the choice, as Schoenberg did, of a single ear, the other blood and phosphor organ wrapped in the linen, solo blue ear the one listening to his contemporaries, the pianist thought as he left the Sony Center car park, could only with the girl and never another have talked about that single ear and whispered in the girl’s a music for contemporaries, the contemporaries who, the pianist had said in the Museum of Resistance and Deportation, are the sons and daughters of the shoe-thieves, the shoes of children and the elderly alike, the contemporaries the sons and daughters of those who didn’t stop them, said the pianist, to the audience and not to the girl, she from the top of the steps had understood perfectly as she would have understood perfectly in the Neuhardenberg Castle restaurant, and heard which is to say understood too in the car the opening whisper of the composer’s Blue Self-Portrait, a polyphony of disjointed timbres, he’d have whispered in the girl’s ear now lying beneath the black trees, the girl shivering again but with desire, don’t speak be quiet please don’t say anything shut up the pianist began again where he’d left off, listen please, in the natural last-of-winter silence not yet the joyful spring of migrating birds, our contemporaries’ whispers, this piece is the only music worthy of you, this piece is for you, listen it says nothing about the world as a whole but whispers a limited knowledge of the world, for you a limited and partial knowledge keep listening, would have slowed the heartbeat his and the girl’s and lost himself in the girl, could have lost himself in that listening, would have lost control of the music in the girl’s ear and stripped the girl bare beneath the black trees emptied of migrating birds, and dressed the girl in his brand-new composition, he wouldn’t merely have heard but heard with sympathy, would have lost himself beneath the black trees and close to the end, his body now lumpen and numb as before decomposition, stiff except for his hands, still he tries to be close to a body, not the girl’s but the body reading by the bedside light, the familiar almost family body of a usual accompaniment, tries to recover the serenity of what’s his in body and mind, would like to return to the calm warmth of the usual accompaniment’s Mutterbrust but senses in alarm a tepidity that chills him. “That I have written nothing I should be ashamed of forms the foundation of my moral existence” hears the supine pianist and sees again the Blue Self-Portrait on the wall, Schoenberg with his one blue ear frightens him when the usual accompaniment reads propped on her elbow, soundless but for slow and peaceful and terribly warm breathing, the odorous, heavy, anti-musical breathing that crashes over the pianist’s ear like a barbarous buzzing while beneath the black trees, his ear upon the girl’s ribcage, he was memorizing for ever the ever varied and imaginative and genuinely original breathing of the girl, exact echo of the whisper, that I’ve written nothing, moral existence, written nothing, existence, morale, written, moral, existence or nothing, was not falling asleep.
Sleep a bit, if only, close eyes to sleep and not to think or pray or feel but yes sleep, oh to sleep at last! here now without thinking much about it yet without struggle or striving, I closed my eyes but no more than a few seconds, sleeping in planes is impossible beside my sister whose delight in flying does not let up before landing. There’s Paris can you see, my sister said, we’re insanely lucky to see Paris from this particular spot in the sky, I once flew over Paris in a helicopter it was unforgettable but from here look and it’s Paris with the river, different from the plane than from the helicopter, Revoir Paris my sister sang Un p’tit séjour d’un mois, Charles Trenet always and over again since the day of Papa’s funeral, the day of my sister’s resurrection and Papa’s both at once, my sister’s resurrection ought to have restored Papa and not the other way round, seeing her resplendent above Paris I realize once again, seeing my sister’s splendor is generally enough to bring anyone to life but our father in particular certainly, as for the other way round we’ll have no idea right up to the Last Judgment and even then not sure. Papa would have loved to see this, my sister said reading my thoughts before I’d thought them, that’s so her, to say simply Papa would have loved this, yes I said, this more than anything, flying in the plane and seeing the river and Paris all around the river from here like us and also seeing my sister and I so nice each of us and each to the other, I could kill myself thinking how much he’d’ve loved it, Papa, seeing this, the incredible panorama us in the plane and Paris down below, nothing to anyone else but everything to him, his pride seeing us in the European sky no hatred for anyone and so nice, the great war he never experienced rubbed clean away and the other one that messed up his childhood, both wound up and us two flying there, my sister afraid of nothing and without a word to say against anyone and I seeing Paris forgetting as the cow forgets her calf, forgetting the language. Thomas Mann and Theodor W Adorno slipped from my still-weak knees and fell closed over each other beneath the seat in front, I picked them both up and stowed them together in my bag. The plane descending the language moves on, German fades out, I can already feel it fading out, I said to my sister, it does this every time, an hour and a half for German to fade right away, I’ve nothing more to say I who talks too much, have no language left
