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Authors: César Aira

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Another rich lady, Mrs. Vanderbilt, figured in a famous anecdote, mentioned in
virtually all the psychology books written around that time. She once decided to
liven up a dinner party with some violin music. She asked who the best violinist in
the world was. Why would she settle for second best? Fritz Kreisler, she was told.
She called him on the telephone. I don’t give private concerts, he said: my fee is
too high. That’s not a problem, replied Mrs. Vanderbilt: How much? Ten thousand
dollars. All right. I’ll expect you tonight. But there is just one thing, Mr.
Kreisler: you will dine in the kitchen with the servants, and you must not mix with
my guests. In that case, he said, I’ll have to alter my fee. That’s not a problem,
how much? Two thousand dollars, replied the violinist.

The behaviorists loved that story, and they would go on loving it all their lives,
telling it to one another tirelessly and transcribing it in their books and
articles. But what about
his
anecdote, the one
about Cecil Taylor? Would anyone love that? Would anyone tell it? Anecdotes had to
succeed too—didn’t they?—for someone to repeat them.

That summer, along with a horde of other musicians, he was invited to participate in
the Newport festival, at which a couple of afternoons would be given over to the
presentation of new artists. Cecil thought about it: his music, which was
essentially new, would be a challenge to that festive, seaside atmosphere. All the
same, it was a change from the smoke and chatter of bars: he’d be performing for
jazz fans, who’d paid for their tickets and come to listen and judge. And yet,
although he prepared for the event with his customary dedication, when the day came,
his performance was an absolute fiasco. No one interrupted him this time, but the
listening was interrupted: the audience walked out, which didn’t stop the critics
and journalists among them having an opinion. Not even an opinion about him; they
used it as a pretext to settle scores with the organizers, who were so lacking in
judgment that they’d invited people who didn’t even play jazz, or any kind of music.
The closest thing to criticism came from the
Down Beat
journalist. Without mentioning Cecil by name, and adopting an ironic tone, he
trotted out a version of the Cretan liar paradox: If someone were to hammer a piano
with his fists and say, “I am making music . . .” Music, thought Cecil as he read,
can’t be paradoxical, because of its nonlinguistic nature, and yet what is happening
to me is a paradox. How can that be?

He couldn’t come up with an answer, then or ever. Over the following months he
performed in half a dozen bars, always a different place because the result was
always the same, and he received two invitations, which reopened the wound of
anticipation, one from a university and the other from the organizers of a series of
avant-garde events at the Cooper Union. He took up the first with some hope, which
turned out to be misplaced (within a few minutes, the room was empty; the professor
who had issued the invitation came up with complicated excuses and hated him ever
after), but at least it served to provoke a reflection, which might have been
misplaced as well, not that Cecil cared anymore: an educated audience was equivalent
in every respect to an uneducated one. They were the same, in fact, except that they
were looking in opposite directions, facing away from each other. The pivot on which
their seats turned was the hoary old tale of the emperor’s new clothes. For one
group the obscene and shameful thing was nakedness; for the other, it was clothes.

His experience at the Cooper Union was even less gratifying. They used a blackout as
a pretext to stop him halfway through; there was vigorous booing, and from what he
heard later, his performance left the audience wondering about the limits of music,
and whether he had meant it as a joke.

Cecil gave up another of his temporary jobs, and, with some money he’d saved, spent
the winter months studying and composing. In spring, a contract came up for a couple
of dates, in a bar in Brooklyn, where they laughed in his face and threw him out. As
he was traveling home in the train, the rocking movement and the stations sliding by
put him in a meditative frame of mind. It struck him that the logic of his
predicament was in fact perfectly clear, and he wondered why he hadn’t seen it
before: in all those edifying tales about pianos and violins, there was always a
musician whose talent wasn’t recognized at first, but in the end it was. That was
where the mistake lay, in the transition from failure to triumph, as if they were
two points, A and B, joined by a line. In fact, failure is infinite, because it’s
infinitely divisible, unlike success.

Let’s suppose, said Cecil in the empty carriage at three in the morning, that in
order to be recognized I have to perform for an audience whose coefficient of
sensitivity and intelligence has a certain threshold value, x. And let’s say I start
off performing for an audience with a coefficient of x/100, then I’ll have to “go
through” an audience whose coefficient is x/50, then one with a coefficient of x/25
. . . and so on. There was no need to reinvent Zeno’s famous argument: it was all
too obvious.

Six months later he was hired to play in a dive frequented by French tourists:
existentialists, who came to the city of jazz in search of powerful emotions. He
arrived at midnight, as agreed, and they took him straight to the piano. Sitting on
the stool, he stretched his hands out toward the keys, and launched into a series of
chords . . . There were a couple of unemphatic bursts of laughter. With a cheerful
look on his face, the master of ceremonies was waving him off the stage. Had they
already decided that it was a joke? No, they were actually quite indignant. To ease
the tension, an older pianist took his place immediately. No one said a word to
Cecil; still, he hoped they’d pay him a part of the promised sum (as they always
did), and he stayed there watching and listening to the pianist. He could hear the
influence of Ellington and Bud Powell . . . The guy wasn’t bad. A conventional
musician, he thought, is always dealing with music in its most general form, as if
leaving the particular for later, waiting for the right moment. And they did pay
him: twenty dollars, on the condition that he would never show his face there
again.

Translator’s note

“The Spy” has been translated for this volume from the revised
version of the text in
Relatos reunidos
(Mondadori, 2013). Likewise,
“Cecil Taylor” has been translated from the revised version, published as a book by
Mansalva in 2011 with illustrations by El Marinero Turco.

Published in conjunction with the Literary Agency Michael
Gaeb/Berlin.

All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in a
newspaper, magazine, radio, television, or website review, no part of this book may
be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the Publisher.

First published clothbound by New Directions in 2015

Design by Erik Rieselbach

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Aira, César, 1949-

[Short stories. Selections. English]

The musical brain & other stories / Cesar Aira ;

translated from the Spanish by Chris Andrews.

pages cm

ISBN 978-0-8112-20293

ISBN 978-0-8112-2418-5 (e-book)

1. Aira, César, 1949– — Translations into English. I.
Andrews, Chris, 1962– translator.

II. Title. III. Title: Musical brain and other stories.