Takapuna Photo

In the hot, crowded market at Takapuna, sweat trickling under my arm, I pull out my sleek little Nikon 35Ti. It is the final month of our sabbatical in Auckland. Four-year-old Daniel is leaning toward a tray of baked goodies, small glazed confections slathered with gooey white, dotted with teasing reds, sprinkled with edible glitter. On the first Saturday every month, this vendor comes by with tray after tray of exotic delights—and is sometimes mobbed by people “in the know.” But we are not; this is a spur-of-the-moment occasion.

“Look this way,” I say, and Daniel faces me, but his eyes slide toward the tray, and his face telegraphs such raw desire that, even as I snap the photo, I feel myself weaken. Give in to temptation, I think. We could all do with a break.

*       *       *

Three decades later, as I clear out my home office, I am struck by the frozen image: a busy, sun-drenched market where a curly-haired boy inclines his head toward a baker’s stall and a woman raises her eyebrow as if to say, “Why not?” Around them—around us—for I was the typical shutter-bug dad recording this moment for posterity—the photo contains disembodied elbows and stroller wheels and net bags of avocadoes of a crowd of people.

I study the photo closely. In the distance, dozens of tie-dyed T-shirts were fluttering that day in one stall, and in another, back massages were being given, with curtains of clacking beads giving customers the illusion of privacy. Just an ordinary Takapuna market day, an activity that we would never repeat again. It would become extraordinary.

We were in the throes of saying farewell to our Kiwi friends and associates, ending this chapter of our lives, and I was in a photo-taking mood. I was constantly stepping out of the flow of the moment, trying to grasp time by its slippery edges, saying, “Now,” and twenty minutes later, “No, now,” and riling my dear Calista in the process. As if moments were like butterflies that I had to impale to admire them, destroying them as I sought to preserve them.

What drives me to force a permanence on things? The scholar’s urge to record, reflect, possibly redo? I dress it up as an artistic urge to find the most esthetic combination of position and color. But lately I’ve come to think it’s a form of greed. Nearing the end of life, I am still wanting more.

Even before that fateful day, I loved photographs. They are a way to draw a line in the sands of time, to demarcate “before” and “after”—lest experience flood our sensory channels and wash away everything.

And in this photo, none of us would ever forget the before and after.

Calista says my bouts of camera compulsiona are part of a sickness I have. I overthink the moment. I read too much into the randomness, she says. Although this is my most memorable photo of all our travels, I keep it in this tough protective plastic tub. I look at it seldom. Its strength is to be hidden, not displayed, like electrical wiring that powers a grid, buried inside walls and devices.

*       *       *

Excitement pervaded the Saturday market. Smells of ripened fruit hung heavy in the air. Shells of fresh oysters on ice clattered as Calista put a dozen in a bag. The rhythmic chant of sellers announced deals to be found, right this way. The steam rose from the dumplings booth; a small roar crackled from a juice-blender. “Please-please-please,” Daniel begged from time to time. For a Transformer toy, for a Chupa-chup lollipop, for a sticky ball from this tray.

Should we cave, I wondered. Buy the treat that he’ll never forget?

It was a genuine quandary. We were convinced that sweets raised the blood sugar and made him impossibly hyper. We were laughably inept parents then: so earnest, so correct. So misguided. How bad, really, could our four-year-old be? He was one of those impossibly cute kids, all curls and dimples and big clear eyes that allowed him to get away with murder. Up to that point, what were his infractions? He’d broken Grandma’s fancy blind by yanking on a cord; he’d up-ended a table of petit fours at a legendary tea shop; and most notoriously, he’d knocked over a gallon can of latex paint on a shag carpet. As parents, no matter how violently we fussed and fumed that he must behave, there was always the “wild child” inside, especially when he was coked up on sugar.

I too had been a kid unusually susceptible to sugar. I was the worst of my siblings: my sneaky fingers poking into boxed chocolates not meant for me, prying off bits from gingerbread house displays, gouging through cream icing on lavishly decorated wedding cakes. But I was an ugly boy. I had big yellow beaver-teeth, a buzz-cut meant to pre-empt lice, and ears like two tablespoons affixed to the sides of my head. No one would ever say, “Give that dear child a sweet.”

*       *       *

Daniel wants so badly for us to try these delectable goodies that we finally give in. I glance over the table, see flies alighting here and there and point to the one tray without small things flitting above it. Soon a colorful bill passes from my wallet to the grinning vendor’s hand. The shine of sweat and oil makes him look glazed, too. He spatulas three concoctions onto white frilly papers and we cup them in our hands as we step toward an alcove. Saliva builds just thinking of our edible treasures.

Snip! snap! Like fairy-tale wolves we tear into them.

There is barely any sweetness. Suddenly my mouth is filled with an overpoweringly hot spice. Daniel bites his snack once, emits a cry and lets the item fall from his mouth to the ground. Tears spring from his reddened eyes.

Calista and I fare much worse. We are too civilized to spit out something directly—without a paper napkin properly before us or a cup to spit into. I turn aside and cough-gag it into my hand. The entire cavern of my mouth feels like it’s now missing a layer of skin. A scouring pad scrubbed over tongue and palate couldn’t be worse. In the back of my brain, I am connecting two and two: why had I chosen the pastries avoided by fruit flies?

“Now are you ha—” Daniel begins to say and he starts to chuckle as he sees Calista and me helplessly weaving out of sight as we try to hide our rudeness. Calista spits hers out and curses—first time ever in public, in front of Daniel.

“Now are you happy?” Daniel gasps. He starts to giggle uncontrollably. A wet patch darkens his little khaki shorts.

Oh, we are a sight, I’m sure: the over-careful parents, always making sure of clean faces, pleasant demeanor, decent language.

“Now, now, calm down,” he squeaks. People are turning to look at the small Napoleon and his reeling red-faced parents, who are incapable of rebuttal.

*       *       *

Even then, it was evident that Daniel liked to turn the tables on us, liked to grab the reins from our hands. Although he was only four, he’d heard incessant messaging: brush your teeth—comb your hair—say your pleases and thank-yous. Another famous slogan was “Play-time’s over.” One spring day, while looking for the sprinkler attachment, we’d emptied the garage onto our back lawn—piles of rusting tools, dusty flowerpots, and bundles of tarpaulin. Our tempers were frayed. Yes, we had junk; no, we couldn’t find the sprinkler attachment. We were grousing at each other. Daniel bounded into the yard and said, “Play-time’s over, put away your things.” It was a surreal moment when we heard our pet phrases echoed back to us. The irritation vanished. Yes, we had junk; moreover, we had a reminder in the flesh why we must not let our spirits succumb to the slings and arrows of daily aggravations.

Unexpectedly, my eyes sting.

If Calista came upon me now, teary-eyed in the dusty old study where I have dragged out this tub of photos, packing up, she’d be likely to say it, too: “Play-time’s over, put away your things.” It’s one of those family phrases traded between us. Even now, when Calista and I visit Daniel and his wife and his six-year-old twins, we are apt to hear the incantation “Play-time’s over” or, if the foosball game gets out of hand, “Now, now, calm down.”

But Calista, looking at the photo, seeing my tears, would need no explanation. She knew what happened next—that day in Takapuna, after I had snapped the photo, after we had bit into those horrid snacks. Before Daniel could finish his sentence that day, a sudden blast knocked him flat. And Calista, too, was abruptly on the ground. I staggered toward them, arms outstretched. The shock, the terror, the sheer incomprehension on their faces—were no doubt mirrored on my own.

The next hours were a blur—screaming, sirens, and a trip to the nearest clinic where I was pronounced “fine but shaken.” Daniel and Calista were treated for scrapes and bruises.

No-one died and the blast was soon found to be due to a gas leak. It was not a “big thing,” scarcely enough to garner a mention in the local news at six, but it unnerved me. No matter how much I loved them, I had been unable to protect them. The blast imprinted in me that moment of desire and disappointment, of adventure and vulnerability. And random chance. Random, random chance.

THE END