Her Father's Daughter by Marie Sizun

mother’s tired. The grandmother, who’s there, has her important-days face.
    The child waits for her father.
    She’s ready. She thinks she looks gorgeous and wonders when he’ll arrive. She’s been going round in circles in the apartment for a long time now, pacing in her little shoes, which make an irritating noise on the wooden floor.
    â€˜Calm down,’ the grandmother scolds. ‘Stay still for a minute, for God’s sake! You’ll drive us mad!’
    The mother’s irritable too, shuts herself in the kitchen ‘to avoid seeing him ’.
    At the first ring of the doorbell, the child runs to open the door. The father doesn’t come in: he kisses the child and, as no one’s appeared, he calls out that he’ll ‘bring her back at about five’.
    There, they’ve left, the father and his child. Alone. Hand in hand. Her little hand reunited with her father’s big hand.
    Her black shoes patter swiftly down the stairs…
    But there’s already something panicking the child. She’s thinking about the question her mother has told her to ask her father, the words she’s been made to practise and which she’ll have to pronounce: ‘Daddy, are you going to come back to us?’ Tricky. The child’s well aware of that. When to say it? Now or later? And how? It bothers the child terribly, this problem does, as they walk along the street in silence, she and her father. She decides to put it off till they’re having lunch.
    For now she’s trying to think only of this moment, of this hand holding hers at last, of the tall familiar figure beside her, a figure which leans over from time to time and asks if everything’s all right, if they’re not walking too quickly, if she’s happy. Can you hear me, France?
    Yes, of course everything’s all right; no, they’re not walking too quickly, but even so. The child trots along to keep up with her father, gives one-word answers. Happy, yes, very. But the thought of the question she must ask comes back to her. The child falls silent.
    They take the Métro. They take the Métro as they did before. As they did that time with the Métro-ticket dogs. But today the father doesn’t seem to be thinking about ticket dogs, or anything like that. What’s he daydreaming about exactly, with such a serious face? No knowing.He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t see anything either, apparently, his eyes lost, gazing at a spot just above the child who’s sitting facing him. She, the child, is looking at him with all her might. Actually, she rather likes it when he’s distracted.
    Where are they going? It feels like a long way, possibly further than she’s ever been in Paris. But, anyway, that’s not what she’s interested in, not where they’re going, the name of the place, whether it’s near or far, not that sort of thing. She’s with her father, she’s going to have lunch with her father, she has her father all to herself for the whole day.
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    Now they’re out in the street again, in an unfamiliar neighbourhood. The child is connected to the known world, to security, only by her father’s hand. And she thinks that’s nice. He can take her where he likes. He takes care of her. He’s her father.
    He asks her whether she’s hungry. Now there’s a question. To please him she says that yes, she’s hungry. He looks happy. ‘We’ll be there soon,’ he says, and he looks happier by the minute.
    But now the thought of her mission has come back to haunt the child and, once again, she can feel anxiety creeping over her. When? Before lunch? During it? Afterwards maybe?
    â€˜Here we are,’ says her father.
    He opens a glazed door and goes in with the child close behind him. She’s never been to a restaurant before, nevergone into a place like this. She’s dazed by the noise, the bustle, the