Things I Can’t Tell
Toti O’Brien
In 1926, my paternal grandfather emigrated from Sicily to Argentina, looking for work. A bit later, his wife and their newborn son rejoined him. Very soon, two more girls were born.
I have known this family history since my early childhood. I had no images to go with the words that described it, though, besides those my mind shaped. Until, recently, a cousin circulated a picture that shook me to the core—but gradually, like a slow release drug. It is one of those “emigrant postcards,” much in fashion between the two wars. Folks would spend their first salary to rent the good clothes, and pay for the photographer. Negatives were printed on cardstock templates (just one copy), ready to be stamped and mailed.
I don’t know how my relative put his hand on this relic. It appeared—where was it?—like a message in a bottle thrown upon a beach by the mighty sea—a strange, bittersweet gift.
*
It looked bluish on the phone. Once transferred on my laptop, it was plain black and white. I tinkered with filters until I could restore the probably phone-induced, artificial azure—“color di lontananza.”1
They stand, father, mother, and child, about three years old. Two more (children) are up in their parents’ arms.
*
First, you see his fiery face. Straight mouth (not a hint of smile), prominent zygomas, strong jaws, chin pointing forward. His fedora is pushed behind the hairline, showing a wide and elegant brow. No wrinkles to be seen, but you sense the pinch at the root of his nose, and the eyes are squinted, half-closed. He ignores the camera. He watchfully stares away, as if pushing back something by the mere pressure of his gaze.
You can sense how his weight falls down his calves. Through the trousers, the overextended knees, contracted quadriceps. You can feel how his weight meets the earth under his heels, piercing two small holes into the concrete.
The child holds Father’s hand, which hangs loose, with fingers unbent. Father’s other hand is casually wrapped around his girl’s thigh—thumb nonchalant, relaxed. The girl sits on his solid forearm. Like a pillar, he offers support. He holds nothing.
His wife—my grandmother—looks older. Than him? Maybe. Older than she must have been. Something bulky, in her shape (she’s wearing a fur coat, was it hers? Did she borrow it for the postcard?) and frail at the same time. She’s oblique, askew, leaning towards him—though they keep separate, distant. Leaning, truly, to her own left, as her right arm holds the youngest. Crumpled, twisted toward the left, though the thick coat hides it.
And the one shin showing, too white (she must wear cream stockings). The incongruous, little heel of her (tan colored?) pump, so unsteady. In the picture, you cannot see her wedding band, though her left hand is striking, spreading like a five-petal rose against the baby blanket.
She wears a Basque beret, pushed back—like her husband’s hat—to reveal the immense, pallid brow under which her eyes sink like caverns. She looks at the camera and—almost—smiles. Yes, shyly, she smiles.
*
The child also looks ahead, and he doesn’t smile. His face, under the sailor’s cap, is a faithful copy of his mom’s—identical features, same protruding forehead, same tight, heart-shaped lips (but his, in reverse, corners pointing downwards). His gaze is so filled with both knowledge and questions, with both marvel and sorrow, that a century past I still can’t sustain it. Wrapped in an oversized sailor suit. His shoes are black varnish.
His right hand is bunched up in a tiny fist. Unlike Dad, he holds something—invisible.
*
The girl-in-Father’s-arms looks at the camera. She is blond, though dark-eyed—auntie—and she’s beautiful.
*
Weirdly, the young baby looks down but is neither sleeping, nor resting against Mother’s chest. She looks down, as if in prayer. Somehow, mortified. Don’t look at the baby.
*
Behind them are chains, attached to a phallus-looking stone pillar embossed with an escutcheon of sorts. It’s the corner of a fenced flowerbed. Behind the chains is a blurred mass—perhaps rock, perhaps the trunk of a tree. I can’t tell. I guess it’s a tree, a mighty arboreal specimen in the middle of a Municipal Square, somewhere, over there.
*
After having repeatedly wiped my screen, I realize the spot under my father’s eye belongs to the picture. The dark stain sits over a white patch. Huge Band-Aid? Did they exist in 1929? Ointment? The white could be a highlight, the effect of a stubborn sunbeam. There’s one such, just as bright, on his mother’s cheek. And the dark? So deep, almost charcoal. A large scab? Did he fall?
A wound, under his eye. Perhaps fresh, and that would explain the sorrow. Close to a century past, I can’t stand the look of it. Not for long.
Perhaps, the spot belongs to the photo. I mean, not to the child’s skin.
*
Several weeks later, I notice the other spot (bottom right). It is red. Yes—in the gray-scale picture, now tinted blue. Was it red before my touch-up? If not, how did it possibly blush? This feels too surreal.
But the spot is there, and so neat—as if someone had carefully, skillfully painted it on.
*
It is rust, not red.
Red-dish, and it’s a puddle, a spill.
Small, for urine, too scarlet. But the color—like the blue—might not be the original one.
Is it urine? Too little, but still. The part that escaped, just before the click of the camera.
Does it explain the child’s fist, and the sorrow?
Is it blood?
Too pale. But what else?
*
They all wear hats:
A fedora (beige, or taupe); a Basque beret (black, dark brown?)
Actually, is that her hair, so perfectly flattened...
It’s a Basque cap, the same color of her hair.
A knitted beanie, white, I guess; a white baby bonnet and an oversized sailor hat.
Magnify. The sailor hat says, “Buenos Aires.”
*
As I said, their expressions, as well as the directions of their gaze, slightly vary.
Their lips are tightly sealed—all, no gap, no hiatus.
1 from the lyrics of “L’isola non trovata,” song by F. Guccini
Toti O’Brien is the Italian Accordionist with the Irish Last Name. Born in Rome, living in Los Angeles, she is an artist, musician and dancer. She is the author of Other Maidens (BlazeVOX, 2020), An Alphabet of Birds (Moonrise Press, 2020), In Her Terms (Cholla Needles Press, 2021), Pages of a Broken Diary (Pski’s Porch, 2022) and Alter Alter (Elyssar Press, 2022).
