Behind His Lens(74)

His hands run through his hair forcefully, tugging on the dark stands as he stares out over the ocean.

“It’s not a story I’ve told many people,” he offers vaguely, as if that’s enough to end the conversation. Like hell it is.

I scoot back over the duvet cover until my body rests against the headboard. I don’t say a word; I don’t goad him into speaking. Honestly, it’d be easier if he shut off like I do, closing the subject so we can move onto the physical side of our “relationship”. That way there wouldn’t be any confusion about what our arrangement is. A part of me desperately wants him to open up and reveal his secrets, but I know it’ll complicate things. We should just stick to what’s on the surface: our chemical attraction. Plain and simple.

He doesn’t move and he doesn’t look at me. His hands are folded around his chest and his eyes are glued to the ocean beyond my room’s window.

But then he starts talking, and my heart slowly crumbles under the weight of his words.

“After college, I went to work for a popular Magazine as a war photographer. It’s the goal most photojournalism majors aspire to: covering real news in areas of the world that need exposure. I’d interned at the magazine through college and when they offered me the position, I would have been insane to pass it up.”

I had no idea he was a war photographer. He said his current job was easier than the last, but I just assumed it was something else, something lighter.


“We were stationed in various villages inside Iraq. My assignment was meant to last a month, but they ended up extending it a few times and I stayed for a little over eight months in total. That was the longest eight months of my life.” As he speaks, his eyes darken and his jaw clenches tight. “The war we fight over there is different than the wars of the past. Today’s conflicts aren’t fought on battlefields. Instead of marching troops toward your enemy with rifles at the ready, modern militaries engage in urban fighting. We had to keep our eyes peeled every moment because the enemy could have been anywhere. There was no separation between war and life, only constant paranoia of what could be waiting around the corner.”

My hand clasps over my mouth, but I don’t make a sound.

“At first, I tried to focus on what I could control: the exposures, saturation, and white balance of my photos. I was taking photos that were meant to shock the western world and was doing a great job at it. I followed marine units, protesters, and civilians step-for-step— through decaying neighborhoods and crowded markets so that I could take photos of the combatants and the afflicted. Civilians suffering from food shortages, hospitals overflowing with the sick and injured, and entire villages burning beneath the weight of war.”

“Every night as I scrolled through photos, trying to decide which to send to my boss, the tragedies of the day would hit me. I’d push everything away during the day, internalizing the overwhelming suffering. But at night the disguise would slip and I’d start to contemplate the darkness surrounding me,” he pauses and takes a heavy breath. “But it wasn’t until I met Ali that everything f*cking collapsed.”

A tear rolls down his cheek and I’m taken aback by all he’s had to endure. What could have happened to him?

“Jude. You don’t have to keep going.”

He wipes the tear away forcefully and continues his story. I think it might be easier for him to say it all at once. If he stops now, I wonder if he’d ever want to bring it up again.

“Ali was a little boy that lived in the village we were stationed in during the end of my assignment. I’d see him every morning, begging for food with the rest of these orphaned boys. We were taught to keep the civilians at a distance, to remain unbiased observers.”

“I couldn’t begin to understand the culture of that village. Hunger will do crazy things to people, but I didn’t know. I had no clue what the consequences would be.” The anguish behind his confessions overflows my eyes with sad tears. What could have possibly happened?

“Charley, he was so f*cking skinny I could see every bone in his body.” Finally Jude looks at me and my heart splits in two. “I couldn’t just ignore it. Every day it weighed on my conscience. To be a good war photographer you have to be willing to get as close as possible to the subject without feeling a goddamn thing. What kind of bastard can do that?”

“Jude,” I plead through quiet tears. I want to assure him he did the right thing, but I don’t want to interrupt him.