BABA’S OFFICE
The late afternoon sun creeped across the floor of Baba’s office. Dust motes, disturbed by Roro’s energetic exploration, danced in the sunbeams like tiny, restless spirits. Baba’s office wasn’t a place of gleaming chrome and efficiency. It was a haven of clutter and quiet, a chaotic symphony played out in collectible coins, stacks of books, scattered papers, and the ever-present scent of ink and old leather.
Baba, wasn’t a businessman or a lawyer. He was a poet, unknown and unread by family and friends, a soul perpetually adrift in a sea of melancholy and longing. His office, therefore, was the map of his inner world, a landscape of fragmented thoughts and half-formed dreams. Roro, all of eight years old and brimming with an unrestrained curiosity, found it utterly fascinating.
Today, she’d discovered something new. Tucked away on the bottom shelf of a towering bookcase, sandwiched between a dusty dictionary and a book of Persian myths, was a leather journal. It was thick, its cover worn soft and dark with age, fastened with a simple brass clasp. Roro had never seen it before, and her fingers tingled with the urge to open it.
She wrestled it free, her small hands struggling with its weight. She found a comfortable spot on the rug amidst a pile of discarded scripts and carefully undid the clasp. The aged leather creaked softly, like a whispered secret, and the journal fell open.
Inside, the pages were filled with Baba’s looping, elegant script, penned in a deep, almost black ink. It wasn’t just writing; it was a dance of words, a flowing river of emotions. Roro, who was just learning to read and write herself, was immediately captivated. This wasn’t like the school books she read. This was different.
She began to read, her brow furrowed in concentration. It was difficult. Some of the words were big and unfamiliar, but the rhythm of the verses, the way Baba painted pictures with language, resonated deep inside her.
“I gaze upon the aura that surrounds you, a shimmering veil of twilight’s mournful grace,
A deafening silence that confounds you, where untold stories find their silent space.”
Roro stumbled over the words, but the feeling, the language of love, was clear. She didn’t know what “aura” meant exactly, but she understood it in her heart. Her young mind trying to envision every detail she couldn’t grasp.
She turned the page.
“Your eyes, twin pools of twilight’s embrace, Hold the secrets, time cannot erase, A whispered promise, on your lips I find, A love so boundless, a love so kind.”
This one was different. It wasn’t sad, more like something bright and warm. Roro, who only knew Baba as a quiet, often brooding man, was astonished. This was a side of him she’d never glimpsed, a heart laid bare on the page. She didn’t understand the complexities of love, not yet, but she felt the tenderness in each line, the deep emotion that lay beneath the words.
She read page after page, losing herself in Baba’s world. She learned of his longing for a lost love, his struggles with loneliness, his nights out with friends, and the quiet joy he found in the beauty of the world around him. She read about rain songs and moonlit walks, about the scent of jasmine and the flutter of a bird’s wing. His poems were about love, but also about sorrow, about the enduring power of hope, even when it felt like a distant echo.
As she read, Roro began to see her Baba in a new light. He wasn’t just the quiet, sad figure who sometimes forgot to buy her candy. He was a man with a heart full of stories, a soul that poured out its emotions onto the pages of his journal.
That evening, Baba found her in his office, still nestled among the papers, the leather journal open in her lap. He was startled, a soft flush creeping onto his cheeks. He rarely opened that journal himself. It was a sanctuary for his most private thoughts.
“Roro,” he said softly, his voice a low rumble, “what are you doing?”
Roro looked up, her eyes shining bright. “Baba,” she said, her voice full of wonder, “your poems are beautiful.”
Baba knelt beside her, his heart pounding in his chest. He had never imagined little Roro reading his private musings. He felt a strange mix of embarrassment and vulnerability.
“You… you understood them?” He asked, his voice barely a whisper.
Roro nodded enthusiastically. “I didn’t understand all the words, but I understood the feelings. You… you write about love, Baba.”
Baba’s breath hitched. He had thought he hid his romantic heart so well, but hearing Roro’s words, seeing her innocent understanding, planted a seed of hope he hadn’t realized he still possessed.
He reached out a hand, his fingers brushing Roro’s cheek. “And you, my little star,” he said, “you are the greatest love of my life. You remind me of the beauty in this world, even when I can’t see it.”
Roro snuggled closer to him, her head resting on his shoulder. “Baba,” she said, “do you think… one day, could you write a poem about me?”
Baba smiled, a real smile that reached his eyes for the first time in years. “I already have, my love. Every time I look at you, every time I hear your laughter, it’s a new poem blooming in my heart.”
He pulled her close, the scent of old books mingling with the sweetness of her hair. He knew, in that moment, that love wasn’t just a longing. It was also the small, warm hand that held his, the bright eyes that saw beyond his sadness, and the child who had helped him rediscover the beauty of his own heart. He picked up the journal, closing it gently. Maybe he could start a new chapter, one filled with the love of a daughter and the hope of a future poetess.
As they sat there, bathed in the soft glow of the setting sun, Roro felt the same warmth she had felt reading his verses in her chest. It was a different kind of longing, though, a love not of romance, but of family, of a connection that felt as deep and ancient as the words in Baba’s journal. And in that moment, she knew that even though the poems were about his past lovers, they spoke of something much deeper, something that lived on, whispered in her heart. The poems, she understood, were about love in all of its forms, and that was a story she would be happy to read, again and again. And perhaps, one day, she would even write one of her own.
©Habib Dabajeh