The past of the face

Two old people are sitting on the terrace with their son. I mainly have a view of the old man, who has a nice face, I think. The kind of face that makes you think: this man could be a friend of mine. But if he were a friend of mine, I would have known him younger, then I would now see through his old head what he used to be like. No matter how I look, I can't seem to see a younger face glimmering through what I see. A moment later I also have a view of his wife - unbelievable how much she is 'an old woman', as if she was created that way, as if that smile of hers had never lit up a younger face.

On the science pages of the Volkskrant I read an article by George van Hall about the possibility of time travel, physicists assume that this might be possible for quantum particles. This concerns 'entangled quantum particles', that more than mysterious phenomenon, where a measurement on one particle changes something in the other particle at the same time, no matter how far apart they are. Because the information would then travel faster than light, which is not possible, some physicists assume that 'distance' in the quantum world works 'differently'. Then question marks. Others propose an equally bizarre solution: that the information does not travel through space but through time, to the past to be precise, which is why the particle on Mars was already in the state in which it has now been 'brought' all this time.

Language fails here in every possible way. The quantum world is at least as wonderful as the wonderland Alice found herself in.

Well, anyway, time travel is not an option for humans. We have to make do with memories, photos, buildings, documents, traces in the landscape and in the earth. And everyone knows that we make constructions of them, some very plausible, others in conflict with facts that we conveniently ignore, but anyway: constructions.

What would I hear if the son on the terrace wanted to tell me something about his father? He would conjure up a man in relation to himself, an educator, a presence, a father. The old woman would paint another picture. It would be of no use, not even to look at photographs, the younger face would remain theoretical, I could never fill it with my own observations.

Is that really what you do with your own friends? I’m not always projecting their younger selves through their current faces, in fact, sometimes when you see a photo of their younger selves, you think: Really? Like that? Then you have to force your memory to say to yourself: Yes indeed, that’s what he looked like.

So it's not about the precise visual memory. It's about the sense of the past that keeps playing a part in the present, often without you being aware of it. It's there. Sometimes you bring up the past together, to strengthen the feeling that you know each other, for the warmth that rises from that commonality and that spreads over the present.

Can it be too late for friendship, when someone is already old and there is nothing or little to be gained? No, I don't believe that. But it is a different friendship, there is more dry matter in it, as it were, information that you have only been given and have not formed yourself from living matter. Or is that a theoretical difference? People know so much and understand so little, not only about quantum physics.