This, I promise, is the final post regarding the men of Dasha's life. I saved the saddest for last - Dasha's father who, as you already know, goes unnamed throughout the entire book. He only actively participates in a handful of scenes throughout the first half and after he dies Dasha mentions him in confession but never to either Sam or Lilia. It may seem like he disappears from their immediate lives but really he remains as an invisible force holding his wife and daughter together through strings of memory, responsibility and guilt. I haven't said much about his personality (because frankly Dasha doesn't remember a whole lot about it) but I can expand on his professional appearance.
He is a botanist and the biography in his first book, titled Sub-dependence in Climbing Tubers, would read as follows:
“Father Unnamed” studied at London College and received his PhD from the University of Greenwich in 1976. His first paper, Rhizome Interaction and Cultivation, was published in The British and Foreign Horticulture Journal and won the Distinguished Economic Botanist Award in 1979. He teaches botany studies at Birkbeck college and lives with his wife and daughter in Staines.
See what I did there? He teaches rhizomes and acts as a rhizome for his family.
There is one scene from the book that I'd like to include in this post; it's the perfect example of the awkward relationship between the three members of my imaginary family and the almost accidental care this father feels for Dasha.
For her ninth birthday, Dasha's father relented from his schedule and took her and Lilia to London Zoo. They went first to the elephants. Rushing right past the gift stores with their stuffed and dead-eyed offerings.
-Such a bad smell.- Lilia turned away from the enclosure, straightening the umbrella Dasha held to block the sun. -I don't think it's right to have such big animals near people. What if they got out? They could destroy half the village.-
Dasha looked up at her father. Ignoring Lilia.
-Did you know that the grass they're eating is called elephant grass?-
Shook her head.
-Well it is. And do you know why?- Talking around Lilia's sighs. -Because it's an elephant's favourite food. And so tall.- Pointing toward a wooden trough where ten-foot blades of grass dangled exhausted to the dirt. -And those flowers growing in the tree branches. They're bee orchids. Can you see, they look like bees. When a real bee goes to say hello, they get pollen all over their body. The next flower they go to, poof.- Clicking fingers. -They leave the pollen there and more flowers can grow. It's interesting because the flower doesn't even need the bee. It's just a little bit of extra help.-
Dasha swayed at the responsibility a bee carried with it. Those fat-hipped bumble bees that bumped against her ankles like they would give way in honeyed strings. Voices like rolling coins close to her ear.
-I think I will stay over there,- Lilia intervened. To her husband, -make sure she doesn't burn.- Dasha watched her retreat into the white and brown walls of a cafe. She would make one cup of black tea last until they had walked the entire zoo around.
-Why doesn't she want to come?- Dasha asked her father as they moved from the elephants to the giraffes. One lone adult with bent neck.
-Don't worry about Mum. She doesn't like animals very much. That's why she makes me kill the mice that get under the floor.- Leaning close in conspiracy. -I think she's a little scared.-
-Of a mouse?-
-Even elephants are scared of mice.-
Dasha couldn't imagine an elephant confronting Lilia. -Is that why we don't have any pets? Other girls bring photos of kittens into school for show and tell.- Kittens clutched to chests. Pink tongues like startled moles.
-We used to have a bird. When you were a baby.-
Dasha couldn't recall the presence of any creatures in her home. -What kind of bird?-
-A finch. He had tiny little wings. I used to feed him sunflower seeds and your mum hated the mess he made.-
-What was his name?-
He picked up an acorn. Rolled it around until its hat toppled. -You know, I can't remember.-
Lara S.
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