Suspended Sentences Read Free

with his friend Robert Capa, in Berlin, in August 1945.
    Until that day, I’d never heard of Jansen. But I knew who Robert Capa was, having seen his photos of the Spanish Civil War and read an article about his death in Indochina.
    Years have passed. Rather than clouding the image of Capa and Jansen, they’ve had the opposite effect: the picture is much sharper in my memory now than it was that spring.
    On the photo, Jansen looked sort of like Capa’s double, or rather, like a little brother that the latter had taken under his wing. As much as Capa—with his dark brown hair, dark gaze, and the cigarette dangling from the corner of his lips—exuded brashness and joie de vivre, so Jansen—blond, skinny, light eyes, timid, melancholic smile—looked ill at ease. And Capa’s arm resting on Jansen’s shoulder was not merely friendly. It was as if he were holding him up.
    We sat on the armchairs and Jansen offered us whiskey. He went to the back of the room and opened a door that led to a former kitchen, which he’d turned into a darkroom. Then he came back toward us.
    “I’m awfully sorry, there isn’t any more whiskey.”
    He sat a bit stiffly, legs crossed, at the very end of the sofa, as if he were only visiting. My girlfriend and I didn’t try to break the silence. The room, with its white walls, was very light. The two chairs and the sofa were placed too far from each other, creating a feeling of emptiness. It was as if Jansen had already stopped living there. The three suitcases, whose leather reflected the sunlight, suggested imminent departure.
    “If you’re interested,” he said, “I’ll show you the photos when they’re developed.”
    I had jotted down his phone number on a cigarette pack. Besides, he’d added, he was in the book. Jansen, 9 Rue Froidevaux. DANton 75-21.

At times, it seems, our memories act much like Polaroids. In nearly thirty years, I hardly ever thought about Jansen. We’d known each other over a very short period of time. He left France in June of 1964, and I’m writing this in April 1992. I never received word from him and I don’t know if he’s dead or alive. The memory of him had remained dormant, but now it has suddenly come flooding back this early spring of 1992. Is it because I came across the picture of my girlfriend and me, on the back of which a blue stamp says Photo by Jansen. All rights reserved? Or for the simple reason that every spring looks the same?
    Today the air was light, the buds had burst on the trees in the gardens of the Observatoire, and the month of April 1992 merged by an effect of superimposition with the month of April 1964. The memory of Jansen pursued me all afternoon and would follow me forever: Jansen would remain someone I’d barely had time to know.
    Who can tell? Someone else will write a book about him, illustrated with the pictures he’ll find. There’s a series of small black paperbacks devoted to famous photographers: why not one about him? He deserves it. In the meantime, it would make me glad if these pages rescued him from oblivion—though that oblivion is his own doing, deliberately sought.
    I think I should set down the few biographical facts I’ve managed to piece together: He was born in 1920 in Antwerp and he barely knew his father. He and his mother were of Italian nationality. In 1938, after several years spent studying in Brussels, he left Belgium for Paris. There, he worked as an assistant to several photographers. Hemet Robert Capa, who in January 1939 brought him to Barcelona and Figueras, where they followed the exodus of Spanish refugees toward the French border. In July of that same year, he covered the Tour de France with Capa. When war was declared, Capa offered to take him to the United States and obtained two visas. At the last moment, Jansen decided to stay in France. He spent the first two years of the Occupation in Paris. Thanks to an Italian journalist, he worked for the photo services of the magazine Tempo .