Vivian

by Christina Hesselholdt

  Vivian made a detour to Champsaur before she sailed back to America. She never returned there, maybe because the money her father borrowed in the ’30s and had never paid back had upset the relationship with the Jaussauds.

  I’m really not fond of documentaries with dramatized scenes, i.e. a fact is related and some actors subsequently perform a scene that illustrates what the narrator has just related. In dark moments I think that I may have strayed into this horrible genre.

  Marcel Jaussaud

  Here comes my relative, arriving in a cloud of dust and din, the cows stick their tails in the air and run. In a moment, she will come to a stop in front of our door. She has nothing better to do than race around on the roads. She was a shy child who hid behind her mother or pulled her dress over her head if Maria was not in the immediate vicinity when you arrived. Now she does nothing but draw attention to herself, today she has three cameras around her neck again, how do you do, Vivian, no I don’t want you taking photographs of me, and the moped frightens the cows. Do you think your father will ever repay his debt to us? Are you standing here offering me a photographic apparatus? Is the debt supposed to be cancelled then? Do you think we want to be a laughing stock, what would we do with one of those, take pictures of farmers in the fields like you do? We are the farmers. You can keep your apparatus, you can put the strap around your neck again. Charles Maier still owes us one hundred francs, that debt can’t be cancelled with a camera. I didn’t say that. I said nothing when she held it out to me. I just put my hands behind my back and shook my head.

  Viv

  Does Marcel think that I’m after bucolic scenes, pastorals converted into photographs, idylls?

  Narrator

  She offered him her Rollei 2.8 C, but afterwards she was pleased that he didn’t want it, even though she hardly uses anything now but her 3.5 F and her Baby Rollei, which in certain moments gives her the impression that it is the core within her from which the rest has grown.

  Viv

  Mother asked me to bring back the old Rollei that Jeanne gave her, but I end up leaving it behind. Then we would have to sit around talking about photography, something she has never really cared for. It would be agonizing and pointless. What is there to say? It’s simply a matter of doing, like walking. Does she intend to sell it? Jeanne is dead, I’m not going to let her sell it.

  Once I told her, or rather I aired the possibility that I might become a photographer like Jeanne, then her mouth turned scornful, and she said, ‘What do you think you’ve got to tell the world?’ That made me very angry, ‘I certainly don’t want to end up like you,’ I said, ‘lying in bed all day.’

  Narrator

  It’s the Rolleiflex Original that Jeanne gave her years ago.

  Viv

  Yes, it is tempting, but I leave it behind because she doesn’t deserve it.

  I returned because I longed for stillness but it’s unbearable. I come to think of Grandma and her fondness for all the street noise, she couldn’t imagine being without it, back then I didn’t understand it, and I couldn’t sleep because of it when I spent the night in her living room. The noise must have lessened her sense of isolation, it was confirmation that there were other living beings close by. That’s where the moped enters the picture: not only is it meant to carry me around, it’s also meant to keep my spirits up, we thunder towards the mountains. Outbuildings, extensions, sheds frighten me, all of the things that can happen in them, I think I hear sounds of captives being tortured.

  Narrator

  So now we’ve been through childhood, upbringing, youth. Is there anyone Out There who still thinks it’s strange that Vivian never told her employers anything about herself? My brother is a drug addict, my father is an extremely violent alcoholic, my mother is bone-idle and sponges off anyone she can get her hands on, none of whom, incidentally, can stand one another.

  Viv

  People love riddles, the incomplete and the inexplicable are tremendously compelling. I am The Mysterious Lady. The Sawn-in-half Lady, where the past is what is sawn off.

  Narrator

  That is no longer the case. The past has been glued back on.

  Well, now we’re back in Chicago, this impoverished piece of scenery erected in my mind by means of maps and Google and Wikipedia and some scraps of poetry – a proper novelist should have been summoned for this project, one of those who, when writing about the Tatars, puts raw meat under the saddle and rides it tender all the way across Siberia.

  Anyway, back to Chicago in my mind, probably sometime late in the ’70s.

  Viv

  ‘Have you ever been married?’ he asked. ‘No, and I’m still untouched,’ I replied. But I change families like other people change socks during these years, I could have added. ‘I bring along my life, and my life is in boxes.’ ‘No problem, we have a large garage,’ she said, but still, 200 boxes – that took them by surprise. When they were then done with me and I had to move on again, I rented a couple of storage rooms and had all of it driven out there. It goes without saying that I now have no clue where anything is.

  I have stopped developing my photographs entirely, I simply can’t keep up any longer. I’ve come to believe that if my photographs were hung haphazardly on white walls with photographs by Ruth Orkin, Esther Bubley, Helen Levitt, Lizette Model, for example, it’s not certain you would be able to say who had taken what. I might not even be able to recognize them myself (if enough time had passed and I’d completely forgotten that I’d taken them). But it’s all imaginings.

  Narrator

  Jeanne Bertrand was friends with Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney in the time around the First World War. What would it have been like if you had had a friend like that, Viv?

  Viv

  Yes, obviously there’s no way to know that. And friend is a strong word.

  Narrator

  Perhaps if she had drawn you into a so-called ‘milieu’ you would have been supplied with a circle of artists.

  You should have displayed a little more courage. You should have lain your cards on the table. You should have jumped out of the closet: as an artist.

  Viv

  Ah-bah-oui.

  Narrator

  Were you afraid of being corrupted? Did you fear your photographs would lose their virginity on the way to the bank?

  Viv

  I never thought that far ahead.

  I would like to say something about my mother. The only time I showed her something I had taken, she said it was competent. It infuriated me that she didn’t think it was more than just competent. Not that she had any basis whatsoever to appraise it.

  Sarah

  It’s always Mom’s fault. Just take Ellen.

  Viv

  Yes, how is she?

  Sarah

  She has grown immensely overweight.

  Narrator

  Vivian! Say the first word you think of when I say: Publicity.

  Viv

  Eyelid eversion. Where the eyelid is pulled outward with a hook or bare hands so that the entire eye is visible.

  Narrator

  She is thinking of the dreaded eye examination immigrants were subjected to on Ellis Island to check for symptoms of trachoma.

  Viv

  Stop making things so complicated. I saw the picture the moment I took it. That was it. That was enough. I seldom dreamed, it would be a lie to say never, of Publicity, of exhibiting.

  Narrator

  People have compared you to Emily Dickinson.

  Viv

  Emily rarely left her garden.

  I’ve travelled around the world.

  She had a home.

  I was continually uprooted.

  I’m tall.

  She was short, I went to Amherst and saw her bed and white dress.

  Her poems breathe under the surface.

  My photographs are straightforward.

  Narrator

  The comparison refers to the size of the surviving body of work and the posthu
mous publication. She left behind nearly 1,800 poems that were only published after her death. And then the fact that neither of you formed a couple with anyone.

  Viv

  That’s why we got so much done.

  Narrator

  Would it be wrong to say that by taking so many pictures you drowned one in the next?

  Viv

  Now that is a strange notion. Yes, that would be a complete mistake.

  Narrator

  Emily addressed three letters to a Master she apparently longed for, whether it was a man, a muse, God or the Devil. Could I perhaps become your Master, posthumously, where now you lie cozily, scattered over wild strawberries, in the woods where you took your poppets; and while they bounced wildly and laughed and snatched peaches from your pockets, the thought likely did not cross their minds, that one day they would stand there, over your remains.

  Viv

  You’re shameless. The narrator is the real criminal.

  Narrator

  Dear Viv, you have dragged me across the Sound, on a day with strong winds even, I who almost always sit on my perch and chirp on the windowsill… today, 28 April 2016, I’m standing in Dunkers Kulturhus in Helsingborg, where there’s an exhibition of probably about one hundred of your photographs.

  Viv

  That’s not very many.

  Narrator

  There isn’t room for more, Dunkers Kulturhus is simultaneously holding an exhibition on Pettson and Findus. My friend and I, like so many others, are both very fond of your pictures, but they also make us talk about the fact that we can easily get too much of Realism (we’re not thinking of your realism, but of Realism as such) and come to long for ‘cranking up the funny handle’ as my friend calls the tricks some people do.

  Viv

  That corresponds to ordering a roast and complaining that it’s not caviar.

  Narrator

  I’m not complaining. I suppose I’m letting myself reflect on how-the-devil you found the energy to take so many photographs when the approach to the subjects, at least those I’ve seen, seems to be pretty much the same. When it concerns close-ups of people who know you are about to take a picture, it appears that you are looking for that spark of contact it creates between the two of you, and when it concerns people who are unaware, it appears that you are going for a kind of disheartenment in their faces. But obviously there are also all the situations, all the things the people are doing, and the way they look that sometimes unleashes conceptions or stories. Let’s take the photograph that could be called ‘The Middle-aged in Yellow’ or ‘Opulent Chickens on tour’.

  Two men wearing egg-yolk-yellow shorts, a woman wearing the same coloured skirt, and on top of that the men are wearing lemon-coloured socks. Was it a joint decision the sixty-year-olds made over breakfast that day in 1976: ‘Should we throw on our new identical yellow clothes before we go out and look at Chicago?’

  Viv

  Why aren’t you mentioning the composition of my pictures?

  Narrator

  The content is imposing its will.

  Viv

  Nowadays, when I’m going to take a picture, it sometimes strikes me that I’ve been there, I’ve seen that, I’ve done that, and then I get so discouraged. Today, a voice inside me said: I’ve spent enough time looking at mankind. But mankind’s garbage packaging stacks, that might be something to delve into.

  I have ceased bleeding, I sweat, my heart races, my mood is like a mountain range, first I’m up, then I’m down, I can be nodding off in the armchair, my eyes slip shut, but when I then manage to haul myself into bed, the moment I set my head on the pillow I’m wide awake, with a pounding heart, off across the wide expanses. In the morning, I feel hollow as though someone has been gnawing behind my eyes.

  Today I did something I shouldn’t have done, I left the children in town, I simply ran off, I couldn’t put up with them one moment longer. Clever children, they found a police officer, ‘have you run away from your nanny?’ they later revealed that the officer had asked, ‘no, our nanny has run away from us,’ they replied. The police drove them home. I said we had got separated from one another. They knew I was lying. And me, the one who hates lies. Soon I’ll switch to looking after old people. I managed to get myself a life with shelter and lots of fresh air, oh yes thanks for that.

  Today I found out that Mother is dead. It happened a couple of months ago – that’s how long it took the authorities to find me – she has long since been put in the ground. She ended her days at a hostel, a really filthy one, with prostitutes and drug dealers, I know it well, and obviously she left behind nothing of value. I can collect her clothes and some personal items if I want, but I don’t think I want to. But something good came out of it. On the same occasion, the authorities found their way to Carl, and now I know where he is. It’s almost unbelievable. He’s at a care home for the mentally ill in New Jersey, I can visit him if I want to, so now I’m considering doing that. I indulge in the luxury of talking out loud to myself, alone, in my room, even though I am afraid that someone is recording it. I don’t think I’ve seen my tape recorder in years. I’ve promised myself only to think in French when I go outside. If I should forget myself and talk out loud to myself, then I’d rather it be French that comes pouring out. I met Sarah in town, she was on her way to the beach. ‘Talk to me,’ I said, ‘you are my friend.’ ‘Come with us to the beach, Viv,’ she said. There were some young children with her who pulled and tugged at her, ‘I really have to go,’ she said, and let them drag her away, but I was not going down to sit in all that light even though I would have liked to have heard news of Ellen. Incidentally, I have through another channel found out that Sarah and Peter are divorced.

  Sarah

  That’s right, we’re divorced. An entire epidemic of divorces is at work. The last time I was with my ageing girlfriends, as usual they sat talking about men, such energy to expel, I thought, with all the collapsing marriages behind them, one of them finally got so tired of all that talk that she got up and put ‘It’s Raining Men’ on, and the next second all of us old girls stood on the living room floor with our arms in the air screaming: ‘Humidity is rising / Barometer’s getting low / According to all sources / The street’s the place to go / ’Cause tonight for the first time (First time) / Just about half past ten (Half past ten) / For the first time in history / It’s gonna start raining men (…) It’s raining men, Hallelujah, it’s raining men’.

  Viv

  When is my Father going to fall down from heaven when is my Mother going to shoot up from the earth, I am alone and live in a corner of myself.

  I don’t think there exists any deeper divide than that between the old and the young. If you are poor, it’s possible to become rich, and if you are rich, you can certainly become poor. White and black can cross one another’s demarcation lines. You can change sex if you want to. But old and young, then you truly are in your own camp. I can no longer cycle up hills, it made me so angry that I threw down the bicycle and continued on foot, someone younger is welcome to continue riding it.

  Martha’s sister doesn’t like me, she says I’m making Martha into an imitation of myself, it’s due to the fact that I bought her a hat and coat at the Salvation Army, since I had to get a little something for myself anyway. They want to put her in a home, it’s completely unreasonable, she can do so much. She loves playing pinball, and it’s good for the motor skills; they complain about the housework, but have you ever seen dirty dishes up and run. Take off your glasses if you don’t want to see dust, old man. So that’s that job. He is a TV host, his wife has departed, leaving behind five children, they think I’m their new mother, and they don’t like me, they don’t appreciate the things I can do, neither my games nor my food, they only see my shortcomings. One day he took some of my newspapers – because they were mine – that were lying in the garage until I had time for them, and he gave them to the neighbour, who is going to do some painting. I rush over to the neighbour’s and sc
ream that they’re mine. I get them back, but they’re crumpled, and there are specks of paint on them. I spend half the night in the garage smoothing them out and cleaning them as best I can.