The Pianist Who Played the Wrong Anthem

How it begins

Vera Murray knew she'd played the wrong anthem when the porter stopped carrying the suitcase.

Outside the hotel's glass doors, the street continued under a cold drizzle. Nobody there had been offered a program for the evening.

Not when the manager looked up. He looked up whenever the music might cost money. Not when the woman in the green dress put down her glass. She had been unhappy with the temperature of everything since arriving.

It was Elias Bell, halfway across the lobby, who made Vera's hands falter.

He stood perfectly still beneath the chandelier.

The melody had come from nowhere she could immediately name. A street, perhaps. A childhood room. One of the tunes her mother hummed while refusing to explain the words.

Around her, the hotel's evening conversation thinned.

Vera finished the phrase because stopping in the middle seemed, absurdly, less professional.

The manager crossed the carpet.

"Something lighter," he said.

"Of course."

She began a waltz. Chairs moved. Glasses lifted. By the second bar, the room had largely agreed nothing had happened.

Elias carried the suitcase upstairs.

Later, he found her in the service corridor, where she was eating a cold roll between sets.

"Where did you learn that?"

"I'm not sure."

"Try to be sure before you play it again."

Through the kitchen door, she could hear the hotel radio announcing another speech from the capital. It was 1932, and every public voice seemed increasingly certain about who belonged where.

Vera looked at the porter's hands. One thumb was wrapped in cloth. She had watched him open doors for guests all winter without asking how he'd hurt it.

"What does the tune mean?" she asked.

Elias glanced toward the lobby, then back at her.

"That depends on which side of the window you're standing."

Vera looked down at the crumbs in her lap. For once, she had no idea what to play next.