The Station Piano

Ingrid had planned to be home by eight. But at seven o'clock on Friday evening, the screen in the station changed: her train was forty minutes late. She bought a coffee she didn't really want and looked for somewhere to sit. That was when she noticed the piano.

It stood in the middle of the hall: an old upright piano, painted bright yellow. A sign on top said PLAY ME. On her way to work, she had often heard children banging on it and teenagers picking out pop songs with one finger. Now nobody was near it. Ingrid sat on a bench a few meters away and pretended to read her phone.

She hadn't touched a piano in twenty-six years. As a girl, she had practiced every afternoon, and at fourteen she had learned the piece she loved more than any other: Brahms's Hungarian Dance No. 5, written for two players at one piano. Piano teachers love it, and many students learn it. Her teacher had always played the low part, and Ingrid had played the high one.

At nineteen, she had gone to an audition for a music school. In front of three judges, her hands had frozen above the keys. She had walked out without playing a single note. After that day, she had closed the lid of the piano at home and never opened it again.

Half an hour, she thought. Nobody here knows me, and in half an hour I'll be on a train. Before she could change her mind, she put her coffee on the floor, walked to the piano, and sat down.

Her fingers found the first notes on their own. The notes were wrong at first, then a little less wrong. People walked past with their suitcases, and a man in a gray suit stopped to listen. Ingrid felt the old fear climbing up from her stomach, and for a moment her hands wanted to stop, exactly like at the audition. But this time, she decided to keep going, mistakes and all. Without the low part, the music sounded thin, like a song with half of its words missing, but she played on.

Then, halfway through the piece, someone sat down on the bench beside her. It was a young man with a backpack and a train ticket between his teeth. Without a word, he put his hands on the low keys, and the missing half of the dance came in under hers, exactly in time. Ingrid didn't dare to look at him, in case he disappeared. For three minutes, two strangers played Brahms in a train station, and for the first time in twenty-six years, the piece was complete.