I don't expect you to be an expert on harmonicas or anything. I'm not an expert. Don't let the title fool you — this story isn't really about harmonicas. But I'm hoping that maybe you've seen one before or maybe even held one in your hands. If you've held one before, you surely got the urge to lift it up to your lips and blow on it to see what kind of noise it would make. A trumpet makes a terrible noise the first time you ever blow on it, if you can get it to make a sound at all. A violin sounds like a cat screaming the first time you ever draw a bow across it. A harmonica is more forgiving — your first note always sounds beautiful.
You don't need to have ever played a harmonica, but it might help you to understand my grandfather. He sold harmonicas.
He sold other things too. He sold tiny cameras that fit in the palm of your hand. He sold pencil sharpeners that were shaped like popular cartoon characters. If for whatever reason, you needed a pencil box that was shaped like a car, you could find it in my grandfather's store.
There were always things from his store in the apartment. If he overstocked an item or if it wasn't selling as well as he'd hoped, he'd bring it home with him. At any one time, there were three drawers full of "junk" from the store. Now, eighteen years since the store closed, seventeen years since my grandfather's death, the only thing left is the harmonicas. My grandmother keeps them in a drawer in the bedroom, below the drawer with the socks and the underwear.
I never got to see my grandfather's store. I was six years old when he passed away. I only have vague memories of him smelling of cigars and bouncing me on his big belly. We used to arm wrestle on the bed — in retrospect, I think he was letting me win. I know what my grandfather looks like — I could pick him out of a line-up. I own two photographs of him. The first is of him as a young man, taken when he was going off to war. The photograph is in black and white, but I've been told he was nicknamed "Red" because of his hair color. The second photograph is of him holding me when I was first born. In this picture, his hair is white and disheveled.
I have one of his harmonicas, tucked away safely in a drawer in my room. It's protected from dust by a felt container, so that when I open it, the metal is still shiny enough to allow me to see my reflection. There are ten tiny holes in the side, waiting for me to blow on them. I haven't put my lips on a harmonica in years, but if I close my eyes, I can still taste the cold bitter metal.
Since my grandfather's death, my grandmother has distributed the remaining harmonicas with care. She gives them away as gifts, only to family and to the people she deems to be worthy of them. It is the greatest compliment of all to be given a harmonica by my grandmother.
The largest harmonica was presented as a gift to my stepfather Martin, soon after he and my mother were married. As Martin waited in the living room of my grandmother's apartment, she retrieved a shiny metal harmonica that was over a foot long. She pushed the harmonica into his hands. "Here," she said.
"I didn't know they made them this big," Martin commented, probably wondering what on earth he was going to do with a foot-long harmonica.
"My husband sold them," my grandmother said with a shrug. She said her biggest regret was that my grandfather never got to meet his daughter's new husband, to see that she was taken care of. My grandfather had a heart attack two years after his only daughter lost her first husband to another woman, one year after he lost his business to bankruptcy. My mother and my grandmother still argue over which one killed him. Or maybe it was the cigars.
My grandmother hasn't been giving away many harmonicas lately. After eighteen years, there are only two left in the drawer and she seems to be hanging onto them. When I ask her about it, she tells me that she's waiting to give them to "the right person."
But I have a theory of my own. I think she's keeping those two harmonicas for the two of them: one for her and one for her husband, my grandfather. But I don't know; like I said, I'm no expert on harmonicas.