The Piano and the Mouse: Ken Gibbs

by Ken Gibbs

If music be food of the soul, play on.

There are times when one works abroad, that one seeks a diversion. This is not to say that living in Bangladesh was dull – far from it – but immersion in a different culture needs to be balanced without the loss of one’s own culture. Thus it was that we decided that to have a piano would be very helpful for Mary. Besides, without a piano, she might well lose the dexterity she had as a pianist and with a daughter showing some musical promise, not to have a piano at home was unthinkable.

Pianos are not plentiful in Bangladesh. The weather ensured that even new pianos warped, cracked and generally grew every fungus known to man, so that finding a single instrument was a challenge. Even if we found one, we didn’t want to purchase it as we would not be in the country for ever, so we wanted a rental. We asked around and found that platinum and rental pianos enjoyed much the same rarity value.

I digress here a bit to recount the sad end of Mary’s boudoir grand piano which we had taken with us on my first engineering job some years before which happened to be in the South African Karoo which is, effectively, a desert. Certainly it is tinder dry for most of the year and the piano sounding board snapped clean in two one evening showing that it didn’t appreciate being dried out in this manner. It was unplayable after that and was sold, then painted white and used as a bar. Having lost such a valuable instrument to the weather, we were not keen to own another which might become unusable due to the monsoon.

Despite all this, somewhere, someone had a passable Russian upright piano available for rental – surprisingly, at a reasonable cost. We sprang at it and found that while one of the top notes produced a strange squeak, it nevertheless remained in tune and Scott Joplin was heard through the monsoon thunder, and neither “The Entertainer” nor Beethoven piano sonatas reduced Paisha, our rescue Alsatian, to howls of dismay. I found that writing technical articles with Mary playing the piano, tended to make them smoother and, if it were possible, more lyrical than they would otherwise have been.

Life settled into a comfortable pattern.

About a year from when the piano arrived, Mary and I were sitting down reading when there was an unmistakable “ping” as if someone had plucked one of the piano strings. We looked at each other to check whether one or other of us was hearing things that the other wasn’t, only to realise that we both had heard it. Perhaps a cockroach had squeezed between two strings and this was what we’d heard?

It being late in the evening, I decided that there wouldn’t be enough light to see the cockroach so the investigation was left to the next morning. Sure enough, after Jehangir our household helper had given us breakfast, I suggested that he and I should explore the piano to find that cockroach. Jehangir was mortified that I should think that we should harbour such a beast in the piano, so we set to with firm resolve.

I took off the lid, removed the front panel above the keyboard, removed the front panel between the pedals and the keyboard and started looking with care. There were no signs of cockroach droppings, so I was mystified – was this a recent arrival, skilled in hiding from Jehangir and myself ? I was really quite puzzled because there had definitely been movement in the piano the previous evening, yet I could see nothing. The only place I had not looked was under the keyboard.

Removal of the keyboard was a relatively easy affair and immediately I lifted it out, the cause of the noise was apparent. There was a tiny mouse who had made her nest – which had new born young in it – right under the middle of the keyboard. Jehangir was given instructions and Paisha and he departed to complete the business. Paisha returned a bit later, licking his lips and looking quite pleased with himself.

While Jehangir and Paisha were occupied outside, I had been sweeping and vacuuming the instrument, curious from where the mouse had found nesting material which was white, soft cotton and remarkably regular. The pieces looked like cotton tape. . . . . .and then I realised what had been happening. The mouse must have been chewing through the tapes that return the piano hammers when a note has been played, and careful examination showed that this mouse had managed to remove every single tape for her nest. Ah, well, she wouldn’t be repeating this again judging by Paisha’s satisfied look.

So, here we had a rental piano that – at this stage at least – didn’t play as it should and there was absolutely no chance of finding replacement tapes in Bangladesh. Happily, we were shortly to return to Britain on home leave, so we decided that we’d check out the musical instrument shops in our local area when we got back. They would be more likely to carry this type of stock.

Sure enough, on one of the first forays to restock on items which could not be found in Bangladesh and which we found essential to our way of life there, I went into our local instrument shop. Memory plays tricks on one because Mary and I have different memories where the shop was located even though the discussion once there remains identical for us both.

“Do you have cotton tapes for upright piano hammers ?” I asked

“Yes, sir, we do. How many do you want ?” he asked, apparently expecting me to say – perhaps – half a dozen.

“Erm, I’ll be needing 88 please.” was my response.

The dealer looked very surprised, asking, “You want all of them ?”

Apparently, this was not an order frequently made of this particular dealer but, to his credit, he did have a pack which would give me at least the 88 tapes I needed. Naturally, we had a conversation about how we managed to destroy all 88 tapes without destroying the piano at the same time. The dealer had a good chuckle at the story – and the deal was done. We returned to Bangladesh.

Equipped with super-glue and the tapes, I managed to repair the instrument when we returned to Bangladesh, and Bach, Haydn and Beethoven were again heard over the buzz and voices, calls and mechanical sounds that are Bangladesh.

During the following year, Sara managed to pass her grade 8 flute and Mary was delighted when she brought the sheet music for one of the pieces which she had played for the examination. It was Gluck’s “Dance of the Blessed Spirits” which was set for flute and piano. Mary and Sara played the piece together just as some good friends of ours arrived to see us. I indicated that they should be quiet – and listen to the music. They were astonished, believing that they had been hearing the piece from a compact disc. Obviously the piano squeak was not apparent that day.

*****

As time for our next home leave approached, we were busy reading one evening when a familiar “ping” was heard from the piano. Mary and I looked at each other in some surprise, realising that we had both heard it.

“I don’t believe it !” I said, thinking that something similar had happened as it had the year before.

Next morning, a repeat of the previous year was followed – and, sure enough, under the keyboard was found a mouse with young comfortably nestling in bed of cotton tapes. Jehangir and Paisha knew what was required and completed the task while I vacuumed the piano as before. I was not amused because the repair of the tapes took some considerable time and time was something becoming increasingly precious to me. However, the repair would have to be done because we were shortly to be sent to another country.

On arrival home to Britain, one of the first shopping items was a visit to the instrument shop. This time the reception was rather different because when the proprietor looked up and recognised me, he simply asked, “Will it be another 88 tapes, sir ?”

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