Paradise Lost (or: Another Black-and-White One)
~ you shall above all things be glad and young ~
They are so young, and they know it. Or their bodies do. Carefree and supple, they are centimeters away from the edge of a cliff, seemingly unaware of a steep drop down the hillside and into the narrow valley etched in between the Bosnian hills. With that easy panache of youth, they can do anything, they are claiming the roofs of the world as their own. They are not from there, but they belong; the sharp edges of their prettiness seem etched into the scene, almost photoshopped, but they aren't.
(Are his shoes the ones she fell in love with? She told me once the first thing she had noticed about him were the comfortable shoes he was wearing, and she fell in love with them before she fell in love with their owner).
All in oblongs, with her long coat, flat-heeled but feminine pointy boots, and an elongated white woollen head-wrapper, she's holding onto him, her right wrist dimpled lengthwise from a tight grip on his shoulder. She's laughing into him, like someone who's suddenly decided to let go and dive into it, free-falling, but is still a little nervous about that cliff.
He is a square epitome of stability. His freshly-trimmed sharp hair-line, his pressed collar spread neatly around the neck opening of the sweater, his short jacket, and a steadfast crouch with feet hip-width apart, keep them both safe, grounded. His profiled nose almost touching her open face, he looks someplace past her, but he's telling her something under his breath, not letting the free-fall scare her.
And behind and below them, like a drawing on a cellophane-wrapped box of rahat-lokum (my favourite kind, with walnut halves inside), lies scattered the town of Srebrenica, lulled into a lazy winter haze, not dreaming of the future. Such innocence on their snow-lit faces; such casualness in the angled proximity of the mosque and the church below; such happy oblivion before the inevitable wheels of oncoming History.
Such an impossible black-and-white Paradise, which was once real, like his comfortable shoes, like her dimpled wrist, like a wonderfully anonymous winter day in Srebrenica.
They are so young, and they know it. Or their bodies do. Carefree and supple, they are centimeters away from the edge of a cliff, seemingly unaware of a steep drop down the hillside and into the narrow valley etched in between the Bosnian hills. With that easy panache of youth, they can do anything, they are claiming the roofs of the world as their own. They are not from there, but they belong; the sharp edges of their prettiness seem etched into the scene, almost photoshopped, but they aren't.
(Are his shoes the ones she fell in love with? She told me once the first thing she had noticed about him were the comfortable shoes he was wearing, and she fell in love with them before she fell in love with their owner).
All in oblongs, with her long coat, flat-heeled but feminine pointy boots, and an elongated white woollen head-wrapper, she's holding onto him, her right wrist dimpled lengthwise from a tight grip on his shoulder. She's laughing into him, like someone who's suddenly decided to let go and dive into it, free-falling, but is still a little nervous about that cliff.
He is a square epitome of stability. His freshly-trimmed sharp hair-line, his pressed collar spread neatly around the neck opening of the sweater, his short jacket, and a steadfast crouch with feet hip-width apart, keep them both safe, grounded. His profiled nose almost touching her open face, he looks someplace past her, but he's telling her something under his breath, not letting the free-fall scare her.
And behind and below them, like a drawing on a cellophane-wrapped box of rahat-lokum (my favourite kind, with walnut halves inside), lies scattered the town of Srebrenica, lulled into a lazy winter haze, not dreaming of the future. Such innocence on their snow-lit faces; such casualness in the angled proximity of the mosque and the church below; such happy oblivion before the inevitable wheels of oncoming History.
Such an impossible black-and-white Paradise, which was once real, like his comfortable shoes, like her dimpled wrist, like a wonderfully anonymous winter day in Srebrenica.
posted by Tijana | 11:56 PM
2 Comments:
I am quite honestly profoundly touched by your incredible account of the moment your parents lived and that this picture witnesses. I must say that the resemblence of you and your mother is amazing, and I believe that your father looks a lot like your brother. How incredible passage.
this is a very special photo (and there are a couple more from the same series, of my parents' two friends with whom they made this outing, and who took this particular picture). special because of who they are and, of course, where they are. my father's first job (as a geologist) was in srebrenica in bosnia, where he spent 6 years, and my mother visited him regularly from belgrade. this was in the 60s, when bosnia was a different bosnia. i've never been to srebrenica, but i hope to go there with my dad some time, perhaps climb this very hill and take a photo.
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