Free The People in the Photo by Hélène Gestern

solicitor. I still haven’t phoned him back.
    To be honest, I’m not really looking forward tovisiting my friends in Germany either. I would have liked to come to Geneva, and I’m more eager than ever to look at the rest of the photo collection. From the little I’ve seen of your father’s work, it seems to me that you and your brother might consider exhibiting it – it really is that good. I could help you find a venue in Paris, if you like.
    You’ll be gearing up to leave by the time this letter arrives. So I’ll take this opportunity to wish you a wonderful trip to Geneva, a merry Christmas and a very happy New Year.
     
    Love,
     
    Hélène

    1 January, 00:04 (text message)
    Wishing you a very happy New Year! And all good things, as we say here. 2008 kisses. Stéphane.

    1 January, 01:17 (text message)
    A very happy New Year to you too from Göttingen! Love, Hélène xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (and so on to infinity!)

8
    The background is a pale, sober grey: no clouds, no manicured garden, stucco columns or painted benches. Just four people captured in the same small space at the same moment. Two adults and two children. They are bathed in a gentle light which smooths their skin, softens their features and makes their hair look thick and lustrous. A woman is standing on the left of the picture: average height, light-coloured eyes and fair hair in two thick braids wound around her head. Her blond eyelashes are invisible, giving her a fixed, vulnerable stare that belies the broad open smile lighting up her thin face. The rest of her body, encased in a well-cut white shift dress, is muscular, compact, well-defined: she looks the sporty type, a keen walker scaling mountainsides with sure, solid strides. She holds the taller boy by the shoulder. He, like his brother (presumably), is wearing a short trouser suit. The elder boy’s hair has been Brylcreemed and parted on the left and a comb has left clear, evenly spaced grooves furrowed through the blond mass. He is smiling shyly but there is a far-off look on his face as he stands constricted by the too-tight jacket and tie.
    The smaller boy has been sat on a chair to avoid unbalancing the picture with too great a height difference. He is openly laughing and the position of his leg, with the toe of his ankle-boot sticking out, suggests he must have fidgeted as the shutter closed. One of his hands is clamped in his brother’s; the other is outstretched, open-palmed, like a toddler’s. The velvet bow tie around his neck has slipped; one of his cotton socks is corkscrewing downwards and a cascade of unruly ringlets frames the moon-shaped face of a cheeky little prince. He is not looking at the camera, as he must have been instructed, but to one side, gazing up at the man on his left.
    The man has put on a dark suit and plain tie for the occasion. He, too, has Brylcreemed his hair, though it has done nothing to repress the thick, curly mane – now several centimetres longer. The fingertips of his white, bony hand brush the shoulder of the little boy without exercising the slightest restraint. The classic attire and upright, serious stance cannot mask a certain irony in the body, which knows itself to be attractive and exudes an unexpected arrogance. Yet the suggestion of a smile, or – who can tell? – a trace of bitterness in his eyes shows he has not wholeheartedly embraced the photographic ritual he has himself orchestrated, but is doing his best to honour it.
    He is standing back, ever so slightly removed from the other three – a matter of centimetres, no more. In haste, no doubt, to take up his place after pressing thetimer button, returning to a pre-arranged position. And to make chemistry responsible for assigning roles on glossy paper, becoming, once and for all, the father of his children.

    Ashford, 8 January 2008
    Dear Hélène,
    How are you? Did you have a good holiday in Germany? What did Bourbaki get for Christmas?
    I arrived back from Geneva on