Her Father's Daughter by Marie Sizun Page B

the grey room while she was sleeping, an acrid yet fresh smell which makes her open her eyes. And she sees this tree which has appeared mysteriously, this piece of woodland which seems to have come from the forests her father’s told her about, and, at the foot of the tree, colourful parcels, tied with ribbons. The child is dumbstruck. It’s as miraculous an apparition as those blue beads hanging on the balcony.
    The father and mother are there, apparently calmer. They’re smiling; they look a little sad, thinks the child. Particularly the father. But he’s here, and he looks at her as he used to, as he did when she was his little girl and he thought she had such pretty hands.
    They tell her all this is for her. She doesn’t understand. Everything’s incomprehensible this morning, and that’s what’s wonderful. It’s at this point that she notices things in the tree, a multitude of little paper figures hanging from the branches or standing on them. Later she’ll know it was her father who drew them, coloured them and cut them out. These are what she wants to touch, to pick up. She’s told she must open her presents first. See what’s in the boxes. But there are too many things, she doesn’t know where to start. Perhaps her feeling of happiness is in all this excess? Right down to the sound of bells which now start pealing, like that strange day, Liberation day, when her grandmother cried. Everything’s miraculous, even the sun, which hasn’t been seen for days and which suddenly fills the room, unexpected and glorious.
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    The image the child retains, that sticks in her memory, is of her father now sitting in an armchair and her, the child, standing between his legs. He’s the one opening the presents and she watches. But she’s more affected by the magic of the moment – the smells, the soft scrunching of paper, the sound of bells ringing, the light, having her father back – than the contents of those boxes and bags.
    Christmas isn’t presents, it’s that moment.
    Is it on that morning? Is it another, shortly afterwards, closely associated with Christmas morning in the child’s mind? It snowed… Through the window, on the rooftops, out in the street, everything’s white. She’s never seen snow before, or at least has never been aware of it.
    She goes outside with her father and discovers this tremendous oddity. Wrapped up snugly, holding her father’s hand, in all that whiteness which creaks so surprisingly underfoot, she’s intoxicated with the chill of it and a sense of freedom. And of tenderness too.
    â€˜Don’t stay out too long,’ said Li, who was preparing a big meal, in her own way.
    But for now the child and her father are walking through this miracle of snow. The world belongs to them. Life itself.
    Just an impression the child has.

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    Christmas was for show. A show put on for one day. A pause. Or perhaps a full stop.
    There will be no miracle, no miracle at all. Only very natural things. The child doesn’t understand what’s going on, what’s happening now. And yet she is obscurely aware of its threat all around her.
    Your father may leave , her mother had said one day. She hasn’t said it again. She hasn’t talked about it. But the child hasn’t forgotten.
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    Interestingly, there’s no more arguing at home now, no more shouting. Something very different has started. The father’s become peculiarly distant, and silent. The father and mother no longer talk to each other, they avoid each other. And it’s in this silence between them that something mysterious has evolved. Something frightening. Unbearable.
    It’s so odd when the father comes home in the evenings now. He ignores the mother. Hardly talks to the child.
    And on Sundays the father must realize that things aren’t right, that it can’t go on. He most likely knows all this. So