Songs Without Words

I have the infamous habit of playing pianos I really should not be playing. Likely you have seen them before: pianos sitting woeful and lonely in a lobby or salon, their keys displayed unabashed and immodest in some sort of vain hope that it can feel the caress of a pianist before its due appointment, one that night or the afternoon, or in the worst of cases, in the distant future of days, weeks and months. The keys beckon, and my straight-laced goody-two shoes slip off as I slink into the familiar give of the leather seated bench. The piano smiles and I play.

Most of the time, it goes relatively unnoticed. Some may stay and listen a while, others simply pass by and assume, despite my unrefined state of dress, that I am simply the entertainment for the day. I have to admit I feel oddly alive at this, that I can pass for a hired pianist, though my repertoire of memorized songs is more finite in scope. One time in the Beverly Hills Hotel, I was playing this wonderfully gaudy gold painted piano. My family was taking pictures, and this drew the attention of a woman sitting at a nearby table. “Who is that strange person that keeps taking pictures of the piano player?” she muttered in disgust.

Pianos in malls are another favorite target of mine, but alas and alack, the mall staff has gotten into the terrible habit of locking their pianos when not in use. Such savagery! But I suppose it is a necessary bondage. 5 year-olds do not the gentlest pianists make.

But once, in some mall or another in Louisiana, the piano was thankfully unrestrained, and I slipped by the red velvet barricade and played away across the white and black. I began and ended with a favorite piece of mine, a selection from Mendelssohn's Songs without Words translated variably “The Gondola Song,” “The Venetian Gondola Song,” “The Venetian Gondolier Song,” and my personal favorite for its beautiful simplicity, “The Gondolier.”

As I rose and was walking away, I could feel someone rushing up behind me and shouting. My adrenaline raced as I turned around. Had my sneaky key tappings finally caught up with me? Would I be reprimanded for evading the oh-so-secure red rope? The worries seem lacking in retrospect, but at the time, my heart raced. But the person behind me was no irate security guard or pianist planning on pounding me for reappropriating his piano's playing, but a pleasant blonde-haired girl. I was under the impression she was older than me, but honestly I was still so harried that I was still having trouble realizing I was not in trouble. She gushed over me, saying that she loved my playing. She asked if it were Chopin, and I blubbered out that, no, it was a piece by Mendelssohn, “The Gondolier.” She seemed surprised by this, and mentally noted the name of the piece. We exchanged a few more words that I hardly remember, and my family and I went along with our business.

As time progressed, I wondered if I should have given her my name, an email address, or some other sentiment as that. It was not every day that someone even vaguely in my age range had a genuine interest in classical pianists. Later in the day, I returned to the piano and played once more, hoping that perhaps another round of Mendelssohn would resummon what had disappeared. However, she never came. For the next few years, every time we returned to that mall, I would sit down at that same piano and play for a spell, still wondering that, by some minute chance of the cosmos, it would reach her ears once again.

Eventually, the piano was locked up as so many had, and then disappeared altogether. The place is now occupied by a rather uninspiring stall hawking the latest in bean bag chair design. I rarely think of that piano anymore, but when I do, I can't help but wonder what kind of girl my “fan” was, and if, had the conversation led this way or that, we could have been some sort of friends. I suppose life is full of little moments like that.