Читать книгу Ventoux - Bert Wagendorp - Страница 10

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Prologue

For years the photo had been in an envelope, at the bottom of a white storage box. On the brown tape with which I had sealed the box sometime in the mid-1980s, I had written ‘Miscellaneous’. At least eight times I took it out of a dark cupboard, down from an attic, or out of a shed, and put it back without unpacking it. Now that she had suddenly turned up again, I knew immediately where to find the envelope.

Photos of other holidays are neatly arranged in albums with titles such as ‘Italy 1984’ or ‘Route 66, 1986’. This one was hidden away, deep in my memory and in a cardboard vault, until the moment came to retrieve it. Time had added a hint of orange to it.

I placed it in front of me on the dining table and absorbed the image. For minutes on end I gazed absently into the eyes of the people in the portrait. Then, slowly, the memories came. The sounds, the smells, the words. I remembered that I stared into the lens and thought: one day, later, much later, I’ll look at this photo, and I’ll remember that this was happiness. Time seemed to disappear, until I had almost become the young lad standing there. I felt the excitement, the joy, the expectation again. I felt her body against mine again.

It’s more than thirty years since it was taken, on the campsite of a little place in Provence, one day before Joost, Peter, and I cycled up Mont Ventoux. On the back it says: ‘Camping in Bédoin, June 1982. From l. to r. David, Peter, Laura, Bart, Joost, André.’ In the background you can see a blue bungalow tent and a small orange trekker tent. There is a racing bike leaning against a gate. The girl is wearing a red bikini and white flip-flops. An embarrassed smile is playing around her lips, as if she is not completely at ease about this, of all moments, being immortalized.

André has a roll-up in his mouth and is facing the camera with indifference through a cloud of smoke. Joost is posing ostentatiously with his hands on his back and his chest thrust out; David has raised his right hand in a warning gesture—the photo was taken with his camera and he had set the self-timer.

Peter is wearing a little hat and sunglasses. As a result, you can’t see his eyes. There is a vague grin hovering around his mouth. With his hands in the pockets of a pair of cut-off jeans he is leaning against Laura with his bare torso. You can see she is perfect, see how beautiful her breasts are and how endlessly long her legs. Her eyes take you prisoner, even on a Kodak print. I have put my right arm around her and am looking triumphantly into the lens, like a footballer allowed to hold the championship trophy for a moment.