Month: September 2019

I have been walking the streets in search of the house I grew up in. It had been demolished some years ago, its place taken by a block of flats with a small supermarket on the ground floor. 

I push the store door open and the light floods my brain, like ice spikes on hot skin. 

‘Evenin’! she said, without lifting her eyes. The girl at the cash register stood there, checking her phone right where my teenager bed used to be. 

‘Hi there..’I mumble as I walk down the isle by the fresh greens. There, I would brush my teeth right where the dairy section is. 

‘What?’ she says, looking straight at me.

‘Nothing, sorry, er…just talking to myself’

She returns to her screen, frowning. She’s in her early 20’s, brown hair, rather pretty and certainly upset for my interuption of her quite lively phone chat.

I pick up a bottle of water off the shelf and catch a glimpse of a boy’s face in the glass. ‘Come on, drink up!’ ‘Drink up!’ My mother used to raise her voice a bit, annoyed by my perpetual ignoring of her requests. 

I put the bottle in the cart and take a few steps towards the fruit cases. The kitchen sink used to be right here. I would, somehow impatiently, wash the way-too-many strawberries my father had bought, my imagination already busy with the future taste of strawberry tart. 

‘Hey! Shall I weigh those strawberries?!’

In front of me, the girl at the cash register looks a little confused. I nod and give her the bag. 

‘Anything else?’ she asks, this time with a shade of a smile of her face. 

‘No, not really’ I tell her smiling back at her. She was, after all, rather pretty and standing where my teenage bed used to be.

Outside, the cool evening wind sends quick shivers through the skin of my bare arms. 

‘Hi, I’m on my way home!’

‘Love you! Don’t forget to buy some fruit for the kids, ok?’

‘I bought strawberries…love you too!’

‘Don’t buy too many, ok?’

‘Ok, ok..!’

I have been walking the streets in search of the house I grew up in. It is no longer out there.

Here I am- top of the heap, king of the hill, the epitome of (modern days) evolutionary succes! It is I who got the girl, it’s my kids she’s borne, I have won the one lottery of universal proportions and now I am enjoying the fruits of extensively practiced skills and well deserved success. I am finally now known to everyone at the beach by my true name- “Daddy”.

‘Daddy, inflate the boat, inflate the boat!!!’ my 6 year old little girl screams, stomping her feet.

‘C’mon, Daddy, her brother whines, this sunscreen thing takes forever! I don’t want to wear sunscreen anyway!’ I give him the look that says – ‘tell me about it, I didn’t sign up for this either’. After all, he’s 10 and he has a sister, he should understand by now…

I keep it up with the sunscreen, trying not to get any in his hair, yet get the entire temple area nonetheless…’I never used to put any of this stuff on, and here I am’ – I am tempted to say to yourself, but what comes out is this:

‘I’ve covered the temples completely, and barely touched the hair!’

Ten thousand years ago, the man used to kill the mammoth with their bare hands and bring its heart to the tanned half naked wife (or was it wives?). But I bet none of them could spread sunscreen like I do, no sir.

‘What time is is?’ She replies, deeply touched by the extent of your skills.
‘Just a se…’
‘ My pussycat got wet, my pussycat is all wet and ruined now’ goes the little girl, crying like she’d just had her hand cut off!
‘Where, where? I jump in a fight-or-flight ancestral reflex, barely extracting myself from my few seconds of half naked wild wifes daydreaming.

She was holding her soaked plush toy, her tears running down her face full of sand. I run towards her and hold her, gently caressing her cheeks, trying to stop the sobbing.

‘Stop, you’re getting sunscreen into her eyes!’ – She shouts the alarm.
As I look at my hands, the little girl runs towards Her, giving me the angry look.
‘Mommy, I want Mommy!!! You are not good enough, Mommy is the best’…

I pick myself up, go towards the shore, take a few steps into the sea. Kneeling in a rather dramatic fashion, I start washing the sunscreen off my hands, just like the great Achilles might have done, at the shores of Troy. If he had a little girl whose tears needed to be wiped, that is. But Greek tragedies and the stories of great heroes say nothing about that. Just like the cave paintings of ancient men with half-naked wild wifes say nothing about that.

Nothing is said on building castles in the sand, that take hours to build and seconds to be kicked out of existence. No classical piece describes (often unsuccessful) kite flying in scorching midday heat, or the endless inflating and deflating of plastic flotation devices. There is nothing on sitting in knee-deep water for one hour, helping your kids defeat the perilous waves while sand gets into every possible crevice of your intimate parts. There’s nothing on all that. There is nothing on you, Daddy. I am the unsung hero, the one champion who climbed the modern evolutionary ladder of success, and now I stand there, wondering what the losers are doing right now.

And then, I see him. He’s in his 40s, tall and muscular, well tanned, with thick hair and the perfect beard. Kind of like Thor. Thor is holding a bottle of ice-cold beer, and droplets of sweat (or is it beer) are running down his broad chest. And for a split second, I freeze- those guys that lost the evolution race, is it possible that…

‘Daddy, Daddy, I fell and have a huge cut in my knee!!!’

I hear the scream, only to realize a second later it’s not the voice of one of my kids. And then I see Thor jumping up and dropping his beer, rushing towards the blonde girl, possibly 4, that was crying her heart out pointing at some minor scratch on her left knee.

‘My sunshine, he utters an oddly high pitched yell- come to Daddy, oh, my love!’

As I sit there, in knee-deep water, a smile of both satisfaction and relief flowers on my face- ‘Way to go, Daddy, way to go!’

Copilul mergea cu pași repezi pe strada liniștită, scăldată de soarele puternic al verii. “Pătrunjel și mărar” repeta el, “pătrunjel și mărar”.

“Du-te repede și ia o legătura de pătrunjel și una de mărar” ii spusese mama lui. “Știi cum arată, nu?”- zâmbise ea.

Pe scări copilul se gândea la doamna care vindea legume în poarta casei ei dintre blocuri. Era bunica unui coleg de-al lui de școala. Grasă, cu vocea aspră, îl intimida de câte ori o vedea.

În poarta casei, băiatul se uita la măsuța de lemn pe care erau așezate legumele proaspăt stropite cu apă. Luase deja mărarul și acum se uita lung la pătrunjel și leuștean. Ar fi fost foarte simplu să fi cerut ” pătrunjel și mărar, va rog”. Chiar și acum nu era târziu să întrebe.

În sufletul lui se amestecau dorința de a se descurca singur, teama de a nu dezamăgi, frica de femeia din fața lui și rușinea- “un baiat așa deștept ca el ar trebui să știe”. Simțea în piept un nod care nu-l lăsa să respire. Întinse mâna, alese o legătura, plăti și o porni spre casă.

Când mama lui văzu leușteanul, iși ieși din fire preț de câteva clipe. Era târziu, de-aia îl trimisese repede după ce-i lipsea.

Mâncarea a ieșit bună și fără pătrunjel…Au trecut mai bine de treizeci de ani de-atunci, dar copilul din el înca iși mai aduce aminte.

Se uită în ochii baiețelului de cinci ani din fața lui și îi intinde banii: “Pătrunjel și mărar, bine, tati?” Și cu speranța de a-l feri de o amenințare prea vie încă, din trecut, adaugă: “Întreaba pe cineva daca nu știi, ok? E-n regula să-ntrebi!”

Baiețelul de cinci ani zâmbi și ieși pe usă, pe drumul său, pe care nici cel mai iubitor tată din lume nu-l va putea insoți la nesfârșit.