The Piano Teacher – Part 1: Scales

The music room smelled of beeswax and old sheet music. A grand piano stood under tall windows, a metronome on its lid, a straight-backed chair at its side. Magdalena stood by it in a black dress, her silver hair pinned, a slender wooden baton in her hand.

She was fifty-three, a retired concert pianist who taught a handful of private students. Paul was forty-five, a structural engineer and her partner of three years, who played adequately and craved something else: to be told, firmly and exactly, how to do it.

Before the first note, she sat him on the piano stool and placed a sheet on the music stand. Terms of Study. His limits and hers: no marks, nothing painful, no real humiliation, no one else. The word was Fermata.

"Say it."

"Fermata."

"If you say it, the lesson pauses. We have tea, and no one is displeased."

"Yes, Madame."

"Not yet." She tapped the baton once against the piano's lid. Her voice dropped, precise and unhurried. "Your posture is dreadful."

"I'm sorry, Madame."

"You will be." She stood behind him and, with two cool fingers, straightened his spine. "Wrists level. Fingers curved. Do not look at the keys. Look at me."

He looked up into her calm grey eyes. She smiled, very slightly.

"C major scale. Two octaves. Slowly."

He played. She listened. At the first slip she tapped the baton on the lid and said, quietly, "Again." At the second, "Again." She walked round the piano, a slow circle, correcting his hands, his breathing, his tempo. Her voice was the only measure. The metronome ticked.

"Are you content, Paul?"

"Content, Madame."

"Good. Again."

Continue the story: Part 2 – Fermata.