My woman and I met under some pretty shitty circumstances. Basically, it was a case of one angel entering my life just as another was departing, and I couldn’t make any sense of it. We got together just as my mother was succumbing to the hammer blow of cancer, the last in a long line of maladies that no one should ever have to bear. It was my first death. I was horrified by the mechanics of true loss and withdrew into a place I never knew existed. Not even the rampant power of my woman’s beauty, honed by her own fear and anguish, could find a way to reach me. I was wasting away slowly into nothingness, while she found a way to barely hang on. The honeymoon was over long before it had begun.

We moved in together within days of my mother’s passing. The apartment was quite lush and spacious, which was a plus, seeing as this was - amongst everything else - my first departure from the quicksilver trenches of bachelordom. The block sat high upon the slopes of the former District Six, a squat yellow landmark among the rundown lairs of crack addicts and gangsters surrounding it. The crime was terrible and the traffic even worse. It did, however, offer what was arguably the best views of the city in all of Cape Town. Back then I was still drawn to the romance of neon skyscrapers like a junkie to a Vein, which was why I talked my woman into taking the place.

Being a girl from the suburbs, this was all quite new to her. I was oblivious to her trepidation as my world continued to implode. In the dull blur of those days she was somehow left behind, slipping hopelessly on the ribbons of pain I left in my wake. So she went her own way in that premature ruin of domestic bliss, her back unbending with compassion and regret.

I tried to throw myself into my work. Some months down the line I managed to piggyback my way into an exhibition with two other artists, one of them a close friend. I was going to show a new project that was almost two years in the making, and the jittery sense of foreboding snapped me somewhat out my ennui. As opening night approached, my woman watching quietly from the sidelines, I had butterflies in my stomach for all the wrong reasons.

I’ve never really run with the fine art crowd. I almost certainly had the talent, but lacked the panache and proclivity to mingle with high and mighty who’s-who’s in lofty spaces that are at the same time utterly empty and terribly overcrowded - mostly adorned, sadly, by what is essentially incredibly overpriced wallpaper - while shooting the shit over cheap champagne. To this very day, I don’t know why I bother.

Alas, this particular evening did little to break the mould. It was also clear from the start that way too many egos - spiced with just a hint of venom - were mixed together in this creative broth to make it go down at all well. So I just sat it out at the bar, downing one glass of bargain red wine after the other. My woman, floating stalwart as ever at the edge of my blurred vision, valiantly tried to match me drink for drink as I mumbled incoherently through stained teeth at genuinely interested patrons that were both brave and sympathetic enough to approach me. It got pretty fucking crazy. In the end, I somehow managed to grab a hold of her just as she was about to slide off her chair and we slipped away unannounced.

On the way home, as my woman lay passed out in the passenger seat, it slowly dawned on me that she was burnt out on far more than just rotgut cabernet. God only knows where it came from, but it finally hit me like a bolt from the blue just how much my grief and absence of the last few months must have haunted her as I wandered like a sleepwalker through the fragile garden of our love. Swerving down the streets of Woodstock on that fine midnight eve, I wept at last for what I’ve lost and for what I’ve almost let slip away. I felt incredibly blessed to still have her by my side.

Arriving home, I carried her gently, belatedly, across the threshold and laid her down on my mama’s couch. She was moaning softly. I sat down across from her to roll a joint, just watching her breathe for a long, long time, before stepping out onto the patio.

The night was pure and calm. The cityscape in the distance was lit up like a postcard panoramic against the bruised sky, but I was transfixed by the faded stars that pierced the neon halo’s reach above, as if seeing them for the first time. The streets below were incredibly quiet, the wolves inside me finally still.  

Back inside, I was surprised to find the camera on the side table not eyeing me with its usual disdain. I picked the goddamn thing up and walked over softly to my woman’s sleeping form. For a moment, the entire world slipped in and out of focus as I thought of all the things I wanted to say to call her back to me from across the darkened waters.

I bent down close to her ear, drowning once again in all that jet-black hair.

“Listen,” was all I could manage to whisper, “no cars.”

Photography, words, narration © Copyright Jac Kritzinger.

Music © Copyright Albertus van Rensburg.