The band
Angela
Rodel
Grisha Manikatov
Emanuil A. Vidinski
Ivan Valev
Ivan
Hristov
Petar
Tchouhov
News
Concerts
Music
Poetry
Gallery
Useful links
Contacts
|
 |
Contents
The cat
4 October
White rose
History of breath
Moassir and the silence
Lina and the insomnia music
Death of a book (Diary)
Triangular
Sharks, curry and letters
Cypresses
Gigolo
It's good as it is
The look
The photograph
The ash (Sentimentality)
Morten: cartography of
escape
Hukubiveha |
|
"Cartographies of Escape"
Publisher "Stigmati", 2005 |
|
October 4th
*
It was the October
4th. I remember the day very well.
For months on end, we would walk round the square and take pictures of
people’s eyes. Afterwards we’d try to guess what they had been looking at.
Stares were much in demand, the concentration of the pupils. They had so
many varieties: squinting, goggle, widening, popping out, bloodshot,
colourless, subsided, glaring… All sorts of eyes. We’d look for them
everywhere. Sometimes we’d cover half the city for a pair of eyes. Other
days we wouldn’t manage a single shot. On such days we’d go back home and
peel onions. An onion per person. Until our pupils leaked off with anger.
Then, having stood our punishment, we’d laugh for hours. And we would fall
asleep in each other’s arms.
We had sworn never to shoot what people actually looked at. Our pleasure
consisted in discovering the object of attention ourselves, in speculating
about the content of the occasion, in making up events and sometimes even
acting them out. We were enchanted by probabilities, conjectures, silence.
We developed the films immediately; when days on end (a week, once) would
pass without the Look coming, our impatience would almost grow unbearable –
but we’d hold out. In the beginning we went to the cinema, to ease the
pulsation in our temples. But we soon gave that up: there were so many looks
there, and their object was always right before us at the very moment of
conjecturing its content. This would only make us more nervous and we’d
hurry to go home in a rage and peel an onion. Later we found another way,
or, rather, it found us. Once (exactly after that barren week) we came home
furious. When I opened the closet under the sink to get an onion, you jumped
on me and we did it right there on the washing machine. You were slapping
me, insisting that I keep my eyes on you, and then guessing how you look,
inquiring me. I was silent, torturing you, and you were writhing like a
loose film. At times on such days I would also inquire you, but you were
even crueler than me. After that week we removed all the mirrors and stacked
them in the bedroom wardrobe. Since then, we had to trust one another. We
would comb our hair alone, but then we’d help each other in the final
touches. You’d fix my tie and I would tress your hair or smooth your
forelocks. We’d often laugh at each other; it was nice.
This week happened in late September. We’d been trampling the squares for
months in search of eyes. It was then that we left the bustling places and
went for the tiny streets. We discovered amazing things. I remember one
gaunt woman, looking down towards the opposite pavement. While taking the
picture, we heard sounds coming from the direction of her look. This helped
us, it presented a new way of guesswork: after developing the film, we
decided that she’d been staring at a stray dog nuzzling in a litter bin. The
noises we heard while shooting could not be mistaken: we had listened to
them at so many bus stops. An argument broke out, however, if she could have
been looking at a man, a bum; I stood for this version, but I soon had to
relent: the noises of a bum searching were much more coordinated.
So we learned to play it by ear, that is, by remembering sounds. Of course,
there was a fair amount of squabbling, as memories would either fade or
swell up artificially. We never went as far as having rows, though. Quite
the opposite, diverging opinions only enriched our draught.
It happened once that we caught a true bum. He was looking impatiently and
almost without hatred. We took a shot of him leaning against a shabby fence:
first lighting a butt he had probably found on the pavement, his half-closed
eyes downcast, and then smoking, pleased, looking with passive resentment
across the street. The shots were great. Even with his first look he had
seen the object of the second one. Lighting his cigarette, he had already
known what his eyes would meet through the smoke, when he lifts them up. The
self-consciousness of eyelashes. It was fantastic. Of course, the shots were
yours. I only watched the old man, my back turned on the street beyond. The
better eyes were always yours: the angles always well measured, the shots
carefully framed. There was never any argument about this: you were the more
able photographer; still, I was better at guesswork, or at least my
reasoning was more convincing. The truth always remained hidden, but it
never concerned us, for that matter. We couldn’t bother less what our
objects were looking at. The important thing was what we saw in their eyes.
We didn’t care about the rest.
Once the barren week was over, we had terrific luck for about twenty days.
The pointed pupils were coming down like hail, ferocious and aggressive.
Those days we didn’t make love, there was no way. We were too exhausted by
roaming, and after the films were developed, our discussions on the objects
of watching left us at our last gasp. During those happy days we never
touched. We were thoroughly saturated, consumed.
Then something happened. As we were walking down a tiny street behind Nevsky,
a woman came from below. She was about thirty-five, dressed in bright
colours. She had a camera. The moment she saw us, she halted and stared
intensely in our direction. I could see her eyes but I couldn’t make out
what she was looking at. It was a different look: as if the pupils were
recognizing something. They were full of story and excitement.
Instinctively, I raised the camera and as I took the picture, this finding
made me feel happy. Meanwhile, the woman was slowly coming closer. I went on
pressing the button, because the look was changing, without losing its
caharcter. I was already forming conjectures about its object – something
unmovable behind us or at the level of the first floors. I didn’t even think
about turning around: this was forbidden, a law. I didn’t care if the model
to my lens was aware of my attention. I was really enthusiastic. I hadn’t
noticed you weren’t by me anymore. When the woman passed, I lowered the
camera and I looked at you. It was then I detected the target of her look,
so much teeming with memories: it was you. She had been looking at you. I
don’t remember what exactly gave me the creeps: having seen her object or
the fact that she had recognized you. I had broken the rules, the guesswork
was pointless now. The photographs had no meaning anymore.
She had stopped in front of you. The two of you had looked at each other for
a long time, without a word spoken. You must have wondered what she saw
right then. After all, you hadn’t seen your image for months now. Whether
you had changed, what was your haircut like. You might have been trying to
remember what you had looked like when parting with her.
It was October 4th. I remember this day very well.
Now, I’m looking at the pictures I made that day. I regret not breaking the
rules altogether by shooting you. But I can already guess by her look; I
have a story already: your memories before that shot.
|
