The Pianist

I guess while I was at the open house for the apartment the landlord had cast a silencing charm. I promise, no sound penetrated the walls I now know to be incredibly thin during that half hour. And it was okay, for a couple weeks after I moved in. The pipes groaned and the AC complained, but the neighbors were tame in their little boxes. Nothing kept me awake at night. That is, until the pianist moved in next door.

 A walking contradiction, his clothes were too big and his personality too small; he apologized just for walking past me in the hallway, and yet a quiet challenge answered my request that he and his piano be silent by 10PM. Perhaps it would have been different had he been a more talented artist. Maybe Frank Sinatra covers would have been inoffensive during dinner had they been played even remotely close to the right key. At first, I hoped he would get bored with playing the same piece for weeks before it was recognizable. I bided my time with earbuds in and patience bubbling close to the surface. After a month or so, however, it became clear to me that this was not a phase, but a lifestyle, and one I must discourage at all costs. I waited until I heard him come home from work. There was always a ten minute gap between his arrival and the commencement of badly timed jazz and off key classics. I plugged in my speaker and played good music: AC/DC, a couple of Queen’s songs, and prayed he’d get the point. And it worked! No piano penetrated my peace that evening.

 The next day, however, I heard the trembling tune of an uncertain “Bohemian Rhapsody” in reply- the very song I had ended my concert with the night before. Oh, it was on. I tried recruiting neighbors, but the pianist’s apartment was at the end of the hall and the only tenant close enough to hear him besides myself was an elderly man that simply turned down his hearing aid when the piano began. He even confessed to selling him the wretched thing! I talked to the landlord. Nothing happened. I went back to my elderly neighbor and asked him what model of keyboard it was. Then I bought headphones for the pianist, so he could plug them into the keyboard. The next day, bringing in the mail, a package with my name on it and no stamp sent them back to me. I laughed. He obviously didn’t know who he was dealing with.

My efforts continued, although spread out over many months, in my righteous battle for common courtesy. I tried to negotiate. I was late to work several times because I walked him halfway down the block on his way to wherever he worked, trying to talk some sense into him. He had this talent for avoiding my questions, shrugging off accusations, misdirecting analogies and basically, without ever stringing more than seven words together (I counted), making it very difficult to condemn him and his piano as I aimed to do. 

But one day, I looked up from my obsession and found a year had passed. Flopping on the bed, I checked my watch and waited- yes, there was the click of his door. I couldn’t bring myself to get up to put on any noisy distraction before he began playing. Was that him? The scale sounded so even, the octaves sure, the arpeggios certain. I closed my eyes. This isn’t so bad. Anymore. Somehow, while I was busy securing my peace and quiet, I’d overlooked this facet of it. Perhaps I’ll declare a truce tomorrow, I thought, comparing this pianist to the one who had moved in the previous year. 

One movement ended, and another began, seamlessly. I realized, listening, that at some point, I had begun to enjoy my rivalry with the pianist. I was no longer bothered by the rhythms and chords floating through the wall. I just looked forward to antagonizing the pianist himself.

The piano stopped prematurely that evening. I didn’t have time to dwell on it; my presentation on the new marketing strategy I had to present the next day kept my mind fully occupied well into early the next morning, when I was too tired to wonder about the sounds of furniture being moved around in the apartment next door. I slept through my alarm the next day, and, running out of the apartment building with my shoes in my left hand and a bagel in my right, replied to the pianist’s way too cheery “Good morning” with a grunt. 

Nine hours later, I padded down the hallway, checking my watch and measuring it against the pianist’s daily ritual. I had thirty minutes until he even got home, forty until he began playing. So why was he leaning against his door, pocketing his phone as he watched me approach? 

I found myself smiling slightly, as I fumbled in my pockets for my keys. “Hey, I was going to mention… your piano playing? Not half bad, recently.” Great, I thought, that wasn’t awkward at all. 

He snorted softly. “Thanks, I think. Glad you put up for me this long, then?” 

“I wouldn’t go that far. It was a rough few months when you first moved in… and I guess I didn’t make it the easiest, huh?” 

“You were a formidable foe.”

“Were? You assume I’m stopping? I’m just changing tactics. I’ve started an online petition. Would you like to sign?” 

He rolled his eyes. “Should’ve known.” He adjusted his wire glasses and stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Well, I figured I should tell you, you won’t have to worry about this pianist anymore. My lease is up and I have this horrible neighbor that starts online petitions to get me kicked out of this apartment. Hopefully the next tenant doesn’t play the guitar or something.” His eyes laughed at me. My mind registered that this news bothered me more than it should have, and also that this was the most he had talked to me at one time since he’d arrived. 

“Oh. Well then, best of luck, I suppose.”

“You suppose?” 

I shrugged. Then, in a rush: “Does playing that piano really just... make you happy?” 

His eyebrows rose, not expecting the question. That was fair. I hadn’t expected it, either. “Yeah. Yeah it does.” 

“Then, sure. Best of luck. I’m glad you’ll keep it up.” 

“Of course. Well, maybe I’ll see you around?”

New York was such a big city, it would be a rare coincidence if we ever saw each other again. I doubted the chances. “Yeah, maybe.” He nodded, waved awkwardly, then ambled down the long hallway. I would miss the piano. The pianist. They had distracted me. Nobody else visited my apartment, but the music did. They were proof that art existed, even in a drab apartment building that sucked your savings, even in a career that paid too little for the stress. I had lost such a little part of my life, but it had left a disproportionately lonely gap in it. 

So as he walked down the stairs for the last time, I unlocked my apartment for the millionth time, and then, surprising myself, I turned on a piano cover of Frank Sinatra and listened, really listened, for the first time.