–2–

I was five when I saw the ocean for the first time. And it was the ocean that gave me the opportunity to see how much my existence was connected to my father’s. Until those distant summer holidays (some thirty years ago), he had simply been an extra in my childhood. Since I was an only child — which I believed to be true until not long ago — I had spent my days enjoying my mother’s full-time devotion. She fed my body, nourished my soul, inhabited my dreams. A love story at once unique and yet identical to so many others. In my childish self-centredness, I believed that the intensity of my love, as well as my fidelity, was fully reciprocated. If I could have expressed my deepest feelings at the time, I would have said that I was the creature who had come to put a full stop to lust. A happy ending. I was a dream come true — her ideal, her redemption, her saviour. The truth. But this is, to a greater or lesser degree, everyone’s story, isn’t it?

That summer’s day, the joy of meaning everything to her seemed confirmed by the radiant morning. The sky was a crayon blue … There I go, invoking nature again; forgive me. But it was my desperation, or what it caused, that has kept the day crystal clear in my mind. We arrived at the beach after walking a few blocks from the condominium where my parents had rented a house. Our walk took a while, as I was curious to examine the plants, stones, and insects I found along the dirt road. My father set up the beach umbrella near a stone wall, and my mother and I went to build a sandcastle near the water. After a while, I picked up my pail and waded into the sea. ‘I’m going to catch a wave to fill the moat,’ I told her.

I had waded a few metres into the shallow water when I saw a minuscule fish swimming between my legs. It occurred to me to catch it in my pail and take it to my mother as a present. I tried to catch it, once, twice, but it managed to escape each time. For a moment I hesitated before continuing my fishing. But the idea of surprising my mother overcame my caution. I followed the fish further into the sea until I found myself chest-deep in water. I had never gone so far out on my own, and wished an adult hand was there to steady me. Where was my mother? ‘Mummy!’ I cried, looking at the fish, which had come back to play around my legs. When I looked up towards the horizon, a wave big enough to cover me was already looming over my head. I was swept into the roar of the breaking wave. And on that sunny morning, everything went dark.

What’s a father for? My analyst … Don’t tell me you didn’t know? … Yes, I had an analyst, before you came into my life … Or I came into yours, whatever … My analyst used to sit there in silence whenever she heard this question. You know, that rather tragic analyst-silence that sets you at a crossroads, all the paths leading everywhere, which isn’t anywhere. Would things have turned out differently if there had been an answer? Anyway, it’s too late now. I left the crossroads by a shortcut, that’s for sure. Am I mad? Maybe, but madness has given me back lucidity — this lucidity, at least. I’ve accepted it. Today it is clear to me that, until I bludgeoned him to death, my father’s purpose in life was to humiliate me.

The first humiliation he inflicted on me was saving my life that summer morning. The wave crashed down so violently that I passed out. I have nothing to say about the experience in itself, except that to this day it was the only time in my life that I did so. I woke up in a room whiter than this one seems to be. My head was aching, the first in a series of headaches that were to torment me as a child. At the foot of the bed was the familiar sight of my teddy bear. What was I doing there? I turned to look at the window. My father and mother were kissing. And, I can say now, voraciously, urgently, passionately.

I screamed like someone trapped in a nightmare.

My mother ran over and embraced me, crying, ‘He’s awake!’

Here’s a brief summary of what happened. After setting up the beach umbrella, my father was doing his stretches near the sandcastle my mother and I had been building. He always stretched before his morning dip. When he looked up after a sequence of exercises, he saw that I’d gone too far out. Imagining the worst, he threw himself into the sea. Only then did my mother realise she’d been too distracted by the sandcastle (she didn’t forgive herself for this for the rest of her life). When I passed out, he was only a few metres from me, and he saved me from drowning. I was taken to hospital, where they said I had concussion. I spent a day sedated so the doctors could assess the extent of the problem. The accident left no physical effects, but to this day I don’t know how to swim. I just can’t learn. In water, my body is made of lead. The fact that my father was an excellent swimmer gave this inability additional significance.

I’d never seen my parents kissing. Not even hugging. When I was a teenager I discovered that they’d grown apart months after my birth. The real reason was unknown, but family mythology had handed down several versions: my mother had become frigid; my father had taken a lover; her extreme dedication to the baby made him jealous and he’d felt like an intruder; paternity had pushed him into a deep depression. What to believe? Perhaps each of these versions contains a fragment of the truth. And perhaps there isn’t actually a whole, solid truth, in which everything fits together perfectly. And perhaps the truth is no more than this: a messy jumble of half-truths.

The interesting thing is that, while my birth drove a wedge between them, my near-death brought them back together. And I was reborn that day so that part of me might die.