And both were young

by Madeleine L'Engle

"Why should I know you?" Paul demanded.

"Because I am your father, Alain," the man said.

For a minute Flip thought Paul was going to fall. All the color drained from his face and if he had not been holding on to Flip's arm he could not have remained standing.

"No," he said. "No. You are not my father." And his voice came out as hoarse and strange as Flip's had on the morning she woke up with laryngitis.

"I know it's a surprise to you," the man said. "You are happy where you are and you don't want to remember the past. But surely you must remember your own father, Alain."

"You are not my father," Paul repeated firmly.

Now the man came a step closer and Flip felt as though she were going to be sick from distaste and loathing of him. She put her arm firmly about Paul. "If Paul says you aren't his father that's that. Good-bye."

The man smiled, and when he smiled his face seemed even more frightening than when he was serious. "Perhaps you're thinking that I'm a shabby sort of person to be your father, Alain; but if I'm shabby it's because of the months and years I've spent searching for you."

"How did you find me?" Paul asked, and his voice was faint.

"I heard that a child answering to my lost son's description might be in a boarding school in Switzerland. You can imagine the months I've spent searching all the Swiss schools. I have spent hours watching the boys in the school up the mountain. I even looked at the girls' school down the mountain, hoping perhaps to come across someone who might have known you. That is when I first saw this young lady here." He nodded at Flip.