2Grandfather's Violin
As a child, I always looked forward to Sunday afternoons. Because of this, church was torture. Dressed to the nines in my white starched shirt complete with Mickey Mouse tie, it took all of my five-year-old willpower not to jump out of the pew in anticipation. Only my mother's grip on my arm and the warning looks from my father kept me in my seat, hands folded in my lap. It also helped that my parents made me promise to be good or else afterward I wouldn't be allowed to go to Grandfather's house.
I guess to most people, my Grandfather was a hard man. My parents—and my brother when he was old enough—never understood why I would want to spend my entire Sunday afternoon at his house. Even my mother, who was his only daughter, kept her contact with him to the minimum: Thanksgiving, Christmas, and a curt 'hello' when she dropped me off at his house.
"But Andrew," she would kneel down to look me in the eyes, as if she suspected to catch me at lying, "Wouldn't you rather go ride bikes with your friend George? Or we could take you to the park? Maybe we could even get ice cream!" She always looked at me so hopefully that I almost wanted to say 'Yes.' But the lure of Grandfather's house was far stronger than she imagined.
"No," I always baffled her with my answer, "I want to visit Grandfather."
And although I could tell she was skeptical, she never spoke another word on the subject, apart from the weekly questioning. Eventually she didn't even bother with that. Though she never understood it, she learned to accept it.
The first time I heard Grandfather play it was a rainy Sunday afternoon. My parents had just dropped me off at his house right before rushing my mother to the hospital for what would soon be the birth of my little brother, Julius.
"Stay in here," he led me into the living room, sat down stiffly in one of the old armchairs and began to read. His gray eyebrows dipped into a scowl as he squinted at the small print.
"What are you reading?"
He didn't even look up. "A book."
"But what's it about?"
"I won't know if you keep bothering me."
"Oh, sorry," I turned to look around the room as he went back to his book. There wasn't really much there to entertain a five-year-old boy: a pair of blue and white armchairs and a threadbare rug to cover the scuffed wood floor. Even the view from the one dirty window—it looked like it hadn't been washed since after my grandmother died, the same day I was born—wasn't worth standing on tiptoe to see. Glancing towards Grandfather absorbed in his book, I snuck down the hall, quickly squashing the rising feelings of guilt. After all, he never really specified where 'here' was, now did he?
I opened the first door I came to and was disappointed to only find an overstuffed closet. Oh well, I shrugged, maybe there was something interesting in there. It couldn't hurt to look.
Finally, after what seemed like hours of digging through the clutter and finding nothing more interesting than a pair of shoes that looked like they had once belonged to Big Foot, I was ready to give up and head back into the living room. But then, looking up, I saw it: a battered old violin case sleeping on the very top shelf. Determination rushed through me. I had to have it.
The next thing I knew, I was scaling a mountain of my own creation composed of suitcases and old shoe boxes. And then finally, my hands closed over the graying case. I half-ran half-fell back down and rushed to open up the newfound treasure. Even beneath the light of the closet's one sputtering light bulb, the wood shone like baked honey. I took the violin out of the case, tracing the delicate curlicues with my small fingers.
"What are you doing?" the voice broke harshly through my reverie.
"G-Grandfather!"
His voice was so low it rumbled. "I said, what do you think you're doing?"
"I… I found the violin and" I swallowed, "I just…" the last word trailed off into a whisper as I stood beneath his penetrating gaze, "It was pretty," I finally managed to croak.
To that, he didn't say anything. And for a while we just stood there, my eyes locked with his. I lowered my eyes to trace the grain of the wood floor.
"Would you like to hear it play?" the question surprised me so much, all I could manage was a short nod.
Almost tenderly, he took the violin from its forgotten place in my arms, and with only a short pause to arrange it beneath his chin and raise the bow in a graceful arch, he began.
I almost forgot to breathe. Air wasn't needed at such a time and place; the gentle caress of the violin, no more than a whisper, was enough.
However, the greatest wonder wasn't the swirling color of the notes or even the graceful dancing of the amber instrument, but rather the man at the center of it all. He was a stranger to me. I didn't know this man who'd somehow tamed the wild creature in his arms and, with only patience and deft caresses, coaxed it to sing. Like a musical Van Gogh, he dipped his brush in blues, greens, and all shades of red in order to paint the silence. He wasn't my Grandfather, cool, collected, and remote as the uppermost branches of the old oak; he was someone else entirely.
"Wow," I gazed in awe at the strange man in front of me. I noticed with a sharp twinge of regret that he had stopped playing and was now back to the way I had always seen him: Grandfather, gray and simple.
"Yes, well," he scowled, "when you've been playing as long as I have you'd hope I'd be able to play a simple concerto or two."
I just looked at him.
"What are you staring at?"
"Well…" I petered off, somewhat afraid of his response.
"'Well' what?"
"Well, why haven't you ever played for us before, for mom and dad and me?"
"I have," he gaze left mine and instead began examining his violin. "For your mother, at least. Neither she nor Ethel—that is, your grandmother—ever really cared for it. Said it wasn't their type of music, said only old codgers like me could like it." He glanced at me.
"Oh. Maybe they just weren't listening?"
"Hmph," he turned to face the window and all that could be heard was the ticking of the tall grandfather clock in the hallway. Finally, after what seemed like hours he turned back to face me. His eyes met mine for a second.
"Would you like to hear another?" he finally broke the silence.
I couldn't help but grin. "Yes."
And so began a tradition.
After that, things were never quite the same between us. Even when he was no longer the musician he still wasn't quite the same Grandfather, but rather a mixture of the two. And the more I heard him play, the more I watched the violin transform him, the more my fingertips itched to do the same. Eventually I convinced myself that even holding the violin would be enough. I wouldn't have to play, just touch it. For weeks this possibility haunted me, until finally, I had no choice. I resolved to ask him.
"Grandfather?"
He paused in putting away the violin after another playing session to look at me, brushing a strand of sweaty, gray hair out of his face. "Yes?"
"Can I… " my courage flickered, but I somehow managed to force the words out anyway, "Can I hold it?"
For a moment, a timid glimmer of… something lit up his eyes. "Of course," he said and handed it to me with all the care of a new father holding his child.
In my small arms, the violin that had looked so graceful just moments before suddenly transformed into something large and unwieldy. I fumbled to hold it as I had seen Grandfather do hundreds of times.
"Here," he arranged it correctly, guiding my small, smooth hands with his large, rough ones. My fingers could barely reach the end of the fingerboard. Nevertheless, my mind instantly filled with pictures of me, the great child prodigy, playing Mozart and all the other famous dead composers one after another, without even breaking a sweat. How my parents would applaud. Imagine, their little boy, a famous musician! It couldn't be too hard, I reasoned. So, striking a pose, I drew the bow across the strings with a flourish. To my dismay, it sounded much more like the neighbor's cat howling than Mozart. And for the first time, I heard Grandfather laugh.
He must have seen my alarmed expression and assumed it was at my awful playing. "Don't worry," he said, wiping the tears of mirth from his eyes, "I'll teach you. I promise." And Grandfather always kept his promises.
From then on, our Sunday afternoons changed. No longer was I the captive audience and he the wondrous performer. No, on that afternoon our relationship changed to that of a quieter, more satisfying kind; we became student and teacher.
At first, my playing still sounded more like a dying animal than music. I would scrape and screech for hours without any result other than sore fingers, tired arms, and frustration. Thankfully, Grandfather had enough patience for both of us.
"No," he would tell me gently whenever a sour note came out—which was far too often in my opinion—then move my fingers into the correct position, "Like this." He never yelled, never scolded, merely guided me with soft words and careful hands even while I complained about my lack of progress.
"All things take time, Andrew," he would say, "And the best always take the most."
And as usual, he was right.
It was late October, and for the first time in over four years I found myself in the tattered living room where everything had begun so long ago. Though now I was tall enough to look through the window without standing on tiptoe, it was still as filthy as ever. I smiled. Some things never change.
"Ah, there you are," Grandfather shuffled into the room carrying two glasses full of water. He still limped a little from the hip replacement in March, I noted. "Here," he handed me a glass.
"So," I began after he had settled in the old blue armchair across from mine, "How are things?"
"Good as can be expected. How was graduation?"
"Wonderful," I grinned and let my legs stretch out over the hole-ridden rug, "As much fun as college was, it's great knowing I can finally leave classes and papers and professors behind and enter the real world. I can't wait; I have an audition on Friday for an opening in the symphony. One of the senior violinists just recently retired." Fiddling with a button on my shirt, I glanced up to see Grandfather watching me with that searching gaze of his. "I think I really have a chance."
"Good."
I reached down to where I had set the old battered violin case. He'd given the violin to me as a high school graduation gift. That was around when the arthritis in his hands had first started setting in. Within the past few years playing had been getting harder and harder and he'd known it was only a matter of time before he couldn't play at all. Even still, it was only with great difficulty that he'd given it up to me. It was the greatest gift I ever received, and treated it as so. But despite my diligent care, the case was now beginning to fall apart. It was inevitable; nothing lasted forever. I would have to get a new one soon, but for now I couldn't quite bare to part with the old one. It held too many memories.
I snapped open the scuffed latches and began taking out the violin. "I figured you'd like to hear the piece I played for my senior project. It's Tchaikovsky."
For a moment his gaze lingered on the instrument in my hand. "Of course."
With great care and hard-earned patience, I tuned the strings, adjusting the tuning pegs until everything sounded perfect. Finally, I looked back up from the violin to the man responsible for sparking everything. "Grandfather…"
"Yes?"
"Just, thank you. Thank you for everything. I wouldn't be here if it weren't for you."
His lips crept into a small smile. "I had nothing to do with it, Andrew. You are responsible for being where you are, no one else."
All I could do was stand there with a stupid grin on my face.
"Go now," he waved his hand impatiently, "Play."
So I did.
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