Pain of Discomposure

ENLARGE

Evette Zuriel

Dear Father,

I was walking on the beach when I was first victimized. There had been nothing to disturb me from my reverie, and the world was just the calm sea, the blue sky and the infinite stretch of white sand. Christian, my school-mate was a well-built boy of around 15 years; she must have been about the same age as mine. He shouted at me as I edged the waterline, the incessant waves coming forward and receding.

‘You Jewish filth, why don’t you just go into the waters and drown, huh?’

She said nothing. I continued walking. I tried to control my anger, as you had always taught me.

‘Do you hear me you freak? Save us the disgust of your presence and go away.’

I wanted just then to hit him, hit him so hard that I never had anyone. Yet again, your voice won; I tried to control my anger. In my effort to suppress the hatred and fury swelling inside me, I dug my fingernails into my arm. My eyes bulged; tears and unsolicited anger flowed out.

‘Look, the Jewish baby cries, look at him, LOOK AT HIM!!’

I ran away, as fast as I could. I was not a weakling, yet I did not want to face him. Or her. I could not see clearly. I touched my face to find tears streaming again. When would I find the power and the aggression to fight back?

I locked myself in my room that day. I did not eat. Nor did I offer my daily prayers. You asked me if I was troubled. I didn’t tell you then, but I hated you for having taught me to be a good human being. Uncomplaining and forgiving. This was not a world anymore where people lived in harmony. The child, the man and woman – no one, absolutely no one gave a damn about others. But how wrong was I. I still had to learn a greater truth, and live a long life.

The following Thursday, I saw her outside the Beth-el (Biet Knesset - synagogue). Was she Jew? She looked beautiful in the sunlight that brightened the main sanctuary. I silently walked away. After all, she had been company to Christian.

I started on the way back home. Barely had I crossed a block that I heard her voice. I turned back, saw her running, but started walking again. She pursued.

‘I never saw Christian since …….’

What was that? A testament to her support for me, was she really sorry? Why should she tell me that?

‘I am sorry. I really am’

I said nothing and left her; and her imprint in my memory.

Three years went by. Something changed as my body matured; a change in my mindset that was dreadfully complete. I felt detached from the world. My relations with the outside world were just superficial. I no longer felt the need to socialize. And in some perspective, I welcomed this change. I was labeled a ‘loner’. I imagined myself becoming schizophrenic. You didn’t seem bothered about my strange and sudden aloofness. And perhaps that was the only reason that kept me sane. When I studied, I put so much focus into it that I was afraid I might destroy my mind. I found solace in prayer. After excruciating hard work, I got a fellowship at Georgetown. She came there as a transfer sophomore.

It was again a Thursday evening that I got a glimpse of her sitting across the Georgetown gargoyle on a park bench. I went and sat with her. We were seeing each other after three years. The pages of a book of foolish romanticism that I had read years ago turned in my mind and ruffled me with discomfort. With compassion and nerve that I had been bereft of since days of yore, I held her face in my hands. I still remember that tenderness. A daring that I have never been able to fathom the source of, empowered me. I kissed her.

And so it was that I started ‘dating’, a term that I still find utterly vile and disgraceful. I graduated valedictorian. I had also found my love, the one person with whom I would've liked to spend the rest of my life. Happiness that had eluded me for so long came in such bountiful strides.

I decided to start my practice at Newman and Partners law firm, and marry her. You didn’t approve of both my decisions. It was my will to settle in New York. What had religion to do with my marriage? I had never questioned the decisions you made for me; I had learnt from your wisdom and scolding. Mother would’ve understood.
You never met my wife. I sired Raphael, yet you didn’t set one glance on your grandson. You never set a foot in the world I had built. And thus I learned to live without you. Without your fatherly protection, wise counsel, blessings and love. But she was beside me and Raphael and law consumed all my days. I became a reputed lawyer, yet I never received one hearty appreciation or a single note of your happiness and satisfaction.

Life settled as years went by.

Last Thursday, Raphael and his mother were coming back from school. It was her duty to bring Raphael back from school, mine to drop him. They met an accident. Her black Volkswagen and a materials truck. Not much was left of the overturned car when she and Raphael were rescued out. In the twenty minute ride to the hospital after the call, I thought of what had finally been given finally to me, and so soon… so soon was all of it being taken away. My vision blurred.

Raphael died in my arms. He had barely been able to whisper in my ears, “Save me dad, please. The pain is so terrible. Please… Please.”. I could only see my son dying. Doctors had done whatever they could. My arms gave away. I fainted.

No medication would revive her from coma. Several ribs had broken. Both kidneys had failed. Blood loss was ghastly. She lay in a white sea, so many tubes going in her that I could barely see her body.

In over a month, she gained consciousness; it took another three weeks for her to recognize me. I don’t remember how I spent those days, beside her bed. I was told I was growing paler. I refused food. I needed you then the most, father. I needed you so terribly. But seven years separated us. Alone, I suffered dreadful pangs of pain, perhaps much more than Raphael and his mother.

The first words she uttered after nine weeks of complete silence were, ‘I cannot live like this, Steven. Please free me of this body. I wish to pass on. To peace.’
I winced at her utterance. I insisted that I could never do this to her.

Three days later, I administered her an overdose of insulin. The last I saw of my living wife was then, on a Thursday night.

In three short months, my world had collapsed. I was alone again.

A private funeral at Georgetown cemetery. Tears and silence. Pain and hopelessness.
She lay beside Raphael. The epitaph on her headstone read:

Here lies Evette Zuriel, died September, 1994
Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.

Dark have been my days of late. I am afraid this is the end. I cannot live any longer. I am leaving you alone, but please forgive me. I envision blood on my arms, where, it seems aeons ago, Raphael had laughed and played. I cannot sleep in the room where Evette and I shared the best times of our lives, the happiness and tenderness and faced problems and tensions together. It was only love that made me listen to Evette’s request, but I cannot stay away from her any longer. There is no worth of my existence, I am broke and desolate. I wish life had turned to some other avenue. Some fond memories and remorse are all I have now. I am taking my life before they fade away.

I wish to tell you that I have loved you even in separation, as no child would love his father. I mean not to question your actions or mine, for this is how the chords of our fate meant it to be. I am being selfish, but I am desperate. I am full of guilt and sorrow, but now I must go.

I never told you this, for attenuating circumstances did not let me, but Evette respected you for your values, and Raphael always thought of his grandfather as a noble man.

Goodbye
Your loving son
Steven.