"Zoltan," said the woman in the yellow raincoat.
The gray hair, the deep, gray gaze, the clear skin. Margit, love, my love, 1 thought you wouldn't come, how fast these twenty-five years have gone by because we're together again as if nothing else has happened.
Zoltan, his mouth still open, removed his glasses.
"Margit." He went up to her and had to lean down to her. "Margit," he repeated, to assure himself of the miracle.
They didn't put carnations on any tombs. She piloted the chair to the stone bench and he followed her, breathing hard. Zoltan sat on the wet surface and they were silent for a long time, as if they both had to recharge the batteries of their memories.
"1 made a mistake," she said after a long silence.
"That's what 1 thought."
They didn't look at one another for fear of the fine, sharp pain of sight.
"And what have you been doing all this time?"
"Going to bed early." Zoltan slowly put his glasses in their case and the case in his overcoat.
"Have you been happy?"
"No. But that wasn't an option. 1 got married. My wife is dead and I'm very sorry for not having figured out how to be happy with her."
Margherita handed him a white carnation, as if that gesture could console him in his sorrow.
"Poor woman," she sighed.
And they were silent. The monument to Mozart offered no shadow to show the passage of time.
"And you?"
"We separated after two years."
Now he looked at her, upset, surprised.
"Why didn't you come and look for me?"
"1 did. But 1 didn't know where to look. 1 went to Budapest, downriver, like you said." Margherita's eyes were wide open, but she was looking at her own story, not at the tombs. "How could 1 find you if I didn't even know your last name? At the Liszt in Pest everybody's called Zoltan."
"1 can't believe it." Zoltan's voice was quietly desperate.
"1 couldn't find a trace of you. Not a trace. And 1 ended up living here to be near… the memory of you. Where do you live?"
"You've been living here?" he cried, hurt.
Now Zoltan looked right at her. Her gray eyes hurt him and showed how painfully sharp a look can be.
"For the last twenty years. I stopped singing and stopped having anything to do with music because…"
He interrupted her. "You've been living in Vienna for twenty years?"
"In Heiligenstadt. Thinking of you."
Zoltan stood up and exhaled, incredulous. He sat down again.
"In Heiligenstadt," he said, to confirm it.
"Yes."
"In a pretty house." He shook his head, perplexed. "Anna used to say…" He shook his head again to mean he had nothing more to say, he gave up, she should talk.
"Yes, it's a pretty house. Near Beethoven's. But after the accident 1 moved downtown, to a building with an elevator."
Now Zoltan focused for the first time on the wheelchair. He opened his mouth to say something, but his same thought obsessed him.
"Twenty years sharing traffic lights and the ferris wheel at the Prater."
"I've never gone up there. 1 didn't know you were here."
"Twenty years. Did you get married again?"
No. But I've found…" She stopped and changed the topic. "1 looked for you until…"
"Why did you leave me," Zoltan interrupted her, deeply wounded, "if you were going to miss me so much?"
"I've always been like that. But 1 never knew why."
"And now?"
"Now 1 know."
"Why?"
She picked up the bunch of carnations, looked at it and put it back on her lap, uncomfortable.
"How's the piano?"
"1 quit. 1 became a rehearsal pianist."
"You were very good."
"Yes, but 1 didn't have…" He stopped. "You haven't explained why you left me if you were going to miss me so much."
She said nothing. As if it were hard for her to be honest with Zoltan. After a long pause:
"It's that… it scares me to hold onto happiness. It burns, I'm afraid it'll explode."
He put his hand between hers, to hold onto.
"Here. It won't explode."
But instinctively she opened her hands and let him go.
"I've come here many times," she said, to hide her agitation. "But it's been a while… I've found…"
"1 never have. Ever, until today." He looked around, as if asking the wet surroundings to be a witness. "1 couldn't have stood it."
Margit said nothing and decided to change the subject.
"Do you have children?"
"No. 1 have memories. Can 1 ask you to lunch?"
"It's… This is a little… 1 have problems…" She pointed to the wheelchair as if it were to blame."… with bladder control. 1 don't like to be away from home for too long."
"We'll do whatever you say."
She thought for a few seconds. It seemed to Zoltan that the woman's gray eyes were regaining the penetrating power of her encounters with the mysteries.
"Let me go to the bathroom. Then…" She smiled. "Then we'll see."
Zoltan stood up and she went to his side. A few drops started to fall. They went towards the building at the entrance, where the restrooms were, in silence. Outside the bathroom, she turned the chair towards him and looked into his eyes.
"Wait for me here."
"I've always done what you say." He looked at her seriously. "Why shouldn't 1 do it now?"
She winked a gray eye and disappeared through the door to the handicapped section. Zoltan turned around and sighed. He wasn't satisfied; he was shaken. He smelled the white carnation Margherita had given him. He breathed in the scent hard, optimistically. If he'd been able to achieve some kind of serenity over the years, now the whole thing was falling down around his ears. The drops were coming faster now. He put the carnation in his buttonhole with impulsive coquetry and, his hands free, opened the umbrella and once again heard the patter on the fabric. But now it sounded sweet to him because there was hope in it.
After a few minutes the rain stopped as it had started and he closed the umbrella again. Then the vibration of the phone told him that the world was still turning. Peter's distant voice woke him from his dream.
"Hey, Peter," he said indifferently, "what do you want?"
"No, nothing, just thanks for the book about Fischer. I've only been able to flip through it, but you can tell it's amazing."
"Come on." Inexcusably impatient. "What's wrong?"
"1 can't play. And 1 can't not play. 1 think about you a lot. I'm sad, Zoltan."
"Listen, right now 1'm…"
"I haven't slept in six months because I'm so upset. I need some rest. And you told me…"
"Listen, why don't we talk some other time?"
"If music keeps you from being happy, quit music, you told me."
"Listen, we'll talk about this, all right?"
"I've seen Schubert." Peter's desperate voice.
"Schubert?" Instinctively, Zoltan looked towards the tomb. But he went back immediately to watching the door to the handicapped stalls.
"Peter, listen. 1…"
"Fine, fine."
"Call me some other time, all right?"
"I love you. With all my heart. Remember that."
Peter hung up, too brusquely perhaps, and Zoltan had to do the same, thoughtfully. What had he wanted to say? Just as he was about to conclude that Pere Bros had big problems, he was distracted by a chubby individual coming out of the men's restroom, whom he hadn't seen go in. He concentrated on his door and forgot about his friend's distant lament because the throbbing of his recovered hope blocked it out. He couldn't act like a big brother when his heart was exploding. He started walking back and forth in front of the restrooms, patient and impatient, thinking about important things like, for example, it was inexcusable that in their time together he still hadn't asked her what had happened, why she was in a wheelchair. What's that about an accident, Margit, what happened to you?