Séance Infernale

by Jonathan Skariton

  From time to time, sounds crept into the apartment. A dog howled; an electric guitar rhythmically wept through the opening riff of “Sweet Child o’ Mine”; rain steadily tapped against the windowsill. Other than that, his self-constructed dungeon was peaceful, but by no means quiet, for his thoughts raged. He kept replaying in his mind the events before his daughter’s disappearance ten years ago in Edinburgh.

  Ellie was at an age where the frequency of nightmares had reached a peak. And the night before her disappearance there had been bad dreams. Kate had hurried out of bed and gone to console her, then had stayed in their daughter’s bed until sunrise. In the morning, Alex prepared breakfast and dressed Ellie. In spite of the previous night’s tribulations, she was cheerful at the prospect of riding her new bicycle in the Meadows. She allowed him to dress her as part of their ludicrous collaboration. “Foot numero uno,” he said in a badly simulated Italian accent, holding one of her pink socks, and she allowed her limb to be lifted and guided, like a much younger Cinderella. He then switched to an exaggerated version of Pepé Le Pew.

  “But, oh, qu’est-ce que c’est? What do we have here? Monsieur Bellybuttón is sticking out; we might have to put him back in his place.” Attacking her, he buried his face in her tummy, blowing to produce an incredible farting sound. Her fragile body smelled of honeysuckle and cinnamon. Ellie squirmed, tossed and turned in hilarity, yelling for him to stop. When he let her go, she playfully tried to coax him into doing it again.

  He helped her into a warm woolen sweater. In what had become their ritual, she brushed her nose against his and, smiling, delicately felt his face with her fingertips like a blind person. Alex closed his eyes and reveled in a sensation that stretched beyond tactile, face-to-identity recognition.

  He went to his wife, who had sheepishly let him carry her back to their bedroom as the sun’s first rays licked the Edinburgh skyline. Still half-asleep, Kate smiled at him from beneath the bedcovers. She pulled his neck toward her. They kissed and he tasted the smell of sleep from her mouth. He could feel the warmth of the bed on his face. From the hallway, Ellie was humming to herself improvised nursery rhymes and hopping about the wooden floor.

  Looking back on the memory, he could pinpoint a specific moment—with the precision of less than a second—when every visual, auditory, tactile external stimulus was perfectly mapped out in his head. These folds and cracks of time were so vivid that time-traveling to that fraction of a second seemed plausible. Whitman remembered himself sitting on the bed, his wife holding his hand, the warm smell of sleep, Ellie hopping around in the hallway. He remembered considering staying in; maybe he could have Ellie occupy herself with the new crayons and the block of aquarelle they’d bought for her. But he dismissed the idea, thinking that Saturdays would never get this sunny later on in the year.

  They walked out into the sunny but chilly Edinburgh morning. The Meadows were a short walk down Marchmont Road. It was indeed an exquisite place: a large park crisscrossed by tarmac footpaths, abundant with trees and covered by a well-kept green lawn. Together with the adjacent Bruntsfield Links, it provided acres of greenbelts fastening around the city. In spring, every path was lined with pink petals, while in August, the lower half was overtaken by circus tents, and it was not uncommon to see performers practicing their routines in the surrounding grounds during the day.

  In the distance, the jagged silhouette of the Salisbury Crags slanted upward behind Y-shaped trees. Hikers roamed the skyline and summit of Arthur’s Seat. Tagging behind self-propelled wheeled vehicles, skateboarders headed northeast, closer to their usual haunt at Bristo Square.

  Around them, games of cricket and Ultimate Frisbee. Groups as discrete as tribes: jugglers, readers, lunchers, dog walkers, footballers, rollerbladers. Ellie wanted to go to the Cheese Man’s van—that was what she called him. Cheese Man came every Friday and Sunday with cheese directly from France, and ice cream directly from Tesco. Alex told her it was a Saturday. They passed from Jawbone Walk,* opposite the junction with Meadow Place, where the cherry blossom trees faithfully lined the crisscrossing footpaths, and headed toward the tennis courts, since the eastern end of the park never got the early-morning sun and the mist often lingered longer. It was when they reached the west end of Melville Drive, near the tall Masons’ Pillars, that the first thoughts of the Frankenstein poster flashed through Whitman’s mind. Back in California, Valdano was keen on acquiring it.

  As Whitman trailed behind Ellie, was someone following them amid the groups of people? Perhaps a faceless figure taking notice of their conversation, the color of Ellie’s bike, Whitman’s preoccupied eyes. Did that figure stop when they did, in order to pet the fox terrier that was out with its owner?

  Whitman entered a phone booth on the side of Melville Drive and told Ellie to ride her bike close to it. She began whining; he assured her it would only take a minute. As he pressed the buttons corresponding to Valdano’s phone number, he confirmed that he had visual contact with her. She was having fun, maneuvering her little feet to stay between the pedal belts and willing herself to ride the bike on the pavement. There was no one around her.

  As Valdano’s secretary put Alex through to the film collector, he glanced up at Ellie at frequent intervals. Valdano confirmed he was looking for the Frankenstein poster; Whitman replied he would look into it. Of course, he already knew of a source in London, an unwitting owner who had no idea what he possessed; the one-sheet “style A” poster was one of only five known copies to survive. He thought about how he would travel there and acquire the poster for next to nothing, then force Valdano to bid against other collectors in a secret auction.

  Now more people were around Ellie. A jogger went by; a woman walking her dog; two bearded adolescents in University of Edinburgh hoodies; another woman, cigarette in mouth, tattoos adorning her arms, spanking her crying child. On the phone, Valdano said he would pay a generous six figures for the poster. He gave Whitman a contact number where he could be reached at any time. Whitman felt in his pocket and grasped for his pen. He looked through the glass and Ellie was smiling at him. He smiled back. He flipped the pages of his notepad to find some white space, and began writing down the number. He turned his head back up toward the bike. Ellie was gone.

  The lone bicycle was on the footpath. He dropped the phone. He could hear Valdano’s voice still asking if he was there. He went out of the booth; at that point he was more determined than alarmed. He would scold her, put her back on the bike, and warn her to never (ever, ever) wander off. She almost never did; but perhaps a shiny object on the ground or the dog next to the cherry blossoms had gained her attention and she’d gone to investigate. Maybe she had fallen from the bike and was resting nearby. He took a few paces and glanced past the only tree she could have found shelter behind. Nothing.

  Stepping back, he looked in all four directions. She couldn’t be far. As long as she stayed away from the traffic, no harm could come to her, and Ellie had never been fond of the noise and speed of vehicles. He turned toward Melville Drive again. A few cars drove by; no signs of an accident having taken place on the asphalt. He tried to relax. She had to be close. A small child like that was less likely to be seen right away anyhow. Nevertheless, his pace had accelerated, and so had his breathing. He was aware by now that his restless face and his demeanor were attracting attention. The terror of what might have happened set in only when he took a deep breath and shouted his daughter’s name with all of his strength.

  There may have been a figure casually walking away from him, concealing something in its bulky overcoat, but Alex was on the lookout for a child, not an adult. Now he was leaping, struggling to see in all directions, half-yelling, half-wailing her name. People were turning toward him, maybe mistaking him for one of the red-nosed homeless gentlemen who frequented the park. People were leaving their picnic baskets and guitars and were crowding around him. Within minutes those people knew that Ellie was five; they knew she had last been seen riding her bike next to that t
ree; that she wore a woolen sweater, that she was carrying a doll. The people surrounding him were no longer tribes; they were no longer joggers and barbecuers and footballers and sunbathers, but prospective parents. Nevertheless, Alex felt alone. He tried to push them aside; they were hindering his sight. He heard the phrase “wee girl” spoken by pedestrian spectators who had been caught up in the upheaval. The atmosphere was stifling, suffocating him.

  Everybody was talking, offering information or an opinion, but everything was quiet. He noticed a police car had cruised to a halt on the side of Melville Drive. Two policemen emerged and came over to talk to him. The words “missing” and “girl” coming out of someone else’s mouth made him nauseated. He leaned against the tree, Ellie’s bike still next to his feet. A voice came through crackling static over the policemen’s receiver. Alex told his story and answered their questions, leaving no facts behind. Their reassuring and calm tone had no effect on him short of insult. They repeated Ellie’s description over their radio and a distorted reply came back from the station. The law was on his side. Hell, all the men and women in the park were on his side. If she had gone somewhere, they would find her. If she was taken, though…he blocked off this thought instantly.

  He saw a third policeman, surrounded by spectators, scribbling notes. Yes, they had seen the little girl riding her bike. No, they hadn’t seen what happened to her. Her father had been inside the phone booth. Perhaps he should have known better. Children of that age can be strayers, you know.

  A young woman was looking at Alex and crying. Among all the people, he saw the French Cheese Man. It hadn’t been his day off after all. They divided into groups, men and women united in debilitating circumstances, and went in separate directions, slowly and effectively combing the area, but to no avail. Someone offered to drive him home, but Alex declined.

  The wind had picked up by now and was slapping his sweat-beaded forehead. He saw how simple it was: he had come to the Meadows with a child on a bike, and was returning with the small bike, alone.

  * * *

  *

  4

  Whitman unzipped his backpack and set up his laptop on the living room table. He put the notes from Valdano’s folder, as well as his own reference materials, beside the computer. He kept the tobacco paraphernalia within hand’s reach. He switched on the laptop and began to roll a cigarette as he waited for the word processor to load up.

  He sipped on a glass of liquor and rested the cigarette on his glass ashtray. Valdano’s research was in accordance with the information from Nathaniel Newby’s History of Victorian Cinema. Summarizing the findings so far, he typed:

  The greatest mystery in the history of cinema involves a train, a disappearance, a grieving family, patent wars.

  The history of film has rarely recognized that Edinburgh was the birthplace of the moving picture.

  America and France were quick to grant credit for the invention of cinema to either Thomas Edison or the Lumière brothers.

  Footage recorded and projected in Edinburgh in 1888 precedes the famous moving images shown in Paris and New York by seven years.

  Timeline (from Valdano’s folder)

  1841—Augustin Louis Sekuler born in Metz, France.

  Father—Major of artillery in the French army, an officer of the Légion d’honneur, intimate friend of photography pioneer Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre.

  Education—Attended colleges in Paris and Bourges, undertook postgraduate work in chemistry at Leipzig University. Early signs of artistic nature in Paris taking up oil and pastel painting and art pottery.

  1881—Arrived in New York, met group of artists producing circular panoramas—colossal wall paintings facilitating the “you are there” effect when the observer was positioned in the middle of the piece. The die had been cast.

  1885—Moved to Edinburgh. Began designing a 16-lens movie camera. Joined the brass foundry of Whitley Partnership as partner of valve department.

  1885—Met occultist Carlyle Eistrowe, regarded as Nietzschean super-philosopher by some, a charlatan and devil worshiper by others. Despite Eistrowe’s antics in the world, they remained good friends.

  November 1885—Filed first American moving-picture patent application, a method and apparatus “for Producing Animated Pictures of Natural Scenery and Life,” based on a complex 16-lens camera and projection system. Camera used two strips of light-sensitized gelatin exposed through lenses, sequentially triggered by electromagnetic impulses. At the time, neither Edison nor the Lumières had initiated their work on motion picture research.

  December 1885—Married Elizabeth Whitley, the daughter of his partner and friend. They had two children, Adolphe and Zoe.

  July 1888—Projected footage from recording of horse-drawn traffic on South Bridge by fixing gelatin positives on glass, which were in turn slotted into a continuous belt that passed in front of an arc light. The first person in history to capture and project moving images. He realized he needed a more heat-resistant medium to project the images.

  1888—Carlyle Eistrowe retired from the public eye.

  Early 1889—A flexible form of celluloid was made available (since its creation by Alexander Parkes in 1856). Around this time, with help from Eistrowe, Sekuler recorded footage of a moving picture, which he called the “Séance Infernale.” Recording to this day remains lost.

  1889—Sekuler prepared his equipment for a trip to New York. He convinced Elizabeth and the children to secure a suitable New York venue for the public exhibition of his invention. They finally booked the Jumel Mansion, in Washington Heights. It would have been an extraordinary show of unparalleled innovation. However, the event never took place.

  Fall 1889—Sekuler visited Dijon, France, spending a weekend with his brother Albert before returning to New York in time for his public demonstration.

  Monday, September 16, 1890—His brother placed Sekuler on a train headed for Paris, where a banker named Richard Wilson was waiting for him at the Gare de Lyon. The train arrived in Paris; Sekuler was not on it. He was never seen again, alive or dead. The police scoured the countryside between Dijon and Paris; to this day, not a trace of the inventor or his personal effects has been retrieved, nor has his disappearance been explained. All that survived was two movie cameras and three strips of film, from his workshop in Edinburgh.

  —

  Whitman shifted his gaze from the computer screen to a CD-ROM in Valdano’s folder. Inserting it into the laptop’s drive, he discovered that Valdano had included MPEG files of Sekuler’s surviving recordings. He watched these, one by one, then entered:

  Surviving Work

  Princes Street Gardens Scene

  Adolphe Sekuler, Joseph and Sarah Whitley and Harriet Hartley at Princes Street Gardens, forming a kind of impromptu conga line, dancing and laughing. Sarah Whitley walks backwards and Joseph Whitley’s coattails are flying.

  Notes: Sarah Whitley, Augustin Sekuler’s mother-in-law, died aged 72, ten days after the shooting of the footage.

  Shot at 12 frames/second on 14th October, 1888.

  Sources:

  Royal Edinburgh Museum, 52 frames, runtime 2.11 seconds at 24.64 frames/second

  National Museum London, 20 frames, runtime 1.66 seconds at 12.00 frames/second

  Traffic on South Bridge

  Traffic moving across a road—recognizably Edinburgh’s South Bridge. Carriages pulled by horses. Formally dressed pedestrians wearing top hats strolling on the street. Bearded man smoking a pipe stopping on the bridge and peering at the camera.

  Shot at 12–20 frames/second.

  Sources:

  Royal Edinburgh Museum, 65 frames, runtime 2.76 seconds at 23.50 frames/second.

  Note that the original footage comprises 20 frames.

  Man Walking Around the Corner

  A bearded man in a smock overall walks in front of and passes by a factory-type building.

  Uncorroborated evidence concludes this was recorded with the sixteen-lens camera. The same sour
ces claim samples on collodion were sent by Sekuler to his wife. These showed a French workman in his national blouse walking on Avenue Trudaine.

  Sources:

  Royal Edinburgh Museum, 14 frames.

  Left unrestored and unremastered by both museums in Edinburgh and London, due to the poor quality of the images. Sample viewed consists of an amateurish remastering by Valdano’s associates.

  Accordion Player

  Adolphe Sekuler plays the melodeon by the steps of their house, moving his feet to the sound of music.

  Sources:

  Royal Edinburgh Museum, 20 frames. Unremastered and unrestored as above.

  —

  Whitman stopped typing and looked back at “Traffic on South Bridge.” He added: “The man seen crossing the bridge may be the occultist Carlyle Eistrowe, a family friend of the Sekulers.”

  Whitman looked away from the screen. He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. The darkness of the night had crept into the apartment, broken only by the screen’s light and the glow of his cigarette. He raised his glass to a toast.

  “Here’s to you, Muttonchops; I’m looking forward to finding your stash.”

  —

  Whitman heard a noise from inside the house. He had been feeling tense and uneasy. Sometime during the late hours of the morning he had grabbed the Bowie knife he kept under his bed and inspected every room of the house in search of thieves. All other sounds had ceased.

  It was easy to surrender to the painful nostalgia of Ellie’s memory. At night in bed, if he closed his eyes, in that gulf of space perception before falling asleep, he could see her, a warm and miraculous fantasy. Wakefulness would take away what he’d glimpsed and he’d experience the loss all over again.