“Piano Crucifixion”

By Dian Parker

Piano Crucifixion

Ten small tables encircled by four dimly lit, green plastic columns ‒ the only lighting ‒ along with smooth Italian tenors singing in the background, makes for a romantic setting. On the burgundy walls hang diminutive oil paintings from the owner’s family home in Sicily; delicate studies of blooming young girls on velvet cushions, with tiny white dogs on their laps, or soothing bucolic landscapes with soft skies, a peaceful stone farmhouse in the distance.

At the back of the restaurant in a dark corner, propped on an easel, is an oil painting, and completely out of place. The shocking painting depicts a young naked woman bound to a cross by ropes, crucified.

I asked the owner, Eugenio, about it. He told me that after his parents died and before he moved to the States, the generations-old family house had to be cleared out and sold. In his grandmother’s upright piano, that took six men to move, they found the crucifix painting nailed into the piano’s back panel. He said no one in his family had ever seen the painting before. His grandmother had been extremely religious.

Studying the painting with a magnifying glass, I found a barely discernible square stamp in the corner with a squiggle inside. I looked it up but found nothing. I tried to buy the painting but Eugenio said he would never sell. Every time I go to his restaurant, which is once a week, I beg to buy the painting and every time he refuses.

There are a number of reasons why it is imperative I have this painting. The first and foremost is because it is stunningly beautiful, masterfully painted, and obviously very old. The woman’s long luxurious black hair falls across a serene face and slightly over her ample breasts, the skin pale and translucent. The naked body is backlit in pale yellow, with the rest of the painting in dark olive green. The oil on canvas is crackled, giving the painting an ancient look, like a Renaissance painting.

Another reason I need this painting is because it represents for me the female program that I’ve so diligently tried to rid myself. A woman, not nailed to a cross but bound in rope to the wood, accepting her tragic fate without protest. I’d like to give it to my mom. We’d sit in front of the painting, sipping wine, and discuss our lives as women in a male dominated family in a male dominated world, without a voice. I’ve never discussed this topic with my mom. I need to. I think she does too. The painting would help break the ice.

The third reason. The painting was nailed inside the back of a piano, hidden for centuries. A crucified woman nailed to the inside of a piano. I can definitely relate to that. The whole time I was growing up my dad, a fantastic jazz pianist, played a 1918 Steinway grand piano that his aunt had once given him. I also played and the piano was the center of our household. My solace in a tyrannical household. After my dad couldn’t play anymore because his fingers grew arthritic, he gave the piano to me.

When I left home, my mom and dad eventually moved to an assisted living community. Dad said he’d ship the piano to me but there was no way I could keep one in a drafty yurt with a wood stove in rainy Washington State. I told him to sell it and keep the money. We both cried, separately I might add. And, my dad made a fraction of what the piano was worth.

A few months later, I had a job homeschooling a family’s three kids. They asked if I’d help them pick out a piano, knowing I played. At the piano store, the oldest girl wanted to buy a particular piano because she liked the blond wood. I said it wasn’t a good piano and recommended some better ones. She had a temper tantrum in the store, eventually getting her way. In the car, I wept. The incident triggered my mourning for the most beautiful and well-made piano, for me, in the whole world. Our Steinway grand. And here was some spoiled brat choosing a piano because, she insisted, “It’s just so pretty!”

When I met my husband, he owned a white grand piano and played classical piano like a dream (and hated jazz). When we moved, our new house was too small to fit a grand piano so we bought a restored Yamaha upright. It’s in our bedroom as there’s nowhere else in our small house. The first time I played, I wept.

I’m a painter now, working in oils on canvas. I’ve tried to paint my memory of Eugenio’s painting but always come up short. How did that painter manage to show such beauty and life amidst so much torture and approaching death? Thick rope tightly binds her hands and feet onto a splintered wooden cross, yet her face remains calm, as if focused on another world. I’ve tried that, but always seem to fail.

When I lost my Steinway, it felt like a crucifixion. Our new piano doesn’t exactly crucify me, but my out of practice playing does. My dad is dead now but the tyranny continues, inside of me. As you can see, the female crucifixion painting covers a lot. The woman is nailed to the cross and to a piano! I really must figure out a way to get Eugenio to sell it to me.

Dian Parker’s essays and short stories have been published in The Rupture, Critical Read, Event, Anomaly, Upstreet, 3 AM Magazine, Bookends Review, Deep Wild, Cold Lake Anthology, among others. She’s been awarded an Artist Development Grant from the Vermont Arts Council, a fellowship to the Vermont Studio Center, and nominated for several Pushcart Prizes.