with pride, and smiles at neighbours. Look, her demeanour says, I have a mother too, and she cares for me.
‘In this there was love,’ Sandra says. ‘And courage.’
With Sandra’s birth, there are seven people in the family. The house sings with the voices of five children returning from school, from work, and from their daily forays. The outside world enters with them. They are cutting through the living room, trailing the day’s chatter into the kitchen. Their voices overpower the silence.
Sonia is standing at the kitchen table. Her apron is stainedburgundy. She is chopping vegetables, sliding them into the pot, and stirring the mixture: chopped carrots, thinly sliced beetroots, potatoes and peppers.
She is immersed in her task. There is purpose in her movements. She adjusts the pot on the stove. The element whooshes to life. The flames are a transparent blue and violet, shot through with yellow. The kitchen is filled with warmth.
The borscht simmers. The lid rattles.
When the soup is done, Sonia brings the pot to the table. She ladles the steaming mixture into white bowls and adds a dollop of cream: burgundy in white, and white upon burgundy.
She stands in the kitchen, spoon in hand, the task completed. A small woman. Slightly hunched. Feet firmly planted. Her fingers stained with beetroot. And on her pale face, a faint smile, edged with defiance.
Henry has found a new photo, a black and white, taken soon after he was born. He had overlooked its existence. Or forgotten it. He is eager to show it to me. He pulls up at the Port Diner.
The day shift is over and evening is falling. He walks across the gravel against the din of peak-hour traffic. The ground vibrates to the rumble of road trains. The ferris wheel, returned to life, rotates slowly. On the rail crossing at the back of the lot, a locomotive shunts coils of steel cables from wharf-side storage sheds. Truckies and dock workers stroll to and from their parked vehicles.
Henry pauses on the way and glances at the weed-flowers and thistles on the embankment above a ribbon of water. Acormorant alights on a wooden pylon. Mosses and shrubs and swathes of long grass disappear in the falling darkness. A patch of daisies glows beneath the creek bridge, beside a row of lights switching on at nightfall.
Henry joins me at a formica table overlooking the parking lot. He places the photo before me.
Sonia’s right arm is curved around the waist of Solly. Her hand rests upon his stomach. She holds him close. Her grip is firm, yet gentle. Solly is about two years old. He wears a striped jumper. Her left hand holds the handle of a pram in which lie the twins, Leon and Henry, one asleep, and the other, eyes wide open. They are dressed in white. Their heads are slightly elevated on white pillows.
Neatly parted on the left, Sonia’s black hair falls in waves to her shoulders. She has taken care over her appearance. She wears a floral dress, evoking summer, and she looks directly at the camera. She is beautiful.
A barely visible coil of barbed wire in the background suggests it was taken in the Bergen-Belsen Displaced Person’s Camp. It is one of the few photos of her taken ‘over there’.
There are no inklings of the demons that would come to possess her. There is no hint of the pale tormented being she would become. No indication of the voices that would hold her hostage in a distant continent.
Henry is grateful the photo exists, that it has been uncovered. Brought to light. Sonia’s expression reveals an unexpected sensuousness. It suggests contentment and passion expended. Her smile is mild and inviting. Knowing. She appears at ease,both worldly and dreamy. She is quietly determined, a woman with expectations, looking forward, but also wistful. She has a subdued radiance.
The photo suggests what might have been, and, perhaps, what had been. It suggests a time when all hung in the balance: the ghosts of the past, for the time being, in abeyance. And it
‘In this there was love,’ Sandra says. ‘And courage.’
With Sandra’s birth, there are seven people in the family. The house sings with the voices of five children returning from school, from work, and from their daily forays. The outside world enters with them. They are cutting through the living room, trailing the day’s chatter into the kitchen. Their voices overpower the silence.
Sonia is standing at the kitchen table. Her apron is stainedburgundy. She is chopping vegetables, sliding them into the pot, and stirring the mixture: chopped carrots, thinly sliced beetroots, potatoes and peppers.
She is immersed in her task. There is purpose in her movements. She adjusts the pot on the stove. The element whooshes to life. The flames are a transparent blue and violet, shot through with yellow. The kitchen is filled with warmth.
The borscht simmers. The lid rattles.
When the soup is done, Sonia brings the pot to the table. She ladles the steaming mixture into white bowls and adds a dollop of cream: burgundy in white, and white upon burgundy.
She stands in the kitchen, spoon in hand, the task completed. A small woman. Slightly hunched. Feet firmly planted. Her fingers stained with beetroot. And on her pale face, a faint smile, edged with defiance.
Henry has found a new photo, a black and white, taken soon after he was born. He had overlooked its existence. Or forgotten it. He is eager to show it to me. He pulls up at the Port Diner.
The day shift is over and evening is falling. He walks across the gravel against the din of peak-hour traffic. The ground vibrates to the rumble of road trains. The ferris wheel, returned to life, rotates slowly. On the rail crossing at the back of the lot, a locomotive shunts coils of steel cables from wharf-side storage sheds. Truckies and dock workers stroll to and from their parked vehicles.
Henry pauses on the way and glances at the weed-flowers and thistles on the embankment above a ribbon of water. Acormorant alights on a wooden pylon. Mosses and shrubs and swathes of long grass disappear in the falling darkness. A patch of daisies glows beneath the creek bridge, beside a row of lights switching on at nightfall.
Henry joins me at a formica table overlooking the parking lot. He places the photo before me.
Sonia’s right arm is curved around the waist of Solly. Her hand rests upon his stomach. She holds him close. Her grip is firm, yet gentle. Solly is about two years old. He wears a striped jumper. Her left hand holds the handle of a pram in which lie the twins, Leon and Henry, one asleep, and the other, eyes wide open. They are dressed in white. Their heads are slightly elevated on white pillows.
Neatly parted on the left, Sonia’s black hair falls in waves to her shoulders. She has taken care over her appearance. She wears a floral dress, evoking summer, and she looks directly at the camera. She is beautiful.
A barely visible coil of barbed wire in the background suggests it was taken in the Bergen-Belsen Displaced Person’s Camp. It is one of the few photos of her taken ‘over there’.
There are no inklings of the demons that would come to possess her. There is no hint of the pale tormented being she would become. No indication of the voices that would hold her hostage in a distant continent.
Henry is grateful the photo exists, that it has been uncovered. Brought to light. Sonia’s expression reveals an unexpected sensuousness. It suggests contentment and passion expended. Her smile is mild and inviting. Knowing. She appears at ease,both worldly and dreamy. She is quietly determined, a woman with expectations, looking forward, but also wistful. She has a subdued radiance.
The photo suggests what might have been, and, perhaps, what had been. It suggests a time when all hung in the balance: the ghosts of the past, for the time being, in abeyance. And it
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