No World Concerto Read Online Free

He cracks a smile as if the ritual induces a pleasurable frisson. Remember me? he mutters into receiver, biting his bottom lip. After hanging up for the last time, he grabs his glasses and returns to the writing desk, takes out a few index cards and scans them a while, reviewing his notes on the plot from the beginning: the girl practicing endlessly at the piano, her rehearsals with the Little Sinfonietta, her writings, her nightly visits. He imagines her thinking of him — thinking of him waiting for her, sitting at his desk in a modest room in a flophouse most piano starlets like her would avoid. After sleeping a little more, he wakes up hungry. He checks the time. He goes into the bathroom and eyes himself in the mirror for a while. Then he starts scrupulously combing his hair. He feels young, despite his age, no one could ever guess his age. In the hallway, the doors to some of the other rooms are open. He sees a maid pushing a vacuum, flanked by a massif of dirty towels. She says hello, he simply nods his head. Her blue uniform is unbuttoned at the crotch, but since he doesn’t find her attractive anyway, he looks away. He heads for the canteen musing over the girl, imagines the realia she deems indispensable: the satchel in which she keeps her sheet music, the books he recommends, her diary, and the notebooks in which she works on her magnum opus. It’s probably an idea he jotted elsewhere, but he imagines the young orchestra conductor saying something along the lines of: Supposing twelve-tone music had never been invented. The screenwriter scribbles it in his notebook just in case, setting it off from the rest of the page, and takes a seat at the table. No need for more detail, the suggestion of the phrase is all he needs to recover the whole idea. Now, he imagines the girl writing in her diary, gasping for an afflatus, groping after an elusive plot so she can finally continue her story, and the screenwriter squirms under this reminder of himself. When she finishes giving the concerts, he’ll ask her to run away with him, he thinks, to go with him as far away as possible, to the other side of the world if need be, to a city where the cost of living could be covered by a pension check, where they could live off the earnings from his screenplays, the novels the girl will write under his aegis, and maybe even the proceeds of a piano recital or two: a beautiful thought, but the reverie makes him lose his train of thought. Still, the idea’s now safely ensconced in his pocket. How different it would be, having breakfast with her, looking out at the sea: a different life; a different world. This neighboring country, this capital city, is only a hitching post — he thinks, trying to reassure himself — a momentary detour from his path to a better life. After breakfast and reading a newspaper in the discommodious hotel lobby, he decides to stretch his legs by joining the pedestrians outside. He heads first to the pond, then to a kiosk located at the point where the boulevards intersect, and purchases a broadsheet from his native country. He’s unable to read while limping, so he stands aside and skims over some of the headlines. Then he tucks it under his arm and limps down the hill toward the café in the plaza. The waitress is attractive. He smiles, she doesn’t seem to notice. So he lights a cigarette and finishes going over the headlines. While waiting to be served, he takes a look around the plaza and suddenly recalls the phrase he noted down during breakfast. He recites it a couple of times under his breath, and decides to build on it before it dissipates. The action takes place on stage in a small, empty theater. Near the end of the rehearsal, as the girl sees her father take a seat in the front row, the screenwriter puts in the mouth of the young conductor the words: Supposing twelve-tone music had never been invented. The brilliant composer, barely paying attention as he collects the tiny music boxes from the