The Man I Wished Was My Father
By Abeer Ahmed
Translated by Mohammed Alsaeed
He was at the very center of the sitting room, and everyone around Him was struck by the sweetness of His talk. He made everyone laugh; in His pockets, he kept a cache of jokes suitable for all ages, and He had enough creative genius to invent a crack that would land equally well with both grandfather and grandson. Yet he was not ridiculous. No, he was highly respected by all, such that you’d want everyone to hold their breath, so you could hear His delicate silence.
His youngest daughter sat on His lap. He stroked her head while her face seemed bewitched, as though she were under the power of a spell. In her eyes was a shade of concern that looked like the seed of doubt—and no wonder, since she had a father with all this tenderness. We humans are confused by the abundance of anything. If it began to rain on a desert land, the sun, like us, would be worried about floods. I thought: She must not get used to His tenderness. If a person gets used to this kind of tenderness, they will always be wanting more, even if it worries them.
I promised myself that, if I were there in her place, He would—without a doubt—caress away all my darkest thoughts, all my attempts at suicide, all my wounds. I imagined the touch of His hand on my face would be enough to bring sense to my incoherence. His hand seemed itself to understand, like a person who reads the words right out of his friend’s eyes.
When someone speaks, He listens carefully and makes them feel like an evening star. Of course, everyone turns into an evening star eventually.
He charmed me, too. I, who was resentful of all fathers, could not believe that I said to myself, “If only this man were my dad!” He was smiling a sort of smile that could crush all the loneliness that dwelt inside me; such a smile was designed for a face that could not be touched by anger. Anger? I was almost certain that anger was a stranger to His face, and that, if it passed through, it was like a stranger in a hurry, passing through on his way back to his homeland.When I returned home after that wonderful evening, I thought about Him, again and again, until sleep overtook me, and when I woke at dawn, my mother asked me to wake my father for prayers. I was hesitant, afraid of His relentless anger. I tried to coax my eldest sister into doing it, and I told her that, in exchange, I would wash the dishes and make the coffee. She didn’t even answer. No one liked to provoke a father who was always provoked. I surrendered and went into His room. When the light fell on his eyes, He woke immediately and turned to me with His angry glare, which filled His face. It took me a few minutes to realize that the man I had admired the night before was my father.
Abeer Ahmed is an Emirati author from Abu Dhabi with a bachelor’s degree in Arabic language and literature. Currently pursuing a master’s in linguistics, she has published a short story collection, كائن يفترس نفسه, and wrote stories that appear in the collection حكايا البيت.
Mohammed Alsaeed is a Saudi translator with a background in Information Security, working as an incident responder. He has contributed to translation projects in government and private sectors, with a focus on literary translation.