Chapter 7
My father’s action wasn’t unexpected, just unpredicted because he had kept personal watch over me in the past three months since my rebirth. He left my room only when he had to.
He would do almost everything the stewards were meant to do for me, thereby reducing the company to just one- himself.
“Perhaps he wanted to do the monitoring of my progress himself,” I thought.
Whenever there was nothing to do, as was usually the case, he would simply sit and stare, looking intently into my face, and then, metaphorically, he would call me an angel before wrapping me snugly up.
Today, after he ensconced on the sofa beside the bed, he regarded me for a moment and then, said, “Just like your mother, you are beautiful,”
And, although his lips were drawn slightly apart in a small grin, his voice dropped an octave lower, betraying the warmth held in his voice earlier.
I could almost tell from the number of times he blinked to hold back tears that he loved and missed her.
It was the first I would hear him mention her and I cashed on the rare opportunity to know all I had always wanted to know about her.
“Oh, wow, may God bless this day!”I harped and quickly leaned towards the edge of the bed, obviously gulped by curiosity.
Meanwhile, that which he said was supposed to be a compliment, but something in it made me quite uneasy.
I was sure I didn’t hear him refer to her as ‘your late mother’ the only time he mentioned her since my (re)birth, and yet, she never lived with us.
In fact, I have never seen her. So, I became more confused even after what he did next.
“You know…we never talk about her… I mean my Mom. I don’t have the story of… her whereabouts?” I invested further, lowering my legs completely onto the floor, off the bed.
Yes, whereabouts was a better choice of word than ‘her death’ which was an alternative word in my mind.
“All you need to know now is that I have the world's most beautiful little one in you and I love you and…I will keep you safe” he tailed off, reaching out, stretching his hand to cushion my cheek as if he was rubbing the words.
“Okay,” I nodded weakly, sounding somber. A faint consolation trickled in as I replayed his words.
“You could decide that it isn’t a goodbye yet… believe that whatever brought him would be kind enough to do that again.”
At the same minute, I shook off the dampened emotions and mapped out a strategy for the next time.
Every day for three months before I left Vavaula, I thought fondly of him, liberally accommodating him in my head, rent-free. I took a lot of time to imagine where he could be at a time.
I thought of what he could be doing at the time. I would wander long into the nights when I could get to see him again. Eventually, I would sleep with the thought of him; and have a thousand dreams that would leave me with the thought of him when I woke.
The very moment I woke, I would pick up from where I left off and run through the day, fantasizing about the moment I would stare at him and flush a blush. I sure was blushing at the thought of him at the moment though, yet my heart was open for more.
In my fantasies, I dwelt long at the moment when the time would cease to exist because he had sweet-talked my heart to a pause - the awkward moment I would cast my gaze onto the floor to absorb his lavished eulogy or simply steady my whirling head.
Each new day, I would long eagerly for that beautiful moment when he would tease me into smiling shyly. I envisaged us coiling synchronically into a unity, locking lips and passionately exchanging saliva.
I daydreamed chuckling into his mouth as he tickled me in the middle of a kiss.
It did not feel ridiculous; just a little weird, given that he did not know it, knew me, and may never know either that fact or me.
“He mustn’t have to know, I simply love how he made me feel,” I countered as many voices as they were whispering pessimism into my head.
Rather, whenever I thought about him, it felt oddly and dissonantly right. Only in a flinching moment of the lunatic interval, whose life span never lasted longer than a drop of water on a hot pan, when I feel a bit ridiculous.
Not for loving someone who didn’t know I existed but for skipping important parts in the script like when, where, and how, if I would even get to meet him.
Meanwhile, by late summer when the three months came to a fold, I had had a swell time with my family, the animals, and the stewards.
A good number of the workers knew me dating as far back as ten years ago. That was something I could build on.
Therefore, I did just a little to strengthen the bonds with them and then, cultivated friendships with a few new ones. Ultimately, I rekindled a robust relationship with everyone, and then, I was ready to leave.
Being me, it was a lot easier doing that with anyone, and it was even easier with the animals - the horses.
I simply nudged the old ones to recall the fading memories when I caressed them by the neck the exact way I used to do many years ago, then, spent more time playing around them.
By the time I jumped off their backs and saddled back in a vaulting trick, squeezed their sides with my calves in the manner I used to do, I had woken the hazy tricks that won us competitions some years back and we were friends again.
Furthermore, I named the new ones and instilled racing skills in the ones ready to take the places of the aging ones - these were my greatest moments. And come to think that I almost met someone special capped those days for me.
So, when it was time to pack my bags and hit the hangar, I had a plethora of beautiful moments to regurgitate as many times as I wanted. My father, Martha, and the horses featured prominently in the moments I would be calling to memory often.
The day I left for Switzerland, my father was away on a business trip. I would learn when I inquired about him, that in my absence, he had returned to his old self, refusing to have some rest.
He had reportedly attended a million more meetings with his unending business partners, the scouts, event planners, winemakers, and wine tasters – typically of him.
I remembered vividly how he had been obsessed with, and stressed quite a few times in obvious rapacity, the need to conceptualize another bold brand that would be both capable of some exotic statements and checkmating the competition in the market.
Although he already had a few of such luxurious wine brands doing so well in the market, he simply dreamed of seeing some new entrants posing stiff competition to them in the clubs, hotels, and bars of the high and mighty around the world.
Ideally, whenever I traveled, it used to be him dropping me off at the Western Boulevard hangar, but like on some occasions when he was out of town with the pilots and I had to use the commercial planes, Martha, alternatively became my driver.
She reveled at such rare pockets of opportunities to drive out of the home even though it was never without some plain-cloth-armed men in tinted cars flanking us about.
So, the day I left home, she resumed her role, dropping me off.
I liked to sit in the front passenger's seat next to my father or Martha; and that was when I got the best from the rides as we would talk endlessly about animals, the media, or parties and girls' stuff, if it were with Martha.
We did so much of that once again this time and I opened up to her about my feelings for the certain boy I never met.
“Sometimes it would appear as though there was nothing as foolery a thing as being in love with a person who didn’t know I existed; at other times, a part of me waxed stubbornly strong and I would feel that the fact that he didn’t know I existed was not wrong enough to let go.”
“If you could feel this way about a lad you have not met, it’s an indication that you would be great when you eventually do.
Stay with the feeling and keep it real, sist.,” Martha advised. Since her thoughts were in sync with our father’s, I felt strongly supported.
It was easier to deal with feelings after letting it all out to her. I would sketch the vague image I had left of him so it wouldn’t fade all away.
I could not make many drawings though, since I hadn't seen him properly. I simply duplicated the only successful sketch of him and taped them in every room in my house.
I made a habit of speaking to them as though he was there. In fact, Harry was always there and everywhere with me. Other times, like this very day, I would pour out my thoughts to him on a paper:
“There never will be another time when my body would agree more
yielding to that which my spirit urges that I abhor.
I have had too much of what started innocuous- a faint yearning for a sip
I have drunk a thousand sips
and I'm drunk, helpless as I grope
in the intoxication of a tanned grape.
Should I not raise a cry for freedom?
But that is if I want to be sober, then caged in boredom
No! Not while I still long for a few more sips.
If only he knew his liquor is as cherished as it drips
He might spare me a few more gourds to drink
Then guide my erring steps into his dwelling
Bed me in his bosom when I ferment
Curb my addiction in a hurried coital tournament
Until I plateau in forever affection I will gamble my heart though more fragile than the glass that holds the liquor in which for him I ferment.”
