The Blind Accordionist Read online

  “I know of a person,” said the younger woman, “who took up residence in a railway station.”

  “That seems to me,” said the younger man, “a fine solution.”

  The conductor came back asking for their tickets. Now he was turned toward them, his face—imagined as being smooth, handsome, and unblemished—was revealed as gnarled and haggard, with deep frown lines and purple sags below the eyes. His journey to the far end of the train had aged him, it seemed. Everyone in the compartment felt as though they had already spent days on this train, yet were also aware that outside, it was possible that only a few minutes had passed.

  “There is a train,” said the Doctor, “that crosses the great plains of South America, or Upper Canada, possibly, that is so long that the conductor has a map, but even he has never visited its far end, or its beginning. It takes years, even at great velocity, to travel from its departure to its destination.” The others all fell silent, imagining such a thing, which disturbed them all greatly.

  At that point, the train disappeared into a tunnel and everything went dark, and for a moment none of them were sure if they had been telling different stories, or different parts of the same story.

  PETER, WHO THOUGHT HE WAS A BEAR

  WHEN HIS WIFE announced she was leaving him for the fat man who tended the bar at the inn on the square, Peter began to believe he was a bear. He performed a few circuits of their tiny kitchen, heavy trudging steps and hunched shoulders, his wife still looking on, bemused, then slightly horrified.

  There is no more of me, thought Peter as his wife took what she wanted. I am a bear now.

  Here begins the story of Peter the bear.

  Peter let his hair and his beard grow. He did not wash frequently, nor change his clothes. He took to drinking in the other tavern, the one on the far edge of town, and had to take the long way there, the unpaved path that curved around the remoter houses and just touched the woods, then the same one to come home again, late at night, alone and slightly drunk. Though he could not see them, he knew other bears were there, along the road, hiding just behind the bushes or in the trees, waiting for him.

  At first he was scared, but later, as he began to make the journey more frequently, he realised the bears were everywhere, in the long grass, the backyards, the shadows, and even behind the walls, and they meant him no harm.

  Let us tell the story of Peter who thought he was a bear.

  Peter heard that his wife had moved in with the fat man, her new home a small room above the bar. One day, he saw her near the market, carrying a bag full of onions, and she turned, but when she turned she did not see Peter but waved to the fat man who was coming toward her, across the square. The fat man was hairy, and it was known that he smelled bad, but he was not like a bear. Peter heard his wife and the fat man laughing, and he did not know if they had seen him or not.

  Even though the winter had fully passed now, and spring was beginning to twitch, Peter continued to wear his big coat, and continued to let his beard grow. He did not sleep in his bed but sat at the table that they had once shared, and pulled a rug over his lap, and slept there. He threw away his razor.

  Let us wonder, let us marvel, at how like a real bear Peter is. His hair, his skin, his peculiar gait.

  After Easter, the Circus came. There would be bears, Peter knew. The Circus pitched on the far edge of town, on the empty field Peter passed on his way to drink, the place where he had thought there were bears, in the trees, the bushes. I was right, thought Peter. There were bears, but they have been waiting for the Circus, not for me.

  The Circus, the Circus, the Circus has come!

  When the Circus opened, Peter did not go, as he did not wish to be entertained by clowns, enchanted by acrobats, or scared by lions. He did not wish to see his wife there with the fat man, being entertained, or enchanted, or scared. Peter went to the Circus, but he stayed outside. He wanted to talk to the bears.

  But the bears did not want to talk to Peter. They stood in small sad circles, not even speaking to each other. The bears smelled bad, thought Peter, but not in the same way the fat man who tended the bar smelled bad. The bears smelled of oil and sadness.

  On the last night of the Circus it rained heavily, and Peter waited by the main entrance of the tent. Inside it was nearly empty, and, after the clowns had entertained, the acrobats had enchanted, and the lions had scared, the bears began to dance, and Peter made use of the dark to slip inside. He sat on a wooden bench as close to the back as he could. There were few people in the Circus, and the rain beat down on its waxed canvas and oilcloth covers. The bears moved in time with the sound of the rain and a handheld drum. A single-stringed violin scratched a slow tune into the silence.

  Can we hear, can we? The bear music that Peter hears?

  Peter’s friends began to avoid him. They did not like his method of eating, his silence, or surliness. His bearness. Peter carried on drinking in the tavern on the far edge of the town, where the few friends he had left did not join him. Sometimes, when he drank, Peter wished he could have become a wolf, or an eagle, or even a snake, perhaps. Something faster, smoother, with sharper teeth and sleeker skin. Other times, he wished he could have believed himself a worm, or a beetle, or something more fitting to his current state of being. But bear he had been given; bear it would be.

  One night of lonely drunkenness, Peter walked home with a bottle in his hand. He threw the bottle at a wall, but the bottle did not break with a satisfying crash and a splatter of liquor; it merely bounced off the wall and rolled along the path. He picked it up and again tried to break it, but it would not break. Were I a bear, thought Peter, I could shatter this glass with my rage. But then he remembered the Circus bears, and they had been gentle, shy creatures, filled only with sadness and furtiveness, never anger.

  Let us wonder at how little like a bear Peter is.

  Every night he sat alone in the bar, even when the place was full. Some nights he looked only at the table before him, his hands that lay on it, or the glass that held his beer; other nights he watched drinkers talking and laughing amongst themselves. On Saturdays, the tavern was always full, and there was warmth and music, smoking and dancing. Peter did not want to dance, or if he did, to dance only the way he had seen the bears at the Circus dance.

  If only everyone could be as sad as I am, he thought. If only everyone could be a bear.

  He approached a man he had once known and told him all about being a bear, but the man refused to listen, so Peter tried talking to a woman, who looked at him with pity before she walked away.

  No, not everyone, Peter, not everyone can be a bear.

  Peter missed the bears, even though they had not been friendly, and he waited anxiously for the Circus to return, even though he knew it would not be for another year. He decided to go into the woods and join them.

  He found a small clearing, lay a tarpaulin on the ground, and slung his old overcoat across two branches. The rain came in a little, but he did not mind. He built himself a fire, which smoked a lot because the wood was damp.

  No bears came to visit him, nor could he find any.

  After a few days, he returned to his empty house, cold and hungry and developing a serious chill. The bears, he thought, did not want his company.

  Let us, let us not, weep for Peter.

  Peter thought about how he looked now, and how he walked, and how he acted, and then he thought about his life before. He thought that he had, perhaps, always been a bit bear, and sometimes did not wonder that his wife had left him.

  For a while, Peter tried not to be so bear. He stood up full straight when he walked, trying not to slouch. He waved at anyone who should pass his house and look in the window. He washed regularly. He shaved all the hair off his body, for fear of how ursine he had become.

  Peter heard that his wife had left the fat man, too, and that the fat man had drunk a bottle of ra
t poison. He felt no pity, only realised that perhaps his wife had gotten what she wanted.

  Within a month, after no one had returned his friendly wave, the hair had grown back again, and his slouch fell back into place.

  Peter, Peter—will this music never stop? How will our tale be told?

  After a year in which each day passed the same, the Circus returned. This time, Peter was prepared. He waited until night, then walked past the tent, past the carts and caravans where the Circus people snored, as far as the edge of the field where the bears slept in their cages. They growled when he poked them with his stick, but only one of them woke. The bear sat up and looked at Peter slowly.

  “No,” said the bear, “you are not a bear, this will pass.” The bear wiped at his face with a heavy paw. “Being a bear,” it continued, “is far worse than what you are suffering.”

  Later that night, or perhaps it was another night, Peter watched the bears do their dance again. They all arose and unlocked their cages and stood in a careful circle at the edge of the field, beyond where the Circus tent was pitched, and far from where they could be seen. Other bears, the bears from the woods, came to join their fellow bears, taking their place in the circle. They took a step forward, a step back, one to the left, one to the right. Each bear in turn raised their left paw, then their right. Each bear in turn stepped into the middle of the circle and did a slow pirouette, then returned to the circle. There was no music, but Peter could hear it anyway, played on a violin with a broken string, a sealskin drum, and a wheezing accordion by musicians who were all blind.

  Peter wondered how many of the bears from the Circus or from the woods had once been men or women like him, who had been happy and lived in the town with husbands or wives or children, and had had jobs about which they complained, and friends with whom they could drink and smoke and talk of inconsequential things. He thought he should go into the woods again, or wait another year for the Circus and find a bear and offer to change places with them.

  Oh, Peter, the bears are not for you, whatever you may think!

  When spring came again and the cold held back, then early summer with its clearer skies and softer rain, Peter’s hands stopped being so heavy, so much like shovel blades or the heads of lump hammers, and his cramped fingers creaked and stretched as he began to write a letter. It was the sadness, he wrote, it was the sadness that was all too much.

  He drafted the letter many times, and each time replaced it at the back of the drawer where he kept things he wanted to forget, and he thought he could, perhaps, take it to the bears who were still out there, waiting, ready to welcome him whenever he wanted.

  AT THE GALLERY OF NATIONAL ART

  I AM A WARDER at the Gallery of National Art, and I pass each day in silence. I sit in a narrow chair and watch the pictures on the walls, the people who wander by, and the motes of dust in the thick air. I am a Warder at the Gallery of National Art, and my work is precious to me: as a Warder, I protect the art of my nation from thieves and cast light on it for the curious. Though my work may seem simple, depth often passes unseen: I am both guard and guide.

  The guiding is not so common. On occasion I am called on to direct those looking for a specific piece of National Art, though rarely am I asked questions about it. Although I say my work is precious to me, I do not love my job. I am a Warder, after all: my job is to sit, and guard, and guide, and this I do.

  The guarding is constant, but in truth makes me fearful. Even in our small country, there have been stories of clever, scheming thieves who would wish to deprive our nation, and keep the National Art for their private pleasures. I worry about violent confrontation, much as I know the possibility of such confrontation to be slim. Those who desire to steal are far more likely to enter the Gallery of National Art by night when I am at home and sleeping in my bed. And yet I am on constant watch for those who make repeated visits and display more interest in skylights than the National Art itself. There have, in truth, been no thefts at the Gallery of National Art in the time I have been a Warder here. If you are seeking stories of dangerous criminals foiled with aplomb and derring-do, I apologise, for I have none.

  Among my serried days of dust and silence, few moments stand out. While I have no love for my job, nor do I hold any hate, and sometimes I am startled into feeling: this morning, for example, a young girl came to me and asked me a question at which I marvelled. I have been thinking on the answer to her question for some considerable time now, and still I have not found it.

  Yet there are other days when I am filled with the void. In this respect, I believe I am much like the rest of humanity. I try not to think of such days, and instead, as I sit on my narrow chair, I consider the times when I have had the opportunity to explain pieces of our National Art. Many visitors, especially those few who come from other countries, shuffle along in silence, their noses pushed firmly into a guidebook. One day, perhaps soon, there will be no further need for Warders at the Gallery of National Art; we shall be replaced by guidebooks, and I shall be made redundant, but this day has not yet come.

  I say I am much like the rest of humanity, but in truth I do not know. Does much of humanity veer between wonder and the void? I do not know, because as a Warder at the Gallery of National Art, my work allows me little space for friends.

  I prefer it if visitors ask why the pictures are organised so, or if a certain artist could be said to pertain to a specific school, or who the figure in a portrait is, or where the events shown in a particular painting took place. Sometimes they ask how they may widen their knowledge and understanding of the art of our nation. I even like it when they ask me if we have any Italian nativities, or Flemish interiors, or English sailing ships, and I patiently explain that no, we have none, because this is a gallery of National Art. These questions are posed less frequently now. Perhaps the guidebooks are more accurate and better annotated, or perhaps with the passing of time I have faded like the delicate cartoons we keep in Room 12.

  Faded as I may be, I like to think it is my very presence that wards off thieves as they prowl the Gallery searching for potential trophies and unlocked windows.

  As a Warder at the Gallery of National Art, I know the contents of each room perfectly, intimately. Ask me what the first picture on the left in Room 1 is, for example, and I would be able to tell you that it is a roughly put together genre painting of a group of topers and card sharps seated around a table in a country tavern. The final picture on the right in Room 52? A woman walking a narrow path away from a large, dilapidated house toward the woods that cover the rest of the canvas. It is late summer, early evening, the light perfectly evoked.

  The third picture from the left on the main wall in Room 23 depicts a house whose brick façade is painted in a delicate duck-egg blue with a single lamp illuminating its door. I know this house well, because it is the house where I live. As I enter the gallery in the morning or leave at night, I often glimpse the painting and think of my home waiting for me. In winter, by the time I arrive home, the pool of light around the door has not expanded but intensified, while the rest of the house has vanished in gloom. At the same time, I believe the picture stays exactly as it is. I find my key and open the door and climb the three flights of stairs to the small flat where I live alone now, and I eat at my table before sleeping. My life is quiet, circumscribed. I am a Warder at the Gallery of National Art.

  Although there have been no thefts on my watch, a man once attacked a work of our National Art. His eyes were set a little too close together, his hair was threadbare, and he wore a jacket with its buttons missing. He made several circuits of the gallery, and I noticed him because he was alone, and I always take special care to notice lone visitors, not because I believe them potential criminals, but because I find their singleness palpable. His forehead glistened, and, though alone, he spoke aloud. Each time he passed his voice grew, his words ever denser and less comprehensible. On his fourth circuit, he pu
shed his hand deep into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a small hammer, the kind you would use to nail a picture tack into a wall, and he approached the large statue of King Ata that stood in the middle of the room, and he set about the statue with his hammer. A splinter flew from the King’s kneecap, his toe was smashed, and his arm came off in but a few seconds. I shouted for help but none came, so I restrained the man myself. It was not difficult. His heart was not in it. He did not really want to kill God, as he later told the court. Perhaps he had wanted to kill his father. I do not know. I am not a Viennese doctor. I am a Warder at the Gallery of National Art.

  Today is a good day, not only because of the question the girl asked, but also because I am working in the portraits room of the Gallery, sitting directly opposite a tiny picture the size of a small envelope, the type of envelope that would contain a handwritten invitation to a birthday party or a lightly perfumed love letter. The picture is of a young person who, I believe, looks exactly like me. Were I ever asked to name my favourite picture in the Gallery of National Art, I would choose this one. It is not a well-executed picture, the brushwork jagged and approximate and the paint laid too thickly, but even though I am now undoubtedly older than the anonymous figure in the picture, and although no one has ever pronounced on the likeness, I feel it a mirror into another version of myself.

  Next to the portraits room is the gallery of trains. There have been no trains in our nation, and many wonder why there should be so many pictures of them. Some time ago, there was much talk of the coming of the trains, and a competition was held. Painters were asked to depict the trains they imagined for our nation. No winner was ever declared, and the railroad never came. I used to hope that the train would arrive in our country in my lifetime, but when I look at the hundreds of tiny paintings crammed into the gallery, and the four enormous ones, I think I shall be glad if I never see a real train. They seem monstrous to me, iron, steam, and fire, waiting to take me away.