The Piano Book Read online

in chest hair. I tried to remember if Papa ever had any chest hair when he lived with us. His face was becoming a blur in my mind. But perhaps, the most curious part of this neighbor’s face was his eyes: they were light brown and deep set, and seemed to have aged faster than the rest of his body because he kept squinting. Or was it the sun getting into his eyes? It was around 4:00 p.m. in the afternoon after all, so the sun was still high in the sky.

  The first thing he said to me when I finally walked up to him was “How old are you?”

  To which I replied: “Ten, sir.”

  “I don’t want any children running around my house. If you come in, sit down and keep quiet. Does your mother know you are here?” Thankfully, he didn’t ask after my father.

  “No, sir.”

  He nodded, opened the front door and led the way into the house.

  Nothing prepared me for the chaos that was the inside of this man’s house. He clearly loved to read, or at least collect books. There were books of different shapes and sizes scattered all over the sitting room, which was the room he led me into. Books were strewn on the floors, on the lone sofa and on a small wooden desk beside the window. In fact, there was no single bare surface in the whole room.

  Pointing to the sofa, he watched me as I cleared a few books off a small part of it, and sat down there. As soon as I sat down, I saw it: a grand, black piano sitting quietly in an adjoining room. At least, I saw part of the piano. The door leading to the room housing the piano was almost completely shut, but it was cracked open enough to display a hint of the black instrument. The room was clearly a bedroom which had been converted into a music room. With no other tenants, he could use any of the rooms as he pleased. I itched to go and run my fingers on the keys, even if it was for just a few minutes. Meanwhile, my 60s-clothing-clad neighbor had been watching me the whole time. He pretended not to notice that my eyes were drawn to the piano in the other room. Pulling the chair beside the desk to face the couch, he sat down looking at me. This man was strange.

  “Do you read any books?”

  I reeled off the names of books I had read, but he was not impressed.

  “Those are school textbooks. Do you read for pleasure?”

  What sort of question was that to ask a JSS2 boy? This man clearly did not interact with children regularly, if ever.

  “I read comic books, sir, like Archie, Batma--”

  “Comic books! You won’t learn anything if you read those. You need to read books without pictures in them.”

  I was glad this man was not my father or uncle. What a killjoy! Books without pictures indeed. Even textbooks had pictures, especially those integrated science books that had all those weird drawings with labeled body parts. I wondered if this man could draw and label the parts of the human eye. Kenneth, that boy in my class, could do it with his eyes closed. I had seen him do it.

  Leaning back in his chair, the neighbor did not speak for about 5 minutes. I took that time to look around to see if I could find any pictures of family members, like the ones people usually displayed on the walls of their sitting rooms. None whatsoever. Did this man fall out of the sky?

  After the five minutes had lapsed, he leaned forward again. I still did not know this man’s name or what he did for a living. But I wanted to play that piano.

  “My name is Alexander,” he said suddenly. “What is your name?”

  The question came as a surprise to me. I don’t know why, but I expected this man to know my name. He was my next door neighbor after all. I was so startled I almost forgot what my name was.

  “Biyi, sir. My name is Biyi, sir.”

  “Biyi starts with a B.”

  I wanted to tell him that ‘Biyi was not my full name, and that Adebiyi, which was my full name, started with the letter ‘A.’ But I suspected that he did not care to know. So, here is what I said instead, smiling as if there was a special prize for smiling when saying a person’s name:

  “And Alex starts with an A, sir.”

  Did I look like a boy who could not spell? I knew my ABCs alright. In English and Yoruba. Mama made sure of that. I wanted to ask him if he knew what letter the name ‘Sola’ started with. Would he pick the English ‘S’ or the other ‘S,’ the one with the dot under it, which the Yoruba teacher pronounced ‘Sh’? I wondered if he would say it with the same amount of effort the teacher used to bark “Shut up” to the rowdy students.

  “You can call me Uncle. Uncle Alexander. Never ever call me Alex, okay?”

  “Yes, sir. I mean – Yes, Uncle Alexander.”

  “What is your favorite subject in school?”

  I saw this as my opportunity and took it.

  “Music, sir. I am learning to play the piano, too,” I said, sitting up on the sofa and nodding in the direction of the instrument that bore that name.

  “Is that so?” he asked with an air of disinterestedness. I might as well have said that my only ambition in life was to be a garbage collector by day and a Fuji singer by night, and he would have had the same reaction. Annoyingly passive. Then, without warning, he switched gears from passive to active.

  He got up and walked over to the desk where he picked up a red book. It looked like the same sort of book my music teacher, Mr. David, used to ask us to write down musical notes and notations on. As he flipped through the pages, I saw that he had filled the pages with music he had written – music notes and lyrics. He finally got to a section, looked up and asked me if I knew the story of Oluronbi. I nodded affirmatively. He went further to ask if I knew the song that came with the folklore, to which I also responded in the affirmative. My primary school music teacher had all but drummed it into our heads. I knew the words and music by heart.

  “You can play it on the piano then.” He did not say this like he was urging me. It was more like a command that he expected me to obey.

  Motioning for me to follow him, he led the way to the half-opened door that led to the music room. As he pushed the door open, I almost ran back to the sitting room in horror. Sitting on a black wooden piano bench, sat two men, fully dressed. One of them wore native attire, complete with the agbada, while the other man wore a black suit. Both of them had their backs turned to the door and sat facing the piano. They sat motionless as if waiting for me to join them. This whole time I had thought that Uncle Alexander and I were alone. I was wrong.

  “G-o-o-d A-f-t-e-r-n-o-o-n, sirs.” I stuttered.

  No response.

  Uncle Alexander didn’t miss a beat. He pulled another piano seat from a corner and sat on it with his back to the piano. The two men were on his right.

  “Let me introduce you to the other two Alexanders: Alexander the First, my grandfather,” he said, pointing to the man wearing the blue and gold brocade agbada, “and Alexander the Second, my father,” pointing to the man wearing the black suit.

  Still, no response.

  “You see,” he said, continuing, “all three of us share the same name: we are all called Alexander. I, of course, am Alexander the Third,” he said half-rising to bow in mock salute.

  I stayed put at the door. Part of me was still angry that none of these men had returned my greeting. I just hoped they had heard me the first time, knowing how particular elders were about young people greeting them properly. I wondered whether I should prostrate and greet them a second time. Since they did not turn around to acknowledge my first greeting, I decided that the second greeting would be a waste of time. I turned to my host for direction.

  At this point, I wondered if Mama had returned home from work. I had not told anyone where I was going. In fact, no one except Uncle Alexander knew where I was at that moment. Should I go back home to check? I had still not moved close to the piano, not even touched it, even though it was just a few steps away from me.

  “Uncle, I was wondering, sir, can I go and check to see if my mother is back home? She will be worried if she does not see me at
home.”

  “What sort of video games do you play?” He just assumed that I played video games.

  I named a few of them, video games I had played in the homes of friends whose parents could afford them. Mama did not buy me video games. “I don’t have money” was her usual response whenever I asked.

  Uncle Alexander pointed to a wooden closet in the corner of the room. It was closed.

  “All those video games you mentioned, I have them. We can play them together after,” he said turning around and placing his fingers on the piano keys, “we have played the piano. Together.”

  Although he said “Together” he did not invite me to join him beside the piano. Instead, he just began to play.

  “Mi, So, So, Mi, So, So, Mi, Mi, So, So, Mi, So, So, Mi, Mi, So, So ….”

  He never looked at the piano book, which was planted right in front of him. But, he kept turning to his left, to look at the faces of the two men beside him. They did not sing along, neither did they move from where they sat. You see, I expected them to move. Uncle Alexander played for just five minutes, repeating the same line over and over again. It was the line in the story where Oluronbi promised to give her daughter as a sacrifice. He never went past that line.

  “My grandfather taught my father this song, and then my father taught me.” Pausing and turning to me, he said: “This will be the last song I teach my son. It was the last song my father taught me.” And then