Vienna, he said, as if that explained all. He shook his head slowly from side to side in negation of my suggestion. You can continue your profession of tuning pianos, I said, adding, that he was fortunate – his work did not require him to be erudite in a new language. Me? Palestine? Picking oranges? he asked. Before Fishbein could begin his usual tuning lecture, I informed him that I didn’t know how much longer we would need his services because we were going to flee Austria for Palestine. It took place sometime during the period before Hitler annexed Austria. Only once did the piano tuner and I have a conversation not connected to how the piano should be kept in tune. He vouchsafed me such a hurt look that I was careful in the future to simply nod and say nothing. Once, fatiqued of hearing the same lecture, and perhaps in ill temper by increasing worry over the way events were developing in Austria, I snapped that if we neglected our piano tuning preserving duties, he would profit by increased business. If the piano went out of tune, I reasoned, we would call him, as usual. I would listen, nod, if scarcely paying attention. The conversations between Fishbein and myself invariably led to his instructing me on the correct way to preserve his art namely, how his tuning of the piano should be properly maintained.
The piano tuner never requested my daughter to play anything for him, almost as if the piano interested him exclusively, its player superfluous. This choice of his ‘theme’ amused us because my daughter’s piano teacher insisted that she learn and practice classical music only, forbidding her to play “light,” “frivolous” or “sentimental” music, the teacher’s various descriptions with which she dismissed non-classical music. When he tuned the piano, he always tuned it to the same tune: the opening bars of “Pop Goes the Weasel,” which he tapped out with one finger, whose tip was blunted, seemingly from such use. His statement about being late for another piano caused us to chuckle (after he left) because he spoke of the piano that awaited him like it was a person. He arrived, tuned the piano, refused tea and cake (not very Viennese), pleaded that he was late for another piano, grabbed his tuning case and hurried away. He was a brusque man, even for a fellow Viennese, stooped, often wore a checkered jacket which contrasted ridiculously with his formal striped pants, as if he had been a jazz saxophonist at one stage of his life and a concert pianist in another his polka dotted, cabaret comedian’s tie completed the total mismatch.
MODI’IN, Israel - Everyone in our family called the tuner of my daughter’s piano, “the piano tuner,” though his name was Fishbein.
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