Years ago, as a young child, I remember father as a very large ever domineering presence. He was everything. He was tall, and well known and fun, and knowledgeable, and dreadful enough for a child often disposed to mischief. He was mysterious and full of mischief of his own kind. If you complained to him that an elderly sibling was bullying you hoping that he’d come to your side and tell them off, he would reply you to “leave them. Go play somewhere else or with someone else.”

Father would call from his side of the big house. He usually knew who was in the house by the rising level of our voices in argument over any kind of trivial matter from across the house, or a fight. Usually, he would already have something in his mind to ask the unlucky person to do. If it was a random call not prompted by any kind of disturbance, his first question would always be “What are you doing?”. It was always a trick question requiring both skill and experience to answer.

“Nothing” is always the worst answer. A bad one would be “talking to/with _______”. “I am doing my homework from school” or “I am doing an errand given to me by mum” is closer to a good excuse. A better answer is “I’m listening to _____________ programme on the radio” or “I’m watching the news.” The ones that always made the best impression were ones similar to “I’m writing/reading”, or “I’m making a birdcage from a few palm fronds I went to get from the woods yesterday evening.” He was a weird man.

Every answer was followed by a follow-up which he would have already begun to prepare from the time we began to answer his questions. “What are you reading?” He would ask. If one had been lying, this would be a perfect time to confess to just beginning to open the first few pages of a book one already read before. If you said a newspaper, he would ask you which one, and start a conversation about the content of the headlines. That you were reading a newspaper is enough reason to believe that you would remember the headlines and would be able to make conversations on a topic of choice.

“I’m reading some of the copies of Reader’s Digest you handed over to me last week sir.” I would say, and he would tug at his sparse beard for a few seconds observing me through the lens of his glasses. “Uhm-hmm. Is that right? What do you like the most about it?”.

It was always about starting a conversation with someone to fill his own idleness. Emerging from his side of the house for the first time this day, he has now found the perfect subject of conversation.

“I like it,” I would say. “I loved the story of the man that got lost for many days on the stream and couldn’t get back home because he lost his way. The story was very well written. It moved me. Thank you very much for the issues. I think I enjoyed the story about the shroud of Turin the most though. I’d never heard that story before. There was this report by Dr. John H. Heller…”

“Uh-hmm. I have kept these books for years.  Did you see the date on it?

“I did. 1984. That was a while.”

“You were just a crawling infant then.”

“Oh no, you exaggerate. I have already started nursery school by then.”

He would laugh. He enjoyed the retorts. There was nothing he abhorred  more than not being able to respond. “You’re not deaf, are you?” He would ask.

“The point is that here,” he continued, “is that I have been keeping these books for a long time. You should take care of them. Your brother used to have a few more of my books. His teachers would take them from him, or his mates – pretending to want to borrow them to read for a few days – and then never return them.”

“Uhm-hmm. I will keep these safe.”

There are many other consequences to a wrong answer to the idleness question: “What are you doing?”

“I was sitting at the dining room.”

“Doing what?”

“Nothing.”

“Oh okay. I need a few buckets of water in my bathroom. Would you see to it that the water basin is full as soon as possible? Thanks.”