There was a time, though, when I couldn’t so much as lift a cup of coffee or tea, can you imagine it? Almost all my fingers were too stiff. And when you can’t bend your fingers, how are you supposed to play the saxophone? Here you’re blowing into the mouthpiece, and down there your fingers are afraid of the keys. No more playing. It’s out of the question. There you were, playing away, and now there’s just despair. Your whole life, and nothing left but despair. You beg your fingers, press them down, try to force them to bend, but it’s like they’re dead. You don’t mind if they hurt all they want, they can hurt so much it’s unbearable, they can throb and sting and burn, but let them bend. You can’t imagine what it’s like. All the hopes, desires, the suffering, all without meaning anymore. How can anyone come to terms with that?
Wait a moment, I’d never have expected you to say what you just said. I must have you confused with someone else. But I still have to figure out when and where we met. Something’s not quite right here. I’d never have thought. If it were someone else … No, not at all, I understood you perfectly. I even think that who knows, you could be right. After all, that is one way out. Though now it no longer holds any meaning. Because the worst thing is when there’s none at all. Yes, it’s a way out. Though it’s no longer of any importance. Maybe if it had happened back then.
The thing is, though, when something happens gradually, to begin with you don’t notice it. Then you make light of it, then after that you reassure yourself that maybe things aren’t so bad. Especially because other people also cheer you up by saying that some other person was in the same boat, or even worse, and in the end they were fine.
I came back one winter from a ski trip in the mountains and my hands started to feel strangely tired. And this finger here began to ache. Not the other fingers, the other ones just became kind of sluggish. I thought it was because of the skiing. That my hands had been overstrained by all the ski poles and ski lifts, the climbing, the falls. I was a pretty good skier. But I’d go for two or three weeks only, and not every year, and I was out of practice. It was hardly surprising it should make itself felt afterwards. But some time later my other fingers started hurting too, and getting stiff. When I was playing it would happen that I didn’t press the key down on time, or I pressed it in the wrong way. That’s not good, I thought to myself. I went to the doctor. He examined one hand, examined the other, bent my fingers this way and that, pinched them in different places and asked if it hurt.
“It does.”
“I’m sorry to say, but it’s rheumatism,” he said. “And advanced. You’ll need to get tests done. We’ll take a look, and at that point we can think about treatment. But you’ll have to spend some time at a sanatorium. Twice a year would be best.”
“But will I be able to play, doctor?” I asked.
“What do you play?”
“The saxophone.”
He gave me a sympathetic look.
“For the moment just think about your hands. Especially as it could spread further. You never know with rheumatism. Rheumatism’s one of those illnesses …”
But I was no longer listening to him describing what kind of illness it was, I was wondering how I could exist without playing. At the end of the visit he tried to cheer me up by saying that it was hard to make any predictions without tests, so perhaps I’d still be able to play. If I followed his instructions, of course.
The results of the tests weren’t particularly good, so I did what he told me to do, especially as he’d left me some room for hope. Aside from taking the medication he urged me to be patient, to keep my spirits up. And to go to a sanatorium. I subjected myself to all kinds of procedures, massages, baths. I tried to do it all as conscientiously as I could. But how effective could it be when all you’re thinking about is the fact that you’re no longer playing, and may never play again. If your thoughts are going one way and your treatment the other, you’re not going to see any effects. I even avoided getting to know anyone there, it was good morning, good morning, nothing beyond that. I never went anywhere except on walks. The only thing I did was before or after a walk, I’d sometimes stop in at a cafe for coffee or tea. Other than that I didn’t go anyplace. Not to concerts, though there were some pretty good orchestras that played there, opera singers and popular singers, often really fine ones. The spa park was large so there were plenty of places to walk. There were avenues and paths, you could easily turn off if someone was coming towards you and you wanted to avoid them. There were benches everywhere, sometimes I’d sit down, but even if someone else so much as sat down at the other end of the bench I’d walk away at once. I didn’t feel good around people. Truth be told, I didn’t feel good around myself.
It was only when the squirrels would scamper up to me for nuts that I’d forget about myself for a moment. I always carried a bag of hazelnuts. It was like they knew. The moment I sat down they’d come hopping. Can you imagine? Why were the squirrels so trusting with people? You think people in a sanatorium are different? If that’s the case, everyone should be sent to a sanatorium. Except that even there it happened that someone for example left a dog behind. There were quite a few dogs like that, wandering in search of their owner.
Not at that sanatorium but at another one a long time before — I don’t recall if I told you about my beginnings abroad? Well, so back then, at one sanatorium I picked a spot on the main avenue, put a basket next to me on the ground, and started to play. As people passed by they threw money into the basket. Sometimes they’d sit on the nearby benches to listen. Occasionally someone would request a particular tune, those kinds of people generally gave more. It wasn’t easy to begin with, not at all. But I had good luck.
One time one of the convalescents, a guy on crutches, took a seat by me on a bench. He listened and listened, then he got up and threw a bill into my basket. Then he asked me to play something else for him, then something else again, then he asked me to move the basket closer, because it was hard for him to bend down, and he tossed in an even bigger banknote. From that time on he came almost every day. He’d sit down, listen, request this or that, then ask me to pass him the basket, and throw in a banknote.
At some point he told me to come sit by him and he started asking me where I’d learned to play, whether I had any qualifications. No, I didn’t lie to him. I told him the whole truth, that I’d gone to such and such a school, then that I’d been taught by the warehouse keeper on the building site, and of course that I’d played in the works band. He nodded, but I had the impression he didn’t really believe me. I still didn’t know the language properly, I could barely express myself, but he seemed to understand everything.
Some time later he asked me again to sit by him. He didn’t ask me any questions, he just started complaining that the sanatoria weren’t doing much good, and it was looking like he might end up in a wheelchair. He’d been a dancer, he loved dancing. Now he owned a club. He gave the name, said where it was, and he asked if I wouldn’t be interested in playing in the band at his club. He was leaving, he’d come to say goodbye. He left me the exact address, gave me money for the ticket, and we agreed when I should come. And that was how it all began.
So you can imagine how I felt now. At one time I’d played for money thrown into a basket, but still I’d been playing. Now I was throwing money into other people’s baskets, while I myself had no hope. Plus, I could see him before me, inching along on his crutches, facing the prospect of being in a wheelchair. Yes, he was already in a wheelchair when I played in his club. Let me tell you, I felt like I was waiting for a sentence to be passed, especially since for the longest time there was no improvement. I even seemed to be worse. So you can understand that I had to forget about the saxophone. It goes without saying that I kept visiting the sanatorium just as the doctor had instructed, but by then I was afraid to drive a car, so I used to take the train.