The Convention

I wasn't the only one in the house who knows about my father.

I wasn't the only one in our street who knows about my father.

I wasn't the only one in our family, in our dynasty, in our city, in our nation, in our world, even in the good heavens, who knows about my father.

That lovely polite man who has a very soft, quite voice, tender eye looks and simple chic way of clothing., slow careful habits, his gentle attitude with his wife--aka my mom, that overwhelming spectrum of respect which was hovering around them just because my father's sweet manners. He was famous by all of that, and another thing more.

He's his wife's killer.

Yes. A mid thirties woman who've got her head hammered.

Her corps seems to me, after many years when they let me see the pictures of the crime scene, like a surreal painting. There were blood, parts of the slashed skull mixed with waves of hair, dead shining of her eyes penetrating the bloody hair. Uncompleted human face form, it was just meaningless.

That picture, as these other pictures, hasn't change my mother's face into my mind, her simple beauty and everlasting calm smile. Just I didn't react with those pictures as it was my mom's, like I still hearing my aunt's voice when she was telling me that she's traveling abroad, every time I ask about her, or about my father.

Now am sitting in front of him. He looks quit the same as I remember, unless his hair turned to be gray, wrinkles laying in ease around his eyes and aside his firm lips. He was the same but that, and that he was calling me sir. They told me that he can't recognize me. For a reason or another, he did what he has did, and forget all about his unholy previous life.

They were telling me that I can't hear the thing I lust the most, why he did killed his wife, my mom?

They told me. Right, but something was pulling me to see that man. That man who was the precious creature ever— just when I was 7 year old— then turned to a spooky ghost after words.

His eyes weren't reflecting any sort of bewilderment. His smile was just sweet and confident as I always remember. That man who've made me "the mature women complex", as my girlfriends saying.

Am oriented to mature women, I must say, in a way I couldn't hide, and such orientation isn't such serious one, but when I remember the many problems I once had with an old girlfriend, when she discovered that I was lusting after her mom.

They—my girlfriends—saying that orientation came over the absence of my mom, in the age I needed her badly.

I never believed it so much, but I haven't found any reason for that lust against that sort of women. Dad made me lots of things, I must remember.

Those picnics to museums, cinema, libraries were a real fun. I still remember those comics magazines he used to brought me. I still remember his lovable laugh, his tender hands when he's checking my bed at night, his leashed anger when I torn his books over. I still remember all of those things.

He doesn't.

His eyes’ looks weren't absent, they were sharp and clever, like his denial of my existence is a concrete real. He's a wise old man, and simply he is receiving a wacko stranger who's like a stupid dog.

All what you can find in his eyes is a flash wondering when he's asking me; what I can do for you, mister? And the inquiring flash has gone seconds after answering him that it's Okie. He can't do me a thing by now. His eye looks enveloped with sweet irony looking at me. Am the wacko creature who's lost. He’s living up here what you can call complete paradise. No one had came and disturb his inner peace. It was just once when my grandpa and grandma visited him just to bang his head. They were persuaded upon that visit he's a madman. And, of course, he doesn't remember a thing about that visit.

They call him here with a deferent name he chose himself, they repeat in front of him a history he created himself. He's no longer my father. I’ve turned to a stranger long time ago, quite long time ago, after throwing the hammer away, or even when he had caught it in his hands, going with his calm confident steps to his bedroom.

I thought many times why he did kill my mom. I couldn't understand a thing. Many small talks, million of hints from my relatives, and I could have a hazy image, she was a dominate and maybe, maybe, unfaithful.

I wanted to make sure by his words. It's the puzzle of my own life.

But I realized it's a dead end. He's gone. He's history.

The door opened, they came to escort me. I still remember his sorry eyes and calm voice, making up is tie, straighten his expensive suit standing, and saying

"Yes. It was the jealousy"

I've been slashed by his sharp sentence, and while I was begging the men to let me stay longer with him, his face gestures were sort of dramatic, leaving the room, to disappear into the institute's corridors.

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Painting: Self portrait by Egon Schiele