Liebestod.

In German there is a word Liebestod that can be translated into English both as Love Death and Death in Love. A scene Liebestod concludes Wagner’s opera Tristan and Isolde. It’s the climax and the final at the same time.

As always after concerts her wrists hurt.  She wearily rubbed her hands while looking absently at the mirror in the theater dressing-room. She often stayed alone here, in a tiny room cluttered with costumes and old shabby fiddlesticks, and waited for a careful knock at the door. Her husband always came to pick her up after the concert. Then she usually stood up; her husband helped her on with her coat that she pulled on in silence; and they slowly strolled home through streets and parks of their city full of lights and skyscrapers, cafés and bars. He never asked her any questions at such moments and she really appreciated him for understanding.

 She always wore shoes with very high spike heels at the concerts so that even the remotest trombones could see her. He always wondered how such a fragile girl managed to rule over the whole symphony orchestra. Sometimes enormous, storming ocean of instruments, strings, strokes, and tunes seemed to devour her, to cover her head with a wave of sounds. He was on the point of jumping out of his chair in the auditorium, running to her to save her, to drag her out of this dangerous music sea, to defend her…  His legs and arms muscles were extremely tensed. But she threw up her slender arms and all sounds started fading, murmuring at her feet.

On Fridays she had conductors meetings where they discussed musical pieces, scheduled concerts, and brought up any problems with musicians. She often came home after these meetings utterly beside herself and angry. She was crying and repeating that it was exhausting to prove every day that a woman-conductor is not even a bit weaker than a man-conductor. He was making her coffee and shoulder massage. And they watched together evening TV-news.

This evening her orchestra played The Fifth Symphony by Shostakovich. “Ready in 15 minutes!” – a shout from the hall awakened her. She put a yellowed with age book aside with sigh of regret. Her husband worked in Historical Archives and just yesterday he brought her letters that Shostakovich wrote to a woman he loved, to a woman The Fifth Symphony was singing about. More than 40 letters in a few weeks. Sometimes he wrote about three letters a day. Pain, happiness, love, inability to be together – everything was mixed in this allegro of feelings and emotions.

She examined herself in the mirror from head to foot. A black pantsuit made her even slimmer and lighter. She followed with her little hand the warmth of the soft, brown cover of her book. Finally, she went out to the hall balancing on her high heels. A chubby and balding conductor who was rather popular in their city was approaching her from the other side of the hall. He smiled to her and showing some superiority feeling wished her Good luck, baby! She used to people here calling her baby – it was some kind of a joke. But now it didn’t make any sense for her. At that very moment she already felt like being there, on the stage, in a quiet shade of the concert hall, among catching their breath instruments.

When she was 10 she used to reluctantly go to music school. Once her music teacher confided her the secret of a successful performance. You should collect all your listeners at the top of your little finger and make them inhale and exhale whenever you want. Tonight she did collect them; she collected all looks, sighs and rustles, all expectations and fears into her tiny woman’s fist. And after that she strewed them all over the auditorium with millions of sounds and rings, melodies and strokes, laugh and tears. She strewed them in Spanish dances, military marches and country songs. She was rushing into a fight together with trombones; she was spinning a thin, snowy thread together with harps; and she was stirringly singing with violins and cellos. She was an omnipotent magician.

It seemed to her that she was Carmen. She was that Carmen who went to prison because of the false denunciation. She was that Carmen who never forgave Shostakovich, the only person she sincerely loved, for betraying her. She preferred going directly to the civil war in Spain than listening to his Now you see, it was actually for good that you didn’t marry me. She was that Carmen who loved him after all, that Carmen who he loved after all… She was bursting to go home and tore his letters; she stared at the gray wall with guarded window and realized that even a death was not something unusual any more…

The last echo of drums was fading away in the air. The storm of applause fell upon her back. Musicians were smiling wearily as usual. She asked to stand up the first violin, the flute, the harp… She turned her flaming face to the huge auditorium. She found her husband in the darkness of the first row with familiar encouragement in his eyes. Next to him her mother-in-law was knitting a mat for her favorite badger-dog. She felt her wrists hurting. She was only 29 – nothing of age for a conductor. But she thought she already knew what love and death were about.