That pair of hands

His only hand, the left one, remained suspended over the keys, like an eagle about to suddenly descend on a prey, while the final vibrations of the final notes of the final piece slowly disappeared in time. Then, with a little flick, it nervously went up, then calmly down, to rest on the pianist’s lap, an only child with a single father.

The young man opened his eyes and lifted his face to the clapping crowd. Clap clap clap clap, such a racket applauding made, he always felt, while those people with two hands brought them crashing down onto one another, as if careless of the magical duality of their simultaneous existence. His eyes idly scanned the crowd, rebuffed by the noise until, with a silent bang, his consciousness suddenly snapped awake, alerted to a strange vision.

His gaze had been arrested by the sight of a trembling old man, all dressed up in full military uniform, his sunken chest heavily covered by war medals clinking in unison as the ancient soldier stood, shaking from years and feeling, looking gratefully at the musician. He probably could not see anything, blinded as he was by a wall of tears, and most likely did not hear the clapping, so engrossed he was in his own emotion.

He, alone in this noisy room, was not clapping: instead, reminiscent of those black athletes defying white power, he had raised his right fist, his solitary hand, to the sky and the pianist, while on his left side gently rested the remaining stump of the left arm that stayed in the trenches.

And the pianist could not take his eyes off him, although the vision soon grew blurry. At last he found in himself the answer and quietly raised his left fist; the two men, isolated from the multitude, finally formed that pair of hands.