Chapter 38

Euniel
Sandra is right, I need to trust her more and stop hiding things about my life from her. After all, she is my future wife, the mother of my children. If I don't trust her, who else will I? She has always been there for me since the beginning of our relationship. She put up with me despite my indifference towards her. She never gave me an opportunity not to believe in her. I have nothing to reproach him for sure. Just because Muse is back doesn't mean I have to start finding fault with her. As we often say, 'who doesn't love his dog accuses him of rabies'. It would simply be an injustice and ingratitude towards her. I must not forget how Muse abandoned me and preferred to choose to go away from me by sacrificing a possible relationship between us. I suffered a lot from it to the point that I came close to severe depression, not to mention how I waited all this time for her to come back without her deigning to show up or try to contact me. . She came back to find that I was already engaged to another very wonderful woman. She has all the qualities to make a good woman. It's true that I don't love him yet, but I know it won't be long. Who knows, maybe she'll manage to get Muse out of my head. Maybe by speeding up the process for our wedding, I'll focus more on Sandra than on Muse. I'm so angry with myself for not being able to give her back all the love she has for me. I think I was a little negligent towards her by leaving her out of my plans. I need to get it straightened out quickly. Therefore, as soon as I return from my father's house, I intend to involve him in our quest.
The next morning, I left very early to go to the airport. I am accompanied by my driver who will bring the car home after dropping me off. He is my driver and I normally pay him, however I only use his services very rarely, as is the case this morning. I prefer to drive my car myself, because I feel more free and independent. After checking in my luggage and completing the formalities required before the flight, I wait about twenty minutes in the boarding lounge before we are asked to board. The plane takes off immediately and in about thirty minutes, we arrive at our destination. The reason I choose to leave at one o'clock in the morning is because I want to find my father at home when I arrive. He is a man who likes to walk and strut all day long. His home for him is just to sleep at night. But as soon as day breaks, he behaves as if there is a spirit at home that stings him when present. He was never home during the day. I had never understood this behavior of always wanting to go out every day, when he doesn't even have a job. He's a really weird man that I've never understood. He never thought of building a family or getting married after my mother left. It looked like he was under a curse. I wonder how things could have happened if my mother had stayed with us, if she hadn't been forced to abandon us to go and manage the brothel. What would my father's attitude have been? Would his life have been better, or would he have ruined my mother's? What's he up to by being outside all the time? I always thought he was involved in some very shady business. Worse still, ever since I found out the whole truth about what really happened regarding my mom, I've been wondering so much about what role my dad would have had to play in my mom's situation. Was he also ignorant of the truth like me? Or is he involved in the conspiracy? To what extent is he involved in this affair? Did he know that I was not his son? Why had he never taken steps to look for my mother? Why was he behaving as if what happened in our lives when we only lived together was completely normal? My head, by dint of thinking, gives the impression of wanting to explode.
Once I got off the plane, I walked out of the airport where a taxi was hailed. I only have a small suitcase. I give the taxi driver my destination and he leaves immediately. I hope my father hasn't changed his address. In any case, he said nothing to me about it. I would also be surprised if he moved. Indeed, the house where he lives belonged to his parents. He therefore just inherited it after their death. Still happy, because had it not been for this inheritance, my father would not have thought of buying a small cabin to even rest his head in. Knowing him to be a spendthrift and less concerned, he would have ended his life without a small plot of land. Besides, my father doesn't do any work. His only job is to roam in all the drinking establishments of the city. Since my childhood and as far as my mind can allow me to project and reflect, my father has never had a job. Decidedly, my life will not have resembled any life of that of the children of my entourage. Having a father like mine was like having none at all.
Sitting in the taxi, I look through the window at this city that saw me grow up. Although I recognize some streets, the city has become totally different from the one I left after passing the baccalaureate. Buildings have sprung up like mushrooms all along the paved road, replacing the trees that once ruled there. Traffic is a bit congested due to traffic jams. This is only normal, since it is the time that the workers go to work. I know we'll be there for at least two hours. Normally, the trip from the airport to get to my father's house is forty five minutes. However, these plugs are most often tough to the point that we find ourselves lasting for hours without moving. I am therefore well equipped psychologically to wait as long as it takes. The only thing I might worry about is not being able to find my dad when I get home. I really wouldn't want such a thing to happen.
After at least an hour and a half braving the traffic jams, the taxi finally leaves me in front of the gate of my father's house. It's not a very big house. But it is quite modern and sufficient to accommodate an average family. My grandfather had been quite a hardworking man. He had left his village where he had grown up for a destination he did not know at all. Despite that, he got away with it. He built a family by taking a wife with a big heart. It was my grandmother. Unlike my father, my grandparents loved and spoiled me when they were alive. It is also thanks to them and their love that I was able to survive in this house. Unfortunately for me, at the age of 12, my grandfather died of a heart attack. My grandmother, unable to bear being left alone without the love of her life, died two months later from the grief of her husband's death. So I was left alone with my father. I always wondered why he looked so irresponsible and unbalanced, when his parents were good people, who had done everything possible to make him a fairly level-headed person in the world. future. I don't think I will ever have an answer to this question. There are things we do not understand and which we will never understand. Wanting to try to understand them is simply tantalizing madness. All we can do is just watch and be quiet. It is also for this reason that a local adage says that 'We give birth to a child, but we do not give birth to his heart.' It is not because a mother has given birth to a child that she will be able to determine how his character will be in the future. His duty is only to instill in him values and virtues in order to make him a person of good character. When he grows up, he will have the freedom to choose which path he wants to take. In addition, more importantly, she will just have to limit herself to praying for this child so that he does not go astray. For the rest, she can't change anything.
It is with this thought that I get out of the car that took me, after paying the driver and asking him to keep the change. He thanked me so gratefully that I thought he was going to kiss me. He was so moved and it always warms my heart to come to the aid of my fellow man. Everyone with the means to do so should sow a good deed at least around them, in order to put a smile on their lips. This world would be so good if everyone acted like this.
As soon as I cross the threshold of the portal, the rhythm of the beats of my heart begins to accelerate. It seems that someone had just opened the book of my childhood memories and that page by page, I was reliving this difficult period of my life. Like a screen that appears before my eyes, I see images of my childhood scrolling through this house. I can still see my father going out early in the morning and coming home very late, while I spent the whole day watching through my bedroom window to see if he had already returned from his walk. Late at night when he returned, I heard his footsteps crossing in front of my room to go to his. Although I knew that he was never going to stop in front of my room and enter to wish me good night, I still hoped that such a thing would happen. I dreamed from the bottom of my soul, that he would tell me that he loves me. Even on my birthday, I didn't wish much, just a happy birthday wish would have been enough for me. But alas, that was too much to ask of him. His indifference to me made me moan every night on my bed. I cried over and over every time my heart tore because he was unable to come see how I woke up in the morning. There are many ways to destroy a child's life. Indifference is undoubtedly one of the most effective. My father knew how to serve me this in abundance. I wanted him to at least smile at me often, and even just look at me. I wanted to show him my academic prowess, tell him about my dream of becoming a psychologist when I grew up. There were so many things I had hoped to do with him, like a father would with his son. But it must be said that for him, it was too much to ask of him. Sometimes I would do stupid things in the hope that he would get angry at it and so I could draw his attention to my little person. I hoped and wished with all my heart that he would abuse me so that I at least felt that he knew me and that I was not just a flowerpot in his house. But it was bad to know him. For my father, I was not dead, but rather I simply did not exist. For a child, there is nothing more destructive than a parent does not consider it. I would even have preferred not to have a father than to have had this one. I listened to my classmates and neighborhood friends talk about how they spent time and played with their parents. I envied them so much that I secretly wanted to live with them. I suffered so much from this lack of affection and this rejection in my childhood to the point that I developed a behavioral disorder. I had a great lack of self-confidence and self-esteem. I had to readapt into social life when I arrived in Europe. It was very long, but it took as long as it could take, and today, I am fulfilled. But surprisingly, it was when I told my father the morning of my trip to Europe that he started to become more interested in life. Even being a student, he didn't hesitate to ask me for money. To believe that as a child, he could not imagine that I was going to succeed one day in my life. I wouldn't wish this childhood on anyone, not even my worst enemy. And since I became an adult, I swore to myself that the fruit of my womb would never know what I knew. I will do everything to be as close as possible to my children.
I walk nonchalantly to the front door of my father's house. I lightly push the door which is not locked. I walk slowly to the living room. I peek into the room built of baked bricks. She had seen better days in the past. The red of those bricks was so glistening. This room in the house made you want to stay there. Grandfather and grandmother liked to sit there, chatting and telling stories of their youth. There was then life in the four walls of this room. You could breathe warmth and good living there. The house was then full of life. However, that life ended with their death. They took her away, leaving an icy calm, which was not so different from that which reigns in the morgues. No one sat in the living room anymore. From the favorite room in the house that it was in the past, it has become the room of solitude. I walk around the room, the memories of my life here are still fresh in my mind. They are so fresh that I feel like I experienced them just yesterday. The decoration of this room has not changed unduly. It remained almost identical to the one I left when I left this house. Adhered to the front wall is a ramshackle sofa, the same one I left before leaving. Its brown color is just a memory in my mind, having given way to a color that is neither gray nor white. To the right of the sofa is a cupboard on which a few books and a flower pot are laid out in disorder. The dust is deposited on these objects with a certain coarse thickness that I can see it from where I am standing. In the middle of the living room there is a red wooden table which, at a glance from a distance, does not suggest that she has a problem with her feet. A television that made its star in the early 2000s is placed on a table on the wall opposite the sofa. The tiles on the floor are already cracked. Their white color has become brown. This piece does not portend any life. Everything is so dull and devoid of cheerfulness. I wonder if people still visit it. Standing with my suitcase in hand, looking at this house which is no more than a shadow of itself, I hear voices coming from the other side of the room. I walk taking the direction of where these voices are coming from. I've barely taken a few steps when I see my father appear, followed by a woman in her fifties but well preserved.
"That was so nice! You're still good down there! I think we'll do that a lot." I hear the woman exclaim in a sultry voice. My father's turn to answer him
"Of course it's still good down there, and very good even! What did you think? If your husband doesn't hit you well, don't hesitate to come see me."
I let out a small sigh as I heard their conversation, although I wished I hadn't heard any of it. I immediately understand what they are referring to when speaking. This man is not going to change! He doesn't mind sleeping with someone else's wife. Even as he nears old age, he does not seek to empower himself and lead a nobler life. Being behind the living room wall, the two couldn't see me. So I go out to expose myself to them.
"Of course my beautiful stallion with the big belly!" The woman responds with a wink at my father.
"How often do you expect to be there? No need to remind you that your naughty dog husband is on your back all the time." My father worries.
"You did say he's my husband, that means I've got him under control. Don't worry about that jerk. I know how to handle him." Said the woman in a reassuring voice.
"In that case, that's fine with me. We have to..." It was my father who had spoken, but interrupted himself by falling on me.
"Euniel..." He stammers without adding anything more. The surprise on his face is as visible as a nose in the face.
"Charles, who is it?" The good lady asks, approaching my father.
"It is Euniel my son." My father answers him without taking his eyes off mine.
"Hello Euniel!" She tells me with a broad smile.
"Hello!" I answer without much formalism.
"Pauline, please leave me and my son for a moment, I'll let you know later." My father said to the woman keeping his gaze on me.
"Of course! Don't forget to wave at me afterwards." She responds by taking the exit.
My father looks at me for a moment in silence, puzzled. He stares me straight in the eye without saying a word, and I stare back at him in silence. He must surely be wondering what brings me home this morning, moreover without having warned him in advance. He must surely suspect that there is something very important that I came to do at his place.