The Piano Tuner (5 page)

After several days, other packages arrived,
these marked from Colonel Fitzgerald, to be delivered to Surgeon-Major Carroll.
They looked as if they contained sheets of music, and Edgar started to open
them, but Katherine scolded him. They were packed neatly in brown paper, and he
would surely leave them disorganized. Fortunately, the names of the composers
had been written on the outside of the paper, and Edgar contented himself with
the knowledge that should he be stranded, he would at least have Liszt to keep
him company. Such taste, he said, gave him confidence in his mission.

The departure date was set for November 26, one month to the day following
Edgar’s acceptance of his commission. It approached like a cyclone, if
not for the mad preparations that preceded it, then for the calm that Katherine
knew would follow. While he spent his days finishing his work and tidying up
the workshop, she packed his trunks, modifying the recommendations of the army
with knowledge unique to the wife of a tuner of Erards. Thus to the
army’s list of items such as water-repellent rot-proof clothes, dinner
wear, and an assortment of pills and powders to “better enjoy the
tropical climate,” she added ointment for fingers chapped from tuning and
an extra pair of spectacles, as Edgar invariably sat on a pair about once every
three months. She packed a dress coat with tails as well, “In case you
are asked to play,” she said, but Edgar kissed her on the forehead and
unpacked it, “You flatter me, dear, but I am not a pianist, please
don’t encourage such ideas.”

She packed it anyway. She was
used to such protestations. Since he was a boy, Edgar had noticed in himself an
aptitude for sound, although not, he had also sadly learned, an aptitude for
composition. His father, a carpenter, had been an avid amateur musician,
collecting and constructing instruments of all shapes and sounds, scavenging
the bazaars for strange folk instruments brought from the Continent. When he
realized that his son was too shy to play for visiting friends, he had invested
his energies in Edgar’s sister, a delicate little girl who had later
married a singer with the D’Oyly Carte Company, now quite well known for
his starring roles in the operettas of Mr. Gilbert and Mr. Sullivan. So while
his sister sat through hours of lessons, Edgar spent the days with his father,
a man whom he remembered primarily for his large hands, Too large, he would
say, for finery. And so it had become Edgar’s job to tend to his
father’s growing collection of instruments, most of which, to the
boy’s delight, were in manifest disrepair. Later, as a young man, when he
had met and fallen in love with Katherine, he had been equally delighted to
hear her play, and had told her this when he proposed. You dare not be asking
me to marry you simply so you may have someone to test the instruments you
tune, she had said, her hand lightly resting on his arm, and he had replied, a
young man flushed by the feeling of her fingers, Don’t worry, if you wish
you may never play, Your voice is music enough.

Edgar packed his own
tools. Because the army had still not given him details about the piano, he
visited the shop where it had been purchased, and spoke at length with the
owner about the instrument’s specifics, how extensively it had been
rebuilt, which of the original parts remained. With limited space, he could
afford only to bring tools and replacement parts specific to the piano. Even
so, the tools filled half of one of his trunks.

A week
before he was to leave, Katherine held a small good-bye tea party for her
husband. He had few friends, and most of them were tuners as well: Mr. Wiggers,
who specialized in Broadwoods; Mr. d’Argences, the Frenchman whose
passion was Viennese uprights; and Mr. Poffy, who wasn’t actually a piano
tuner since he mostly repaired organs—It is nice, Edgar once explained to
Katherine, to have variety in one’s friends. Of course, this hardly
spanned the full array of Those Associated with Pianos. The London directory
alone, between Physicians and Pickle and Sauce Manufacturers, listed Pianoforte
makers, Pianoforte action makers, Pianoforte fret cutters, hammer coverers,
hammer and damper felt manufacturers, hammer rail makers, ivory bleachers,
ivory cutters, key makers, pin makers, silkers, small work manufacturers,
Pianoforte string makers, Pianoforte tuners. Notably absent from the party was
Mr. Hastings, who also specialized in Erards, and who had snubbed Edgar ever
since he had put up a sign on his gate reading “Gone to Burma to tune in
the service of Her Majesty; please consult Mr. Claude Hastings for minor
tunings that cannot await my return.”

Everyone at the party was
thrilled about the Erard commission, and speculated late into the evening about
what could be wrong with the piano. Eventually, bored with the discussion,
Katherine left the men and retired to bed, where she read from
The Burman,
a wonderful ethnography by a newspaperman recently appointed to the Burma
Commission. The author, one Mr. Scott, had taken the Burmese name Shway Yoe,
meaning Golden Honest, as a nom de plume, a fact that Katherine dismissed as
further proof that the war was but a “boys’ game.”
Nevertheless, it made her uneasy, and she reminded herself before falling
asleep to tell Edgar not to return with a ridiculous new name as well.

And the days passed. Katherine expected a last-minute flurry of
preparation, but three days before the set departure, she and Edgar awoke one
morning to find nothing left to prepare. His bags were packed, his tools
cleaned and ordered, his shop closed.

They walked down to the Thames,
where they sat on the Embankment and watched the boat traffic. There was a
distinct clarity to the sky, Edgar thought, to the feeling of her hand in his,
All that is lacking to complete this moment is music. Ever since he was a boy,
he had the habit of attaching not only sentiment to song but song to sentiment.
Katherine learned this in a letter he wrote to her soon after visiting her home
for the first time, in which he described his emotions as being “like the
allegro con brio of Haydn’s Sonata no. 50 in D Major.” At the time,
she had laughed and wondered whether he was serious or if this were the sort of
joke that only apprentice piano tuners enjoyed. Her friends, for their part,
decided that surely it was a joke, if a strange one, and she found herself
agreeing, until later she bought the music for the sonata and played it, and
from the piano, newly tuned, came a song of giddy anticipation that made her
think of butterflies, not the kind that follow spring, but rather the pale
flittering shadows that live in the stomachs of those who are young and in
love.

As they sat together, fragments of melodies played in
Edgar’s head, like an orchestra warming up, until one tune slowly began
to dominate and the others fell in line. He hummed. “Clementi, Sonata in
F-sharp Minor,” Katherine said, and he nodded. He had once told her it
reminded him of a sailor lost at sea. His love awaiting him onshore. In the
notes hide the sound of the waves, gulls.

They sat and listened.

“Does he return?”

“In this version he
does.”

Below them, men unloaded crates from the smaller boats
used for river traffic. Seagulls cried, waiting for discarded food, calling to
each other as they circled. Edgar and Katherine walked along the shore. As they
turned away from the river and began their return, Edgar’s fingers
wrapped around those of his wife. A tuner makes a good husband, she had told
her friends after they had returned from their honeymoon. He knows how to
listen, and his touch is more delicate than that of the pianist: only the tuner
knows the inside of the piano. The young women had giggled at the scandalous
implications of these words. Now, eighteen years later, she knew where the
calluses on his hands lay and what they were from. Once he had explained them
to her, like a tattooed man explaining the stories of his illustrations, This
one that runs along the inside of my thumb is from a screwdriver, The scratches
on my wrist are from the body itself, I often rest my arm like this when I am
sounding, The calluses on the inside of my first and third fingers on the right
are from tightening pins before using regulating pliers, I spare my second
finger, I don’t know why, a habit from youth. Broken nails are from
strings, it is a sign of impatience.

They walk home, now they speak of
inconsequentials like how many pairs of stockings he has packed, how often he
will write, gifts he should bring home, how not to become ill. The conversation
rests uneasily; one doesn’t expect good-byes to be burdened by such
trivialities. This is not how it is in the books, he thinks, or in the theater,
and he feels the need to speak of mission, of duty, of love. They reach home
and close the door and he doesn’t drop her hand. Where speech fails,
touch compensates.

There are three days and then two
and he cannot sleep. He leaves home early to walk, while it is still dark,
shifting out from the warm pocket of scented sheets. She turns, sleeping,
dreaming perhaps, Edgar? And he, Sleep, love, and she does, burrowing back into
the blankets, murmuring sounds of comfort. He lowers his feet to the floor, to
the cold kiss of wood on soles, and crosses the room. Dressing quickly. He
carries his boots so as not to wake her, and slips quietly out the door, down
the staircase layered with a wave of carpet.

It is cold outside, and
the street is dark save a gathering of leaves that twirl trapped in a wind,
which has taken a wrong turn down Franklin Mews, which tumbles over itself,
backing out of the narrow row. There are no stars. He tucks his coat around his
neck and pulls his hat down tightly over his head. He follows the wind’s
retreat, and he walks. Along streets empty and cobbled, past terraced houses,
curtains drawn like eyes shut and sleeping. He walks past movement, alley cats
perhaps, perhaps men. It is dark, and they have not yet electrified these
streets, so he notices the lamps and candles, hidden in the depths of the
houses. He tucks himself deeper into his coat and walks, and the night turns
imperceptibly to dawn.

There are two days and then
one. She joins him, anticipates his early morning waking, and together they
walk through the vastness of Regent’s Park. They are mostly alone. They
hold hands as the wind races along the broad promenades, skimming the surface
of puddles and tugging at the wet leaves that mat the grass. They stop and sit
in the shelter of a gazebo and watch the few who have ventured out into the
rain, hidden beneath umbrellas that tremble with the gale: old men who walk
alone, couples, mothers leading children through the gardens, perhaps to the
zoo, skipping, Mummy, what will we see? “Shhhh! Behave yourself, there
are Bengal tigers and Burmese pythons and they eat naughty
children.”

They walk. Through the darkened gardens, flowers
dripping with rain. The sky is low, the leaves yellow. She takes his hand and
leads him away from the long avenues and across the emerald lawns, two tiny
figures moving through the green. He doesn’t ask where they are going,
but listens to the mud suck at his boots, foul sounds. The sky hangs low and
gray, and there is no sun.

She takes him to a small arbor and it is dry
there, and he brushes her wet hair from her face. Her nose is cold. He will
remember this.

Day turns to night.

And it is
November 26, 1886.

A carriage pulls up to the Royal Albert Dock. Two
men in pressed army uniforms emerge and open the doors for a middle-aged man
and woman. They step tentatively to the ground, as if it is the first time they
have ridden in a military vehicle, its steps are higher, and its threshold
thicker to support the carriage over rough terrain. One of the soldiers points
to the ship, and the man looks at it and then turns back to the woman. They
stand by each other and he kisses her lightly. Then he turns and follows the
two soldiers toward the boat. Each carries a trunk, he a smaller bag.

There is little fanfare, no bottles broken over the bow—this custom
being reserved for the christeners of maiden voyages and the drunks who sleep
at the dock and occasionally wash up at the fairgrounds downstream. From the
deck, the passengers stand and wave to the crowd. They wave back.

The
engines start to rumble.

As they begin to move, the fog closes in over
the river. Like a curtain, it covers the buildings and the piers and those who
have come to bid good-bye to the steamship. Midstream, the fog grows thicker
and creeps over the deck, erasing even the passengers from one another.

Slowly, one by one, the passengers return inside, and Edgar remains alone.
Mist beads on his glasses and he removes them to wipe them on his waistcoat. He
tries to peer through the fog, but it reveals nothing of the passing shoreline.
Behind him, it obliterates the ship’s smokestack, and he feels as if he
is floating in emptiness. He holds his hand out before him and watches as the
swirls of white wrap around it in currents of tiny droplets.

White.
Like a clean piece of paper, like uncarved ivory, all is white when the story
begins.

3

November 30,
1886

Dear Katherine,

It has now been five days since I left
London. I am sorry I have not written to you sooner, but Alexandria is our
first mail stop since Marseilles, so I have decided to wait to write rather
than send you letters which bear only old thoughts.

My dear, beloved
Katherine, how can I describe the last few days to you? And how I wish that you
were here on this journey to see everything that I am seeing! Just yesterday
morning, a new coastline appeared on the starboard side of the ship and I asked
one of the sailors what it was. He answered “Africa” and seemed
quite surprised by my question. Of course I felt foolish, but I could hardly
control my excitement. This world seems both so small and so vast.