17. A broken man of tears

I do not know how he found us. It is December 25th, 1st Christmas day in Slovakia. We celebrate on Christmas eve with dinner and presents in the evening, and the next two days that follow are 1st Christmas Day and 2nd Christmas Day. 

There is a fast knock on the door.  

“Open up! I know you are there!” Father's distraught voice interrupts our peaceful day. We all jump up and rush to the front door. 

My mother’s “friend” Joseph is still with us. He is first on his feet.

“Shhhhh,” he shushes us, even though we are all silent.

“Shhhhh,” my mother does the same, fear on her face.

We anticipated this in advance, so my brother and I don’t dare to make a peep. We stare at each other with quiet, worried looks.

“I know you are inside!” Now my father rings the bell and holds it down for a long time. The buzzing sound is loud and resonates through the hallway. 

He keeps knocking on the door and holds the bell buzzer at the same time.

“I have nothing! Nothing! You hear me? You took everything! You left me with nothing!” He is screaming, he is angry. There is a hint of desperation hiding behind his anger.

“Do you understand me?” My father is shouting.

“I have no plate to eat off of. I have no chair to sit on! I have no bed. I have nothing. Where is my piano? You robbed me! Are you there???” 

He finally lets go of the buzzer but starts to bang on the door with his fists instead. As we still don’t respond, he kicks the door. All of us jump up, alarmed. The door shakes after the blow of his heavy shoe.

Joseph’s face transforms and now he is yelling through the door too. “OK! Listen to me! Yes, we are here! Now leave us alone before I call the police! LEAVE NOW!” His voice is scary and intimidating. If I was in my father’s shoes, I would be running away right about now without ever turning back. 

A few seconds pass by. Father is silent and I hold my breath. I glance at my brother first, then at my mother. We are barely breathing, we are horrified.

Joseph vs Joseph

A few seconds later, my father’s screech continues with a newfound determination.  “I knew it! I just knew it. It’s because of you! I knew there was someone else. She is a liar!!! She is a cheater!!” He sounds so livid when he is referring to my mother. Then all of a sudden, his voice breaks down and his screams transform into loud wails and sobs.  For a few minutes there is nothing but teary sobs and they keep growing louder by the second. Joseph looks through the peel hole. We hear a slight pop of the door as my father leans against it and slides down until he plops on the floor. 

“He is sitting. He is curled up in a ball,” Joseph informs us, stepping away from the peep hole. 

My father is a crying, desperate, helpless, broken man. Joseph shakes his head, frowning. Even he can’t deny it. The scene that is unfolding right in front of us is heartwrenching. I see Joseph’s face slowly changing too. His expression transforms from fury into sympathy. 

My father Joseph is sitting on the floor, crying out his sorrows, while my mother’s “friend” Joseph is standing on the other side, contemplating his next step. Two Josephs on two sides of the door, each one of them as different as night and day. I want to laugh at the absurdity of the situation. 

If the circumstances were different and there was no heavy personal history with the crying man on the floor, I would step out of the apartment and give him a hug. I would tell him “It’s not your fault. Life is not fair. I am so sorry.” But instead I also sit on the floor on the other side of the front door, my brother and mother next to me. All of us are quiet, deep in our thoughts, anxious, and scared. As I listen to the sobs and sniffles coming through, I picture myself sitting next to him. I am crying with him. Crying over his life that just fell apart. Somehow I feel his pain, his broken energy. This human being is my father. I hate him but I feel sorry for him. I am so angry with him but I don’t blame him. I resent him but I don’t fault him. I pity him and want to help him because I know he is not capable of helping himself. No matter what his mental illness has caused me so far in my life, I know he suffers deeply. In this very moment, I see his emotional turmoil and pain. His heart is broken and he is helpless. He doesn’t know how to move on and what to do with his life. In his mind, he has done nothing wrong. His intentions have always been to do what's best for us. He has lived his life based on what his senses provided him with, even if they brought him a misconstrued picture of the world. He didn’t choose this and he never understood that there may be something wrong with him. His mind failed him and he doesn’t even know it. So why is this happening to him now? Why did his family abandon him? His wife, his children. Abandoned. Him.  It is not his fault, not at all. Why are people treating him this way? Like a crazy person. Why?

I try not to dwell in these fleeting moments of sorrow for my father. I know they may be replaced by more anger and resentment soon. 

He sits there, a pile of unhappiness, for a long long time. The sobs slow down and quiet. All of a sudden he gets up, picks himself up, runs away from the door. He is leaving. I shed a tear for him as he goes, my emotions still wobbling between hate and empathy. I am confused and torn. It’s a never ending cycle of ups and downs that my mind is not able to reconcile. All of this emotion I feel towards my father and I don’t know what to do with it. I want to turn my brain off.

There is a visible expression of relief on my mother’s face. Joseph notices it and remarks, “No time to relax yet, I am sure this is not over yet.” 

He is right. 30 minutes go by and my father is back. He is outside, pacing the street back and forth. Our new apartment is on the ground floor, so we are hiding behind the curtains. Hopefully, he won’t see us. He seems to be distracted anyway. A few minutes later, my grandfather and  my uncle both join him. 

The outside street buzzer to our apartment rings now and Joseph picks up the microphone receiver. I can hear my uncle’s voice. “Let us in, we need to talk!” 

“No, you are not coming in. I am coming out. Wait outside,” Joseph announces sternly and starts putting his coat and boots on. 

“Be careful,” my mother whispers to Joseph, looks at him and gently touches his arm. There is more than friendship in her eyes. This is a look of love, I am certain.

The three of us watch them from the window. We can’t hear what they are talking and yelling about. All three men stand right in the middle of the street, gesturing passionately, pointing fingers, their faces distorted in anger. If you are a stranger walking by, you want to avoid them. All of this commotion on Christmas day of all days! You may want to stand by just in case the police needs to be called.

This goes on for a while, luckily not escalating into a physical fight. Finally, my father, my grandfather, and uncle start to walk away. The shouts stop. Joseph is heading back towards our apartment. He walks in, smiles, and says “All done, don’t worry about anything anymore, ok?” 

He notices question marks on all of our faces. “I won’t talk about it right now. Not important. We will be fine.”

In the next few days, my father keeps coming to our door. Sometimes, he rings the bell or knocks, other times he doesn’t. He sits by the door and cries. He talks, pleads, and begs for us to open the door. He wants us to move back in with him. At first he comes every day, then every other day, and then only once in a while. Eventually, his visits stop. And life moves on.