The Devil's Photographer

by Amy Cross

  Eventually, I lower the camera and stare at the church. I just saw a hundred or so people coming out, but I didn't see them going in, which can only mean one thing. They must have been there all along, even when I was inside.

  Twenty-one years ago

  "Are you sure?" Mark asks, leaning across the bed and holding the cigarette out for me. "Might help you relax."

  "Given my history with cancer," I reply, turning my back on him as I sit on the edge, "I think I'd better not." Looking down at the floor, I start gathering the clothes I threw off earlier with such abandon.

  "Hey," he continues, reaching around and clutching my bare left breast. "You don't have to leave, you know."

  "There's a subway strike," I remind him. "I should -"

  "I mean you can stay the night," he says, interrupting me.

  I pause, not quite sure how to react.

  "You've graduated," he continues. "You're not a student anymore, so it's not a problem. We can stop pussy-footing around, Kate." He pauses, as if he's waiting for me to say something. "I'd like you to stay," he adds. "There, I said it. Call me a fool if you like, but I'd like you to spend the night in my bed. Maybe we can go get breakfast together in the morning. I'd like that."

  I look down at his hand as he gently squeezes my breast.

  "Would you like that?" he asks.

  I open my mouth to say something, but the truth is, I'm torn. There's a part of me that would definitely like to stay and get closer to Mark; after all, we've been sleeping together for almost six months and we should be getting to know one another better by now. Then again, the thought of getting closer to him - to anyone - makes me worry. It's been four years since my last battle with cancer, but I'm still convinced it's going to come back.

  "I'll take your silence as a sign that you'd rather not," he says, pulling his hand away.

  "It's not that," I reply, turning to him and seeing the disappointment in his eyes. "I just..." Pausing again, I try to work out how to phrase my concerns. "I'm not sure I'm ready," I explain eventually.

  "Do you think you'll ever be ready?" he asks.

  I pause.

  "I'm not asking you to move in," he continues, "or to marry me or have my kids. I just thought you might like to stay the night instead of rushing off as soon as we're done. Is my pillow-talk really so awful?"

  "No," I reply with a faint smile. "I just like sleeping in my own bed."

  "I guess I can understand that," he replies, taking another drag on his cigarette. "The offer's open, though, if you want to take it up some other time."

  "I will," I tell him as I grab my panties, stand up, and start getting dressed. "I promise, just not tonight. I need to plan ahead a bit, you know?"

  "You never do things spontaneously, do you?" he asks.

  "Sometimes," I reply as I put my bra back on. "Not all the time, admittedly, but..." I pause as I realize that I'm probably pushing him away, which isn't what I want. "I came over tonight pretty spontaneously," I point out. "You called me, I said I'd be here in half an hour... That's not bad, huh?"

  "Not bad at all," he replies.

  "Besides," I continue, stepping into my jeans, "I've got work to do tomorrow morning. I need to get those pictures ready for the exhibition."

  "Have you thought any more about a self-portrait?" he asks.

  "No," I say firmly, bristling at the mere suggestion of such an idea. "I don't like them."

  "But you did one once," he continues. "I'd like to see it."

  "I think I destroyed it," I say, gathering the rest of my things as fast as possible. "I have to dash," I tell him, hurrying to the door, "but I'll give you a call some time before the weekend, okay?" Without waiting for him to reply, I head out of the room. Whenever Mark mentions self-portraits, I worry that he's trying to dig into my past. It's been a couple of years since I took a photo of myself, and the screaming face on the print still haunts me. I can't help thinking that maybe that thing is still inside me, still screaming in my mind.

  Today

  He runs his hands across my naked body, pausing for a moment as his fingers explore the scars on my chest. I flinch, but I let him examine me more closely. I guess most people never sleep with someone who suffered this kind of disfigurement, so I should let him take a proper look.

  Still, I feel hideous.

  Like a monster.

  "You're beautiful," he whispers.

  I force a smile.

  "All of you," he adds, brushing his fingertips along the line of the main scar before kissing my belly. He moves back up my body and starts to kiss me, and I let him; it's a long, slow, passionate kiss, and after a moment I feel him starting to position himself between my legs. Finally, he enters me, and the kiss becomes firmer and more urgent as he slides deeper and deeper into my vagina. I reach around and put my hands on his bare buttocks, encouraging him to keep going.

  We continue to kiss as he starts making love to me. It's been a long time since I was with someone I actually cared about, or at least someone I thought I care about. Not since Mark... Then again, I guess I shouldn't start thinking about Mark right now. Dagwood deserves my full attention, so I open my legs a little wider, hoping that he might be able to penetrate a little deeper.

  I close my eyes for a moment, focusing on the slow build-up of pleasure.

  He whispers something, but I don't quite catch it.

  "What was that?" I ask.

  He whispers again, but I still can't make it out.

  "What did you say?" I ask.

  "You won't remember this," he says quietly, leaning close to my ear. "Not until it's too late, anyway."

  I open my eyes and turn to him, but he's gone.

  Sitting up in bed, I find that I'm alone in my apartment. I look over at the other side of the bed, but the sheets are neat and it's clear that no-one else has been here. Checking my watch, I find that it's almost 8am, and the morning sun is trying to break through the blinds that cover my windows. I look down at my bare chest and I swear to God I can still feel the sensation of Dagwood's hands on my skin. Still, I should have realized it was a dream all along. There's no way I'd ever let a man into my bed again, not on those terms.

  Rolling onto my side, I quickly realize that there's no way I'm going to be able to get back to sleep. I keep telling myself that the dream was meaningless, that I have no sexual interest in Dagwood at all, but at the same time I can't stop thinking about the feel of his hands on my body. It might have been a dream, but it was the most vivid dream of my life.

  I can't let anything happen, though. Dinner with him tonight has to be strictly platonic. I'm no longer the kind of person who can consider anything more serious. Not after everything that happened all those years ago with Mark.

  Twenty-one years ago

  "Hey, it's me," I say as I walk along the sidewalk. It's late, and I figured I should call Mark and apologize for leaving so abruptly. Unfortunately, I've gone straight through to his voicemail. "I just wanted to say that I'm sorry."

  Stopping at the crossing, I wait for a moment as traffic flashes past.

  "I'm an idiot," I continue. "I should have stayed, but it's too late to turn back now. I just don't want you to think that it was anything to do with you, okay? It takes me time to get used to things, that's all, but I'll try harder. I'll give you a call in the next few days."

  Ending the call, I put my phone back in my pocket. Seconds later, the light goes green and I step forward, along with a couple of other pedestrians.

  The next couple of seconds are a blur. I hear someone screaming, and I turn just in time to see something huge and dark racing straight toward me. Although I know I should get out of the way, my feet suddenly feel as if they're far too heavy to move, and the last thing I see is the shocked face of the bus driver as his vehicle slams straight into me, and then another face, one of the passengers -

  Before I can react, the bus slams into me and I'm instantly knocked out.

  Today

  "Some people
are lucky," Dagwood says as we sit in the restaurant. "They can practice their religion freely, in open, and they can talk about it. We live in an age that's supposed to be free of religious persecution, and yet that's not really the case at all. If you know where to look, you can still find plenty of examples of people who are pushed into the margins and sometimes even punished for their beliefs."

  "To be fair," I reply, taking a sip of wine, "those beliefs are usually pushed to the side for a reason. They're usually fanatical or extreme."

  "But not always," he points out. "Sometimes propaganda is used to discredit people who want nothing more than to go about their business. It's the oldest trick in the book. If you can persuade people that your enemy is a danger to the rest of society, you can do anything you like to him. I know that might sound paranoid, but I've seen it first-hand, Kate. Whole religions, whole cultures have been marginalized, demonized and finally eradicated. Most people don't pay enough attention to even notice it. Not unless it suddenly starts happening to them, anyway."

  He pauses, and it's clear that he's finding it difficult to be so honest. Then again, I can't be entirely certain that he is being honest. Despite his obvious anger, I still get the feeling that he's holding something back and that he's not being honest about his motives. For one thing, I don't quite understand how I fit into all of this.

  "Some people fight back," he continues, "and others choose to accept their place in the shadows. It can be hard, always having to hide and pretend that part of your life doesn't exist, but after a while it becomes second nature. Unfortunately, that can be both a blessing and a curse. It seeps into your soul and makes you a different kind of person, someone who finds it harder to trust other people. I guess that's why I've been twisting myself into awkward shapes in an attempt to avoid telling you the truth. I'm sure you noticed eventually that I seemed evasive."

  "The thought had occurred to me," I tell him, carefully making sure not to mention that I'm still not convinced that he's telling the truth.

  "I guess it's a habit," he adds. "Our people have spent so long in the shadows, avoiding any kind of contact with the mainstream world, I sometimes think secrecy and deception have become hardwired into our DNA. I guess it's a kind of group memory."

  "Your people?" I ask. "When you say that, you almost make it sound like you're part of some kind of grand tradition -"

  "That's how it feels sometimes," he replies, cutting me off. "My parents were involved in the church, as were their parents before them. Most of the members of our congregation are second or third generation members, and some even go as far back as two hundred years. It's actually a fascinating story, and we've been very careful to write it all down. We have people who are dedicated to recording the history of our people." He pauses. "I know what you're thinking. You're thinking we're more like a cult than a religion, and I understand that sentiment but it's completely inaccurate."

  "That's not what I was thinking, actually," I tell him.

  "You've seen how the world works," he continues. "All through history, groups of people have been persecuted and victimized purely because of their religion, or their appearance, or the color of their skin. There's something about humanity that just makes us group together and attack others. There's safety in numbers, but there's also a danger of being outnumbered. Some people are willing to be martyrs, but not us. You won't find us strung up in public somewhere, or being burned in wire cages. We prefer to survive, to keep moving even if we have to remain in the shadows. One day we'll find a way to get what we want."

  "Which is?" I ask.

  "Freedom. The right to worship openly."

  "And who do you worship?"

  He pauses.

  "Like you said," I continue, "some groups get pushed to the margins and labeled as extremists, so I can't help wondering what part of your activities might cause people to be suspicious. If you were just worshiping the same god as everyone else, you wouldn't need to be quite so paranoid."

  He stares at me for a moment, as if he wasn't quite ready to answer this question yet. Just as he seems ready to say something, however, the waiter brings our food, and we sit politely until he's gone again.

  "We believe in a man," Dagwood continues eventually, lowering his voice a little. "Not a god, a man. Well, a human. He changes bodies from time to time, and we believe he might even have taken female form occasionally. He's a figure who has the potential to change the world. He's been here before, and he's going to come back. We've found traces of him in all the main religious texts around the world. He's never the central figure, but he appears very briefly in Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism... He goes by different names in each of his appearances, and at first glance you'd never think to connect these different names, but once you do..." He pauses again. "When the scales fall from your eyes and you realize the link, it's astonishing."

  "So you have proof?" I ask, before correcting myself. "I mean, you think you have proof?"

  "We're scholars," he replies. "We've all studied the texts. One of the things that makes our group so powerful is the fact that we use the religious texts of all the other main religions. We bring them together, and we show that this one man was threaded through everything, like an observer or..."

  I wait for him to finish.

  "Or what?" I ask eventually.

  "I'd have to show you," he continues. "Later, maybe. The problem is, there's another figure that also appears in most of the texts, and he pursues his prey with ravenous intent. No-one knows exactly where he came from, but his dedication to the cause is incredible and his appearances always become more frequent in advance of a great event. The fact that he's been seen so often in recent years is a clear indication that we need to be ready for some kind of schism." He pauses again. "That man's name is Amin Bell, at least in his current incarnation. He's lost, and he struggles to break through and communicate with the world, but he's out there and he's dangerous. That's why we had to drive him out of your head. Your photography had captured his interest, but beyond that we've been struggling to work out exactly what he wanted with you. Have you seen him at all since the operation?"

  "No," I say cautiously. "I keep expecting him to appear, though. I don't know if I'll ever quite get over that."

  "He's gone, though. That's the important thing."

  I smile awkwardly.

  "I thought you'd be more relieved," he continues.

  "It's not that," I reply. "It's just..." I pause as I try to decide whether to tell him about my attempt yesterday to take a self-portrait. I want to ask him if he thinks I'm insane, but finally I realize that this is one thing that I should probably just try to forget. "I've just been having a busy time lately," I say finally. "Until very recently, I believed I was going to die soon. I threw myself into my work because I needed to distract myself, and now I find myself constantly wondering if there's been some kind of huge mistake."

  "There's no mistake," he says with a smile. "Your death sentence has been lifted and you're got a whole life to plan for. Scary, huh?"

  "Kind of," I admit.

  "So what are you going to do?" he continues. "Travel? Work?"

  "I guess I need to find a job," I tell him. "I've been living off the money I was awarded following an accident a few years back, and I thought I could eke it out until the cancer killed me. Now I've got to actually think about a career."

  "I'm sure you'll do fine," he replies. "Whatever you end up choosing."

  I smile politely, but I still feel uneasy. Dagwood's explanations don't entirely make sense and I'm convinced that he's holding something back. I know I should just let it go and be grateful for everything he's done, but I still want to see exactly what goes on in that church, and I can't shake the feeling that one day, when I'm least expecting it, Amin Bell is going to appear again.

  Twenty-one years ago

  "Can you tell me your name?" the doctor says calmly, as he takes a seat next to my hospital bed.

  I stare at him. Why's he aski
ng me such a dumb question?

  "Do you remember your name?" he continues.

  "Kate," I reply.

  "That's good," he says, making a note on his chart. "And can you tell me the name of the current president of the United States?"

  I pause for a moment. "Bill Clinton," I say eventually.

  "That's right," he says, making another note. "Now, can you tell me what you remember of the accident?"

  "What accident?" I ask.

  "The accident that led to your hospitalization," he replies.

  I stare at him as I try to remember exactly what happened. I have a vague memory of being on the phone to Mark, and then I think I started to cross the road, and then... I remember something slamming into me, and after that, I think I remember someone shouting into my ear, asking if I was okay.

  "You've been here with us for five days," the doctor continues.

  "Five days?" I reply, shocked by the idea that so much time could have passed.

  "There was some swelling on your brain," he explains calmly, "so we kept you in an induced coma while we waited for it to ease a little. There were also a few other complications, but you're out of danger now. I just want to assure you that even though you're undoubtedly in pain, you're going to be okay."