it was all a big mistake: I was no boatman to handle such a monstrous weight. She had her mind entirely on the home for unwed mothers, with no regard for the immensity of her body and the smallness of my hands. In my anguished effort to pull at the oars I leaned so far forward that my eyes came flat against her backrest, and the dark varnish and wickerwork full of little holes, like a honeycomb, reminded me of a barbershop my grandfather used to take me to when I was six years old, except that these holes were stuffed with the folds of white bathrobe containing Miss Margaret’s bloated shape. She was saying:

“There’s no need to hurry. It’ll only tire you.”

I immediately relaxed the oars, fell into a sort of happy void, and, for the first time, felt myself gliding with her over the silent water. But then I became aware of having started to row again. I was as tired as if I had been at it for ages — maybe that was what had awakened me. A bit later she waved at me as if to say goodbye, but she was steering me toward the nearest frog. There were bronze frogs for mooring the boat anchored all along the walk that went around the lake. With a painful heave and words too faint to reach me, she extracted her body from the armchair and stood it on the walk. Suddenly we were motionless, and that was when she first made that strange sound in her throat which began as if she were dredging up something she had almost swallowed and ended in a hoarse sigh. I had my eyes on the frog to which we had tied the boat, but I could also see her feet, planted on the walk as steadily as any of the frogs. Everything seemed to suggest she was about to speak — or she might first make that strange noise in her throat again. If she did, or if she spoke, I would release the breath I was holding in my lungs, so as not to miss her first words. She kept me waiting for a long time and I began to let my breath out slowly, as if opening a door into a room where someone was sleeping. I didn’t know if the wait meant I should look at her, but I decided to remain motionless as long as I had to. The frog and the feet caught my attention again, and I watched them out of the corner of my eye. The part of the foot crammed into each shoe was small, but a great white throat burst over the brim to become a plump leg as tender as innocent baby flesh, and the mountainous weight supported on those feet was like the fantastic figure a child might see in a dream. I had waited so long for the sound in her throat that my mind had wandered by the time I heard her first words, which made me think of water silently collected in a huge urn and now spilling over the top, a drop at a time.

“I promised to tell you. . but I can’t today. . I have a world of things on my mind. .”

When she said, “world,” I could imagine her well-rounded shape without looking at her.

“Besides,” she went on, “though it’s not your fault. . It bothers me that you’re so different.”

Her eyes crinkled and her face broke into an unexpected smile. Her upper lip gathered at the edges like some theater curtains to display a row of big sparkling teeth in perfect alignment.

“Whereas I’m delighted that you’re just the way you are.”

I must have said this with a roguish smile because I felt like an old-time charmer with a feather in his cap. Emboldened, I searched for her green eyes behind their lenses. But in the depths of those two small crystal lakes without a ripple, her eyelids had shut and swollen in shame. Her lips began to wrap over her teeth again and gradually her whole face flushed a reddish color I had seen on Chinese lanterns. There was the sort of silence produced by a misunderstanding, and she stubbed her foot on a frog trying to clamber back into the boat. I would have given anything to turn back the clock and erase what had just happened. My careless words had revealed base thoughts that I regretted bitterly. The distance between the island and the surrounding glass walls had become a hostile space where things exchanged offended looks, as if agreeing to reject me — which was a pity, because I had started to grow fond of them. But then suddenly Miss Margaret said:

“Stop by the stairs and go to your room. I think later I’ll feel very much like talking to you.”

I was watching some reflections in the lake and they seemed favorable. The plants were out of sight but I felt their approval. So I ran happily up the bare bones of the concrete staircase, like a child climbing the spine of a prehistoric animal.

I had just begun to arrange my books properly in the wardrobe, enjoying the smell of fresh wood, when the phone rang:

“Please come down again for a while. We’ll go around a few times in silence and when I give you the sign you’ll stop at the foot of the stairs and return to your room, and I won’t bother you again for two days.”