The Third Drawer

      "So — you cut off the hand of another man?"
      I congratulated myself on the calm of my voice and for never having dropped my eyes, despite my discomfiture, from the steady gaze of this man John Swarding.
      "Yes," he said, his face and body held with an immobility that called to mind the surgeon, the acrobat, or the mime artist.
      Not a hair of his bushy head looked uncomfortable; not a muscle of his face twitched with nerves when he spoke revealingly. His fingers, long and thin, had called themselves to my attention early, especially after we had shared information as to our relative involvements with our favored instrument, the violin — a useful coincidence, I thought; yet while they looked as though they should have betrayed any nervousness on Swarding's part, they remained calmly interlaced around one knee without the slightest restlessness.
      "I've told no one about it before, certainly," he said, "but I think — I hope — that if I tell someone, I might be relieved of my — problems."
      The nostrils of his finely shaped nose flared.
      "Problems? Such as — "
      "Tremors, occasionally. Not often. Troubled dreams, certainly. Those, too, however — not often."
      He cocked an eyebrow. I waited.
      "My greatest problem," he said, "is —"
      I waited what I thought an appropriate time.
      "Is what?" I said.
      "Sounds," he said firmly but quietly. "I hear sounds."
      "Sounds?"
      "Usually small sounds."
      "Can you describe them?"
      "It is often a light tapping, as of fingers on wood." His fine-featured face froze for a moment, while his voice descended to a whisper. "It's almost musical. You told me you were a violinist, too, so you know the pizzicato. It is lighter than a pizzicato. Quieter, yet less delicate." He lifted his left hand and rippled his fingers in the air.
      "You hear it at all times?"
      Swarding looked at me again, and nodded. "And yet I'm not mad."
      "Of course," I said. "But you began by telling of this man. His name — I don't think you told me: it was — ?"
      "Nathan Poander. You haven't heard of him? Extraordinary violinist, Dr. Edwards." He leaned back in his chair at last, and regarded me while also looking through me. "He and I, we sometimes entertained ourselves with duets. We played the Bach double concerto together, which he embellished with great imagination and taste. I never knew him to exactly repeat his pattern of trills or grace notes, or to choose an ornamental passing note that wasn't fitting exactly with the spirit of Bach — and yet every lead he took in the melody had a unique quality I can't quite describe. It set me on fire. I know those evenings when we played Bach or Mozart together I played better than I ever had before, or ever have since. He inspired me to my best, Dr. Edwards."
      "Which hand?" I said.
      He looked back at me, his eyes widening, the muscles in his forehead moving irregularly — his first signs of nerves.
      I put my right hand on the desk, palm down. The gesture sometimes helps calm patients. It has the effect of a reassuring touch. "You said you cut off his hand. Which one?"
      He drew himself up and breathed in deeply.
      "His right hand," he said. "Yes, his right one. I cut it off and put it in the third drawer of a chest in my house where it remains. It's still there, doctor. Shall I tell you more?"
      "That's why you're here, isn't it?" I said, keeping my voice steady. "Please do."
      "Yes, and I…"
      Swarding's attention suddenly departed.
      How to explain it other than that way? It departed. One moment, he sat before me entirely present and up-front; the next, he turned about-face and far inward. I found it uncanny.
      "John," I said. "John!"
      Marginally he showed awareness of me, and spoke in a whisper: "You said your roof —"
      "My secretary told me you asked about the roof," I said. "It's no thicker, and no thinner, than any other roof. And another floor of rooms and a small attic separate us from it. Why should that disturb you?"
      His left hand shot forward and grabbed the front edge of my desk. "You don't understand, doctor! Poander follows me. He pursues me, never more than a few minutes behind. No matter the time of day, no matter the weather, he finds me and climbs the roof and begins his infernal playing!"
      "But you just told me he has no right hand! You can't play violin without a right hand!"
      Swarding jerked back his left arm and cocked it in the air, his head bending toward it as though he couched an invisible instrument beneath his chin. His fingers arched up, ready to apply themselves to the neck of the instrument. "Like this, doctor. Don't you understand? He's such a player he doesn't need his bow arm. How wrong I was in cutting off only his right arm! His left hand does all the playing! So strong are his fingers that his playing can be heard without a bow! His fingertips tap out the music by hammering the strings into the neck!"
      "This is ridiculous," I said, his excitement having infected me. "You can hardly make any sound that way, just with the left hand! Not loud enough to be heard through a roof and ceiling, at least!"
      His eyes widened, then relaxed with the rest of his frame.
      "You're right, doctor," he said quietly. He looked smaller than before, mostly due to his turning his eyes downward a moment, a physical admission of the self-consciousness I had found startlingly absent before. "Perfectly. I'm sorry for my outburst. Sometimes — sometimes imagination gets the better of me. I guess that's the value of speaking about what bothers me. It's so illusory. Or like playing duets. Music sometimes wrings a person out the same way talking does. Do you play duets, doctor?"

      The telephone connection threatened to fizzle completely. It buzzed and made Linda's voice tinny and minuscule. More true to her nature, I would have said once, in more strained days. Now it simply sounded like a bad connection.
      "So why did you really call, Paul?" she said.
      "I'm not sure, actually," I said, truthfully enough. "I'm in a reminiscent mood."
      It spoke of the shattered quality of the life I led, that when such a mood descended on me I thought first of the woman who completely ruined me.
      Who I once thought ruined me, at least.
      "One of my clients, a new one, was once a violinist," I said. "It got me thinking of older times. Don't you find it odd sometimes, looking back at the choices we've made in the past? I don't mean us, the choices we made; I hope we've buried that. But I mean choices in general. Why I gave up the violin, for instance. I really loved it for a while there. But I had to work to get to that point, didn't I? I struggled with the stupid assurance that eventually I would master it."
      "You did, Paul. You did beautifully."
      "You've always said that."
      "I was always charitable about that, if not other things," she said.
      I laughed. "Two years ago you'd never have said such a thing. But I'm not going to agree or disagree. I'm glad I called, Linda. I won't keep you. You must have things to attend to."
      "All right, darling. But call again. You're sounding unusually animated. Not nearly so obsessed as you used to get."
      "Me?" I said, amused at the word.
      "Yes, you. Now I must get going!"
      "Well, I will call. Goodbye, Linda."
      She surely would have things to be about. Social circles occupied her to no end. From the first time I met her she raced the tracks with the best. I amounted to a poor racer even in my better days: and to that fact I could pin our failure as a couple. I had flared brightly in society, a new face, a new talent, a curiosity and an enigma, at once an aspiring intellectual and promising artist.
      Then I had dimmed: top of the charts one season, off it completely the next.
      Or, no: the downfall had been her flighty pursuit of whomever new came onto the social scene. I certainly lost my novelty quickly.
      Or, better yet: my jealousy. I admit it. I would get incandescent at her affairs, not even knowing if she consummated them.
      We never should have married. Or I never should have taken it so seriously. I should have been light, carefree, insouciant; and then I might have remained bright, witty, and attractive, still a star on the circuit instead of falling into morose depressions and bitter rages of those last days.
      So easy to say in retrospect.
      I went from the telephone to the liquor cabinet for a brandy. I poured it and stared into the liquid, entranced as always by the amber light that emanates from its depths; then savored its first taste.
      My violin sat in its case in a corner, neither obtrusive nor hidden. Several years there, and several years in some other place within the house: I moved it from place to place, regarding it as a necessary prop in my life but never an active agent or a concern. That it remained visible, even if untouched, satisfied me.
      I took it to the couch. I opened it to hold the instrument in my hands for the first time in many years. The strings had fallen out of tune, but not as badly as I expected. Tightening the bow and applying rosin to the hairs, I lifted it to my chin and tuned it, then played a G chord on the D, A, and E strings. While not an extraordinarily fine instrument, it still ranked relatively high in quality, and produced a silky sound when touched lightly by the bow. The major chord reminded me of a Mozart concerto I once played adequately; but I felt inadequate to the task, even though I remembered a good deal. I moved my first finger down a half-step to produce the G minor chord, and played the triple-stop beginning of a chaconne by the Italian composer Vitali. My spirit lifted at the rich sonority. This composition I could barely remember, beyond the striking juxtaposition of the minor chord and the F-sharp leading tone immediately following, commencing the dramatic opening theme.
      An odd feeling suffused me. Sweating, I took the violin from my chin and leaned it on the couch.
      I heard a tapping on the window of the room, an unmusical tapping: a light rain falling.
      Almost as soon as it began, it ceased. I walked over, raised the window and leaned out, looking over the surrounding yard and the nearby houses from the dormer. The window went high enough that if I wanted I could step onto the roof to stand on the bracing below. Even if chilly and moist, the night air felt invigorating. The wind had died with the afternoon.
      The house next door sat empty and dark, the Turners having left to visit relatives for the week. I realized I could make noise — music, rather — if I wanted. The idea seized me of the one-armed violinist climbing a building to stand on the roof, his fingers then playing the instrument without benefit of a bow. Would he climb with one arm, and clutch the violin in his teeth? The image was laughable and absurd. Yet it disturbed me.
      Greatly, in fact. Unaccountably, but greatly.
      I went to finish my brandy. Instead I picked up the violin once more and returned to the window. The rain had wet the roof, though not to the point of becoming slick. I stepped out, feeling odd. Standing firmly on the wooden brace parallel to the edge of the roof, I raised the instrument. What would I play? I thought again of the Vitali. I put my fingers in place for the solemn minor chord with which it opened. In the open air the violin had a smaller but more poignant sound, as of a lone bird crying from some dark bush in the night; yet it pleased me, and again filled me with old longings. I remembered more of the piece, following my ear and improvising the fingering. The melody emerged less triumphantly and dramatically than it had when I first studied it, years before. It emerged as it perhaps more truly — was plaintive and melancholy, a melody uncertain of its allegiance to minor or major scale. Yet even in its uncertainty it soared, and required a wide style of bowing from the right hand.
      The right hand — what a hand to lose! In violin playing I regarded the right hand as making possible expression in performance, while the left brought intellect into play, the fingertips finding and delivering precise tones from the four strings. What a loss to lose either one!
      I could remember no more of the chaconne and returned through the window to my study, chilled yet electric with energy at hearing from my own hands this fragment of a remembered melody.

      Swarding lived in an older, larger house on a looping drive ideal for quieter souls. With little sky being visible through the heavily leaved trees along the street, the porch and window lights highlighted the sharp corners of the old fronts and gave the neatly tended front yards the appearance of dimly illuminated caverns. The hint of inherited decay and gloom appealed to me.
      Several lights burned brightly inside the house at which I arrived, at the farthest end of the loop. At my knock the door opened to reveal Swarding dressed as though just returned from a dinner party, with a flush as from wine on his cheeks.
      "Dr. Edwards! Right on time. Come in."
      He showed me into a simply decorated living room. The Classical motifs in the lampshades and the small, ornamental statuary smacked of mild aristocratic leanings. I found this agreeable, however. The sturdy, cushioned chairs reflected only moderately expensive taste, sitting atop a carpet with a worn, comfortable look. I felt immediately at home.
      "I'm just having some brandy," he said. "Join me? And then tackle Bach?"
      "I'd love nothing better. How are you feeling tonight?" I felt easy asking the question. I had recommended him to several specialists, and had relinquished most of the doctor role with regards to John in favor of being a fellow musician and, possibly, friend. I had heard John was making excellent progress. My main role, as I saw it, was to oversee the program of cures, to insure the various therapies worked together. Music figured largely in my coordinating plan. It gave me an excuse to visit him at home. It gave us both pleasure, moreover.
      He gave me a curious and aggrieved look. "That Poander — he's back. He followed me for part of the day." He looked at me searchingly.
      "But if he's gone right now, we don't have to worry about him, do we?" I said, not sure how I should take the news.
      "But do you understand — I believed in him again for several hours!"
      "Will the brandy help keep him away?" One of the doctors had told me of the connection between Swarding's high-strung intensity and his delusions. Tension breeds disease of all kinds: one of the simplest equations, yet one that people seem the most reluctant to accept in this tension-breeding age in which we live.
      He smiled, with a warmth that reassured me completely. "Yes, doctor. A fine prescription."
      When he went to the liquor cabinet I heard something upstairs — a slight, not large sound. "What was that?" I said, looking to the stairs.
      "I was moving some boxes today. One of them must have slipped, maybe."
      I accepted the proffered brandy. "You know, I'm off you completely, as a doctor, but I've still been fascinated by your tale. Do you want to hear some of my conjectures?"
      "That would be excellent!" He looked genuinely curious.
      "All right. I've untangled several strands. I think it's a fascinating puzzle. The name Nathan, for instance, might derive from Jonathan, right? So it occurred to me that your last names might be related. I've come up with one interesting connection. You can link the `sward' of Swarding with common grass, genus Poa — hence the imaginary name of Poander."
      "Not too far-fetched, doctor." He smiled. "I've seen such a crossword clue, I believe."
      I took a sip, then said, "It's the image of the violinist playing with only his left hand, however, that is the most fascinating part of the story, in my mind."
      "And what have you come up with?"
      "I presume you did some music history when earning your degrees?"
      "Of course."
      "Then maybe you'll remember this," I said. "You know Paganini introduced left-hand-only effects into his solo sonatinas and concertos. Well, a curious man once positioned himself outside Paganini's window at an inn. Wanted to see the great man practice. He saw Paganini throw his left arm forward under the violin — a characteristic stance, for him, with his back straight and his head bent over his instrument in supreme concentration. His fingers then danced over the neck of the instrument and produced a rain of quiet yet distinct, percussive tones — without using his right hand at all! Paganini didn't lift his bow once! He apparently practiced without it! The man ran away convinced the stories were true about Paganini! He was a devil!"
      I chuckled in telling the story — for it did strike me as amusing.
      "I don't remember hearing that, doctor. But it may well be I did, and have forgotten. Entirely possible."
      "You might have heard it once and incorporated it unconsciously." I watched Swarding's face carefully as he nodded in response to my statement.
      He looked thoughtful, nothing more. I still nursed a hope I might find the source of his powerful visions. They linked strongly to his self-image: of that much I felt sure. Yet did they reflect a part of the self he left behind long ago and buried in some hidden corner of memory? Or did they reflect a fear of what he might become? Could the future influence a mental state? Fear by itself could be sufficient, however. A violinist might easily fear the loss of a hand: it would be only natural —
      I heard a sound again from above. The staircase rose from the hall immediately adjoining the room where we sat. I moved my head to see more of the stairway through the door frame.
      "What's the matter?" said Swarding.
      "A sound. I think someone's coming down the stairs."
      "The wood in this old house makes noises sometimes. There's no one else here." He looked perfectly calm.
      "But someone is coming downstairs!" I saw a black shoe being set onto the top step. I glanced at Swarding, alarmed that he was oblivious.
      "It's just the wood creaking," he said, comfortably sitting back and sipping from his glass. "I'm used to the sounds around here. Living alone, it's necessary that I do. Because they're always there, in an old house."
      I took my gaze from Swarding and looked back at the stairs. Another foot appeared on the second step, followed by the first again, moving to the next down. Soon the form had descended enough to let me see the pressed black trousers above the shoes, then the left hand, and the bottom edge of a dinner jacket. The left hand — I could see it — carried a violin. A thrill coursed up and down my back. Shoulders, neck, and then head: descending a few more steps the tall man stopped and turned toward the open doorway into the room where we sat, and looked my way. I gazed into the eyes of John Swarding. He wore the face of the man sitting comfortably in a chair a few feet from me.
      Yet the John Swarding standing on the stairs rated no comparison in one way. For he lifted his right arm.
      It ended in a bleeding stump.
      "What's the matter, doctor?" said Swarding. "You cried out! You look pale!"
      "There — on the steps!" I watched the man on the stairs continue his descent. I leapt from my chair and ran to the doorway to see the man more closely, to see if he might be indeed another John Swarding, a twin, or — but the man continued forward from the bottom landing of the stairway, walking straight and encountering the wall. He passed through it.
      My chest went into deep heaves.
      "Here, here, doctor, sit down," John said, with genuine concern. "You're looking distressed."
      I let him see me to my chair where I seized my brandy and downed it. By the bottom of my second snifter I felt better, and could almost doubt what I had seen.
      Almost.

      Making little of it — it would not help his recovery to admit having shared a delusion he was trying to shake we practiced that night, and several additional nights over the following weeks. The apparition made no repeat appearance, making it all the easier to dismiss as time passed.
      In our sessions I quickly realized I was in the presence of a master. Less quickly I regained my own hand at the violin, and grew comfortable with the Bach, especially the stirringly gracious middle movement; the rapid, spinning triplets of the last movement threw me until I could find some serious practice time to study and encompass them. I could almost muster enough agility to handle Mozart duets, which we began working through after having felt we had mastered the Double Concerto for the time being. Swarding's playing inspired awe in me; it tempted me innumerable times to stop what I was doing and simply listen. He imparted into the simplest lines a soul-aching beauty I had heard never before and had expected never to hear from any musician. How such music could arise from the conjunction of a wooden instrument and human fingers I had no conception.
      "John," I said one evening at his house. "I've been meaning to ask you. For a last bit of information, I was wondering if I could see that chest of drawers that figures in your story of Nathan Poander."
      For a moment the question brought on a return of that staring, frightening look which had vanished from his face these past weeks — but for a moment only. After the brief attack he looked normal, and laughed lightly.
      "A good idea," he said. "I think you're right. Let's go up."
      Unceremoniously he stood and led the way to the stairs. As he passed me, a ring on his right hand caught my attention.
      "New?" I said, pointing to it.
      He stopped briefly and looked. "Oh. That. Yes. Given to me. I've been following your advice, doctor, and getting out in society a bit again. It's doing me good." He gave me a winning smile.
      "Having a good time, is that it?"
      "I've met a wonderful lady."
      I expressed my enthusiasm at his having entered into a new phase of his life, and followed him upstairs.
      The second floor appeared as neat as the first. I had seen some of it before. I knew the study, located at the top left of the staircase: a tidy affair with modest desk, several bookshelves, a rack of magazines, a comfortable chair, and a few maps and an excellent likeness of Schumann on the wall.
      The next room down the hall had been closed to me before. It turned out not to be his bedroom but something of a storage room or guest bedroom, for it had elements of both. Against the south wall stood a massive chest of drawers, undoubtedly an antique since furniture of such size was rarely made these days.
      John pointed to it and said, "I have to unlock it, first." He reached onto a nearby shelf for a small, silver box from which he took a key. He used it to unlock the third drawer on the chest of drawers.
      The drawer resisted his pull at first, then slid open to reveal that it was empty. Empty — in a sense.
      A deep red velvet covering the four sides of the drawer, and a similarly colored padding material gave the drawer the appearance of a special case for valuables, or for a rectangular string instrument. It might have been the interior of a costly coffin.
      I reached in to touch the soft material at the bottom of the drawer, then withdrew my hand, suddenly visualizing the drawer shutting of its own accord and obtaining its intended, severed hand in that manner.
      "It's ghastly looking in a way, isn't it," said John. "I must have prepared it myself, or had it prepared for me, at some point during my illness. I shudder when I look at it. I keep it locked. There's no particular reason to, yet I do. I feel more comfortable that way. Maybe I should sell the thing. But it's been in the family."
      "Not awful looking, not at all," I said, keeping the strain out of my voice. I began to wonder if John might be well after all. Seeing the drawer brought his story clearly to mind again. "Although seeing it and remembering your story affects me strangely. I admit it does."
      "Yes," he said quietly.
      He closed the drawer and turned the key in the lock.
      As he did so I placed the ring.
      It had belonged to my wife — my ex-wife. Linda. When our marriage seemed the brightest and most glorious union of man and woman possible in the world, I gave it to her as an expression of my heart and of very nearly my entire savings.

      I woke to a light tapping sound. Before even thinking of the hour, I rose and went downstairs to the front door. I found no one there, yet thought nothing of it. The wind had stirred the trees. A car had passed with bad bearings; or a bike, with a card against its spokes to rattle at each burst of speed.
      The clock said it was just past six a.m. My senses felt clear — my memories of the evening before, less so, however.
      I remembered stopping on the way home at a restaurant's bar, someplace I had not frequented in some time. Apparently I left early, for I felt no after-effects. I wondered where I put my violin, however. Worried, I called the restaurant and reached someone on the clean-up crew. They had found nothing except a scarf. It felt odd, to not remember coming home; as a sodden wreck after the divorce it had taken quite a few drinks to reach a point of utter blankness about my doings.
      Even if drunk I would never have misplaced my violin. It made most sense that it was here, in the house. I searched again. In a drunken state I had known myself to place things in the oddest places. I searched the back room among the garden tools, and the closets, to no avail. The instrument had some value — not great but also not small. More to the point, the violin represented everything worthwhile I had done in my life, from my college and university days to my courtship of Linda and now my recent rebirth as a musician.
      I searched every corner of the second floor, starting in the bathroom and study, the spare room, the closets, and then the bedroom. I grew apprehensive. I looked in the closet, and beneath the bed. Only the chest of drawers remained. I reluctantly pulled open the top drawer, and the second.
      I opened the next drawer. The violin case sat upon my shirts, somehow crammed in. Something smudged the dark case.
      I cried out, shutting my eyes. I ran for the bathroom, my stomach convulsing, and threw myself over the toilet where my bowels put every ounce of energy into wringing me dry. I clutched the edges of the bowl for long minutes waiting for the last heaves. Downstairs the telephone rang.
      The wind must have picked up for I heard rustlings as of the leaves and branches of trees shuffling against the roof, and an odd tapping, as of rain.
      I lifted myself weakly and ran downstairs — or stumbled, lacking strength to run — to collapse on the couch. The telephone stopped, then started again. I imagined hearing John Swarding's voice, telling me his tale, all the while seeing a shadowy form climb the side of the house, struggling upward with only one hand, his teeth clenched around the neck of his violin.
      At the next ring I stumbled over to pick up the receiver.
      The calm voice of a woman officer from the police department asked my name, which I gave in strangled tones.
      She then informed me in what house, in what piece of furniture, and in what drawer of that piece of furniture they had found my violin.