An Old Photograph

A familiar rustling sound filled the otherwise quiet living room. Ines was shifting through the weekend edition, half looking and half looking away. It was a habit in her family, and from a young age her weekends were filled with sounds of paper, occasional gasps, and dirty fingertips that no one bothered to clean. From the rhythm of their reading, Ines could guess if her parents had just had a fight, making these motions rough, fast, eager, as if they were in a competition to reach the end of the newspaper – usually devoted to sports and obituaries. 

It was a quiet Sunday, filled with nothings – nothing to do, no one to see. The only intruders were small yellow-tailed birds that were peeking through the windows, glancing at the pages, and chit-chatting about the news.  

The rustle paused suddenly. A picture from a few pages earlier stayed with Ines, and even though she wasn’t really looking, she did see something that was as strange as it was familiar. Turning back, she looked intensely at the old photograph. A young man, dressed in an officers’ uniform, looking shyly at the camera and holding the hand of a small boy. The man was her father, she knew it right then, but the setting was entirely foreign. The storyboard of her father’s life was far from being organized, and yet, an officer’s uniform was left out completely – cut out and forgotten on the editor’s desk. The man looking at her looked so close and yet so far. 

The terse article below the picture described a new exhibition in the Maison de la Photographie, subtly entitled “Hidden Heroes”. The entrance was only 5 Euros, and yes, they were open on the weekend. 

Ines stood up briskly, only to find herself back in her chair a few seconds later. The thought of calling her father, or worse still, of visiting him in the elderly house, was a heavy one, literally pushing her down. For the last few years, his health had deteriorated severely and with it, the remaining signs of affection and kindness that had not been so prevalent to begin with. He became grimmer, his vocabulary reduced to mono-syllabic words fired from his mouth, and a few unclear animal grunts, half sighs and half cries. 

Her mother went away as soon as Ines was old enough, and with each decade she ventured further and further away. First it was to the neighboring Brussels, then a little further to Porto. Falling in love with the southern climate, she continued to LA and was last seen in Tulum. Ines always hoped that by travelling so far, she would eventually complete a full circle and come back – but for her mother, the world remained flat and distances continued to increase.

She stood up again, this time with enough force to continue walking. Putting on a simple jacket and her weekend shoes, she headed towards the gallery. A flood of thoughts went storming through her. For one, she was not sure that the picture was of her father. Perhaps it was someone who looked like him? And even if it were her father, what would it mean? Would she like to know more – could she? Would she be able to learn more about this moment in time, captured so vividly but leaving no clues? 

Ines arrived faster than expected, her thoughts propelling her every step. The gallery space was big and bright, simple, with two dozen photographs hanging neatly from the walls. The photographs were old, crumbling and decaying behind the protective glass. The faces behind the glass remained young, looking at her intensely, expressing events and emotions that she could not read. 

Going swiftly from one to the next, half looking and half searching, she finally saw him. Getting close enough to see the title, she read “Oleg and Pavel”. Her heart skipped a beat. Ines knew that her father changed his name when he came to France, but she never knew that Paul was Pavel before. Pavel, Pavel, she repeated to herself, rolling the name on her tongue. Pavel sounded softer, kinder, one-syllable longer than the concise Paul. She wondered if with that syllable a part of her father had passed away, perhaps the better part. 

“A strong image, isn’t it?” A man standing next to her woke her up from her thoughts. “Can you see the similarity?” he asked joyfully. Her heart skipped a beat again. How can this guy, whom she never met before, know that this was her father, and yes, there was a hint of similarity, but you would need to be a very good detective to notice. “I’m sorry, I don’t seem to follow you…” she stuttered. The man took out his hand, pointing at the picture, and smiling widely: “I’m Oleg.” 

Ines was stunned with how little she understood. The quiet Sunday became full of turmoil, and she felt that her father was as estranged to her as the young man whom she had just met for the first time. She wondered how much of his story, and indeed of her own story, she will need to rewrite. 

Luckily, Oleg turned out to be a very friendly, talkative lad, and recognizing a potential audience in this young woman, he told her most of what he knew. She learnt that the whole exhibition was his own initiative, his own attempt to find the man who gave him a new life. Three decades ago, when she was only a few months old, her father had briefly enrolled in the Soviet army and was sent to Ukraine. At that very time, a series of wild forest fires swept across the Eastern part, ruining a few villages – including the village where Oleg lived, called Muratove. The army was sent over to assist resident evacuation and help with their relocation until the fires had been tamed. Oleg was barely 5 years old when he witnessed his family house light up in flames. That dark – or maybe bright – day he lost both his parents, his sister and both of their dogs. They perished, like the old pictures behind the glass.

Pavel was a young officer, who happened to be at the right place at the right time. He noticed the little boy, standing completely alone and gazing at the flames. Not knowing what to do, the soldier took the boy under his wing, looking after him until a foster home was provided. Pavel took him in his modest one-room apartment by the river, sharing his simple meals, playing with (sometimes) imaginary toys and telling (mostly) imaginary stories. 

Uncle Pavel, which is how the boy called her father, was so kind, so kind. Sometimes wrong-headedly kind, like the time that he bought Oleg a fifty-piece puzzle. The final image depicted a perfect family dinner: two kids around the kitchen table, a boy and a girl, their father reading a newspaper, and their mother, in her apron, cooking dinner. The drawing was beautifully done, and yet, Oleg’s happiness was taken away, piece by piece, as he was reaching its completion. And then one day, the puzzle just disappeared and a toy truck appeared in its place. A few months later, in the same abrupt manner, uncle Pavel was gone. The boy was given a temporary home with a new family, his only evidence of that special connection with uncle Pavel was this photograph, which had been taken a few days after the fires. Oleg treasured it more than his own body, protecting it from the decay of time and memory. 

“He saved me,” Oleg said, and two soft tears formed in the corners of his eyes. “My only wish with this exhibition is to find him again and to tell him what it means for me.”

Ines felt trapped. There she was, the daughter of the man who saved Oleg, of the man he’s been looking for most of his life. In an instant, she could make him the happiest man on earth. And yet, something deep in her throat held her back. She remembered the last time she saw her father. Alone in his room, complaining at every aspect of his existence, Paul was far from being kind. His frail body was hardened by his tone of voice, and his endless rants were only stopped by his tiredness. He would crawl to his bed and turn away from her, signaling that the visit was over. 

“What brings you here?”, Oleg repeated his question, seeing that Ines was elsewhere. “Oh, I am quite passionate about history, especially old photographs”, she lied. “I love imagining the stories behind those fleeting moments, and I was so lucky today to hear the real story behind these images.” “Stories harden,” he remarked, “people harden, too. And we remain strangers to ourselves.”

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Ines took the long way home. Her thoughts were racing even more now, different words and ideas entering each other’s spaces, impatient, out of line. They were fighting for her attention. At the same time, a pleasant sense of stillness was observing the chaotic movement of her thoughts. For the first time in her life, she felt a sense of safety, as if she had always hoped to find something in her father’s history to add colors to his pale, shallow image. Now she was equipped with the missing piece – Pavel.  

Her legs carried her even further, and when the nursing home emerged in front of her, she was more surprised than the nurse, who greeted her with a loud sigh. Ines noticed that the nurses usually sighed when the families would come too late, missing their last opportunity to say goodbye to their loved ones. But not with Paul. The nurses sighed every time she came, signaling that yes, he’s still alive and kicking. “We had to put a restraining shirt on your father, he was out of order for the whole night”, the nurse informed her, and Ines struggled to keep the new image of her father with the familiar one. “The old devil”, the nurse sighed.

When she entered his room, she noticed that the blinds were pulled down. It was so dark inside, even though it was still daylight, and the room was stuffed. Heading to the windows to let in some air, she heard a familiar groan that made her stop. Her father was awake and did not approve of her direction. She looked at him, intensely, trying to make sense of it all. Trying to find a hint of Pavel in her father, a Pavel she wished she knew, but she could see very little in the dark room. Bodies harden, stories harden. 

“Do you remember Oleg?” she tried to start a conversation, but to no avail. Her father looked away, now that she could see his features more clearly. They were so close but there was an infinity between them, and with each moment he was slipping further away. “It is bitter to head the birds” he said, and turned his back to her. The visit was over. “Have a good night, papa.” She came close to him, kissed him on the crown of the head, and softly closed the door behind her.