My mother once told my father – you are not Napoleon.
She admires Napoleon a great deal and so does my father. He even read a very big book written by the Emperor personal assistant on how it was to work with the great man. In that book two things impressed my father much. The first was a letter written with orders to his officials that ended stating a due date and recommending the answer should be written with ‘No ifs. No buts. No becauses’. The second was Napoleon´s own description on how his memory worked. A well-known maniac micro-manager Napoleon said his mind was like one of those old writing tables with many different drawers, some large, some small, with names on them. He would file the information and when he needed it back, he would open the correct drawer, and there it was, neatly organized.
My father has a wandering mind. His inner voice constantly jumps from work, to what he is seeing, to something that happened – recently or long ago, to the news in the papers, to reflections and theories on the world affairs, to the appreciation of art and space, to idealization, to questioning the human nature, to a new recipe. He is an admirer of the human soul and a voyeur of the human torments. And he is empathic to the marrow of his bones. He once saw a strange man in a religious service. It was in a visit to the states, somewhere in the Midwest. The man had long light brown hair and beard and beautiful blue eyes. The man was dressed in a skirt, a woman skinny shirt and was wearing a scarf as a cape. The man was restless, sitting down, getting up, going down the aisles and then returning to behind the glass panels in the back. The man laughed cynically when the father preached “rest thy hearts”. Before the end of the service the police came and took the man away. My father could not stop thinking about the man for three days.
My mother, very unlike my father, is charismatic. People like her immediately and, in time, most tend to admire her. When my parents meet a stranger, my father is normally taking the first step – a question, some remark. He finds a common ground. And then my mother starts talking. Something about her magnetizes the people. You can actually see it happening. At first they are a bit surprised, and then they make her a question and listen very attentively to her answer. That happens every time. An actual conversation ensues. As it develops the stranger turns all his attention on her, his front bows slightly, his eyes glisten, and his knees are turned in her direction, the shoulders perfectly aligned. And then they touch her, a gentle pat, or a handshake.
My father does not like noise. A dining table with more than four people in a restaurant means he won´t be talking. His ears and brain can´t deal with the background noise and follow the conversation. He says he needs exclusivity. A nice way to put it, but, if he is to be really honest with you, he will tell you, restaurants and noise leave out a part of him. And he does not like that. What he really likes is to impress his friends on the whole, his place, his cooking, his good taste, his smart conversationalist skills, his debating, his knowledge, his hobbies, his wife. He is an exhibitionist.
My mother studied Chemical Engineering and she is a project manager in the Pharma industry. Her co-workers think she is tough, determined, objective and really nice. Some of them have fallen in love for her. My father studied Economics and he is an executive for some automotive industry after having worked as a consultant for some years. His co-workers think he is really smart and honest but not a nice person. They think he is arrogant. None has ever fall in love for him.
My parents were irresistibly drawn to each other. They first met at some friend´s place and spent the entire night chatting. I have a photo of that night. They both look very neat, in good shape. They are holding a glass of wine each and you can see surprise and curiosity in their eyes and body language. It happened just fifteen days after my mother lost her father. He died of a brain disease, it´s hereditary and my mother might have it too, but she doesn´t want to know. She refuses to have the DNA testing and my father agrees with her decision. I guess she doesn´t want to live with a death sentence. Anyway, that first night all was well but she drank a bit too much and ended vomiting in her friend´s bathroom. She also started crying because of her father. My father knew all that because he couldn´t stand her being away for so long and peeked on the window and saw her crying and her friends all around her. They took good care of her and put her to bed. Even so, when my father was leaving, she rose and told him she would need his phone number.
When they were boyfriend and girlfriend my father got tickets to a classical music concert. In the interval they went to the little bookshop in the foyer and my father bought a book. It was 'Letter to D.' by Andreas Gursky. It is the last work by that thinker and writer and my father says it is the most beautiful suicide note ever written. He offered it to my mother. She never read it.
When my parents got married they did it three times. Once in the civil office, to clear the paperwork so my father could get his visa. Only the closest friends went. They did a house party and stayed the long hours with their friends. Some of their friends suggested group sex but my father said he couldn´t see the point of it. Then they married in the hometown of my mother´s mother. Helena is her name. She arranged everything and all her brothers and sisters went with their families. It was more than 70 people and it was in a great grill place. My father did a speech and used his famous trick, the Croatian toasts. Everyone was much moved and they finished the night very drunk dancing with all the family. Then they married in my father home town, in a church five hundred years old, with a view of the large river there. The marriage included a cocktail, and dinner and party. All was organized by my father. They ran away to their room before it finished. My mother wedding dress is very nice and sexy and it suited her incredibly. Tall and fair as she is, in the beautiful old rooms of the great hotel, she really looked like a princess. And they are so happy in all the photos.
My father once told my mother that, together, they would accomplish more. Well - I have no gender, no name, no age.
This is the memory of a child never conceived.
A.
