MY DAUGHTER OF THE HEART carries a knife everywhere she goes these days. I believe I understand what the reasoning is. I have decided to let her keep it.
Evil is everywhere. It will find us again. This is inevitable since it has never truly left us. Residues and residuals of the past – nightmares, negative thoughts, mischievous memories – pop up all over the place. Simone and I negotiate our daily lives with the ambivalence of shipwreck survivors washed up on an island. We know that the turbulent waters around us are shark-infested and that the pirates are still out there, wreaking havoc beyond our still, metal-grey horizon. A deep-sea monster has spat us out while it takes care of other business, but we don’t know what it’s going to do next. We have faced fear down, stared it in the face and walked away. We know fear, so we wait for it to come again.
Some days the inexorable waiting shows up as a dull persistent ache, other days it manifests itself as a petty irritability: Simone will slam her door shut, or I will grumble that it’s her turn to cook supper and I am not her servant. Terrified for her, I cannot show my feelings adequately. Or discuss what is happening to us. Cowardly bad mother that I am, I work late and ignore the accusatory atmosphere in our apartment. Some nights her young girl’s eyes are over-sharp and too bright. They see everything – the briefcase and jacket dumped on the sofa; they follow me down the passage and into my room, waiting for my ablutions in the bathroom, watching derisively as I pour myself a glass of wine that I shouldn’t have. What happened to my rule of on the weekend only? Such a long time ago …