If I ever meet him, I mean, my father, I’ll tell him that I got robust love for knives – I'm mean, I’m no longer afraid of knives and lighters. I have been handling many knives. Not the rogue guy’s knives, anyway, you know. Just any other knife. I know I might be tempted to tell him to teach me how to swim in a river, fish in a canoe with him in a fresh water lake but it's okay, I don't eat fish. Maybe I’ll just tell him to show me how to look for bush meat before the country adopts punitive measures on poachers and all other petty crimes related to wildlife.
These are the things I would tell him if he ever shows up on our door. I remember that day when he enters the house and his eyes were heavy as death and felt worn out. His tie was sagged and his mud-like shoes wear torn. He didn’t say a thing to any of us. He threw his laptop bag on the couch and then went straight to the room. “Dad!” My brother called him. He feigned a smile and then didn’t say a thing as he eases steps.
Mother, on the other side, didn’t say a thing, too. With undivided attention, she looked at him like a new ad on a commercial break. She continued with her book for a while to kill that awkward moment created before she goes to the room to and finds out what went wrong. She held the doorknob; still in decision whether to ask him where he has been or to let it pass like other things that have never been discussed before.
My heart leapt when I saw her standing in dilemma. I knew, right from that moment, that our peaceful evening was in a full scene of jeopardy- or, should I say, would be a dark evening. I made a short prayer though it never bore any fruits. When I saw her opening the room with force and closed it with a bang, I knew, for once, that things might never be the same.
“Taban, what are you doing?” she asked, as if she expected him to give her the best answer. “Taban, I’m talking to you,” she repeated. He looked at her; like he wanted to say something and then he continued to pack his clothes.
No matter how much she shouted at him. No matter how much she pleaded with him. No matter much she cried, went down on her knees -begging him not to leave us alone; that we are too vulnerable to grow without a father, nothing ever crossed his damn mind. All he wanted was to go far away from us. Live a new life where nothing reminds him of us. A new lover: a whole brand new wife and kids, a new job, new friends, name them. This is what came to my mind.
As he walks to the door, it flung wide open. This time, two men in uniforms walked in. “Mr. Taban, you’re under arrest for the murder of Angelo Francis.” They hissed. We couldn’t believe what we heard. Taban, the then father to me and little Billy, could never do anything. All we knew was that he was a heavy drinker and love his job. This was the other side of him, which he never shown to neither my mother nor us. Well, I was twelve, which mean, it wasn’t necessary that I would read all the signs; but, for the case of mother, she could even swear with her mother’s cloak that she has never known he was a criminal. He was taken away, anyway, despite our numerous pleads and threats to the officers.
My mother tried to trace his family, thinking they would appreciate her efforts for letting them know whereabouts his hiding. All didn’t goes well. His father, a retired nurse, and the mother, a retired primary teacher, too, slumped the door on her face. “We know our son is wealthy. We know who his wives are. He has never mentioned anything about you,” they said. Indeed, my father was a rich criminal. He had mansions, successful businesses, he was a business guru. And we finally came to know later, that, he had murdered his friend, Francis Angelo over a gold business.
Anyway, this is when she fully realizes that her husband has turned her into a secret lover. The man has bigger and successful families with happy kids than us. It’s further rumored to us that he leaves his family in the name of working in a nearby town. Same thing. Whenever he bids us goodbye, he would say that he was going for work and would stay for days. This, he means a week or two before we could see him again and then life continue like that.
The truth is, we weren’t very poor nor very rich. When the report later came to us that he was going to spend thirty years in a government facility, we couldn't stand it. Moreover, he, too, couldn’t stand it. One morning, he was found dead in his cell. He took his life without looking back. My mother was never invited nor ever informed about the incident. His wealth was shared among his other three wives and children.
Mother struggled with us. Years passed. We grew up into strong men with her pain. Thanks to the power of a single woman. I graduated, and started working. When I met Isabella, I introduced her to my family. On the night of our wedding, a phone call came through from Lukudu, my childhood friend. “Sam,” he called. “Are you alone?” he asked.
“Yes. Any problem. Why are you calling me in the middle of the night?” My heart was already pounding inside my chest.
“Well, I don’t know how to put this but we have a real situation here,” he said.
What came to my mind was that his elder brother, another Angelo, had opted for suicide.
“What happened?”
“Calm down. We’re coming to the house.” And then he ends the call.
As I walk up to my mother’s bedroom, I met her on the way going to the kitchen.
“Aren’t you supposed to sleep?”
“I have no wink. Why are you up?” I asked her.
“I just want to take a sip of this tea.”
The door open and I saw Lukudu, Mama Isabella, aunt and Isabella herself.
My mind almost blow up. “What’s going on?” My mother asked in her usual tempo of curiosity asked.
“This can’t go on,” says Mama Isabella.
“What can’t go on?” We asked unison.
“The wedding must be called off immediately. Isabella is also Taban’s daughter.” Literally, she was one of those girls that my father lured into love and confused her with a lot of money. She impregnates her and then dumped her immediately. And since we come from different cultures: us being Madi and them being Dinkas, nobody ever bothered to ask which Taban of the “tabaniin” was the center point of the entire confusion.
When the whole thing came to our usual senses, and us, who have already committed incest more than a dozen times, we reunites with my half sister and we went back to writing apology letters for calling off the wedding.
The following day, I sat on the same corner where I always finds my solace and then wished, if only I ever had a father around, I would make a list, a list of things I would tell him. But since he wasn’t there, I ought to turned the pages of the Bible until I found the following; “there is a time to grief and the time to celebrate. There is time to cry and time to laugh..”
“The air conditioner is too cold, take this cup of tea.” My mother gave me cup fill with hot kedekede and then walked to her bedroom to find some sleep.
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