My Son

by Philip J. Lees

My son who never knew me, I ask only one thing: to hear you say, “Father.” Is one word too much to ask?

I was never there for you, I know that, so maybe I have no right to ask this thing from you, but now, at the end, it seems such a small favour.

I loved your mother, did she tell you that? Probably she did not—she would want you to hate me the way she did. But when I left her it was not through lack of love but lack of courage.

I had no choice, I told her. I had picked the wrong side in the war that turned brothers into enemies, love into hate. I had learned about hate, the hate that sucks the goodness out of people as a tick sucks blood. Now the soldiers were coming and I could not stay.

It’s for you, I told her, for you and our baby. If they find me here they will kill you, too. She looked at me with that fine, strong face. The lips where I had once showered kisses were thin and white with rage. Those eyes that flashed like stars in the darkness were dull beneath her sullen brow. She held her arms stiff by her sides. Her hands clenched, knuckles white, then opened, closed, again and again.

I must go now, I told her. I cannot wait. It was true. If they came and found me there they would kill her first, to torment me the more before I died. If I was gone they might spare her, spare you, who were little more than a seed growing inside her, our little secret.

I told her all this, but really I was telling myself. Finally she nodded.

“Go then.” In those two words her love for me turned to hate. I could see it in the way the life left her face and something died inside me, too. She turned away and did not speak again, did not look at me again. In that moment I ceased to exist for her.

I took my bag, I slung my gun over my shoulder. I walked away.

Those were hard years, my son. I lived in caves, walked the hills at night. Then they found me. The killing had stopped by then, but they locked me in prison. For two years I existed within damp, peeling walls, scratching off days on the concrete by my cot. I fell asleep to the sound of my companions coughing, the rattle of consumption my only lullaby. Somehow I survived until the amnesty.

Free again, I returned to our home, but nobody was left, the village was deserted. I asked a shepherd. “All gone,” he said. “All dead.” I despaired. I had no hate left.

I found work, I found friends, I found solace of a kind, and then one day I found you. I saw your picture in the newspaper; my father’s name, your mother’s face. I knew it was you. My son, the professor. How proud I was.

I traced your career, bought your books. I set them in line on a polished shelf and kept the dust away. I opened one or two but I could not understand them. From time to time I saw you in the newspaper, on television, talking to other professors, to government ministers, and every time it happened I felt the minuscule spark of life that still burned within me glow a little brighter.

But the hateful ones have not gone, they are still with us. They struck you down for no reason other than to show their hate to the world. And so now, for the first time, I find myself in your presence and I fear it is too late.

Your face is pale, my son. The tubes that feed you cannot bring a blush to your cheeks. Your eyes are closed. Your chest rises and falls, rises and falls to the rhythm of the machine.

It should be me in that bed, not you. I should be the one lying there dying, slipping away while the machines try to hold you here. Can you win this battle? I asked the doctor and he shook his head and turned away.

I have failed again, as I failed at everything. I am your father and I failed you. I do not ask forgiveness, I only ask one thing: to hear you say, “Father.”

Is one word too much to ask?

My Son

by Philip J. Lees

- End -