(65) Justice in da Buff, by Azouz Begag - (3) Travelling and bringing back

TRAVELLING AND BRINGING BACK

                        by Azouz Begag

          To me, to go on a trip without taking pictures, it’s is to give ourselves the possibility to create mental pictures, in the darkroom of our imagination, never to have them developed on paper but to let your encounter-gleaned pictures have their own life, live their life, develop themselves, the way they want it to be, a poem, a travel story, a pencil drawing, a movie we will shoot one day, a story told to some friends on a winter night.

It looks like a garden in motion, a wanderer’s praise, a body who has its own organization inside of us and who will express itself one day, in any way. This is the reason why I don’t have a camera when I travel. I already know that with all the wonderful characters I will necessarily meet on my route, on my way, off the beaten track, thousands of pictures will try to rent a dark room in the hotel of my imagination. I am the receptionist of this house, but there are no room keys.

Actually the rooms have no doors. And if you look closer, there is no room either. Every picture is free to be in harmony with anything. It will give birth to something. One day.

          Then, for lack of pictures, I always bring words back from trips, even if I don’t record them in notebooks, but in the crossroads, the street corners, somewhere in my brain. I wish I could also bring sketches, rough drawings back. I’m jealous with envy of the strip cartoonist Jacques Ferrandez. A few years ago, we found ourselves in Lebanon, on a terrace of a house in Biblos, overhanging the sea. A beautiful bay was lapping against the house’s legs.

She was the one Jacques was sketching. He was drawing and I couldn’t take my eyes off his fingers. I like this environmental, natural relationship to the landscape, to the people.

When Jacques worked, he was taking the time to talk to us, to laugh with us, to tell us about his experience in some other cities, some other trips. The words were coming with his pencil strokes. He was dreaming up a drawing, with us, he was fully with us, here. At present. A good man. I share an essential value with him: hospitality.

          Time. Here it is. Here we are. In the Arabian cities’ streets where he often likes to go, Jacques stops, takes his notebook and his pencil out, starts to sketch, and all of a sudden, humans are bustling around him. This is the happy people bustle. Happy to be living his creation with him, because they are the living witnesses of what he’s been creating right before their eyes, in their company.

You can tell the difference with what happens when you have a camera, that is, technical, expensive. The photographer has to establish a distance between him and the others, to centre them, to frame them[s8] . Photographed people have to stand before him, it’s the only way. When there’s a drawer, they are all around him, the kids flopped on his shoulders, their eyes glued to his pencil lead which is embarking upon the magic of creation. With photography, click, one snapshot and it’s over. The thing is settled is less that no time. A time of nothing I’d say. The matter is locked in the technical thing’s memory.

Photographed people will probably never get to see the result of their pose, of their participation. We’ll exchange addresses so that the artist, once he’s back home, can send the souvenir pictures to the people. But often, the addresses get lost because promises have holes in their pockets. Back in his darkroom, the photographer is immersed in another time space again, and the taste of human encounters has dimmed. There are no scents anymore.

          Smells. Oh, smells stink! You could gladly do without them when you take a trip to poor countries. People are welcoming, smiling, the colours are splendid, but the smells! Intolerable. If there weren’t this plague, it would be heaven…

How many times have I heard this thing coming from a tourist photographer during a friendly evening while he was showing his set of slides and pictures, taken when he did Morocco, did Turkey…he thinks he went abroad, but he stayed in his own world. He remained intact, spotless, with no one but himself. His pictures prove it. See: they have no smell. With Jacques’ drawings, it’s one of the first things you notice: the paper has a strong smell. It captures the country’s smells. And these scents come back with him when he returns to the South of France. Jacques’ paper stinks and like it, because life stinks. And we are so used to living in sterilized worlds. Even a cow dung or goat droppings shock the city kids nowadays.

          I hate those slide shows at my friends’. Besides, all the friends who invited me to those aren’t my friends anymore. It’s a bar. Now, I associate with the amazing travellers, Magellan, Vasco de Gama, Ibn Batouta, Ulysses. The history of Men always keeps them deep inside its memory. These great travellers from the Past have kept Humanity’s stories alive.

          This book is also a storyteller’s journey. I didn’t like photography and I find myself writing page after page to say how ill I think of this art. Have I been caught by a mystery? I’m not surprised. Since I know Pierre-Alain, I’ve noticed that he doesn’t have the regular lawyer’s eyes…