My Father’s Books

The Fountain

14 The Foun­ tain A beau­ ti­ ful book is al­ ways about a suc­ cess­ ful fam­ ily. folk say­ ing What comes most often to the sur­ face of my mem­ ory, other than the gar­ den with its foun­ tain con­ stantly mur­ mur­ ing some piece of our­ family’s his­ tory, is the over­ hang­ ing bal­ cony, which ­ seemed to keep the house on the edge of de­ par­ ture, of ­ flight. After sleep­ less ­ nights, my ­ father would ­ emerge onto the bal­ cony, often with his gaze fixed on the rapid wa­ ters of the river. Here, be­ fore sun­ rise, his ­ thoughts would co­ a­ lesce into the glim­ mer of a new idea that had long been ges­ tat­ ing in his con­ scious­ ness. The path of my ­ father’s sig­ nif­i­ cant ­ thoughts ended on this bal­ cony. It was here also that sleep would over­ come him, let­ ting the house slip into a kind of si­ lence. My ­ mother would cover him with a thin blan­ ket to pro­ tect his light sleep. Some­ times, late at night, he would wake out of a si­ lence ­ broken by the rest­ less slum­ ber­ ing of the chil­ dren long since­ asleep in the ­ nearby rooms. As if catch­ ing a trace of the en­ ergy lib­ er­ ated by our sleep­ ing, he would fall into a new, deep, fresh, and fer­ vent read­ ing. Thus, our fall­ ing into sleep was, more often than not, his awak­ en­ ing. My ­ mother faith­ fully fol­ lowed the com­ ings and go­ ings in the life of the fam­ ily, and in­ side she fer­ vently ­ sensed that my ­ father was on the verge of some new de­ ci­ sion of sig­ nif­i­ cance for all of us. ...