in the beginning there was... a black and white photograph
I see the old black and white photograph with a
toddler, a baby almost, on a spread in a yard that looks small, dirty and
uninviting. There is an open door and just beyond there is a man in white shirt
and tie, he smokes a cigarette and has a fierce expression... there is an old
fridge with what looks like a very old telly on top of it ... or is it that I
know it is a television? Maybe my memory deceives me and it is only a large
radio. And, how can I have memories of that
time?
But I have, I have. I remember
choking on a fish-bone, my mother having sat me on the table and giving me water
from a battered enamel mug. I remember eating a beautiful leaf from the front
garden -and the knowledge, although I do not remember this as such, that it made
me very ill. I remember eating washing powder under the kitchen table from the
floor, the overturned box of powder on its side next to me. I remember a
darkened room where there are two cots and I try to sleep while one or both of
the babies softly cry. I remember more, but I do not know to what extent they
may be 'real' memories or constructs out of gluing together isolated images with
what I later knew was happening.
I
remember the little white coffin being taken to the strange car waiting out,
looking at it being carried out from the dark inside of the house onto the
glaring piercing sun outside... my grandad coming out in the direction of the
front door carrying a dead rat held with a handkerchief in his hand, stating
quite vigourously that "it all was Matani's fault", and that "she'd still be
alive if it weren't for him". I remember being then on a rocking chair of some
sort and tipping over falling forward when I saw the rat in his hand and finally
identified what it was. I hurt my knees, i can remember them being scraped and
with blood but remember no pain....
Posted: Wed - July 7, 2004 at 05:44 PM