The Piano Tuner – Part 1: A440

The upright in Studio Six had not been tuned in years, and Elias could hear it from the corridor.

"It's a mess," he said cheerfully, lifting the lid. He was thirty-three, a piano tuner with a leather roll of tools, a thatch of dark curls and a faintly absent expression, as if he were always listening to something else. "Hammers are worn. Strings are tired. But the soundboard is sound."

"Does that matter?" said the woman in the doorway.

"It's the heart."

She was thirty, slim, in a grey cardigan, with her arms crossed tight. Camille, the conservatory's accompanist, had not played for a year. Something had happened to her hands, or to her nerve, or both, and she had stopped answering questions about it. But she had heard the tuner's first note, a sharp bright A, and had been unable to walk away.

Elias set to work. He removed the front panel, set a tuning fork on the wood, and began to turn the pins with a long wrench, listening, adjusting, listening again. The notes crept upward from flat to true. He hummed under his breath.

"You hear beats," said Camille, almost to herself.

"When two strings are slightly apart. The wobble. When they stop, it's in tune."

"I used to hear that."

"Used to?"

She said nothing.

He tuned for three hours. She stayed. At the end, he played a slow scale up the keyboard, the notes clear and warm. The little room seemed to glow.

"There," said Elias. "Try it."

"I can't."

"One note."

She approached the piano as if it might bite. She touched middle C. It rang out, round and gold. Her eyes filled.

"Can I ask you something?" said Elias.

"Yes."

"Will you play it tomorrow? I'll come back and listen."

"Green?" said Camille, in a small voice.

"Green," said Elias, smiling. "Very green."

Continue the story: Part 2 – Tuned.