In my memories, we had been poor, very poor and that, for the longest part of my childhood. We had no servants, no luxury, not anything apart from a castle that father could no longer take care of. We lived in one part of the said castle. The west wing, where the servants’ quarters used to be. Each one of us had a room. They were big –years later each one of them would house five beds for the servants. But for the moment, they were empty, only a single beg with a simple sheet on it, deep curtains that made the night darker and the day turned into a night, besides that, nothing else.
Father had turned the vast flower garden leading to that wing into a field, where he planted potatoes, rice, tomatoes and easily obtained vegetables. It wasn’t particularly a beautiful sight but no one ever visited us anyway.
We may have had a field but eating good things every day was impossible and the food was so repetitive that one started not caring about the taste. Most of the time we ate potatoes, sometimes rice, and when the days weren’t good and the weather had been capricious we ate nothing at all.
It was mother that did the cores and as soon as I could understand when talked to, I was asked to help her out.
Father, I remembered, was scarcely home. I understood years later that he was actually doing business, being quite good at it actually.
We lived in a castle, yes, but that was really just in name. The whole place was condemned, each door leading to it locked and I had been forbidden to wander as I please. I could only go from my bedroom to the kitchen or the toilet –I was welcome to play outside though. Father and mother hated it when I went to their room and when I disobeyed I would be locked up in my room for the whole day, completely in the dark with nothing to eat.
I used to cry a lot when I was little, for various reasons; most of the time because I was hungry, thirsty or –and sometimes and- locked in a dark room. I cried until my eyes turned red and my face puffy. It was something that both father and mother resented. Father when there, would say ‘shut up’ in that cold voice of his. He was always frowning in my memories, I never knew why. He scared me so much. But I wouldn’t be silent quite the contrary, I would cry even more fiercely when scared. Then he would exit the room, leaving me with mother. Mother would slap me and for reasons I couldn’t understand at that time, she would say that the one crying should be her, that I depressed her already depressing life; that I was the reasons to her unhappiness.
An incident marked me and even as an adult when I remember it, it sometimes makes me feel really lonely. One day, when I was five or maybe six I disobeyed and wandered inside the castle by a broken window. It was a window from the principal kitchen. I hurt myself walking through there and was bleeding a little, but as all children doing wrongs perhaps, I held it in, not making much noise. That kitchen was all dusty and most of its furniture was draped in white sheets. Tiptoeing, I searched a little more, my heart beating loudly.
Another room was full of draped things. Out of pure curiosity, I pull one of the dusty sheets to see what was under. After coughing a little from the dust, I saw a beautifully ornate chair. At that time I didn’t know it was a chair, having never seen one this magnificent. The chairs I was used to was those made of wood that we sat by to eat meals with, there was no decoration on it, they were quite plain and could even be called ugly. Under the next sheet was a splendid table. One by one, I glanced under the sheets and when I've seen it all, then I took the stairs; but upstairs, all the doors were closed not permitting any entry, anywhere. So, I went down and explored a little more there finding corridors that lead to other rooms. There were many draped things there I discovered, all beautiful things.
Something I will learn later was that father protected his legacy very much, refusing to sell, and not wanting to damage something he didn’t have the money to entertain, he chose to live like a beggar –for actually we could have afford a little more luxury in our life and not just from the things inside the castle.
I returned home at night and couldn’t quite hide from father and mother who were at the table in the kitchen, three plates of still steamy potatoes and vegetables in front of them. The moment father took in my dusty form he knew where I had been.
“Did you break anything?” His sharped voice had asked unhappily.
Scared, I shook my head, not daring to meet his eyes. His gaze shifted to my cut arm, the blood had long dried and it didn’t tingle anymore. He turned to mother, saying something about the way she raised her child, I can’t quite remember but after that he left the table without glancing back at us, shutting himself in his room like he always did. Mom didn’t scold me that day, she had been too furious to do so, to the point that she didn’t want me in the same room as her. So, to punish me, the already starving me had been deprived of food and was locked in my room for two days and three nights with no food and no drinks, not even allowed to go to the toilet. My cries and tears didn’t help me and when I grew too tired and too hungry to shout and plead, I just laid on the bed waiting for the time she would open the door for me. She always did previously, I just wished she would open it faster, and in my head I regretted a million times wandering where I shouldn’t have.
My basic needs I didn’t dare do them on the bed. Feeling the wall I only did that in the corner of the room, making the room stink very much. So thirsty was I by the third morning that I was contemplating the idea of drinking my own wee when the door was unlocked. Surprisingly, it was father that stood at the other side of the door holding in his hands a plate full of food and a steamy cup. He entered the stinky room, without so much as frowning and opened the thick curtains, letting the sun lighted the previously slightly dark place. He posed the tray on the bed ordering me to eat and without adding anything further he exited the room, letting the door wide open. I called after him, my face full of fresh tears, I didn’t even know why I was calling him or why I was crying again for obviously my punishment had been lifted. But whatever I wanted to ask I never got the chance to do so, for he never turned around.
Later that day, mother forced me to wipe clean the room. I didn’t protest, not voicing any complaint.
Years went by. My shouts never helped me so I learned to shut up and just respond when talked to. At the very least, she wouldn’t starve me when I did that. My cries never lighted the room, so I learned to hold it in and appreciated the darkness. However even like that, there were still many faults with me for mother was constantly shouting, and father was still ignoring me.
Father who never answered when talked to and mother who always scolded me no matter what I did, I think even I used to hate them a little.
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