Eighteen Days of Spring in Winter Read Online Free PDF Page B

eye my brother follow my father’s index finger to my face and wonder what he is thinking. Sometimes his silence unnerves me.
    ‘I’m going out. Lock the door behind me,’ my father announces.
    I try to understand my parents as much as possible. That might sound strange to you because teenagers are not supposed to understand their parents. But, a combination of a culture that never lets you forget what your parents do for you and parents who are, at most times, very reasonable and accommodating, makes adolescence difficult. It is difficult to throw an adolescent tantrum or hate your parents when they, unlike so many others, try to make life pleasant, try to carve out a space for you that is your own.
    But, at that moment it felt like a harem had been instituted and my mother and I were its first unwilling subjects. My father had acted like a hypocrite, though I couldn’t bring myself to call him one. To order us to stay indoors, as he made his way to the exit, was hypocritical. I returned to my bedroom, closing that door behind me. I fumed on my bed, not interested in reading about the Day of Rage. I was currently experiencing my own day of rage and wanted to wallow in it for as long as possible, to know what it felt like to hold onto anger and drag it out … instead of denial.
    Eventually, my mother dragged me out of my pit of hate and forced me to help her with lunch. We ate, the three of us quietly, my brother engrossed in his own thoughts and my mother and I maintaining an unspoken agreement to live through this Thursday as though it was no different. The front door remained closed, double locked.
    I paced a lot on that Thursday. I remember clearly pacing. I must have walked a marathon in my own home. The pacing was aimless. I would walk to the kitchen not needing anything in particular or go into the bathroom simply to stare at my face in the mirror. At one point I walked to the front door, unlocked it and stared out at the communal corridor.My mother watched me standing there, warning me with her eyes not to break the rules, not to jeopardise the tranquillity. I closed the door and locked it again.
    Early that evening my father returned. We ate dinner at the table. My brother hadn’t even bothered with his cap tonight. He left it on his bed, knowing ritual banter could easily escalate into something more destructive. He was smart for his age.
    As the table was cleared away and we all settled into the living room to watch television, the government news tonight rather than the regular soap opera, I detected a change in my father’s demeanour. He now seemed almost apologetic. It wasn’t anything he said, but he spoke in a softer voice when he did speak, made subtle attempts at small talk. We entertained his new mood, allowed him to slowly come out of his hard shell and emerge a softer man. My mother led the way in this, knowing her husband well. I followed reluctantly. My brother ignored it all.
    The news gave no hint of what was developing on the streets and in the cafes both virtual and real. You would think the world was ticking along, spinning on its axis no faster or slower than usual. ‘They control the media,’ my father said, answering a question no one had asked. It was the first time any of us had broached the subject and his statement indicated we could begin to talk about it.
    There is something very bizarre about watching the news when it is in complete contradiction to what you know. Instead of taking it as a factual story you start listening to the underlying narrative, watching for hidden threats. Watching a story about a building that has collapsed in an old neigh-bourhood and how the emergency services responded with efficiency and professionalism when you know outside your door a mass of people are mobilising themselves, collecting the scattered bricks from that building to throw at those same service personnel, leaves you feeling like you are in political purgatory, neither part of the mass