The Piano Tuner by Peter Meinke

Author:Peter Meinke
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 978-0-8203-4358-7
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
Published: 2012-03-15T04:00:00+00:00

II

From Abroad

A Decent Life

Hannah Broch didn’t like the way her husband dressed, drank, drove, walked, talked, cleared his throat, made love (too noisy) or water (likewise). In the morning he’d try to fold his pajamas, but they always looked like a lump. His belly was large and soft. He was one of those people who, given, say, a telephone number, could concentrate on it for a few seconds and almost immediately would not only have forgotten the number but whose it was and to whom he was talking. In the evening he’d waddle in smelling of beer and try to kiss her. She could have poked his eyes out. And now he had a mistress! She could have kicked in his teeth.

Hannah shook her head sometimes, wondering why she held on to the little bastard. The truth was, she was competitive. She would rather pull out her hair and set it on fire than lose at anything, whether it was cards or cribbage, chess or conversation. To get a divorce, then, would be to admit a great defeat, and she was not about to do it. Therefore, when she discovered her husband was having an affair, she called the Authorities. She was uncertain what they would do, or even what they were supposed to do, but she knew they were there—they were everywhere—and they had ways of smoothing over all difficulties. People often resented the amount of paperwork generated by the Authorities, but everyone admitted they got the job done, and life was better.

She had first become suspicious when Stefan began whistling again. Before they were married he had been a great whistler; he had a real talent for it. He liked best the famous arias from operas like Pagliacci or Carmen—he would prance like Escamillo the bullfighter when he whistled the toreador tune—but he could also whistle from works like Tosca, long stretches that nobody else could remember. After a few years of marriage, however, they had stopped going to the opera, and soon after that he had stopped whistling.

“Hannah says we can’t go, she has nothing to wear,” Stefan would explain to their friends. “And she’s perfectly right, she has nothing to wear.” He’d spread his hands out. They were soft and pudgy, stained with purple ink from the stamp pad at the post office where he worked as a clerk all week. The pay was low, and by now there was little chance of advancement, but they had enough to eat and a comfortable apartment on Krolewska Street, nicer than most of their friends’, and in a good section of the city, though all the sections nowadays were more or less alike. At any rate, people no longer moved from job to job, but stuck with the one they were assigned and hoped for the best.

There are two basic attitudes toward life: when confronted with the possibility of a new experience, you can either say yes or say no. Both answers are correct and will be equally regretted, experience being what it is.

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