Piano Stories by Felisberto Hernández

Author:Felisberto Hernández [Hernández, Felisberto]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Anthologies, Uruguayan Literature, Short Stories, Fiction
ISBN: 9780811221801
Publisher: New Directions
Published: 2014-01-27T08:00:00+00:00

The Dark Dining Room

For some months my job was to play the piano in a dark dining room. An elderly lady was my only audience. She didn’t care who played for her — and I can’t say my heart was in my playing. But during the pauses between pieces — when neither of us spoke — the silence set my mind to working in unusual ways.

I had landed the job through the Pianists’ Association. The boys there had often helped me find work with pop music bands. Recently they had even sponsored one of my concerts. Then, one afternoon, the director had called me aside:

“Hey, I’ve got a little something for you. It’s not much, but, who knows” — I had already noticed the wicked gleam in his eye — “it could lead to bigger things. A rich widow wants you to play for her twice a week. The sessions are to last an hour each and she’ll pay a buck and a half a session.”

He broke off and slipped out for a moment because they were calling him from the next room.

He had expected I would find it depressing to work for such low wages and had spoken half-jokingly, but also cajolingly, because work was scarce and I would be wise to grab the first opportunity that came along.

I would have loved to be able to tell him how happy the offer made me, but it would have been difficult for me to explain, and for him to understand, why entering unknown homes was so important to me.

When he returned I was on a cloud, all puffed up at the thought that the widow must have heard my concert, or my name, or seen my picture or articles about me in the papers, and I asked him:

“Did she say it had to be me?”

“Not really. She just wanted a pianist.”

“To play good music?”

“I don’t know. You can discuss that with her. Here’s the address: ask for Miss Moppet.”

It was a two-story house with marble balconies. I was impressed by the oversized entrance hall with walls of even finer marble than the balconies, their shades of color indistinct, as if they weren’t really living there but were still in their faraway country of origin.

A pair of beveled windows watched me. It was the double door to the patio, with twin panes extending far down the slight frame: I thought of a lady in a low-cut or low-waisted dress. The curtains on the door were so flimsy it seemed I had surprised it in its underwear. Through the curtains I could see a swaying fern almost as tall as a palm.

A good while after I had rung the bell, an enormous woman emerged from the depths of the patio. Until she had opened the door I could not quite believe she had a cigarette dangling from her lips. Without greeting me, she asked:

“You the one from the Pieanists’ Association?”

When I nodded she let me in, turned on her heel and led the way back across the patio.

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