Word: plastering
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...North Africa, his outfit was attached to Montgomery's Eighth Army. One day at El Alamein, Carmi was collecting debris left by Rommel's retreat when he came across a bulky, grey object. It proved to be a piano, encased in a rock-hard coating of plaster, its innards too sand-clogged to sound...
...that there might be anything special about it, but he could not bear the thought of any piano's being burned, no matter how old and battered. He got permission from his superior officer to keep it out of the flames. Later, partially restored but still encased in plaster, the piano was given to a troupe of entertainers touring the British armies in the Mediterranean...
...hive. A chicken farmer tried to use it as an incubator, a butcher as a meat safe. Finally it was cast out into the street as useless. There Avner Carmi-by now out of the service and once more a piano tuner-again found what he called "my plaster piano pal." When he saw that the insides had been ripped out with only the sounding board left, he sadly decided to abandon...
...could not shake it off that easily: a few days later it turned up at his piano-repair shop. A music-loving plasterer had found it and handed Carmi an advance with orders to fix the instrument. Later, the plasterer changed his mind and demanded his money back. He demanded it vehemently. He pounded his fist on the piano. As he did so, the plaster casing cracked and the head and torso of a little wooden cherub came into view...
Carmi hurriedly handed over the money, then feverishly started to remove the rest of the plaster. Sluices of benzine, alcohol, vinegar and lemon juice failed to part plaster from wood, but 24 gallons of acetone finally did the trick. What emerged was an elaborately carved case, featuring a frieze of plump, drunken cherubs hauling their equally drunken queen across the piano face with most unmusical leers. Carmi dug out an old picture of the king's piano. It was the same...