The apartment opposite one day a girl in her mid-twenties changed, somewhat plump, with a discreet smile and fine manners. I saw her arriving with the moving truck and I offered to help with the straight piano that was clumsily carried by a couple of guys, who I later learned were her brothers. As recently divorced that I was at that time, without money or anything good to do, I helped the whole afternoon in the move and I became friends with the pianist. I made myself available, like the good neighbor I had never been.
The pianist was not a pretty woman but she had that aura that artists sometimes have, that radiance they have when playing an instrument, singing or acting. Now that time has passed, I remember a bit of nostalgia for those afternoons in which I listened to her from the apartment, or those times when I visited her and allowed me to listen to her essay. When he finished a piece without making mistakes, he was totally transfigured. It was particularly nice to see her on those afternoons when everything went well with her piano. It was as if nothing else mattered, as if the world were composed by playing the piano.
When he arrived at the apartment, as he told me later, he had just gone through a great disappointment. Her four-year-old boyfriend, two weeks before the wedding, for no apparent reason, had repented and canceled the wedding. Everything was ready, the church, the party room, the houseware, the new apartment ... But he canceled everything, and went to Lithuania, with his girlfriend who had contacted the Internet and had met in person six months.
So we both came from frustrated relationships, although I had had some years of semi-happy marriage. Several times she cried on my shoulder for her fugitive boyfriend. Despite the attraction that existed between us, there was a tacit agreement to maintain the relationship in Platonic terms. Hollow you, my friends told me, but what I did not want was to go back to the old ways of love, and neither did she. To get rid of the desire are the whores, I told them, although I must point out that I was never a great client of the brothels.
I liked listening to her when she played Chopin, and at that time I played it a lot. I think, from my ignorant perspective, that Chopin is the composer of broken relationships. One rainy afternoon, when she was playing a waltz I asked her if she had danced some Chopin waltz with someone. He said no. Someday we should dance a waltz of Chopin you and I, I said. She, still touching the waltz, smiled without answering.
In that waltz in particular, I said, it seems as if the first note you touch floats and floats and stays in the air and the melody blows it so that it does not fall, as if it were a soap bubble. The note is a sustained F, he replied, and something similar to what you say you said in class a teacher at the conservatory. You're not so bad at appreciating art, he added, with a wink and a smile.
We left very little because neither she nor I had money. She lived by playing keyboard or piano in churches, weddings and parties. It was enough to live decently, but nothing more. I had a job as a solicitor in a law firm. Sometimes it was strange, as if we were already a formal couple, but without sex or real commitment. Neither of them wanted to take the step.
I must admit that I fell in love between the bars and the black and white notes. I was always useless for music, but listening to it was always pleasant, even in the evenings or nights when I could not finish a piece because it got confused every time. A couple of times I saw her somatar the poor keyboard of the piano, furious because she did not get a part, or hit the wrong key.
Many afternoons and dinners we share together. She always laughed at my jokes and her smile calmed me down, made me feel good, made me forget. When there were free recitals at the Conservatory, we always went. She always told me that she liked very much that I was cheerful and gentlemanly, that it made her feel good. We had, in short, a special relationship.
The reader will be wondering why we did not decide to move to the next level. The reader is probably waiting for me to tell her that I told her in a particularly romantic way. The reader will probably want to tell you that one night neither of them could resist and we had the best sex in the world. Well, it did not happen either, I have to feel it. But let me tell you a little more, maybe and the story will finally improve.
Neither she nor I were very amigueros that we say, and having found us to accompany us in our solitude, because we do not look for more people. Always at the end of the working day I expected to meet her and tell her about the obstacles in the Court Tower, the clients who want magic in the courts, the judges who never finish failing. She, on the other hand, when she had presentations, told me how luxurious the houses were sometimes, how bad or well they treated her, or when nobody listened to what she was playing, even when she was on a splendid afternoon and touched her piano like never.
A year after I met her, I got a better job. Then I decided to move from an apartment to one closer to work. Also to flee a bit from her, so that I would not end up falling in love to an uncontrollable degree. She received the news with a little sadness and told me she would make me a farewell dinner.
The farewell dinner was on a Thursday, on a cool night. She dressed in a black dress, the one she wore for gala events. He told me that before lunch we would dance a waltz of Chopin, the waltz of goodbye. She knew that it was one of my favorites, although until that time I did not know that's what it was called, because of that custom of classical musicians to put opus such number in I do not know what flat number is not how much instead of a decent name.
She put a cd on the sound system and we danced with a little difficulty, because according to her she told me, Chopin's waltzes are not exactly for dancing. I remember well the scent of his perfume that night and that smile with which he saw me after finishing the waltz. Since then every time I hear that waltz comes that aroma to my nose, as if she were present.
We said goodbye on good terms that night, I told him it was not a farewell because I would always come to see her whenever I could. She answered yes, but not every day, you seem to run away from me. I went that night between clouds and with some sadness, for not daring to say that I loved her.
I went to see her many times more, but the distance ended up being imposed. We both found couples more convenient in distance, physically close, distant in the heart. She told me several times herself. Time after we stopped seeing each other.
I ended up with that my new girlfriend in a few months. And then I went to look for it, but I did not find it. I wrote him an email and he told me that he was on a scholarship in Madrid and that he would be back in six months. Attached to his answer email came a nightly Chopin mp3. When I play it I remember you, he said. Thanks for the night, but a long time I said, I want to see you, I'll go to Madrid as soon as I can. I asked permission for a couple of weeks at work, something that cost me, but they finally gave me.
When I get there, in a few weeks, I'll tell her I love her like crazy. I do not know who will respond, I do not know if it is the right time or not. I will tell her that with her I want to be, that the waltz of goodbye we dance I hear it every day, that I was a fool to flee. I hope you tell me that you also love me, that you play Chopin for me every afternoon. I would like both the attentive reader and the romantic reader to wish me luck. I'm going to need.
