Dr. Zaw Than - Piano and other foreign instruments

Piano

"Hey... Rosalia, I told that guy to go back. He's a complete idiot. He laughed at us and said that our stuff wasn't worth five hundred crucios," Olivia shouted to her wife upstairs. "That's just common sense. He's just trying to steal our stuff, and if he gets it cheap, he'll sell it to someone else for a profit. That's how these idiots get rich."

But when Rosalia and Sara came downstairs, they were already trembling. They both approached the old piano, which had been insulted, with a kind of reverence. "Woman, our piano will fetch a good price. Besides, no one can make a piano like this," Olivia said, looking at the old piano with a mixture of attachment and sadness. Rosalia said, "Put an advertisement in the newspaper. People will come who want to buy it."

"Wow... what a lovely piano. It feels like music is coming out of it just by looking at it," Oliveira said, stroking the oak body of the grand piano.

The reason they are selling the grand piano is because the small living room where the grand piano was located will be used as a bedroom for their eldest daughter Sarah and her lover, a young artillery officer, after they get married, and they also need money to make her wedding dress.

Then, on the third day, they decorate the piano with flower vases as if they were about to offer a sacrifice, and prepare to receive the buyer at home.

``The first two people to arrive were an old woman and her daughter.

The girl opened the lid of the piano and played it with her hand.

I bought it, tried it out, and said, "It's not good at all, Mom."

The mother stood up from her seat, looked at the worn ivory on the piano keys, and took her daughter's hand and walked outside, saying, "If she knew it was such a bad thing, she wouldn't have come after all this hard work."

The Oliviera family didn’t have time to grieve. Three more people had arrived to see the piano. At the same time, they were a wealthy-looking old woman, a young woman with dark glasses holding a sheet of music notation, and a man with red hair and an old, wrinkled suit. The young woman said, “I came before you. It’s not because it’s important. It’s just because my mother asked me to. There are a lot of vendors outside. Well, I have to tell you. When you got off the bus, I rang the doorbell. So we both went in together, but I was the first to arrive.”

Oliviera was very amused by these two people arguing about who got there first. He watched them argue like this.

Remembering that it would be better if I left it, I greeted everyone who came in with a smile and offered them coffee.

The young woman walked towards the piano bench, and the man with red hair and cold eyes stared at her with a blank expression. At that moment, a woman entered the room, holding a student by the hand. The two of them sat down, each with their own doubts.

Suddenly, the sound of the young woman's piano came out. The sound was uneven, almost deafening. The host family was looking at the faces of the guests with concern. The red-haired man was looking at them with a completely unblinking face. The guests looked at each other, seemingly searching for an understanding. The next new arrival, the old woman, with her expression haggard and perfumed, was patiently watching.

The scene resembles a courtroom where a jury is about to decide, and the grand piano is a defendant. The young woman is pressing the keys of the piano, as if she is trying to get justice from him. The sound coming from the piano is a sharp, cracking sound, like someone with a stomach ache. Some notes do not come out at all when the keys are pressed. Everyone's faces are smiling. But no one can make a sound. The young woman is pressing the keys that do not make a sound, which is not good. "There are a few things you should know about that piano," Oliviera said defensively. "It is not very resistant to the outside temperature. The sound changes with the seasons," he said. The young woman suddenly stood up, took out a lipstick from her bag, smeared it on her lips, picked up the sheet music from the piano bench, and said, “I don’t understand how you could possibly want to praise this old piano,” before leaving the room. Olivia was silent for a moment. She didn’t directly insult him, she just mentioned the piano. In any case, her piano was a real treasure.

The announcement is yet to be made. He said softly, “People won't make this kind of piano again.”

The silence lasted a long time. The situation of the great piano had reached its peak. Finally, the man with the red hair spoke.

"How much do you want?"

Given the current situation, Joe Leviera had to lower the price he had originally set.

"I'll sell it if I get a few fish," she said, looking at everyone's faces. No one answered, and Olivia's whole body went cold. "Have I said too much?" Grandma O said softly, "I'll think about it." Then they all got up and went back, but a man hurriedly entered the doorway, making everyone step aside. One

The man said, "Are you here for the piano? Then..." Oliviera interrupted in time, "Come on, come on. The piano is here. Many people have already seen it."

The new arrival was middle-aged, with slightly gray hair. He was opening the lid of the piano and examining it.

"Well... he looks like a music teacher," thought Oliviera. The new guy didn't ask the price. He just said, "Thank you," and left.

The whole house fell silent. Sara went back to her room. Rosalia and Olivia looked at each other in disappointment.

"Nobody understands the value. I swear, if I don't get the price I want, I won't sell it," he lamented.

His wife asked, "So, what are we going to do about the wedding dress with Sarah?"

"I'll go borrow some money."

"Then I guess it won't be easy to repay it from your salary."

"Then let's postpone the wedding."

"I don't think so. They love each other so much. They're going to get married, wedding dresses or not."

At that moment, the two heard Sarah shouting from her room that she couldn't get married without a new dress.

Rosalia said, "The other thing is, this house is only a matchbox. Where will they put it after they get married? We'll have to sell this grand piano to make room for them. No one has enough room these days..."

Sarah interrupted and shouted, "Don't sell the grand piano. It's a beautiful thing."

Her mother said, "But it's been quiet for a long time. My daughter doesn't play anymore."

Her mother went into her daughter's room to discuss further. Sarah said:

That's strange. Rosalia raised the issue.

"Should I take a man or a grand piano? Choose whichever you like."

"Oh... I'll take the man," Sarah replied in a lustful tone.

"Really," she said, massaging the pillow with her hand.

"Now.. in this case...."

"Rosalia, you're always contradicting yourself," Joaquim Oliviera exclaimed.

"What am I arguing against?"

“Our grand piano.”

"Oh.. water, what did you say, you.."

The next day, as soon as Olivia got home from work, she started asking questions about the piano.

"Has anyone responded to the ad we placed yet, Rosalia?"

"Yes. I've been getting a lot of phone calls asking about the piano. An old man came to see me. Yesterday, the man with red hair came again."

“Did anyone tell you to buy more?” he asked.

"I didn't say I wanted to buy it. But the two people who came to the house just looked at the piano for a long time."

"Did you watch it? Did you watch it with interest and admiration?"

"I can't say that," his wife replied.