In the pool…

2025-11-16 09:55:00, Kulturë Agim Xhafka

In the pool…

As I walked calmly along the lake's dam, as I do every day, a child's phrase caressed my brain:

-My father would throw himself into the fire for me.

A boy who was probably about 10 years old said it. He was among some other little ones. I didn't hear what they were talking about because they quickly passed me. I looked at them with admiration and my mind immediately went to my Korça. There, at the garden of Lëndina e Lotëve, in the year when I was the age of the boy who spoke at the dam. That phrase reminded me of Artur, who told us one day with pride:

-Dad would jump into a fire for me!

We all laughed. No one doubted that my father, Besnik's, Ajet's, and Ladi's fathers did the same thing. Our age touched the love of a parent every day. There was no doubt about it.

-Don't laugh, oh! -said Turi.

-What are we going to do, bro? Should we listen to you as if you invented something new? -Nesti got angry.

But Artur didn't remain silent. He uttered another phrase:

-I have proof that my father would die for me!

When he said this "discovery," we laughed even harder. He made my father look like the watermelons that were being tested at Gaqi's store. If it turned out red, he bought it, otherwise he left it. It was not touched.

"We went to the pool one day," he continued, "and I pretended to drown. Dad didn't hesitate, he jumped right into the water. Blìldump!"

"Hahaha, he did great heroism," said Ajeti.

-He did, oh, how could he not? Because my father, as you may remember, doesn't know how to swim at all. Do you understand?!

At that moment, as if from the ground, the command sprouted, children, be quiet! We closed our mouths. We imagined Mihallaq, Artur's father, trying to save his son, but also himself. A scene of horror grew before our eyes. As if they were both drowning, as if Mihallaq was diving and pushing Tur with his hands even though he himself was sinking and sinking. In short, it was an act of bravery, showing love. Boundless selflessness, sacrifice. Artur understood that his proof really stuck as a testimony with emotion. His parent was exactly a parent. With a capital P, our teacher Gavrili would say. This is how he expressed himself when he wanted to evaluate someone.

And as we went to our families, we had a desire to try our fathers too. My father didn't know how to swim either. So I had him ready for the experiment. My father always vacationed in Voskopoja because when he was young he had gone through a water accident. The doctors recommended the oxygen of the mountain place for treatment. And so year after year. Voskopoja became his love, so there was no place for him to learn how to swim. One Sunday I asked him to come with me to the pool.

"Look how well I swim," I said.

I had been learning it for three years. I had learned it because I spent almost every day in the summer in the water. Without any money, our neighbor, Hasan, was the guard there.

My father didn't spoil it for me. I'm getting some sun rays too, he said. And so that Sunday in July, father and son, we entered the battlefield for the test of love. As soon as I undressed, I undressed because my father took off only his shirt and came out in a tank top facing the sun, I swam like a dolphin. Not from the shallow end, but under the trampoline where it was four meters deep. I swam and glanced at him. My father looked at me without taking his eyes off me, from afar he could see a beautiful smile on his face.

"Come on, dive in!" I invited him.

-Are you Xhollo, huh? You know I haven't learned to swim yet.

And he laughed. I was swimming and making plans. And now I was about to raise my hands up, slam them into the water and look like I was drowning. Let's see what my dad would do in those moments? Would he feel more sorry for himself or me? And while I was organizing the horror plan in my head, a sip of water entered my mouth. I started coughing and my eyes popped out of their sockets. I saw my dad get up and jump like lightning from the lounger where he was lying. I raised my hand in surprise, meaning, oh dad, calm down, I'm fine, I just drank some water. But that hand up alarmed him.

It was like a sign that I was drowning, so he jumped into the pool. In the deepest part. When he hit the water, it made a noise like a heavy stone rolling down a mountain into a river. At that depth, there was no chance his head would come out of the water if his feet were to touch the bottom. But he wasn't the only one who drowned, I saw someone else jump in too. In fact, the other one wasn't a person, but a large, black cobra. My father jumped with precision towards me and in a second he grabbed my hand. He squeezed me and as hard as he tried to lift me up, he went under himself. At that moment he let go of me.

But the comardar was a gift from God, in fact Hasan threw it because he thought I was drowning. When I jumped to the comardar, my father came out of the water, with his hands up, with his eyes wide open. Oh, how I'm dying like this, it seemed like the enlarged babies were saying, and when he was about to dive for the second time, I grabbed his hand and placed it on the comardar. That was enough, he held it with his nails so tightly that I thought he would tear it and we would sink hopelessly.

But the miracle happened. The captain held us both. I cried out of fear that I would almost be left without a father, but also because I was the one who wrote the script for that tragedy, my father laughed. Happy that I was saved, but also that he did not drown. We went outside. We were dripping, he was more dressed than submerged. In pants and shoes. The canister had received black marks from the black captain. We did not hesitate, we ran so wet straight to the house since we had it near the pool. Grandma was surprised when she opened the door for us, but she did not ask many questions.

"Get changed because you're going to the hospital," he advised.

When my father went into the bathroom to take a shower, I told my grandmother about the test. To see how much my father loved me, I told her. As soon as I finished the sentence, she took a needle and brought it close to my eye. But very, very close. I closed my eyelids tightly and whispered:

-Hey, what are you doing, you're going to blind me!

She grabbed me by the cheeks.

-You closed your eyes right away, huh? Didn't you test, should I keep them open or not? Will the needle poke my eye or will it hold me with a stick? Because it is known that the needle pierces you. Just as it is known that fire burns, water makes you wet. These things are not tested, son. Because these things are known.

That's what my sister said. At that moment, my father came out of the shower.

-Calm down, son, -he told me. -I wouldn't let you drown. I would drown myself and save you. I would drink all the water in the pool so that you would come out of there dry and unscathed.

I rushed into the bathroom. I turned on the shower, and my hot tears flowed down my body along with the warm water. They burned my skin./ CNA