He Has His Father's Eyes

There were two things my father never talked about. My mother, and how he had lost both his eyes. Whenever I would ask, he’d keep doing whatever he was doing without paying any attention to me. This happened a few times, and eventually, I gave up. All my life, as far as I could remember, my father had raised me and my mother had been out of the picture. I never knew if she was dead or if they had simply gotten divorced. My dad would never tell me. So, I wondered in silence.
  On my 18th birthday, my father had for once let me sleep in, which was something he would otherwise never do. There was always something to be done around the house, groceries to be purchased, china to polish. He kept busy and made me do the same. On that day, however, I was wide awake and had a slight tingling in my belly, knowing that from this day on, I was no longer a child.
  My father barely looked up when I entered the kitchen. He motioned me to sit with him by the kitchen table. He was cleaning an old soot-filled frying pan. He took a quiet breath. I got the feeling that if he could see, he would have fastened his eyes on the bottom of that pan. It was almost as if he was anxious, but my father had always been the very incarnation of calm and solidity.
 “Boy,” he said in his husky voice, without looking up. “You are a man today.” There was nothing congratulatory in his voice, just a statement of fact. I kept quiet and waited for him to continue.
  “You’ve asked about your mother. You’ve asked about my eyes. Neither of those make a pleasant story, but from this day on, it is out of my hands.
  ‘Your mother was not a Christian woman, son. She did not have a good heart. In fact, I believe she was missing her soul.” He paused and kept scrubbing the pan. “I knew that when I met her. And I married her anyway.
  ‘You don’t know this, but I had been married twice before. Once foolishly with my first love. We were wed for less than a year, when she left me for another man. Then I met Amalda. We were together for nearly ten years, until the cancer got her. Amalda and I were happy for a long time.
  ‘Neither of them could bring me children. We tried. We sought help. We gave up. It wasn’t meant to be. I think that is what killed Amalda. What lured the cancer to her body.
  ‘Years after her demise, I still ached from grief. My heart was heavy, my judgement dulled. And your mother came along right in the thick of it.
  ‘She was beautiful, I will give her that. Bushy red hair. Slender body, small but flattering curves. Grey eyes… she never blinked. It was as if they were made of solid rock. But they were captivating in their own way.
  ‘I was entranced by her, but at the same time I felt something deep inside me telling me to turn back and ignore this woman. To not meet her gaze at all. But my cloak of sorrow, made as from the thickest wool, was somewhat lifted when I looked upon her.
  ‘We were sitting by the cliffs, quiet, listening to the waves. When the sun set, she asked if I would take her as my wife.
  'The eerie premonition made itself known, and I told her no. I tried to justify it with the fact that we had only just met, but she knew. She begged me stay as I rose to leave her. I had turned my back on her when she said:
  “I can give you children.”
  The old longing rose and jagged itself into my stomach. A child. A son. I slowly turned around.
  “How?”
  “Does it matter?” she asked.
  It didn’t.
   
‘We got married that same night. It may seem strange to you, but at that moment, it made sense, as if God himself had meticulously laid out his plans for me and I just followed His path. The prospect of offspring stifled the knowledge that this was not a kind-hearted woman.
  ‘When we were to lay together on our wedding night, she told me that something had to be given for her to conceive. A sacrifice. I told her, anything. Anything. She asked how many children I wanted and I said: two sons. She nodded and gouged out both of my eyes with her fingernails.
  ‘Your mother said I must give them to her willingly. She cupped the eyes in my hands and instructed me to put them in her mouth, one by one. I heard her swallow them without chewing. Then she wrapped a piece of cloth around my eyes. I knew the soft fabric well. It was a white silk scarf Amalda had once owned.
  With blood running like tears for a lost spouse, we made love.
   
‘It wasn’t long until we expected twins. I was promised two boys.
  'Nine months slowly passed. The air in our home grew more sinister by the day. A nagging suspicion that something wasn’t right with the pregnancy grew along with your mother’s belly. She said everything was well. I knew she was lying. At times, I didn’t care.
  'The day of your delivery came. As your mother lay down on the sheets at the hospital, she motioned me to come closer. “You were right, my love,” she said with no emotion. “There are two fetuses inside me,” she said. “But only one son.” I didn’t understand. She was expecting twins.
  “Only one could live. It had to drink its brother’s blood to be born.”
  'Heavy tears dropped from my empty eye sockets onto her chest. One of my children would have to kill the other one to survive. Most likely it already had. I didn’t blame your mother. Only myself.
  ‘You were both born. You, boy, were as healthy as can be. Crying like an eagle, with a caul around your head. Your brother – who we never named – was stillborn. He had tiny wounds all over his body. His body was torn, ripped. We left him behind.
  ‘When we got home from the hospital, your mother would constantly keep you close. She would nurse you, bathe you, rock you. I offered to take you, I wanted to hold you, but she wouldn’t let you near me. The more distance she put between us, the more resentment I built up in my stomach toward her. But I couldn’t bring myself to lay a hand on a woman, much less the mother of my child.
  ‘It was in the stirrings of night, only weeks after we had taken you home, that I heard her walking up and about. I got up to ask her if you were all right. Her steps were pounding on the floor. I heard her cape swish against the floor and the chilly wind from the open front door make its way in. I heard you too. You were crying, softly, and I could tell you were anxious. I asked your mother where she was going. She said you were hers, that I had been a tool. I knew she’d never loved me. So, I was not surprised, but I would not let her take you away from me.
  ‘The door slammed shut. I opened it, running out into the garden, the fierce snow biting at my forehead. I could hear her treading through the thick snow and ran after her.
  ‘She had eyes, but I was faster. I lunged myself over her, prying you from her grip as firmly as I could without hurting you. She screamed but I managed to hold her back. I was still stronger than her. She threw herself over me, clawing at my sleeves. While fighting her off, I used my memory and felt my way to the axe in the stub and grabbed the weapon I used daily to chop wood. I grabbed it and swung twice. On the second swing, your mother cried out in pain. I swung it once again in her direction. Her screaming abruptly stopped.
  ‘I took you inside and put you to bed, then went back outside to recover your mother’s body. But on the spot where she had died, there was only a great, immovable rock. No matter how much I tried to take it out of my garden, it would not budge.”
   
My father put the pan into a cupboard and continued to clean another one. I looked out the window and saw the chunk of rock that had stood outside for as long as I could remember. I had had a brother... and drunk his blood? Fed on him? It sounded insane, but I knew my father would never make up something like that. I wanted to ask so many questions, but he had his insular look about him. There was, however, one question burning in my mind that I had to voice.
  “Why did you stay here, Dad, after everything that happened? Why not move?”
  My father's hands slowly stopped cleaning the pan. Once again I got the sensation he was staring right into it. He unseeingly raised his head towards me, and said, in a quiet voice:
     "I've tried."