"So what do you think of the character, Medea?" Dad asked from 'his seat'. He was dressed as usual, in a dark brown flannel trouser and a checkered cotton night shirt. His glasses sat on his nose, magnifying his eyes pupils as they looked at me.
Two days ago, he had given me a book: Euripidies Medea. A classic play about Medea, a barbaric sorceress/princess who kills her two children to exert revenge on her unfaithful husband. Quite an interesting read.
"She is quite complex. A tragic hero. She is royal, a princess. Her actions in the play show that she is very expressive. She deeply loved her husband, Jason, well enough to desert her kingdom and elope with him to his home country. She gave up her royal inheritance and even killed her own brother to protect Jason and herself.
"However, Jason's betrayal by divorcing her and taking up a new family snapped something in her, changing that undying love to burning hate. She moved from from suicidal despair to sadistic fury. She showed another side of her that had been glimpsed; cunning, vengeful, resourceful."
Dad nodded and adjusted the glasses on his nose. He was paying rapt attention. This is majorly the reason why I love this discussions. While I talked about these books, dad really listened to me. It made me feel like I wasn't just his teenage child anymore, I became a student.
"Would you say that Medea brought her misfortune in herself?"
This was a tricky one. Dad usually popped a few of these questions on each book and I had to think really carefully to give him 'that' correct answer. Three years ago when these talks became more than a pastime and more of a lecture, dad had told me that my thoughts were always all over the place. He asserted that I often knew the answer to each question but I was just so disorganized that my answers came out a jumbled mass of senseless ramblings.
"Medea's misfortune is unlike that seen in Hamlet or Odepius. It wasn't foretold by the gods. It was simply a case of her hubris catching up to her and engulfing her."
Dad laughed. "All these fancy English words simply mean that you don't know. You seem to haven't formed the opinion on whether her misfortune was self inflicted or not. But you clearly believe that she did wrong by taking matters into her own hands and by going to such extents."
I had no reply to that, so I nodded. It was important to let Dad talk after he has asked the tricky question. He answered the question afterward and then did the 'teaching' for the day.
In my head, I smiled at the thought that Buchi was missing this. When he was six, dad had tried to indoctrinate him into reading with me. It had been a continuous battle which lost. Four years ago, Buchi had been assigned to read Oliver Twist. When dad asked him what he thought of Fagin, he said, "A man of taste."
"Maybe there isn't a straight answer to every question. The world isn't always in black and white. There isn't always a bad man and a good man. Sometimes people do bad things. I imagine that if Jason hadn't cheated, Medea might have turned out to be a loving mother and spring wife. But do we blame Jason for the whole thing? Jason didn't ask Medea to kill their children did he? I think one of the most important lessons that Euripides hoped to pass along was the complexity of emotions and the need to keep them checked. Maybe if Jason has exhibited a level of contentment and refrained from abandoning Medea, things would have been different. And maybe, if Medea had been more tolerant and less vindictive, things wouldn't have taken the wrong turn." Dad continued.
I pondered those words and was about to ask a question when the curtain by the hallway was parted and Buchi emerged. He was dressed in a clean faded green polo shirt and a jean trouser that had once been his size but was now inches above his ankle. He had even combed his hair! Way to go, bro!
I looked at dad out of the corner of my eyes to see him gazing at Buchi, amused.
"Daddy, good evening." Buchi started in a mellow tone I always found hard to believe. It was difficult connecting that tone with the howl that had been used on dad yesterday.
"Onyebuchi, you have greeted me before. What is it? And come closer. I can barely hear you from here."
Buchi shuffled his feet and moved a few paces closer to us. His eyes were fixed to the ground, counting his toes, I suppose. And his hands, his hands made mad love to each other in front of him. "Em.... Daddy. I wanted to apologize about my actions and words yesterday. They were uncalled for and childish. I am sorry. I promise that it won't happen again. Forgive me, please."
I thought that dad would flare up. I hoped that he would give Buchi a lecture, a long epistle that would drive him mad. That he would talk to him the way mom had and make Buchi feel bad for what he's done. But he didn't do that.
I saw a smile cross his face, and then he hid it. I saw through his chocolate skin, and black hair to his skull where I could hear his brain work out Mom putting Buchi up to this, to me preparing the speech and I knew that I really wasn't his favorite. That even with all my smartness and good behavior, he still didn't prefer me to him.
"Buchi, come and sit down." Dad said, gesturing to the empty seat beside him on the twin sofa.
Buchi gingerly took the seat, maintaining a straight posture that reminded me of a tense lion. Dad wrapped his left hand around his shoulder. I felt my breath hitch.
"Onyebuchi, you are my son. I know you, your faults. There is hardly anything you will do that I won't forgive. As long as you don't make a habit of it." He smiled, a rare smile that spoke volumes about admiration and love.
I tried to smile, to be happy for Buchi and his little enactment of the Prodigal Son, but I felt forlorn. If the moment was edible, it's taste would be like cucumber, sour/tasteless. Cue in sad music and we have a new Shia LeBouf blockbuster movie.
Suddenly, a knock came at the door. Dad frowned. "Would might that be?"
"I don't know." And I really don't.
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