The People in the Photo Read Free Page B

equipment fast enough. We did not repeat the experience. The result was that we were hardly a close family. My parents did not eat together, except when we had visitors. And I remember entire days spent in a leaden silence. Philippe and I sometimeswhispered all day long in order not to disturb the atmosphere, which was poisonous in the extreme. To be honest, my parents were so unhappy together that I find it hard to understand why they didn’t divorce. True, my mother had no resources, but her parents, the Krügers, were wealthy enough to provide for her. On the other hand, in the seventies, the stigma of divorce in middle-class circles made people accept unpalatable arrangements.
    You tell me that for a while you refused to acknowledge the importance of those family silences. For a long time, I tried to convince my brother (who was very upset by the situation) to adopt the same attitude, telling him – telling myself above all – that raking over the past wouldn’t change it and that we should turn the page. I would be less dogmatic today. You and I are strangers, but we know each other well enough, given the circumstances that have brought us together, for me to be able to tell you that I am unmarried and do not have any children. This deliberate decision has a lot to do with the sight of my unhappy parents, a situation that I had no wish to replicate. I’m now older than the age my father was at the time we are talking about. I’d like to understand what happened to make him walk out on us. I too feel that inner emptiness, which you describe so poignantly. And, as I grow older, I find it increasingly hard to bear. The fact is, I do not know the man who fathered me.
    I hope you’ll forgive me this rambling email, andfor sharing these family secrets, which you might find inappropriate since we have never even met.
    I have not spoken about this to anyone for years, and I fear I may have let myself go. Let us say that this quest is as important to me as it is to you; take these words as proof that my desire to uncover the missing portion of my past is as strong as yours.
    It will be night time in Paris when you receive this message.
     
    Kind regards,
     
    Stéphane

    Paris, 16 June (email)
    Thank you for being so open with me, Stéphane. It means a lot. Let’s keep going then. Letter to follow very soon.
     
    Warm wishes,
     
    Hélène

    Miami, 18 June 2007 (postcard)
    Dear Hélène,
    Greetings from Florida, where the beaches are as beautiful as in the photograph, even though the conference doesn’t leave me much time to enjoy them.
    I’ll write soon.
     
    Stéphane C.

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    The passport-sized photo, which the scissors have not cut quite square, is affixed to the pink card by two brass eyelets, one in the bottom left-hand corner and the other in the top right. The subject wears an unsmiling, almost sullen expression. Her mane of shoulder-length hair is tamed as far as possible by two metal slides at the temples, their gleam picked out by the flash. Her dark eyes are wide-open as if dazzled by the light, her brow is furrowed and her full lips form a pout. But her chin is softened by a dimple which punctuates the perfect oval of her face. Her forehead appears slightly domed – distorted, no doubt, by the camera angle. The paleness of her skin contrasts with the murky grey background, while her striped blouse brings an element of geometry to the composition and reveals a glimpse of long, white neck wearing a fine chain.
    The document was issued at the Paris prefecture on 14 March 1959 by a Monsieur Félix Thoiry on behalf of the prefect. The driving licence relates to category B automotive vehicles. At the bottom of the rectangle, neatly signed in heavy ink, is a square monogram with the initials N and Z intertwined.
    Above the photograph, it is written that the bearer of this driving licence is called Zabvina, Nataliya Olegovna, that she was born on 4 January 1941 in Archangelsk (USSR) and that her place of residence is