The Nature of Ice (17 page)

Here in a primitive world, in its most rigid aspect with an
expanse of tempest tossed ocean between come warm messages
straight from your heart, born in earlier days when you and I
were together.

Although not writing, daily I feel to hold communion with
you in dreaming reverie of all our former happiness. You see I
have been reaping comfort for having spoken to you on that
quiet dark evening at El Rincon, now nearly 2 years ago. (How
the time flies!) How I sometimes think that you are paying
compound interest on my life loaned to the ‘Wild'.

The non-fulfilment of the expected wireless messages will
have been attended with anxiety and then the Aurora might
have been caught in the pack or sunk after leaving us. All is so
doubtful that I know my true love must have been harrassed by
a multitude of doubts and I hope never to incurr such in future.
Indeed, I even look forward to making up for this offence.

Down here, things are different. I feel that you are in the
best keeping and I only hope that you are passing the time as
pleasantly as may be.

Dear Paquita I am writing this note in case anything may
happen which will prevent me reaching you as soon as the mail
from here, which is expected to be picked up next January. So
many things may intervene for truly one lives from day to day
here and then our sledging journey is about to commence.

How terribly disappointing this land has been. Our only
consolation is that we feel that everything has been done that
could be done and that on account of the rigour of the climate
the information that we have obtained will be of special value.

Since the ship left in Jan. last, we have had but a few days
of calm weather and the wind has blown with such terrific force
as to completely eclipse anything previously known elsewhere in
the world. Some of the men have done such remarkably good
work in the hurricane wind as to call for admiration from
anybody. I trust & hope that better conditions will be given us
during the coming weeks.

10 November 1912

The weather is fine this morning though the wind still
blows—we shall get away in an hours time. I have two good
companions Dr Mertz and Lieut Ninnis. It is unlikely that any
harm will happen to us but should I not return to you in
Australia please know that I truly loved you from an
admiration of your spirit. And should we meet under other
circumstances please know and love me as a brother.

In case of my non-return my total assets come to somewhere
about £2000 including of course salary at the rate of £400 per
annum from the expedition which is paid in lieu of my
University salary. Accounts in the Bank of Australasia. I have
told you of the other things including all my photos and private
belongings at the University. Take what you want of all and if
any remains you can give to my Mother if alive in lieu to my
brother.

I must be closing now as the others are waiting—give my
admiration and love to all the Delprats, each one separately . . .

Good Bye my Darling may God keep and Bless and Protect
you.

Your Douglas

CURLICUES
OF FILM

THE IMAGE OF THE WEDDELL seal spills from the edges of the baseboard and sprawls across the darkroom bench. Freya takes time adjusting the lens of the enlarger until she is quite certain the focus is sharp. She slides a sheet of photographic paper from the drawer and rests it square upon the platen. With the photosensitive sheet protected by the safelight's coloured filter, the seal's eyes gleam, his coat sleek with the tangerine glow. Below his whiskered snout he wears a perpetual grin.

Freya fires up the enlarger's soft light that slowly floods the emulsion with life. She lifts the photographic sheet by its two brittle edges, carries it carefully to the sink and rests it in the first tray. A fragile thing, this future she holds in her hands.

As she rocks the print through the liquid, the developing agent laps mesmerisingly from corner to corner. The jowls of the weddell seal rise through the emulsion as if rolled with washes of ink. Freya works beneath the fruity glow of light unfazed by the cramped quarters. She feels a familial comfort—the vapour of developer, the constancy of warm air on her skin, curlicues of film suspended from an overhead line of clips. When she pictures her father it is not the heavy-set, suit-and-tie man he was at the end, his darkroom business powered by a bank of employees, but a younger man in a home-built darkroom no larger than this, his shirt sleeves rolled up past his elbows, the fair hair of his arms tinged red by the safelight's glow.

Freya lifts the softened paper with rubber tongs and slides it into the stop bath. She winds the timer to thirty seconds, each ratcheted click a fraction of time waiting to pass. As an eight-year-old, a newcomer to a continent where seasons came topsy-turvy, Freya would linger in the darkroom after her father finished his work. She would stand on the footstool and wind the timer forward, the orbit of iridescent lines glowing in her hand. Clickety-click, clickety-click, watching right down to the last moments, her fingers halting the dial just before the jingle of the alarm tickled her ears. So long as she kept winding the dial forward, never allowing it to complete a full circuit, Freya could keep the future on hold.

She transfers the print into the fixing solution to rid the emulsion of undeveloped salts. Freya eases the handle of the tap to open and lays the hose of running water in the rinse tray.

The darkroom is where she first fell in love with the magic of image. When she grew tall enough to reach the developing sink she was allowed to rinse the prints, careful not to scratch the surface of the fragile paper with
sharp little nails
, mindful not to wind the tap too fast
in case the water sprays
. By the time she was eleven she had learned each darkroom process from mixing chemicals, to black and white printing, to developing film, to cibachrome colour, until she acquired her very first camera. From behind boxes on the top shelf of the closet she pulled out a Leicaflex SL,
J. Jorgensen
stamped in gold leaf on the leather case. The flourish of her father's
J
, she thought, could as easily be read as an
F
. At twelve, printing her own black and white photographs, she happened upon her first composite through an error of double-exposure. She rocked a print in a tray of developer, waiting for the texture of granite to appear, and spied, through the pattern of rock, the faintest image of her sister's eyes. Astrid's face looked moulded from stone—as if the granite was the keeper of an ancient secret only the darkroom's sorcery held the power to reveal.

Freya flicks on the main light and surveys the black and white print. She is pleased with the density in the shadows, the spread of midtones, double highlights gleaming life into the weddell seal's eyes.

She pulls on cotton gloves and removes the negative from the enlarger's carrier. She runs a lupe over the remaining strips of film spread across the lightbox. Already two and a half Antarctic months have clicked past; Christmas is only a week away, the tree brought out of storage and dressed. The kitchen has taken on a festive feel, bringing forth an uncanny cheerfulness in Tommo, the older chef. Sandy, too, stands at the large mixer whistling a tune as he breaks dozens of eggs into an oversized bowl. The kitchen exudes the buttery richness of baking. Slushies box Christmas treats to be flown out to science parties working in the field. The station is alive with the fervour of gift making. Each evening a trail is blazed to the workshops by amateur craftsmen and -women. Latecomers scour the off-cut bins for workable lengths. The carpentry shop buzzes with the grinding of the router; the belt sander whines, wood shavings coat the floor around the lathe. In the plumbers' shop, scrap metal has been picked over, and someone has gathered ribbons of copper sheeting into a posy with sculptural intent. Beads of melted solder drip to the floor, the arc of a welding gun sparks like a green flash at sunset. Gift-makers shield their projects from the keen eyes of passers-by. Freya, too, took her turn at reaching into the Kris Kringle hat and drawing out a name; she immediately decided to print out this photo of the weddell seal to give to Radio Officer Charlie.

That Davis Station still maintains a darkroom is tribute to a bygone time. In the last decade, with the uprise of digital, Freya has seen all but one of Perth's darkrooms reinvent itself or close its doors. What would have become of her father's business had he lived long enough to see the full impact of digital photography? She likes to imagine he would have seized it as a chance to return to his first love, to the viewfinder of a camera, and for no other gain than pleasure. And what of her, had she followed the path her parents mapped out?

At nineteen, she resisted a career that would have limited her to developing other photographers' work. She didn't care how good the prospects were for her father's business. When her mother's voice rose in pitch, reminding her of the hundreds,
hundreds
, of aspiring artists waitressing in restaurants, she wouldn't be swayed. Instead she watched her father's downcast stare while her mother's voice slid into a whiny litany of professional photographers having to serve at petrol bowsers weekends and nights simply to put food on the table. Finally Papa pushed back his chair and left the room as silent as a stone.

Why?
Freya would ask her father if she had a second chance.
How could you throw it all away?

She had determined never to relinquish her camera as he had done. She would go to Melbourne to study at the photography college—adding with all the bravado she could muster,
whether you help me or not
. Couldn't they understand?
Can't you see, Papa?
It was the same driving want that had once emboldened him to cross hemispheres and turn seasons upside down.

Freya chooses two negatives, the first of Chad at Rookery Lake, the second
a study of the photographer
he insisted on taking with her camera.

Gone are the weighted silences. They spend their days in a pattern of easy quiet, broken by bursts of chatter. Chad makes her laugh. She laughs at herself. Freya has her gear ready the night before, but it still takes an age—three times longer than it would at home—to get ready in the morning to leave. Those who have been south before are resigned to this aspect of Antarctic life. She likens the time in a day spent dressing, lacing boots, pulling at velcrose and zips—all to venture outdoors—to an armoured warrior preparing for battle. Out in the field, Chad seems content to wander off and leave her to her work, checking in with her by radio from time to time. After twice inadvertently jettisoning her emergency pack from her bike rack—spare socks and thermals sodden thanks to a broken thermos, her chocolate smashed to smithereens—she has taught herself to tie a clove hitch over the good old granny knot. Thankfully he has gained some faith in her abilities while she, in turn, better understands the map, can read contour lines and pinpoint corresponding hills. She trusts herself to find the way. Down here she is not, as Marcus would have her,
a girl in need of rescue
.

These last weeks they have driven hundreds of kilometres over sea ice, following the coast, returning weary-bodied to the station late at night, their faces raw. Clear sky or cloud, nothing short of an impervious foundation of white zinc cream—disagreeably claustrophobic—can protect skin from the glare thrown up by snow and ice. However, in a few more weeks, Chad says, the sea ice will be gone.

The shape of his crooked smile emerges through the developing agent. Freya has not before examined him so blatantly: tawny hair tied back in a ponytail, straight white teeth beneath a crooked nose. She gauges the mildness in his eyes—gentle eyes, flecked with the sadness of an unspoken past. Never married, no partner, an only child—parents and grandparents, all his family, gone.

Freya wonders why she feels compelled to print the portrait of herself. She won't give it to Marcus. Lord knows it will not be one her mother would show—Mama is forever encouraging Freya to pose with her
best side
before the camera's unforgiving eye. Only Papa believed his daughter's mark of birth a blessing. He saw it as a charm. Didn't she share her name with the Norse goddess Freya, Chief of the Valkyrie,
our own little Daughter
of Time?
One day, he'd said, she too would fly in the image of a bird and sprinkle summer sunlight,
your shining armour
sparking the aurora's lights.

Freya places the image in the enlarger. For the most part she is resigned to the stain on her face that brands her, but it still jars to see her birthmark inky black beneath the darkroom's coloured light. She steps back from the face projected on the baseboard to assess its repugnance, surely why strangers turn and stare.

She tried explaining to Chad why she shies away from the face of her lens.
I take photographs because they let me be
part of a world that's as beautiful as I care to make it. Why
would I
, she touched her cheek,
or anyone else, choose to be
reminded of this?

Chad stood silently until she finished speaking, then extracted her camera from her hands as if not a word had sunken in.

How is it
, he said,
that someone with so much courage has so
little faith?
He knelt on the ice and framed her face against the sky.
You can't begin to know what other people see.
Chad stayed quiet for a time, intent on composing the image.

What do you see?
she asked, her voice steadier than she felt.