Hasegawa’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Nonsense! Nobody has even touched this piano in the last ten years!’
‘Not playing a piano is worse than pounding on it. Because of the humidity in the wood, the notes can’t stretch out. The strings lose their bounce, become warped and are unable to let out a precise note. A piano that can’t make a proper sound is no better than a dead one.’
Hasegawa smirked. ‘Sugiyama, don’t you dare think about getting rid of a perfectly fine piano by treating it like a broken piece of rubbish. It was abandoned for ten years, but today it finally met a proper player.’ He turned to look at Midori with a gentle expression.
Midori pressed one key with her right thumb and another with her little finger. The low and high G notes stretched out in parallel lines. ‘These are exactly one octave apart, sir. But the G I pressed is a black key. It’s G#, not G. G is a half-note lower. Its resonance is also shaky. The notes are slightly off and the vibrato is not quite right.’
Hasegawa turned to Sugiyama with displeasure. ‘How did you know about the condition of this piano?’
‘Before I enlisted I worked at a piano shop and learned a little, over the tuner’s shoulder.’
‘Then fix it!’
That evening Sugiyama crouched on the auditorium floor and opened a leather bag filled with a variety of metal tools, tongs, wrenches and pieces of leather. He caressed the piano as he would a beloved pet. He opened the lid; he was surrounded by the faint forest scent of antique wood. The piano-felt was ragged.
‘G.’ His monotonous voice was brittle.
Midori pressed the key confidently. The silence was broken by Sugiyama’s voice, followed by the piano. He wound a piece of leather around the bolts and tightened the strings. His expression reminded Midori of a doctor listening to the patient’s heart through a stethoscope, or a surgeon preparing to operate on a doomed patient. Sugiyama was holding tongs instead of a scalpel, but he was as powerful as a surgeon who made the lame walk, the blind see and the dying live.
‘It’s improving,’ she offered. ‘The note is precise and the vibrato sounds better, too.’
He didn’t seem satisfied. ‘I gave it a basic tune-up, but I need tuning instruments and other materials to do it correctly. A hammer and tuning driver, one spring-adjustable hooked needle, new steel strings, glue, wax for shining and a fine polishing cloth. ’
He appeared worried that he wouldn’t be able to find what he needed in these times of shortages and rations. Pianos, once objects of envy, had become the target of rage. No one would buy them, so they were hidden away in rooms or attics like clandestine children, covered with dust, forgotten.
‘I’m going to try the piano shop in town. I may be able to find tuning instruments.’ He started putting away his pliers, metal rods and leather ties.
Midori recognized those pliers; the patients she’d cared for had sported bloody bruises on their fingers made from those steel tips. She’d seen lash wounds on their backs the same thickness as those leather ties. This violent guard menaced powerless prisoners, but he was also the only person who could recover this piano’s sound. Which was his true self?
‘What do you use those tools for?’ she asked cautiously.
Sugiyama’s pupils flickered like candlelight in the wind. ‘Why do you want to know? We each do our jobs. I rough people up, and you treat them. I tune the piano, and you make music with it.’
‘What is it exactly that you do?’
‘My job is to purify the warped brains of those who believe they’re saving the world, but are really befouling society — Communists, nationalists, anarchists. So don’t meddle.’ He tossed her a cold smile and stalked out of the auditorium, leaving her behind in the murky darkness, the metal instruments in his bag clanging with each step he took.
Two days later, Sugiyama went into town. The piano shop there had closed a long time ago. He pounded on the door for a long time until it opened. The bald, moustachioed owner was as lethargic as a dust-covered piano. Sugiyama explained that he was seeking a tuning kit and repair tools. Resigned, the owner opened the door to the storage room. There wasn’t much that was usable, but Sugiyama took a few tools and walked through the grey streets back to the prison.
Midori was waiting for him in the auditorium. Without a word, Sugiyama opened up the piano, revealing hundreds of nuts and dozens of strings, and the crossbeam that stretched across. He tightened hundreds of tuning pins and strings and bearings and nuts.
‘Try any key.’
She played ‘Carry Me Back to Old Virginny’. Her playing sparkled, recalling for him the image of a rainbow, summer rain, amber. Sugiyama glanced at her fingers, which flew across the keys like butterflies, at her thin ankles above the pedals. He softened, looking nostalgic.
‘Tuning isn’t something you can learn in a day or two,’ Midori suddenly said. ‘It’s obvious you didn’t just pick it up — you managed to tune this piano without any real tuning equipment.’
Sugiyama flinched.
Midori could tell that he was recoiling from a memory.
He fixed his gaze on the rusted strings. ‘It was just to survive,’ he muttered. ‘It was a decent way to rip off the rich. I didn’t dare play, so I learned how to tune.’
She knew that couldn’t be the whole story. His tortured expression wasn’t that of someone who remembered trying to make a few yen here and there. When he was tuning the piano, he was an artist searching for the best sound.
She shook her head. ‘No, I can tell. Your voice is tender, almost loving, when you call out a note from the other side of the piano. All of your senses are focused on the sound. You’re reading the player’s heart.’
But the man in front of her had turned back into a stern prison guard. He looked tired, like an exile pursued by his golden-hued past. He didn’t reply, instead tending to the piano carefully, separating strings and actions, wiping away the rust with soft leather and recovering standard pitches. He reversed the damage to the hammer and damper. He adjusted the resistance and working range of the keys and found a uniform touch. The piano slowly regained its elegance; the sounds gradually recaptured their colours. His voice became stronger as well. ‘G!’
A few weeks later, Warden Hasegawa and Director Morioka walked into the auditorium together. They were all smiles, thrilled that the piano was returning to its former glory. Hasegawa was positively vibrating; he was honoured to be in the presence of a respected Fukuoka luminary. He looked at the piano with reverence as though he wanted to bow to it in gratitude, then shot a doubtful look at Sugiyama, who was still busy working on the instrument. He didn’t know what the guard was doing, but he was forced to trust him.
‘Thanks to Miss Iwanami’s wonderful playing, we’ll be able to have piano accompaniment at all official events, including, of course, our weekly assemblies,’ Hasegawa announced.
Morioka didn’t answer right away. Hasegawa stared at him impatiently.
‘It would be a waste for this instrument and player to accompany the assemblies,’ Morioka said finally. ‘We need a bigger stage. What do you think about organizing a larger concert?’
Though slightly taken aback, Hasegawa nodded eagerly. ‘You are entirely correct, of course, but this is a prison and we don’t have the time for practices—’
Morioka gently cut him off. ‘Actually, the fact that this is a prison makes this the ideal venue. What if we had a concert for peace, direct from a criminals’ den? We will be coaxing beautiful music out of a desolate place. We could invite a famous singer from Tokyo as well as high-level officials, both Japanese and international. What do you think?’