Play It Again

Gentle music drifted through the bar, lingering around the quiet tables with their smiling faces and companionable silences. It was not a night for loud talk or boisterous laughing. It was a weeknight, the war was long finished, and the revelry for the returning soldiers long buried in the mundanity of life.

The Pianist’s fingers danced over the gleaming keys, pulling the sweetest notes from the battered old piano. That it was scarred and that it still played showed its resilience. Showed the strength of the town and of the country. It stood, and they stood. Defiant in the face of struggle and aggression.

Smiles decked the faces of every patron - it was a favourite song in every generation - as the song ran its course bar by bar, painting the world in invisible, shifting colours.

Many of the patrons had heard the song as children, sung in defiance. Many of them had sung it themselves as the victory parades marched down the central avenues and banners whipped in a triumphant wind. Others still had only ever heard it sung in times of peace, a pleasant song for pleasant nights.

Still others only knew the song as a bittersweet memory. Though they smiled, there was sadness around their eyes as they remembered friends long lost. Dead or missing it made no difference, they were gone.

The song ended and he played a connecting one. An in-between song that rose throughout until people were tapping their feet and smiling to one another. Hands were held across tables as he played, people growing slowly closer together, looking deeply into each other's eyes. Waiting for his next cue.

He jumped into his next song and the people jumped in tandem. Standing from their tables, the courageous held out trembling hands with shy smiles on their lips. The people they invited smiled back, taking the proffered hand and leaping into motion.

In the blink of an eye, they were dancing. Flowing through complicated moves, showing off to their partner or to their friends. Or else the dancers swayed together, heads leaning on chests or shoulders as the song drifted over them, washing away their grief and hardships until only the joy of living remained.

Smiling, the Pianist watched as couples danced, rested, broke apart, recombined, and danced again. Seeing the people, moving to his music, watching them hold each other close, placed a warm ache just behind his heart.

Once upon a time he had been up there, his lovely Angeline in his arms, listening to a pianist play their favourite song. He had sworn to himself that he would learn to play, that he would be the one to make the people dance the long, lonely night away.

For him the times when he had been a dancer were over. Long years having slowly taken her away from him. But he did not regret their going. It was their time now, the people dancing. And just as he had promised, he was there to help them lose themselves in the moment, and the dancing, through the music.

Hours slid by unnoticed. People drifted out and in, danced and sat and talked. Smiles decked every face as his music wrapped them in oblivion. The outside did not exist, for those people who danced in time with his fingers there was only the now.

Only the moment where their partner's fingers closed around theirs. Only the instant when head rested on chest or shoulder as they swayed to a slow song. Only the sheer joy as the tempo picked up, driving them to an ecstasy of movement.

Finally, as the hands of the silent clock standing tall in the corner moved towards the witching hour, only a few remained to hear him. Others had slipped into the night, returned to home and hearth. Gone with old friends or new ones they had met and adventures unknown, or gone with those who had come with them, back to their lives together.

A couple caught his eye, one that spoke to him of years gone by. They swayed together on the floor, her head on his broad chest, lost in the moment. He played for them; gave them the gift he had been given so long ago.

Their open smiles and a stolen kiss stoked the fire behind his heart. Reminded him of the boy, the man he had been when the music first spoke to him and his beloved Angeline. He poured his heart and soul into his song, coaxing romance from the gleaming ivories.

She caught his eye, that vision from a previous life, and smiled. It was a thank you, after a fashion. A way of sharing the joy of the night with him. The message was clear, the desire for the night to last forever, the sheer, wonderous joy of youth and of the moment in his arms.

He knew them, that woman and her man. It was hard to avoid knowing people in a town that size, even if one only knew them by sight. They were settled together, life and their children kept them busy, so this was a rare night to themselves. He played for them, almost forgetting the other dancers. As had been done for himself and Angeline, he played them a song to strip away the stress of raising a family and leave only the glowing lights and the love in their arms.

On the last bar, the broad young man lowered her into an elegant dip, and they shared a long, slow kiss. Her face gleamed with joy as she rose, his grin would have shamed the moon for its brilliance.

Breaking away from each other, he moved towards the bar, answering the last call the Pianist had timed the end of the song for. The girl, still smiling, returned to their table which stood in arms reach of the piano.

Her smile was like the rising sun as she turned it on him. He ducked his head to her and smiled before sipping from his own beer. The petition was clear in her glowing face begging him for another. Another of the same, one last dance to close out an incredible night.

Smile turning into a grin, he winked at her and flexed his fingers over the keys. She smiled still wider and mouthed her thanks to him as her man wove through the mostly empty tables back to her side.

Slipping his arm around her as her head came to rest on his shoulder, they simply listened to the next song. And the next. Letting the music and moment consume them.

When her husband turned his head to cough gently into his free arm, she rolled her eyes at the Pianist. Silently berating him for keeping her waiting. He only winked again, a wordless promise - a request to wait just a little longer.

Laughter wanted to crawl its way free, to burst out in a raucous expression of his own joy. The joy he felt radiating from the people around him. Reveling in the moment, in the feel of the bar, he barely noticed as a cool autumn breeze drifted in through the open window and ruffled his sheet music.

It was just for show those pages. The songs were long since memorized, and those songs weren't what he played that night. Instead, he played from the heart, capturing the minds and attention of his audience, filling them with a joy for living that his music stopped him from ever losing.

Her eyes were on him now. Pleading. Her comically pouting lip, brought out only when her partner wasn't looking, made him smile at her. She wanted him to play it again, that favourite dancing song of hers.

Much as he would have given it her, if only to see again how happy they were as they danced together, he shook his head slightly and winked again. Just a little longer, that wink said, not everyone wants to hear the same song so close together.

Minutes passed, and the Pianist played a whole range for his audience. People laughed and talked and danced together as he played. Some stood from their table and ambled to the door, often pausing to drop a folded bill in his jar. He smiled at them all as he played, the clock slowly creeping towards closing time, but his thoughts were all for the music.

One more song, that would be enough. He nodded to himself as his fingers picked out an in-between song that slowed as it went, until the listeners were primed for another song meant for slow dancing.

As the song came to an end hope lit in her eyes. A reverent, almost desperate hope. With her eyes and furtive, jerking motions of the hand, she asked if it was time. Time again for her favourite dancing song, slow and gentle. Perfect for what she had in mind.

Nodding, his mischievous grin back in place, he flexed his fingers and winked at her. It was time.

She lit up the room with her smile as the first notes of her song rang out across the bar. Heads lifted from conversation, turning to look at where the Pianist sat. He spared them all a glance, just the barest hint of attention to let them all know that this song was for them.

But to the pretty girl who reminded him of Angeline, he cocked his head. Nodding to floor, entreating her to go out for a dance, promising her that this one, this time, the song was for her. Her and her handsome man, alone in the world just for this moment. The Pianist called her to stand up and dance.

She did, rising from her chair and holding her hand out to her partner.

Their dance was slow, like the music. Alone on the deserted floor, they danced together the way that he himself had once danced. Lost in the night, the music, the love they felt for each other. Neither had eyes for any other person in that moment, the other was their whole world as they swayed to the rhythm of his fingers.

Her head was on his chest. His eyes closed and nose in her hair. The Pianist remembered the feeling, recalled the bliss of swaying with Angeline after the war. Of holding her close through their long, wonderful years together. He played the song, lengthening, extending, and improvising it in the way that only someone who loved music as much as he did could. Stretching the moment for her, for her man, for himself.

Traitorous minutes slid by, vanishing behind the present and leaving only warm memories in their wake. Finally, the lights came on, and the small bell on the bar was rung. No matter how pleasant the music, or the company, eventually they had to return to their real lives.

Bills were paid and coats collected. More bills found their way into his jar, and he spoke pleasantly with a few old friends. Taking their compliments and playful jibes in stride. One young man, a visitor from out of town, asked if The Pianist would be playing again before he left. Assuring the young man that of course he would, he shook hands and wished him a good night.

Returning from the toilette, the husband of the girl who looked like Angeline passed close by the Pianist. Dropping a bill into the jar, he smiled his warmest thanks before going and taking his wife’s hand. They walked to the door, and if The Pianist hadn’t known better, he might have assumed their love was young and fresh.

Pausing by the door, the girl smiled at him. Pressing her fingers to her lips, she blew a kiss and was gone. Catching the kiss, though there was no one to see him do it, the Pianist pressed it to his heart.

Taking up his glass, the Pianist finished his beer and made to close the lid over the keys but froze as he saw the barman's hopeful eyes. Eyes that pleaded him to play on.

With a smile, he flexed his fingers and coaxed more songs out of the old instrument again. Just a few more songs, as the staff cleaned and did the closing routines. They smiled at him as he played, thanking him with their eyes and the way they worked in time with the notes.

Finally, when the chores were done, the barman brought his wife to the floor and held her close. Without urging, the Pianist played on as the couple danced. They were older than the ones he had played for before, but they put the same kind of smile on his face. Again, he saw himself and Angeline in the swaying pair, love strong despite the years between that dance and their first. A tear welled in his eye at the memory.

Fingers tapping out the last song of the evening as he watched the barman send his wife in a slow twirl, The Pianist answered his own request to play it again.