Chapter I
The Last Recital
There is a particular silence that follows the final note of a long performance — not the silence of a room that hasn't yet learned to applaud, but the silence of a room that has forgotten how. I have lived inside that silence for the better part of forty years, and I can tell you it is the closest thing to a god I have ever met.
The piano was an old Bösendorfer the colour of dried blood. It had been wheeled out for me on a trolley with one bad wheel, and the boy who pushed it apologised for the noise with the embarrassed grin of someone who has not yet learned that the noise of a thing is part of the thing itself.
I sat down. I waited for the cough that always comes from the third row. It came. I began.
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