Arcane II

by Nathan Shumate (Editor)

  Without focusing, he held up the next.

  The old Mennonite church, a cowbell bricked into the side

  ...she was younger, but he knew those delicate wrists, that secret smile as she raced hoops with other children dressed in worn frocks and faded trousers. Another shot through the glass of a picture window, showing not the antique shop he’d photographed, but the sparkling wonders of the old glass-blower’s. In every piece of glass, the ghosted reflection of her face smiled at him. His skin began to crawl.

  Dizzy. Time doppled, tripled, and he was sitting up, elbows on knees, staring at modern derelicts and the patina of time.

  The stereocards scattered as he ran for the bathroom. Heaving over the sink, he braced himself on weak arms and looked up into the mirror while water dripped from his beard. The eyes that looked back were worn, hollow, rubbed out by the decay of 36 years, too many empty photographic successes and all-too-predictable personal defeats. His cat had been with him longer than any woman, than any friend. The measure of his life lay in his portfolio, and he could no longer bear to look at it.

  He dragged himself back to the living room and picked up stereocards that slipped through trembling fingers. Suddenly, he wanted very badly to forget the whole thing.

  He pressed his eyes with the heels of his hands. Rose would have kneaded the kinks from his shoulders, her soft, quiet presence and gentle laugh easing this fever in his brain. Loneliness crushed him, darkness gritting the corners, the angled mirror on the closet, the shadows sprawling behind framed photographs. He staggered into the bedroom, collapsing on the squeaky bed with his arm thrown over his eyes. Freed of their cardboard memories, the images drifted before him, whirling in a sickening pattern.

  ***

  The next day he went back to work. Claire filled out a request for sick leave, and he signed with pursed lips. He couldn’t bring himself to speak. He remembered a time when he’d been quick with a quip, but today he felt paper-thin, two-dimensional. He went about his work with perfect, dull precision. When Jacques locked up, Martin wanted to suggest that they go to a bar—anything but those narrow rooms and the stack of tantalizing, impossible photographs. But Jacques clapped him on the shoulder. “Go home, Martin, get some rest.”

  Nights and days blended together. The stereocards lay scattered like some colorless jigsaw. He came home as late as he could and headed straight for the cool and steady hum of the air-conditioned bedroom, where he threw himself at sleep, afraid to look at the cards in case the magic faded. The lamp still burned by the TV, casting a comforting shawl over the room. He went to the library every night, hunting through old papers, local memorabilia, looking for the woman in the photographs. When the library closed, he’d hit the greasy midtown bars, meeting women he could have picked up with a smooth line, a zany joke—things he used to be good at. But what was the point?

  The woman in the photographs was real, was all he wanted. His eyes burned with too much microfilm; his fingers stank with old newsprint—aged images, their sharpness blurred by time. He found her at last, in a lone volume hidden under a stack of old racing forms that crumbled when he touched them. His Mai, smiling for the camera even then. A smile that must have covered secret grief. At 36, Mai had drowned herself off Winchester Point. Finding the dull obituary, Martin closed the book of bound newspapers in a cloud of dust and sat with hands linked over buckram binding. He drove home slowly, the stretch of highway lit by stars, an emptiness he could not cross.

  Millicent tried to cheer him up, winding around his legs until he flopped on the bed fully clothed. She nestled with his feet, purring; he lay there, hands folded on his chest, staring at the faint play of lights from the parking lot. He felt like a dead man. He tried to think past the cloud, past the pain, to any good that might have come of his life. His father had died of pneumonia, too sick to get out of bed or call; Martin hadn’t thought to wonder till the police called weeks afterward. Rose had left him. He tried to remember how it felt to love her, but all his numb fingers could recall was twisting a lens to a different angle, sweet as a woman’s thigh. Behind his eyes, a 36-year-old posed on the bridge, jumping as dawn filled the sky.

  The bridge stayed with him. He’d photographed there, since this began, and the images hadn’t changed. It looked the same at night as it always had. Martin jumped up, grabbed camera and keys, squealed out of the parking lot with the Stereo Realist cradled to his chest. He raced down Route 79 toward Winchester, toward the bridge... toward Mai. The woods brushed close on either side, lower branches white in the headlights. He dug in his pockets for change and rolled through the tollbooth with eight dropped coins, passing the gate in a wash of yellow keen as a flash. As he rushed past into darkness, he pointed the camera out the window.

  Slowing to focus, he shot the old brick courthouse that should have been dilapidated office front. The schoolhouse rose in pioneer clapboard, complete with the iron Maypole that had been condemned when the Anders child strangled. He tore up the dirt road past the jetty, heading for the Falksbyrd Bridge. A string of lights spanned the channel where sand gave way to killing rock. The bridge held a slim footpath on the side, empty but for one small figure. Martin jumped from the car, camera to his eye, the door hanging open. The wind buffeted him as he shot her faint figure, shining thin and pale in the moonlight, the electric lamps of the bridge rendering her diaphanous, a two-dimensional ghost. Martin clenched his teeth and edged along the rail. She was climbing, and he dared not call for fear of startling her.

  One shot, he prayed, and snapped. He tried to get closer. She swayed on the top rail, poised like a swan over the drop, head thrown back, her long, silky hair blowing like a shimmering veil. As she balanced there, only feet away, he squeezed off three more shots, feeling the shutter close inside as though each formed a link on a vital chain.

  The mist lifted from her face. She cast a startled glance toward him, eyes sad and full of longing. As he stood beside her, she leaned out without a cry. Her ankle grazed his wrist as he flailed at empty air.

  He didn’t scream. He knew what he’d done. He slid against the side of the bridge and huddled there, the grid of the railing cutting his back, tears streaming down his cheeks. He heaved for breath, the camera clutched in his hands; then, suddenly, gagging laughter. He had caught her after all—inside the camera!

  When he developed them, the shots held only modern buildings, his own figure posed against the guardrail where Mai had perched on the old.

  Deliberately, he let the old camera fall out the window, heard the shatter of twin lenses as it hit.

  His soul, shattering, if he had a soul.

  II.

  Martin L. Gregory had a beautiful wife, a ten-year-old daughter, and a job he loved. He lived in a mansion with six wooded acres, where his wife stayed home to field bids for his freelance work. With his museum job, he could only accept so many.

  Marty liked to spend his lunch hour on the pleasant country drive, running film to the camera shop. Gus was not only a wizard at developing, he had an astounding collection of antiques. Marty would jokingly offer ridiculous sums, which Gus always refused. Today there was a new arrival: a subminiature, complete with tiny tripod. The sight of it called up childhood memories, playing with his mother’s spy camera. The tiny 2" x 2" prints had been more fun than trading cards. His daughter Millicent might enjoy such a camera. Feeling warm and a little cocky, he said, “Give you five hundred for the Petietux.”

  “You like it? It’s yours,” Gus said, looking more surprised than Marty. He pulled it out, setting the tripod on the counter. Marty took the camera gently, turning it over in his palm, moving the parts reverently. But when he pulled out his wallet, Gus waved him aside.

  All day at work Marty would think of the camera and smile. Just before they shut down, he took a few test shots, starting with big Justin the lab developer, who struck a goofy pose on one foot with his hand outstretched like a vaudeville performer. Marty drove through the park, shooting the stone lions, the water,
the pillared mansions along the shore. He enjoyed the click and whir of the little camera, the tiny focus, the miniature lens. As he crouched to change the film, he realized with a pang that he would miss it.

  Inspired by the sun, the hills, the rolling train, he greeted his family with tiny snaps, Gayle giving him a sweet smile from behind the hydrangea. He took surprise pictures of Millicent as she played with cats, talking to them as if they understood her. Life was good—too good, he thought ruefully as Millicent jumped up, squealing as she ran to him with open arms.

  He held the camera high and away.

  “Daddy, is that a toy?” Her pretty features contracted with an expectant frown, dirt smearing her arms and coating her legs till they looked gray. Brown stains marred turquoise shorts and the seashell design of the sleeveless shirt.

  “No, it’s a very special camera. I’ll show you later if you’re good.”

  But later never arrived. Gayle hadn’t felt like cooking in the heat, so they went to her favorite Italian restaurant, where Gayle smiled too broadly and flirted with the hosts and servers, and Millicent yelled for glasses of water, then stirred in crumbled croutons, scallions, and dried ketchup. Marty tried to melt into the far corner of the booth, flinching while his daughter grabbed scraps from their plates to throw at passersby. Gayle waved daintily to the nearest waiter and asked demurely for a slow, comfortable screw up against the wall.

  Slouching away from them, Marty felt the cold square of the tiny camera in his pocket. He pulled it into his lap, hiding it while he undid the straps and set up the flash, until Gayle laughed gaily and asked him if he were practicing for later that evening. Marty gave her a broad smile.

  Snap! into their joyful, unsuspecting faces. The blue flash froze everything—a collapsible moment of time that he controlled—then Gayle blinked, uncomprehending smile, while Millicent crowed for the nearest waiter.

  Later that evening, Marty sat up in the dark, Gayle’s soft snores shaking his arm. He disentangled himself carefully from her body, perfect as a model’s, though it had failed to entice him for perhaps two years. Strange how memory outlived desire. Once, they had been quite happy... he remembered evenings in the grape arbor, the rustle of leaves over the patio, the summer wind stirring her red-gold hair as they discussed exhibitions, their philosophy on friendship, movies, literature. Simple companionship had meant so much.

  But now... too often evenings were tedious, awkward, with nothing meaningful to say. Millicent had become a cute little monster. Though he still loved his family, he was somehow disappointed. They had failed to fulfill a need that he could not quite name himself.

  He crept out of bed, careful not to wake Gayle as he went down to his lab to see what he’d captured with the subminiature.

  When he pulled the negatives from their final bath and pinned them up to dry, he was a bit surprised. There was Justin, dancing on one toe like the sugarplum fairy... but wasn’t there something sinister in the curve of his lip, the supercilious lift of one brow? Marty glanced at a few other frames, shivered, and prepared to print from the 14-millimeter negatives.

  When he’d finished, he realized that it wasn’t just the red glow of the safelight. That really was a malevolent gleam in Justin’s eyes, a knife clutched in his upraised fist. There was Claire, not holding a mug of coffee but clutching an iron scepter, a crown of stars upon her brow. Jacques no longer chuckled at slides, but sucked a bottle, a blanket draped over his head, his other hand holding a carved red sailboat. Marty grabbed a sweater to counteract the dry chill of the lab as he printed the second roll.

  He retrieved the pictures, shaking so hard he nearly dropped them in the bath. Gayle... the hydrangea shot had become an alluring pose in a white slip frilled like a dress, with long white gloves and a rose between her teeth. The shots in the restaurant made his heart labor with the weight of ice. She was electric blue, her head pointed, her face flaming clean and pure as an Indian goddess, her nose sharp and one-dimensional as a playing card. No hair, a forked tongue curled and sticky as a salamander, piercing eyes above a spiked green tail that coiled behind her like a spiny tree.

  He fled.

  But when he reached the second floor, his mind’s eye showed him a snapshot of the open door, the tiny scattered pictures like a series of incriminating fingerprints. Grappling with his fear, he inched back down, gathered the prints, and locked the lab door.

  Then he took the images to the library, where he sat in his favorite high-backed chair, poring over them until dawn.

  ***

  He found he no longer had any time for lies. The camera lay waiting for him in a private drawer as he worked each day, reminding him of the true reality, how easy it was to peel back the skin. Sunny, who’d had a crush on him, was informed that Marty no longer had any meaningful relationship with his wife. Justin, who’d always liked Sunny, began to receive detailed, unvarnished accounts of Marty’s private meetings, despite the way the big man’s shoulders contracted as he edged to face the enlarger.

  The camera kept Marty occupied day and night. He loved to guess what people might become. He had to keep a log of what he’d shot—once, an undistinguished person had transformed into a 37-foot python. He hid in unlikely places, snapping those who thought themselves unobserved, to discover what passed for the soul.

  Sunny was Marty’s only distraction. She worked part-time, barely enough for rent on a third-floor attic, and he lived for those days when she was in the office. He had to admire her simple way of life, working only enough to survive, keeping body and spirit pure through exercise, meditation, walks along the beach. With the camera in his hands, he couldn’t help worrying about her. Was she really as pure and beautiful as she seemed? Testing her with the Petietux seemed to imply a loss of faith—one loss he couldn’t afford.

  After another night in the darkroom, he crept upstairs through plush, designer carpets. With the camera in his hands, the ambiance of his life suddenly made him nauseous. He halted in the doorway, seeing Gayle’s beautiful, perfect form spread in the moonlight, tangled in covers whose gaps revealed smooth, rounded limbs. He hovered there, caught between loathing and desire, his hands sweating on the camera. A camera that never came up with the same image twice. He’d taken more pictures of Gayle than anyone else, and over the last few weeks she’d grown pale, listless, complacent, oblivious to the signs of his affair. Though he’d seen a growing hatred in her eyes, she hadn’t said a word.

  In rising excitement, he brought the camera to his eye, squinted in the dim room... snap! With the flash, Gayle’s eyes popped open, wide as saucers, a child who’s looked the bogeyman in the face. He snapped another. She didn’t call his name, didn’t scream at him for disturbing her sleep, didn’t start out of bed to take the camera. Snap!—this was too easy, he ought to stop now, snap! She was pulling the covers up to her chin, and snap!snap!snap! She shivered so badly she might have caught pneumonia. Snap! With each flash, her skin looked more pallid; now her mouth was opening and closing in fishy gasps, and he thought he heard the faintest strangled sound, like a rabbit mewling. His finger squeezed the button convulsively, while his face contorted and tears ran down his cheeks.

  She hung like a ghost on his retinas, pale and thin as a spindle. One final flash, and he was alone.

  Trembling, he rushed down to the darkroom, wanting to fix the images before she could wriggle free. He struggled into his gloves, not wanting to touch the pictures.

  She was sitting up in bed, eyes wide as a terrified child’s... but the eyes were in a terrified child, a little girl with a bobbed golden haircut. A huge, horned shadow loomed over her bed. The pictures grew progressively cartoonish, till she had frightened balloon-shaped eyes, then appeared as a kitten, then as a stuffed, five-pointed star. Finally there was nothing more than an impression of her features poking out of the pillow, the cloth mouth screaming while the shadow enveloped the bed.

  He dropped the last picture with a yell. The pillow’s face was being chomped by the shadow�
��s accordion fangs.

  After a bottle of Jack Daniels, Marty took care of Millicent the same way. Her pictures progressed through stages of adulthood, the last a crippled, blind old woman. Things he had stolen from her. Things the brat would never see.

  As his first act in a new life, he took Sunny on a picnic in the museum’s park. They sat on an open hill overlooking the river. The wind furled Sunny’s hair like a flag. Marty toyed with the camera in his lap.

  Watching him, Sunny laughed, that bright sound. Something pinched inside him. He felt hollow, a husk. It wasn’t loneliness—he had such a host of images raging through his soul. She plucked the Petietux from his unresisting hands.

  “Oh, how cute!” Sunny fondled the camera, smiling up at him beneath the wave of her blonde hair. “You’ve never taken my picture, Marty.”

  “I must have taken about a hundred shots for the catalog—”

  “I mean just for you.”

  He leaned back on his elbows, looked at that pretty face, so innocent, so open... so good. “Some other time, baby. I’d love to take a picture of you, but I want to do it properly.”

  She raised the camera to her eyes, the tiny rectangle balanced perfectly between well-manicured fingers. He hadn’t even time to sit up when snap! He shook his head, stunned, and she shot again, laughing, backing up, “No, no, no! Stay right there,” snap! snap! as he got to his knees. He stood, swayed, blinked hard, trying to clear his head of the white patches and fuzziness. He reached out for balance, for the camera, and Sunny placed it in his open hand.

  “Okay, baby. Now me.”