The Photograph
By JP du Toit
In the photograph I am beautiful. I am young. I am naked. I am whole. In the background you can see the wreckage of some catastrophe. There had been a devastating flood that had laid waste to the small town, at the time. We were passing through, in our roundabout fashion, on towards the cape. It was Peter and I’s first holiday together. I look challengingly into the lens. I was wearing the peace symbol ear rings, a necklace supposedly signifying my detachment from all bonds that looks simply like an old fashioned razor blade and I wear a thin black rubber band around my wrist indicating a promised promiscuity. My breasts point rebelliously forward and my pubic hair is untrimmed. I am still unaware of all the changes that will shape me like clay, until I’m the home, the person I am now. In the photograph I am lost, but more of that later.
Now, I am a mother, a wife. I am 49 years old. I have two children. Pete, who is fifteen years old, and wants to become the next Ryk Neethling. Pete spends half his life swimming, either training or competing in the Olympic sized pool at his school or in the Indian Ocean with his swimming buddies. He recently completed a basic life guard course, and is looking to do that over the school holidays for some extra pocket money. He is quite tall for his age and a bit of a mommy’s boy, not that I’m complaining.
When I was younger I used to be a bit of a nightowl, and now I’m so used to dropping him off every morning at 5:30 for training. I worry about the day when he is also out of the house. I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself. I wonder if I’ll still wake up at such an ungodly hour out of habit.
Jeannie is nineteen and is the brainier of the two, as she never fails to remind her brother, at which point I’m forced to intervene. She did ballet as a little girl and her favourite colour is pink. She has the most beautiful long blonde hair, and is studying Actuarial Science at UCT. She has recently met a boy who she says she is very fond of. It is funny how she never considers I was young too, once upon a time. If she has a failing it is that she is excessively polite, and is too trusting of people. She takes after her father that way. I love both my little ones, for that is what they will always be to this mama hen, very much and always say a sacrifice for their wellbeing can only ever be a gain in mine.
My husband’s name is Peter. He took the photo I spoke of earlier. He is the short silent type. At times he can be insufferably patient, but he is a good man, a good father. I don’t think I have ever heard him raise his voice or seen him lash out in anger. It is extremely irritating sometimes to talk to him, as he will happily retreat into his shell until the storm has blown over. He exudes this confident reassurance that everything will work out as it must, even when it seems like it isn’t. There is a gentle toughness to him though, for example in his stubborn refusal to lock the car doors at the robot even when the hawkers have no visible goods to sell. He works as a lawyer for the state. Early on in our marriage he encouraged me to stop cutting hair for other people, and helped me open my own salon. His kindness and virtue is biblical in its goodness.
It was a typical Saturday afternoon. I was just looking to do some spring cleaning. Then we found the photograph, well Pete found it. Pete was helping me clean out the garage so that he could go watch some band called the Arctic Monkeys perform later that night. I was well aware that this seemingly spontaneous helpful behavior was simply him strengthening his case to go to the concert. He had already bought a ticket over the internet, with his own money mind you, but I appreciated the extra hands.
“Fuck”. I heard a crash and spun around to make sure that he was still in one piece. “Pete”, I said reproachfully. One of the boxes had toppled over onto the garage floor. “Sorry, my bad… mom”, he smiled looking sheepish, “I didn’t mean to… cool”. “What is it”, I asked. He bent down quickly and picked up one of the pictures that had spilled out of the cardboard box. “Nothing”, he said hastily before giggling nervously. “Let me see”. “Can I go to the bathroom?” “Sure, can I have the picture?” He sighed and kind of handed it over. I had to literally wrench it free from his hand. I looked at the photograph. “What is it?” “It’s a picture from your dad’s days as an amateur photographer”. “Wicked”, I looked up and frowned at Pete, and he had the good grace to look sheepish again under his unruly mop of hair. “I’m just going to go show your father,” I told Pete. “If dad doesn’t want it, can I get it?” he shouted after me, “It’s very artistic and stuff”.
My son, who wanted to have a kickabout rather than go into the Rembrandt museum when we were in Amsterdam last year. My son, the fifteen year old, and due to the parent pact he never considers I was young once and I’m not supposed to understand what he really wants the photo for.
As I walk along the hallway leading from the garage I wonder how it would affect him if he knew it was his mother in the picture. I stare at the photograph lost in all that has been lost. I trace my finger along the curvature of my kneeling younger self’s body. Walking in your own house you don’t need eyes just feet.My feet carry me towards the study where I am sure Peter will be.
My hair is shorter in the photograph than it is now. I have grown my hair a great deal the last couple years. It is cut in a bob, a mild impersonation of Purdy from Avengers. She inspired the belief in me that a woman can kick ass, and look good doing it. She represented femininity at a time when it was a very foreign concept in my mind, and I found her to be a very beautiful woman. The Purdy haircut frames my younger face, my less creased and aged face.
Peter says I am a petite gem, a less bias person would say I am a diminutive version of a woman and I just think I look mousy. In the photograph my body is still young and taut. What sags with age now, was firm and lithe then. I can’t remember why I chose to be naked in the picture. You can see my clothes folded neatly in the foreground. Perhaps it was because after such a terrible tragedy, the many deaths and wanton destruction that flooded the town, two days later no signremained other than the wreckage and pain of all those that lost something to the flood. I remember my father had for the first time been involved with a strike on the mine, and my mother had been on his back accusing him of laziness even though it was something very much out of his control. If I had to entitle the photograph I would call it “The beauty of Laingsberg”.
“You should see this,” I said to Peter as I entered his study with a knock. He looked up and smiled. That is probably his most endearing characteristic. That every time he looks at me he looks at me as if for the first time, and always seems pleasantly surprised by his good fortune. “What is it love?” “It is a picture from our first holiday”. I held up the photograph for him from the other side of the desk. He stared at it fixedly, standing up slightly in his chair, and his smile grew wider. “You look just as beautiful as you do today,” he said smiling widely at me, “that brings back a lot of memories”. I shrugged shaking my head slowly and said, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” He motioned for me to come to him. I didn’t want to really, but I went to him anyway.
I sat down on his lap and he held me like a child. “What’s wrong?” he asked kindly. “I…can’t”, I mumbled. I choked back on tears coming unbidden to my eyes. “I can’t help seeing all that I have lost. I was beautiful then.” “You still are”, he assured me and held me as I cried softly into his shoulder. He held my face in his hands and turned it gently to look at him. “You still are beautiful. I would actually say you are more beautiful now”. He indicated the picture with a nod of his head. “You were a little rebel without a cause then, and …uh… very pretentious”. I laughed with a snort and he smiled at me as he brushed a tear off my cheek.
He took his hand and placed it under the baggy top I was wearing. He placed his hand on my heart and kissed me lightly on the lips. His pinky finger barely touched my left scar. He had put his hand between the twin scars marking what felt like my lost womanhood. The scars mark where my breasts had been taken from me. “I love you”, he said sincerely looking into my eyes.
I looked at the photograph again. Focusing once more on what I had lost. If a photo is worth a thousand words then this one shouts “lost” a thousand times. I looked at my perky young body. I traced the outline of my breasts with my eyes. I looked at the photograph. I looked at the only photograph of my breasts.
In Loving Memory...
In Loving Memory...
Diagnosed with lung cancer in March, Hettie Pienaar (My mom's sister) said goodbye to us yesterday, 24 August 2011, in Bloemfontein. You will always be in our hearts.
Bye, bye Hettie...
