My father was born when Ordoño II was crowned king. By the time my father died he was two hundred and fifty seven years old. Too old, right? Not for him. When life was taken from him, his face was as young as thirty five.
He said he was a Castilian...well, that’s what he said. But his cerulean eyes and dark golden hair tells another story. I don’t know if this was all true, for I believed he knows everything. He knows Ptolemy, he knew Cesar from the back of his mind, he knows the way of Romans, he knows the Christ as if he played with him when he was young... and as if he was there when the Messiah was crucified. I don’t know if my own father was pulling my leg or just telling a bed time story when I’m about to go to bed. But I don’t care, all I knew he was a magnificent man whom I love and remembered.
My father was too secretive. Maybe because he wants protect us, maybe because he wanted to live a normal life.
He knew he can’t, that’s why he lied. Not to us though, not to his own family... but to everybody.
Before he became a merchant, he was a soldier, a royal guard under six various monarchs in seven distinctive empires. He could fight even with his eyes closed, and his sword, Setelah, was his only trusted friend. He gave that to me by the way when I was seven, and even used it when I was fifteen. But as years and so thus the world progressed, I hid it somewhere. It became my only treasure. Swords these days were deflated; you see them only in the museum.
Let me tell you that later. Where was I? Oh yes, I was talking about my father.
He was merchant like I said and we often travelled city to city till we reached Babylonia where I learned so many things about trading. Babylonia was a beautiful place of about markets, temples, and gardens. Ah the gardens, especially the gardens. I also learned botany from that place, you know, though I don’t know what the hell botany means. I just pick a flower or herbs and announced its name. Heck, I even invented my own and my sister laughed at it. I think Babylon is where my boyhood embroils. How can I not? Did you see how beautiful the girls there? Oh believe me, if you’re there, you too will be overwhelmed.
We settled in Eshnunna, few miles away from the capital, neighboring with the Sumerians—which I got scared at first by their dark eyes and wavy hair, makes me...what’s that word...jumpy? Their woman were beautiful, but their men mostly bulky. Their priests too were little bit weird, maybe because I don’t understand their songs when they sang, but it in the end it was indeed pleasing to the ear. One time I let myself inside their temple. There was statue of gold, and they said it was their god. A seven year-old child like me could get confused at times when a parent taught their child what God really looks like. My father never said anything about gold. There something about wood though, but never about gold and I was confused as hell when I saw the deity inside the Babylonian temple. My father laughed when I asked him, “I thought God look like us?” And he said, “Yes, he is. But what you saw earlier inside the temple was only a memoir figure. Won’t you have a memory of your love one when they are not around?”
I told him yes and I understood what he meant.
We are not that traditional or religious family, my mother often tells. She said she lived long enough to see there’s no miracle, as in none! I don’t understand. However, my father had a different story. I mentioned earlier about Christ, right? Well my father often tells His lovely tale about the feast, His water turned wine, His fate by the hands of Romans, even about this man called Lazarus. “What about Lazarus?” I asked my mother one time and she told me “He’s a man who sleeps more than a day and one man finally woke him up.” Very odd descriptive, ne? My mother was full of humor, she makes me laugh, and my father just shook his head when she does that.
My father was wonderful story teller, I asked him again about this Jesus fellow. He said he knew everything about Jesus, not from the book, but visually, literally. “Jesus was a Hebrew who condemned by his own people, yet still he sacrificed himself to be impaled to save mankind.” He explained. “Sad story, wasn’t it? I wish I could save him.”
I curiously asked where was he when Jesus was caught, and my father absently said, “I was one of the guards.”
I told you my father was lousy liar when it comes to his age. His face had not reached the age of forty, but his memory was more than a century old. And when my age turned seven, he opened my eyes and teach me the things I will never ever forget throughout my entire life.
First he introduced me to the art of weaponry. Imagine that, me, merely a boy who only knows hide and seek, run and swam, now forced to grip a sword bigger than my body—who gave him that crazy idea anyway? I am only seven years old for crying out loud. Playing was the first agenda to every boy of my age!
But no, I am not like the others. As the son of the most mysterious man in the world, I have to turn around and face the reality. Since then I never did felt the kid inside me. My childhood days were different than of those around me. I started training with real swords rather than sticks the day after my seventh birthday.
Few days had passed, I was inflicted by humiliation. Naduane holds her doll made of rags while watching me and my father spar then laughed at me when I end up to the ground, holding my dear life not to be impaled by Setelah. “Stand up, boy!” My father shouted. “Your future opponent will not be merciless as me. We are not done yet, and yet you’re complaining already?”
“Maybe he likes to play dolls instead?” my brother, Haji, teased and then laughed. My father joined him too in a beat. I was furious. So furious I throw away the sword and run inside the house.
“Why are you doing this to me?” I said when my father followed me inside my room. I was crying—no, I was whimpering. I was so embarrassed that I almost cursed my father that day. “I hate you, you’re making fun of me.”
“No,” my father’s voice lingered. It was soothing that I almost stop weeping. He touched my shivering shoulder and pulled me close. “I’m not making fun of you, I’m making fun of me.”
What in god’s name was that? I wonder what that meant. I looked up and searched his eyes. “Why?”
“Because I saw myself in you when I was your age—that was when I commencement myself into training.”
My father did have a sweet tongue towards everything. His words were like magic.
“I am so sorry, Jameru.” He said, touching my face. “I never mean to hurt you.”
“I dishonor you, father.” I cried more. “I’m not worth to have Setelah.”
“Then you have to make yourself worth it. You have to be patient, child. Loss always comes with humiliation, but that doesn’t mean you had failed. Sometimes it was necessary, but there is always tomorrow. Ability is not a choice, Jameru. You have to earn it.”
Easy for him to say. I told you he had a sweet tongue.
But then again, my father outwitted me. I have to ride on. “Were you as clumsy as me when you’re just a boy, father?” I said, drying up my tears.
“Yes,” he smiled. “More clumsier than you can imagine and... much smaller than you.”
I smiled finally. “Really?”
“Well, your brothers too were smaller than you when they were seven.” He laughed.
“Did you teach them too?”
“Some of it.” He shrugged. “They have their own ability, you know. Unlike them, you’re different. Both you and Naduane are different.”
My curious gaze gave him something to contemplate. He looked away, somehow distracted and disturbed. I never saw my father’s face as gloomy as this one before.
“Let me tell you a story,” he started after he kept himself silent. “A story about a boy who disobeyed his father.”
“Like me?”
He laughed a little and hardly ignored my question. “Did you intend to disobey me?”
I shook my head.
“Then no, he’s not like you.” He smiled and lifts me up to his arms. We climbed to our veranda and stay there for a while. I nearly forgot what he’s telling me... how I wish I did, but my father has his own intention to enlighten me.
“The boy was about nine years old when those tall, dark men came to their home.” He said suddenly, his face was blank, full of pain. “They claimed they were... they were the enemy, and the boy’s father wants his son to hide somewhere... or run away, so that these... these monsters wouldn’t harm his son.
His father became furious at him when the boy wanted to stay behind to defend his family. But he was too small, too young and doesn’t know how to use such weapons. They boy’s father became desperate, he had to do something. And when those dark men started to attack, the boy’s father sacrificed himself.”
I look into my father’s eyes and noticed there were tears starts to build up. He was sad.
“What do you mean sacrificed, father? I don’t understand.”
His face was beyond description, contorted. I don’t know what I saw back there but it has something to do with his past that I sometimes begged him to tell me.
He lowered his eyes for me not to see the wetness in it. “These men,” he began. “These men want to destroy the likes of the father and the likes of his son. They’ve been hunted for so many years because of who they are. It’s not their fault to be born that way, but somehow others think they have flaws for them to have the right to live in this world. And because his only son was in danger than to him, the father let himself be killed... to save his son.”
That’s the time I saw my father cried for the very first time in my life. Probing started to build up inside my head. My father was not just narrating a story, he was telling me something more valuable than anything...
Survival.
“Jameru,” he whispered and embraced me tightly. “I want you to know, my son, that whatever happens to me, what fate come upon me, I want you to know that we love you more than anything in this world. Now listen to me. One day someone will come and claim my life, if that time comes I want you and Naduane to run away from this house, run as far as you could and don’t ever look back. I want you to live, Jameru. I want you to live a normal life without the pain of the past, without the image of death. Do you understand?”
Pain struck my heart and I began to cry again. My father was saying goodbye already.
“Are those stories of yours will happen again someday?” I asked him.
He didn’t answer, instead he said, “Promise me, Jameru, promise me you’re not going to disobey me just like I did to my father. Protect Naduane for me. Protect each other. The two of you are just like me and your mother. You’re one of a kind that’s why I want you to have Setelah for you to defend yourself. You have to promise me!”
The only thing I remember was a nod then a sob. And I think my father pushed me too hard for me to understand that one of those days, he will be gone forever.
