The piano tuner didn’t particularly care to talk about himself, but he could discuss music all night long. He was, in addition to being perhaps the best piano tuner in Warsaw if not all of central Poland, an avid collector of recordings and original music manuscripts. If he’d had the means, he would collect instruments too. He had once played a Chopin polonaise at the very keyboard the composer had used; he considered it one of the highpoints of his life.

“I used to. But only in my youth.” He told the man of his sweep through Eastern Europe with the Warsaw Youth Orchestra, with which he’d been second-chair cello.

He stared at the man, who in turn was examining the piano. “As I say, the hall is closed. But perhaps you’re looking for someone?”

“I am, yes.” The Slav walked closer and looked down. “Ah, a Bosendorfer. One of Germany’s great contributions to culture.”

“Oh, yes,” the slight man said, caressing the black lacquer and gothic type of the company’s name. “It’s perfection. It truly is. Would you like to try it? Do you play?”

“Not like you. I wouldn’t presume to even touch a single key after hearing your performance.”

“You’re too kind. You say you’re looking for someone. You mean Anna? The French horn student? She was here earlier but I believe she’s left. There’s no one else, except the cleaning woman. But I can get a message to anyone in the orchestra or the administration, if you like.”

The visitor stepped closer yet and gently brushed a key—true ivory, the piano having been made before the ban. “You, sir,” he said, “are the one I came to see.”

“Me? Do I know you?”

“I saw you earlier today.”

“You did? Where? I don’t recall.”

“You were having lunch at a café overlooking that huge building. The fancy one, the biggest one in Warsaw. What is it?”

The piano tuner gave a laugh. “The biggest one in the country. The Palace of Culture and Science. A gift from the Soviets, which, the joke goes, they gave us in place of our freedom. Yes, I did have lunch there. But . . . Do I know you?”

The stranger stopped smiling. He looked from the piano into the narrow man’s eyes.

Like the assault of the sudden vehement chord in Haydn’s Surprise Symphony, fear struck the piano tuner. He picked up his tool kit and rose quickly. Then stopped. “Oh,” he gasped. Behind the stranger he could see two bodies lying on the tile near the front door: Anna, the horn player; and beyond her, the cleaning woman. Two shadows on the floor surrounded their limp figures, one from the entranceway light, one from their blood.