My Father’s Books

Identity

20 Iden­ tity My ­ mother had her own rit­ ual way of greet­ ing my ­ father when he came home from work. She would never press him at once about the daily house­ hold wor­ ries. She al­ ways ­ waited for just the right mo­ ment. Every min­ ute was ­ filled with the es­ sence of their en­ tire ­ shared life, and there was no need for them to sur­ ren­ der peace­ ful mo­ ments. It did not make sense to spoil the ­ present mo­ ment with what had to come, what had to hap­ pen any­ way. This was al­ most sa­ cred in my ­ parents’ life. No two mo­ ments could co­ ex­ ist ­ within any sin­ gle mo­ ment of their lives. When fear set­ tled on the fam­ ily be­ cause of some­ thing that had to occur, a sort of mys­ ter­ i­ ous fa­ tal­ ism that ac­ com­ pa­ nies every fam­ ily that is com­ pelled to move, my ­ mother knew how to make a kind of inter­ nal com­ pro­ mise with the times, the good and the bad. She had a ­ built-in mech­ a­ nism that al­ lowed her to en­ dure both for­ tune and mis­ for­ tune. This was true even after my mas­ sa­ cre of the ­ papers and books in the cab­ i­ net. When my ­ father re­ turned home that day, he ­ calmly ate his din­ ner, sur­ rounded by the ­ rhythm and ha­ bit­ ual quiet that ra­ di­ ated ­ through our fam­ ily when­ ever he came from work. Then he took his cus­ to­ mary late after­ noon nap. As time ­ passed, the de­ layed con­ se­ quences of the ­ events in the cab­ i­ net ­ weighed on me ever more heav­ ily. In the si­ lent, early eve­ ning hours that first en­ tered the house ­ through the bal­ cony, my ­ father ­ turned to­ ward the cab­ i­ net to fetch some book, and thus com­ plete his usual daily sched­ ule on this day as well. He ­ pulled the cab­ i­ net doors wide open. I re­ mained riv­ eted to the spot where I stood: it was im­ pos­ sible to move, to run away, to save my­ self. My ­ father was at first unable to de­ tect the mas­ sa­ cre I had car­ ried out be­ cause my ­ mother had done what she 21 could to sal­ vage much of the for­ mer or­ gan­ iza­ tion. He found the book he was look­ ing for and now began to look for a cer­ tain doc­ u­ ment. Even had he no­ ticed that some­ thing had oc­ curred in the cab­ i­ net, he would not have ­ wanted to be­ lieve such a thing were pos­ sible. By some mir­ a­ cle, he im­ me­ di­ ately found the doc­ u­ ment he ­ wanted. But when he no­ ticed that the ­ stamps had been un­ glued and torn from the doc­ u­ ment, what had hap­ pened ­ slowly ­ dawned on him. His face went blank. My ­ mother ­ watched him in si­ lence. It was like this only when some­ one in the fam­ ily died. This, how­ ever, was akin to the death of the en­ tire fam­ ily. How to prove our iden­ tity, which was con­ stantly ver­ ified, using doc­ u­ ments with ­ stamps re­ moved? Had the doc­ u­ ments been yel­ lowed, torn, or crum­ pled, he could have dealt some­ how with those who check iden­ tity ­ papers, but with their ­ stamps torn off, with their fig­ ure­ heads re­ moved, it be­ came dif­ fi­ cult, un­ cer­ tain. Add­ ing to our mis­ for­ tune, the ­ stamps had also been de­ tached from the doc­ u­ ments es­ tab­ lish­ ing our newly ac­ quired cit­ i­ zen­ ship. Who could make sense of this? I was small then, and I felt even ­ smaller in­ side. For the first time, I­ waited in the cor­ ner to be pun­ ished for my mis­ con­ duct. My ­ father and­ mother had never ­ raised a hand ­ against us chil­ dren. They had ­ calmed us with their quiet. That is how it often was when life was dif­ fi­ cult: the storm was ­ calmed from ­ within, in my ­ parents’ souls. My ­ father did not raise his hand, but I will never for­ get the ex­ pres­ sion of in...