Paul Theroux - Picture Palace

Frank was of course in New York. I spoke to the wall.

I had barely finished congratulating myself on how pure I felt surviving these pictures. It had been quite a shock to my system, but I had understood Frank’s complexity and the whole pictorial conundrum more clearly — somehow, this trash was crucial, I couldn’t dismiss it. I didn’t want to eat or drink — not after what I’d seen. But I was vindicated! How right I had been to doubt what Frank had said about my Provincetown pictures and photography in general. I’d had a glimpse of the underside of his enthusiasm — not a pretty sight — and had begun to pity him.

Then it became small and unimportant, kid stuff, as my memory woke and yawned, reddening its tonsils at me. I remembered my own deceit.

IT WAS the day I stopped the fracas in Boston. That gave me the courage I needed, because until then I had wobbled badly when I thought of deceiving Orlando. But I thought: It’s for his own good and he’ll appreciate it afterward, and better me than one of those shrill Radcliffe tramps who smoke stogies and stink of gin and use the Harvard men as dildos.

By now Miss Dromgoole was gone. Frenise was old and walked around with batter on her fingers. The day Miss Dromgoole left us we gave a family lunch party for her — Orlando came down for the day and presented her with a box of her favorite glazed fruit. Then, when she got into Mr. Wampler’s taxi, we dashed into the house and tore our clothes off and ran around naked, whooping in celebration and relief, though Papa stayed in his BVDs and Mama kept her bloomers on. My Deliverance —half-naked folks at the windows of a white house, shot from the lawn — is a record of that day.

My parents were ailing, yet the family balance remained plumb perfect. Phoebe and I, who had stayed on the Cape to enjoy our parents’ protection, now looked after them, became protectors ourselves. It happens to children who linger at home. Papa and Mama, our charges, depended on us. They denied this once a year by making a fall trip to Florida, just to show they didn’t need us. But they always came back rather silent and grateful, smiling as if to say, “What would we do without you?”

At a certain age you stop being a child and start raising your parents, educating them past the age they left off learning. You overtake them, and after that everything they know, if they are still teachable, they get from you. But they are getting feebler, so your rearing only makes them younger and more dependent, until at last you have that bizarre reversal known to many spinsters, the parents turning from interesting old ruins into protesting geriatrics, with bibs on top and Chux on the bottom. The spinster coaxes her mother to eat, and the mother, objecting, bats the spoon away and slops her food and responds only to baby talk. I saw a time when I would be fussing that way, but instead of scaring me it made me feel more wifely toward Orlando.

He was away now at Harvard Law School, No one mentioned him. Certainly, Phoebe and I never discussed him as we once had. We missed him, though. I had associated him with surprises, laughter, and exciting weather. He had reminded us that our family was the world, and had had us in stitches with his imitations of Papa. “Who’s this? Who’s this?” he’d say, sticking his hand out so we’d let him perform. He could do Papa putting on his trousers, shaking them and wiggling his foot for balance before he stepped into them. He did Papa’s Yankee accent, his saying “Let’s get some color in those cheeks!” or “Abyssinia!” Orlando was also brilliant at charades and had always chosen me for his team. At night he had told us ghost stories, “Three-Fingered Billy” and the insane asylum one that ended with his scream, “ Why me ?” After the folks went to bed he told an elaborate story which concluded with us all going down in a plane and what we were saying one minute before the crash: Papa, with his arms folded, saying, “The country’s going to the bitches—”, Mama’s “I could have told you—”, Phoebe worrying about how the crash was going to spoil her new frock, and me crying, “Hold it!” taking pictures of the disaster that was shortly to overwhelm us. He also played the trombone.

There was no telling if or when he would come back, and no one was laughing.

I kept off the subject. It was clear to me that Phoebe loved Orlando as much as I did. It was her beauty. Her love for Orlando grew out of her deep distrust of the attentions of the many men — Sandy was one, a dope named Foggis another — who chased after her. I knew no such attentions and so had a hopeless and single-minded love for him, which was like an object I had treasured from my earliest youth and could not cast aside, since it had the high polish of affectionate handling. Phoebe’s love was a rejection of men in general, mine the desire for one in particular. I believed mine to be the more painful, the more genuine, and I did not want to break her heart by telling her I’d have him. It would send her crazy and blind.

Seeing how I had stayed home she mistook my stubbornness for timidity and became timid herself; and indecisive, and superstitious about going away. But soon, I thought, she will realize the strength in her beauty and outgrow her love for Orlando. As yet I had only my camera, and what I knew of the world was what little of it I chose to see through the viewfinder. I made forays in New England and occasional trips to New York, where I met other photographers, notably Edward Weston and Imogen Cunningham and Weegee. But I did not care much for their work, and seeing their success only made me think that the fame I required to capture Orlando’s attention would never be mine. And I hoped that Phoebe would leave Orlando to me. To show her how pretty she was — to give her confidence enough to go away — I did her repeatedly.

She had grown up. She was tall and slow. Her skin had a few glamorous moles, vivid as ladybugs, that made it seem flawless. Her breasts slooped at her slightest movement. She could not be taken in at a single glance — she had to be studied in parts, like a landscape. Nothing she wore, not even her winter coat, could conceal the beautiful protrusions of her body, or her shimmering bones, or cool hollows. She knew her mouth was large, so she kept her lips together, wryly kissing the air she stroked with her fingers. At night, when she unpinned her hair and let it tumble past her shoulders, and melted out of her silks, she looked as if she were made of gold. Then she gathered her hair and twisted it and chewed on it as we gabbed. There we sat, hiding under the light, too old to be still at home, and not admitting why we were waiting in that house. But our parents were asleep: we could be children again and use the house against our fears.

Phoebe took a great lazy interest in her body, pinching and smoothing her skin, wondering at her legs and weighing her breasts in her hands. She would press her tits together to make a slot and then gently chafe them. She licked her finger and used it to moisten her elbow, holding one pink nipple in the crook of her arm like a kitten’s nose. Her body had such sweeps, such a shine of health, such trembling ripeness, that her every posture was a pose and even motionless she looked as if she were moving.

She made my pictures masterpieces. Like Marilyn Monroe, she photographed about ten pounds lighter than she was, and she gave me the illusion of having unique photographic skill. But it was really very simple: she was shockingly beautiful, her angel’s face had tiger’s eyes. She brought to each photograph a special light that flattered my technique and reminded me of how small my talent was, how insignificant my camera, how much subject mattered. The greatest pictures are those which for minutes make you forget who took them: you are shot forward, the picture becomes part of your own experience as you drown in your glad eye. Anyone could have made a reputation doing Phoebe.