Edited by Scott Westerfeld - Teen Libris

Lord Asriel: Dad from Hell or Heroic Rebel? 39
grandfather, when he came to visit. By this time, he and my grandmother
had separated, but he would still turn up fairly regularly, impeccable
in his smart English suits, his handsome profile as hawk-like as ever, his
tiger’s eyes unmellowed by age, and his ramrod poise unbowed by his
dark past or his difficult present. He took a liking to me, for some reason,
and brought me presents and defended me, often harshly, against
my grandmother’s admonitions to behave more like a little lady and less
like a little savage. I was a rather farouche child myself: self-sufficient,
imaginative, quick-tempered, observant, and quietly determined. But I
was wary of him, scared stiff of the verbal and occasionally physical violence
that would flare up unpredictably and of the cruel wit (usually
turned against his ex-wife and his daughters, never me), but also fascinated
by the undiminished aura of masculine power and glamour.
He was dismissive of my father but also strangely obsessed with him.
Looking back on it now, I suspect his son’s rejection of him as the Dad
from Hell who was forever damned hurt my grandfather far more than
his proud, dark heart would, or could, ever admit. However, I suspect he
also secretly admired my father’s stiff-necked defiance of him; like many
authoritarian rebels, he was intensely contemptuous of compliant people.
But nothing could make him say that he loved his son, just as his
son could never be made to say he loved his father; such things would
be dismissed by my grandfather as sentimental tomfoolery, and by my
father as a weakness that would put him again in his father’s power.
Meanwhile, my aunts feared him and humored him when he was there,
and criticized him volubly with my grandmother when he was not.
I watched him from a metaphorical crack in the door, not as engaged
emotionally as my father, of course, but close enough to feel more than
just a surface fascination. And strangely, when it came time for my parents
to come back, I reacted to my own father in much the same way. I
remember the very first time I saw him-remember hiding behind a curtain
and peeping out to watch this man, a younger version of my grandfather,
with the same handsome, sharp features, the same light brown
eyes, the same elegance, look around for me, the daughter he hadn’t seen
for four years. I didn’t remember him at all except as a word-Papaand
suddenly there he was, looking so like his father it was uncanny.
I soon came to learn he was both very different-his whole, anxious
life-focus was on his family and on attempting to create a haven of loving