The Geographer's Library

The Geographer’ s Library
sends me this article, and it says that the accordion and the harmonica both
actually come from a Chinese instrument called a sheng. I think that’s it: a
sheng, which he also called a mouth organ. Which is funny, ’cause that’s what
my gammy—Gammy’s what I always called my grandmother, and she’s from
Denmark—what she used to call the harmonica is a mouth organ. Just kind of
funny. Anyway, you know anything about that? Maybe that’s right or not,
something I can tell my buddy to maybe win a bar bet or two?”
Yaofan exhaled heavily but still refused to turn around. Wang entered
with Chet’s dinner—the same thing, in fact, that Yaofan was eating—and
when he did, he saw Chet sitting in his chair smirking and not saying anything
and Yaofan sitting similarly silent and bolt upright with his back to the
talkative American, and he remembered keeping his sisters in one corner of
their hut in Lengshuitan when his parents were fighting, remembered the
contaminated air and the silences stiff and cold as batter, and he nearly
dropped Chet’s dinner in his lap, such was his hurry to leave. Yaofan turned
around when he heard the plate clatter on the table.
“Anything about what?”
“About whether accordions come from shengs,” Chet answered, keeping
any hint of a tremor or rise from his voice, remaining as calm as he could.
“Ah. No. Unfortunately, no, I don’t.”
“Gee, that’s too bad. Because what I was thinking was, my buddy’s fortyfifth
birthday is coming up, so I was thinking I’d like to buy him a sheng. I
don’t have a wife or kids, and he’s my oldest pal, so I really could afford a
pretty penny.”
Yaofan looked coolly at Chet and then smiled and lowered his eyes. He
was about to turn his attention back to his neglected dinner and more neglected
wife when Chet asked, “So you don’t know?”
“Don’t know what?”
“Don’t know where I could look for a sheng. Like I said, I really don’t
think money will be a problem.”
“Mr....”
“Muncie’s my last name. People just call me Chet, though.”
“Chet. Yes, Chet, I unfortunately have no idea where you could procure a
Chinese instrument. There are slightly more than one billion Chinese people
187