A Scene with a Piano
In the apartment building stairwell in which a not all too improbable sequence of events is about to transpire, it is necessary to get a few small details right. Otherwise, this story, having unfolded into the universe one humble afternoon, would be in danger of, and most likely succumb to a preemptive and lethal diffusion into the vast realm of un-remembered things: a realm to which we all in fact will at some point enter, either with much struggle and protest or silently without.
Firstly, and perhaps the most important detail to get right, it is raining outside. It is a cold rain, born from a penultimate November storm-cloud; so while it does not share the ferocity of a summer lightning-storm, or the novelty of a spring shower, it possesses a unique, penetrative power—that is, its dampness manages its way into the flesh and bones of all its witnesses: both those caught well within it, as well as those watching inside from the comfort of a window. In the country in which this sequence of events plays out, the stairwells of the apartment buildings (little more than beige, drab assemblages of sandstone) have no walls, and so they therefore share their weather conditions with the open air outside. Often times, including this particular afternoon, the stairs are, functionally speaking, much closer to the wet, rocky bottom of a creek than anything meant for climbing.
Another particular that follows is as such. On this country’s rainy days, the flooded pavement becomes a highway for monstrously proportioned, brown speckled snails, and on the next sunny day, these highways transform into open-air graveyards for the now poor, dried-out creatures (in America, long worms instead perform this odd rain dance). For the time being, however, the rain is falling lightly and uninterruptedly, and the brown snails are roaming aimless across their stone stage, occasionally greeting each other the grayness with what can only be imagined to be the equivalent of sloppy, wet kisses.
Let us leave the stairwell at that, for now. In apartment number five of seven, on the third of four floors, lived three sisters aged five, nine, and ten years old (of course the five-year-old, Lina, insisted that she was five-and-a-half, and to be called a five-year-old was in fact a great insult). The three lived with their father, who, back in their home country, was a well-renowned mathematician. But around a year ago now, the four of them had fled facing persecution, and made their way over the Black Sea to their current home.
It was a modern, radical country, and just barely having been established, was practically more full of ideas than people. But to those like the girls’ father, it was simply a new shell to crawl into—one’s convictions about the world could not change, only one’s environment could. And so even in their brand-new shell, the three little girls inhabited a severe and provincial world. So much so, in fact, that they seldom were allowed to leave apartment number five. They did not even attend school, which although was free in this country, their father did not know about, on account of his foreign tongue. This, nevertheless, was only coincidental, and even had he spoken the lingua franca, he most certainly still would have barred his daughters an education, as only boys in his eyes were fit to receive proper schooling.
Instead, his three girls received the same homespun education. On five days of the week, when their father returned home from his part-time lecturing position at a nearby preparatory school, he would instruct them in chess, and chess alone. When they were alone during the day, they were expected to study intently the classics from old, Yiddish books, and they re-played over and over against each other the most famous lines from memory. When their father came home each evening, he reviewed what they had gone over during the day, and tested them each individually over the board.
On Friday, they were expected to spend the whole day preparing for the holy Sabbath, and only then were they allowed to play as children do—they raced up and down the stairwell, or dug for insects in the courtyard at its base—while their father attended synagogue.
He enjoyed meals from the old country, where his wife had passed away. And so despite the rich abundance of groceries available to the four of them, a very modern selection of meats, fruits, and vegetables made accessible by the technologies of the day, the family mostly ate meals subsisting of various preparations of potatoes and ground beef. Occasionally he would drink several glasses of vodka—these nights he was stricter with his lessons, and used a wooden spoon to dissuade mistakes over the board. Nevertheless, these were the girls’ favorite nights, because they’d learned that vodka made their father tired in equal proportions to his anger—on these nights he would fall asleep almost immediately following dinner, and the following day wake up much later than usual, often skipping their evening lessons completely. On such evenings, the girls were expected to play against each other while their father rested. But they did so leisurely, and took great care to move only between long pauses, pauses during which they would chatter about properly childish and girlish things.
They did, unlikely as it may seem, enjoy thoroughly the game their father had imposed upon them, and played it well. Of the three, the middle girl, Kitty played the best. (Her sisters only referred to her as Kitty in secret; their father considered it an effort to erase the memory of Katerina, Kitty’s mother and namesake). But Rebecca was not far behind Kitty in skill, and the two traded games back and forth most days.
In the family’s one-room flat, which served as bedroom, kitchen, and living space for all four of them, the three spent the majority of their time huddled around a large, antique chess-table made of black and white ivory. It was among the only pieces of furniture their father had shipped with them from their old home: the actual chess board was the size of a large stovetop, but inlaid in carved oak and ground glass, the whole tabletop was more than double the size. All three girls shared the same distinct memory of the chess table. On the deck of a steamer ship journeying across the Black Sea, they remembered the table wrapped in brown paper and tied up with cords, hanging precariously from a large pile of furniture and luggage. Surrounded with the thick, black smoke of the stacks, the table swayed with the waves, and the girls watched intensely; the teetering pile of furniture captured their attention even more than the vast, seemingly endless sea that surrounded them on all sides. This queasy memory visited the girls whenever they sat down to play, each time taunting them with the thought of how easily the table could have fallen then back then; had the waves been just a little choppier, or the knot been a little looser, their father’s cherished table could have tumbled down the mountain of suitcases and armoires, smashing to bits. How simply then—as it seemed to them in the throes of this memory—could they have been freed from their life of competition and seclusion.
Today was the Sabbath, however, and so the three were relieved of their studies momentarily. Furthermore, it was already passed noon, when their father would come home from synagogue and sit down immediately at the table—without removing either his long black gabardine or his woolen fedora—and eat lunch in silence. The preparation of lunch, along with Friday night dinner, used to be handled by Katerina, of course, and so the girls, needing only to assist, found quite enjoyable the tasks assigned to them (excluding Lina, who had been too young); washing scallion, peeling onions, kneading dough, these were simply games. But that seemed almost a lifetime ago now. Since then, primarily because they were now responsibly for the entire meal, cooking had lost all of its charm, and between the three of them, was a rigid and dreaded task. Had they not had each other, and this memorandum extends into most aspects of their meager existence, they would not have known what to do, finding the experience of life to be unbearably difficult. For the brief moment, however, the innocence of childhood had been restored to them in part, as their father had, finishing lunch and his nap, returned to synagogue, and would not return until after sundown. The three had cleaned up from lunch, and were free to do as the pleased. Had it not been raining, they would’ve been likely in the courtyard, bundled up in their winter jackets, but for now, they had to content themselves on the going-ons of the stairwell, which they watched with much giggling and tickling (again, they had been restored their childhood for the time being), from the open doorway of their apartment, sitting three-in-a-row, shoulder to shoulder, on the ground. Keep in mind they were small, under-nourished girls, and could fit easily into the width of a single doorway. Particularly interesting to them were the dozens of snails that crossed paths all over the stairs and open landing. They took turns naming them, and with great care and much deliberation, attempted to ascribe distinct character traits, likes and dislikes, and favorite chess openings to each one. A larger-than-average, white-shelled snail Lina had just named Stella. Stella played dress-up, was an exceptional singer, and always played the English opening as the white pieces (Lina was studying the English opening at the moment, and the last three snails she had named, in fact, had been too). The other two found this ever-increasing line of English-opening-playing snails exceptionally funny, and in their seats, almost fell over backwards with delight.
When they regained their composure, and the sound of their laughter was quieted by the tumbling of raindrops against the concrete. The three sat quietly for a while, perhaps relishing the opportunity to sit in silence not over a chessboard, or perhaps for a reason entirely different, and one that is, and must be, unknown to all except these three, well including myself.
A thunderclap rolled across the sky, somewhere far off. Then, from the bottom of the stairwell resonated the sound of two men grunting and puffing in a thickly accented Russian, a language that was not so much of an oddity in this country. One voice was deeper and scragglier than the other. It spoke first.
“Is this the one? Fucking rain… had to be today, huh.” Three stories up, the two older girls in a coordinated motion covered Lina’s ears on either side to block out the curse words.
A slice of paper, half-soaked, was removed from a pocket and un-crumpled. There was a pause, and the rain once again filled in the gaps. Then the other voice spoke, much smoother and audibly younger. “Da. Should be it.” The paper was re-crumpled back into the pocket.
We shall see these two in the flesh soon enough. For now, let us be content, as the girls’ must be, with the noises they send spiraling up the stairwell in little steam clouds.
“One… two… hrgh—three!” The end of the count-off was accompanied by the sound of a large piece of furniture lifting off the ground, and followed immediately by heavy footsteps—about twelve of them in total, when, from the sound of their heavy, synchronized exhale, as well as the muffled clang of their object touching down onto the concrete, it could be surmised that the two had reached the base of the second-floor landing. This latter sound reveals some information about the object in question. It was not simply that of a heavy object being set down, but rather that of a hallow object, full of life and music, ringing with glee: clearly and unmistakably—even to one who has never before heard it—the sound of a piano being set down on its side, the gentle impact causing its strings to vibrate harmoniously all at once.
Indeed, the two men were hauling a piano up the stairwell. The girls’ fascination with the snails dissipated, and their ears tuned into this endeavor with great interest. The older two were well accustom to the sounds of a piano being played. Their mother’s thin, calloused hands used to traverse the keys of a dusty old upright, an item which had sadly not made it to the steamer’s cargo like the chess table had—and they had not heard one since. But the sound that came out of this piano upon its being set down on the second-floor landing, although muted by several layered blankets, nonetheless reached the girls in a single, well-tuned chord.
Hurriedly they retreated into the apartment and returned a moment later each wearing a pair of rubber boots and an overcoat. Rebecca carried a large black umbrella, large enough for the three of them to all comfortably stand beneath, and she unlocked its spring-loaded mechanism into the open stairwell; it shot into the air like a leathery bat, and the recoil almost toppled her narrow body over backwards. They all flinched at this, but once they had successfully huddled underneath its cover, all were satisfied with their bravery. They shuffled out towards the center column of the spiral staircase—taking care to avoid stepping in the many puddles that had collected, or on any of their newly-named friends—and while none of the three were tall enough to peer over the railing, their heads were small enough to fit perfectly between the spaced bars; once again shoulder-to-shoulder, they gazed down with the rain at the floors below.
We are granted the ability of sight. The two men had rolled the piano to the base of the next staircase with a small palate on wheels. Clear to us now too, is the mechanism the men had used to lift it up the stairs: they had a snaked a thick leather strap underneath the bottom of the piano, which was in fact its side, and looped each end around the napes of their necks. The two wore a not-too-dissimilar outfit of ragged, gray overcoats, woolen hats, and darkly colored slacks, and for a moment, as they crouched down on either side of the piano, preparing to lift it up the next flight of stairs, Kitty had the fleeting thought that the two much resembled a large pair of gray swans.
“Ready?” The two swans shifted a little in place, “one… two… thr-hrgh-ee!” They stood up and the strap cinched tightly against their necks. With them the piano lifted off of the ground and again released a pleasing chord of overtones; the man with the deeper voice, facing backwards, at once began climbing with a wide, awkward gait, stepping with both feet onto each successive. The other one had an easier job, and pushed on his side of the piano with his the full of his shoulder and side of his face. In this way, between constipated grunts and quick exhales, they worked their way up the next staircase, and set the piano back down onto the next landing.
“Shhhwwww,” they wobbled back and forth slightly, and if one were to enter into their heads for a moment, he too would feel the blood emptying from his head, and the tingling of his lips. This lightheadedness may also lead this spectator to feel as if, as the two did, the raindrops had stopped falling for a brief moment, like a strobe light had frozen them in mid-air, although to the girls, and in reality, the rain picked up ever so slightly. “Fourth floor, again, right?” The younger one asked.
“Da, fourth floor. Push a little harder this time.” The grizzlier voice returned, but drained now, like the color from his face, a little of its authoritativeness.
“You can walk faster then too…” the younger mumbled barely audibly as they once again squatted into position.
The girls turned their heads in perfect unison, hardly breathing with anticipation, to watch the two men make their way up to the third floor. As they rounded the stairs and came to the base of their landing, the younger man shoed the girls out of the way from the side of his mouth, squashed up against the piano, “Mo- Move! Make room!” and the three rushed back into the doorway, pulling in the umbrella in after them without closing it. Again the men let down the piano to catch their breath, and again the piano released the same warm sound, only this time the girls were only about a foot or two away, and they themselves practically reverberated with the chord.
The men, both of them drenched and pale, took a slightly longer break on this floor than the others; Rebecca took the opportunity to hand them each a glass of water, which they gulped down almost in a single swallow. “Spasiba…” they both uttered, and handed back the glasses. It was an odd sight, the five of them together on that landing. If one hadn’t known any better, they could have all been siblings; maybe the two men had been the girls’ older brothers, and having just returned from a long trip, or perhaps departing for one, the five were sharing an long-overdue welcome or good-bye. Maybe they would all embrace there in the falling rain and silently shed tears together. Next the brothers would say something strong (or at least strong sounding, as secretly they would be as tremulous at heart as their sisters), and the girls would remember it forever.
This could have been the case had one squinted a bit, or let the gray rain obscure the picture from afar. But after the men wiped the sweat and rainwater off their faces, they quickly and mechanically shuttled the piano to the base of the next flight of stairs, where they squatted in place, counted off, and continued their perilous climb. The moment of ambiguity passed, and it could be clearly said that the five were not related.
Only when the two were just about at the top of the next flight of stairs did the girls notice the tragedy that had taken place in the interim. Lina shrieked—there, where the piano had been set down, was Stella the snail’s white carapace, shattered atop her smeared body like broken china. In a puddle of rainwater about the corpse, shreds of her gray, slimy body floated about limply like droplets of oil. The other two looked down next, and witnessing the same crime scene, screeched similarly. Kitty bent over and covered her face, still screaming through her tiny fingers, and the other two turned to hold each other.
At the same moment on a floor above, unaware of the murder they had committed, were the two men, almost having completed their ascent. One stood with both feet solidly on the fourth floor landing, and the other was on the staircase, pushing the last of the piano towards his partner. But in between the two, the piano hung suspended on their necks, and swayed side to side, just ever so slightly. Above, the sky was visible through the open roof, and dark-gray clouds passed by each other quietly.
By chance, Rebecca pulled away from Lina for a moment to glance at the men, and was frozen by the sight of the gently swinging piano. Her eyes grew wide. The grumblier voice, having completed his ascent, took note of the girls on the floor below. “Quiet down there!” At this Kitty and Lina stopped their crying, and followed Rebecca’s gaze upwards. They too were instantly captured by the spectacle they beheld.
What they didn’t notice was the younger of the two men—still ascending the last of the stairs—similarly stirred to curiosity by the shrieks below. He snuck a brief look over his shoulder, and in an instant of unfortunately misguided attention, stepped forwards directly onto the brown shell of another Stella. On top of the wet concrete the snail’s amorphous body made for an almost perfectly frictionless substance; before anyone, either the girls or the movers, could notice what was happening, the man fell backwards, and the entire piano lurched into the air, as if a gust of wind or a tall wave had suddenly lifted it up from below.
The event that follows may seem impossible, but it I assured you at the start is actually not all too improbable, and in fact, given the fullness of time and the oftentimes unpredictable nature of physics, is really quite unsurprising. In a flash, the piano toppled right over the railing—strings, hammers, and all—into the emptiness of the center column of the stairwell.
In the process too it somehow liberated itself of its many blankets and coverings, so that by the time it had made it entirely over the railing, the piano’s beautiful, acrylic surface, embroidered with gold and silver trimmings, was revealed to all five of them. It appeared to hover for a moment, buoyed by nothing but a pillar of air, before suddenly regaining the attribute of gravity and plummeting downwards.
Almost immediately it passed the third floor landing, where the girls were still huddled in the doorway, and they watched the black, acrylic-coated wood and ivory keys fall with the rain; the colors scattered and refracted in each droplet, so that in the brief moment it passed by their wide-eyed faces, perhaps for only a fraction of a second, the falling piano disassembled itself into a blur of chess squares and pieces, along with a whole host of other items: wooden dressers, chairs, luggage cases and leather-bound books, all tumbling towards the ground in one glorious, shimmering cloud.
But the moment passed, and the pieces once again rejoined into a single, solid piano. The three ran towards the railing, not caring to take their umbrella with them, and stuck their heads out into the column. In doing so, they watched the piano fall silently another two full stories, and then collide thunderously with the earth. An explosion sounded of every song ever written, and the sight of every chess opening ever played splayed out in black-and-white shards over the ground.
The magnificent chord resonated in the column for what seemed like ages, resolved into a major key, and was finally quieted by the tapping of raindrops.
From the landing outside apartment five, their tiny heads poking through the bars of the railing, the girls watched a trickle of blood pool underneath a large black rook, and the visible tip of a fedora slowly soak it up.