Gone Too

He was sitting there drinking his beer alone. Whenever I saw him he had a smile. Always just the other side of sober, red faced but with optimism. It was difficult making photographs in the bar. Especially being a stranger and a foreigner. Cameras were considered unnecessary and unpopular.

This picture was taken on the last day of 2005. The bar was about to close for modernisation. All the socialist memorabilia to be trashed, gone the bust of Lenin and the photograph of Brezhnev from behind the bar. Gone too the red drapery behind the TV set emblazoned with Lenin. That night I heard a story about this man, of how when he was a child his father who was a chauffeur drove all over Europe from here to the Mediterranean and back many times. Whenever possible his father would take him along on an adventure by his side in the passenger seat watching the world go by. A close bond that formed as a child lasted a lifetime: He and his father were constant companions.

His father died of a heart attack towards the end of last year and on the few subsequent occasions I happened to see this man there was a sadness more than grief about him. A lost man in usual surroundings has an other worldliness about him. At the beginning of this year I met my old neighbor for a drink in the reconstructed version of this bar and he told me of how the man in the photograph had been shopping on the local market and after having the usual few drinks slipped on ice, fell and banged his head.The man from the bar with the smile has gone too. He will be missed.