Red Dress in Black and White
Page 28
“I made a mistake,” she says.
“A mistake?” says Peter.
Kristin explains to him the how, but he is unsatisfied.
“Why?” he asks again.
“Is it so improbable,” she says, “that a well-planned life can be built around one single mistake?”
“We’re all bound up in one another.”
“And … ?” asks Kristin.
“And I thought you were, too,” says Peter. “But you’re not. You can leave.”
“So can you,” she says.
Peter’s racing mind catalogs all that he would lose if he chose to abandon this place and, as he unhinges his jaw to speak, Deniz rejoins them. “It’s come off beautifully, hasn’t it?” says Deniz. And for a moment, Peter feels uncertain as to what Deniz is referring to. Peter casts his gaze out over the crowd, at Murat, at William and at Catherine in her elegant gown. Then he looks beyond them, to the Bosphorus, which reflects the ceaseless, churning lights of the city. There is nowhere else he can go—or Catherine can go, or William, or Murat, or even Deniz—where in some way they won’t be diminished from what they are now. No place can match this one, he decides, and because of this they would remain.
“Yes, it came off beautifully. A lovely evening,” says Kristin. “Congratulations.” She glances across the reception, to where her husband is approaching with their three drinks cradled in his large grip.
“Did she tell you her news?” Deniz asks Peter.
“Yes, she told me. I guess we’ll have to get along without her.”
“It’s not that bad,” says Deniz, and then he turns to Kristin. “Didn’t you say your replacement was coming soon?”
“Three weeks.”
“Nothing will change too much,” says Deniz. “Will it?”
Kristin turns to Peter. “No,” she says. “Nothing will change at all.”
* * *
The frames are stacked in the middle of the gallery. Peter unwraps them from their plastic packaging and leans them one by one against the wall. He can hear the dissipating conversation and laughter from the museum’s atrium as the party ebbs to its conclusion. He works slowly, evaluating each of his photographs in context with the others before selecting its position. The photos aren’t portraits and this is something different for him, a change. Their composition is more complex and in each of the frames he has shot there is movement. In some of the pictures there is so much movement that the image appears as a blur. He isn’t certain who might appreciate images that convey so little clarity.
His glasses are perched down his nose. He had long ago pulled loose his bow tie and he had dropped his rented tuxedo jacket in a corner of the gallery. With his attention deep in his work, he is interrupted by a set of footsteps approaching the door. It is William.
The boy stands on the threshold. It has been months since Peter has seen him, perhaps even a year. He has grown. Perhaps it is just the tuxedo William wears, but Peter doubts it. William seems to have crossed some frontier of awareness, and when their eyes meet across the gallery, Peter feels with complete certainty that William understands everything and that, perhaps, the boy had come to understand long before he had.
“Come in,” says Peter. “You’ll be the first one to see it.”
William crosses the gallery so that he stands in its center. Unlike Peter, the boy had not removed his tuxedo jacket as the night wore on and the knot of his bow tie remains set tightly in place where an Adam’s apple will soon form. Standing next to Peter, he folds his arms and examines the first few photographs in the exhibit. “Were these taken from your apartment?” William asks.
“You remember,” says Peter.
Hanging in front of them, or stacked neatly on the floor or against the walls, are dozens of images of birds in various degrees of flight. The shots had all been observed from Peter’s window, but with different exposure lengths and in different seasons and light conditions. “What I like about the birds in these prints,” says Peter, “is that it’s difficult to tell whether they’re taking off or landing. There is lots of movement in the frame, but you’re not sure exactly what direction it’s going in.”
William continues to browse through the photographs. Then he stops at one. He looks intently into the frame. “I took this,” he says, glancing over his shoulder toward Peter. It is of a perfectly black bird and a flawlessly white one, the pair of them lifting into flight.
Peter steps alongside him. “It’s my favorite of these.”
The two of them begin to work. “Do you think your father will let me show one of your photographs alongside mine?” asks Peter. William is quiet for a moment, and then says that he isn’t sure. “Will you ask him?” adds Peter. William glances up with an uncertain gaze. Then he nods. They hardly speak as they arrange the remaining pictures. Although they don’t have time to hang all of the photographs, they finish laying out the order of the exhibit, so that each frame leans against its place on the wall. The two of them stand in the center of the gallery, making a last examination of their work, when Murat appears in the doorway.
“William, it’s time to go home,” says his father, who then steps cautiously into the gallery and glances at the walls. “Is this your latest exhibit, Peter?” Murat clasps his hands behind his back as he strolls the perimeter with his head craned forward, making a careful examination of each photograph. “You usually do portraits. What gave you such an idea?”
“Do you like it?” Peter asks.
Murat takes a few more paces around the gallery. The echo of his steps is the only sound as Peter awaits a verdict. “In fact, I do. Much more than your other work.” Murat unclasps his hands from behind his back and leans deeply toward the photograph of both the white and the black bird. “This one in particular, the symmetry,” he says. “The two birds perfectly balance one another.” Murat offers his hand to Peter. “I suppose congratulations are in order.”
Peter nods gratefully and the two of them shake.
“We’ll see you at the opening in a couple of weeks,” says Murat. He then places his arm around his son’s shoulders and pulls him close. “It’s late and he has school tomorrow and then work with me afterward.” Peter glances down at William, encouraging him to tell Murat and to take credit for his work so that it might hang on the wall of his father’s museum. As Murat leads him away, William turns his head toward his father, as if he might ask him something.
Murat cuts him off. “Hurry, your mother is waiting. She’s tired and wants to go home.” And so father and son walk out the door, to search for Catherine, who lingers in the thinning crowd.
Acknowledgments
With gratitude to Diana Miller, Vanessa Haughton, PJ Mark, Robin Desser and Sonny Mehta for their friendship and support at home; and with gratitude to Kemal Egemen İpek and Özgür Mumcu for their friendship and support in Istanbul; and with gratitude to Lea Carpenter for her love in both places.
A Note About the Author
Elliot Ackerman is a National Book Award finalist, author of the novels Waiting for Eden, Dark at the Crossing and Green on Blue, and of the nonfiction book Places and Names. His work has appeared in Esquire, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Times Magazine and The Best American Short Stories, among other publications. He is both a former White House Fellow and a Marine, and served five tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he received the Silver Star, the Bronze Star for Valor and the Purple Heart. He divides his time between New York City and Washington, D.C.
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