A crash. The door to the building below slammed open.
"You," the officer said in Polish. "You were the one moving your hands." the pianist film
Then, one winter afternoon, he heard it. A crash
Then he rose. He walked, slowly, to the piano. The officer stood and stepped aside. Adam sat down. The keys were cold, gritty, and uneven. Some did not sound at all. Others buzzed with a metallic rattle. He placed his hands over the keyboard. His fingers, those trembling, starving claws, remembered. "You were the one moving your hands
The soldier stopped. There was a clink of a glass, a muttered curse. Then silence.
For a long, terrible moment, Adam did not move. He thought of the child reciting the poem. He thought of the floorboard, the sewer, the months of silence. He thought of his father's piano, smashed into splinters.