In those days, everybody knew somebody who died, and in Solomon’s case that person was the piano tuner. There was a hiring freeze at Mercy, so Linda asked Solomon if he could tune the little upright himself. He didn’t know how to tune a piano, but she sent him a link to an online course and he vowed to do his best. The trouble was, he needed tools—a tuning hammer and a set of mutes. The only dot com that had them in stock displayed a message saying nothing could be shipped until the following year, but he placed the order anyway, and waited.

The upright, already compromised by its verticality—its trills sluggish, its action for the dogs—grew outrageously out of tune.

One day in mid-April, Mercy banned all visitors. They would step up to the information desk ready with names and room numbers, only to be turned away. Their protests filled the enormous lobby, swam over Solomon’s plexiglass and moved him. He considered his programme du jour: Clair de Lune, Moonlight, Mendelssohn in A Major, or better yet in E. But inexplicably, the variations on Ah, Vous Dirais-Je Maman came to mind and eclipsed all. The would-be visitors, unable to visit, would be moved by the familiar sweetness of its theme, then amazed by Mozart’s brief and brilliant adaptations. Each little gem—there were twelve variations—would recall the durability of the moon in its orbit, the flower on its STEM!

He began immediately.

He delivered the theme in two-four, as Mozart had prescribed. A few people pivoted inside their designated circles, craning towards the sudden bright sound. Solomon did not look up from the keys, but he could see their bodies shifting beyond the plexiglass as if through a fog.

He had nearly completed the theme when a run of trills broke away from him, and he gave chase. He skidded into the first variation, letting the high D’s and E’s really have it. Then he ripped through the second-third-and-fourth, slowing only for the fifth variation so that his two hands could speak and listen properly to one another—he was not a barbarian after all—but by the seventh he was riled up again, striking the dotted quarters like his very life depended on it: DA DA DA DEEEEEEEEE DA DA! Solomon leaned hard into F sharp and G, he filled the lobby with their splendor. A few people had stepped out of their circles now, and drew near the plexiglass, arms folded, heads inclined towards the sound.