by A G Mogan
A shudder runs through my body at the thought of a similar fate descending upon me. What’s more, the likelihood of me having been conceived in that perverse, disgusting, immoral way makes my hair stand on end.
Two years after Edmund’s birth, Mother brought another baby into this world, a girl Father named Paula. She proved stronger than my little brother. However, we all soon learned that she was a bit on the retarded side. Years later, I learned that intimate relationships with members of one’s immediate family will produce off-spring that are damaged mentally or physically, or even both.
With Edmund’s passing, however, I think of nothing but Mother’s suffering. Even though my brother’s death saddens me deeply, it’s Mother’s pain that hurts me the most.
“My dear child,” she says one evening, as we lie in bed long past my bedtime. “What in the world would I be without you?” I don’t reply and just let my tears fall unbridled. She speaks in little whispers, lest Father hear us. He can’t stand tears. Idle tears, he calls them. He only enjoys the tears we cry when he whips us with his leather belt.
“My heart is broken … not for a single moment … did I think my children would perish before me…” My soul cringes, my idle tears burn my cheeks. “I didn’t think I could bear so much pain … if it wasn’t for you … ” She squeezes me to her chest and I can hear her heart beating. It is a delicate sound, like that of a vintage clock, faintly ticking off each second, knowing that it might stop at any moment.
I want to howl, grab her by the hand, and run … run away from our pain, run away from the monster.
“He is the cause of everything bad in our lives!” The words spill out as I wrench free of her embrace.
“It is our duty, child, to take care of your father.”
“He doesn’t deserve you! He doesn’t deserve you caring for him, or us loving him … nothing! He deserves nothing!” My voice hisses beyond a whisper as I smack my palm with my fist.
“Shhh, Adi! Be quiet! He must not hear us!” She covers my mouth again; as she usually does when in fear that my unrestrained words will attract Father’s wrath.
I push her hand aside and jump to my feet. “He’s a monster! He’s the devil! A burden to you, to us all! Sometimes I feel I want to … to … see him dead!”
“Adi! Don’t speak so, child!”
“And why not?” I am pacing now, beating out the carpets surrounding the bed. “If only I were older! I would’ve killed the beast myself!”
Startled by my own words, I stop short, then sit on the edge of the bed. Mother takes my face in her hands and gently kisses my forehead.
“My dear cub, he is your father, and therefore, half of you. Hating him would only mean hating yourself.”
Her words sound wise, far beyond my understanding. Yet for some reason, they stick with me, the same way a story you can’t quite understand remains with you, if only to mock your inability to understand it. In a bit over three decades, I will hear these wise words again.
“I was …” I begin, kneading my hands. “Did he hurt you? That day, when I fell into the river, did he hurt you?” Her face flushes bright crimson, her eyes betray panic. Her mouth moves, but she fails to speak. “I heard you! I saw you! Did he hurt you?” I’m screaming now and violently shaking her by the shoulders.
“What have we done?” She moans and raises her eyes to look at the ceiling, as if addressing God.
But I don’t want anyone else in here! I want her to answer me! Not God! Me!
I pull back and throw myself on my knees, clasping my hands together as if in prayer. If Mother’s God is above, mine is in front of me, sitting on my bed.
“You must no longer let him do that to you! Promise me! Promise me you will no longer let him!”
“Forgive me, child! You should never have seen that!” Her quavering voice barely gets the words out, as her weeping eyes glitter like sapphires.
“But I did see it! And still see it, in my mind! Every day!”
She looks again at the ceiling. “Then, I am cursed. Forever cursed. Please forgive him — I have forgiven him.”
Her eyes beg, her heart begs, her outstretched arms beg me to come back to them — to forget, to forgive.
“Never! Do you hear me? Never! I will avenge you! All my life, I will seek to avenge you!”
She jumps to cover my mouth again and clamps me tightly to her chest. Once again, I hear her heart, racing now, ready to pop out of her chest.
Her warmth, her breath, even her hammering heart, calms my raging spirit. Yet my hatred toward Father continues to eat me inside. I must fight the selfish bastard. I must destroy this monster of endless abuse and incest … incest that killed my little brothers and is now trying to destroy me, too.
Mother was wrong. It’s not she that’s cursed. It’s not she that will forever carry the shame and guilt.
It is me.
The pain Mother’s suffering inflicts on me is merely the culmination of the wretchedness following me everywhere. I begin to believe that my life will be nothing but a long ditch of bitterness, aimed at stifling my will to live.
In my sixth year of life, Father retires from work and decides to move us back to the country of my birth, Austria. Our new home is in Leonding, a city located only a few miles southeast of the great city of Linz.
My first impression of the farmhouse is an unfavorable one. Every hinge on the wide wooden doors creak, keeping me awake several nights in a row, and causing me to cast my gaze in all directions, in fear of something I can’t quite define. Who knows whether the whispered folklore of ghosts and other invisible things rummaging through the house on cold stormy nights is really true? Reinforcing my nightly consternation is the fact that the city’s cemetery is right behind our house.
However, even though I hate this new house I was coerced to move into, the stretch of land surrounding it is pure bliss. The boundless fields of green grass and poppy flowers, the vast azure sky above my bare head, and the freedom to romp happily and carelessly, away from everyone and everything, allows me to forget the gloom and stifling air of our home, if only for a few hours.
However, just as with all the other pleasant things in my life, this small bit of happiness proves to be short-lived, and I’m soon forced to part with my fields of poppy flowers to spend my time elsewhere: at school.
Early morning after early morning, in pitch-black darkness, I drag myself there with my sister, Angela, who attends the same school. Her incessant chatter makes the long distance there seem infinite and nearly makes me take leave of my senses.
The dusty old educational system stifles every part of me. The endless, dull drone of my teachers’ monologues drive me as mad as my sister’s chatter. I feel trapped between the classroom walls and find freedom through the unlimited possibilities of my imagination.
I envision being powerful enough to forbid school and dream up outdoor educational centers where students would get inspired by nature, cultivating their artistic and physical abilities, and participating fully in their learning process, not chewing on the nonsense-cud teachers throw at them.
My daily return home from school is also no reason for happiness. Father, now a full-time, bored pensioner, discovers a new pleasure in soldiering with us over our homework.
Poor Alois escaped the orphanage by a hair’s breadth, but at home, near Father, he leads a far more restrictive and insufferable life than the orphanage might have provided. One year into our relocation is all the time my brother can endure before he runs away from home. He packed a small rucksack, smoothed his bed, and was gone. His departure leaves an even greater void in Father’s schedule, which he now fills by making my own life unbearable.
Every afternoon, after my morning school hours and a brief lunch, he drags me to work the land, clean the pig stables, and harvest corn. The nastiest task he forces me to do is cleaning the beehives. Whenever he orders me to pull the honeycombs from the beehive, I rack up some fifty to sixty stings all over my body. They swell a
nd burn badly, and make me look so revolting that I no longer recognize my reflection in the mirror. The wily old man defends himself against these dreadful stings by chain-smoking his disgusting cigars, but I cannot afford that luxury, and I cannot afford to complain either. When I do, he grabs me by the shoulders and threatens to lock me out of the house, so I can spend the night with his stinging creatures.
After finishing this abominable task, I find solace in Mother’s arms, where she carefully pulls bee stingers from under my skin, then rubs that minty ointment on each sting.
Given my impulsive and obstinate nature, plus my repugnance of Father’s authoritarian and tyrannical behavior, I rebel repeatedly. At those times, he devises more and more imaginative punishments.
I sometimes challenge him on purpose, mocking his former position of customs official at the Central Customs Office, the same position he is dead set on forcing me to embrace when I grow up. He even dragged me to his former workplace to get a taste of what I was to become. It was a room without air or sunlight and looked more like a cage than an inhabitable area. It housed a bunch of elderly gentlemen, seated almost one on top of another. I was immediately struck by the memory of the caged monkeys I saw at the zoo.
“Yes! But it is a governmental cage!” Father would have proudly retorted, had he been able to read my thoughts. “And these gentlemen are officials of the state; hence, gods to be worshipped!” These relics with their formidably bloated stomachs and unkempt beards? I would have answered, if I had lived in a world free of punishments. The thought that I could get glued to a chair, follow some rigid schedule, and complete boring paperwork every day, all day, almost makes me faint. It would be more detestable than school and just as dull and spiritually stifling. God endowed me with an artistic spirit, which makes it impossible for me to be caught in a non-creative trade.
On our way back home from this occupational farce, Father asked me how I felt about this secure and flattering future, but I remained as silent as a rock. All I could think of were those monkeys, eagerly looking for lice on each other’s fur and clinging to the cage bars while shrieking hideous noises.
I often seek shelter in Mother’s embrace, where I can always find solace, but I also hide and paint. Painting is my greatest passion and I am rather good at it. However, there is yet another thing I turn to when things are less than great under our roof.
Recently, the village priest took me under his wing and encouraged me to join the church choir. So now I often flee the farmhouse and seek refuge in those divine chants. I imagine them flying beyond the church walls, which are covered with fascinating and mysterious symbols. Yet of them all, only one stands out, a double-Z, intertwined in a sort of cross.
What a magnificent symbol! I wonder what it stands for! I think.
Much later, when the great destiny I was urged to fulfill finds me, I discover the name of this cross: swastika. For now, though, I believe that if I put all my heart into singing, and if I sing loud enough, then I will receive God’s favor, and He will help me avenge Mother for all the wrongs Father has done to us.
Soon, I decide to find something else to do besides attending that sickening school, such as visiting the great city of Linz. Since I cannot leave the house without a good reason, I decide to skip school altogether, and take an alternate route to Linz. I walk for forty minutes, and once in the city, I walk another couple of hours without any trace of fatigue.
I now stand in front of the Opera House, and hear fascinating music coming from inside the magnificent building. Its captivating architecture leaves me open-mouthed as I feel a new passion quickly growing inside me. My imagination lights up, and with my mind’s eye, I begin to create spectacular projects: buildings with carved facades and Greek columns, with gods coming out of them, routes for new roads and wide bridges, as well as parks, gardens, and crowded squares.
I walk the entire city like a sleepwalker, eyes wide and mouth open, absorbing architecture designed several hundred years ago. My imagination surpasses it all. One day, I will rebuild the old cities from their foundations and leave them as inheritance for the hundreds of generations to come.
Engrossed in my new discovery, I do not realize how late it is until darkness settles. I race for home, running non-stop and, on arrival, find Mother frantic with worry. Placating her proves easy, but I cannot say the same thing about Father. The old saga begins. Unbuckling and removing his belt, he forces me to undress and begins lashing my bare body.
This time, however, I stare him right in the face, smile, and count his blows aloud. He steps back and grabs my face, violently pushing me to the floor.
“Good-for-naught,” he says in disgust and walks from the room.
I have finally done it. I have finally broken his power. This is the last thrashing I receive from Father.
Yet even so, my new identity, now full of enthusiasm about the future, is stifled by Father’s despotism. The new me no longer matches the environment in the house. I need to be free, to be my own person: a great man. I’ll follow my brother’s example and move on. Tonight. They will not hear a thing. And when my dreams of becoming a great artist have been realized, I will return for Mother. I am my own person and will act according to my own will.
As the night settles on the rooftops, I put my plan into action. I throw on my winter coat, shove a hat on my head, and lace up my boots. God knows where I will be halting, and how cold it will be. I steal some bread and ham from the kitchen cabinet and cram them in my schoolbag. I can’t use the door to the outside, because it’s in to my parents’ room, so I decide to go through the window instead. Thick iron bars frame the window, but surely I’ll fit through, skinny as I am. Climbing on the window ledge, I manage to slip one leg through the bars, but get stuck at my hip. I push my body against the narrow opening again and again, but the bloody thick clothes make it impossible. My hip hurts by now, and I jump back into the room. This is just a small detail and will not stop me. I take off my coat, pants, boots, and underwear, and toss them out the window.
As I jump back on the ledge again, muffled noises reach me from the other room. No sooner do I hear them than the bedroom door slams open, revealing Father’s imposing silhouette. For a moment, we just stare at each other, him not knowing what to make of this and me wondering what his reaction will be.
In a swift, calculated movement, I jump off the ledge, dart to the table, and snatch the tablecloth off it to cover my naked body. In my haste, I overturn the vase resting on the table and the flowers it held are now spread all over the floor. Foul water spatters everywhere, reaching Father’s feet.
He’ll hit me now, I know it.
However, to my utter bewilderment, an explosion of derisive laughter breaks through the mortifying silence.
His voice makes me cringe.
“Behold, the great man! Behold, and marvel!” He points at me while clutching his bloated belly, which jiggles from his laughter like the vanilla pudding Mother makes on Sundays. “Come, woman! Hurry! You won’t get this chance twice in your life! Take a look!” he exclaims, as he grabs Mother by the back of her neck and drags her into the room. “The great artist in festive attire!”
“Uncle, please, let him be … ”
Mother doesn’t look at me. She understands my nature and knows this humiliation is far worse than any thrashing Father could ever give to me.
“Is this your dear child with strong personality?” he says, mocking the words Mother has often used to describe me.
I hate Father like never before. I also hate my inability to assert myself, to teach the arrogant bastard a lesson.
He then hunkers down and grabs the scattered flowers from the floor. I defiantly stare at him as he begins knotting them together. When he’s done, he approaches me, snatches my hat from my head, and replaces it with the wreath he’s just made.
Mother sobs and wrings her hands.
“Feast your eyes, woman! Don’t stand there shaking like a chicken! Look at him! If this is not the
next Caesar, upon my blood, he is nobody else!”
I imagine how a monster replaces my frail body and rips his head from his body.
“Go on boy! Pull out your easel!” Laughing uncontrollably, he staggers from the room, dragging Mother after him.
My soaring spirit feels shattered. I hurl the tablecloth into a corner and jump into bed, hiding deep beneath the covers. I feel so cold that my teeth chatter, and not because my clothes are still lying outside the window, but because Father took his turn in breaking my will, took his turn in bringing me to my knees.
Yet I realize one thing: if you are smart enough and are able to outsmart all the others, at all times, then you can crush a man with just a few simple words. I realize that words spoken at the right moment have the power to cut into the flesh deeper than any dagger or Father’s bloody leather belt.
The seed of a new purpose is planted. I must learn to use words to reach my ends. I must learn what the world insists on teaching me: how to humiliate and mock, beguile and hate. Staring past the humiliation, beyond the ceiling and into an unknown distance, my mind’s eye sees the wide, open road I must walk. I realize that a man’s true strength lies not in his fists, but in his words — and that, one day, I could have the power to dominate any person, an entire society, the whole of humanity.
If I can achieve that power, no one could ever humiliate me again.
Two Glass Balls Away From Freedom
The following morning, I wake earlier than usual and go to school with renewed enthusiasm. I have to educate myself, so I can become what I’ve resolved to become.
By the time I graduate from primary school, I am a very good student, and Father decides to enroll me in a junior high school with a terrible curricula of math, economics, science, and French. I resent his decision at first, never doing well with math or the other exact sciences, but I soon discover that they also teach drawing classes, so I accept his decision with little opposition. Another reason for my agreement is that the school is located in Linz, affording me plenty of opportunities to explore the great city and bask in its outstanding architecture.