— Every child should be an only child, he said, there should be a law, as there is in China, against having more than one child. All the psychological harm inflicted on humanity, he said, has been inflicted not by fathers and mothers but by brothers and sisters. Freud never understood this, he said, obsessed as he was with fathers and mothers, but the truth is that it is brothers and sisters who do the most harm. In my time as an invalid in Swiss sanatoria, he said, I had the opportunity to observe the neurasthenic and the mad at close quarters, and you will not believe how often the cause of their illness was not a father or a mother but a brother or a sister. A child who has a brother or a sister can never be alone, and to be alone is the supreme joy of childhood as it is of adulthood. Give me the man who likes to be alone, Massimo, he said, and I will give you a happy and contented man. Every child should be allowed to develop as he wishes, he said. First, he said, I attacked every piano I came across with my fists and my feet. I banged the lids down and I caressed the strings and I used my elbows to smother the keys. The piano was my first love, he said. I found I could make it bring forth all the sounds I wanted and many that I had never dreamed of. It was lucky, he said, that the houses we lived in were so large, because even with all the doors shut I made an almighty din. I wanted nothing to do with the drawing-room sounds the piano brought forth when my parents invited the noted pianists and singers of the day to play and to sing, he said. I hated those pianists and those singers from the bottom of my heart. I hated the sounds they made and I hated the airs they gave themselves. It took two world wars to cleanse the world of such sounds and such airs, he said. And even today there are fools who invite pianists and singers into their homes to reproduce those sounds and those airs. They should be lined up against the walls of their drawing room and shot, he said, as should the pianists and singers they invite. The piano is a universe, Massimo, he said, it is not a world, it is not a country, and it is certainly not a drawing room, it is a universe. Observe the piano if you will, Massimo, he said, and see what it consists of. Look at the oddity of its shape and the variety of its surfaces. The piano is not an instrument for young ladies, Massimo, he said, it is an instrument for gorillas. Only a gorilla has the strength to attack a piano as it should be attacked, he said, only a gorilla has the uninhibited energy to challenge the piano as it should be challenged. It was when I realised this, he said, that I made a point of going to Africa to study the gorilla. When you see the chest and the brow of a gorilla, he said, you realise what a puny being man is. Liszt was a gorilla of the piano, he said. Scriabin was a gorilla of the piano. Rachmaninov was a gorilla of the piano. But the first and greatest gorilla of the piano was Beethoven, he said. Beethoven understood, he said, that the first attribute of the composer is deafness. All his life, he said Beethoven marched towards deafness as though towards his destiny. Between 1930 and 1945, he said, I wrote fourteen works for the piano, but by then I had been destroyed, first by Scheler in Vienna and then by my wife. It was only in 1951 that I returned to the piano, he said, and wrote seven works which came close to doing justice to the nature of the instrument. The culmination of this work was Stepping into the Clouds for four pianos, which was finished on 31 December 1955. Then I stopped. The piano no longer interested me. I still have my pianos, he said, and I still sometimes sit down at the piano, but I have exhausted the possibilities of the instrument. I have nothing more to say with it, he said, and it has nothing more to say to me.
— But he went on composing at the piano?
— At the piano?
— Yes.
— I do not understand the question.
— He had the piano by him when he was writing his music?
— There was always a piano in his study. But these are questions you will have to put to Mr Testoro. Only Mr Testoro was allowed into his study.
— Did Annamaria not go in to clean it?
— Nobody was allowed inside except Mr Testoro. Nobody is to go inside his study, Annamaria said to me. If you go inside his study that will be the end of you.
— So how was it cleaned?
— You will have to ask Annamaria.
— What were your relations with Mr Testoro?
— I do not think he ever had cause to complain about me.
— And the other secretaries?
— You will have to ask them.
— Is it true that Miss Mauss asked for you to be dismissed?
— You will have to ask her.
— That is what she has told me.
— That is her prerogative.
— You do not deny it?
— What would be the point of denying?
— But Mr Pavone did not dismiss you.
— That is correct.
— Instead, it was Miss Mauss herself who left?
— That is correct.
— Why did she leave?
— You will have to ask her yourself.
— Tell me about the house. How was it divided?
— It is a big house, as you know. The studio alone takes up two floors at the top and is the size of many fine flats here in Rome.
— Did you live on the premises?
— Yes. In the basement there were two flats. One for Annamaria and one for the help. And then, at the very top, above the studio, there is another flat, which Mr Pavone let to various people. Often to musicians who worked with him on his music. To performers.
— Who lived there in your time?
— For several years, when I first came, there was a quartet living there, who worked with Mr Pavone to perform his works for string quartet. He said to me: Anyone who performs my work, Massimo, must be like an extension of myself. They must become so used to playing my work that they can perform it in their sleep.
— They only played his work?
— They were hired by Mr Pavone to play his work. That was before many people were interested in his music. Before the Arditti Quartet took it up. It is fortunate, Massimo, he said, that I have money. My cousins want me to save my money so as to leave it to them and to their children when I die, but it is my money and I will do with it what I wish. If I had no money, he said, it would not be a tragedy. I would get by perfectly well. I have many skills, Massimo, he said, and I am not too proud to do any kind of work. But since I have money I will use it to further the cause of music and of civilisation.
— He said of music and civilisation?
— Those were his words, sir. To further the cause of music and of civilisation.
— Very good. Go on.
— In what direction, sir?
— In any direction you wish.
— I have forgotten what I was saying.
— Never mind. Tell me about the quartet. The performers.
— There was Mr Stankevitch. The quartet was named after him. The Stankevitch Quartet. And Mr Halliday. And Mr Silone. And Mr van Buren.
— Did you have much to do with them?
— No. They had the flat and they were quite independent.
— They spoke Italian?
— Yes. They all spoke Italian. Except Mr Halliday. Mr Pavone spoke to them in French. Sometimes Mr Stankevitch and Mr van Buren spoke to each other in German. Or perhaps it was Czech or Dutch. And when they were all together they spoke in English.
— Did you ever hear them practising?
— No. As you know, sir, all the walls are soundproofed. Mr Pavone said to me: Massimo, there is nothing more exciting than the sounds of the street, but they should not enter the house. I have enough money, he said, to ensure that what goes on in one room of my house is not overheard in another room. There is nothing worse, he said, than hearing your neighbour playing his piano in what he thinks is a stylish way. It is worse even than hearing a radio or the senseless beat of a rock band on a record. Nothing worse, he said, than hearing the murmur of voices in a neighbouring room when you are trying to read or to think, let alone compose. Every room in this house is soundproofed, Massimo, he said. You could strangle your wife or your lover in your flat downstairs, Massimo, he said, and no one would be any the wiser. The Italians do not know what it means to be quiet, Massimo, he said. They are terrified of silence. I am not terrified of silence, he said. I crave silence as others crave drink. Of course, he said, scientists have shown us that there is no such thing as perfect silence. In the best soundproofed room in the world you will hear the blood roaring in your veins and your heart beating against your ribs. But it is your blood, Massimo, he said, and your heart. That is the difference, he said.