The Piano Maker Read Online Free PDF Page A

spark in his eye, the American self-assurance that would be considered immodest in a Frenchman. But it worked for Nathan. He was a nice-looking man with a good haircut, wearing a good suit and shined shoes, and his firm and reasonable way of speaking gave the listener confidence. She had never met anyone like him. So bold. So effective.
    “I prepare my business ventures very carefully,” he once told her, later. “So carefully that if someone says no to me, it must be because they haven’t understood. And so I need to slow down and explain better. It’s that simple.”
    On that first day he said to Mother, “Madame, let me point out that a deal like this will set you up in North America. It will spread the Molnar name in the right circles, and any further business over there will be yours, free and clear. All that in exchange for half the profit from just the initial transaction.”
    “Why Molnar?” said Mother. “I imagine that Bechsteinalready has representation over there, but have you spoken to Bösendorfer or to Gaveau?”
    “Of course I have. Would you rather I took my business to them?”
    “No. But why Molnar?”
    “Because I like what the music world says about the quality of your pianos. That they are exceptional. And also because I’m certain that since you are smaller, and you need to compete, you’ll try harder than any of the other firms. Am I right, Madame?”
    When the Boston buyer came, Mother, in a new skirt and blouse, showed him to the listening chair in the showroom, and Juliette served him hazelnut-cream biscuits and a good local Calvados. Mother took her place on the sofa and Nathan sat in a chair, further back. She herself had on a new sky-blue dress from Mouchaire, low-cut and taken in by Juliette to fit closely. She wore a thin gold chain around her neck, and her hair was brushed to a shine and held up with combs and a blue ribbon. On her feet she wore new kid slippers, the soles roughed with sandpaper for a good grip on the pedals.
    She played the Liszt
Liebestraum
, and then she played some late Schubert and Schumann and Mozart.
    By then she understood very well the importance of the first few notes – the power of good notes confidently played, with much of the music in the tension betweenthem – and she demonstrated the grand, the baby grand, and the upright with all the skill and art she could muster.
    The American buyer sat still and attentive. After the presentation of each model he shifted in his chair and nodded approval, and at the end he stood up and applauded.
    “Bravo,” he said. “Yes, indeed. Excellent.”
    The first order was for twelve pianos to be crated and shipped to Boston, and another six to Toronto. Never in the history of Molnar had there been an order anywhere near as large.

Five
    BY THE MIDDLE OF HER sixth day in Saint Homais she’d already worked twice with the choir. The piano was slightly out of tune, and that afternoon she used the 5/16-inch wrench she’d borrowed from David Chandler and tuned it. Before the war, whenever they had shipped a Molnar to America or to an English colony, they had sent along a six-millimetre pin wrench. Morris hadn’t been able to find the one that had come with this piano, and so she had asked David Chandler to cut her a thin metal shim to use with the wrench. She started with the one tuning fork she still owned, an A 440, and then worked her way up and down through the strings by ear and intuition.
    Near the end Mildred came and sat in a front pew. “How on earth do you do that?” she said when Hélène had finished.
    “I had two very good teachers. My mother had perfect pitch –
l’oreille absolue
, it’s called. It made her an excellent tuner, just as good as some of the blind ones. Especiallyin the final stages, the last tiny adjustments to strings and sometimes even to links and dampers that some call voicing. I learned from her and from our master installer. He used to say,
Rounded shoulders to the