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about which they would have to learn everything. He already felt the grip of an uncontrollable embarrassment.
    â€œI’ll never do it,” he said at one point.
    â€œCome on,” said the lady with the rain scarf. “Have a whiskey if you’ve really got cold feet.”
    â€œIt wouldn’t be enough.”
    â€œDouble whiskey, then.”
    â€œYou make it seem easy.”
    â€œWhat’s the matter, are you afraid?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œGood. If there’s no fear you can’t accomplish anything good. And the water stains?”
    â€œIt seems that I just have to wait. The heating pipes are disgusting.”
    â€œYou’re reassuring me.”
    The next day Jasper Gwyn decided to think about the music. All that silence made an impression, and he had reached the conclusion that he had to give the room a lining of sound. The gurgling of the pipes was fine, but it was obvious that he could do better.

18
    He had known many composers, in the years when he tuned pianos, but the one who came to mind was David Barber. It was logical: Jasper Gwyn distinctly recalled a composition of his for clarinet, fan, and plumbing pipes. It wasn’t even so bad. The pipes gurgled a lot.
    For years they had been out of touch, but when Jasper Gwyn gained a certain fame David Barber had sought him out to propose that he write the text for a cantata. He hadn’t done anything about it (it was a cantata for recorded voice, seltzer siphon, and string orchestra), but the two had remained in contact. David was a likable fellow, his hobby was hunting, and he lived in the midst of dogs, all of whom were named for pianists, something that allowed Jasper Gwyn to declare, without lying, that he had once been bittenby Radu Lupu. As a composer David had for a long time enjoyed hanging out with the more festive wing of the New York avant-garde: he didn’t make much money, but success with women was assured. Then for a long period he had disappeared, following certain esoteric ideas he had about tonal relationships and teaching what he apparently had learned in various university-type circles. The last Jasper Gwyn had heard of him was when, in the papers, he had read about a symphony performed, unconventionally, at Old Trafford, the famous stadium in Manchester. The title of the work, ninety minutes long, was Semifinal .
    Without too much effort he found the address, and appeared one morning at his house, in Fulham. When David Barber opened the door and saw him, he gave him a big hug, as if he had been expecting him. Then they went to the park together, to take Martha Argerich to shit. He was a spinone from the Vendée.

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    There was no need to beat around the bush with David, and so Jasper Gwyn said simply that he needed something to use as a soundtrack for his new studio. He said he wasn’t capable of working in silence.
    â€œYou never thought of some good records?” David Barber asked.
    â€œThat’s music. I want sounds.”
    â€œSounds or noises?”
    â€œYou didn’t use to think there was a difference.”
    They went on talking, walking in the park, while MarthaArgerich chased squirrels. Jasper Gwyn said that what he imagined was a very long, barely perceptible loop that would just cover the silence, muffling it.
    â€œHow long is very long?” asked David Barber.
    â€œI don’t know. Fifty hours?”
    David Barber stopped. He laughed.
    â€œWell, it’s no joke. It will cost you a certain amount, my friend.”
    Then he said that he wanted to see the place. And think about it a little, while sitting there. So they decided to go together to the studio behind Marylebone High Street the next morning. They spent the rest of the time recalling days gone by, and at one point David Barber said that for a while, years earlier, he’d been certain that Jasper had gone to bed with his girlfriend. She was some sort of Swedish photographer. No, it’s she who