On the square the barrel organ has taken to seating its notes before it plays. Tiny benches line the inside of the cylinder, and each melody sits down in a row, then nods to the handle, and only then does a single waltz come out, no encore unless someone asks very softly.
We asked at the kiosk by the fountain. “I used to crank it twice,” said a man with a paper bag of seeds. “Now I wait. The G-sharp likes the aisle.” A woman with a folding stool added that the handle bows back, just a little, and that this feels like good manners rather than a delay.
By late morning the sparrows had claimed the outer rim and were tapping the wood whenever a note stood up too soon. A card in the keeper’s book asked visitors not to rush the cylinder. “Please let them sit,” it read. “One waltz is plenty if everyone has a place.”
The next afternoon the same man came back and turned the handle once. The notes sat. The handle nodded. The waltz lasted exactly as long as the benches allowed, and he tipped his hat to the cylinder on his way across the square.