“Right.” He smiled.
“Sorry about the heat. My father’s sick, he needs it warm. He’s sleeping in there.” Noah gestured toward Olaf’s bedroom.
A look of genuine concern spread across Gordy’s face. “I can come back another time,” he offered.
“Oh, no. No. Thanks, but it’s not necessary. He probably won’t even know you’re here.” Gordy took off his sweater. Already his undershirt was wet with sweat. “This his place?” “Yeah.”
“Well, maybe a little music will make him feel better.”
“That’s the idea,” Noah said.
“You have any more light?”
“Not much,” Noah said, stepping from lamp to lamp and turning them both on. “How’s that?” “That’ll help.”
Gordy unscrewed the top of the piano and removed it. His big arms reached into the instrument. “This is going to be some job.” For two hours Gordy worked, pulling busted hammers and rusty strings from the piano, looking over his shoulder with a wrinkled brow and puckered lips as if he were a customer at a restaurant pulling a long black hair from his plate of spaghetti. He hummed while he worked and talked of all manner of things. He kept returning to the topic of the weather, specifically the snow that was on the way.
He assured Noah it would start that night. At one point he warned Noah to get the truck and car up on the county road. “If you don’t, you’ll be buried down here for the next five months.” Noah thanked him, and then asked, “Isn’t it early for so much snow?” Gordy took a break from his work. “We’ve had less snow the last few years, but we can still get walloped. They’re talking about one of those El Niño winters again. Warmer but wetter. I’ll make that trade every year.” “It’s been a long time since I’ve been here in the wintertime,” Noah said.
At this Gordy plied him with questions about Boston and Boston winters. He told Noah about the vacation he and his wife were finally taking to Florida, a place he’d seen only in brochures. He set back to work, still humming.
Noah got up to check on Olaf. He sat up in bed, his arms folded across his chest, his eyes open.
“How are you?” Noah whispered.
“I could use some water.”
“I’ll get a glass.” Noah stepped back into the kitchen and got one. He ground another round of pills and stirred them into the glass. He brought it back to his father. “The guy’s here fixing the piano,” he said.
Olaf nodded as he drank the water. He wiped his bottom lip with the sleeve of his turtleneck. He was out of breath from drinking. He closed his eyes.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Chrissakes, I feel like hell.”
Noah sat on the edge of the bed. “And there’s nothing I can do?” “I think I’ll sleep again. Let me know when he’s done with the piano. Maybe I can come out to the great room.” “I’ll do that.” Noah tucked his father in again. Took the empty glass back to the kitchen, rinsed it, filled it, and returned it to his father’s bedside table.
When he came back out Gordy was refilling his own water glass. “I hope you don’t mind.” “Of course not,” Noah said.
Gordy went to the window, looked up at the sky as if to gauge its intentions. “Sixty-one is a hell of a road in a blizzard, that I can tell you. Especially spots where the highway’s exposed to the lake. You can get some pretty deep drifts.” He ambled back to the piano.
Noah watched him work. He had by now examined the action and soundboard and decided to leave well enough alone, to simply replace the hammers and strings and hope for the best. This plan he passed by Noah. Noah agreed. He told Noah he could have it done in the next couple hours.
For all of his ambling around and small talk, Gordy worked quickly and with apparent precision. He never had to correct something he’d already fixed. Except for the sweat now soaking his shirt, he appeared completely at ease.
Noah sat on the couch watching him restring the piano.
“What did your father do that he could get away living up here?” “He worked on the ore boats,” Noah said. “This was his father’s place before him. My grandpa built it.” “Ore boats, huh? What did he do on them?”
“He retired captain,” Noah said. “More than fifteen years ago now. He worked for Superior Steel.” “How about that? What about you, what line of work are you in?” “I have a small business. I sell antique maps.”
Gordy worked with both hands in the piano now. “Couple of interesting guys, you two. There aren’t too many antique-map sellers, I don’t suspect. Nor too many ore-boat captains.” “I guess not,” Noah said. “Nor many piano tuners for that matter.” “Fewer and fewer all the time,” Gordy said. He worked with great efficiency, seemed to be accelerating as the daylight faded. “My own grandpa worked on the docks in Two Harbors. He was a stevedore. Died on the job when I was only in kindergarten. Fell into a cargo hold, was crushed by a basketful of iron ore.” “Are you kidding?”
“No, sir. Happened a long time ago.”
“My father survived the wreck of the Ragnarøk.”
“Your father was on the Rag?” Gordy said. He stopped what he was doing and looked seriously at Noah. “My grandpa used to load the Rag. Can you believe that? Small world.” “It is a small world.”
Gordy set back to work. “So he was one of the three.” It wasn’t a question so much as a statement of awe. “I was in high school back then. Remember it like yesterday.” “So do I,” Noah said.
“And he kept sailing after that?”
“For almost twenty years.”
“No way you’d have gotten me back out on that lake.”
“He could hardly be seen on land,” Noah said.
“He’s damn near famous, I guess.”
“Don’t tell him that.”
Gordy rested his arms atop the piano. “So you know the real story, I bet.” Noah smiled. “As a matter of fact I do.”
“I’ll have to tell my son about this. He loves the shippery.” Gordy finished an hour earlier than he’d thought he would. After he reattached the lid he pulled the bench up, cracked his knuckles, and launched into a beautiful rendition of Rondo capriccioso. He played like a virtuoso, the mass of his body ecstatic as he moved from one end of the keyboard to the other, an exultant look on his face. When he finished the air literally vibrated with the last notes. Noah applauded as if he were cheering the soloist from the Boston Pops. “That was my mother’s favorite piece,” Noah said. “She played it all the time.” “My favorite, too. I play it after every piano I tune.”
“I hope my father was awake to listen. Maybe you could play another?” He cracked his knuckles again, let his fingers hover over the keyboard for a moment. “Grieg?” he said and without waiting for a reply began.
Again it was beautiful. Noah listened, transported.
Gordy slid off the bench finishing the last few notes. “That’s the opening to his concerto in A minor. I love it.” “I’m no expert, but I know a pianist when I hear one. That was just terrific.” He was packing his toolbox. “Thank you. It’s what I do.” His modesty was as genuine as his look of concern for Olaf had been when he first arrived. “Not much use for it, but it’s what I enjoy.” “The world would be a better place if more people could play like that.” “The world’s not such a bad place,” Gordy said.
He wrote a receipt for Noah. Noah paid. He walked him to the door. It was cold.
“Tell your father I hope he feels better. I hope the music cheered him up.” “I’m sure it did. I really appreciate your coming. On such short notice, too.” Gordy turned up the collar of his barn coat. “My pleasure.” He looked skyward. “It is on the way. Get your vehicles up this hill.” “I will.”