Edgar packed his own tools. Because the army had still not given him details about the piano, he visited the shop where it had been purchased, and spoke at length with the owner about the instrument’s specifics, how extensively it had been rebuilt, which of the original parts remained. With limited space, he could afford only to bring tools and replacement parts specific to the piano. Even so, the tools filled half of one of his trunks.
A week before he was to leave, Katherine held a small good-bye tea party for her husband. He had few friends, and most of them were tuners as welclass="underline" Mr. Wiggers, who specialized in Broadwoods; Mr. d’Argences, the Frenchman whose passion was Viennese uprights; and Mr. Poffy, who wasn’t actually a piano tuner since he mostly repaired organs—It is nice, Edgar once explained to Katherine, to have variety in one’s friends. Of course, this hardly spanned the full array of Those Associated with Pianos. The London directory alone, between Physicians and Pickle and Sauce Manufacturers, listed Pianoforte makers, Pianoforte action makers, Pianoforte fret cutters, hammer coverers, hammer and damper felt manufacturers, hammer rail makers, ivory bleachers, ivory cutters, key makers, pin makers, silkers, small work manufacturers, Pianoforte string makers, Pianoforte tuners. Notably absent from the party was Mr. Hastings, who also specialized in Erards, and who had snubbed Edgar ever since he had put up a sign on his gate reading “Gone to Burma to tune in the service of Her Majesty; please consult Mr. Claude Hastings for minor tunings that cannot await my return.”
Everyone at the party was thrilled about the Erard commission, and speculated late into the evening about what could be wrong with the piano. Eventually, bored with the discussion, Katherine left the men and retired to bed, where she read from The Burman, a wonderful ethnography by a newspaperman recently appointed to the Burma Commission. The author, one Mr. Scott, had taken the Burmese name Shway Yoe, meaning Golden Honest, as a nom de plume, a fact that Katherine dismissed as further proof that the war was but a “boys’ game.” Nevertheless, it made her uneasy, and she reminded herself before falling asleep to tell Edgar not to return with a ridiculous new name as well.
And the days passed. Katherine expected a last minute flurry of preparation, but three days before the set departure, she and Edgar awoke one morning to find nothing left to prepare. His bags were packed, his tools cleaned and ordered, his shop closed.
They walked down to the Thames, where they sat on the Embankment and watched the boat traffic. There was a distinct clarity to the sky, Edgar thought, to the feeling of her hand in his, All that is lacking to complete this moment is music. Ever since he was a boy, he had the habit of attaching not only sentiment to song but song to sentiment. Katherine learned this in a letter he wrote to her soon after visiting her home for the first time, in which he described his emotions as being “like the allegro con brio of Haydn’s Sonata no. 50 in D Major.” At the time, she had laughed and wondered whether he was serious or if this were the sort of joke that only apprentice piano tuners enjoyed. Her friends, for their part, decided that surely it was a joke, if a strange one, and she found herself agreeing, until later she bought the music for the sonata and played it, and from the piano, newly tuned, came a song of giddy anticipation that made her think of butterflies, not the kind that follow spring, but rather the pale flittering shadows that live in the stomachs of those who are young and in love.
As they sat together, fragments of melodies played in Edgar’s head, like an orchestra warming up, until one tune slowly began to dominate and the others fell in line. He hummed. “Clementi, Sonata in F-sharp Minor,” Katherine said, and he nodded. He had once told her it reminded him of a sailor lost at sea. His love awaiting him onshore. In the notes hide the sound of the waves, gulls.
They sat and listened.
“Does he return?”
“In this version he does.”
Below them, men unloaded crates from the smaller boats used for river traffic. Seagulls cried, waiting for discarded food, calling to each other as they circled. Edgar and Katherine walked along the shore. As they turned away from the river and began their return, Edgar’s fingers wrapped around those of his wife. A tuner makes a good husband, she had told her friends after they had returned from their honeymoon. He knows how to listen, and his touch is more delicate than that of the pianist: only the tuner knows the inside of the piano. The young women had giggled at the scandalous implications of these words. Now, eighteen years later, she knew where the calluses on his hands lay and what they were from. Once he had explained them to her, like a tattooed man explaining the stories of his illustrations, This one that runs along the inside of my thumb is from a screwdriver, The scratches on my wrist are from the body itself, I often rest my arm like this when I am sounding, The calluses on the inside of my first and third fingers on the right are from tightening pins before using regulating pliers, I spare my second finger, I don’t know why, a habit from youth. Broken nails are from strings, it is a sign of impatience.
They walk home, now they speak of inconsequentials like how many pairs of stockings he has packed, how often he will write, gifts he should bring home, how not to become ill. The conversation rests uneasily; one doesn’t expect good-byes to be burdened by such trivialities. This is not how it is in the books, he thinks, or in the theater, and he feels the need to speak of mission, of duty, of love. They reach home and close the door and he doesn’t drop her hand. Where speech fails, touch compensates.
There are three days and then two and he cannot sleep. He leaves home early to walk, while it is still dark, shifting out from the warm pocket of scented sheets. She turns, sleeping, dreaming perhaps, Edgar? And he, Sleep, love, and she does, burrowing back into the blankets, murmuring sounds of comfort. He lowers his feet to the floor, to the cold kiss of wood on soles, and crosses the room. Dressing quickly. He carries his boots so as not to wake her, and slips quietly out the door, down the staircase layered with a wave of carpet.
It is cold outside, and the street is dark save a gathering of leaves that twirl trapped in a wind, which has taken a wrong turn down Franklin Mews, which tumbles over itself, backing out of the narrow row. There are no stars. He tucks his coat around his neck and pulls his hat down tightly over his head. He follows the wind’s retreat, and he walks. Along streets empty and cobbled, past terraced houses, curtains drawn like eyes shut and sleeping. He walks past movement, alley cats perhaps, perhaps men. It is dark, and they have not yet electrified these streets, so he notices the lamps and candles, hidden in the depths of the houses. He tucks himself deeper into his coat and walks, and the night turns imperceptibly to dawn.
There are two days and then one. She joins him, anticipates his early morning waking, and together they walk through the vastness of Regent’s Park. They are mostly alone. They hold hands as the wind races along the broad promenades, skimming the surface of puddles and tugging at the wet leaves that mat the grass. They stop and sit in the shelter of a gazebo and watch the few who have ventured out into the rain, hidden beneath umbrellas that tremble with the gale: old men who walk alone, couples, mothers leading children through the gardens, perhaps to the zoo, skipping, Mummy, what will we see? “Shhhh! Behave yourself, there are Bengal tigers and Burmese pythons and they eat naughty children.”