Last summer, when the worst

things we had to worry about were mosquitoes and a sag in the economy,

our Mary decided to buy a grand piano. Its long-anticipated arrival last

month was as anticlimactic as a Braves postseason playoff game.

And about as disappointing.

Mary, you may recall, is a

professional musician who lives in a large fifth-floor apartment near

the opera house in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. She's with the Dortmund Opera

now and has a half hour's train commute. Since she always has the next

day's rehearsals to prepare for, she needs to be able to practice at home

late at night, but house rules say that piano-playing is verboten

after 9 p.m.

Early last summer, while checking

out some pianos for the theater, she found what appeared to be a promising

solution to her dilemma. The piano builder had a secondhand grand available

at a good price, and could equip it with a digital system that would play

through headphones or stereo speakers ­ at any time of day or night.

It was just before she came

to the States in July that she first wrote us about the piano. It's Czech-made,

of a dark "nut wood," and should not depreciate in value. "I

liked it and it feels and sounds good, so I'm going to take out a loan,"

she wrote. With Germany's low interest rates, that is not a great hardship.

When she bought her upright

several years ago, we wondered aloud how they were going to get it to

the top floor. Did I mention that there is no elevator in the building?

The stairs are wide, but turn 180 degrees on each level with a small landing

at the apartments' entrances. The entryways are rather elaborate, some

with cut glass windows and sidelights. Some have stained glass that looks

very art nouveau to me.

For a high-tech people, the

Germans resorted to some surprisingly manual labor to move the upright

up 76 steps, but Mary said they made it look easy. One guy essentially

hoisted the piano onto the back of another, then pushed colleague and

instrument from behind.

The new piano was, however,

a grand. Mary wrote:

"The owner of the piano

builder I'm buying from came over to look at how it's going to be to bring

a grand up the stairs. He's not thrilled, but says it's doable. I'm not

in any hurry, so he can touch up the finish and put in the digital system.

"I asked him why the black

keys were kind of bumpy, and he said the [previous] owner had a cat who

clawed the keys. This person now has a new, bigger grand, and the cat

has already knocked a vase over into it. ..."

Because of her planned trip,

Mary was in no hurry to take delivery. "Getting the carpet in the

living room cleaned," she said, "and putting off having the

Flügel delivered 'til the end of the month. I'd like to sell

the [upright] here in Gelsenkirchen, but I won't know what my chances

are until after school starts."

Her tax rebate came through

about this time, hefty enough for a jubilant report that her bank account

was "temporarily over 0 again!"

Back in Germany after vacation,

she wrote again: "Had one bite on my piano ad ... if nothing definite

happens this week, I'll let it go to [the piano builder in] Dortmund when

they bring the grand."

The upright sold ­ yay!

­ but in carrying it down the steps, the movers left long marks on

the landings in front of every apartment ­ boo! And don't you know,

the landlord and his wife live on the first floor.

Mary, ever given to understatement,

said it was "quite annoying" because the man who was selling

her the grand would have allowed her the same amount of money on the upright

and would have had his professional movers take it away.

Wait, this tale of woe isn't

over yet. The grand piano still has to come up. I couldn't even imagine

how they'd do it, but assumed they'd take it apart.

Apparently all they did was

remove the legs and the top, not enough to prevent disaster, breaking

a window on the landing two floors below Mary's place ­ "irreplaceable

glass from 1926," it turns out.

Naturally, the various insurers

are trying to pass the responsibility off on each other. Mary's homeowner's,

for example, is balking because Mary was not, personally, carrying the

piano.

"The grand piano-moving

firm is taking their time in replying, and the Marolds [her landlords]

are going ahead and replacing all 24 panes of glass since they didn't

want the people there to have to live any longer with a hole in their

apartment door. If everybody doesn't cooperate soon, it will get nasty

and expensive, since Frau Marold is close to a nervous breakdown, Herr

Marold is a lawyer, and their steps and landings were just renovated last

spring."

When I asked her if these so-called

professional piano movers weren't even insured, she responded, "Yes,

but they didn't feel they'd done a bad job, considering how little room

there was to maneuver. They assume little things will happen," ­

little things! ­ "and nobody could know that they picked out

a window with glass that doesn't exist anymore."

In the saddest note of this

sad song, Mary wrote, "I have been using the headphones a lot although

the system hasn't been fine-tuned yet, so certain things, like fast repetition

or tremolo, don't function well.

"I don't even enjoy playing

in the apartment."

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