The Piano with a Cold

The Piano with a Cold

1Mina had expected the job to be boring. Uncle Farid tuned pianos for a living, and on Saturday he brought her along to the Westgate Community Center, where an old upright piano stood on the stage. A concert for the neighborhood was set for that evening, and the piano, he said, had a cold.

2"Pianos don't catch colds," Mina said, rolling her eyes. Uncle Farid only smiled and lifted the lid. Inside were rows of tight steel strings and small felt hammers. He pressed one key, and a sour, wobbly sound filled the empty room. Mina wrinkled her nose. "Okay," she admitted. "It sounds sick."

3Her uncle fitted a metal tool over a tuning pin and turned it the tiniest bit. He played the key again. He turned the pin again, and then again, each time by an amount Mina could barely see. Between turns, he closed his eyes and tilted his head as if the piano were whispering a secret. After nearly an hour, he had fixed only a handful of notes. Mina's legs began to bounce under her chair.

4"Why don't you just use an app on your phone?" she asked. "Sometimes I do," said Uncle Farid. "But a machine can't tell me how the notes sound together in this room. Ears can." He asked Mina to press one key over and over while he listened. At first, the strings for that note made a fast wah-wah-wah sound. Then, as he turned the pin, the wobble slowed, and slowed, and finally disappeared. The note rang out smooth and clear.

5Mina sat up straight. "I heard it stop!" she said. For the rest of the afternoon, she didn't look at the clock once. She pressed keys whenever he asked and listened for the wobble, and twice she heard it before he did.

6That evening, Mina sat in the front row with her uncle. When the first chord of the concert filled the hall, a woman behind them whispered, "This old piano has never sounded so good." Mina glanced at Uncle Farid. He didn't say a word, but he winked at her, and she grinned so widely that her cheeks ached.