Sitting on
the terrace of the bar in my street eating a chicken, that’s how I find Lola
this Friday afternoon. She’s tucking in with her hands and her face shows how
much she enjoys this simple meal.
I sit down
at the table with her for a drink, because sitting down at a different table is
not what you do at the bar in my street.
We’re
talking and chatting and laughing.
Lola is a
woman full of energy, a woman that looks like she’s enjoying life to the
fullest. She’s beautiful in her being. She makes me want to take her picture.
I get up
and go home to get my camera.
As I get
back Lola immediately starts posing. This isn’t actually how I wanted things to
go. I prefer shooting people unnoticed and Lola is visibly not at ease posing. But since I promised her to take pictures that
is what I do.
When she
starts talking again she tells me that she doesn't like her pictures taken,
because in pictures you can see the soul of a person. They reflect the sadness
that's hidden deep within.
She grabs her bag and takes out a picture of her mom, holds it next to her own face and asks me if I see why her mom has always hated her? She tells me she is one of four sisters and three brothers, but she's the only one hated by her mom.
Of course I
see it; Lola looks exactly like her mom. So when Lola sees pictures of herself,
she sees her mom and feels her hatred.
Soon I’ll
find out though that unfortunately that’s not all the sadness Lola carries
inside.
Giorgio,
the waiter, asks me to show him the pictures I took of him and Lola, because
he’s interested in me taking pictures for him for a photo book he needs for his
work. So as I do, Lola asks me if she can also see the pictures I took of her.
I flip
through the pictures with her and Lola starts crying. She grabs her arms to hug
herself and shows me the goose bumps. She shows a whole array of emotions and
for a moment I fear her getting angry with me.
Then she suddenly grabs some
identity card out of her bag and shows it to me. I do not recognize the person
in the picture.
It’s the picture
of a woman wearing a headscarf and a totally blank facial expression. I don’t
see what she’s showing me, I don’t get what I’m supposed to see, until she
starts talking again.
The person
in the picture is Lola. It’s the Lola that was enslaved in an abusive marriage
for 10 long years.
The
marriage ended a mere two years ago when her now ex-husband threatened to kill
her bastard kids from her first marriage. That’s when Lola found the courage
she needed to break free.
The picture
that made her cry is a picture where she’s having some fun with Giorgio. It
shows the same gesture of her grabbing herself to hug herself. It also shows a
shift in emotion from the fun she’s having with Giorgio back to the dark place
where she used to live in.
I promised
her not to show that picture.
Lola, sweet,
Lola. Always laughing, always dancing!!!
As a side
note: While comforting Lola I told her that I know how she feels. She quickly
retorted “Oh, do you?” Of course I don’t. As much as I was stuck in a bad
marriage for years for things out of my control, I never had to fear for my
life or the life of my children. A story isn’t about the writer, unless it’s an
autobiography.
