Free Four Doors and Other Stories by A. G. Billig Page B

right, it’s all right,” and went to fetch a brush to clean up the carpet before it stained. The child had stood stock-still while his parents glared at him. He was still hungry and wanted another helping of soup but he was afraid to ask.
    The man grabbed his arm and dragged him to his boyish room. Taking off his belt, he started hitting him in smoldering anger.
    “I do not care for a molly-coddle in my house. I need a man. My son will be a real man no matter how many belts I shall wear out on his butt!” His voice grew louder and louder until it turned into a scream.
    “How will you handle life? How will you be able to master other people while you cannot master a spoon?”
    He was on the verge of hitting him again, when the mother came in and grabbed his hand.
    “That’s enough! I think he got it! You’ll pay more attention to it next time, won’t you, honey?” she told the boy, holding him with infinite tenderness.
    “Great, now you spoil him! It is you who will later take the consequences, not me!” He spoke in a heavy, angry voice but the worst was over.
    “We get back to it now, finish our lunch, right? And everybody behaves!” said the woman, taking her husband’s arm and pulling the little one along with her spare hand.
    The boy fought a little before allowing himself into the dining room. He was afraid. He was hungry. He needed to cuddle against his mother. She always made him feel secure. This tiny woman, with big, green eyes and long chestnut hair, with her light, flowered dress looked like a teenager next to her husband who was already turning grey. He was no more than five years older but since he had been appointed school headmaster, he had become a different person. He was paying more attention to his looks, especially his garments. He wore a tie, shirt, and suit trousers with a perfectly ironed crease during his spare time, too. He smiled less and walked with his hands behind his back, feeling important. He had a mission now and great responsibility weighted his shoulders, he would say, that of building strong characters. He was a role model who was not allowed any flaws.
    A year after his appointment, a scandal related to a wealthy family’s student broke into the school. He had been caught fooling around with a junior female student. They were being very intimate when someone spotted them and sounded the alarm. The principal intended to expel him. Both families were pressuring. Eventually, the wealthy ones had prevailed. The headmaster developed a sort of pain, a sense of failure and his authority diminished for good. He started graying despite being in his early thirties and became more demanding.
    Right after lunch, the man retired in the master bedroom, for a midday nap. The little boy helped his mother clean the table and joined her in the kitchen. She did the dishes, humming Frank Sinatra songs, and he wiped them up. She had put her hair into a loop, looking even younger.
    “I’m so happy to have you, my dear,” she told him, embracing the boy when everything fell into place. “Would you like to watch TV together?” He nodded affirmatively. The little boy would have kept this embrace for eternity. He nestled against her on the couch, inhaling her rose perfume greedily, the same he knew since he was a baby. It melted all his sorrows away. Soon, the woman fell asleep.
    The little boy got up and turned off the TV set. Going to his room, he passed the master bedroom. Through the ajar door, he saw his father’s trousers and brown belt lying on the back of a chair. The child stopped, listening to his father’s steady breath. He must have been sound asleep. The kid made up his mind at once. He carefully pushed the door open, tiptoed to the chair, grabbed the belt and left as silent as a cat. He went to his room, his heart pounding. He took out of his desk the penknife his father had given him as a birthday present and started cutting the brown leather belt into teeny-tiny pieces.

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