GRANPA'S VIOLIN

Washintonian Magazine
November 2003

For 15 years it hung like a totem, encased in glass in the dining room. When people asked whose it was, Mom said, "My Sam's. He played so beautifully." The violin was all we had of my father's. Men seem to leave so few things behind.

All three of us children remembered him strolling around the house, playing tunes of the 1930s and '40s, my mother singing along to favorites like "As Time Goes By." He died before we thought to ask when he'd gotten it, where it was from.

When my son was born three years after my father died, we named him Sam. By luck, perhaps by legacy, and certainly with subtle persuasion, Sam started violin lessons when he turned seven. Often, sitting in my mother's apartment for dinner, we'd look at the violin, standing proud against the wall, and talk about Dad.

One day Sam asked me, "When I'm big enough for a full-size violin, can I play Grandpa's?"

"Maybe," I said, not knowing if the violin could be played, if my mother would allow it, or if my siblings might object. My brother's daughter had started playing, and my mother worried we'd argue over who should have the instrument. Objects can have a life of their own, full of conflict as well as love.

Sam turned ten last year, and by the time of his recital in February he was ready for a full-size violin. My niece had quit playing, so I approached my mother about taking the instrument to Potter's, a master violin shop in Bethesda, to see what shape it was in. She agreed it would be better for the violin to be played, that Sam deserved it, and that Dad would have wanted him to have it.

I took the glass case from the wall, carefully removed the lid, and cut the wires that had kept the violin upright for so many years. My hands trembled as I lifted the instrument out, full of Dad's touch and smell. I remembered him standing behind me playing Beethoven as I struggled to translate the notes on the piano. An intense girl and a tired, hard-working man joined in their love of music and each other.

"This is a Hopf, from the 1820's or 30's," the man at Potter's said as he looked inside the violin. "Your dad probably bought it from an immigrant. It should sound fine with some repairs."

He gave me a look. "This would be pretty valuable, except" -- he adjusted to a scolding tone -- "someone did some pretty poor home repairs on it. They tried to enlarge the f-holes, too -- these open scroll parts on the front. Too bad -- that pretty much ruins its value."

I laughed. Only my father could have made those repairs. He fixed jewelry for a living, and he loved to fix anything else just for the challenge. The results were mostly disastrous.

Anyone who loved him, who knew his cavalier side, his history of running away as a teenager to tramp the country and play his fiddle in vaudeville, would know Dad had made those repairs.

I called my mother from the car. She yelled her laughter: "Oh, Dad did that -- I'm sure of it!"

Potters did a handsome job, and a week later I brought the violin home. I sat at the piano, and Sam and I played together. He smiled with shy delight, somewhere in his heart understanding the history he held.

Taking the violin from Sam, I looked at the places where Dad had fixed it, picturing him looking thoughtful and intent, as he did whenever he worked with his hands.

Those repairs didn't ruin the value of my father's violin. They made it more his own -- and even more precious to us.

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