fiction
she is carrying an impossible load, pausing at every landing as if considering the effort. But the conclusive clue is her piano playing.
The old apartment building on Linden Avenue, just
south of the train tracks, was once an ice factory. The combination of living directly below 3C, along with the building’s thin walls, often forces Elliot to share 3C’s music, especially on warm nights when circulation is more important than isolation, and Elliot is forced to open his only window that is in working order. 3C’s affection for loud, classical music disturbs Elliot’s rock-n-roll central nervous system, but it is better than the gray-hair day dirges she occasionally pounds on the piano. On several of these gray-hair nights, long after the
piano is silent, Elliot lies in bed cradling the phone, ready to dial 911 after hearing 3C’s full-throated, distressful sobs. He wonders what could cause such pain and considers running upstairs to comfort her.
When Elliot came up $75 short on rent one month,
the landlord, knowing Elliot to be a former antique restorer, proposed that he might make up the difference by refinishing the faded Steinway in the newly vacant apartment. Though he was insulted by the pittance offered, Elliot agreed, rationalizing that he’d do a commensurate job. Two hours into the task, Elliot concluded that pride meant more than price, and he spent 12 nights toiling with care on what he thereafter considers his baby grand. On 3C’s maudlin piano playing nights, Elliot can smell her cigarette smoke and hear her bump her way to the kitchen between compositions, cracking ice, and clinking a bottle on the rim of her glass. Is it vodka? Gin? Scotch? He imagines the rings her glassware leaves on his baby grand, and when he hears sudden, complete silence, he assumes she has passed out, and he wants to rush up and wipe the rings dry before the finish is stained.
he WonDers What couLD cause such Pain anD consiDers running uPstairs to comFort her.
He hesitates, equating such lunacy with examining the contents of chorizo, and recognizes that he is better off not knowing what is inside either.
The piano that knells her moods came with the apart-
ment. It is a Steinway baby grand and has been up there since before indoor plumbing. The current building owner told Elliot that it was listed under inventory when he purchased the building 22 years ago. Rather than spend the money to have it moved, he charges $50 dol- lars more a month for the apartment and advertises: One Bedroom With Piano. In the previous eight years Elliot has lived here, the
tenants of 3C have used the piano to table potted plants, display magazines, and exhibit various statues, but never before for its intended purpose. One tenant, a smalltime drug dealer named Junior DeBartolo, stashed his product under the piano’s lid. Elliot knows this because he wore a path between the two apartments for almost a year trying to self-medicate, until a depleted trust fund forced him to return to his previous addictions—solitude and inexpensive Chardonnays.
Although the landlord has a strict rule forbidding pets, 3C carries on prolonged conversations with her cat, Leona. It is the only time Elliot hears her voice, for she has yet to receive visitors, and, though her phone rings occasionally, he has yet to hear her answer it. An extremely light sleeper, Elliot is disturbed by 3C
almost nightly. She commonly wakes him with zealous 2 a.m. cleaning and vacuum racing. One night, amusing himself after a particularly rude awakening, Elliot makes 12 marks on his bedroom wall, counting the times she flushes the toilet, giving him cause to wonder if there’s such a disease as obsessive-compulsive peeing. On one of 3C’s gray-hair nights, shortly after the dirges stop on the piano and the deep sobbing starts, Elliot leaves in search of peace of mind and a newspaper. On his return he finds a gray, shorthaired cat wandering the hallway. After investigating its tag, he discovers her name to be Leona, and Elliot scoops her up and carries her to his apartment. Elliot has never returned the key to apartment 3C after refinishing the piano, thinking he might one day want to check on his piano.
FALLWINTER2007 111
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