The Forest of Wool and Steel by Natsu Miyashita

Author:Natsu Miyashita
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473544536
Publisher: Transworld

Don’t Give Everyone a Harley

‘Mr Akino,’ I called out, but got no response. ‘Mr Akino,’ I called out again, and he finally noticed and looked up abruptly.

‘What is it?’ He lifted his hand to his ear and drew something out.

‘What’s that?’

‘An earplug.’

The surrounding noise must bother him, I figured, but then it hit me. It’s for tuning. He’s trying to protect his ears.

‘I do have a very sensitive pair of ears, you know,’ Mr Akino said, poker-faced. ‘So what do you want?’

‘Would you let me come along with you?’

‘On what?’

I wanted to learn what Mr Akino had dubbed the boom-snap, the high-and-low-end approach to tuning. I think I felt this way because I’d become so aware of the extent of my own shortcomings. ‘I’d like to watch you while you tune, if you’d let me.’

I bowed and he pulled a long face.

‘No, thanks, I’ll find it hard to concentrate.’

‘Please. I’d like so very much to come along and see you at work.’

I bowed again and he glanced down at the yellow earplug in his hand.

‘I doubt you will find it very interesting.’

I took this to mean that, however reluctantly, he was giving me the go-ahead, and I thanked him heartily.

‘Don’t get your hopes up. It’s just plain ordinary tuning.’

It’s plain ordinary tuning that I wanted to know about – to see Mr Akino’s plain ordinary way of doing things.

‘I’m really looking forward to it.’

Still looking none too pleased, he’d already shoved the earplug back in place.

The house I visited with him the following day was, as advertised, an entirely normal one. A typical one-storey house with an upright piano, nothing special. But as I was to learn, the way Mr Akino tuned was far from ordinary.

First, he was amazingly fast, faster than anyone else I’d ever seen. A process that would normally take just under two hours he finished in half the time, and he made it look so easy. No wasted work, everything carried out with perfect precision. The tuning was over before I knew it, and there he was already replacing the front panel, and polishing up the keyboard and mahogany top board with a cloth. He returned a Beyer practice book to its place on the piano and called out to the owner, who was in a back room. The way he spoke to the lady of the house was so kind it was hard to believe he was the same stern Mr Akino I knew. They settled on an approximate date one year later for the next tuning.

He made his way out of the house, all smiles, but as soon as we were outside he reverted to the old grumpy Mr Akino I knew. We walked together to where we’d parked a little way off.

‘That wasn’t particularly interesting, was it?’ he asked.

‘Oh, it was,’ I said. ‘I found it really interesting.’

‘Really? Not me.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘No, you don’t understand,’ Mr Akino said, waving his hand to emphasize the point. ‘I finished pretty swiftly, didn’t I. I don’t have to pull out all the stops in that household.

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