‘Doctoral thesis?
Yes, well, The Sperm Huntresses… ‘If we’re going to watch all these videos we’ll be here till tomorrow evening.’
‘I play just few nice ones, OK?’
‘Play some where I can get a good look at your mother. What is all this stuff?’
‘Birthday, wedding, holiday, my first school day, all that: my grandma, my grandpa, my mother in garden, my father ride bike but only on one wheel. We often go out of city. And then is wedding. I begin with wedding, OK?’
‘Why the wedding?’
‘Because my mother much in it. And I like it.’
‘What’s your mother’s first name?’
‘Stasha.’
For the first ten minutes almost nothing appeared on the screen but cars, and tables laid for a meal. Every guest was filmed arriving, and every guest was sitting in a car on arrival, and there were a great many guests. And a great many tables laid for them. Extensive panoramic shots followed: stone-built cottages, olive trees, wild meadows, then the farm where the wedding was being held, along with its interior courtyard and a bonfire over which three men waving at the camera and drinking to each other from bottles were turning five sheep on spits. Leila sat on the floor, leaning forward and concentrating. She had firmly taken possession of the remote control and thus any chance of fast-forwarding, and she supplied me with names and background information. She laughed at the sight of many of the faces, others made her knit her brows, and as two puppies now and then scampered across the picture she made coaxing noises as if calling to them.
‘There, look!’ She pointed to a little cherry tree. ‘Is planted for my birthday, real birthday, now tree is tall as a house.’
‘Hm, yes.’ Of course it was touching to see Leila almost getting into the onscreen picture, what with the attitude she assumed and the way she looked at it. But the vodka was beginning to take effect, a cherry tree was a cherry tree, and the cameraman had either had a few drinks himself or felt called to higher things in the world of cinema. Anyway, his camera dwelt on even the cherry tree for the amazing length of the time it took to smoke half a cigarette.
‘Who’s the cameraman?’
‘Friend of my father. But is not so good. Usually my father take pictures. Was first at home to have camcorder. He take many films. And he take photos and he paint and he make lamps, funny lamps made from old pots, and he…’
‘Can ride a cycle on only one wheel.’
‘Yes, too. My father is crazy man.’
The video finally moved on from the cherry tree. The bridal couple drove up in a flower-bedecked car. The party applauded, a combo began playing a mixture of village music and gypsy marches, doors were opened, two bare legs slipped out of the darkness, and there she was: slender, black-haired, very bright-eyed and looking if she had got into the wrong video. End of the World 1992 or Christmas with My Mother-in-Law — that’s the kind of thing her expression would have suited. Before she got right out of the car she leaned into it again, and her head jerked. Then she straightened up, brushed something off her shoulder, and turned to the waiting guests with a smile as if she had just discovered that her fiance still had ongoing relationships with most of the female guests. Or as if someone had short-changed her on her wedding outfit; she wore only a short white dress, white sandals and a pearl necklace.
For a couple of seconds everyone hesitated. Even the combo seemed to play several bars of repeats. But finally a man stepped out of the surrounding crowd, went up to Leila’s mother, hugged and kissed her, and soon I saw the backs of head after head. Half a courtyard full of guests wanted her to greet them. So far as anyone could see amidst all the separate embraces, Leila’s mother wasn’t exactly on the point of bubbling over with beguiling charm, but as the ritual went on her expression at least thawed sufficiently for the guests not to feel they had to apologise for being there at all.
After the backs of about fifteen heads, the cameraman changed the angle of his shot and zoomed in on her face. It was more fragile and finely drawn but also harder than her daughter’s. Thin, caramel-coloured skin, rather small, rather delicate bones, and light green eyes that seemed almost transparent. On the other hand her gaze, both cold and inquiring, and a hint of future wrinkles that wouldn’t look as if they were only laughter lines suggested someone who at least knew what she didn’t want, and made sure she didn’t get. The only one hundred per cent resemblance between mother and daughter, so far as anyone could tell from a video, was in their mouths. Leila’s mother’s mouth was saying something now, laughing almost wholeheartedly from time to time, and constantly kissing proffered cheeks.
It wasn’t as if I were picturing… well, who knows what? I liked Leila, and there was certainly nothing to dislike about her mother, or not for me. But it was only a film, and I was at home, and finding the woman was part of my job — until she looked into the camera. I’ve no idea why, but her eyes looked out of the shot so long and so steadfastly that for a moment, no doubt a vodka-fuelled moment, I was convinced she was looking at me. Me and no one else. And I was looking back.
‘You like, OK?’
‘Hm?’
‘My mother — you like?’
‘Yes, er, but she…’, I said, not exactly stammering, although my tongue and my lips had been known to function better, ‘. but to all appearances she doesn’t seem to be enjoying herself very much…’
‘To appearances…?’
‘I mean, at first it looked as if something was getting on her nerves.’
‘Yes, I know…’ Leila dismissed this. ‘She want small, quiet party. But my father give big surprise. Lots of people there, my mother not like that. See that old cow?’ She pointed to a young woman of about twenty, tossing her head in pique at something. ‘She hate my mother. But my father invite everyone. Is always like that.’
And now the man she was talking about came into the picture. Objectively, you had to admit, he looked dazzling. Large, soft, brown eyes, a firm chin, straight nose, and a pop singer’s haircut, shoulder-length, airily casual, it would probably fall perfectly into place even in a hurricane. Holding hands with a roughly five-year-old Leila, he made his way from guest to guest, greeting them, kissing them, evidently an amusing character. At least, people were laughing at him, and when they weren’t he kept on laughing himself. He accompanied his remarks or jokes with sweeping gestures and a changing play of expression, expansive as everything else about him. If he hugged someone he seemed to be taking a run-up to do it, in kissing he smacked his lips first as if a kiss were more ardent the more obviously it was delivered, and when he picked up Leila for her to be kissed too he raised and waved her in the air like a trophy. The clumsiness that went along with this and was not, I thought, entirely spontaneous, presumably appeared ‘cute’ to a large part of the female sex.
‘Is me,’ came an impatient voice from the floor.
‘I recognised you at once! I kept wondering if I’d ever seen such a pretty little girl before.’ I didn’t want to inflict any more belly-dancer disappointments.
‘Hm.’ A self-evident observation. ‘With my father. My father very funny. You see?’
‘Yes, anyone can see that.’
‘But…’ She stopped, and then her voiced tipped over, suddenly had a touch of desperation in it. ‘But like I said, has big mouth too. So in prison. Because soldiers not see jokes, they.’
‘Only hear the big mouth, right?’
‘But if my mother do good work for Ahrens, my father get out.’
‘Did your mother say that?’
Leila nodded. ‘And so another thing: if my mother gone…’
‘Your father stays in prison.’
‘Uh-huh.’
She looked at me, downcast. Automatically I promised the kind of thing anyone would promise. ‘I’ll find your mother, you can be sure of that.’
Her eyes went to the floor. ‘You know, sometimes she… well, not angry, but not amused either, like at wedding.’