Trick of Light

by Bayer-William

  Her hair's bowl-cut, she's wearing the same dark cheap fabric tracksuit as the others, but there's something distinctive about her—oversize almond-shaped eyes. They're much larger than normal Asian eyes, and since she's weeping, they endow her face with a particular pathos.

  In an instant my heart goes out to her. Rather than photograph her and risk revealing her position with my strobe, I kneel beside her to try to give her comfort.

  She speaks barely ten words of English: "please," "thanks you," "yes," "no," "me," "you" and the one that strikes at me most poignantly, "mercy."

  "Please mercy please," she moans.

  No way can I resist an entreaty like that. I take her face in my hands, wipe away her tears, gently stroke her hair, tell her she'll be all right, then pull out my wallet, extract a twenty-dollar bill and press it into her hand.

  She gazes at me, querying expression on her face. I pull off my black sweatshirt and indicate to her that she should put it on. After she does I point the way to the nearest exit from the Presidio. She nods to show me she understands.

  "Go," I tell her. "Go on! Scoot!"

  She takes several steps, then turns, meeting my eyes once again. "Thanks you," she whispers.

  "Yes, yes. Now go!" I implore her, gesturing for her to run. She smiles, then dashes off into the woods.

  God, I hope you make it!

  Back on the beach I find Joel still interviewing his friend from I.N.S.

  "Okay, we got a tip," Buzz Cut admits. "So we went to level-A alert and watched our radars. Soon as that boat turned up, we had her in view. Once she unloaded, we flew in."

  "What's happening with the boat?"

  "Coast Guard's tracking her. When she connects with the mother ship, they'll seize them both."

  "Tell me something," Joel says. "You do a pretty good Chinese accent, right?"

  Buzz Cut cups his ear.

  "It was you called me, wasn't it, passed the tip?"

  Buzz Cut smirks. "Still don't get it, do you, Joel? We don't like the press."

  To show our appreciation, we hang around till just before dawn, watching the illegals as they're brought in, made to squat on the ground, hands cuffed behind their backs with plastic strips. Under the harsh lamps of the squad cars, they appear a forlorn bunch.

  "Aren't you cold?" Joel asks. "What happened to your sweatshirt?"

  I tell him I gave it to a refugee.

  "That's beautiful," he says. "I wish I could do stuff like that. Unfortunately I have this block about getting involved. You know, 'stay out of the story'—the hard-ass journalist's code."

  He looks around. "A scene like this is sadder than what happens down on the Mexican border. There it's like 'if we don't make it today, we'll try again tomorrow.' But for these people there won't be a second chance. Too long a distance, too high a cost."

  "They can ask for political asylum, can't they, Joel?"

  "They can ask, but they probably won't get. Truth is they come over for economic reasons, not to escape political persecution. And they won't be persecuted on their return either . . . as the Chinese consul will testify at their hearing."

  "So the only winners are the smugglers."

  "That's about right. The price is around thirty grand per head, life savings up front, remainder plus unconscionable interest to be paid out of earnings once you're here. Essentially this means years of indentured servitude working in restaurants and garment sweatshops. The guys who drove the cars and the ones on the boats—they're poor slobs too. It's the Chinatown fat-cat gangsters, the Wo Hop To boys, who get rich off this."

  It's so depressing we decide to leave, especially now that just about everyone who disembarked the little boat has been caught. The joint interception operation has been a success, signified by the self-congratulatory way Buzz Cut and the other big shots are now strutting about.

  In Joel's car, driving out of the Presidio, I assure him I got terrific stuff.

  "It's a good story," he says. "Something bothers me though. Who tipped us off—me and the Feds? Why'd he do it? Why'd he want those people rounded up? Believe me, Kay, it wasn't some patriot all upset over illegal immigration. Someone was trying to hurt somebody. Who? Why? That's the story I want."

  Joel's been driving the same battered VW Beetle for years. It bears the usual radical/funny Bay Area bumper stickers, old UCal parking permits, a mess of sneakers and pop bottles on the floor in back, a photo of Joel's Swedish ice-goddess girlfriend, Kirstin, taped to the steering wheel. A recent addition, a pair of their love child's baby shoes, swings from the rearview mirror.

  We head over to an all-night diner on Lombard. Though it's not yet six A.M., the place is filled with bedraggled cabbies and burly teamsters sipping fastidiously ordered coffee preparations—double espressos, cappuccinos, caffè mochas and macchiatos. We take a booth, order lattes, stare at one another, exhale.

  "How's little Roland?" I ask.

  Joel grins. "Totally lovable."

  Joel's such a pussy cat! I've seen him at the Marina Safeway, the kid swaddled in his backpack like a papoose, while he and Kirstin fill their grocery cart with baby food and Pampers.

  "How's your girl-boxer thing going?" he asks.

  He's talking about my current photographic project—hanging around gyms, shooting young female fighters. I like the kids, their commitment and discipline. My shots look good, I've caught the energy and the sweat. Just one problem—the pictures aren't leading me anywhere.

  "Actually I'm floundering," I tell him. "I've lost my way."

  "Stick with me, kiddo," he says, "you'll find it again. There's a big book in the waterfront, the whole Bay situation. Incredible beauty, incredible pollution. Bridge-jumpers, floaters, smugglers, corruption—you name it, it's out there."

  I shrug.

  "Meantime, are you really going for your black belt?" he asks.

  I nod. "Shodan is what we call it. When I started with aikido I never thought I'd get this far. I thought if I could just do half the stuff those black belts do, I'd be satisfied. Well, somehow, after six years, I seem to have picked up a technique or two. Sensei Rita says it'd be a shame not to try and go all the way."

  He nods, though I doubt he has much sympathy. He detests sports, even pretends not to know the names of Bay Area pro teams. For years he's ribbed me about my devotion to martial arts. Still, he respects commitment, so perhaps on some level he does understand. Also, I think he relishes the notion that someday, when we're in a tight spot, little me, his dewy-eyed former protégé, will protect him from a beating.

  After coffee, he drops me in front of my building at the crest of Russian Hill.

  "Thanks for an exciting evening," I tell him. "I'll drop off prints for you this afternoon."

  He busses my cheek. "You were great, Kay. Took guts to stand up back there."

  The light's flashing on my answering machine. I ignore it, go to the window, look out upon the city as it's touched by first light. There is a loneliness I feel as the sun comes up, a sorrow I can't quite define. Knowing that soon the light will be overpowering, I turn away from the window, undress, shower and then, in a robe, go to my answering machine to check my messages.

  There's only one, from David Yamada. The message is neutral enough: "Please call me, Kay, when you get in." But there's something intense in his tone that causes me to worry.

  Since I barely know David, I know his message must concern Maddy, my photography coach, mentor and guru, the guiding female light in my life since my mother killed herself when I was twenty-one. Now I'm worried that something's happened to her. I can't think of any other reason for David to call.

  Though it's not yet seven A.M., I phone him back. He picks up on the first ring.

  "Oh. Kay—I've got sad news. Better sit down," he says.

  I remain on my feet. "Maddy?"

  "I'm so sorry to have to tell you this, Kay. She passed away last night. I just don't know any other way to say it."

  Maddy dead! She's been in fragile heal
th the last few years, but still I can't believe it. I saw her just two days ago, visited her in her flat in the Marina. She went over my proof sheets; then we gabbed as usual about photography, people, life.

  "Oh, my God!" I drop the phone, stoop to pick it up. "What happened, David? Was it a stroke?"

  "No . . . something else."

  "What?"

  He doesn't answer.

  "For God's sakes, David—what happened?"

  "Seems she was killed in a hit-and-run."

  Jesus! The news slams into my stomach like a blow. Hit-and-run! That doesn't seem possible. She rarely went out in daytime, let alone at night. She lived in one of the safest neighborhoods in the city. How could such a thing happen?

  I sit down, take several long deep breaths, feel tears pulsing from my eyes.

  "Listen," he says, "there're a lot of people I've got to call, people in the East, Europe too. But I want you to know I tried you first, called you soon as I heard."

  "I was out all night shooting."

  "She would have loved that, Kay. You know she would. I'll call you back later, we'll talk some more. Is that all right?"

  "Yeah . . ."

  "You're okay?"

  "I'll manage, David. Talk to you later."

  After I hang up I stare out the window. The fog has lifted, the city is resplendent—glittering, white, cubic city of towers and hills. The light, growing intense, forces me to blink. I go to the windows, draw the drapes, allow my eyes to rest. Brilliant San Francisco days, so glorious for others, are painful for me. I like the city best when it's enveloped in fog, swaddled in mystery and mist.

  I sit again, visualize Maddy as she appeared two days ago, her body so frail, her eyes brilliant as lasers. "Eyes that should be registered as dangerous weapons," an interviewer once wrote. In fact, I think, Maddy truly was her eyes, not just because they were so prominent, but on account of the way she employed them in her work. Her eyes defined her. Her work was about seeing, unmasking, looking through surfaces, penetrating to hidden cores. If photography, like all visual art, is about the artist's vision, then Maddy's art cut deep.

  I pick up the phone, dial David again, apologize for interrupting him, tell him I must know more before I try to sleep.

  He tells me there'll be a graveside service day after tomorrow. People will be flying in from L.A. and New York. Maddy will be buried beside Harry Yamada, David's father, in the Japanese cemetery in Colma.

  "She wanted that," David tells me. "She left a letter, mentioned you in it, Kay, wanted you to have all her cameras."

  Now I can't hold back my tears.

  "But that's great!" David tries to reassure me. "You were her favorite student. What better way to pass on the baton?"

  He tells me her archive, prints and negatives, will go to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. He can't, however, tell me much about the hit-and-run. Just that Maddy was run down by a motorcyclist in the Mission district sometime after midnight. The police, finding David's name in her purse, called him to ID her body.

  "What was she doing there, David?"

  "I can't figure it out."

  "Did she have friends in the Mission?"

  He doesn't think so, but isn't sure. Then, when he tells me where the accident took place, on Capp near Twenty-fourth, I'm even more confused. I've shot film near there, covered the narcotics and prostitution scene, know it as one of the roughest areas of the city.

  "Could she have been out shooting?" I ask, knowing full well that three years ago she told everyone she was giving up photography to devote herself full-time to her students and to organizing her archive.

  "Hard to believe," David says. "She turned sixty-eight in February, was barely well enough to walk to the store, let alone shoot on the street. No camera was found, and since the cops found her purse with money inside, I think they'd have found her camera too if she'd been carrying one."

  "But she must have been doing something?"

  "Beats me," he says.

  After we say goodbye, I know I must try and get some sleep. I pull the bedroom drapes, then, just before slipping into bed, gaze at a print Maddy gave me that hangs on the opposite wall.

  It's from the series of astonishing photographs she took for Life during the Vietnam War. The contrast is extreme, the blacks inky and rich, the scene set in the highlands under brooding failing light. It's a simple picture really: a group of five GIs, cold, grizzled and dirty, crouching by a small fire, holding their hands above the flames for warmth. It speaks eloquently of misery, mud, filth and chill, days spent beneath drab skies in close proximity to death. The most important aspect of the picture is the connection Maddy makes with the soldiers' eyes. All five gaze straight at her in a manner that seems to reach beyond her lens. It's the famous haunted "thousand-yard stare" of combat soldiers—eyes that have witnessed unspeakable horror.

  It's certainly not a cheery picture for a bedroom, not one a decorator would choose. But I love it, it moves me, not only because I find it profound but because of what it tells me about the photographer—that she saw deeply and clearly, with strong emotion but without a scintilla of sentimentality. It reminds me that Maddy was a great photojournalist, gives me a standard to aspire to. And now that she's gone I know that every time I look at it I'll see what she once saw through those remarkable eyes.

  I wake up a little after noon, rested if not refreshed. The bed is redolent of sandalwood soap, the scent of my occasional lover, Dr. Sasha Patel. For a moment I wonder why I've slept so late, then recall last night's adventure and the terrible news that hit me when I got home.

  Maddy gone.

  A surge of sadness fills me. I'm tempted to close my eyes, go back to sleep. But that isn't my way. Instead I get up, splash water on my face, pull on a T-shirt and jeans, then go into my darkroom to process the rolls I shot last night.

  There's something soothing about darkroom work, the quiet solitude, the routine. The light's dim, which calms my eyes. I even like the smell of the photochemicals, no doubt an acquired taste. Negative images fascinate me, the reversal of tones, seeing dark objects as light and light as dark. Best of all I love the magic of the process, seeing images emerge where none were visible before.

  My pictures of the illegals are as strong as I'd hoped. I believe I've caught their cheer as they came ashore, their terror beneath the chopper, desperation as they fled, dejection when they were caught. I think about what Maddy will say, her criticisms as she holds my proof sheets in her hands. Then, remembering she's gone, I grasp the magnitude of my loss.

  I'll have to become my own critic now.

  Rapidly I machine-dry the proofs, clean up my darkroom, place the dry prints in an envelope, phone for a taxi, grab my gym bag, then go downstairs to wait.

  I drop the proof sheets for Joel at the News offices in SoMa, then circle back to the corner of Lombard and Octavia, where there's a storefront Cambodian restaurant.

  Marina Aikido's on the second floor. The sensei here is a kick-ass former Marine—Rita Reese, lean, tall, black, hair braided into cornrows , white plastic clacker beads secured to the braids. No inscrutable koans from her. She's not one of your mystical Northern Californian types. She's deceptively casual, a down-to-earth martial artist. But just try sneaking up on her. Her awareness is superhuman!

  The dojo's austere. The mat is white. On one wall, the kamiza, there's a photograph of Morihei Ueshiba, founder of aikido, while the opposite wall is lined with mirrors. Wooden swords and assorted stabbing and striking weapons are arranged aesthetically in a rack. A vase on a low table displays a budding cherry branch.

  When I come in, early arrivals are already warming up. I go to the changing room, put on my ki, join them on the mat, start my breathing and stretching routines. Just as class is to begin, Rita emerges from her office, sleek in her black floor-length hakama skirt. When and if I achieve my shodan, I shall wear a hakama too.

  I recall the night, six years ago, when I first came here with a friend. We were train
ing in karate, but curious to see what aikido was about. Amazed by what I witnessed, I decided to give up karate and train here, and have been coming three times a week ever since.

  For me aikido seems just so . . . right. For one thing it's a defensive art. We don't kick, nor do we strike very much; rather we wheel, blend and throw. The techniques are difficult, requiring great concentration, the art's physically, mentally and spiritually demanding. But the end result's extremely beautiful—balletic, clean, composed of quick breathtaking moves combined in a seemingly effortless flow.

  It's the purity of aikido that I love, also something curious that transforms me whenever I train. Although the dojo is well lit and thus should be hard on my eyes, here my poor vision seems to abate. In practice I become acutely aware of everything around me, sensing, feeling, achieving a state that calms my soul.

  This afternoon my workout partner is Tom, a student at U.C. Tall, shaggy-haired, he has a gentle manner—fitting, I think, since I can use some gentleness today. We train well together, practice wrist-holds, throws and falls, blend in whirlpools of energy. By the end of class, sweaty and slightly sore, I feel I've been through a clarifying experience.

  Usually after class, several of us walk over to Chestnut Street for coffee. Today, when Tom asks me to join in, I gently decline. Instead I walk on to Maddy's building on Alhambra, following a route I've taken many times. It was my habit to drop in on her at least once a week after class, carrying my proof sheets in my gym bag.

  I stand outside the 1930s period structure of stucco and embedded beams, gazing up at her windows on the second floor. Even wearing my heaviest wraparound shades, I can scarcely bear the glitter of the light bouncing off the walls. Still, I can see that the blinds are open. Always, when Maddy knew I was coming, she would thoughtfully close them in advance.

  Saturday afternoon: The sky's overcast when I reach the Japanese cemetery. Maddy, of course, wasn't Japanese, she was born and brought up in Wyoming, one grandfather a Wind River Shoshone. But when she married Harry Yamada she became fascinated with Japanese-American culture. The beautiful heart-wrenching book they created on the memories of Nisei herded off to internment camps—her pictures, his text— undoubtedly influenced the passage of the 1988 Civil Liberties Act that finally granted reparations to internees.