The Locked Drawer

The first chapter of the novel I am working on now, could also stand on its own—as a short story. Its meaning and theme here, are somewhat more general than what will develop in the novel. Here it's more like a song. I am sure you will enjoy it.

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He always kept his desk drawer locked.

It's not a crime. Many people do. Some have no reason at all. Look in, and all you will find are staples and rubber bands. Others have a vague one. They keep their cheque book and the odd paper that must be hidden. But a desk drawer is not the place a man should normally keep his valuables or important secrets. It is in plain view and usually easy to break open. The very first place a burglar would visit. No. Important documents, valuables, even petty cash are best kept out of sight—in a hidden safe, or better still, a safety deposit box in a bank vault.

Dad had both. He kept his cheque book, petty cash and his daily valuables in a small safe, somewhere in his bedroom closet. His deeds, stocks and real valuables were in his safety deposit box. I knew exactly what was in each of these two places because I had access to them.

It was the inside of his desk drawer I had never seen.

The wooden desk had always been there. It had probably arrived in the house before I did. And the desk drawer had always been locked. Dad kept the key on his person at all times. It looked like an ordinary desk key. Nothing too big or unusual. But it was unique. You could take it to all the locksmiths you wanted and they couldn't help you. They had nothing like it. To copy it, you needed a sophisticated machine shop. Dad kept his keys in a ring and he was liberal with them. I could borrow his car, open his safe or visit the attic. But the desk drawer key was something different. He kept it separate. When I was young he allowed me to touch it and even play with it. Of course I could never use it. At the end he always took it away from me and returned it to one of his pockets. I don't know what he did with it at night or when he fell sick in bed. I had never seen it on his night table or anywhere else. Did he stuff it in his underpants?

When I was older, I once suggested that he should transfer the desk drawer contents to the safety deposit box, and keep his pens and pencils there like everyone else. He wouldn't hear of it.

“It's secure enough,” he had said. “The drawer is actually made of steel. It's deeply encased in the desk and presents no edges or handles to help you get a grip and tear it out of there. The lock operates a number of bolts that secure it around the perimeter. And the desk itself is made of mahogany. It's so heavy you practically need a crane to lift it.”

“Why lift it? All they need is a good drill.”

“They'd need a damn good drill. That steel is really thick. Try it some day.”

I would have liked to.

“Dad, what is so special about this drawer of yours? What's in it?”

“Oh nothing” he had said and looked away. “What do you think?”

I had thought many things. When I was a boy I was sure it was packed to the rims with candies and chocolate. But this couldn't be true because a little later on I seem to remember that that's where he kept the solution manuals to my maths and science texts. When I reached puberty, he must have replaced the solution manuals with an ample supply of Playboys which he promptly sprinkled with Hustlers near the end of my adolescence. By the time I was approaching twenty-one I suspected that the drawer held my adoption papers.

Dad and his wife couldn't have a child of their own so they adopted me while I was still a baby. A few years later his wife died and dad didn't remarry. That's why I always thought of the woman in the family album as his wife. She was not my mom. I didn't have one. There was a woman that had given birth to me, but then she didn't want me and gave me away. Could I call such a woman mom? I just had a dad. He stood by me like a real dad and mom combined. He did all he could and hired help for what he couldn't. Things worked out well. I grew up. Did I really want to know who my real parents were? Did I want to put faces and names to the two people who should have taken care of me but instead decided to give me away? I decided I didn't want to know, and dad said he didn't know either.

So dad's locked drawer didn't hold my adoption papers. What was in there then? Could I approach the problem logically? First the locked space wasn't an attic or even a closet. Just a small drawer. Second, it was something dad wanted to keep in the house, near him. Lastly he didn't want to use the closet safe, even though it was just as close and more secure. He wasn't then just hiding something only from the rest of the world. It was something he also wanted to hide from me! I grant you that all men have secrets. That's what makes them adults. And dad seemed a normal, well adjusted man. But in hiding something, maybe he wasn't. Maybe he had a dark side. What else could dad be, besides a good father? Was he a paedophiliac? A serial murderer? The leader of an international terrorist organization? And what did that locked drawer hold? Compromising letters and photographs? Child pornography? A gun used in a murder?

The contents of dad's locked desk drawer was the greatest mystery of my life and I spent a large part of my life trying to solve it. Every instrument or tool I came across, I first envisioned as part of the solution. Could I open the drawer without dad finding out? Could I somehow copy the key? My dreams and nightmares were centred around it. But in time I came to terms with it. Dad had literally taken me off the street and through hard work had given me a good life and a future. Could I not allow him the privacy of a secret? Wasn't he entitled to it? Wasn't every man entitled? The logic was inescapable, and as I matured, it gradually removed my desk drawer curiosity from everyday life. And life went on. I finished school and moved into an apartment of my own. I became busy with my job. Dad eventually got into computers and started to use a laptop. He found it was more comfortable to work from the couch and more convenient in the kitchen or out on the porch. At the end, the large mahogany desk lay forgotten. It was in the same corner of the large living room where it always was, but nobody had a use for it.

One morning dad didn't show up at work but called me from the local hospital. He had gone to have some tests. He was walking down the street, he said, when he collapsed for no apparent reason. He got up of course and visited his doctor who had prescribed the tests. He thought he had a minor problem of some sort. An examination, some tests, a couple of pills and he would return home.

But that wasn't his case.

While in hospital he collapsed again and they asked him to stay overnight. Next morning he found that his own legs couldn't hold him. In a couple of days he couldn't even walk to the bathroom. He started seeing and hearing things that weren't there. The doctors ran more tests and checked the bibliography. They took fluid from his spinal column. He was anxious of his condition, but by the time the doctors had made a diagnosis, he had lost consciousness and we couldn't tell him. Not that we would have told him. They had diagnosed the Guillain–Barré syndrome, a severe, peripheral nerve disorder. It was quite rare, only one case per 100.000 people annually. There was no cure. If he was a younger man, say in his twenties, he would have overcome it in about a month. In another year, through physiotherapy, he would recover most of his bodily functions. He would never fully recover but he would live a useful life. As it was, the doctors gave him a few weeks.

Ten days after he had checked into the hospital for tests, I received a phone call in the middle of the night. In the morning, dad's body was shipped to a funeral home. A nurse handed me his clothes in a large handbag and his valuables in a letter-sized envelope.

It wasn't the happiest of days. There was a knot in my throat and tears ran down my cheeks. But most of all I had this huge bitterness. I didn't expect him to die at 76. And he was the only person that had really cared for me, the only family I ever had.

Now I was alone.

I drove over to his house and got-in with his spare key which I always carried with my own. I thought I would be overcome by sadness but I wasn't. I felt that, somehow, he was still there. Perhaps he was shaving in the bathroom or having a snack in the kitchen. I walked up to his bedroom and left the handbag with his clothes in front of his closet and the large envelope on his night table. God, what was I doing? Was I expecting him to come back and arrange them himself? Perhaps, in time, reality would catch-up with me. As it was, it took an effort to pick-up the shopping bag and empty it into his laundry basket. I next went to his night table and carefully emptied the envelope. I examined dad's wallet and ran my fingers over his watch and his glasses. I thoroughly read his driver's license. I wanted to lie down and cry like a silly woman but I managed. I picked-up his key ring and looked over each individual key. I smiled when I held this unique key which he usually kept separate. It was the key to the mahogany desk drawer he always kept locked. Dad still had it on him, so it was still valuable. I pressed it against my fingers and tried to scratch it with my finger nails. It brought back many memories. I held it for a long while. Then I put it back on his night table.

Funny how I felt that his things were still his things.

When we die we take our unspoken secrets with us. What we have said and what we have done is how people will remember us. But our possessions pass on to our inheritors. I was the only living person dad left behind him so all his things, even his most prized possessions, were now legally and morally mine.

In a swirl of motion, I picked up dad's keys and ran down to the living-room. The unique key turned in the slot and I pulled out the drawer.

It didn't even contain a speck of dust.