When we arrived at her lodgings, I said, helping her down from the carriage, “Would you like me to come up…for a while?”
“Not tonight, Hermann.”
It was just as well. In truth my offer was half-hearted, for what was going through my mind at that moment over and over again was the name “Hupfer”.
Chapter Twelve
The old gentleman who overhauls my gold pocketwatch is permanently hunched from years of bending over his cramped worktable. His eyes are frozen into a permanent squint from peering into the miniature innards of timepieces. His hands have become small lobster claws after a lifetime spent handling the delicate tools of his trade. The fellow, now in his sixties, who services our firearms, has about him the reek of gun oil and the acrid smell of spent gunpowder. His fingers, no matter how thoroughly they are scrubbed, bear the stains of his trade that will go with him some day to the grave. His workshop is a dungeon, and he seems more like a prisoner in it than a free tradesman. Much the same can be said of all the other technicians and tradespeople and artisans upon whom we rely from day to day. There is a uniformity about such men, an air of pride mixed with fatigue. They have reached the peak of their respective vocations but have somehow become beaten down by daily repetition and the limitations that separate craft from art. When they die, their tools die with them, and that is the end of their story.
Or so I was convinced until the morning I met for the first time Wilhelm Hupfer-“Willi” to the Schumanns. His workshop was as spotless and orderly as a medical clinic. Though he was shorter than I, he stood ramrod-straight, which made him seem taller. His white cotton coat-the kind worn by physicians and research scientists-was starched and immaculate. He was clean-shaven and clear-eyed. His hands, resting comfortably on the lid of a giant Bösendorfer he'd been repairing, were like those of a surgeon. When I mentioned this to him, he smiled a bit. “Ah yes, Inspector,” he said, “skilled like a surgeon to be sure…but much, much more sensitive. Let me show you what I mean.”
Lifting the heavy mahogany lid of the Bösendorfer grand and propping it up, he pointed to the inner workings that resembled a harp laid flat. With the knuckle of his right index finger, he rapped first the gold-lacquered cast-iron frame that formed the foundation for the wooden pin blocks and wire strings, then the thick solid spruce planking, braced by horizontal struts that formed the inner rim of the casing. “Looks strong, doesn't it, Inspector. Strong enough to withstand an earthquake, eh?” I agreed. “And strong it certainly is,” Hupfer continued, looking down lovingly at the instrument as it lay bare beneath him. “The great Liszt plays one of these. Been playing one since he was a young man. Used to break the strings on other makes. They said he could tear open the guts of a grand piano the way a lion tears open a gazelle. Not so with a Bösendorfer, however.”
“I don't understand,” I said. “If a piano like this is so sturdy, why does it require the delicacy of a surgeon to maintain it in proper working order?”
Hupfer gave me the smile of an expert who loves any opportunity to enlighten the ignorant. “That is my favourite question, Inspector,” he said. “Look here, if you will-” He motioned to me to bend closer to the piano's busy interior. “I'm going to press a key…say middle C…like so-”
I watched as the felt-tipped hammer struck the double steel and copper strings that gave off the sound of middle C, then fell back into place in the row of hammers.
“Looks simple, doesn't it? You bang the key, it bangs the strings, it comes back. God's in his heaven, and all's well in the world, right?”
By this time, even a dullard would discern that what this man was talking about was anything but simple. “You're the doctor,” I said. “Please go on.”
“The motions of the action must be adjusted to within a tolerance of a millimetre…or less. For instance, the backcheck-that's the part that catches the hammer on the rebound after it has struck the string-the backcheck must be regulated so that the hammer is caught precisely twelve millimetres from the string; otherwise the instrument will not be capable of proper repetition.”
I looked on fascinated as Hupfer reached across to his workbench and selected a fine needle. Holding the needle like a scalpel, he gently but firmly prodded the felt tip of one of the hammers, loosening its dense fibres. “This is how we ‘voice’ the piano, one hammer at a time, to achieve the warm, mellow tone, the right volume, the evenness of scale that the piano virtuoso demands. This instrument was built in 1839, Inspector, about ten years or so after the Bösendorfer firm was established. As a matter of fact, it was purchased by a member of the Hapsburg family at the Vienna Industrial Exhibition that year, after it was awarded first prize and a gold medal. Alas, the Hapburgs paid more attention to the royal stables than to their pianos, and so I have had to perform major ‘surgery’ here. But when I am done…” Hupfer paused to give the keyboard an affectionate pat. “When I am done it will be like new. No, better than new! Shall I tell you something, my friend? You could transport this piano to the far ends of the earth, and the minute a simple scale is played on it, any expert will recognize one thing immediately.”
“And that is?” I asked.
“That I, Wilhelm Hupfer, voiced the instrument. I know one standard and one standard only, sir…perfection.”
“You do indeed possess all the abilities of a skilled surgeon,” I said, shaking my head admiringly.
“All except one: the ability to become as rich as a skilled surgeon. An expert like me never receives the public recognition and the rewards he deserves. Who does? The performer. His impresario. His manager. Even the flunkies who lay out his wardrobe, shave him, and empty his chamber pots.”
I attempted to lighten the moment. Smiling sympathetically, I said, “Your rewards will come in heaven, I'm sure.”
Hupfer was not amused. His face took on a hard expression. “Oh no, Inspector,” he said, “they will come much sooner, and here on earth. I have been a patient fool long enough.”
“Do you work on other makes?” I said.
“Of course,” Hupfer replied, his tone implying that my question was foolish. “A surgeon does not confine himself to one kind of patient only. No, Inspector, I am qualified to operate on just about any piano known to mankind. Naturally, I do not meddle with cheap mass-produced instruments that are beginning to come onto the market. One does not engage the services of a French chef to cook a meal of sausages and sauerkraut.”
Hupfer removed the prop and carefully lowered the lid of the Bösendorfer. “Tell me, Inspector, are you thinking of acquiring a fine piano for your own use? Is that why you wanted to see me this morning?”
“No,” I said. “As a pianist, I'm afraid I fall into the category of ‘sausages and sauerkraut’. I'm guilty of having bought one of those cheap mass-produced pianos as befits my talent. I would never dream of requesting an expert of your renown to so much as smell what passes for a piano these days in my living quarters.”
I hoped my humble admission would strike Hupfer as appealing. After all, what delights a proud man more than when another debases himself before him? I wanted this fellow to feel thoroughly superior. More to the point, I wanted to catch him completely off his guard when I posed my next question.
I said, trying to sound idly curious, “How do you account, sir, for the fact that Madam Schumann's piano was out of tune last evening?”
Hupfer's eyes snapped open with shock. “I beg your pardon. I do not understand the question.”
“You worked on the Schumanns’ pianos yesterday, did you not?”
“Yes. Mostly on the one she was going to play, not the other one. The Maestro gave Madam Schumann a brand new piano a few months ago for her birthday…from the Klems factory in Düsseldorf. Hardly a masterpiece as instruments go, but for a price of a couple of hundred thalers, nothing to sniff at either. The case is embellished with a floral pattern. I wish to God they had spent more time embellishing the action. But, as I said, it's a decent enough instrument for home use. Each and every piano has its own problems, Inspector, but because the Klems was almost new, all it required was a thorough tuning.” Hupfer's eyes narrowed. Almost sneering, he said, “And who, may I ask, ventured the opinion that it was out of tune?”