Today is Saint Triandafil's day, my name, my Father's name. I put on this name like you put on a short-sleeved shirt in the morning, glancing briefly at the sky, today will be sun and light, today it won't rain, I was about 16 years old, Father had come home early from work and was lounging on the black armchair in the wide hallway of the house, with his feet resting on the fireplace where a fir fire crackled, spreading the smell of burnt resin throughout the house, everyone was at school and at work, I don't know why I had also returned early from high school and, when I entered the house, double-clanking the Chinese lock on the door, suddenly his image struck me there, with a book in one hand and a cigarette in the other, with his thick glasses and the coffee cup trembling excitedly on the marble of the fireplace, he looked up over his glasses and, surprised, said, what's wrong with you, Crin, home so early? And then a heartbreaking thought struck me right in the chest. That a day will come when I will arrive home too late. Too late to find him with a book in his hands, lounging in his aristocratic armchair, dreaming of his departures and longings between the lines.
I said nothing, a bleeding fissure had opened in my chest, the thought that he would die one day, or one night and that it would be hard to live after that, painfully hard. I didn't know then how much space Father had in my heart, and not just in my heart, in this body of mine, where he rustles unexpectedly, signaling to me that death is just an opinion.
You know, as years pass, he surfaces through my skin, he moves lively within me, sometimes he takes over and I wake up realizing I am Father himself, our eye color differs slightly in blue but how alive he is within me, yesterday I was talking with Max Dumitraș, the rebel painter from Maxonia, he has angular speech and abrupt, indisputable decisions, then I felt him softening his soul and such a fresh thought crossed me, like a breath of cold air after a dry and hot desert, Father would have liked Max, and I know Father would have liked my friends, half-unbraided from the laws of this world, living illegally in the pockets of time, some colonists who came here with their chests full of new laws and brilliant thoughts, I know Father would have loved them because I love them too.
After the moment with the coffee and the book, enclosed in my room, head tucked under the bookshelf, curled up at the edge of the thought that wouldn't leave me in peace, many nights, let me explain, I tell myself not to forget, not to forget, my room contained a simple, single bed, my folks had bought it for me many years ago, books were growing throughout the house and, at one point, compelled by the ever-increasing accumulation, Father had built me a bookshelf unit against the wall, whose balanced existence was impossible to establish other than as a console with seven or eight shelves above my head, now, as I write these lines, I realize that my entire childhood and adolescence I slept with four hundred books right above my head, snowing stories and adventures and bizarre ideas from lazy and contemplative philosophers from between their covers.
And that thought, let me return to it, that thought. That a day will come when Father...
And one day I woke up enlightened and joyful, I had found a method to immortalize Father, it was madness, it was an outrage, from that day on I took his name like a garment, like a short-sleeved shirt, and I started signing everywhere, always, Crin-Triandafil Theodorescu.
Only once did someone guess me right, Zoe Dumitrescu-Bușulenga. I had written my name for the Olympiad and a discussion had started in the grading committee. They called me to ask who Crin-Triandafil Theodorescu was and why my ID showed Crin Theodorescu. I stammered, white-faced, that it was Father, and that I knew the Father's name was also used, that in the Father's name we live and read and write with angel wings. A professor from Giurgiu then asked why only T was written and without a hyphen. And Zoe Dumitrescu-Bușulenga, oh Lord, I can still see her eyes scrutinizing me deeply, opened her mouth and said in her grave voice, 'It's his father, it's his father, we've clarified this, thank you,' and she smiled at me. And when she looked into my eyes, I knew she had understood and that she was a saint.
Today is the feast day of Saint Triandafil, the sailor-martyr from Zagora. A young lad who was killed because he would not shed the name of the Son.
Happy birthday, Father, I love you and I am at peace. Christ is Risen, you too be at peace, Mihai and Roxana love each other and in my house the love of the Barefoot One is law, just so you know. Happy birthday, we miss you, but we miss you without storm, for Christ is Risen and this is our peace, for He is truly Risen.
Fr. Crin-Triandafil Theodorescu