Exposure by Michael Mail

Author:Michael Mail
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Newton
Published: 2015-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

9

‘How do you spell the name?’

‘L-I-E-B-O-V-I-T-Z’ Suzy enunciated carefully, while nevertheless failing to budge Gloria’s conclusively inconclusive look.

‘Maybe they changed their name,’ Gloria suggested. ‘So many people did. Binicowski became Bennett, Gradowicz became Gradon. Before long, it was hard to meet any Jews!’

The remark made Suzy wonder about her own surname. It surely didn’t begin life as Green.

Gloria was trying to be encouraging, although her concentration was far more on finishing table preparations. It was now laid out magnificently, glasses and cutlery aligned with military precision on a crisp white tablecloth. At its centre were two curving challahs, the knotted loaves that Jewish tradition required as part of the Friday evening ritual that inaugurated the Sabbath. Suzy considered the chairs beyond the three rewarded with table settings and wondered who might have constituted brisker custom of earlier times.

‘This is my grandfather.’ Suzy presented Gloria with the photograph she had inveigled from her mother, the one of him in celebrated childhood.

‘My dear. How old do you think I am?’

And quickly the other in early manhood.

‘Sorry. Can’t help you. Show them to Becky when she gets here. She’s older than me. But don’t you dare tell her I told you that!’

Suzy also fashioned new photographs – Gloria fussing in her kitchen; standing proudly matriarchal by a sideboard parade of family photographs; kissing Cary, her much adored pet poodle; delicately stretching out her arms to mirror the pose of the ballerina image behind, the living room’s most distinguished painting. ‘My late husband bought it in an auction,’ she hurriedly said as if he might enquire later whether his effort had received due recognition.

The Gloria of her apartment was an amended version of the original. The same basic characteristics were there, but their order reversed. To the fore was a certain gentility, a marked gracefulness in contrast to the assertive Club organizer. This was also conveyed through costume, her plain yet elegantly conceived dress gathered neatly at the waist only made its appearance on the Sabbath. Gregariousness was fortunately the hinge in both personas.

Photographic possibility doubled with the arrival of Becky, announced in colour as well as sound. Her heavy winter coat in a dazzling shade of red commanded the doorway.

‘No. She’s not invited a student!’ Becky teased.

Suzy could tease back. She photographed Becky all the way through her taking off her coat, despite Becky’s irritation, and through sorting herself in front of the mirror, to even more irritation. ‘Will-you-please-stop-that-young-woman!’ Suzy did at the very point Becky finally felt prepared to indulge her.

‘I wanted natural shots.’ Suzy explained.

‘I don’t do natural,’ replied Becky firmly. ‘I haven’t done natural in years!’

Suzy anyway had to move fast because she was running out of time.

‘You’re not photographing in front of the candles,’ Gloria had definitively ruled. ‘Es Pust Nisht. It’s not done. That’s another Yiddish expression for you. I’m giving up my smoking.’ She tapped her chest. ‘ That’s commitment!’

Suzy’s final image involved engineering these two formidable ladies into an embrace. She was reminded of Terry’s observations on the special dynamic introduced in placing one subject next to another.

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