TRANSPOSITION

A HEINTZMAN Transposing Piano sparkles in the far corner of the apartment, brightly illuminated by a broad shaft of swirling, dusty sunlight.

The floor creaks. The whole place smells like old death on a bun. An unlikely place to realize enlightenment, but Klezmer Ann Bacon feels a rush of clarity. She seems to astral travel across the room to it.

Her right index finger softly strikes and holds the Middle C key.  D Sharp resounds like a temple gong.

“Are you experienced?”

“Who said that?” she whispers. Klezmer Ann knows. She knows the voice must belong to Irving Berlin, the late, great composer. This must have been his piano! And now, Klezmer Ann can possess the piano for next to nothing, which is all she can afford in rent anyway.

Irving Berlin certainly owned transposing pianos. But, this is not one he ever owned, played, or even saw for that matter.

The voice is not the ghost of Irving Berlin. It is just some gibberish mumbled by Jazz musician Truman Taft. He is roused  from a miasmatic dream by the piano note. His apartment bedroom shares a thin wall with the adjoining apartment’s living room. Now, he too enters an abstract plane of reality.

Klezmer Ann sits on the shabby, carpeted stool and plays “The Song Has Ended (But The Melody Lingers On),” an Irving Berlin composition. The notes she hears are not the notes she plays on the keyboard. She has no idea how to adjust the mechanism of the Heintzman. It only reinforces the mad inspiration that she is actually in the presence of Irving Berlin’s ghost.

Truman is abruptly wide awake, and suddenly aware of what the deal is. He too is disturbed by the odd key of the familiar old standard. But, he’s lived here long enough to know the score. “Up the tempo a bit, baby!” he shouts helpfully.

Klezmer Ann takes it as a command from Irving. She obeys.

The landlord stands chortling at the door.

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