Chapter One

Luc

Along a narrow street in the paris neighborhood where i live sits a little
store front with a simple sign stenciled on the window: “Desforges Pianos:
outillage, fournitures.” On a small, red felt-covered shelf in the window
are displayed the tools and instruments of piano repair: tightening
wrenches, tuning pins, piano wire, several swatches of felt, and various
small pieces of hardware from the innards of a piano. Behind the shelf the
interior of the shop is hidden by a curtain of heavy white gauze. The
entire façade has a sleepy, nineteenth-century charm about it, the window
frame and the narrow door painted a dark green.

Not so many years ago, when our children were in kindergarten, this shop
lay along their route to school, and I passed it on foot several times on
the days when it was my turn to take them to school and to pick them up.
On the way to their classes in the morning there was never time to stop.
The way back was another matter. After exchanging a few words with other
parents, I would often take an extra ten minutes to retrace my steps,
savoring the sense of promise and early morning calm that at this hour
envelops Paris.

The quiet street was still out of the way and narrow enough to be paved
with the cobblestones that on larger avenues in the city have been covered
with asphalt. In the early morning a fresh stream of water invariably ran
high in the gutters, the daily tide set forth by the street sweepers who,
rain or shine, open special valves set into the curb and then channel the
flow of jetsam with rolled-up scraps of carpet as they swish it along with
green plastic...