The steady rhythmic thump on the other side of the apartment wall is Señora Pineda, pumping her treadle sewing machine for her off-the-books tailoring business that she operates when she isn’t teaching English.
Manuel Juerta is not always in such a foul mood. He’s generally thought to be an ebullient fellow, one of the lucky ones, which he was until recently. He spits into the corroded sink. The air reeks of mould in this cramped bachelor’s box on the edge of downtown.
Visa trouble.
Sometimes a man’s whole existence comes down to two miserable words, one gut-churning phrase. His current difficulty is apparently due to a quartet of nationally trained gymnasts on tour in western Canada who hopped off their trapeze into the waiting arms of the local do-gooders: welcome to the land of opportunity and bottomless stew pots. Manuel grabs his briefcase, courtesy gift from that stint as guitar competition judge in Caracas. Such a generous professor couple hosting his stay, room with attached bathroom, a local woman cooking mounds of food, much of which would get tossed to the dog at the end of the evening. He’d even played for them, a short solo recital, Ponce and then Rodrigo, the great blind composer from Valencia.
Best of both worlds is what Manuel inhabited until three months ago. He’d return home, when he was still permitted to live in his real home, after recitals or teaching and judging duties, with his pockets crammed full of dollars, ready to convert them into the national CULs, and a suitcase bursting with clothes, toiletries, electronic gizmos, which Lucia and her avaricious sisters would dive into the moment he entered the house. Within an hour the black market lines would be humming.
All this appears to be in the past tense. Manuel blames the gymnasts for the immediate difficulty, but as he tears through the flat, packing sheet music into his briefcase, he knows there’s more to it, this visa denial. He pours the last of the raisin bran into a bowl and eats quickly. Even his modest addiction to this breakfast cereal won’t continue. And he’s out of milk, an irritating situation, given the fact that Lucia’s fridge will be stuffed with dairy products and will remain icy cold, since she keeps the appliance plugged in day or night with no heed to energy conservation — thank her resort-working nephew Eric for this — and it doesn’t hurt that her parents are inner circle, and that Gabi, their youngest daughter, is now receptionist at the city’s swankiest hotel. They don’t check her pockets when she leaves work — not a daughter of Lucia and Manuel Juerta.
The conservatorio is his second home — maybe his first home now. It’s located at the north end of Avenida Simón Bolivar in a once-stunning colonial building, now propped with wooden beams at significant junctures so it won’t collapse and kill them all. Today he arrives, ducking cyclists on the road outside, waving a beleaguered hi to Teresa, who stands guard against nothing every day, grabs a bun from Leticia, the girl with the red apron, nods at the gang in the office who labour over an ancient computer, then strides through the still-elegant courtyard surrounded by classrooms from which the usual sound salad emits: fiddles and horns and strings and the rat-a-tat of drums. He loved all this when he could leave at will to embark on his international adventures, then return bestowing gifts of strings and metronomes to his grateful students. They would soak up his stories of the world outside their island, his hobnobbing with the greats.
Lucia, never God’s gift to men, has decided that Manuel is evil incarnate, and she seeks to destroy him. This is not hyperbole.
He kicks open the door of room 117 at the back of the building. His office is bright and relatively well furnished with a desk and chair, floor-to-ceiling bookcases full of imported sheet music and texts, along with multiple copies of his own opus, Guitarra clásica: un método completo, which still seeks an English translator.
The first student of the day knocks cautiously on the door, and Manuel roars “Enter” in English. He was brushing up on the language last night when he received the catastrophic news that he was not only denied entrance into Canada but would not be allowed to leave his own country.
Alberto steps in, a slight fellow with a long nose, aristocratic brow, and excellent teeth. Manuel thinks a lot about teeth these days, since his right cuspid was pulled a month ago and his dentist informed him there were no false teeth to be found until some vague date in the future. He might as well get used to a gap-toothed smile. Better not to smile at all.
His student clears his throat. “Mama tells me I should switch to clarinet so I can play in the National Touring Orchestra.”
Sensible boy.
“Tell your mama she’s quite right. The orchestra will offer thirty weeks employment per year with extra rations. Do you own a clarinet, son?”
The boy perks up. He was expecting a rant. “My uncle will lend me his.”
Manuel opens his hands, palms up. “Then any difficulty is solved. You will master the clarinet in no time. It’s like the guitar. You must play through the breath.”
The boy frowns. He hasn’t thought of it this way. Only thirteen years old, he is one of Manuel’s most talented students, son of one of Lucia’s cronies.
Manuel’s expression changes from avuncular to stormy. Surely, she hasn’t meddled in his business here. But he can imagine it all too well — his wife and Alberto’s mother meeting at the café, Lucia planting the idea of switching to clarinet, of a plausible career for Alberto with steady employment, meanwhile she sips one of those deadly espressos.
“Can I sell my guitar?” Alberto asks in a small voice. He has been instructed to ask this question.
“Leave the task with me, son.”
The boy backs out of the office, relieved.
Manuel stares at the wall, at the peeling poster of Picasso’s morose painting of The Old Guitarist. A cadaverous figure with huge hands, soaked in blue, plays some chord unknown to man. Terrible wrist position, Manuel notes, not for the first time. This is his future if he’s not allowed to leave.
The government says no dice, high risk of defection. Idiots. If he wanted to defect he would have charged off years ago, in Paris or Madrid or Cologne or Winnipeg, or any one of the other cities that have made him their honoured guest. Do they really think he wants to burrow into that cold country for the rest of his time on earth?
He drops onto the office chair and sinks his head into his hands. The days ahead will be pissed away working telephones and chasing bureaucrats: pure misery.
Manuel finally gets through to the Montreal festival organizer, a pleasant woman who speaks English with a Québécois accent. She is appalled by the government’s irrational decision. “We need you here, Maestro,” she says. She’ll make some calls. His flight doesn’t leave for ten days? Then there is still time.
“Lucia.” Manuel stands at the doorway of what used to be his home. The old iron lantern hanging outside hasn’t worked for years, but a warm glow issues from within the building. He smells grilled chicken. Lucia always finds meat.
“What do you want?” his wife asks as she blocks the way in.
He forces himself to match her tone. “Do you know why they aren’t letting me leave?”
“How should I know such things?”
“Because you know everything that goes on here.”
She gives him a steady look. “You believe it’s all my fault?”
“They’ve denied me an exit visa.”
“I’m sorry.” There’s grey in her hair, a broadening white streak that she flips back with one hand.
“If I can’t travel to festivals and concerts, then I can’t earn my living.” He peers over her head at the black-and-white television screen blaring one of the state’s three