Читать книгу The Storyteller - Pierre Jarawan - Страница 22

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11

“Am I your heart?” I mumbled, barely able to keep my eyes open.

“You are my greatest happiness,” he whispered.

I was already half asleep, drifting in that pleasant land of shadowy darkness, transported there by his voice and the pictures he’d painted. It was a story of reconciliation, showing me how important we, his family, were to him. How important I, his son, was. And how he loved coming home to us, his hearts, no matter which adventures he’d just experienced within himself.

Father kissed my forehead. It was the last kiss I got from him. A feeling of utter contentment settled on me like a downy quilt tucking me in. Then he ran his fingers through my hair. It was the last time he’d do that. He smoothed my duvet one last time and turned out the bedside light.

“Sleep well, Samir,” he whispered. He stood up and looked round at me one more time. “I love you.”

Those were his last words.

Through a heavy veil, I could see him standing in the doorway. My eyelids grew heavier and heavier, as if a lead weight was pulling them down. If I’d known that these were the last few seconds I’d have with my father, I’d have made more of an effort. I’d have tried to look at him for longer, taking in the thick eyebrows above the friendly brown eyes set in a round face. I’d have tried to memorise how he looked so that in the weeks and months to come, when I’d wake from a dream he appeared in, I wouldn’t panic and forget to breathe for fear he’d slip away. So that the teenage me wouldn’t despair when I could no longer remember his face, just a blurry impression of it. So that I wouldn’t keep cursing myself, years later even, when I couldn’t remember how deep the creases at the corners of his mouth were when he laughed. How many lines his forehead had when he frowned. How far his Adam’s apple protruded when he threw his head back to laugh. Whether he might have been greying at the temples. Or had a birthmark on the back of his neck. What direction the lifelines on his palms took when he waved his hands in the air. Which hand he used to stroke his beard. Exactly how his voice sounded when he was telling a story. I would have opened my eyes wide and looked at him and registered it all. So that I’d never forget. I would have forced myself to look at him. But I was too sleepy. And so the last I saw of my father was his silhouette in the doorway and him—so I believe—looking at me fondly.