The Child of Events!

by Teymur Roshdi

  It was late and I had to go back home because that would be my last night among the 'solen' family members . My parents had found a new place and the next day they would move there and I had to help them with the removal . On my way to going back home I was thinking about the attitude and the words of my father . I couldn't understand what in the world has caused this sort of coldness and indifference in his character , and why his behaviour was so as a father , this meeting left such a bitter impact on me and such a hurt that I even forgot the spectacular mocking theatre my siblings created for their amusement .

 

 

  34

  When I arrived at home ,'sweet-uncle' family members were all gathered and had prepared a great dinner with various dishes , because they already knew that it was the last night I was spending with them . I was sat at the dinner table sorrowful and very sad . Solen family always respected my different moods and never tried to impose a particular state of mind or never blamed me for that . Each time I was sad , they used to wait that my state of mind changes . This night I was especially weary and sad and unable to say a word , I couldn't criticize or blame my parents and siblings before them and telling that how much difference I noticed between them and this family I was living among for few years . Sometimes I felt so confused that I couldn't believe this reality and tried to deceive myself by thinking that I was certainly wrong and my biological family couldn't be so bad and all those spectacular mocking theatre and the cold and strange attitude of my father were not really important or maybe I was too sensitive to take all of this against myself and feeling hurt .But a sort of anxiety filled my heart and I was thinking about this fact that how they would accept me and what would happen to me , and then I tried to erase all of this negative feeling and began looking at the bright side of the event and hopping that they will certainly be kind and I thought that maybe the true parents should be so and not otherwise .

  At table I couldn't eat at all . I noticed that 'grand-ma' and the 'sweet-uncle' had cried before because their eyes were reddish and they all were wiping the nose . The funny 'big-brother' of my teacher , in order to break the sad atmosphere which reigned on the dinner room began his pleasantries and recalling the old memories of the funny events which happened in their home while I was a bit younger , so he mentioned that tail-cut horse and the thing I intended to do with the horse hair , at this moment all the family began laughing out of loud and I laughed with them necessarily . Then the 'big-brother' continued his pleasantry and while threating me he said :" be aware , one of these nights when you are sleeping in your bed , at the midnight I will appear with my scissors above your head and will cut your thick hair and would make a shoe-brush which would be unique in the world " , and we all laughed at this silly event and this damaged I caused . After almost one hour we spent at the dinner table , 'sweet-uncle' once again praised all my talents and good qualities and mentioned their great love toward me and then added :" my son , your father is a very intelligent man , a scholar and necessarily a comprehensive man , we are sure that he would be able to fulfill perfectly his fatherhood duty toward you and better than all of us . Be sure that if your father was someone else than him , it would be impossible to confide you to him and to separate you from us . Most of all he is very zealous toward his nation and his homeland and obviously he would never let you stay here in this country and would bring you with him , so we confide you to god and to your family and our very wish is that you become happy wherever you would be , because you deserve the happiness because of your good and unique nature , now I'm sure that you would be a great man because your inner nature is made up of goodness and of all the noble qualities , if someone else was at your place with all the events happened to you , would be lost or would become an evil-doer , I'm sure that someday the whole world would be proud of you , we will pray always for you and we will think about you all of our life ..." . While 'sweet-uncle' was mentioning all of this , 'grand-ma' , 'the bride' and myself were crying for a long time . Now I was sure that 'grand-ma' and 'the bride' after their meeting with my mother and siblings , have told all their impression to the 'sweet-uncle' and I felt that they were really worrying about me and my destiny in that family and surely they noticed that they would not be the sort of family who would care about me . On the other hand , what they could do , they did lot of investigation about my family and especially the 'sweet-uncle' after all his investigations about my father realized that he had better to not involving himself in a struggle with him , knowing that he was an arrogant and selfish man who apart himself considered no one worthy and righteous in the world . Because of a sort of late awakened zeal , he decided to come after his abandoned son and bring him with him if they had to move back to the homeland , and apparently the reasons of such an act or zeal was not clear enough for himself . The only thing which had no meaning to him was the happiness of his abandoned son , because what sort of fatherhood love was this that he left a three years old son in an orphanage, in those troubled and chaotic days of social unrest and cruel and atroce conflicts and wars . All of these deductions forbade the Solen family to intervene in my new life and destiny , also all he heard about the attitude of my mother and what she said about my father caused that 'sweet-uncle' even didn't dare to come visiting my family . Anyway if my parents might follow some sociability rules or if respecting some human principles , they had the duty of coming visiting the Solen family and expressing their gratitude for having took care of me for some years , but apparently they all laughed and mocked any rule or principle in the world , if not they wouldn't abandon their child at all to suffer such a strange and miserable destiny . The Solen family asked me with insistance that I come visiting them regularily and giving of my news after my settlement with my family .

  35

  The next day I went directly to the motel after my school. The welcome of my mother and siblings was cold and indifferent like always. My father wasn't at the motel room and no one knew where he was because his work time was over . My mother and siblings had gathered all the stuff for the removal but didn't move them to the new home as if they were waiting for me to move them all alone to the new place . My siblings by seeing me began exchanging their mocking gestures whose 'code' was only known by them . Without paying attention to their behaviour I begun kindly and with devotion categorizing and giving some order to the stuff for an easy way to bring them to the new place which had only one street distance with the motel . My mother and sister didn't touch anything and my brother just came with me to show the way without bringing any stuff , while I was about crashing under the weight of the things I put on my shoulder , and then he returned back to the motel . In this way I did the removal alone and by my own without the least help from the family members and so I did the distance between the motel and the new place many times till the evening . At the end when I removed all the stuff in the new place I began to install orderly the things in its proper place , and when my work was finished I went searching for them to join their new home . They didn't pay any attention to me and were stalking the way quite arrogantly as if they had found a servant or an errand boy , and it seemed natural to them that this was the duty of a twelve years old boy to do all the removal tasks and serve them . They settled in the new place and it was late and all the day I didn't eat or drink something and I felt exhausted , because of their attitude I didn't dare asking something to eat or to drink , so I sat in a corner and begun revising one of my courses for the school .

  The long hours of the night were spending and I was starving but no one mentioned any dinner or food , everyone in an absolute indifference was busy with their things and it looks like they had already ate few dishes of meal . I was so hungry that I asked my mother to give me a piece of bread if she had any . Then my mother looked at me with such a t
errible and humiliating anger that I remained speechless , and she returned her head somewhere else . My siblings began their mocking gestures , I was about crying and my throat was knotted but I controlled myself . My mother threw at my direction a piece of dry and spoiled piece of bread she kept in some scarf and turned her head back . I took the piece of bread and went to my corner and satisfied my hunger with that dry piece of bread and considered myself filled up . I even didn't dare recalling in my dream the delicious meal I had the last night surrounded by all the kindness , respect , love and generosity of the Solen family showed toward me . It was too late and my mother and siblings intended to sleep but in all my astonishment I noticed that my father was still out and I couldn't understand how comes that the responsible of a family just leave his wife and children to their own

  the day of the removal and nobody knows where he was and what he was doing . Anyway I was so tired and exhausted that I felt asleep .

  Next day , early in the morning , the tiredness and the sorrow of the previous day have been removed by the some hours of sleep and rest I could get . When I opened my eyes , my glance encountered the quiet and indifferent look of my mother . Out of gladness I began smiling because I was thaught that with a smile and with love you can comfort all pain . But contrary to my expectation , my mother interpreted my smile as a sort of silly carelessness and her look became more harsh and more cold and then with an unpleasant tone she said :"wake up , how much you want sleep ? hurry up and prepare the tea , the children will wake up now and they want drinking tea , the tea should be ready for them ..." . Gradually I was learning to expect nothing from her , so I stood up quickly and put my pillow in a corner of the room , that pillow was my only thing for sleep , not any blanket or mattress , nothing, just a single old pillow . She pronounced those words with such a cold and harsh tone as if she was giving an order to her servant for the sake and for the comfort of 'her children' , she didn't consider me as her child at all . As I learned in the 'charitable woman' contryside house , after almost two years , I prepared the tea . When the children woke up , without any greeting word or good-morning , began laughing quietly , they didn't dare expressing themselves because they were fearing my father who was still sleeping . I even didn 't know when he came back home and at what hour of the night . So the children couldn't laugh openly and freely or mocking me , because while I was preparing the tea , seemingly my face got black stains because of the coal I might use to lighting the 'samovar' and this looked funny to them and they were breathless out of laugh . But the move and waking up of my father frose all smile and laugh on their face . With his usual coldness and indifference , without the least word he went out in the garden , even outside , the children didn't dare laughing openly or making some noise . When he came back in the room the breakfast things were ready on the floor and he sat down . It was a weekend day and my father wouldn't go out for his work . Although I heard that he was a very learned man , but he didn't care at all about the study of their children who came at this town leaving their non-finished studies , and if I didn't recommand them to my teacher 'mr.solen' and if my schoolmate , the girl who promised to help them for their admission in the school , maybe their studies would be suspended completely that year . I was really astonished about my father who was so indifferent and so careless about everything and so empty of the least sense of responsibility .

  My father after taking his breakfast begun praising all my intelligence , talents and competence in doing perfectly everything and so he wanted that I become an example for his other children , then he deduced that because of my smartness it would be better that since now I get the responsibility of all the shopping duties in the house . He said that and took a piece of coin in his pocket and gave it to me for going buying some meat . Without a single word I went out quickly and run for finding a butcher , because in the neighbourhood there was not any butcher and I might go till the big place market . I bought the meat and once again I run many kilometers of distance and arrived at home breathless . In that weekend , my father intended preparing a special meal himself . He took the meat from my hand and once opened the paper around and examined it , frowned and shouted violently :"what is this sort of meat you bought ? didn't you have eyes ? don't you see that this meat is useless ? hurry up and return back this meat to the butcher and tell him to give you a good meat ! I thought that this donkey understands something , what an idiot kid is this , unable even to buy a meat , what is this sort of moron kid ..." . My father just like an automatic machine was talking non-stop and was expressing his anger by swearing and formulating humiliating insults about me and was repeating his insults . I was paralyzed by this reaction and I felt that the blood has been frosen in my body , trembling I took the meat and once again I run to the market place where the butcher store was located . I told the butcher to take the meat and to give me a better meat . The butcher groaning took the meat and threw it somewhere in the store and with all his anger gave me a fresh and good meat covered by some paper . There I examined the meat , it seemed to me a very good meat and once again in a hurry I began running all the long distance to the home .

  I remembered all the years I spent in the orphanage , at the 'charitable woman' house , and where in the countryside I was busy with the sheepherding work and lived in the cabin of the old servant , and then I remembered all the violence and the atrocity I was witnessing or was the victim myself, none of those had humiliated me at this level that I was in the first day of my father's home . In comparison with all the insults , hatred and the humiliating swearings my father repeated non-stop against me , I noticed that the sharp knife of 'gorgon' on my throat , threating to cut my head was more bearable than the hatred in the swearings and the insults of my father . This time I was really miserable in the highest meaning of this word . Until then I thought that I have been humiliated at the 'charitable woman' s house , when I was sheepherding I imagined that there is not any kid in the world lower and more forgotten than me . But in that morning , at my father's home , the behaviour of my father caused that I praised that 'charitable woman' who was just a stranger and if she didn't love me , she was right because I was just a stranger kid at her home and I wasn't her child and despite of this fact she still kept me in her home and gave me shelter and never humiliated me in this manner and never I heard a single swear or insult from her despite of her indifference toward me .

 

  This time my arrival to the home lasted longer because I had to wait at the butcher store because of all the clients , on the other hand I was very tired because of all my running , the muscles of my legs were so contracted that I was unable running fastly . Anyway breathless I arrived at home and put the meat in front of my father in all fear and trembling .

  My father frowning and with eyes full of anger took the meat and begun examining the meat . In a second he threw the meat violently at my face from the distance he had with me and said :" go , go... moron ! what an idiot kid , he has not even the least common sense to buy a meat , this meat is so spoiled that it smells ! hurry up and go give it back and bring me the money , we don't want any meat ...! . My face lost its sensation because of the violence of the meat shot and was stood up stupefyied . I took the meat from the floor and meanwhile I noticed that my mother and my siblings were sharing this anger and hatred of my father and were smiling with satisfaction , approving my father's insults and behaviour as if they were enjoying my humiliation and the siblings were hardly controlling their mockery and laughing . Dizzy and astound once again I went out and while crying I run all the long distance to the butcher store , this time when the butcher saw me began swearing and looking at me with all his anger and then threw the piece of coin somewhere on the ground and took the meat . Now I have been so humiliated in my father home that the reaction of the butcher didn't touch me anymore and considered it normal . I put the tiny piece of coin in the small pocket of my shirt and left the butcher's
store . I went back home with an indescribable feeling of failure . Once in front of my father I began searching for the tiny coin in my small pocket but at my astonishment I couldn't find it . My father without looking at me tended his hand to take the piece of coin . I searched hard for finding the tiny coin but not any trace of it . At that moment I found myself in such a pathetic situation that even now by recalling it I want to cry . I was terrifyied and as long I was searching for it the intensity of my terror and fear was becoming more and more dreadful , because I searched all my pockets but not any trace of the coin . Some pairs of curious and suspicious eyes were observing me . My body was covered by my cold sweat and I could become crazy . My father shouted with anger :" hurry up , give me back the money , somebody else would go buying , you didn't show yourself worth of this task !" . I was paralyzed out of fear and stupefaction , once again he shouted and I could just say that seemingly the coin has been lost from my pocket ...My father by hearing my answer began laughing long and bitterly and with a mocking tone said :" what ? you want cheating you tricker ? you want deceive me ? look at this , not even two days in the father home and he wants cheating me ... I don't accept this sort of trickery , go quickly and find the money if not you are not allowed to come back home , if since the first day you begin your stay with thievery and trickery , only god knows the bitter end , look at this tiny creature who knows well the way of thievery ...." . I was so stupefied by all these inculpating and slanderous words that I could just move and getting out and once outdoor I began crying so long because of my hurt . I didn't expect that my mother come consoling me , I already knew that such an expectation was vain . But my very surprise was because of my father reaction , he didn't notice that I spent hundred times more money than that piece of coin lost on the butcher way , for buying lot of priceless gifts for my family members . I saved that money during the time I was with the Solen family and I spent all of my saving for them , moreover I offered all the things which were precious to me , the books and the different toys and games to my siblings , the things which were each one a souvenir from the people and the events I divided generously among my family members and now my father inculpated me for the thief of a tiny coin of the meat . I didn't need any money , on the other hand my education was at such a point that I considered the thievery an act as mean and as horrible as a crime and now I have been inculpated for something I hated most of all in the world . I was trembling and didn't know what to do or where to go and was thinking about this first day I was spending at my father's home and about this phrase that if I don't find the money I'm not allowed coming back home .