CHAPTER LVI: LUMINOUS MOMENTS

─ "Dad, where do stars sleep? -Kirsten rested in a trunk and was curious and asked his father Luke. It was a warm afternoon of May of the year 39. She was very close to being nine years old and his brother Paul would be ten - I mean the months when we cannot see them, where do they hide?"

   Luke sensed that his daughter was worried about something other than stars, and did not know if, like them, he could illuminate her.

─ "John explained it to me one day with an orange. It is fortunate that now I was about to eat one. Look, imagine that this orange is the Earth, and my right hand is the sun. I move the fruit in circles around my hand. Imagine this side of the orange as the northern hemisphere and the opposite side is the south. But the earth rotates around itself. Imagine now both movements at the same time. Can you see it? Now this part does not show its face to my hand. The sun does not reach it. It is night. The stars can be seen. A few hours later, I turn the orange. Now the sun is seen. But back to night. The whole area, my body, and... Let’s make a circle. Those ashes, that clearing where we have made so many bonfires and is now in front of me, these other ash trees which already join my left shoulder, your body and mine again. In all these places, there are some stars. When the orange approaches my hand, you cannot see those constellations which you could see in the clearing of the bonfire; when the orange is in the clearing, you cannot see those on my shoulders.

─ "And the same with the moon, I guess."

─ "I suppose so, but ask John. But let's go back to what you see at night. Imagine the constellation of Leo with your star, Ras Elased Australis, in my heart. Now it can be seen; now it cannot. Stars have no will and they cannot, as we can, decide if they want to keep on seeing the Earth. And those in my heart may one day want to move away from their Earth, but from inside here they will never fall."

─ "And nothing could take Ras Elased Australis away from there."

   Luke thought that his daughter had the right to know the universe and which universes of blood had created her and perhaps in that conversation they had not spoken only of stars and maybe they had understood each other without saying anything.


 

─ "Why are you called The Daughter of the Earth?" - Kirsten was walking with her mother down the western shores of the Kilmourne and kept asking, eager to investigate the details of her family. It was almost evening.

─ "Actually only your father Luke calls me by that name. Dad Nike very seldom, because he'd rather call me The Daughter of the Sun."

   The Earth and the sun. She thought inevitably of her father Luke that afternoon with his right hand and an orange in his left hand.

─ 'Yes, but why does Dad Luke call you so?' – She continued asking.

─ "You know that I have spent my life without a biological father. I didn't know who he was until your uncle Gerald told me when I was thirty. Do not want to know who your grandfather was, you empress. He must not know about your existence. Actually all my life I have grown up with Grandmother Olivia and surely with Father Earth. And this has really been a good father. And look, I was born when my mother was in the street, so my roots, my first cry, the first light I saw were the windows of the landscape around Knights Hill. Here I germinated, here your parents fertilised me, here I bore fruits, when I have some fears, my Father Earth rocks me and makes me breathe the fragrant garden of the rocks, the lake, the weeds and the reeds. Enough for you?"

─ "Enough for me. But you are wrong in one thing, mum. Now I know who my grandfather is."

─ "Who?" - asked Lucy, concerned.

-"You have just told me. My grandfather is my mother's father: Father Earth."

   Her mother had two parents, one biological and one that had behaved as a true father. She also had two, only one biological, she understood that now, and still she didn't know who he was, but two fathers Earth, or a single planet but with two hemispheres. And always light in them, the sun shone in it or the stars did. And with Dad Luke or Dad Nike she would always be illuminated. But she was also illuminated by one other star, Lucy, her mother’s bright face. She had always lived in the same house, but in different rooms, a house like her Father Earth, at all hours bathed in light.


 

─ "Why do they call you The Beggar of Spirits?"

   Paul had spent half an hour swimming with father Nike, who had taught them to swim, his sister and him, two years earlier. May ended bright and warm and the water temperature invited to dive. Now they were a while resting on the shore.

   Nike had been a few days seeing how his children were concerned about something, they spoke among themselves in a low voice, they lost at times through the ash trees and they whispered more than they played. His son Paul had sometimes been pusillanimous, it appears that without courage, but his father knew that in the moments of life in which you must show courage, he was brave. The question was very simple in appearance but Nike wondered if there would be something deeper that he would like to find out and their three parents feared that they asked. More or less they had intended to leave some explanations for adolescence.

─ "That way dad Luke called me, who, as you know, loves me a lot. Actually, thinking about it, it was he also who gave me the Polar Star. In both gifts you can well see what your father thinks of me. He believes that sometimes I am able to capture the real name of things. Or of people."

─ "Like a spirit?"

─ "Yes, I suppose that some spirits will at least be able to capture things pertaining to the one they protect."

─ "Then are you able to notice something in me right now?"

─ "You are nervous and worried. Something worries you. I would say that there is one thing you want to ask me."

─ "It is that exactly. Dad Luke knew how to call you. You know that other children reject that two men love each other but for Kirsten and for me it is a pleasure to see how you love one another, dad Luke, dad Nike and of course mum."

─ "Thank you, little king. Come on, ask. I can be afraid of what it is you want to know, but you have the right to know what you ignore."

─ "I would never ask this question, dad, if I do not assure you first that whatever the answer I'll always love you and dad Luke."

─ "Ask the question, my son." – He feared that when he answered he could no longer call him my son, but he knew that one day it could happen.

─ "According to what you have told me, first it was mum and dad Luke, isn't it?"

─ "Yes."

─ "And then you fell in love with both, and the two of them fell in love with you, wasn’t it?"

─ "Yes." - The hour approached. Nike was more and more afraid.

─ "And I was born a year earlier than my sister. Dad, I have never known any more children who have three parents. I guess that either dad Luke or you conceived me, but there must have been one who didn’t. So the question is..."

─ "You are dad Luke’s son, as you imagined.” – Nike was first to say it.

─ "Dad, embrace me. You will always be my father."

─ "My son, I was really afraid. I’ve always loved you so much..."

─ "And so have I. I needed to know, dad. Kirsten and I had been a few days speaking and we could no longer stand not to know. And she is..."

─ "I am Kirsten’s father. Biological, of course. Dad Luke is also her father. Do you think that she...? I.e. will you tell her?"

─ "As long as we were ignorant of it and as we thought that one of the two was not going to be, both of us remembered how much we loved both of you."

─ "Tell your sister to ask dad Luke how it was that I became her father and how it was an act of immense love which meant that she came to life. And as for you, I could never explain, Paul, how I loved you already before you were born. I felt you one day in mum’s womb and you gave me a kick. Already then I wanted you to be my son, and you were not yet the day you were born, but I saw you being born. That August 6 was a very bitter day for me, but I soon learned that my greater bitterness was to get away from you when I had just met you."

─ "You won’t get away from me anymore. Nor me from you. In this family we will always be five. Now my mind knows the truth, but my heart knew it long before. We are five and just as I will always love my mother and my sister, I will always love my two fathers. Beggar of Spirits. Spirit of so many things... for me also the spirit of water."

─ "You know what? With two months you called me dad one day when I still was not. Lucy, Luke and I have to tell you one day our family story. You couldn’t speak yet but you said a word that would end up being a reality. Maybe children distinguish the world as it is before matter takes shape. Also one day I realised that you were telling me, still unable to speak, I am waiting for you so one day you teach me to swim."

─ "I was surely asking you, dad. And now that I can, let's go again into the water. We will always swim together."

   Little king. All his life he would be known by that name. Nike realized that his son had just behaved as a sovereign, as real kings should learn to behave. But he was no longer so sure that it was right for him to be called “little”.

 

─ "Dad, I wanted to... - Kirsten was again with her father Luke. She had just lit the fire and the others were around there, but still had not sat - give you lots of kisses.

─ "And I thank you, my daughter, but why?" -Luke was afraid. Now what was inevitable could not be delayed. He had noticed his two children all day in secret meetings with Nike and was almost sure what her daughter wanted to talk about.

─ "Paul was talking with dad Nike and then he has told me some things. Dad saw me then, approached me and told me more things. Now I know it. My brother and I had been for a month wanting to know the mystery of who our parents were and..."

-"I am not your father" - Luke interrupted.

─ "You mean you are really my father - she contradicted him – that’s why I want to overwhelm you with kisses. One day we had to know, dad. And now I need you to tell me one day in detail your love story, that of the three. Because I am the daughter of Wisdom and Commotion, but also of Beauty. I am very proud of my father Luke. And it has moved me to know that without your will I would not be alive. How much love for mum and dad Nike. How you must have loved them when you suggested them to beget me. And without you I would not have any life. Not only because of blood, dad. It’s all things that you have been transmitting me and have created me. Children do not have three parents. And not all children can say they have a father like you." - She said all this never stopping her kisses

─ "Kirsten, my daughter, you are not even nine years old, but you're mature enough. Mum, dad Nike and I didn't know how or when to tell you all this. But there is another thing that worries us. Maybe one day you will reproach us that you live on the street."

─ "You have given us life, and there is no greater gift than life, dad. But we don't live on the street. If we have ever slept on the Outskirt of the Torn Hand, I would be so small that I don’t remember it. Sometimes in Uncle James’ house, and almost always in the palace of the grandparents Protch. But dad, I’m not even nine years old and I'm also owner of a house. Remember, Washington Street, 21, next to number 19, that of my brother. And always the three of you by our side, and grandmother Olivia, and Grandma Maudie and Grandpa Herbert. We are going to school in the morning, we spend the evenings here, yes, as any child playing among the trees, the river, the lake which the children of this city do not know, and then back to sleep with any of you three always close. I would not change myself for anyone. And in addition parents should understand their children, but also children should understand their parents, isn’t it? And it is not true that as our beloved great-grandmother, who already left, all the three of you want to die on the street?"

─ "Yes indeed, Elased. But you and your brother, do you understand all that?"

─ "Not only do we understand it, dad, but we believe that other children would envy us. Three parents. And the three love one another. In short now that I know who my father is, and who my father is too I'm going to love you forever. By the way - and she smiled-, I don't know if I remembered to give you a kiss. I love you very much. Thank you, dad."


 

─ "Are you crying?" - Paul had just helped his grandmother to pick up some firewood. They had already lit the bonfire when he believed that Olivia was crying.

─ "It is nothing, my dear. Only the damn south-western wind that is arising.

   The south-western wind and the north wind. Paul had grown up listening to his grandmother curse them, but he suspected there was something else.

─ "You still remember her, don’t you?"

─ "I do. It has been four years now. So far I cried remembering the moments that we were together, but now I cry also remembering when we were very close, but not together. These days of south-western wind I remember how it blew suddenly when we were both on the steps of a church, and sometimes for half an hour or so I had to take shelter, because she advised me to do that. They were intervals that your great-grandmother begged for both of us. But I don't want to tell you bitter things."

─ Please Grandma, tell me whatever you want. And better if it is about her. You know that I just found out who my father is, and who is not, although in reality both of them are my parents. My family is not only by blood. I suspect that neither would be then my grandparents the Protch, right?"

─ "They are not."

─ "And my great-grandmother was not for blood, I guess."

─ "She was not even my mother, but I never had a better mother."

─ "Nor mine by blood is dad Nike, but may no one tell me that he is not my father."

─ "By blood or not, humans are trees, but very strange trees. It is normal to lose one day our roots but we go forward with enough life to take care of the shoots that have sprouted in our logs. Like you, sweetheart. It would not be possible to express how much I’ve always loved you, Paul."

─ "And I love you, Grandma. Let’s go, the others have not yet reached the fire. Tell me about your mistress, my great-grandmother Madeleine."


 

   It was a torrid morning in early June. The school year was only a few days ahead to be finished. Paul and Kirsten had delayed a few minutes talking to one of Paul’s schoolmates, Wilson Burnaby. The school was located in Rage Avenue, in Riverside, and was called, of course, Philip Rage. Their parents had chosen it not only for being close to home but due to the type of education that was given, lecturing about life in general. Paul liked mathematics; Kirsten was good in literature.

   Wilson Burnaby was a busybody. Quite slender for his age, blonde hair with a propensity to lose it, somewhat fat and extremely well dressed, too much dressed for that summer day. He was waiting for his mother, who still came to pick him up. The two brothers were picked up a few days by their mother or father Luke. Some days came dad Nike to pick them up, just as their grandmother or Bruce in several occasions, but most of the time they returned alone to the outskirt. Today they would not return so early because Wilson had stopped to talk to them.

─ "On Sunday I think I saw your father in the Church of St Mary, and I think he was begging."

   Two years earlier dad Nike had explained to them carefully how they earned their living. At school, Paul and Kirsten said nothing, but it was inevitable that a classmate saw their parents one day. Kirsten knew what to say.

─ "They have some beggar friends and they sometimes accompany them or imitate something of their lives. But my mother is a hairdresser and my father is a waiter." –She could only speak of one of her fathers.

─ "Yesterday he was with the man who at times comes for you, that man of the strange name, ah yes, Nike."

─ "They are friends." -said Paul, wondering what Wilson meant.

─ "A friend of my father - he said unexpectedly - has just left his wife, and they say that he has gone with his male driver. Once I saw how they looked at each other. I did not understand it then, of course, I was very little. But that Nike was looking yesterday thus at your father. If I were your mother, I would begin to be worried."

─ "The love between my parents will not ever break." - said Kirsten.

─ "I don't know. Someone should make your father lead a better road. Begging in the church, with a man at his side who may love him more than necessary..."

   Paul could no longer stand it. Wilson was more unbearable than ever and it was clear that he loved to meddle in people’s lives. His family’s was a difficult to understand story and his sister and he said nothing. But recalling the story dad Luke had sometimes told them, he exclaimed looking him in the eyes and at his head, with a bit of sarcasm:

─ "Be careful, Wilson, you will end up being bald."