“It is the photograph more than anything that draws Gogol back to the house again and again, and one day, stepping out of the bathroom on his way to bed and glancing at his father’s smiling face, he realizes that this is the closest thing his father has to a grave.”
″‘My great-grandmother, Bisabuela Beatriz...’
That was when I began to think of her as my Bisa Bea. And I wanted her picture.
‘Hey, Mama, can I keep the picture? It’s so pretty. She’s like a doll. Can I keep it?‘”
″‘I love these old photographs. I collect them. This one is especially nice. Who is it?’ she asked.
‘My great-grandmother.’
‘Of course. I should have guessed. You look so much alike. Anyone looking carefully would realize it. Your face is the same shape, you’ve got the same pointy chin- you’re a perfect copy.‘”
“They brought photographs as well. Silly pictures of themselves with her mother and father. On excursions, in boats and cars, at parties, on beaches. Squinting, unrecognizable faces, in which they expected her to be interested, when in fact they took her own image of them away from her.”
“But I think that anyone who had ever been subjected to the least exposure to what makes for beauty would likely toss the photograph aside with the gesture employed in brushing away a caterpillar, and mutter in profound revulsion, ‘What a dreadful child.‘”