It was mid-May 1996, in this hotel in Los Angeles. I noticed the piano as soon as I entered the hotel. Oh, that hotel—so beautiful, like something out of a fairy tale from A Thousand and One Nights… No one ever played that piano.

Once, Julia and I were fooling around there, and then I played "Čuk se je oženil" ("The Owl Got Married") on the piano for her, and she sang me some American song…

The piano. I had always wanted to play the piano. To me, people who play the piano… they’re something special. Artists who hold a unique place in my heart.

The piano just stood there. It was a May evening, so pleasant. We were standing outside in the garden, talking. Suddenly, all those glittering lights in the hotel turned on. It was so peaceful, serene. And then, from this magnificent hotel—which stood in that dirty city like some kind of illusion, so unreal you had to pinch yourself when you saw it to believe it was actually there—music began to play.

Someone was playing the piano.

I became electrified, as if in shock, in a trance or something. And then, in that trance, I walked like a sleepwalker toward the piano and the man playing it.

When I reached him, he stopped playing. I wanted to interrupt him, to tell him not to stop—after all, I didn’t want to disturb him…

But he said: "Oh, I’m sorry. Sometimes I could exteriorize all the way to the top of the hotel, but now I can’t anymore."

I looked at him, wanting to say I didn’t understand what he was talking about…

"I know you want to stay here," he continued. "There’s no way you want to go back. Right?"

Again, he anticipated me. He answered my question before I even asked it… I wanted to ask if he was reading my mind or something, but… Well, it was obvious anyway.

I replied quietly: "I can’t stay here. Unfortunately."

And then he kept playing, while I marveled at this miracle—how he understood me, what I wanted to say, what I was feeling, and how he could leave his body at will… And if he could do it, then so could I. Suddenly, I felt so full, like I was occupying the entire space. And I was so happy… So happy.

(Note: "Čuk se je oženil" is a Slovenian folk song, so I kept the original title with a translation in parentheses for context. The rest is adapted to flow naturally in English while preserving the poetic tone.)

translated by DeepSeek

***

KLAVIR
Bilo je sredi maja 1996, v hotelu v Los Angelesu. Klavir sem opazila takoj, ko sem prišla v hotel. Oh, ta hotel, prelep, kot v pravljici iz Tisoč in ene noči… Nikoli ni nihče igral na ta klavir.
Enkrat sva midve z Julio noreli tam naokoli in potem sem ji zaigrala “Čuk se je oženil” na klavir in ona meni neko ameriško pesmico…
Klavir. Vedno sem si želela igrati na klavir. Zame so tisti ljudje, ki igrajo na klavir… nekaj posebnega. Umetniki, ki imajo v mojem srcu poseben prostor.
Klavir je pač stal tam. Bil je majski večer, tako prijetno je bilo. Stali smo zunaj na vrtu in se pogovarjali. V hotelu so se naenkrat prižgale vse tiste bleščeče luči. Bilo je tako mirno, spokojno. Kar naenkrat se je iz tega prečudovitega hotela, ki tam v tistem umazanem mestu stoji kot nekakšna iluzija, da se moraš prav uščipniti, ko ga zagledaš, da verjameš, da je resničen, zaslišala glasba.
Nekdo je igral na klavir.
Postala sem naelektrena, kot v nekakšnem šoku, v transu ali kaj. In potem sem v tem transu šla kot mesečnica do klavirja in do moškega, ki je igral nanj.
Ko sem prišla do njega, je prenehal igrati. Hotela sem ga prekiniti, reči, naj ne neha, saj ga vendar nočem prekinjati…
Pa je rekel: “Oh, kako mi je žal, včasih sem lahko eksterioziriral do vrha hotela, zdaj pa ne gre več.”
Pogledala sem ga in mu hotela reči, da ne razumem, o čem govori…
“Saj vem, da bi rada ostala tukaj”, je nadaljeval. “Niti slučajno se ti ne gre nazaj. Ane?”.
Spet me je prehitel. Odgovarjal mi je na vprašanje, še preden sem ga izrekla… Hotela sem ga vprašati, če mi bere misli ali kaj, pa… No, saj je bilo itak jasno.
Odgovorila sem potihem: “Ne morem ostati tu. Žal.”
In potem je igral naprej, jaz pa sem premišljevala o tem čudežu, kako da me razume, kaj hočem povedati in kaj čutim in kako lahko gre ven iz telesa po želji… In če on lahko, potem lahko tudi jaz. Kar naenkrat sem postala tako polna, bila sem v tistem celem prostoru. In bila sem tako srečna… Tako srečna.