The Keys to His Apartment

by Brett Rutherford

A dream journal entry, April 14, 2022.

Planning a trip to the city
with two young friends in tow,
I suddenly recall owning
the keys to his apartment.
My hands reached in and found,
in the least-used drawer, the ring
and keys, his name and phone
on a well-rubbed tag. “Use it,”
he had told me some years ago.
“I travel so much. You may come
and go as it pleases you. The plants
will enjoy the company. Lights coming on
will confuse the burglars who watch and count
how many days of dark, who comes and goes."

How along ago, I am no longer sure.
Something had soured after the last
embrace, when someone else
and younger had taken my place,
but cards had come, reminding me
from Paris and Bangkok, London
and some island whose name
I keep forgetting, saying always:
“When in New York, please use
my place. The bromeliads
will be glad to see you. Have your way
with the Bosendorfer.”

I phone to be certain: no answer.
No answer thrice, and I am sure
the apartment is empty. Why not?
We find our way by bus, my friends
wide-eyed at the Manhattan view
across from the Boulevard.
His name is on the mailbox, the key,
as always, works without effort,
and we are in. Soon we regard
the crimson-copper sunset flaming up
from every tower’s windows. Atlantis
it seems, and we will ferry over
to conquer museums and theaters,
a rent-free vacation for all of us.

There is a bed for the two of them,
or big enough for all three of us
if it should come to that,
the dust-free grand piano, huge ferns
and lurid red bromeliads
in a state of perpetual arousal,
still wet from watering, suggest
that he was here and gone again
on yet another European jaunt.

We sit, alarmed by TV reports
of yet another subway shooting,
hint of a hurricane, mask-on,
mask-off, mask-on debates,
and my uncertainty grows.
Will he walk in and find us,
a trio of unexpected visitors?

There is a knock. In comes
the building super. She nods,
I nod. She holds a small pile
of junk mail and offers it.
“I saw you come in. I thought
I should give you this. Nothing
but junk and coupons these days,
since all the magazines
and bills have stopped.”

I take them. “Coupons,”
she reminds me. “These you can use
at the corner grocery. There’s nothing here
to eat, you know. It’s been so long
since he left us.”

And from her tone it comes to me —
that he has died — she thinks I know —
as surely everyone must know —

“How long will this” — I wave my hands
around to the furniture, the plants,
the grand piano, the walls of books —
“When will they …”

“Who knows?” she answers. “The rent,
utilities, housekeeper, and cable
are auto-debited. The money comes.
Until the estate is settled,
or the account runs dry, it just
goes on like a little museum.
Maybe he left it all to you.”

I shake my head. “I doubt it.
I would have heard by now, I think.”

“His other friends have nearly all
died as well, you know. I read
the black-edged envelopes, and
saw their names in the news.
Year after year, no cure in sight.
I suppose you came back
to remember.”

“Yes,” I lie.
“To remember. I told my young friends
how wonderful he was.” They blush
and keep their silence. She makes
her exit and we sit mutely,
not opening our suitcases.

We wait until the sunset gives way
to the gleaming night skyline.
There is nothing we can say
that does not seem trivial, or wrong.
“I feel like a ghoul in a cemetery,”
my younger friend says. The other
looks into the darkened bedroom,
turns on its ceiling lights and says,
“I’m not sure I can sleep in here,
knowing it’s his bed and all.”

We make a plan to go for food,
and after that, a Boulevard walk
to take in the mighty island,
the cliff-edge and the Hudson.

Just then, another key is heard,
and again the door opens.
A lean youth, pale and angular,
steps in, regard us with alarm,
and steps back out
into the corridor. I follow,
wave him back in, and take
his arm gently.

“He gave me a key,” I assure him.
“I was his oldest friend in the city.
You are his new” —

“I am the last,” he utters hollowly.
“I was his last … friend. I saw
the lights go on, and I thought;
for a moment I thought …”

“I understand,” I say. “Come in.
Please stay. I want to know.”
Among us, he says little. He knows
who I am now. He has seen my books
on the shelf and even read one of them.
“Your writing frightened me,” he tells me.

The violin case he carried in
was so much part of him
that I barely noticed it.
I walk to the Bosendorfer
and see a score: Korngold’s Concerto
in a piano reduction. “We played
the first movement together,” says Eric,
for he was ever so much an Eric,
red hair and all. — “Play now,”
I command him. — “Oh, no,”
he protests, “not without him
to accompany me.” — “Imagine
he’s there. Just hear the notes
inside your head, and play.
Play Korngold’s concerto.”

He tunes, he shudders
as he gazes at the ebony wood,
the ivory keys, the shadow
in which a player might suddenly
emerge, a skeleton.

He plays. He pauses. He plays.
We all imagine the tutti, the rests
between, where the violin is still
and the piano pretends to be
an entire orchestra. He plays,
and weeps while playing.

From three of us, from each alone
in his chair in the darkness,
we punctuate with sobs, the arc
of his bow rising and falling
like the intake and jab of grief.

Though the kitchen is empty
we ask the violinist to stay
for the night. My friends make eyes
at him, he, them.
They will sort it out.

The bed will no longer frighten them.  

Knowing my place, I go out
to buy the makings for dinner.
The key to my friend’s apartment
weighs me down. Steps home,
with bags of groceries
weigh me down more until I move
like one in a dream who cannot
get one foot in front of another.

There is the door again.
Here in my hand, the key.
So many gone
in Love’s holocaust,
names and statistics,
a patchwork quilt
instead of a graveyard.

I suddenly know
that I have dreamt all this
and will awaken soon.
Did Eric, grieving, play
for us, or for no one?

Ask not for whom
the rent is paid:
for the dead,
or for the ghosts,
traipsing up stairs
from the Greyhound bus,
each holding the keys
to that apartment?