DAMN, Ginger.

Anne, I COMM'd you.

[link] Photo 3

"He's still worried we're not going to get away with it."
"Nonsense, Simone. I'm perfectly confident. Rudolph, how many times have I told you that I hate having my picture taken?"
"What are you going to do with your share, Simone?"
"Oh, Jacqueline, there's this wonderful villa in Nice, it's huge, you should see it."
"Ladies, it's never wise to spend the money before you steal it."
"Leon, you're too practical to be any fun."
"But practical is going to make us rich."

(giggling)

Oh Ginger, how wonderful!

One more: Photo #8

It was a holiday weekend in the city, and the five of us were giddy at the freedom from uniforms, schedules and nuns. Judith's parents were hosting us, but we never saw them from Friday afternoon till Monday morn. It was the correct and polite-to-invisibility butler, Charles, who made our arrangements, sent the car, picked up the packages from our shopping trips, booked tickets for the show, arranged our meals, and saw us and our luggage off early Monday morning. That weekend is a blur of laughter and silliness. It's Charles who stands out, stationary in a whirlwind, black and white in a carousel of colors.

They're all such escapees from a 60's/70's caper movie. You expect to see George Segal wander by.

Photo #5

It was dark, as were all the others on the block, door agape and windows staring, glassless. Charles stayed close as they wandered through the first floor, knowing this was dreadfully difficult, but determined to make the visit possible for her. Her foot slipped, leaving a streak in the soot and a spark of color. She bent and picked it up: a photo as they had been then, before the plague. Human, her mother, her father, her brother, warm and living.

Even fire hadn't completely washed away the old scent of blood and fear, but she was finished here. These ghosts wouldn't haunt her any more.

Man, these are fan-fucking-tastic today. Awesome drabble, Tep. I'm still trying to decide which photo to do first, and madly trying to keep up with comments in LJ, and I can't.

Off to find a quiet place where the baby can't find me (oh, stop, just for a minute -- sheesh) and think.

Photo #7

He looked wonderfully well, and Roger wanted nothing more than to hold him close. But he contented himself with sitting next to him as they talked, and was overjoyed that Charles didn’t move away from his touch—in fact he seemed to draw a little strength and courage from it. There was none of the pallor there had been before, obviously they were seeing that he got outside occasionally. They talked of inconsequentialities, Charles making less of an obvious effort as the afternoon wore on. Roger's heart turned over in his chest. If only the attendant would look away, he might risk stealing a kiss.

I don't know who "Charles" is, but he seems to belong in my drabbles today.

[link]

t the writing next to Photo 1 is a bit of verse. I ran it through an online Polish translator. I didn't get a full translation, but I got enough. Thank god no one asks why I cry at my computer

Beloved Stasi, in token of remembrance

In later years, when people asked where she was, it was sufficient to say, "She died during . . ." People nodded and asked no more. They had names of their own, who had been lost during.

They'd been happy, those days in Venice. War was ended, there would be no more war. The news from reparations-battered Germany would come to nothing. They knew it was lies, but happy days in Venice were only possible on a sea of lies.

Beloved Stasi, whose memory lived among tombs and photographs, never lost as long as someone knew her name.

Photo 4

She never believed me when I told her she was beautiful.

“Beauty is for girls. And those great paintings you love so much.” A pretty face didn’t put food on the table, or wash the clothes. Beauty was a luxury, and the only luxury she wanted was more time.

I couldn’t convince her that strength and patience and sacrifice had made her face more captivating as the years went by. That love had written itself into her features, until the only thing I saw when I stepped behind the camera was the most beautiful woman in the world.