(Disclaimer. The story claims no similarity to Diane Arbus’s real life, and presents an imaginary account of how the author perceives her mental state using fictional characters. The four superscripted sentences have been directly quoted from Diane.)
Child with toy hand grenade
Eddie Carmel, Jewish giant
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Dwarfs sitting in a room
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Transvestite with a torn stocking
Girl sitting in bed with her boyfriend
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Portrait of Diane Arbus, by Allan Arbus Photographs by Diane Arbus. Courtesy. Google Images
Aunt Beth’s sunscreen and moisturizer bottles stood neatly stacked in the glass showcase of her parlor gleaming in the twilight. As I entered through the door, she stood up to greet me with a warm hug.
“It’s been so long, Diane! Where have you been?”
“Hibernating in some dark neighborhoods.”
She remained secluded these days, probably too tired from her life-long vain efforts of being streamlined with the mainstream. She had not kept too well for the past some time and so, Allan had engaged a new make-up artist. As for me, the subtle disquietude of my life had found an explicit expression and fermented my mind to reveal my scary subconscious in the physical world. Our usual friendly meetings had come to a halt and it was only that morning - incidentally her birthday - that this wandering had taken an unknown but natural course to her place owing to my sudden remembrance of her. So, I had come up to see her.
I wondered if she had heard of the controversy amid our people surrounding my recurring visits to Camp Venus and the nudist colonies in Jersey. She asked me no further question. She went to the cabinet behind her and pulled out a bottle from the top drawer.
“Kevin got me a bottle of red wine yesterday. Would you like to have a taste of it?”
“Yeah, ok.”
As she sat pouring the wine, its red color complimented the green of her bracelet, while her silver-colored stripped silken robe pitched well against the velvet lining of the couch. It would have been very well in the conformity that she craved for, had she been able to camouflage the cleft in her lower lip with the dark-colored lipstick. It was a vivid picture that she had staged; only not so much as she had intended. There was a gap between intention and effect. [3] Instead of resembling Cinderella, she looked more like her evil cousin. All that she did to create a distraction happened to draw further attention to the cleft lip, like a black dot made prominent by a white background.
I raised a toast, “To your health and long life. Happy birthday aunty.”
As my eyes met Marilyn Monroe’s smiling at me from the poster on the front wall, she smiled affably and leaned on the table in an almost similar pose. Her glass followed a curve before being raised to her lips and then tilted gently in a trance-like movement which had lost whatever little oomph it formerly possessed. We drank in silence for some time to evince our relishing of the exotic wine, when she assumed an air of profound incredulity before starting to speak,
“Yes Diane? I heard that you have been lately visiting some strange places.”
She had stood up for me in several instances while I had resented my parents’ idiotic fancies. Never before had she spoken in a manner so sinister and mocking, just like the others. We had always been on frank terms comfortably divulging secrets and talking plainly without any pretensions or indirect implications. So, I was not justified in being offended owing to assumption of some specific reason for this exception. But I was so agonized by this recurring demand for an explanation for something which seemed quite natural and right to me, that I refused to recognize the question in her words and merely said,
“Yes.”
“But why?” she asked matter-of-factly, as if it were something too obscure to not assign a default explanation.
“My favorite thing is to go where I’ve never been.”[1]
She stopped short and looked at me closely for a moment. “There are so many wonderful places out there. Why those colonies filled with freaks?”
Everyone was so eager to designate them with this honorary title of freaks. Initially I was filled with abhorrence at this reference as to why should they be consigned to abnormality and compelled to suffer continuously from a complex on account of a physical deformity.
It was probably due to insulation from my surroundings as a child that I had developed this fancy for covertly reading others’ personal diaries. Aunt Beth had once written in her grey-covered hardbound diary,
“They make me sick. I am more intelligent than most of them. My poems have touched hearts of those who could understand them; I’ve got a few articles published in the local newspaper; I excel in song and dance and so much more. Yet the first thing they notice and comment about is my cleft lip. Bastards like Mark go to the extent of cracking jokes, whereas those with some courtesy can’t hide this uneasiness in their eyes. They won’t look at me straight in the eye while talking to me, their eyes flitting from here to there, as if having to watch a dead pig. Why can’t they go without noticing it? Why can’t they let me forget it?”
She had always wanted to believe that it was nothing serious, yet she couldn’t stop being conscious about it. Except for the old family photographs, all her photos showed only her left profile. Even now she suddenly shifted in her chair and sat herself at an angle so as to have the right side hidden from me. Everything she did was somehow related to this desire of conformity with the normal. Her sinister manner of referring to them as freaks seemed to me to be a sign of defiance on her part so as to absolve herself from this slang.
The label had come to me later on but not as a surprise. Anything breaching the confines of routine is liable to be termed as eccentric. People get scared and you earn the reputation of a freak. I had several points to qualify for it, be it thinking, talking, crying and laughing to myself in solitude for long periods in my room, going to the ruins near the lake, smiling and making faces at strangers especially the children, writing poems which appealed to them as filthy, spooky, surreal or weird, observing any insignificant phenomenon like the activities and movements of a group of dogs for long standing on the road, taking pictures with my camera at angles they found obscure, and now my recent interactions with freaks was more than enough for the phrase ‘freakish behavior’ to reiterate in their statements. I loathed it then because being called a freak obviously freaks out anyone considering our mental need to be socially acceptable. In fact, the need, I realized, is also induced into us to serve as a barrier against venturing outside, and this realization made it relatively easy for me to break away.
I stopped caring because I felt I was wasting too much of my energy. Who would want to waste her whole life like Aunt Beth? I shouted it out.
“Yes, I am a freak. And I love to freak out with them.”
Aunt Beth’s reaction was no different than Allan’s.
“I have always appreciated your curious nature Diane, but this is morbid curiosity.”
“It’s not as morbid as you think aunty. Come along with me some day. I am sure you would have a good time.” I took the last sip of wine in my glass.
“Good time? Watching dwarfs, giants, nudists, transvestites, circus troopers and all those deviant and distorted loons?” she retorted.
“Mind, heart and soul are valuable additions to the body.”
“But they are sure to corrode lying neglected in the shadow of a despicable body.”
“Many a times they don’t.”, I opposed.
As she shrugged her shoulders, I added quickly, almost instinctively, “You are beautiful aunty.”
The unintentional dubiety of the compliment had her at a loss of words. She sat quiet gazing at her reflection in the wine. I wished to let her know that she was an interesting person to talk to, talented and with a pleasing personality. Hence she should give a damn to anyone who would gibe at her. But on the contrary, she might have felt that all her efforts to seem normal were useless and she would remain an inacceptable freak for the whole of her life.
She lifted the bottle and poured wine into our glasses. Changing the topic would imply that I had uttered something infelicitous. Pressing the topic further or retreating with an apology seemed to be equally mortifying. It was an awkward silence. Having filled the glasses, she placed the bottle of wine on the table and lifted her glass. However, she put it to her lips in a single straight movement this time instead of the previous gracious and elegant manner of hers. As the wine gloated in her throat, she pointed at the Rolleiflex camera hanging around my neck with a shivering hand.
“Want me to click?”, I asked hastily out of nervousness.
She put down the glass on the table and stood up. I looked up at her sitting with my hands clutching the strap. She placed her palms on the table, and leaning towards me, she whispered,
“Why Diane, won’t you like to take my picture, to include in your album of freaks?”
My ears burnt with shame. I had had to face several questions regarding the ethical conviction of my work. Several people had accused me of exploiting my subjects. But they didn’t matter enough to upset me. With my rich parents’ money getting supplemented by ‘Diane and Allan Arbus’ commercial photography business which made contributions to fashion magazines like Glamour, Harper’s Bazaar, Seventeen and Vogue, I had earned a colossal amount of money and a decent amount of fame. So there was no apparent need for me to trouble myself with such controversies. But these conventional moralists and desperate artists, I knew, would find it perplexing to understand that although photography could serve to several ends yet it is not essentially means to an end. A quality photograph was so much valuable in itself that it needed not rave reviews, exhibitions or being highly priced for its value to be realized. Many a times the main reason to click is that the temptation to photograph that photographic view is too much to resist. I really believe that there are things which nobody could see unless I photographed them.[2]
Well, I didn’t need their approval for my work or for my life; and so, I had ignored these allegations as ignorant balderdash. But Aunt Beth accusing me of exploiting her was another thing. I couldn’t help being pained beyond words. Having to explicate my words seemed to be a trivial business, but I prioritized her agitation over my pain, and sought to explain, “I didn’t mean to offend you, if I did. I was just explaining my bit and it went --”
“It’s alright,” she interrupted me with a wild gesticulation of her hands. She laughed a vicious laughter, and went to the closet behind me. I spoke while sipping my wine and looking in the front, trying to sound as casual as possible.
“Being different does not mean that you are a freak. How would they acknowledge it if you yourself won’t? You deserve something more than this complex.”
I waited for her to say something. When there was no response for a minute, I turned to look at her. She stood leaning against the door of the closet with her head bent down.
“Aunty”, I called out to her.
She stood there unmoved. I got up and went a step towards her.
“Are you okay?...........Aunty”
I walked up to her, and touched her arm.
With her hands clutching the handle of the closet and her toes pressed against it, she pulled back the upper half of her body and looked at the ceiling smiling. “Yes, I am fine.”
Her body remained unwaveringly still for a few moments. Then she started tiptoeing on her toes and heels. The quandary situation left me immensely worried.
I asked her if I would send for a doctor.
“No, I am fine.” she mumbled.
She stopped tiptoeing and looked at me. “So, do you want or not to take my picture?”
“Not essentially. I mean I would if you want me to.”
Her hands left the handle. She turned and walked to the couch with a steady pace, as if sleepwalking. She removed her robe and hurled it onto the couch I was sitting on. She flopped onto the couch in her lingerie, and lied down with her head resting on the left elbow, and the right leg crossing the left at the ankle.
“Diane, click.”
I pushed the smaller couch to a corner. She asked me to let the table stay with her half-filled glass on it. I was opening the window slightly for some natural light, when I heard her laughing for a second time. My lips pressed to a wry.
“You know what?”
“What?” I asked, removing the things on the cabinet, leaving behind only the flower vase.
“Ugly complex kills many a dreams and ambitions but instincts are difficult to rule out. They resurface out of the blue without your having known them.”, she said sipping her wine.
“Immune to conditionings and complexes”, I quipped.
I heard her humming ‘I don’t know why (I just do)’ in a soft susurration. It was a joy to listen to her singing after all these years. I wished she could sing a little louder, but I wished not to shake off her reverie.
“I don't know why I love you like I do”
Frank Sinatra had been her favorite since long. I have flashes of memory of us sitting in her old apartment’s living room and listening to Sinatra’s records while she sang along. She murmured staring into space with an absent-minded gaze, shaking the glass in her hand.
“You never seem to want my romancing
The only time you hold me is when we're dancing”
I removed my glass and the wine bottle from the table and kept them on the window sill behind.
“I don't know why, but I do”
The song, instead of fading away, came to a sudden stop. She sat up and put down the glass on the table in a flurry. As she reached for her silk robe, I grabbed it instinctively and moved a step behind.
“What happened?”
“But life is not all about living out such embarrassing instincts, is it?”, She said trying to reach for the robe. But I kept it away from her.
“Least of all, about a constant struggle to suppress them.”, I replied. I flung back the robe onto the small couch and motioned to her to lie down.
She lied down rather nervously this time unlike the previous mermaid pose. Frankly, this was even better. It fitted quite well with the view I conceived of the situation. To ask if she were ready would have been a true loss, because although she posed, yet it couldn’t be described as a staged photograph. Her in-depth emotions peered through her skin. The passion resulting from this rebellion glimmered in her eyes. I captured this cauldron of seething sensuality with a click.
She sat for a minute with her head pressed between her knees. I lit a cigarette for myself and then, offered her one. She looked up with a start and slumped herself against the back of the couch. She drew a long puff and watched the train of smoke she inhaled.
“How do you feel?”,I asked, trying to sound casual.
“Huh?”
“I said how do you feel now?”,I repeated the question.
“Yeah, I feel good. Diane, there is a blue frock and dancing shoes in that closet. Would you click a picture with me wearing that?”
She looked almost nauseated. She took quick, short puffs. Her fingers were constantly quivering, and the cigarette kept shifting down the length between her fingers. The wine, I guessed, would do her some good.
“Let’s have some more wine first.”
I brought my glass and the bottle, and poured wine in both the glasses. By now, that former grace had been completely relinquished. As she took each sip, she breathed heavily with sighs, as if the wine was dislodging something from her throat bit by bit. Slowly the invigorating effect caused the fretfulness to disappear.
The blue frock fitted her rather tight. The shoes looked worn out. She sat in a chair in her new attire, and held her feet up in air. She stared at the shoes in bewilderment. Then she let her feet fall and looked at her reflection in the oval-shaped mirror on the wall.
She started walking round the room with a firm footing in carefully measured steps. Then she took a step forward and came swirling to the centre of the room, and stood statuesque on her toes at the centre of the room. The left leg slanted, the left arm spread out in a curve while the right leg and right arm stood vertical. The spiraling fingers added candidness to the regality of the pose. Before the gelatinous statue would come crumbling, I endeavored to infuse vibration into it by clapping the contra-tiempo.
“cu, cum..pa…. cu, cum…pa”
Her body picked the rhythm instantly without any jerk as if it were waiting for it. Her limbs flew in Cuban solo salsa moves, which, although were not refined, yet appealed owing to their unfettered nature. She astonished me with her agility at this age. The 8 and 2, & 4 and 6 counts emanated from her lips in a soft murmur. Her eyes shut and opened intermittently in continuous flashes. She seemed to be on a high, which reached deeper than the high of junkies and hermits.
This was neither a dance of performance nor of celebration. It was a resonating embodiment of those chronic instincts and desires which had been quelled since perpetuity. I sat there entranced not only by the sight rather the entire milieu, when it suddenly occurred to me that I was supposed to click pictures. I saw her through the twin-reflex lens and clicked to further actualize this rapturous flux on photographic paper. The cleft in the lip had not disappeared, but faded to oblivion since the undue attention conferred on it in the form of concealments had been removed. She was no more merely the woman with the cleft lip; rather it was just a part of a wholesome personality. Her true nature was gaining shape. I shot her from various angles with the profile view, the moves and the background getting changed, so as to represent the multifarious facets of her form.
When she stopped after a short while, palpitation seized her within seconds. She walked unsteadily to the wall, and put her hands on it to find a support. I had half a mind to walk and seat her on the couch but probably, it would have been inappropriate to intervene in her recuperation. With her hands shifting on it, she trudged along the wall. I stood on the couch and clicked. She reached the window and gripped either sash with her hands. She stood there with her head bowed down, with seeming efforts to attain composure. However, her hands still shivered, and then the knees started shaking. She caught hold of the window sill, and gave in bending on her knees. Guilt manifested in me at the thoughts of clicking another photograph, but the ingenuity of this painful yet vital moment called for it.
I had believed that she would be alright in a short while, but when her tremors increased, it began to worry me enough to not let her be by herself. I by her side holding her by her shoulders. I helped her get to her feet to guide her to the couch with my hand around her waist.
“You were terrific.”
Her lips convulsed to a tranquil smile. As she started to stagger, I came to face her to hold her firmly. Her face twitched as if in an effort to force out something stuck in her throat. She breathed heavily as if nauseated.
“Would I get you some water?”, I asked.
She let herself go and hugged me tight. I patted and rubbed her back. I took her to her couch, and brought her some water. She slurped the water in quick swigs, causing some of it to drain over her frock. I heard her sobbing with tears running down her face. By the time she finished drinking water, her sobbing grew louder. She let the glass drop on the floor, and let out a yell on top of her voice, which gave way to whimpers. I brought her another glass of water. She held it with both her hands and sipped slowly like a child. Her nauseous tremors had ceased. She drew some air into her lungs through a few long breaths. After wiping her tears, she proceeded to the washroom to wash her face. When she returned, she looked quite revitalized with a placid countenance. I reciprocated her smile.
She offered me a cigarette from the cigarette packet lying on the table. As she looked around for the lighter, I saw it lying on the single couch. I picked it up and lighted our cigarettes. We smoked sitting on the couch basking in the calmness that alights after a roller-coaster ride.
“Aunty, how about something to eat? I feel hungry.”
“You won’t find anything lying around here. In fact, since I haven’t been home for the past few days, there won’t be much to look for at home as well. Let’s go and eat somewhere outside.”
“Sounds good to me.”, I remarked in approval.
“Let me change into some new clothes, then.”, she said heading for the closet. She stopped midway and turned to look at me.
“But Diane, I guess you would have liked to click some pictures for yourself.”
“No, it’s fine.”, I said.
“Oh no! come on, why not?”, she insisted.
“I have not the slightest intention to exploit you.”, I replied simpering to avoid the awkwardness.
She gazed at me intently for a few seconds as if trying to develop a silent communion, and then spoke in a low voice in a manner of confiding something, “If you truly understand me, then you would ignore that satire-laced remark of mine as a consequence of my cynicism and fears, and not let it sulk you on the pretext of being a natural reaction.”
“Of course.”
“So tell me what would I wear and how do I pose?” she said vivaciously.
I had never seen her like this ever before. Sprightliness was inching into every corner of her face. Cautious enough to not break her spell by starting any argument, I pulled out a black dress with a crew neck and handed it to her. The sofa chair was placed on the right side of the main door, a few meters in front of it. She sat in it with crossed legs and her hands kept firmly on the arms of the sofa. I took a long shot at low angle allowing for immense head space, so that it produced a paradox effect. The low angle emphasized her, whereas the large, plain background dissolved her in itself. That is how she now stood out.
As we set out, she hung the ‘Closed’ signboard on the door. As she was locking the door, something occurred to her. She unlocked the door and went inside. She reappeared in a minute with a black permanent marker, and scribbled on the signboard. Now it read ‘Closed for ever.”
“Why?” I uttered in surprise.
“Yes. That’s what I feel. Why? Now what’s the need?”, she casually replied, while pocketing the key.
“But I thought you enjoyed it.”
“The funny part is that I used to think the same.”, she said letting out a guffaw.
Sitting in The Breslin at the table by the window, we waited for our order to be served. She looked out the window and said dreamily, “I wish it would rain.”
The server brought us our herbed caesar salad, braised bacon, crispy sweetbreads with peas and ricotta pancakes. The anchovy croutons tasted awful. The bacon, though, was as good as ever. I could see a blond girl sitting on the table next to us, over Aunt Beth’s shoulder. The Negro boy sitting in front of her presently bowed down and gripped his head in his arms. The girl’s animated facial expressions changed continuously, as she fussed about something in a low sound. The adjacent table was occupied by a jovial old man and presumably his much younger wife. They occasionally smiled at each other coquettish smiles and the woman would lunge forward to touch his cheek. In the other corner, a group of boys sipped beer sitting on a circular table, singing along and thumping their fists on the table. The pancakes were a favorite with Aunt Beth. She relished them almost in a meditative spirit.
Through with our supper, she suggested a sashay to Sylvan beach, which had my immediate unequivocal approval. It appeared to be a natural choice for some reason. Except for a few young people, most of them couples, the beach was mostly quiet. Wisps of black clouds started looming in the sky, and a gentle wind blew in our face. We ambled along the beach as little streams of water tickled our naked feet just so much as to elicit a lingering smile. After walking a few hundred meters, we lolled on the sand sprawling our legs, and watched the foaming sea.
It was one of those rare absolute moments of comfortable silence, which don’t require any dialogue to impregnate them. Hence, the colloquy is disinfected from small talk resulting in every syllable to be imbued with significance. This hour remained infringed from all considerations. We had settled our chores until the present day and had all the time with us. We were free to wander anywhere. We had transcended space and time.
“Diane, could I ask you something, of course merely out of curiosity?”
“Let curiosity not be restrained.”, I quipped.
She paused for a second, as if to paraphrase her question adequately. “What is it that you like about those colonies?”
“Most people go through life dreading they’ll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They have already passed their test in life. They are aristocrats.”[4]
“Well…”, she said contemplating, “I agree. And I understand that being different is not being abnormal, and they are normal in their own way, but still, how did the idea of visiting those freaks - I am sorry, I mean -”
“It’s ok. You could call us freaks. I don’t mind.” I said.
“Yeah, how did the idea of visiting them occur to you in the first place?” She completed her question.
“When normality becomes nauseating, freakishness is bliss.”
“Ha! It’s strange.” She stood up and walked a few steps. She gazed long at the horizon; then turned towards me. “All my life I troubled myself seeking the thing which troubled you. Strange.”
“Strange indeed”, I agreed. “By the way, happy birthday.”
Our eyes met for an instant. The next moment, a mild laughter exploded in coincident unison. The clouds thundered, and it started to rain. As we lay drenched on the wet sand, tiny drops pattered on our faces. All the pain dissolved in the rain water and flowed away.
