Free Love in Lowercase by Francesc Miralles Page A

turned off the tap and turned up the volume, waiting to discover some hidden message.
    â€œÂ . . . In 1828, the composer gave his favorite sister Fanny a birthday present, a piece he called ‘Song without Words.’ Mendelssohn was nineteen years old at the time. Throughout his career he kept adding more short piano pieces to it. The first collection of
Songs without Words
was published in 1832. It was very successful among the middle classes of the period, since they were starting to install pianos in their living rooms and these short works were very much to their taste. Although the piano pieces were untitled, Mendelssohn’s Victorian admirers, convinced that the musical miniatures had some kind of storyline, began to give some of them pretentious names such as ‘Lost Happiness,’ and others nonsensical ones such as ‘The Bee’s Wedding.’ Mendelssohn himself contributed to this by namingsome of his
Songs without Words
—for example, such well-known pieces as ‘Venetian Boat Song,’ which we shall now listen to.”
    Here we go again
. I closed my eyes to take in the song, paying close attention.
    Yet—and this was the strangest thing—I didn’t recognize it. The melancholy piece I had been listening to in Gabriela’s presence had been replaced by another, much slower and more solemn, although equally beautiful song.
    This was certainly not the gondolier I remembered. Either the announcer was mistaken or I’d been tricked into confusing a bee getting married with a gondolier—or something like that. Yet another mystery to add to my personal archive.
    When the song ended, I started to vacuum the rug as Mishima, hissing and making sideways leaps, took on the noisy machine.
    â€œWe’re going to have a chat tomorrow,” I told him. “You’re going to help me with the chapter on feline philosophy.”
    â€”
    Once I was done with my household chores, I basically had three options: stay at home reading, go upstairs to Titus’s place, or go out. I checked my watch and saw that it was after midday.
    The perfect time for a vermouth
. I headed off to the bar. I hadn’t been there for a week.
    However, once I’d ventured beyond the bounds of Gràcia, I thought I should go and see Titus. I hadn’t spoken to him since my encounter with Gabriela and had to face up to the painful task of telling him what had happened. That was probably the very reason I’d been avoiding him, taking refuge in my classes and writing Francis Amalfi’s book.
    Since all the cleaning had left me exhausted, I took a taxi so I could rest a little on the way to see my friend and confidant.
    The driver was a broad-shouldered man with gray hair pulledback in a ponytail, in the style of an American Indian. Like many taxi drivers, he was a chatty fellow and, after I’d told him where I wanted to go, he gave me an update on the latest news.
    â€œA ninety-year-old woman received a letter dating from 1937. That just goes to show you the speed of our postal services, eh?”
    â€œReally?” I said, trying to sound interested.
    â€œThat’s what I heard. Her boyfriend wrote it from the Ebro front. He died on the battlefield, so you could call it a letter from beyond the grave.”
    â€œWhat did the old lady say?”
    â€œShe cried a lot. That’s to be expected: it must have brought back memories.”
    â€œI guess so.”
    â€œAnd it’s not the first time something like this has happened,” the taxi driver added. “A few years ago they found a whole sack of letters that had been sitting in a cellar for ages. The director of the postal service had to issue a statement in order to avoid a scandal.”
    â€œWhat did he say?”
    â€œSome nonsense like, ‘No need to worry: there weren’t any love letters in the bag.’”

Dramatic Effect
    When I arrived at the hospital, Titus’s