Have You Seen Luis Velez?(91)

Chapter Eighteen




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The Cellist

Raymond was walking from his father’s apartment to the subway when he first heard it. It was an extended musical note, played live on some string instrument. It had a resonance that he could feel in his gut, as though the string lived in his large intestine, just under his stomach, and some unseen bow was making it tremble. It was a beautiful bass note, but also almost unbearably sad. It made tears spring to his eyes immediately, which surprised him.

He stood in the middle of the sidewalk and looked around until he saw the musician. He was a middle-aged man sitting on a three-legged stool on the corner, close to the subway stairs, playing the cello. His hair was wild and gray, missing on top but full around the sides. In front of him on the street was an upturned hat in which Raymond could see a small handful of dollar bills.

He moved closer.

The man looked up at him and smiled briefly, then returned his attention to the instrument.

Raymond squatted down on his haunches to listen. It was a slow, heartfelt classical piece. The more he listened, the more impossible it felt to hold back his tears. The notes just seemed to find Raymond’s sorrow in its hiding places and pull it out into the light. He swiped at his eyes with one sleeve.

He pulled a five-dollar bill out of his pocket and dropped it into the man’s hat. It was the only bill the musician had been given that was bigger than a single.

Meanwhile the cellist drew out the last note, and the street fell silent. Well, silent in terms of music. There were still city noises, which Raymond did not find the least bit welcome in comparison.

“Thank you,” the man said, looking deeply into Raymond’s face. Raymond was careful not to meet the cellist’s eyes. “That’s a gift right there. I can actually get lunch with that.”

A silence. Raymond did not fill it. He was hoping the musician would play again. But he just kept looking into Raymond’s face, as if he had lost something important there.

“Seem like the music made you sad,” the man said.

“I guess,” Raymond replied, still wishing the man would play.

“But you already had this sadness in you before you heard my cello.”

“How do you know that?”

“The cello is an amazing instrument. It can slice right through a person’s walls and pull things to the surface. Why do you think I play it? But it can’t pull out something that wasn’t in there to begin with.”

Then he began to play again. Raymond sat down cross-legged on the concrete and listened. The tears came back, and he didn’t feel able to stop them. So after a while he didn’t try.

It seemed to produce an actual physical feeling in his gut, a sort of ache that rose and fell with the music—that ricocheted around in there as each note faded and died.

When the piece was over, and the man’s bow had gone still and his strings silent, Raymond asked a question.

“If it slices through walls and pulls stuff out of me, stuff that hurts, why am I sitting here listening to it? Why didn’t I walk the other way?”

“Because it’s better to feel it.”

“Not if it hurts.”

“Especially if it hurts. Remember, it was in there to begin with. And as an old friend of mine used to say, better out than in.”

Then he played another piece.

When the bow had gone still again and the last note had faded to no note at all, Raymond asked another question.

“Are you going to be here for an hour or so?”

“Son, I’m going to be here all day.”

“Okay,” he said. “Thanks. I’ll be back.”



“You need to get ready to go out,” he said to Mrs. G. “Please. I want to take you someplace.”

She was slumped on the couch, still in her nightgown and robe, her hair undone and unkempt, the cat purring on her lap.

“Oh, Raymond,” she said, followed by a deep sigh. “Couldn’t you go do the shopping without me?”

“That’s not where I’m taking you.”

“Where, then?”

“I don’t want to say. I want you to trust me.”

“It’s already afternoon. I get tired in the afternoon.”

“I really think it will be worth it,” he said. “Please just trust me on this.”

He knew as he said it that she would not refuse him. Their unspoken deal was that he did as much as he could for her and asked as little as possible in return. When he asked her to do something—if it was a reasonable thing, and within her power to do it—at least she would try.

Another deep sigh. Then she shifted the cat off onto the couch and rose with great effort. Raymond extended a hand to help her, but she didn’t seem to notice.

“Fine,” she said, shuffling slowly toward her bedroom. “Give me ten minutes. Maybe feed the cat while you are waiting, please.”



“I had a dream last night,” she said to him on the subway ride to Midtown.

He waited, thinking she would say more. But she seemed to be waiting as well, as if to be sure that he genuinely wanted to hear about it.

“What was it?” he asked after a time.

“I dreamt about my friend Anna. Annaliese Schmidt. She was my best friend in school in Germany. She was the same age in the dream—the age she was when I last saw her. And here I was over ninety and Anna still just a young girl, and yet she spoke to me as if we were peers. She said some fairly harsh things.”