The People in the Photo Read online

  Later on, as a teenager, I grilled Sylvia but she remained tight-lipped. She had this way of avoiding my gaze and dodging the question which made it obvious from the start that I wasn’t going to get anything out of her. When I pressed her on the whereabouts of my mother’s grave, she reluctantly told me that she had been cremated and her ashes scattered off the coast of Brittany.

  It was one of my aunts who let the cat out of the bag at my eighteenth birthday dinner. After the meal (during which she’d had rather a lot to drink), she came into the kitchen for a cigarette while I was making coffee. She asked me what I would like as a gift to mark my coming of age. I replied: tell me how my mother died. I remember that moment very clearly: the sudden silence amid all the noise, the loud gurgling of the coffee machine on one side, the regular whiffs of pungent smoke on the other. I didn’t dare turn round. I heard my aunt’s voice say in a strange tone: ‘Your mother died in a car accident. She veered off the road in bad weather and flipped over into a ravine.’ Just then, as if he had sensed danger, my father came into the kitchen and eyed us both with suspicion. My aunt said nothing more and went back out into the garden. When I brought it up again the next time I saw her, her expression hardened and she said she had been wrong to say anything, that I should forget all about it and concentrate on the future. Forget about what? How could I forget what I had never known?

  I was nine when my father married Sylvia. By then, we had been seeing her almost every week for several years. My father never told me how he met her, but I can remember her coming on holiday with us before she moved into our apartment on Rue de l’Observatoire in Paris. She was always wonderful with me, very gentle; it wasn’t long before I asked if I could call her ‘Maman’, I was so fond of her. She was incredibly accomplished and well-read, and always looked stunning, even well into her old age. A woman of impeccable taste with a wonderful turn of phrase, but not the slightest bit aloof: she was warm and sociable and loved entertaining. She was a librarian and then became head curator of the manuscripts department at the Bibliothèque Nationale. Although it was against the rules, I remember her taking me into the Labrouste reading room as a small child. I was so overwhelmed by the sight of so many books, I thought they must have been painted on the walls.

  Life at home was much more fun with her around. Before then, my father had moved house frequently: I still have photographs of a town whose name I don’t remember, and pictures taken in Polynesia where we lived for several months. In one of them, I’m sitting on the lap of a large mixed-race woman with frizzy hair, probably my nanny. I’ve forgotten everything about the people I met and the houses I lived in, but never the hours I spent at school worrying whether my toys and stuffed cat would still be there when I got home. I’m told I used to have nightmares every night.

  In Paris, Sylvia cared for me as her own child: she came to pick me up, gave me cuddles, made my tea and told me bedtime stories. I was overjoyed to have a mother at last. I had forgotten my own mother – I’m still unable to summon a single memory of her, no matter how hard I try – and above all, I was sick of the constant moves, the playground whispering and pitying glances. I think I even stopped speaking for a while; at least, I can picture my father growing angry in the attempt to get a sound out of me.

  Sylvia and my father would have liked to have children of their own. In a very right-on, typically eighties way, they sat me down in the kitchen one afternoon and asked if it would make me happy to have a little brother or sister. It’s funny to think of it now. Not least because I would have loved it. But I think there was a miscarriage and after that they stopped trying. In any case Sylvia, who had legally adopted me a year after their marriage, lavished all her love on me. I owe her such a lot, right down to the career she inspired me to follow. She made my father happy, as far as she could – he was never the easiest person to get along with. They grew old together, more or less gracefully, and it was after he passed away three years ago that her illness was diagnosed.

  I have been going to see her three times a week since she went into a home, but she has forgotten who I am. Sometimes she gabbles non-stop like a radio, other times she says nothing for several days. She can no longer dress or feed herself or walk unaided. As she is also suffering from emphysema, the doctors say she doesn’t have long left. I hadn’t paid much attention to it before now, but I have been surprised a few times over the last couple of months to hear her come out with snatches of Russian. And yet I never heard her speak a word of Russian in all the years she lived with us. I shall try to listen more closely from now on to see if I can pick out any words or names.

  Meanwhile, there’s a certain irony in the fact that our progress depends on the shaky recollections of a man whose brain is half-dead and an old lady with a ravaged memory. A curious allegory for the present we’re piecing back together, one photo at a time.

  Best wishes,

  Hélène

  Ashford, 20 July 2007

  Dear Hélène,

  Yes, here we are playing the family archaeologists, and this situation isn’t exactly comfortable, even though we sometimes get caught up in the game. From time to time I tell myself that if we draw a blank, at least I’ll have had the opportunity of getting to know you and sharing with you some of the silences that weigh so heavily on me ordinarily. But reading your letter, I realise the silences you have had to deal with are much worse than mine. Even if your adoptive mother was loving, it must have been difficult to grow up knowing nothing of the person who brought you into the world.

  You ask about the experiment that is keeping me in England. I am trying to isolate the genetic markers that make it possible to identify the links between certain species of trees. You could say I am an expert on tree DNA! That makes people laugh when I talk about my work in a social situation, and I’m nicknamed the CSI of the plane tree (I’m barely exaggerating), but you have no idea how much plant life has to teach us about the workings – and above all the malfunctions – of human life.

  I have been researching the subject for over twenty-five years, but I feel as though I’m only at the beginning of a study that could take several lifetimes. At home, I also have a garden, hence my choice to live outside London. I have fun in it growing a few rare specimens. No need to tell you that the results sometimes astonish the neighbours.

  I’m thinking of going to Geneva around 20 August. My suggestion might sound a little inappropriate, but I was wondering whether you would like to come too and sort through the photographs with me. Who better than you to recognise your mother and other people in the photos? And I also thought that being an archivist you’d enjoy discovering my father’s work, his cityscapes, in particular. We could also take the opportunity to drop in and say hello to Jean Pamiat on the way back: I’m sure he’d be delighted to see you, if he knew your mother well. The house is big and has a private guest apartment: so no problem on that front. But perhaps you have other holiday plans, or someone special keeping you in Paris? In any case, feel free to accept or refuse my invitation.

  I hope to hear from you very soon.

  Warmest wishes,

  Stéphane

  Paris, 26 July 2007

  Dear Stéphane,

  Thank you for your invitation, which I would be delighted to accept. Sylvia no longer has any sense of time and I now realise it makes little difference to her whether she goes forty-eight hours or three weeks without seeing me. It’s awful, but that’s the way it is. In reality, the only significant other keeping me in Paris is my cat, Bourbaki. I’ll leave him with my neighbour, who adores him and spoils him outrageously.

  What’s more, it means I will finally have the pleasure of meeting you ‘in real life’. It seems rather old-fashioned nowadays, but I always enjoy actually meeting people I have corresponded with in the flesh, especially once they’ve become friends.

  Yesterday I went to Rue de la Mouzaïa to visit the address on the driving licence. I found number 142 and rang the doorbell, but the shutters were closed a
nd there was no answer. The owners must be away; I will try again once the holidays are over.

  Nevertheless, it was strange to think I was taking the same route my mother must have walked every day, and as I passed through the quartier (which is really rather lovely, by the way) I tried to see it as she would have done, as the backdrop to her daily life. Did she ride her bike or play ball on the pavement? Did she sit by the window watching visitors arrive? As I put my hand to the doorknob, it occurred to me that hers must have turned that same knob dozens of times, and it was as though all these years later we were somehow able to touch one another across time. I came home feeling very shaken and quite melancholy.

  Because of this, I’ve decided to take another break from my enquiries, which are turning out to be more emotionally draining than I had envisaged, and am heading to Deauville for a few days (with Bourbaki). Let’s speak when I get back to sort out the details of our Geneva trip. I’m really looking forward to going through the photos with you.

  Best wishes,

  Hélène

  4

  The photograph is creased, its edges dog-eared. A thick stripe, where it has been folded, cuts vertically down the centre of the image. It shows a group of children and teenagers of varying ages, flanked by three adults: a bearded man in vestments and two women of average build. There are about fifteen people in the picture altogether and none of them is smiling. Behind them, a painted wooden panel that appears to be a screen is just visible; the presence, to its left, of an Orthodox cross tells us it is in fact an iconostasis and that the photo was taken inside a church.

  The hairstyles, the shape of the glasses and cut of the clothes suggest the picture dates from the 1950s. From the slightly dishevelled appearance of the youngest boys, the dusty shoes, tartan skirts and coarse cloth smocks, it is apparent that all or most of the subjects are working-class. Standing a little apart to the right, a very fair-haired adolescent girl marks herself out from the group both in stance and facial expression – that of a princess who has strayed among paupers. She wears her glossy hair in a thick braid drawn back so tightly at the temples that they reflect the light from the flash. She has on a plain, light-coloured dress with a slightly low-cut neckline, the hem falling just below the knee, worn with ankle boots and a neck scarf. A small bag hangs demurely from her forearm. Her blasé expression and slightly aloof air, like a film star weary of being hounded by paparazzi, are probably modelled on a cover girl.

  Next to her, a girl of about the same age – fifteen or so – stands tall, thin and rather gawky in an oversized man’s raincoat and strap shoes. Her thick, slightly wavy hair is tied back but several strands have escaped to fall around her face. Her high cheekbones and slightly slanting eyes would give her an Asian or Slavic appearance if the butterfly-frame glasses had not imposed their Western geometry on her exotic features. She has her hands in her pockets, her white socks are rucked and her angular bone structure gives her a tomboy look. To her left is a short young man with the ghost of a moustache. He must have borrowed his suit jacket and loosely knotted tie from his father. He has slicked his hair back, but a sweet little curl has flopped back onto his forehead. Puffing out his chest, he looks every bit the romantic male lead, or like a teenage Marcel Proust.

  On the back of the photo, someone has written in French, ‘Saint-Serge parish choir, La Mouzaïa, 1955’.

  Deauville, 1 August 2007 (postcard)

  Dear Stéphane,

  Greetings from Deauville, where the beach is even more perfect than it looks in the photo. I hope all’s well with your trees’ DNA, and with you too.

  All the best,

  Hélène

  Ashford, 7 August (email)

  Dear Hélène,

  Thank you for your card. Did Bourbaki go swimming? I’ve finally made my plans for the journey: since I was able to get a reasonably priced ticket on the Shuttle, I’m going to drive to Geneva. So I could come via Paris and pick you up: we just need to agree on the day, the time and the place.

  Phone me this evening if you like, to finalise arrangements.

  Warmest wishes,

  Stéphane

  PS One of my plane trees has just been cleared thanks to its genetic fingerprint. I’m seeking another culprit.

  Paris, 9 August (email)

  Dear Stéphane,

  I took advantage of my time off to go back to Rue de l’Observatoire and do a bit more sorting before we leave. While I was there I came across something which I have scanned and wanted to send you straight away.

  My father, who was an old-fashioned scholar, amassed a collection of specialist dictionaries over his lifetime, particularly botanical ones, and he spent a good part of his retirement poring over them, pencil in hand. When Sylvia was still more or less compos mentis, she asked me to catalogue them and to hold on to a couple of volumes as a reminder of him.

  I started dusting them off yesterday, hoping to come across some rare botanical tome that might be of interest to you. Instead I spotted an odd one out, an old Makarov Russian–French dictionary. It was so tatty that it almost fell apart in my hands when I took it down from the shelf. As I was trying to slot the loose sheets back in, I noticed a slight bulge between the centre pages: something had been slipped inside. I opened it up and found what I initially took to be a class picture, but in fact it’s a photo of a choir.

  There are no names written on it, which is a real shame. But I would say the young woman with her hands in her pockets could well be my mother. She looks like a much younger version of the woman in the newspaper clipping, only with a different haircut. It’s something about her expression. What do you think? And what’s more, I would swear blind the rather uptight-looking blonde girl is my adoptive mother, Sylvia. I recognise her eyes, the look on her face and the slightly rigid posture, like that of a ballet dancer. And I’m absolutely amazed to see her there. As a teenager, when I asked her about my mother, she always claimed never to have met her. Yet they must be about fifteen in this picture, which means they were actually childhood friends. The web of lies is even more complex than I imagined. What exactly they’re hiding is still a mystery.

  I doubt Sylvia will be able to enlighten me, as her illness is in its advanced stages. She doesn’t know who I am any more. But I’ve been told that Alzheimer’s sufferers sometimes have clear long-term recollections. I will try to talk to her about it, if I catch her on a day when I can get through to her – mostly she’s in her own little world. Several times over the last few months she has called me ‘Natasha’, which I had put down to her simply muddling names. But if that really is my mother in the photo, Sylvia must be taking me for the girl she used to see at the Orthodox church as a teenager.

  The inscription on the back gives the same road name as the driving licence. I had a look online and it seems there is still an Orthodox church in the area called Saint-Serge de Radonège. I’ll head over there and take a look before we go, and will let you know what I find out.

  See you very soon!

  Hélène

  Ashford, 14 August (email)

  Dear Hélène,

  I’ve looked closely at the photo you sent me. Like you, I’m almost certain that the brunette is the same woman as the one in the newspaper cutting. And I have another clue: I believe that the young man dressed like a dandy is Jean Pamiat. His face looks familiar. I’m not absolutely sure, but it would fit with his appearance and his style, and would perhaps explain how our parents met. If your mother, Nathalie, and he were childhood friends and kept in touch as adults, he would certainly have introduced her to his closest friend, my father, at some point. We’ll be seeing Jean in a few days. As I believe I’ve already told you, he is very frail, it’s almost impossible to understand what he is saying, and I don’t know whether he is able to remember anything. But we communicate, a little, through exclamations and hand signs, and if I move my finger slowly over the alphabet, he is able to ‘dictate’ little messages by blinking. We’ll talk to him about Nataliya Zabvin
a and perhaps that will stimulate his memory.

  In the meantime, I’m busy preparing for our trip, and I too am looking forward to it. I love my trees, but at the moment they are a hindrance. I expect to arrive in Paris on the evening of the 24th, and I’ve made a note of how to get to our meeting place. I have taken the liberty of booking a table at the Épicerie Russe, in Rue Daru – it seemed an appropriate place to celebrate our meeting! Even if the reasons that made us turn detective are no laughing matter, I must confess I’m getting caught up in this adventure and can imagine several scenarios, and events – it’s like putting together a jigsaw puzzle. I probably watch too much TV.

  See you very soon.

  Stéphane

  24 August (text message)

  Left five voicemails after you’d set off, but don’t know if you’ve picked them up. Hospital rang: Sylvia has pneumonia again and is in a very bad way. Can’t come to Geneva. Will send news when I can. Hélène.