This is the writer's voice, new fiction from The New Yorker.

I'm Deborah Treasman, fiction editor at The New Yorker.

On this episode of The Writer's Voice, we'll hear Sam Allingham read his story,

The Intermediate Class, from the April 2nd, 2018, issue of the magazine.

Allingham's first story collection, The Great American Songbook, was published in 2016.

He's published fiction in one story, Epuck, an American short fiction, among other magazines.

Now here's Sam Allingham.

The Intermediate Class.

When Kirill arrived at Room 2C for the first time that Wednesday evening,

he was surprised to hear a piano ringing out from behind the classroom wall.

It was early summer, and the community center was almost empty.

The children's camp had been dismissed hours earlier,

and in the silence the clustered chords seemed dense and significant,

like church bells. He was already late, but he paused for a moment, listening. All day, he debated

backing out at the last minute, though the course was prepaid. Even now, his hand on the doorknob,

he felt a slight urge to run. But the music was too intriguing. It drew him through the door.

He was disappointed upon entering to find that there was no piano.

Just a whiteboard, a long table, and four students arrayed around it.

The class turned to him, and suddenly his disappointment seemed foolish,

for what business would he have in a music class?

Is this intermediate German, he asked? That's right, a woman with a close-croft Afro said.

You knew? Yes, Carol replied. I mean, I took a class before, but not here. He chose a seat in the

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