Yo-Yo Boing!

— What a lack of respect—you muttered. Yelling vulgarities.

— They loved her, and she loved you.

— Perdón siete.

— You can ask me to say sorry seven times, fourteen times. But a woman you don’t even know, a woman who could make your career.

— Siete veces—you insisted—on her knees.

But I knew you would accept her apology. She came backstage and embraced you.

— Excuse me, I didn’t turn my back on you. And if I did, it’s because I was feeling the music on my back, and I wanted to confront it face to face. Back to back. Front to back, back to front, inside. It was an injection of vitality, a shot of vuelos.

— How was that vuelo?

— Vue-e-e-elo—she sang to you, took your hand and together you walked on stage. The fans stood up, whistling and screaming.

— Success. Success—I called my father—Full house.

— You sang? — he asked quietly.

— No.

— Did you play an instrument?

— No.

— Were you on stage?

— No.

— So what success is it for you? Jualara. Jualara before it is too late.

— What is he saying? — you yelped in the background—That I wasn’t a hit? Tell him who sang with me! A full house, tell him. Jualara? He should go jualara himself.

— I thought you said she wasn’t there—he said.

— I can’t jualara. People who jualara don’t win grants.

— What grants are you winning? Listen, I don’t want to tell you what to do, honey, but if I were you, I’d jualara, jualara as soon as I could.

— Exacto. Eso es lo que tú eres, la intercesora entre el creador y el público. Y pensar que por poco lo jodo todo, yéndome del escenario, si no es por ti, la música no llega a los oídos del pueblo. Claro, tampoco puedo olvidarme de la famosa que se llevó la melodía que no tenía melodía, porque era amorfa, y le dio una forma de expresión para que el público la entendiera. Y tú, tras bastidores, hablando con ella, hablando conmigo, fuiste tú el éxito. But there’s a latch that doesn’t click. I swear, I would have not run off the stage. I would have invited her on stage to sing with me. Or, I would have joined her in the audience so she would not hog the spotlight.

— Unabashed narcissism. It’s not you. It’s Tess. She doesn’t know who she is. The singer is her arrested libido telling her to turn her back on you, the composer. But the composer is her other self. She is all the characters in her dream. That’s why you don’t identify with the composer. Because it’s her personality. She is so defensive that she even guards herself against success, sabotaging herself under the pretext of dignity because she has no confidence in her creative power. Even a simple gesture — the singer turning to face the audience — makes her feel weak. It’s her weakness — because you make her weak, and that’s why she disguises her weakness with your face. And the singer, who has an accessible voice of her own, seeks liberation from you. But her third ego — the only one she accepts and she recognizes as herself — is the mending one — that’s why it has her face. At the end, the voice of her father, the voice of her conscience, tells her: Escape from the only self that you dare to recognize as yourself. Develop your own voice. Why do you have to be her stage hand and sell yourself short. Jualara.

— No les escuches. Tú lo hiciste todo posible.

— Pero no creaste la música. Jualara. Ni cantaste. Jualara. El público aplaudió a la compositora y a la cantante. Pero no te aplaudió a ti. Y te dice que eres la intercesora pero la intercesora fue la cantante. Jualara.

— Pero tú fuiste the power behind the throne.

— Do you want to be behind the throne or on it.

— You are a star either way.