"A learned man has always riches in himself.” - Phaedrus
A dog barked outside in the faint moonlight, urgent and urging. Father awoke with a start. He scratched his nose and looked at mother in the anaemic light that emanated from the small window. For some reason, she and I had awakened at the same time.
'I heard a noise,' Mother said.
'Shh!' my father replied, 'I can't hear.'
Awakened from sleep, I could hear a definite soft sound of someone moving around near the atrium, which led to the study. The room in which we slept also opened onto the atrium. The sounds were clearly audible through the thin wood of the door. Father sat up in bed. He reached for the stout wooden cudgel that he kept near the bed for such contingencies. He slipped out of bed. He appeared to have a clear intention of confronting the intruders
'Don't go in there!' Mother said, 'there could be a whole gang of them! Block the door and we'll wait until they have gone.'
Father was neither large nor was he any longer athletic as he had been in his youth. It took little encouragement from my mother to make him think better of disturbing whoever it was that was breaking into our home. He took a chair, wedged it against the door and tested its firmness. I slept on a small straw palette in the corner and I got up and huddled next to Mother for I was as frightened as she appeared to be. She, like my father was a little overweight, womanly as she said. She was gentle and never scolded. She had a way of calming me and she stroked my forehead with her hand with a softness and gentleness that only a mother could give to such a caress. If there is one thing about her, I remember it is that she always smelled good. She used Egyptian perfume made from the finest lotus flowers and the smell of lotus still brings back memories of her, her softness and warmth.
For what seemed a millennium, our terrified family sat embracing each other for comfort while the noise of someone moving furniture and things breaking; thrust itself grasping, through the door at us. With each crash or sound of breaking pottery, we jumped. My mother was shivering. At one point, someone tried to open the door and all three of us heard a sound, as of low menacing voices. Then silence.
Time passed and the dawn saw us still sitting in bed, immobilised by the events of the last hours.
'Do you think they've gone?' Mother said.
'This time I will have to go and see,' Father said.
He moved towards the door, with caution, as if he thought the burglars might still be lurking on the other side. He gripped his cudgel with both hands. He held it before him. He listened for what seemed like an age to me, before he moved the chair to one side and opened the door a crack.
'They've gone,' he said.
'Are you sure?' Mother said, fear betrayed in her soft, gentle voice. It made no difference to my anxiety.