I placed my fingertips on the keys, ready to hear myself make the inspired clacking sound. I waited for the word that would prompt the avalanche, the inspired thought that would break the dam. Seconds passed, then minutes. Nothing. Not a single idea. No matter how many times I reread those lines, my thoughts stopped with the final period. Then, emptiness. An infinite void. Brain death. The café had fallen silent. All that could be heard was the sound of Mozart’s fingers tapping away on his keyboard as if he were performing the “Minute Waltz.”
It was intolerable.
My fingers were frozen in a grotesque position above my laptop while his were flying over the keys, light, bouncing, inspired. But who was this Mozart? He’d stolen my barista, my status as shop master, and now he was keeping all the muses for himself! He chose this moment to close his computer, walk up to the cashier, pay, and leave the café.
I should have taken a deep breath and let him go. But what can I say? I was panicked. I was about to crank out the novel of my career until this nobody, this poor man’s Mozart, came and ran off with my inspiration. I packed up my things in a hurry, threw a few coins on the table, and left.
I didn’t know what I had in mind, going out after him. I’d acted without thinking, gripped by panic, a sudden impulse. What was I supposed to do now that I was out on the street? The wind had risen, and a fine, icy rain swept over the sidewalk of Rue Mont-Royal. The autumn, crueler than usual, was making us pay for the splendid summer we’d had.
Mozart had turned right after leaving the café. I decided to follow him. After all, he was headed in the direction of my apartment.
I was not dressed warmly enough, and shivered as the rain soaked through my clothes. The café was nearly ten blocks west from where I lived on Rue Marquette. It would be fifteen minutes or so before I was back in my warm apartment, which would be more than enough time to observe Mozart, if I didn’t die of pneumonia first.
I quickly noticed the similarities between us. We walked with the same long strides, collar raised, hugging our computers to our chests. And we shared that dumb superstition about avoiding sidewalk cracks, which gave a jolting quality to our gait. Long strides punctuated by quick, jerky steps.
I felt myself come back to my senses, my anxiety dissipating. I began breathing freely again. My fear of dying or being unable to finish my novel vanished from my mind. I even felt like laughing as I realized how convinced I’d been that Mozart had stolen my inspiration. What idiocy! I lectured myself silently: I know what’s going on with you. You’re getting old and you’re afraid. Afraid to die without writing a great novel. Afraid that your readers will abandon you for a younger, more audacious, more talented writer...
Mozart kept walking along, innocent, not suspecting he was the object of my scrutiny. I congratulated myself on my honest self-examination. I was pushing fifty and I clearly felt threatened by this young author; it was the way these things went. I simply had to learn to control myself. Remind myself that I was of an age to write a masterpiece, while he was of an age to commit novice mistakes. The thought made me smile, and I now felt for this Mozart. He would be flayed alive by critics, as we all are at one point or another, and his pride would make him pay dearly for it. I knew a thing or two about that.
Even as the weather worsened, my mood improved. Tomorrow, everything would return to normal. I would go back to the café, sit at my usual table, and continue writing my masterpiece. I even wondered if I should run up and say a few words to Mozart before he disappeared down Rue Mont-Royal. I had been rude to him, after all. I was about to sprint ahead when I saw him turn right onto my street.
I had never seen him on my block before. He’d never set foot there, I was sure of it. Why was he heading in that direction, today of all days? My heart pounded as I watched him from afar. I nearly fainted when I saw him stop in front of my apartment building. My hands were clammy and I felt short of breath. He hesitated, then stepped forward and rang my neighbor’s doorbell. I stood paralyzed, right in the middle of the sidewalk. At any moment, he could have turned his head and seen me. But the door seemed to open itself then, and he disappeared inside. In that moment I found my legs again, and ran until I reached my door. After a few attempts, I managed to insert my trembling key into the lock and turn it. As soon as I stepped inside, I closed and double-locked the door.
I was overwhelmed by contradictory feelings. Mozart terrified, enraged, and thrilled me. I hadn’t felt so alive in a long time. Or so crazy, either. I was obsessing over a stranger. Some of my own characters had been locked up for less erratic behavior.
I took a cold shower and holed up in my room. Like everywhere in my apartment, the space was cluttered with objects. In the bedroom’s case, books. The four walls were covered with books, and there was even a book motif painted on the wooden pillars of my bed. A writer in his nest. I turned off all the lights, except for a small lamp I always left on, a comforting presence in the dark. I’d had the good idea of taking a tranquilizer before my shower, and so when I rested my head on my pillow, I fell right to sleep.
At first I felt a slow rocking sensation, nearly imperceptible, then an intense wave of vertigo that would have thrown me to the ground if I hadn’t gripped the edge of the bed until my knuckles turned white. What was this? What was happening to me? I wanted to scream; my mouth opened in horror, but no sound escaped. I was at the center of a universe that was splitting into innumerable fragments. Millions of particles spiraled around me. I felt hell’s funnel swallow me whole, but then I understood that it was me, with my mouth agape, inhaling the world. I was a black hole. An unfathomable void.
Aaaaah! Aaaaah! Aaaaah!
I screamed and screamed. Sitting straight up in my bed, covered in sweat from head to toe, I couldn’t get a grip. The world around me had returned to its original form, but the nightmare kept playing out in my mind. I felt as if I were imploding. My physical self was dissolving, being sucked up by my inner void. Soon there would be nothing left of me but a gelatinous puddle of ectoplasm on my bedsheets.
I heard a loud, booming laugh through the wall separating my bedroom from my neighbor’s apartment. Panting, I listened carefully. My neighbor had never laughed like that, never made a sound that reached my apartment. I lived next door to a tiny woman, discreet as a shadow. And yet this laugh... Mozart’s face surfaced from the depths of my memory. I remembered now. He was at my neighbor’s. Was he the one with this grotesque laugh? What did he find so amusing? The idea that Mozart was laughing at my expense slowly took shape in my mind.
Enough with this Mozart! I shook myself.
But the poisonous thoughts had already begun to do their work. My anxiety gave way to a rising tide of bile that formed in my throat. A wave of rage came over me, so intense and powerful that even Mozart would have found it difficult to recognize me. I was in a state of complete self-defense. I would not let this man destroy my life.
I got up and went to the kitchen, where I started digging through the cupboards in search of a flashlight. Once I’d found one, I crept close to the back door, intending to spy on my neighbor. The night was pitch black, and no light filtered through her kitchen window. I approached the French doors of the dining room that opened into the garden. Everything was black. No human activity was visible. My bare feet were freezing on my neighbor’s courtyard floor. I wore nothing but a T-shirt and a pair of boxer shorts. I was starting to have serious doubts about the legitimacy of my expedition, when I saw a shadow looming at the back of the dining room. I heard Mozart’s delirious laugh once again. That was all it took. I charged at the door and knocked furiously until someone opened.