walks they take. Conversations about the children: what is best for the girls, what should be done with the boys. Discussions about Robert’s situation in Bonn, doctors’ reports, new therapies. Analysis of Clara’s performances, program selections, resulting reviews. Debates over Johannes’s compositions, which seem, at times, to belong to them both. * Together, they sit at the piano, reviewing modulations, refining passages, Clara’s fingers moving over the keys like gestures accompanying a story she’s determined to finish. It is not enough that he says he understands.
She bats at his arm. Do you see?
In the end, of course, he listens—as she listens to him, in her turn. He encourages her own compositions, applauds her private performances, yielding to her superior sense of line, her inspired fingerings. He distracts the children with gymnastics, walks, giving her the gift of a clear afternoon in which she can sit down to compose. He intercedes on her behalf with doctors and bill collectors, and when a rat scuttles out of the coal bin, it’s Johannes who brandishes the broom, screaming along with the children, even as he chases it through the parlor and out the front door.
And then there’s the way he talks to her, of everything, ofnothing. Of music and sunlight, of trees and stones, of porridge and history and science and God. Of his mother. Of her father. Of a restaurant in Dresden where, once, he sampled a particular kind of cheese. Of local politics and musical fools, America, the plague, French fashion, Liszt, Fanny Mendelssohn’s new parlor maid, Joseph Joachim’s annoying tendencies, German folklore, Hamburg. She’s following him down a steeply sloped path: thirty-six years old; strong-willed; strong-limbed. But she cannot keep up with all that he says. She cannot keep up with her own flooding heart. Placing her foot against a loose stone, she tumbles forward as he turns to catch her, touches her forehead to the rough kiss of his chin. Somehow he’s holding her hard in his arms, his exhalations filling her inhalations, an exacting completion, a jigsaw fit, and she thinks of making music. She thinks of making love. The places on her body he has not yet touched are dark spaces.
The rest of her shines.
Do I want to have Robert back like this? she has written in her diary. And yet, should I not want to have, most of all, the person back again? Oh, I don’t know what to think anymore: I have thought it all over thousands upon thousands of times and it always remains just terrible. *
Wake up, she tells herself. Step away.
He keeps breathing. She keeps breathing. Around them, the green land. The golden light of dreams.
This is not the sort of man with whom you build a future.
At some point, you must step away.
Date: Saturday, June 17 10:58 PM
To: [email protected]
Dear L—,
You wanted to know how I really am. I needed some time to think about my answer.
Six weeks ago, I met a German man—actually, I can’t shake this déjà vu feeling he’s someone I’ve met before—and I suppose we’re friends, though he insists that men and women can’t be friends. He also says there’s no chemistry between us, but lately it seems there’s some chemistry after all. Remember the book I always wanted to write about Clara Schumann and Brahms? He’s helping me with translations. Also, I’m going to Germany next month, and he’ll be there at the same time. Sometimes I think he cares about me. Other times, there’s this calculating distance, as if I don’t quite measure up.
So all this is to say that I guess I don’t really know how I am, aside from being sorry, from my heart, to hear about you and Sally. Is it something that can be fixed? Then again, I suppose these things can’t ever really be fixed. But maybe it’s different with a second marriage. Maybe things are easier to figure out.
Heard any more divorce jokes lately? I’ve started collecting them. It helps. Anyway, I’m thinking about
She bats at his arm. Do you see?
In the end, of course, he listens—as she listens to him, in her turn. He encourages her own compositions, applauds her private performances, yielding to her superior sense of line, her inspired fingerings. He distracts the children with gymnastics, walks, giving her the gift of a clear afternoon in which she can sit down to compose. He intercedes on her behalf with doctors and bill collectors, and when a rat scuttles out of the coal bin, it’s Johannes who brandishes the broom, screaming along with the children, even as he chases it through the parlor and out the front door.
And then there’s the way he talks to her, of everything, ofnothing. Of music and sunlight, of trees and stones, of porridge and history and science and God. Of his mother. Of her father. Of a restaurant in Dresden where, once, he sampled a particular kind of cheese. Of local politics and musical fools, America, the plague, French fashion, Liszt, Fanny Mendelssohn’s new parlor maid, Joseph Joachim’s annoying tendencies, German folklore, Hamburg. She’s following him down a steeply sloped path: thirty-six years old; strong-willed; strong-limbed. But she cannot keep up with all that he says. She cannot keep up with her own flooding heart. Placing her foot against a loose stone, she tumbles forward as he turns to catch her, touches her forehead to the rough kiss of his chin. Somehow he’s holding her hard in his arms, his exhalations filling her inhalations, an exacting completion, a jigsaw fit, and she thinks of making music. She thinks of making love. The places on her body he has not yet touched are dark spaces.
The rest of her shines.
Do I want to have Robert back like this? she has written in her diary. And yet, should I not want to have, most of all, the person back again? Oh, I don’t know what to think anymore: I have thought it all over thousands upon thousands of times and it always remains just terrible. *
Wake up, she tells herself. Step away.
He keeps breathing. She keeps breathing. Around them, the green land. The golden light of dreams.
This is not the sort of man with whom you build a future.
At some point, you must step away.
Date: Saturday, June 17 10:58 PM
To: [email protected]
Dear L—,
You wanted to know how I really am. I needed some time to think about my answer.
Six weeks ago, I met a German man—actually, I can’t shake this déjà vu feeling he’s someone I’ve met before—and I suppose we’re friends, though he insists that men and women can’t be friends. He also says there’s no chemistry between us, but lately it seems there’s some chemistry after all. Remember the book I always wanted to write about Clara Schumann and Brahms? He’s helping me with translations. Also, I’m going to Germany next month, and he’ll be there at the same time. Sometimes I think he cares about me. Other times, there’s this calculating distance, as if I don’t quite measure up.
So all this is to say that I guess I don’t really know how I am, aside from being sorry, from my heart, to hear about you and Sally. Is it something that can be fixed? Then again, I suppose these things can’t ever really be fixed. But maybe it’s different with a second marriage. Maybe things are easier to figure out.
Heard any more divorce jokes lately? I’ve started collecting them. It helps. Anyway, I’m thinking about
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