READING THE CITY
The city does not tell its past, but contains it like the lines of a hand.
Italo Calvino
Previous section: 4th floor,
Lucky Hotel
The Art of History
At the gallery, Thuy says she too loves
(tab)that picture - and we
stand before the landscape
showing figures made tiny by mountains and
sky.
Shades of grey - blue - silver - flow and mass,
(tab) (tab)
(tab)like a musical movement.
The plaque reads -
(tab)
(tab)Remembrance of an evening in Tay Bac, 1955,
(tab) (tab)and I
see a small troop of soldiers -
placed by Phan Ke An in the trails of
history.
How immense the challenge of mountains -
(tab) (tab)ranged
like diminishing memory,
shadowed in falling light.
Standing
together, we look for a long time -
(tab) (tab)caught in conversation
with the painting.
Then, stepping back, camera in hand, I say
-
(tab) (tab)'Souvenir - for remembering ?'
Thuy's pink shirt,
smiling face and black hair
(tab) (tab) (tab) (tab)are in the
frame.
Snap.
(tab)See - here it is - the enduring echo.
Through the
viewfinder, I shaped this image,
(tab) (tab) (tab) locating our history
-
(tab) (tab)At the Hanoi Fine Art Gallery, 1995
with Thuy in the
foreground.
Riding home on Thuy's motorbike, it rains.
I hold a
piece of flapping white plastic over us -
(tab)but water pours down our
bodies and faces,
(tab) (tab) (tab) (tab)floods our eyes.
Stopping
for shelter, we eat green rice wrapped in a leaf.
My camera stays dry in
its case -
but memory has chosen to keep these small
pictures,
(tab)releasing traces of the original moment
(tab) (tab)to hold
these lines together -
the way we laughed,
dodging puddles along the
road.
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