By midmorning the accordion shop had a line that did not hurry. The bellows were still collecting their tiny breaths at the counter, each one pausing to greet the valve before glancing up at the strap.
We asked at the kiosk across the street. "They used to start playing the moment someone opened the lid," said a woman with a paper bag of pears. "Now the strap has to nod first. It makes the whole street stand a little straighter."
The shopkeeper, who keeps a pencil behind one ear and a spare strap on a hook, explained it as if it were ordinary housekeeping. "A breath is not a chord until it has said hello," she told us. "The valve likes to be included. The strap likes to know the concert is sitting down." After that, she said, one chord is plenty. The instruments fold themselves away as if they had finished a full waltz.
The next day a pigeon sat on the awning through the first greeting and left only after the strap had given its nod. Neighbors swear the pigeon applauded with both feet, but the shopkeeper will only say that the awning asked for an encore in a whisper, and that one chord was still the correct answer.