He awakes in a hotel that might be a hospital or might be something else much more mysterious. His nurses bear an uncanny resemblance to Dean Martin and Peggy Lee and explain to him that there are certain rules to be obeyed on his return to Paris: the most important being that he must lose his old identity entirely.

Defying the regulations, Max struggles to retrieve pieces of his former life, and although followed by watchers from 'the hotel' he feels livelier than he did when he was alive. Piano can be read as a metaphor of life and death, of heaven and hell. The question is: Which is which?