Jaume Cabré - Winter Journey

"1 want to speak with Monsieur Grossman," the monsignor said.

oltan Wesselenyi opened the umbrella and sheltered under it. The solitary path crunched under his feet. He began to notice the soft murmur of the rain, like tears, on the umbrella, and his backache started to act up, as it usually did when it was humid. He knew there wouldn't be anybody there but, still, he moved right along because he didn't like to arrive late. But if he knew there wouldn't be anybody there, why was his heart racing?

In the past twenty-five years he'd been tempted to make this visit a dozen times. He'd never had the heart. He knew that near Schubert's tomb he would have found only Japanese tourists, photographing one another in groups of ten around the monument to Mozart, panning the whole area with their video cameras and running off, urged on by the guide, because the choucroute would be ready at seven. Nobody had told them that Wolf was behind Beethoven and beyond the Strausses was Schonberg.

When he got to the tomb of Alois Liechtenstein, his heart was pounding, and not because he'd been hurrying but because there was a remote possibility that he was coming to the end of a long and hopeless journey. Before looking towards the exact place, he held his breath for a few seconds in order to calm the beating of his heart. The rain began to fall harder, as if it wanted to be present at that special moment. Then Zoltan Wesselenyi looked over at Schubert's tomb and was surprised that it wasn't sepia as in the photographs.

For the first time in his life he'd cried in response to beauty: though he was sensitive, it would never have occurred to him that such a thing was possible. But to hear Margherita singing Gute Nacht in that pure, clear voice moved him profoundly. He didn't know that with the very first lines she was announcing what would happen:

But even when he heard it, no alarm went off. Maybe because he'd always heard it sung by a baritone and Margherita had a crystalline soprano. Or maybe because he was happy, they were happy, sitting in the sun, he on the bench and she on the ground, her head against Zoltan's knee and singing, so that he could hear:

They were silent for a long time. He started to cry silently, calmly. A cemetery guard walked discreetly, respectfully, behind them, looked at them perhaps enviously and walked on. Back then there were no groups of tourists in sweatsuits, shouting, chewing gum and trampling on the chrysanthemums.

"You have the most beautiful voice in the world, in life."

She said nothing and looked far away, with her gray eyes, as if she wanted to see to infinity. He insisted:

"Were you listening?"

"Yes."

"Everyone will want to hear you and I'll have to make them stand in line on the street."

She stretched out and looked at him, perhaps with pity. Then Zoltan realized that something was a little bit off.

"What's wrong, Margit?"

And Margherita, Gute Nacht still echoing in her ears, explained that she had to leave Vienna at three that afternoon, which is when her train left, and she didn't want him to go to the station to say goodbye because she wouldn't be able to stand it. And she also said, Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, like a machine gun. And still she added, Let's say goodbye here, Zoltan. He was open-mouthed with astonishment. Anything was possible but that. He'd been living inside a dream bubble for twenty-eight days, and he'd been such an idiot that he'd never even thought that bubbles of hope always end up bursting in multiple deceptions. Twenty-eight days counted one by one, since they met at a Sunday afternoon concert, behind city hall. She'd just arrived in Vienna, alone, with her far-seeing gray eyes and her sweet laugh. He'd been there for a term, he missed Pest and he fell in love with the voice that asked him, is this seat taken? He didn't remember what they played, but he found out that Margherita was Venetian; no, she wasn't moldy from the Venetian humidity; she was trying to see if she could get into a voice class at the Hochschule, but it was hard to do, and if she couldn't, she'd go back home and that would be the end of it; she was twenty-two; she didn't like cod, not raw, cooked, dried or any other way; she knew Sota it ponte de Rialto, of course, but she hated it, sorry, because she was sick of the tourists; she was alone in Vienna; and so… sooo, yes, she liked him too. Zoltan could hardly breathe; he shyly answered the questions put to him by this woman who seemed still to be propelled by the momentum of travel and answered, Yes; me too; twenty-six; piano, conducting and German; equivalent to the tenth level of piano, yes; Budapest was many travel documents, passports and permits away, but only four hours down the Danube, though four hours were enough to make you feel very lonely; "Mintha szivembol folyt volna tova, / zavaros, blocs es nagy volt a Duna";' yes, foreigners always say that Hungarian is a hard language, but in Pest, Fonvod and Eger children and illiterates can speak it. Yes, Duna is Danube in Hungarian. The Danube has more names than any other river in the world, in life; yes, he often said "in life" when something was huge; oh no, really, my German is still pretty basic. No, 1 don't know Italian, unfortunately. When the concert ended she said Well, it was nice to meet you, but he said no, he wanted more and she answered, It would be better not to, we should go our separate ways. And Zoltan put his foot down and said, No, and she looked into the distance with her gray eyes and said without looking at him, You don't know me at all, and he answered, I've known you my whole life. And they didn't separate. In twenty-eight days they separated only when he left her at the door of the Hochschule and ran as fast as he could to the Konservatorium to be reminded that he'd have to dedicate thirty hours a day just to the piano to reach the level of the best students, which was the only level possible at the Konservatorium. And now Zoltan didn't feel homesick or sad, because he was walking through the Schubert-Ring or the Stadt-Park with happiness at his side and, as they wandered in no particular direction, he wondered how life could be so happy and Margherita, silent, looking away, penetrated the impossible with her gray eyes and, if she thought she was being looked at, smiled sweetly. He had to let the German classes go, because he needed all the energy left over from the piano to breathe and not die of happiness. And on the twenty-eighth day they were supposed to make a visit to the Zentralfriedhof, where Beethoven, Brahms and company are supposed to be buried. On the streetcar that was taking them to the cemetery she spoke very little, she was distracted, looking out the window and pressing his hand. It was the first day she hadn't been talkative, as if she'd grown up all of a sudden. She had seen infinity.

And now he, sitting on the stone bench, open-mouthed after having heard the most beautiful voice in life singing a song of unhappy love, had had his bubble burst. Why, Margit, why? And she explained, calmly, with almost deathly resignation, that she'd gone to Vienna not to study but to think. Because 1 wasn't sure if 1 wanted to get married.