Читать книгу Everything Happens as It Does - Albena Stambolova - Страница 17

11.

The Twins

Valentin’s anger toward his sister was boundless. She was the same as him and she was different. He felt ashamed to have a sister. He invented and did all kinds of things, and she just sat there, dull, watching him. He did not want this lump, so similar to him, to sit there and watch him. He did not want to have a sister.

When they began school, his mother was no longer there to take his sister in her arms whenever she started weeping. It quickly became clear that Margarita could not stay in the same school. This solved the problem, and after rejecting the idea for a year, his mother agreed to send her to another school, for children like her. Although no one knew exactly what his sister was like. Except perhaps his mother, but she never said anything.

Margarita thus disappeared from Valentin’s life. At least for a while. She reappeared during weekends, but he had other things to do, he had friends, and his mother would simply take her out somewhere.

He could remember how his father once became very angry about Maria and Margarita’s going out. He had insisted on joining them, he had insisted on being told what they intended to do together. Maria had ignored his shouting. When the two women were ready to leave, his mother whispered something in his sister’s ear, and Margarita remained by the door to wait. His mother then went into the bedroom with his father.

After that everything quieted down, as if someone had enclosed the world in a box. The two children fixed the bedroom door with their eyes. Valentin looked at Margarita. A peculiar thought crossed his mind, but by then his mother had reappeared. Without a word, she grabbed Margarita’s hand and they went out.

Valentin waited for a while, then gently opened the bedroom door. His father was snoring happily in his bed.

When they brought the piano to the house, his mother said it was for Margarita. Valentin could not believe it—such a big and important object meant for this miserable, annoying little thing that was his sister.

In the beginning, Maria herself taught Margarita how to play. Valentin discovered that his mother could play the piano. He felt extremely proud and wanted to learn to play too. But she would not have it, the piano was for Margarita.

He remembered that later a blond woman would come to the house and play the piano with Margarita.

Then Margarita started playing the piano by herself and Valentin lost interest in the whole affair. One day, after many years, when they were about fifteen years old, a friend of his happened to hear Margarita play and said he wanted to see her. They tiptoed into the dusky living room and listened to her unnoticed for a long time. When she stopped, she saw them and ran away into her room.

His friend, however, who was the son of musicians, could not leave it alone. He wanted to see the sheet music, he wanted to know if Margarita studied at a music school… They searched for the sheet music everywhere, but found nothing. The boy insisted that what they had heard was the finale of a very special sonata by César Franck, which people studied for the entry exams of the Conservatoire. And that Margarita played it like a virtuoso.