The Plague Of Doves

Antone reflects on how much he likes Shamengwa, especially considering the effort the old man puts into self-care and daily grooming. But what Antone finds the most impressive about Shamengwa is his ability to use his disfigured arm to play the fiddle. “The inside became the outside when Shamengwa played music” (196); his music is highly emotive, connoting alternately deep-seated joy and hidden terror so he isn’t always wanted at parties, but Geraldine drives him to contests that he wins. Shamengwa doesn’t care about the trophies, allowing Evelina to play with and break them, but he zealously cares for his violin.

One morning, Geraldine comes over to cut Shamengwa’s hair and finds her uncle tied to his bed and the violin gone. Like everyone else, Antone knows Corwin Peace, a troubled kid turned drug dealer and thief, has stolen the violin. Antone keeps track of Corwin, just like the police do, but when questioned Corwin claims he’d never steal an old man’s violin. He even makes the appearance of going straight for a bit, staying sober and getting a job.

Without the violin, Shamengwa’s health starts to fail, and Antone sits with him to mourn the loss of music together. He notices that Shamengwa is unkempt, indicating the man’s downward spiral. They drink tea, and Antone offers to buy Shamengwa a new fiddle. Geraldine pressures Shamengwa into telling the story of the two fiddles: his father’s, and this latest one which came to him in a dream.

The First Fiddle

Shamengwa explains that at the age of four, his infant brother died. At that point, his father stops playing the fiddle, and his mother’s grief causes her to neglect him. Seraph then goes away with their half-brother to enter into the priesthood, leaving Shamengwa alone with his neglectful parents and sister, who takes over his mother’s duties. One day, Shamengwa fakes sick to get out of church and finds his father’s fiddle, plays it, and puts it back before anyone comes home. “After that day, I contrived, as often as I could, to stay alone in the house. As soon as everyone was gone I took the fiddle […] I learned how to play it one note at a time” (202). Shamengwa practices whenever he can, even when his parents are home, as long as the wind blows the right direction, carrying his music away. His mother hears it one day, but he pretends she has gone crazy, which pains his father.

Shamengwa’s sister goes to boarding school, and Shamengwa is utterly alone, often having to drink his supper from the cows he milks because his parents forget to feed him. A cow kicks him and breaks his arm, but his parents do not take him to the doctor. He ties the arm so he can still play the violin, making it heal oddly. Because of his arm, the school children call him Shamengwa, a butterfly, and Shamengwa doesn’t like this name at first so he has no friends except his violin. Shamengwa’s father catches him playing and listens. His father leaves the next day, taking the violin with him.

After months of grief, Shamengwa has a dream where a violin tells him to go to the lake and wait for it. Shamengwa waits for three days before he sees an abandoned canoe. He swims out and finds a fiddle. He never plays another violin.

Silent Passage

Back in the present day, Corwin retrieves the violin from a ceiling panel in the basement where he’s staying and hitches a ride to the mall in Fargo to sell it. He wears his leather jacket, aware of how attractive he is, and fantasizes about being a rock star. He fails to sell it at the music store. He takes out the violin in the food court, planning to play it for money, but he ends up making a terrible screech that gets everyone’s attention. He pretends to play the violin dramatically and receives huge applause when he stops.

The Fire

The police pick up Corwin pretending to play the fiddle and bring him to Antone. Antone decides Corwin “will either learn to play the violin, or he would do the time. In truth, I didn’t know who was being punished, the boy or the old man” (209). At first, Corwin is terrible, and Antone doubts the plan will work, but Corwin practices diligently every day with Shamengwa. After hearing Corwin play, Antone compliments Shamengwa, who is proud of Corwin. Shamengwa’s health improves and Antone is pleased that his decision did not end in disaster. Corwin continues his lessons even after the punishment is lifted, and he improves dramatically.

Shamengwa dies peacefully, although Seraph is speechless and broken at the loss of his brother. During the funeral, Father Cassidy mistakenly gives a eulogy for Seraph, and Seraph turns back into his old self, refusing to let anyone interrupt Cassidy until he finishes. Cassidy rails against Seraph’s sinful and blasphemous life, which only increases Seraph’s amusement. Eventually, Clemence can’t take it anymore and takes the violin out of Shamengwa’s coffin, brandishing it at Cassidy, who realizes his mistake and falls silent. Geraldine gives the violin to Corwin in accordance with Shamengwa’s wishes. A grieving Corwin plays one of Shamengwa’s favorite songs, and as everyone weeps he smashes the violin on the railing before putting it in Shamengwa’s coffin. Antone tries to intercede but sees a slip of paper in the remains of the violin which he puts in his pocket and sits back down. He forgets about it until later that evening, when he reads it.

Letter

The note in the violin was a letter Henri writes to Lafayette, Henri speaks of how they inherited the violin from their father, although it was originally a priest’s. Both brothers want the violin for themselves: “[Each] of us had given years of practice, each of us had whispered into her hollow our despairs and taken hold of her joys” (214). Their father’s will stipulates that they must race in canoes for it. Before the race, Henri coats one of the sides of Lafayette’s canoe with pitch to throw off the balance. During the race, they laugh and are congenial, and Henri feels guilty, so he suggests they share it. Lafayette jokingly refuses and takes a secret shortcut. Henri realizes Lafayette has pierced the bottom of his canoe as well. A great storm comes, which helps Henri, although he later realizes that he has unwittingly caused Lafayette’s death in the storm. Henri waits for his brother at the end of the race, mournfully playing the violin. When he is finished, he puts it back in his canoe, sending it to meet his brother.

Antone realizes that the “fiddle had searched long for Corwin” (216), although he realizes there is a twenty-year gap between Henri releasing it and Shamengwa finding it. Antone is astounded when he describes it to Geraldine, who merely acknowledges that people know nothing. Antone marries Geraldine and they adopt Corwin, who grows up to be a musician.