William Gass - Middle C

Joseph began to explain that the only piano available to him was in a church basement that echoed like a range of hills, moreover the choir liked to practice on the floor above, though there was a woman with rather a nice contralto who sang … she might enjoy … but Miss Gwynne Withers was in too great a rush. They would have to use the piano in the president’s house … of Whittlebauer … where the recital would be … for the alumni board and various officers of the college’s vast … Classical of course, he would be given the music when he came and could practice it in his basement if he needed to practice before their practice. But I, Joseph said and then thought better of it. The fee was handsome enough to kiss. What kind of classical? lieder? Ah … no. Good, but he didn’t say that either. Mostly opera? good. What operas? Mostly Italian, of course. A few French. Joseph silently thanked the God he had forsaken and hung up. Bemused, going over the conversation, trying to understand it, Joseph drifted away from the front desk and Marjorie’s quizzical look, now cast in plaster, and disappeared down the stairs to the Catacomb Room without a word without a word without a word to the Major.

Joseph managed to persuade his Bumbler to climb the considerable hill to the college whose buildings stood around a leveled knob like tired towers, ivy covered and slovenly maintained. The institution was done up in gothic armor except for the gym, which had once been — still was — a Quonset hut. Otherwise, just over the knob, immured among a few trees, a stately Georgian mansion stood, where the president hung out, entertained, and shook local hands. It had a view of the far valley rather than the town. When Miss Gwynne Withers had given Joseph directions to his destination, she added that President Taft himself had given a speech from the West Porch concerning, she thought, the need to bust trust. Although at long distance, Joseph and Miss Gwynne agreed: Bust trust? whatever for?

In a large lounge where many armless chairs rested next to the walls stood a very glamorous piano, its lid latched like a candy box, and next to it, in perhaps the position she would assume at her recital, posed Miss Gwynne Withers, slim and decorous in brown hair and a long brown gown. The music he would need was already on the rack. The piano was frightfully imposing and shone in the late light like dark chocolate. Joseph strode. At least he tried, but his nervousness made it more a stumble and a grab. He raised the key cover, but it slipped back with a clack. I am wearing something long to proximate any dress suitable for the occasion that I may eventually choose, she explained. Joseph sat down at the nearest end of the piano bench. He slid slowly into position. What was the music? “The Bell Song” from Lakmé . It was vaguely familiar, but one glance at the score told him he would make a hash of it. He struck a few keys: A … C. The notes thudded against the piano’s closed lid. They sound like animals trying to escape. Miss Withers winced, whether at the comparison or the performance. He hit a few more. No. Tennis balls. Joseph propped the lid up, but to his considerable relief the piano remained disastrously out of tune. He couldn’t play it even for her warm-up. Nothing musical would ensue.

When the young lady began to sing a few scales anyway, Joseph heard a pleasant light soprano that at least knew how to tra-la-la. Her hands were one fist. A shiver of strain showed in her voice. Joseph felt sorry for her and her situation. Is there a tuner in town? Perhaps in some city nearby? Uhrichsville? It’s Urichstown. Anyway, he would try. She would try. Tomorrow it could be tuned. It would be. It had to be. Then they could proceed. They would take the necessary time, make the necessary effort. In the songbook, the chosen pieces were marked by torn strips of paper. Joseph made for the Bumbler. He would need to return to Urichstown immediately, although Miriam was expecting him. Perhaps the Major would know of a tuner, or perhaps Miss Moss might. He feared a flurry of phone calls. That would be inconvenient. And he had to practice that night in the basement of the church. When he left the lounge Miss Gwynne Withers was sitting in a side chair, her brown gown spilling down her thighs.

Miriam tried to be incensed while talking on the phone. Joseph apologized. He apologized for returning to Urichstown. He apologized for not being able to talk further on the phone. He apologized to the Major for doing family business on library time by talking to his mother on the phone. He apologized to the janitor of the church for staying so late and for using its phone as well. Miss Moss knew a man who did piano tuning and said she would phone him; then she phoned Miriam to tell her to tell Joseph that the tuner would turn up at the time desired. When Joseph phoned his mother just to check in and apologize once again, he got Miss Moss’s message. Joseph then reached Miss Gwynne Withers with this information. Meanwhile, she had found someone in Woodbine by phoning everyone she knew to ask for help. Well, they thought, one of the tuners ought to make it. The next day. In the morning. It might take a while to get that whale to whistle. She would try to phone.

Neither of them showed up.

Two days of calling, begging, even beseeching by Miss Withers went for naught, and President Palfrey, now apprised of the situation, decided that the wise thing would be to call the recital off, since no one wished to have Miss Gwynne Withers be at less than her best, besides there would be other occasions, perhaps even more suitable, to showcase her lovely talent. The president was sure that the alumni board would be equally amused by some magic that Professor Rinse performed while employing in quite a unique way other instruments of the orchestra, even though many alumni might have witnessed a bit of it before because he was in considerable demand nearby — he would draw lengths of silk from his fist and use them to play something on the violin — well, the entertainments were scarcely at the same cultural level, and, yes, “amused” was not the right word for the effect of Miss Withers’s endeavors; still, the problem could be solved best by abandoning ship, although only Miss Withers’s father, Mr. Grayson Withers, put it that way, probably because he had served some time in the navy during the war.

Mr. E. J. Biazini was put out because he had driven to the college all the way from Urichstown per instructions received by phone from his old friend Miss Moss and was unable to find the piano; Miss Moss was peeved that matters had been mishandled after all her efforts, calling both hither and yon on the phone and sending her old friend Mr. Biazini to tune a ghostly grand piano; while the phones themselves miffed the Major, ringing, as she said, off the hook but not on library business. Miriam was now convinced that — traveling over wires for so many lots and even blocks let alone from town to town — Woodbine to Lowell, Lowell to Uhrichsville — a perilous passage — she was convinced that what one said at one end was squeezed into something quite other and quite else by the tortured time of its arrival. Think of what happens to toothpaste, she argued, with what relevance Joey did not pursue. President Palfrey didn’t want to spend any money on the gosh-awful piano, he told intimates, not right now with the budget busted and the underpinnings of the West Porch in need of repair, so he wrote Joseph a nice note thanking him for his helpful efforts, as did Miss Gwynne Withers, though she sent her thanks by phone from as far away as Columbus, where she had fled to be consoled and advised by the master accompanist, Herbert Kleger. Joseph thought it was awfully nice of them to thank him, he was not lately used to thanks, more and more like scowls were the looks that the Major sent his way, and his mother was in an awful mood, unhappy at having to live near wires, even stretches of mesh that honeysuckle might one day embrace, perfume, and wither on.