Trafika Europe 11 - Swiss Delights

My Mother’s Tears

up, I hit my head on the drawer I’d forgotten to close. The impact made the statue topple. I pulled up a chair for a better view: the poor thing’s head was smashed. And mine no less than hers! I couldn’t lie or hide my mistake, I would have to face my father and hope he’d forgive me, to rely on the depth of his understanding, on his wisdom. I waited in the front hall until he came home, a guard dog snapping at my ankles and preventing me from moving. I despised my clumsiness as much as I did the unholy toy with the power to decapitate. When the front door opened, my father understood at a glance: the bureau, the severed head, my distress, my regret, my anticipation, he understood it all, but a wave of fury battered his temples, an instinct that can overcome the most gallant of men, inflame him, inject him with the brutality of a pirate, of a torturer, a violence that will not dissipate without some amazing act, a cry, a resonant gesture. His face calm but with his jaws clenched as if he wanted to grind his teeth to dust, my father slapped me. Sitting quietly on my bed, I stroked my burning cheeks, relieved the moment had passed, feeling no hatred for my father and completely convinced of the blow’s necessity, of the coming reconciliation. My pain and distress would not last. I only had to close my eyes to be reborn. The rustling of cloth can have the impact of an explosion!

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