The Piano Tuner (4 page)

Above, he heard Katherine’s footsteps, and paused,
ready to slip the papers back into their envelope. The steps stopped at the top
of the stairs.

“Edgar, it’s nearly ten,” she
called.

“Really! I must go!” He blew out the lamp and
stuffed the papers back into the envelope, surprised at his own precaution. At
the top of the stairs, Katherine met him with his coat and his toolbag.

“I will be on time tonight, I promise,” he said, slipping his
arms into the sleeves. He kissed her on her cheek and stepped out into the
cold.

He spent the remainder of the morning tuning the
Broadwood grand of the member of Parliament, who thundered in the next room
about the building of a new Hospital for the Genteel Insane. He finished early,
he could have spent more time fine-tuning, but he had a feeling that it was
rarely played. Besides, the acoustics in the drawing room were poor, and the
politics of the MP distasteful.

It was early afternoon when he left.
The streets were full of people. Heavy clouds hung low in the sky, threatening
rain. He elbowed his way through the crowds and crossed the street to skirt a
team of laborers who tore at the cobblestones with picks, stalling traffic.
Around the waiting carriages, newspaper hawkers and petty merchants clamored,
and a pair of boys kicked a ball back and forth through the crowds, scattering
when it hit the side of a carriage. It began to drizzle.

Edgar walked
for several minutes, hoping to see an omnibus, but the drizzle turned to
heavier rain. He took shelter in the doorway of a public house, its name etched
in frosted glass, the backs of suited gentlemen and pink-powdered women
pressing up against its windows, wiping silhouettes in the condensation. He
tucked his collar higher around his neck and stared out at the rain. A pair of
drivers left their carts across the street, half running with their jackets
raised above their heads. Edgar stepped aside to let them pass, and as they
entered the public house, the door swung open with the steaming smell of
perfume and sweat and spilled gin. He could hear drunken singing. The door
swung shut and he waited and watched the street. And thought again of the
briefing.

In school, he had never been very interested in history or
politics, preferring the arts and, of course, music. If he had any, his
political leanings tended to be toward Gladstone and the Liberals’
support for Home Rule, although this was hardly a conviction born out of
serious contemplation. His distrust of military men was more visceral; he
disliked the arrogance they carried forth to the colonies and back again.
Moreover, he was uncomfortable with the popular portrayal of the Oriental as
lazy and ineffectual. One only had to know the history of pianos, he would tell
Katherine, to know this wasn’t true. The mathematics of equal temperament
tuning had engaged thinkers from Galileo Galilei to Father Marin Mersenne, the
author of the classic
Harmonie universelle.
And yet Edgar had learned
that the correct figures were actually first published by a Chinese prince
named Tsaiyu, a puzzling fact, as, from what he knew about Eastern music, the
music of China, with its lack of harmonic emphasis, technically had no need for
temperament. Of course, he rarely mentioned this in public. He didn’t
like arguments, and he had enough experience to know that few could appreciate
the technical beauty of such an innovation.

The rain relented slightly
and he left the shelter of the doorway. Soon he reached a larger road, where
buses and cabs passed. It is still early, he thought, Katherine will be
pleased.

He boards an omnibus, wedging himself between a portly
gentleman in a thick coat and a young, ashen-faced woman who coughs
incessantly. The bus lurches forward. He looks for the window but the bus is
crowded, he cannot see the streets pass.

This moment
will remain.

He is home. He opens the door, and she is sitting on the
sofa, in the corner, at the edge of a half circle of damask that falls over the
cushions. Just as yesterday, but the lamp is not burning, its wick is black, it
should be trimmed, but the servant is in Whitechapel. The only light slants
through curtains of Nottingham lace and catches itself on particles of
suspended dust. She is sitting and staring at the window, she must have seen
his silhouette pass in the street. She holds a handkerchief, her cheeks have
been hastily wiped. Edgar can see tears, their tracks cut short by the
kerchief.

A pile of papers are scattered across the mahogany table, and
an opened brown wrapping, still in the form of the papers it once held, still
tied with twine, carefully unfolded at one end, as if its contents have been
examined surreptitiously. Or were intended to be, for the strewn papers are
anything but surreptitious. Nor are the tears, the swollen eyes.

Neither of them moves or says anything. His jacket is still in his hand,
she sits on the edge of the sofa, her fingers nervously entwined in her
handkerchief. He immediately knows why she is crying, he knows that she
knows,
that even if she doesn’t, this is how it would be, the
news needs to be shared. Perhaps he should have told her last night, he should
have known that they would come to his house, now he remembers that before he
left the War Office the Colonel even told him so. Had he not been so lost in
the magnitude of his decision, he wouldn’t have forgotten. He should have
planned this, the news could have been broken more delicately. Edgar keeps so
few secrets that those he does become lies.

His hands tremble as he
hangs up the jacket. He turns. Katherine, he says. What is wrong, he wants to
ask, a question of habit, but he knows the answer. He looks at her, there are
questions whose answers he doesn’t yet know, Who brought the papers, When
did they come, What do they say, Are you angry.

You were crying, he
says.

She is quiet, now she begins to sob softly. Her hair is loose
over her shoulders.

He doesn’t move, doesn’t know whether
to go to her, this is different from before, this is not a time for embraces,
Katherine, I meant to tell you, I tried to last night, only I didn’t
think it was right then—

He crosses the room now, he slides
between the sofa and the table, he sits next to her.

Dear—He
touches her arm, gently, trying to turn her toward him, Katherine, dear, I
wanted to tell you, please look at me, and she turns slowly, looks at him, her
eyes are red, she has been crying for a long time. He waits for her to speak,
he doesn’t know how much she knows. What happened? She doesn’t
reply. Please, Katherine. Edgar, you know what happened. I know and I
don’t know. Who brought these? Is it important? Katherine dear,
don’t be angry with me, I wanted to talk to you about this, Please,
Katherine—

I am not angry, Edgar, she says.

He reaches
into his pocket and pulls out a handkerchief, Look at me. He touches the
handkerchief to her cheek.

I was angry this morning, when he came.
Who? A soldier, from the War Office, He came asking for you, with these. She
motioned to the papers. And what did he say? Very little, only that these
papers were for your preparation, that I should be proud, that you are doing
something very important, and when he said that, I still didn’t know what
he was talking about. What do you mean? That is all he said, Mrs. Drake, do you
know that your husband is a brave man, and I had to ask him Why, I felt like a
fool, Edgar, He seemed surprised when I asked, he laughed and said only that
Burma is far away, I almost asked what that meant, I almost told him that he
had the wrong house, the wrong husband, but I only thanked him and he left. And
you read them. Some, only some, Enough. She was silent. When did he come? This
morning, I know I shouldn’t read your mail, I left the package on the
table, it wasn’t mine, I went upstairs to try to finish the needlework
for our bedcover, I was distracted, I kept poking myself with the needle, I was
thinking about what he said, and I went downstairs, I sat here for almost an
hour, wondering if I should open it, telling myself it was nothing, but I knew
it wasn’t, and I thought about last night. Last night. Last night you
were different. You knew. Not then, but this morning I knew, I think I know you
too well.

He takes her hands.

They sit for a long time like
that, their knees touching, her hands in his. She says again, I am not angry.
You can be angry. I
was
angry, the anger came and went, I only wish
you had told me, I don’t care about Burma, no that is wrong, I
do
care about Burma, I just … I wondered why you didn’t tell me,
if maybe you thought that I would stop you from doing this, That hurt the most,
I am proud of you, Edgar.

The words stay before them, suspended. He
releases her hands, and she begins to cry again. She wipes her eyes, Look at
me, I am behaving like a child. I can still change my mind, he says.

It isn’t that, I don’t
want
you to change your mind.
You want me to go. I don’t want you to go, but at the same time, I know
you
should
go, I have been expecting this. You have been expecting an
out-of-tune Erard in Burma? Not Burma,
this,
something different, It
is a lovely idea, to use music to bring about peace, I wonder what songs you
will play there. I am only going to tune, I am not a pianist, I am going
because it is a commission. No, but this one is different, and not only because
you are going away. I don’t understand. Different, something different
from your other projects, a cause, something worthy.

You don’t
believe that my work is worthy already. I didn’t say that. You said as
much. I watch you, Edgar, sometimes it is as if you are my child, I am proud of
you, you have abilities that others don’t, you have ways of hearing
sounds that other people can’t, you are skilled in the mechanics of
things, you make music beautiful, that is enough. Except now it sounds like it
isn’t.

Edgar, please, now
you
are angry. No, I am only
asking you for your reasons, You have never told me this before, This is still
just another assignment, I am still a mechanic, let us be careful before we
give credit for Turner’s paintings to the man who makes his brushes.

Now you sound as if you don’t know if you should go. Of course I
don’t know, only now my wife is telling me I should do it to prove
something. You know that is not what I am saying. I have had other strange
commissions, Katherine. But this is different, This is the only one you have
kept hidden.

Outside the sun dips finally behind the rooftops, and the
room grows suddenly darker.

Katherine, I didn’t expect this from
you. What then did you expect? I don’t know, I have never done this
before. You expected me to cry as I am now, to implore you not to go because
that is how women behave when they lose their husbands, You expected that I
will be afraid if you are gone because you will not be here to take care of me,
that I will be afraid I will lose you. Katherine, that isn’t true, that
isn’t why I didn’t tell you. You thought I would be scared, You
tore a page from the
Illustrated London News
because it had an article
on Burma.

There was a long silence. I am sorry, you know this is new
for me. I know, this is new for me too.

I think you should go, Edgar, I
wish
I
could go, It must be beautiful to see the world. You must
return to me with stories.

It is only another commission.

You
keep saying that, You know it isn’t.

The ship doesn’t
leave for another month, That is a lot of time.

There is a lot to get
ready.

It is very far, Katherine.

I know.

The following days passed swiftly. Edgar finished the
Farrell contract and refused a new commission to voice a beautiful 1870
Streicher grand with an old Viennese action.

Officers from the War
Office visited frequently, arriving each time with more documents: briefings,
schedules, lists of items to take with him to Burma. After the tears of the
first day, Katherine seemed to embrace the mission enthusiastically. Edgar was
grateful for this; he had thought she might still be upset. Moreover, he had
never been organized. Katherine had always teased him that the precise ordering
of piano strings seemed to necessitate a chaotic disorganization in every other
aspect of his life. On a typical day, a soldier would come to their house to
drop off paperwork while Edgar was away. Katherine would take the papers, read
them, and then organize them on his desk into three piles: forms that required
completion and return to the army, general histories, and papers specific to
his mission. Then he would come home, and within minutes the stack of papers
would be in disarray, as if he had merely sifted through the piles looking for
something. That something, Katherine knew, was information about the piano, but
none came, and after about three or four days she would greet him with,
“More papers arrived today, lots of military information, nothing about a
piano,” which left him looking disappointed but helped considerably to
keep the table neater. He would then collect whatever was sitting on top of the
pile and retire to his chair. Later she would find him asleep with the folder
open on his lap.

She was astonished by the amount of documentation
they supplied, apparently all at Carroll’s request, and she read the
papers avidly, even copying out sections of a history of the Shan written by
the Doctor himself, a piece she had expected to be dull, but which thrilled her
with its stories and gave her confidence in the man whom she felt she had
entrusted to watch over her husband. She had recommended it to Edgar, but he
told her he would wait, I will need things to distract me when I am alone.
Otherwise, she rarely mentioned her readings to him. The stories and
descriptions of the people fascinated her; she had loved tales of far-off
places since she was a young girl. But while she caught herself daydreaming,
she was glad she wasn’t going. It seemed, she confided to a friend, like
one big silly game for boys who haven’t grown up, like stories from
Boys’ Own
or the penny cowboy serials imported from America.
“Yet you let Edgar go,” her friend had responded. “Edgar
never played those games,” she said. “Perhaps it is not too late.
Besides, I have never seen him so excited, so filled with purpose. He is like a
young man again.”