The Day I Killed My Father (2 page)

At first I tried to come between the happy couple, using everyday ploys which are all described in the literature on psychoanalysis in chapters that deal with the inevitable complex. I got between them so they couldn't hug. I came up with excuses not to leave them alone. But, like I said, I was the weak one. This weakness was to become even more evident on the most terrible night of my life. One of the most terrible nights, that is.

My parents now slept with their door closed. I stayed outside, in the prison of the world. That night, I woke to the sound of the ghost's rattles. The clattering was louder than ever. I tried not to look at the window. Lying face-down against the wall, beneath the covers, I hid my head under my pillow. Useless. Terror often exercises an overwhelming attraction. My resistance broke when, in addition to the rattling, I heard banging on the glass. It was the first time this had happened. So I looked.

There he was, my old acquaintance, dancing in a frenzy. Beside him, however, was a figure I'd never seen before: a boy my own age, kneeling, as if about to be sacrificed. A blue stone shone in one of his hands … What did he look like?

His face was mine.

I leapt up and ran to my mother's door. I stopped in front of it in breathless silence, although I really wanted to bang on it and scream. I stood there for a minute or two, not knowing what to do. I decided to continue when I heard a loud noise coming from my own room
. The ghosts have got into the house
, I thought, petrified. I carefully pushed my mother's door open and went into the walk-in closet. I hesitated before entering the bedroom itself when I saw that the light in the bathroom, on the other side, was on and shining across a part of the bed. But there was no way I could go back — I'd sleep on the floor by my mother's side. It was the only way I'd be safe.

I took a few steps forward, and to this day I regret having done so.

The spectacle taking place on the bed was horrible: my mother, naked, was sitting astride an enormous penis. The penis I'd always wanted to see and had always avoided looking at.

–4–

Forgive me, but none of what I told you yesterday actually happened. That is, it was only partially true … Up to the vision of the blue stone. How could you have believed that I saw my mother and father having sex? My story was so formulaic, so textbook … From the look of things, you're an easy girl to fool. Maybe I should devote myself to that from now on — fooling you. It could be my hobby.

Yes, you're right. Even though I invent certain episodes of my history, their essence is immutable; practically Psychology 101 material … Is that what I wanted to see, deep down? No, not exactly.

What do I make of this attempt to falsify my story? Maybe I want to connect with you. But I don't want any connections at all. None, you hear me? Well, actually, I do … After all, I agreed to tell you everything that happened, although no one forced me to. What connection might that be? Well, that's something for you to speculate about in some poorly written article.

I am tetchy, I know. Forgive me. I'm tired. I didn't sleep a wink last night. I had a strange dream about the blue stone. I bet your eyes lit up when I said ‘dream'. I'm going to satisfy your curiosity, even though our agreement doesn't cover the present.

I was in a dungeon that, as always happens in dreams, wasn't a dungeon, but a hospital. I went down a dark corridor which led to a square area lined with iron doors, where I found a child of about six or seven. The child was wearing one of those little suits that boys used to wear when they received their first communion. His expression was a mixture of sadness, resignation, and perplexity. Beside him was a nurse, who gave me a professional smile. In silence, she led the boy by the arm to the nearest door, opened it, and motioned for him to enter. When he'd gone in, she closed the door. At that instant, I realised the boy was me. I now found myself inside the cell he'd been led into. I was horrified by what I saw around me: the walls were lined from top to bottom with bleeding foetuses. It was no longer a dungeon, but a catacomb. I looked away, towards the door. In it was a tiny barred window, through which the nurse was watching me with her typical nurse's smile. Then she held out a hand through the bars. In it was a blue stone that shone like a fairytale diamond. I woke up right after that, and couldn't get back to sleep.

This blue stone had already appeared in other dreams. I'll make your job easier: my father's eyes were blue. This association was made when it came up in analysis. But, from the look of things, it wasn't … What do you call it, again? Ah, yes, ‘processed'.' That's a stone best left unturned.

Anyway, the truth is that I never saw my parents having sex. My nocturnal terrors and my mother's daily demonstrations of love for my father, and vice-versa, were enough to feed my weakness. Until the age of nine, I did everything in my power to sabotage the happy couple's life together. I invented illnesses to keep her away from him at night. I plagued them so much that I managed to play them against one another in arguments about what to do with me. I provoked my father until he threatened to beat me, which earned him sharp scoldings from my mother — and me her affection. Most children use these ruses, I know, but the jealousy and hatred behind them usually remain nebulous. Not in my case, though. I knew I hated my father, and had no remorse about it. I liked it.

When I learned to read, I started using yet another tactic to lash out at the executioner of my childhood illusions and to earn my beloved's attention: intellectual humiliation. Since my father was pretty useless as far as general knowledge went, I took pleasure in showing my mother how much I'd learned in the history books I was now devouring. My little performance always took place at dinnertime, when the three of us were together. Greek mythology, important events in the history of the Roman Empire, memorable World War II battles. The cue for me to start rolling out my repertoire was always a laconic ‘Dunno' from my father to something I'd asked him. My mother seemed proud of my erudition because she read widely, and was interested in art and everything else traditionally referred to as the humanities. But my father, to my delight, was unable to hide his discomfort. Little by little, he was also learning to hate me. Proof of this was the torture he put me through when I was seven.

–5–

Yes, my father's purpose in life was also to torture me. He never beat me, but he liked simulating fights so he could hurt me. His favourite method was asphyxiation. He'd immobilise me with the weight of his body and only get off when my face started going purple. To make me ‘a man', he'd get me into an arm lock and wait until I begged him to stop. Once he broke my finger, which was only diagnosed two days later because he kept insisting that it was nothing and that I was being a ‘pansy'. My mother thought it was all normal. ‘Boys' games,' she'd say. But nothing hurt me as much as the three words he fired at me one night.

As you know, it's common for children to wonder, at some stage, if they really did come from their parents. This adoption fantasy haunts boys and girls alike, and they will often try to assure themselves of their family identity. In my case, I did it indirectly by asking questions about the circumstances of my birth. I bombarded my mother with questions about the day I was born, the hospital she'd had me in, her first impressions of me — things like that. I also liked to see photos of myself as a baby. This all reassured me, but not enough to erase my doubts. And, whenever I could, I'd trot out my questions again.

It was after one of these question-and-answer sessions that my father decided to make his move. ‘Let me tuck him in,' he said to my mother as he picked me up. When we got to the bedroom, he put me in bed, covered me, and sat down next to me. He stared at me for a few seconds and then, without moving a single muscle in his face, said, ‘You are adopted.'

I cried all night long until I heard the first sounds of the morning lashing at the window. My anguish manifested as an asymptomatic fever that increased at nightfall. Without a clear diagnosis, the doctor said I'd caught a virus. My mother tried to comfort me, but I fled her embrace. I came up with excuses and took refuge in my bedroom. I felt betrayed by her. Why hadn't she told me? There was, however, an underlying question, which was impossible for me to formulate at that point: what to do with my love for that woman who was no longer my mother? I could, of course, have asked her if it was true that I wasn't her son. Why didn't I? It was out of resentment (I felt betrayed, as I said), but also for fear of what she might say. I think I was afraid I'd die if I heard her say, ‘It's true you're not my son.'

Any other father would have taken pity on me. But not him. On the contrary, he took the opportunity to gloat. At the dinner table, he turned my game around. He provoked me with general-knowledge questions, which I didn't answer. ‘Now, now, someone's got the smart-aleck's tongue,' he taunted. My mother begged him to let me be, to which he replied that he was only joking, trying to cheer me up. At one such meal, in the middle of one of his little performances, he said to my mother, ‘Can't you see he's acting all la-di-da? Come on, spit it out. What's the capital of Hungary — Bucharest or Budapest?' Angrily, I answered, ‘Budapest, you idiot. You'd know if you'd read
The Paul Street Boys
. But you don't read anything. Only Mummy does.' For my pains, I got a glass of water in my face. ‘Get out of here before I give you a whipping,' roared my father, while my mother cried, mortified. That same night, my father came into my room and, after lecturing me on the respect that children owe their parents, started to tell me the tale of my adoption. ‘The only reason I'm not going to punish you is because I understand how you're feeling about the adoption. You haven't asked for any details, but I'm going to tell you anyway. You're actually the child of a domestic we had the first year we were married. She asked us to look after you for a while, until she got back from holidays, but she never showed up again. She still might come back. But don't worry. Mummy and daddy won't let you go. Goodnight. Sweet dreams, son.'

Can you imagine my terror? No, you can't. No one can.

My anguish lasted about a week. One morning, my father and I were sitting at the breakfast table when, without lifting his eyes from the paper, he said, ‘It's interesting how living together can make people alike. Even physically. You, for example, have her eyes. Your mother's. Your eyes are the same; everyone says so. When you were a baby there was no similarity.' He folded the paper, placed it on the table, took a sip of coffee, and only then, after all those gestures, did he look at me. ‘We'd best keep this adoption story between us. A father–son thing. A man's thing. Your mother wouldn't understand. It's part of the training you need to learn to deal with life's difficulties. Come here and let me give you a hug.'

My eyes were my mother's; I was no longer in doubt. My eyes …

He'd said that living together made people alike. But he'd also referred to the time when I was a tiny baby. Most adopted children are adopted when they are very small, I know, but that phrase — ‘When you were a baby' — made me feel certain that I was their natural child and not adopted. It's still a fragile certainty, even though I have become very much like my mother. Could this be through having lived together? But I didn't live with her for very long, when all's said and done …

I let my father hug me, in a mixture of relief and rage, without asking what had led him to torture me like that. It wasn't necessary. It was already clear to me that we were enemies. After the relief and rage came a feeling that could be defined as gratitude. I was grateful to my father for having put an end to my agony, even with all his ambiguity. There's an explanation for this: those who are tortured also feel gratitude toward their torturers when they stop maltreating them.

–6–

My tenth birthday party — a big one, which was going to be held at an amusement park — had to be cancelled at the last minute because my mother learned she had cancer. She would be dead in four months. The tumour had started in an ovary, and had spread to her intestine, stomach, and lungs. What have I got to say about it? Well, when she explained her illness to me, she didn't tell me she might die. And, although I watched her waste away, it didn't seem possible that she was about to disappear. She was hospitalised for the last time one morning after vomiting up a smelly, black soup that doctors refer to as faecal matter — the cancer had grown so big that it was blocking her intestine. When she left home, propped up by my father, she said, ‘Be happy, son.' And she kissed me on the forehead, a cold kiss. I never saw her alive again.

I was woken in the middle of the night by my aunt, who'd come from abroad to help look after my mother, her younger sister. ‘Darling, I need to tell you something,' she murmured. ‘What?' I asked sleepily. ‘Your mother's gone to heaven,' she answered, her voice faltering.

At that moment, the words ‘Your mother's gone to heaven' made no sense at all to me. That's why it took me a while to work out what had happened. When she saw my confounded expression (that was how she described it years later), she used the right words: ‘Your mother's dead.'

I'm tired.

–7–

I'd like to go back a bit to talk about the effect that my mother's wasting away had on me. Her gauntness, her listless gaze, her white skin, with the pallidness that announces death, her baldness caused by the chemotherapy — to me, this all seemed like a costume that could be taken off at any moment by the woman I loved so much and who seemed so strong to me. It was as if she remained untouched behind that emaciated body. While waiting for my real mother to come back, I avoided the sorry creature who dragged herself through the house and no longer sought my affection. It's strange, I know, that a son as loving as I was could have behaved like that during his mother's illness. But I had no idea she might die, and the fact that she didn't look the same as always left me more perplexed than sad.