Chapter 10 - The Sabotage
Three days before the Tchaikovsky Showcase, disaster struck.
Julian was summoned to the conservatory at midnight by the blaring of the security alarms. When he arrived in his dressing gown, followed closely by Thomas the driver, he found the north wing's French doors forced open. The autumn rain was blowing across the parquet floor.
The Steinway Model D stood in the center of the hall, its lid propped open.
Julian rushed forward, his heart seizing in his throat. Across the pristine white keys, black engine oil had been poured, seeping down between the ivories into the delicate felt action below. Inside the soundboard, three of the highest treble strings had been violently severed with wire cutters, coiled like striking vipers against the cast-iron plate.
On the music desk lay a single typewritten note: Stick to your own kind. Leave the stage to gentlemen.
Julian fell to his knees beside the ruined instrument, his hands hovering over the fouled keys without daring to touch them. Decades of history, craftsmanship, and acoustic perfection had been desecrated in ten minutes of calculated malice.
"Mr. Julian," Thomas whispered, his voice shaking. "Should I call the police?"
"Call them," Julian said, his voice flat and dead. "And call the Guild office. Tell them... tell Marcus his message has been received."
He sat in the dark for three hours as the rain beat against the glass. The realization that his peers would destroy an irreplaceable instrument simply to protect their social dominance sickened him to his core.
At dawn, Clara walked into the hall. She wore her nightgown, her small feet bare against the cold stone. She saw the severed strings and the black oil dripping onto the carpet.
She did not cry. She did not scream.
She walked to the piano, reached out, and touched the undamaged middle register, pressing an octave. The notes rang out, pure and defiant, despite the desecration surrounding them.
"It still has a voice," Clara said quietly.
Julian looked up from the floor, his eyes hollow. "The action is destroyed, Clara. The felts are soaked with petroleum. It will take six months to rebuild the mechanism. The showcase is on Friday. I have no other concert grand."
Eleanor entered the hall, leaning on a polished walking stick. She surveyed the damage, her face tightening into an expression of fierce, unyielding resolve.
"Then she won't play a concert grand," Eleanor said firmly.
Julian shook his head. "The showcase rules require a certified concert instrument. They will disqualify her before she strikes a single bar."
"Then let them disqualify her after she begins," Eleanor countered, stepping beside her daughter. "There is an old upright in the basement of Saint Jude’s Church down by the docks. The parish can't afford to tune it, but the soundboard is seasoned spruce from 1890. It has fought through sixty winters of river damp. We will move that piano to the hall."
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Julian stared at her in disbelief. "An upright? At the Symphony Hall? Marcus would have us dragged out by the guards!"
"Let him try," Eleanor said, her eyes flashing with the fire of her youth. "You wanted to atone, Julian? Stop playing by the rules of cowards who fight with wire cutters."
