Mazzaroth - The Only Thing I Have Left Of You

2nd October, 1988

I forgot to specify one thing: whenever I talk about adults, I never refer to him.

He is not an adult to me, because he is a good person. He always did more than he had to, because he didn't even have to care about me. I was nothing more than the daughter of the man he worked for. I was nobody to him, but he became everything to me.

I wish I could talk about him every day, let everyone know of his existence, but I can't, and it hurts. I can't even write his real name, because I don't know it. He has never told me. And I don't want to use his nickname, because his 'job' doesn't define him at all. I have seen how television paints people like him. I shouldn't have known that, because those films are suitable for children over fifteen, but I saw a few scenes on the sly and they were wrong.

He was not the reason for that problem. He only tried to do good for his family. My father, on the contrary, is the one they should show on TV as the 'bad guy', but they never do, or rather, I have never seen a film that depicts him in such a way.

Sometimes, they make me question whether my judgement of my father is clouded by his attitude towards me and whether, in fact, people like him are... Different, especially seeing the way they portray their behaviour towards their 'family'. Sometimes, I wonder if it's just envy that leads me to hate him, because he never gave me that typical attitude that people like him have on television and that he actually had towards my mother. If he had done that, what he did probably wouldn't have led me to that call, because, to a lesser extent, it was what A – the initial of his nickname – did and I was fine with that.

He did it for his wife and daughter, while my father did it for my mother and money, not for me. Actually, for almost all my time there, I thought he couldn't see me, but then, it became clear that he was simply ignoring me, when he

Never mind. The point is that his disinterest had also been the reason why A had been able to approach me, because he didn't care if he would hurt me.

Honestly, I was so afraid of him the first time I saw him, when I made eye contact with him from above the stairs. Now, when I think back to that moment, I can only feel that feeling, without understanding the reasons for it, since I know him, but every adult who entered that house seemed to me like an ogre that eats children: giant, ugly and bad. Probably, I had seen him in the same way, even though he possessed none of those characteristics and, in fact, he deflated and transformed himself, first, into a human being like me, and then, into a presence that I always feel around me, but which, at the same time, seems so distant.

I always hear his voice when I read. I hear his pronunciation, especially of the more complicated words, as he did when he was teaching me to speak coherently. In my mind, now, he does it just to keep me company, since I finally have a voice of my own. Sometimes, he even sings me lullabies while I hug the Kentrosaurus that Watari gave me last year for Christmas. When I read the bedtime stories to Ayla, he seems to tell them to both of us. Besides hoping that he appears on the doorstep, part of me is under the illusion that every time I lock myself in my room, he will knock on the door, but it never happens.

And it never will, because I don't know his name, nor where he is, I can no longer trust Watari and he hates me, but he has every reason in the world to do so. He has given everything for me – literally – and, surely, he regrets doing so, as I regret allowing the owner to deceive me for two years.

He had the courage to ask me if L is still giving me trouble – when has he ever stopped? – and tell me that his door is always open – when has it ever been? –, without even realising how he was contradicting himself on the spot, since my request to talk to him was not granted, unless that question was because he had heard about my desire and had assumed that I wanted to discuss L, which irritates me more.