A Box of Photographs - Tujuh

Photograph #55

Another guest room, viewed from the outside. Room number nine. It appears to be the last in a long terrace. Outside, two bamboo armchairs, a bamboo table. Two pairs of shoes. In one of the chairs sits the young man, shirtless, smiling into the camera. The walls behind him have been painted a pale pistachio green, which is being lit from one side by the morning light. On the back of the photograph, it says, 'Pondok Indah Homestay, Senaru'.

Photograph #56 

A photograph of a shrub, in a small garden. The morning sunlight has not yet reached it; it is bathed in shade. It is a fruit tree, although you are not quite certain what fruit it bears. Most of the fruit are small and green. They look a little like limes. But these are not yet ripe. You know this because one of the tree's branches is bowing down, bent over with the weight of a single fruit. Bright yellow. And enormous. The shape of a lemon, yes, but the size of a melon. Someone has wrapped a long thin strip of white cloth around it, and twined it up round the branch. As a child might wrap themselves in toilet paper, in an irreverent homage to a deceased Pharaoh. This is to protect it from insects, perhaps, or from falling, once it is ripe.

Photograph #57

This is a photograph of the young couple, together, rather far away from the photographer, so that their whole bodies are visible, made small by the enormity of the landscape around them. They are standing on what looks at first like a long, thin bridge, but on closer inspection, you realise that it is a concrete aqueduct. The dark water is visible between concrete slats. On either side of them is a precipice. You imagine the rush of the water beneath their feet, the metres of empty air beneath them before the forest floor. It gives you a sense of vertigo. They are smiling, but the boy's hand grips firmly onto the handrail. He is holding onto the girl by her shoulder. They are both wearing shorts, his the shabby denim ones seen in every photo before, hers short and black. Both have long tanned legs, his scrawny, hers quite the opposite. A navy t-shirt and a loose, pale vest. Short scruffy brown hair, long scruffy blonde.
On the back is written, 'Waterfall "Trek"'.

Photograph #58

A picture of the girl, surrounded by local women. They are all smiling, genuine smiles that show real excitement about the photograph, about the encounter with European tourists. The girl's smile is even wider. She has her arm around the women closest to her; the contrast is comical. She completely dwarfs them. Her bare legs continue on long after theirs finish. Their heads only reach her shoulders. The dark skin of their faces, their bodies covered entirely in dark, patterned fabric, only emphasise the largeness of the girl, her fairness, her relative nakedness. But it is not an unkind comparison. Neither party suffers a loss of dignity, of particular beauty. It is merely a juxtaposition of two worlds, a demonstration of difference. Yet similarity, also.

Photograph #59

A close up of a white moth on a dark rock. The moth's wings are mottled delicately, in indecipherable grey patterns like words washed out of a newspaper page. The rock is gritty, glossy wet. The moth is covered in tiny droplets of dew, round as crystal balls, that catch the sunlight like jewels.

Photograph #60

In the background of this photograph is a waterfall, a thin white stream of water cascading from a dizzying height. In the foreground, a mossy boulder, adorned with a wooden sign, with peeling white paint and neat red letters. It says, 'Welcome to Tiu Kelep.'

Photograph #61

This is a photo of the boy. He appears to be in a long, dark tunnel, though he is standing by an opening, cut into the rock, letting in leaves and vines and a big swatch of greeny light. He is looking out of it, and upwards, presumably at the treetops, the sky. His features are etched strongly in light and shade, a greenish Caravaggio painting. You then realise that he is knee-deep in fast-flowing water. The aqueduct, you decide, passing through a man-made tunnel in the mountainside. You picture yourself being there, in the dark, the cold water pulling your legs away, down the mountain. You shiver.

Photograph #62

In the photograph, the boy and girl are sitting, cross legged, on the floor of a raised bamboo hut. With them, a local couple, a young, smiling man and a beautiful woman in a colourful sarong. They are eating, vegetables and rice. Two of them with their fingers, the other two with spoons. On the ground beneath the hut, an ornate rooster and a sleeping dog. On the back it reads, 'Dinner with the "Best Cheapest Waterfalls Guide"'.