Photo 10. Joy is speaking and gesturing, her smile gleams, her eyes are aware of Justin beside her. He listens, as erect in his chair as if its back were not slanted, his face expressionless except for a slight upturning of the sides of the mouth as he gazes straight out into the camera. Belle is leaning forward in her chair, straining to hear her daughter. Ed is gazing into space.
Photos 11–22. Julie, in various phases. Pictures taken over the course of an hour or two. She has a round pink sweet face, large blue eyes, a happy smile, and a dab of hair poking out from under her fine handkerchief-linen bonnet trimmed with lace. She is caught by the invasive photographer asleep; drooling; with one eye open and one closed; smiling a broad toothless grin and reaching out to someone (her father) whose arms alone are visible; perched happily in her father’s arms (his head turned to her, only the back of it visible in the photograph); held more formally and a little uncomfortably, by her mother, who is smiling broadly at the camera; by her grandmother, who seems to be tickling her tummy, and whose face is hidden, although the baby is laughing uncontrollably; on all fours on a small white blanket placed on the grass, head up facing the camera, mouth open, eyes wide, awed, discovering, an explorer.
Photo 23. Justin holds up for the camera a map of Germany and is pointing to the area where Heidelberg is found. Attending upon him are Brad and Ed, both absorbed in the map, Brad holding a glass in his right hand, Ed not. You cannot see Justin’s face in this shot.
Photo 24. Joy is presenting Belle with a box, wrapped in flowered paper and a bow.
Photo 25. Belle has opened the box and is holding up a large (one-ounce) bottle of L’Air du Temps, her favorite perfume. In the background, Justin’s face is hidden by a movie camera with which he records this scene. The movie camera and the perfume were purchased in the PX at Heidelberg. The movie camera will go on to record other openings of other gifts, Ed holding up an enameled penknife with a nail file, bottle opener, screwdriver, can opener, and other attachments cleverly contained within it. The movie camera will focus on the opening of each of these attachments. It will, briefly, show Anastasia with a strained smile holding up a bottle of Shalimar, Billy holding up a knife similar to Ed’s but a little thinner, and Brad holding up a German beer stein. Since the movie camera neglected to record Arden’s gift, its nature has been irremediably forgotten.
Photo 26. This is a close-up of Justin with his mouth open. He is speaking. He does not gesture as he speaks, nor does his facial expression change. It is not recorded what he was saying.
Photo 27. The picture taker has changed, and this and the following few shots are not as clearly focused or well-composed as the earlier ones. They are, however, just as cherished by those who received copies of them. Here is Brad, standing smiling behind Anastasia, whose face looks strained and who seems to begrudge the camera a smile. He has a glass in his hand and is toasting the camera. His face is a little lopsided.
Photo 28. Here are Brad and Anastasia standing with their children. The children look off into the distance—Arden’s foot is up at the toe, suggesting she is tapping it. Billy’s face is extremely sad, his eyes sunk into their sockets, they seem to grip emptiness: it must be a trick of the light. Anastasia has her hands resting lightly on the children’s shoulders, but her face is stiff and strained, its lines deepened and darkened by the sunlight. She looks disdainful. Brad stands behind them, taller, they conceal his emerging potbelly, but not his receding hairline. He is smiling, but here too, his face seems puttylike, unfinished, like a clay head molded by a sculptor who then changed his mind and has begun to change his work. You feel you should throw a cloth over it until it is done.
Photo 29. Belle stands in the center, a stiff smile on her face. Joy stands to her left, smiling broadly at the camera. Anastasia stands to her right, her arm about her mother’s shoulder, looking at her with an expression of tenderness.
Photo 30. The original photographer seems to have returned to the job. This picture shows Joy and Justin standing together, Joy smiling broadly, Justin brown and smooth and erect, without expression. Joy’s head is turned a little toward her husband as if she is watching to try to catch his reaction. He looks straight at the camera.
Photo 31. Joy and Justin with Jonathan and Julie. Justin holds the baby; his profile seems to smile. The baby’s mouth is open, her eyes veer wildly. Her bonnet has come off and her wisp of hair stands straight up. Joy is trying to smooth it down when the picture is shot, and her head is turned away from the camera.
Photo 32. This is the one picture that shows the photographer’s skill, having been taken with great speed after photograph 31. The group is the same, but in this picture, Joy has turned back to the camera and appears to be crying out with surprise. She is smiling and protesting at once, in a good-humored way. She is clearly a person who finds herself as well as the world amusing.
Photo 33. Belle and Ed standing formally but smiling side by side. Despite the sun hinted at by the shadowing on their faces, Belle has the sequin-trimmed sweater draped over her shoulders. Ed’s hands are clasped behind his back in the manner of the Prince Consort. He holds his head at a precise angle so the sun will not reflect on his eyeglasses and turn his eyes into two round silver dots. He has learned to do this after many experiments.
Photos 34 and 35. Both of these are group shots taken with a timer, and include the entire family. In the first, Ed is standing on the end, where he ran after setting up the camera on its tripod. It is Anastasia’s camera and her tripod, but Ed wanted to take the shot so she has left the arrangement to him. In the picture, he is tense, strained. This setting up of camera, tripod, and timer has taken him nearly twenty minutes (during which the children fidgeted, fussed, and the baby cried; Belle sighed loudly and lighted a cigarette, Brad went to the kitchen to refresh his drink and Justin’s, and Anastasia whispered in her daughter’s ear a plea for patience). The operation seems to Ed a miracle, the work of a master controller, and he is not sure, although he has checked everything twice, that he possesses the skill to work it.
In the picture as it is finally shot, Belle is in the center, smoking, her face arranged in a sophisticated, knowing expression; Joy is (after all) caught unprepared, looking downward and trying to arrange Jonathan’s hair, which is wild as a halo around his sweet face. Brad also seems unaware that the moment has arrived finally, and is looking to the right, his face appearing a little angry about something unknown, but at the same time he seems not to want to be angry, so that his expression is unclear. The children look overjoyed—an accident, because just before the timer snapped, Arden announced that it had better hurry up or she would wet her pants, a remark that made the two younger ones burst into uncontrollable giggling. Anastasia too is smiling broadly, unselfconsciously, perhaps also giggling at Arden’s crack. The baby, in Joy’s arms, looks uncomfortable. Only Justin is unmoved, spare and erect.
Photo 35 is similar, having been taken the same way, but since the camera was already set up, people were more prepared. Belle smiles directly at the camera, but she must be thinking something she does not say, because her smile is a sarcastic smirk. Anastasia is smiling with the strain always apparent in her face when she knows her picture is being taken. Joy is smiling happily. Ed, perhaps sensing what Belle is thinking, looks sober and thoughtful, gazing down at the grass. The children are tired and have seated themselves on the grass with their arms entwined, smiling sweetly, Arden in the center, one boy on each side. Justin, strangely caught unprepared in this shot, is looking down at the children with a worried expression.
They are, overall, pictures of a happy comfortable American family. There is the golden glow of summer sun filtering through green trees on green lawn, a green thought in a green shade; and although skin tones range from Joy’s fair skin to Justin’s dark one, none is really dark, and all of the skins have the golden tone which indicates a standard of living that permits vacations at beaches, or at least sunbathing or sitting of an afternoon in a garden.
Th
e picture taker would like you to consider also the names: Stevens, Carpenter, Selby. You would never know from such names that there was an ounce of anything but WASP blood in any of them. Nor could you tell this from their appearance. Whether blond and blue-eyed or dark-haired and brown-or hazel-eyed, they have the look of people raised in privilege. They are certainly middle-class Americans. Belle looks almost aristocratic, and there is a look on Anastasia’s face that makes her unsuitable dress unimportant, that gives her the appearance of being a person who sets her own standards. The background is equally impressive—green lawn, a bed of brilliant flowers, trees. The shot is so focused that the garage does not appear, nor the driveway that separates this 50’ X 100’ plot from its neighbor. These happy smiling people could be living on a small estate on the North Shore of Long Island, or in the wealthier exurbs of any large American city. These are Americans who have made it.
Photo 36. To the sociologist-historian, this photograph appears to have been taken somewhat later than the previous ones. In support of this hypothesis, we offer first, the fact that it shows all the adults with the exception of the older daughter, Anastasia, seated in a rough circle. It is therefore likely that she is again the photographer. A half-filled glass stands in the grass, tipped precariously against the leg of her empty chair. Second, this picture is somewhat less sharp than any of the others. We may deduce from its fuzziness, as well as its lack of sufficient light, a lack that could have been alleviated had the picture taker opened the aperture, that the photographer was at this time somewhat less clearheaded than earlier. In addition, the facial expressions of all the subjects (with one exception) are more animated, less controlled, than before. And finally, the writing on the tag accompanying the negatives is nearly illegible. It would appear the photographer wanted to finish this roll of film regardless of her condition.
In the picture, we can make out a low wooden table, yellow with blue trim, at which three children sit on low matching benches, eating. It is not possible precisely to discern what they are eating, although they seem to be eating on paper plates. One child, a boy of about two, is holding up his face for the camera, grinning in delight with what appears to be chocolate smeared clear across his chin and mouth; a sight which has a girl, aged perhaps eight, with her legs drawn up on the bench as if she were about to kick something, laughing uncontrollably, with one hand hiding her mouth and the other grasping firmly a large leg, probably from a turkey or large chicken; while a boy of about seven rolls his eyes at the table just in front of him, on which there is a large spreading purple stain, apparently spilled grape juice. The baby who was earlier part of this group is no longer visible, having been placed upstairs in a crib in a small hot bedroom, in clean diapers with a bottle in her mouth. She is well out of it, for this is an extremely poor photograph, with blurring that suggests the photographer’s body or arms were moving uncontrollably up and down.
Beside the table of children is a group of adults. The youngest adult female sits on a kind of Adirondack love seat next to the man with the putty face, her head lying on his shoulder; she is smiling and holding up her glass toasting the picture taker. The putty-faced man is smiling in uncertain, puttylike pleasure. His expression is open to complex interpretation: he looks as if he is feeling himself to be utterly depraved, something of which he is deeply ashamed and yet at the same time, proud. He has his arm around the female, whose simple happy smile betrays no recognition whatever of her companion’s state of mind. A man in uniform sits stiffly in an aluminum outdoor chair placed to the right of the Adirondack love seat, glaring at something outside the picture. On the other side of the love seat, a woman in her early fifties, unaware of the camera, is glancing around her with a look of panic, wildly, as if she had suddenly realized that she has lost, is missing, something terribly important. Her mouth is open in what looks like a cry of alarm, there is an anxious line between her eyes, and there is panic in her bodily position as if she were preparing to leap to her feet. And bending toward her from his chair, his face caught only in profile, is a man who looks five to seven years younger than this woman, with a look of concern on his face, or rather, concern blended with anger, outrage even. Perhaps what is lost was something precious, and the man blames the woman for its loss, but does not wish to express reproach. Or perhaps the woman is blaming the man for the loss of whatever was lost. It is difficult to tell from this poor photo precisely what was occurring. There is a problem of haze, and the picture is too dark, although there is a brilliance on the right side, which suggests a setting or near-setting sun, a huge red flame on the verge of the horizon, just outside the frame, that causes glare and seems to threaten to burn the film, and even, if the sociologist-historian were to abandon her professionally objective posture for a moment, to threaten to set fire to the picture even as I hold it in my hand.
XI
1
READING THESE OLD JOURNALS OF mine is like reading a graph—sharp ups, swift downs, predictable: the ups come when I’m on an assignment, the downs when I’m home. On assignment I am full of excitement, I write tens of pages, odd accounts because often I pay less attention to the thing I’m photographing, the thing I’m there for, like the dam or—years later—the Berlin Wall—than to the feeling of a place, its ambience, or to people I meet—not important people necessarily, just interesting or odd people. I spend whole paragraphs on small details like the graffiti on some statues in Pittsburgh, or the meaning of the fact that a pigeon perched on my shoulder in front of the Baptistry in Florence—God dwells in the details, someone said. I spend a whole page of outrage on a young Algerian boy who tried to pick me up in the Métro, and screamed at me that I was a lesbian when I rejected him.
My returns home are not so much excited, as exercised—page after page lamenting the behavior of the children, and detailed accounts of my attempts to deal with the latest crisis, paragraphs heavy with tiredness and patience. They read as if I were trying to prove to a blank book or to myself that I was a good mother even if I spent time away from home. Or maybe I wasn’t trying to prove anything, maybe I found being a mother a difficult and thankless occupation.
As the kids settle down again and life returns to what we called normal, as things begin to perk along without serious distress in a contented way, the mood sinks down, the entries grow briefer and further apart and eventually dwindle into a single bored paragraph once or twice a week. For example:
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 9. Lynbrook.
Nothing new today. The kids are both out tonight, Arden at a pajama party at Lily’s, Billy at David’s. Mom home alone. Spent the day photographing a new tract-housing development out on the island, a place that used to be a potato farm, maybe one of the farms my mother and grandmother walked through to reach the orphanage. There is something so terrible about these tracts, although I’m not sure what it is, why I feel as I do. Certainly the people who sold the land are having an easier life than they did before—almost anything is easier than farming. And what’s wrong with these houses? Why am I such a snob? I wouldn’t mind having a decent kitchen with a dishwasher, a laundry room, a dining room, a fireplace, a little yard of my own, a garage to keep the car in. Last week somebody smashed in the side of my car while I had it parked in front of the house—not badly, but I don’t know who did it, it must have happened in the middle of the night, and I’m worried about what it will cost to repair, maybe it will be over a hundred dollars, well, maybe I can afford that now. Meantime, I have to get in and out on the passenger’s side, since my door can’t be opened. Still, there’s something awful and ugly about those tract houses. Maybe it has to do with the intentions of those who made them. Like the dam.
Anyway, here I am alone and quiet, no TV set blaring, no squabbling kids, so bored I could cry. I’ve been working on my pictures tonight, but after two hours of that I’ve had it. Maybe I’ll go to a movie. I haven’t been anywhere in ages.
Thank god Monday I go out on another assignment.
By the time of
my next entry, on the following Friday night, I was hyper again.
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 15. Lynbrook.
What an absolute bitch of a week! I’m exhausted and beside myself, so furious I’ve broken out in hives, I could kill, I’d love to put my hands around something’s neck and wring it. Oh, for the old days when you killed your own chickens for supper! I’ll bet those farm women got their rocks off just preparing meals. Whereas I have to carry my rocks around. Luckily, I stayed in the city while I was shooting, so the kids didn’t have to put up with me those four nights, but I was so exasperated, I went out and bought a bottle of rye and kept it in my hotel room. And I drank nearly the whole thing, so much that I didn’t bother to bring the remains home. I look horrible, my face is all puffy and I swear I gained five pounds. I’m going to have to buy a scale. The only good thing I can say is at least I can afford it now. This is a terrific job—it enables me to afford to buy whiskey so I can drink myself into something resembling sleep and a scale to weigh the damage the drink did to my body because of upset about the job. Thank god I’ll be home now for at least a month before they send me out again. Russ promised. Except once they see the pictures I took, they may never call me again.
The assignment was New York, the unseen side. I loved the idea. I had visions of shooting quiet tree-lined blocks in Queens, ethnic neighborhoods in Brooklyn with Chinese, Italian, Jewish, Russian and Syrian or Armenian restaurants and shops all jumbled together. I imagined stopping for lunch where you can get grape leaves stuffed with rice and nuts, lamb cooked with artichokes in a lemon sauce, umm, I’m hungry, all I had for dinner tonight was a little bit of meat loaf that was left over—Pani wasn’t expecting me for dinner and the kids are greedy pigs—and some mashed potatoes and peas, an old-fashioned dinner, the kind Momma used to make, but there was only a tablespoon of each left….Yes, and gorgeous old houses in Harlem, facing the park—carved moldings along the ceilings, beautiful windows, paneling, fireplaces in half the rooms, and staircases with curved wood banisters. And little dockside streets in Brooklyn or Queens, with the masts of sailboats standing like the spears in Uccello’s bedstead for Lorenzo de Medici or whoever it was, and shacks where you can buy bait, and an old fisherman, resonant of Maine or Gloucester, sitting on a keg…. Oh, I was seeing it in a romantic, clichéd way, I suppose, but I thought the assignment would be fun. I asked World to do research for me, and they sent me a long list of suggestions. World wanted to call it “The Real Naked City,” as a commentary on some television program that shows mainly murders.