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curiosity, believe me.”
    Jasper Gwyn said that for a while he had written books.
    John Septimus Hill weighed the answer, as if he were waiting to find out if he could understand it without greatly disturbing his own convictions.

17
    Ten days later, John Septimus Hill took Jasper Gwyn to a low factory building, at the back of a garden, behind Marylebone High Street. For years it had been a carpenter’s storeroom. Then, in rapid succession, it had been the warehouse for an art gallery, the offices of a travel magazine, and the garage of a collector of vintage motorcycles. Jasper Gwyn found it perfect. He much appreciated the indelible oil stains left by the motorcycles on the wooden floor and the edges of posters showing Caribbean seas that no one had troubled to take off the walls. There was a small bathroom on the roof, reached by an iron stairway. There was no trace of a kitchen. The big windows could be blocked by massive wooden shutters, just redone and not yet painted. One entered the big room by a double door that opened onto the garden. There were also pipes visible, which were not in good shape. John Septimus Hill noted,in a professional tone, that for the water stains it wouldn’t be hard to find a solution.
    â€œAlthough it’s the first time,” he observed without irony, “that dampness has been mentioned to me as a hoped-for decoration, rather than a disaster.”
    They settled on a price, and Jasper Gwyn agreed to it for six months, reserving the right to renew the contract for six more. The figure was substantial, and this helped him realize that if it had ever been a game, that business of the portraits, it was so no longer.
    â€œGood, my son will take care of the practical details,” said John Septimus Hill as they parted. They were on the street, in front of a tube station. “Don’t take this as a polite observation,” he added, “but it’s been a real pleasure to do business with you.”
    Jasper Gwyn wasn’t good at farewells, even in their lightest form, like a goodbye from a real-estate broker who had just found him a former garage in which to attempt to write portraits. But he also felt a sincere liking for this man, and he wanted to be able to express it. So, instead of saying something generically nice, he murmured something that amazed even him.
    â€œI didn’t always write books,” he said. “Before that I had another profession. I did it for nine years.”
    â€œReally?”
    â€œI was a tuner. I tuned pianos. The same profession as my father.”
    John Septimus Hill took in the information with evident satisfaction.
    â€œThere. Now I think I understand better. Thank you.”
    Then he said there was something he had always wondered about tuners.
    â€œI’ve always wondered if they know how to play the piano. Professionally, I mean.”
    â€œSeldom,” answered Jasper Gwyn. “And yet,” he continued, “if the question you have in mind is how in the world, after working for hours, they refrain from sitting down right there to play a polonaise by Chopin, so as to enjoy the result of their dedication and knowledge, the answer is that, even if they were able to, they never would.”
    â€œNo?”
    â€œA man who tunes a piano doesn’t like to untune it,” Jasper Gwyn explained.
    They parted, promising to meet again.
    Days later, Jasper Gwyn was sitting on the floor in a corner of a former garage that was now his portrait studio. He turned the key over in his hands, and examined the distances, the light, the details. There was a great silence, broken only by the sporadic gurgling of the water pipes. He sat there for a long time, analyzing his next moves. He would have to put something there—a bed, maybe, some chairs. He thought of how to light it, and where he would be. He tried to imagine himself there, in the silent company of a stranger, both of them surrendered to a time