making this art because of where I am in my own life’s journey; so it’s the right thing to do to put my own body here, to show myself in my travels.”
“So why the hesitation?”
“It’s not about my cesarean scar, if that’s what you mean! I’m not ashamed. But it’s also not my photography. To me, this is peculiar, it’s like a shift in perspective, do you see? Am I showing the world through my eyes, or am I showing myself to the world?”
“Well, it depends.”
“Sì. It depends. So I must choose. But you must have an opinion?”
My opinion was that her nakedness was beautiful to me, that her body was at once more frail, more childlike, and yet more sturdy than I might have imagined. I hadn’t realized that her olive skin retained a youthful sheen all over, as if she were made of butter: the hip bones either side of her flat stomach were like polished knobs. I hadn’t understood, in all this time, how much higher her left shoulder was than her right. It made me happy to see her crooked tooth peeking when she smiled. “I think it’s a decision you have to make by yourself,” I said.
“Maybe I’ll have a revelation.”
“Couldn’t you use both? One of each?”
“It’s about the symmetry. I could have seven different women, otherwise. But this means more photographs; and I have no time.”
“You could set up one more shoot—”
“No,” she said, and here sounded almost bitter. “This is what Skandar says, as if there were endlessly more time. The gallery wants everything by June first. Already the place that makes the big prints on fabric, for this size, wants six weeks. There aren’t six weeks. Maybe they can rush for me, they say; but if there’s a mistake, or a problem, there’s no room for failure—there is no room!” She was very nearly shouting. “And so much to do. The heart, I wanted to cast the plastic heart here, but now it seems, to put in the pump, the best place is in Paris; but it must be done to exact specifications—I’m trying, for early next week, to get a friend of a friend to help me do it here—because I go on Thursday to New York, for the galleries, did you forget? And then I’m not back until Saturday or maybe Sunday, and another week is lost. Lost, you see?”
“I see.” It was what I was supposed to say.
“It’s not the same for you, you have no deadlines, no commitments, you have all your time, an ocean of time! But for me, it’s always running against the clock. Someone always waiting, Sirena you’re late, you’re late—here, at home, Reza, Skandar, the fucking babysitter, the gallery in Paris shouting down the telephone—it’s always too much. And this show—it’s very important, it’s my chance. I’m getting older, and yes, there are the beginnings, I’ve had nice attention, but each time it only matters more. If I fail, it will be the end. Each time this is only more true. Unless I can really climb over the wall. I have to, this time. This matters so much.”
“I see,” I said again. I don’t need to tell you that she was flaying me alive.
“So, no more pictures. I’ll choose one or the other, by tonight. Maybe I’ll choose blind and see what comes back.” She gave a harsh laugh and daubed at her eyes. She’d gotten quite worked up. No, of course I wouldn’t know what it was to have a chance, or a life, at all. “So, we haven’t quite finished with the photographs. There’s still my wise woman, and hers are the best.”
“I’d better go in a minute.”
“No—you came to do your work. I’m sorry, to get all worked up—I’m so tired. I’m overwhelmed. My dear friend, look quickly at the photos, and then go to your work—I know you haven’t been at your table for many days now. I just want you to see my prize, the best ones.”
They were indeed, in spite of the glory of the others, the best ones. Sirena explained that the woman, aged eighty-three, was in her yoga class. She was herself a painter, as it turned out, and a child therapist who, although officially retired, still consulted. She was widowed. She had no children. Her name, not that it mattered, was Rose.
In these photos, we saw all of Rose. She had bunioned feet and fingers so badly warped by arthritis that you wondered how she