proud and happy, looking down on the world with eyes moist from the effort of keeping them open in the sun without blinking and lips only just held together as she tried not to laugh.
Anna took over part of the cellar for a darkroom, persuaded her mother to pay for a black felt curtain to be hung from ceiling to floor in the corner behind the pickle barrels, and frightened everyone with the smell of her chemicals and her yelling at anyone who tried to push through the screen when she was developing pictures. She took down her father’s oil paintings of her that hung throughout the house, new paintings for each year of her life, and put them on the bonfire of leaves the gardener made in November. Her mother watched and frowned from the window and didn’t try to stop her, but the gardener refused to burn them, and said he would take them to his brother in the country, which is how they ended up in a market stall, and fetched a poor price, and disappeared.In their place Anna put up self portraits and photographs of her mother. She wanted to put a picture of the servants in the hallway but her mother objected and insisted it hang in the scullery. Anna went to the cemetery and took a picture of her sister’s grave in the first snows, with a sticky lees of crystals cast on the gravel at the base of the stone, and a bunch of dried, frostbitten chrysanthemums wedged in the angle as if seeking shelter. She had it put in a black frame with a black ribbon across one corner and wanted to hang it instead of her father’s last painting of her sister but her mother shook her head, so Anna put it on her dressing table.
Anna took her camera to the market and photographed old peasant women in curdstained aprons standing with their big knuckles resting on the counter on either side of ruined white castles of tvorog, their eyes deep and sceptical behind red cheekbones. Some pulled the edge of their headscarves over their faces and shooed her away and set up a cry that she was putting the evil eye on them. Others laughed and asked Anna to send them a copy, and when she asked for their address, they called themselves Aunt and gave their first names and the names of their villages. Anna took pictures of a work gang loading sacks of grain onto barges on the Don, they all stopped what they were doing and arranged themselves shyly into two sweating lines, and none of them knew whether to fold their arms or to hold the lapels of their jackets or to put their hands behind their backs, they kept moving and sniggering and nudging each other and whispering like girls, till they grew bolder and began asking whether she was married, and would she like to dance, and could they take her on the river, and by the end they were all laughing and singing her songs and capering on one leg until the foreman appeared from a shed where he’d been napping and scolded them back to work.
She got up before dawn one morning to photograph fishermen in small boats, bilges awash with tiny silver fish like pools of mercury, before the sun had burned the mist off the river. She set up the camera on the family balcony to photograph the carrying of the cross through the town, the priests blinded by dust whipped up by a summer wind, their black and white vestments snapping with a sound like a city of geese rising at once from a field, and a crazed indigent in a ragged black suit without a shirt or shoes skipping and hopping backwards in front of the procession, his head lifted up to the golden cross, hands alternately held out towards it and rubbed together as if it was a fire and pressed to the sides of his head. He tripped and fell on his back and the procession stepped over him. Some of the priests kicked him as they passed and one placed the sole of his boot squarely on the chest of the sicksouled one. Eventually he was hauled to the side of the road, bleeding from the corner of his mouth, by a party of nuns, who laid him carefully in the gutter and hurried on after the
Anna took over part of the cellar for a darkroom, persuaded her mother to pay for a black felt curtain to be hung from ceiling to floor in the corner behind the pickle barrels, and frightened everyone with the smell of her chemicals and her yelling at anyone who tried to push through the screen when she was developing pictures. She took down her father’s oil paintings of her that hung throughout the house, new paintings for each year of her life, and put them on the bonfire of leaves the gardener made in November. Her mother watched and frowned from the window and didn’t try to stop her, but the gardener refused to burn them, and said he would take them to his brother in the country, which is how they ended up in a market stall, and fetched a poor price, and disappeared.In their place Anna put up self portraits and photographs of her mother. She wanted to put a picture of the servants in the hallway but her mother objected and insisted it hang in the scullery. Anna went to the cemetery and took a picture of her sister’s grave in the first snows, with a sticky lees of crystals cast on the gravel at the base of the stone, and a bunch of dried, frostbitten chrysanthemums wedged in the angle as if seeking shelter. She had it put in a black frame with a black ribbon across one corner and wanted to hang it instead of her father’s last painting of her sister but her mother shook her head, so Anna put it on her dressing table.
Anna took her camera to the market and photographed old peasant women in curdstained aprons standing with their big knuckles resting on the counter on either side of ruined white castles of tvorog, their eyes deep and sceptical behind red cheekbones. Some pulled the edge of their headscarves over their faces and shooed her away and set up a cry that she was putting the evil eye on them. Others laughed and asked Anna to send them a copy, and when she asked for their address, they called themselves Aunt and gave their first names and the names of their villages. Anna took pictures of a work gang loading sacks of grain onto barges on the Don, they all stopped what they were doing and arranged themselves shyly into two sweating lines, and none of them knew whether to fold their arms or to hold the lapels of their jackets or to put their hands behind their backs, they kept moving and sniggering and nudging each other and whispering like girls, till they grew bolder and began asking whether she was married, and would she like to dance, and could they take her on the river, and by the end they were all laughing and singing her songs and capering on one leg until the foreman appeared from a shed where he’d been napping and scolded them back to work.
She got up before dawn one morning to photograph fishermen in small boats, bilges awash with tiny silver fish like pools of mercury, before the sun had burned the mist off the river. She set up the camera on the family balcony to photograph the carrying of the cross through the town, the priests blinded by dust whipped up by a summer wind, their black and white vestments snapping with a sound like a city of geese rising at once from a field, and a crazed indigent in a ragged black suit without a shirt or shoes skipping and hopping backwards in front of the procession, his head lifted up to the golden cross, hands alternately held out towards it and rubbed together as if it was a fire and pressed to the sides of his head. He tripped and fell on his back and the procession stepped over him. Some of the priests kicked him as they passed and one placed the sole of his boot squarely on the chest of the sicksouled one. Eventually he was hauled to the side of the road, bleeding from the corner of his mouth, by a party of nuns, who laid him carefully in the gutter and hurried on after the
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