NUCLEAR FICTION NEWSLETTER, ISSUE 5

Anatomy of a Scene: Fleshing Out the Skeleton of a Story

The Piano Store

One of my mother’s Oak Ridge stories was, as best I can recall, the following:

I was giving piano lessons in our house, which was forbidden by the army. One day I got a call from a colonel, asking if I was Janet Schover, the pianist. My heart sank because I thought he was going to scold me and tell me to stop giving lessons. Instead, he asked me to go to Knoxville with him to pick out a piano for the officers’ club. He and his driver picked me up in an army car, and we set off. We came to an area where the road was still being built. The driver told him we had to turn back and find another way, but the Colonel just roared, “Drive on!” We got stuck in the mud and they  had to pull us out with construction equipment. Eventually, we got to Knoxville and I picked out a Steinway grand piano. While we were in the city, someone brought the Colonel some bottles of liquor, which he brought back to Oak Ridge, and of course the guards at the gate did not search his car. (Oak Ridge was a “dry” town, with only 3:2 beer allowed, and normally the guards searched for liquor in every car and confiscated any they found.)

I wanted to include this anecdote in my novel Fission, but I realized I needed to do a lot of research. I was pretty sure my mother had said they went to Knoxville, but maybe it was Nashville? Also, I found out online that Steinway was making very few pianos during the war, so would a piano store in Knoxville have had a grand piano to sell? I also had read that Oak Ridge never had an officer’s club, since alcohol was not allowed. I emailed two historians, D. Ray Smith, the Oak Ridge city historian, and Jack Neely, a journalist and executive director of the Knoxville History Project. Jack was kind enough to send me the following email:

"To answer your basic question, yes, Knoxville has had piano dealers, usually more than one, since soon after the Civil War. For many middle-class families, pianos were considered elemental, and in those days pianists were on live radio, and public piano recitals were more common than country-music shows. Clark Bros. was one of the best known, and they had an awkward rivalry with Clark & Jones, which was founded by some of the same people. One of the Clarks was married to Bertha Walburn Clark, the violinist and cellist who founded the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra in 1935.There were other dealers, too, over the years, and some Gay Street showrooms were pretty plush. The City Directories at the McClung Collection will include a list of piano dealers for any given year. I can take a peek next time I'm over there. I'm not sure about shortages, which affected nearly everything, but I did a quick newspaper check, and see that pianos seem to be on sale, sometimes used reconditioned ones, pretty much throughout the war. Incidentally, you may know that Steinway purchased much of its wood for pianos from the Vestal Lumber Co. in South Knoxville. That was a point of pride for them."

Ray, who heroically read two drafts of Fission, helped me try to reconcile a couple of sources suggesting that there was an officer’s club in Oak Ridge during the war with others stating definitely that an officer’s club never existed, because Oak Ridge was a “dry” town.  Ray suggested that perhaps the piano was for the officers’ recreation hall.

I also discovered that Rachmaninoff had given the final piano concert before his death in Knoxville in February, 1943. My mother did not arrive in Oak Ridge until the Fall of 1943, but I am sure she would have been aware of that history.

I wondered which Oak Ridge colonel had figured in the story, but could not find any good information on who would have been in charge of such a purchase. Therefore, I invented the fictional colonel’s name and attributes, based solely on his stubborn “Drive on!” command. I also researched how the car might have looked, and how an expert musician would compare several pianos.

So here is a preview excerpt from Fission: A Novel of Atomic Heartbreak.

Chapter 19. March 1944     

By March, Doris noticed that winter in Oak Ridge was easing. Blizzards would still be in the forecast in Chicago, but in Tennessee some of the trees were getting greenish buds. The red mud sucked at her boots like quicksand if she strayed from the boardwalk. Gravel was routinely spread on the roads but could not prevent ruts. Most of the time, she and Rob rubbed along together, but Doris was aware that she was being less affectionate than usual. One morning the phone rang. Doris jumped, hoping it was not news of some disaster at the lab.

The operator asked, “Am I speaking with Mrs. Doris Friedman?”

“Yes.”

“Please hold for Colonel Barton.”

Doris groaned inwardly. She had never heard of a Colonel Barton but suspected he was calling to bust her for giving unsanctioned piano lessons. She had not breathed a word about the project to anyone, so it couldn’t be about security. Besides, everyone knew that security men showed up at your house if you were suspected of anything.

“Is this Mrs. Friedman?”

“Yes? How can I help you, Colonel?”

“I understand you’re quite the pianist. One of my lieutenants has been taking lessons with you.”

Doris’s heart sank. “Well, Colonel, sir, I just love the piano and I thought it could help morale if I—”

“Yes, yes. I’m not calling to complain about a few piano lessons. Teach to your little heart’s content. I need your help picking out a piano for the Officer’s Recreation Hall.”

“Oh! Of course, I’d be delighted to help.”

“Excellent. Meet me in front of the Guest House on Thursday at 0900 hours sharp. My driver will take us into Knoxville.”

Doris arranged a babysitter for Barbara and dressed in a gray tweed suit and jaunty hat. She made sure to be in front of the Guest House at the appointed time. She wore boots and carried her heels so that she could change them in the car and avoid muddy shoes.

A large olive green sedan with an army star stopped in the road. It had been raining daily, so the ruts were filled with water. Luckily Doris was standing back far enough to avoid being splashed. The driver rolled down his window and leaned out.

“Mrs. Friedman?”

She waved and he hopped out and opened the back door. Doris avoided the puddles and scooted in, making sure to keep her knees covered by her skirt. A burly man in a colonel’s khaki uniform was already seated in the back seat, leafing through some papers. His salt-and-pepper hair was cut short and mostly covered by his cap. He turned and pumped her hand.

“Mrs. Friedman. Thanks for joining us.”

“Nice to meet you, sir.”

“Hmph. Your husband works at X-10, I understand?”

“Yes. He helps with electronic instruments.”

“On the project.”

“The project, yes.” Doris was not going to say anything out of turn.

“Where are you from?”

“Chicago. He started out working at the university.”

“Yes, good bunch there from Chicago.”

“I also was a student at the University of Chicago.”

He frowned at her. “I don’t hold much with college for women. Guess you went there to get an MRS degree? Waste of resources. My wife was my high school sweetheart.”

“How nice.”

“Been married thirty-four years now. Excuse me, little lady, but I’ve got to look over these building plans while we drive.”

“Of course.” After a few minutes, Doris saw that they were coming to a hill where road construction was still in progress.

“Colonel, sir, this road is about to end. We have to turn around to catch the road to the Edgemoor gate to get to Route 25.”

The colonel did not look up. “This is the shortest way. Drive on!”

“But, sir . . .”

“Drive on, I said! The road is at the bottom of this hill.”

he driver tried to edge down the hill, but the car slid sideways. He pumped the brakes and the car skidded to a stop. When Doris opened her window and looked out, the wheels were half buried in mud. The driver tried to rock the car forward and back, as you might to escape a snow drift, but they were stuck fast.

“If Marshal Zhukov had a driver like you, the Nazis would be sitting pretty in Moscow!”

“Sorry, sir.” The driver saluted.

“Don’t tell me you’re sorry! Get out of this frigging car and go get those construction workers to pull us out! Pardon my French, little lady.”

The driver trudged over to the construction crew, who turned a small excavator in their direction. Doris began to open the door to get out of the car.

“Stay put, Mrs. Friedman. They can pull the car out with us in it.”

Doris sat back. She wished she had brought a book, but she got sick if she tried to read in a moving car. The construction crew hooked chains to the front of the sedan and managed to pull it back up to the end of the completed dirt and gravel road. The driver thanked them and got in. Doris waved and gave them a high sign, but the colonel ignored everyone. Doris felt sorry for Mrs. Barton and any offspring the couple had.

It took another hour to arrive in Knoxville. They found a parking space in front of the Clark Piano Company. When she walked in with the colonel, Doris was pleased to see three Steinway grand pianos on display. Within moments, a man in a dark suit introduced himself as the owner of the store.

“Colonel, it’s an honor. How may I help you and your lovely wife?”

“She’s not my wife. Young enough to be my daughter. This lady is a pianist, or so I hear. We’re here to buy a piano for the Oak Ridge Officer’s Recreation Hall.”

“Of course. Of course. Do you have a particular type of piano in mind?”

“It’s up to the colonel,” Doris answered, “but I always prefer a Steinway grand. I’m surprised you have three. I heard they were hardly making any since the war started.”

“Well, madam . . .”

“It’s Doris. Doris Friedman.” They shook hands.

“You may not know that Steinway buys most all of its wood from the Vestal Lumber Company, right here in Knoxville. So we have more stock than many other showrooms. Were you here for Rachmaninoff’s concert in February?”

“I wish I had been. I didn’t arrive until September though.”

“Of course he played a Steinway.”

“If only I could have heard him. Was that his last concert before he died?”

“Yes, it was. A great loss to the music world.”

Doris thought of the prelude and glanced down at her thumbs. “May I take a few minutes to try each of these three?” Doris included the colonel in her query.

He gestured a yes and sat on an armchair, still perusing his papers.

Doris played all the keys of the first piano, tried out the pedals, and examined the soundboard for cracks. Then she played the opening of a Schubert Impromptu and a few bars of Chopin’s Grande Valse Brillante. She repeated the procedure with the other two pianos. The final time, she played the entire waltz because she couldn’t resist the beautiful instrument. After she finished, the owner applauded softly. Even Colonel Barton was watching.

“This one, I think,” she said.

“Well, little lady, we have ourselves a piano. Would you like to come and play it sometimes?”

“I would love that! I’ve just been playing our old upright at home.”

The colonel signed an invoice and promised to have his secretary call the next day to arrange payment and delivery. When they got back in the car, Colonel Barton reminded the driver that they had one last stop in Knoxville. They pulled up to a shuttered restaurant and the driver went around to a side door. He came back almost immediately with a cardboard box. Doris heard the clink of bottles as the driver gently deposited it in the trunk. She was amused. Obviously, Colonel Barton had his own way around the local liquor prohibitions. She would bet the contents of the bottles were not just “splo,” either.

He glanced at her. “For the officers.”

“Of course.”

When they arrived at the gate to Oak Ridge, the guards omitted their usual inspection of the car interior and trunk, waving them through.

Doris told Rob about her day. “Would you play the waltz for me now?” he asked.

“Okay, though it’s kind of a comedown to play it on this piano after the Steinway.” She sat down and began the piece. Doris lost herself in the bright notes, picturing whirling couples, the women in colorful ball gowns with full skirts. Barbara twirled in the middle of the living room and Rob picked her up, waltzing her while she giggled. Doris glanced behind her and called out, “Dance on!”