The Luzern Photograph

by William Bayer

  ‘Good! ’Cause this is the last conversation we’re going to have.’

  I wait till he scurries away, then head back to the Buckley, wondering where I got the nerve to come at him so strong.

  Scarpaci calls. ‘The box address on the business card’s been cancelled,’ he says. ‘Most likely the name’s fake. But the San Francisco phone number’s active. I wonder if you’d—’

  Even before he explains I know what he wants me to do. ‘Sure, I’ll call him, see if I can lure him back to the East Bay.’

  We plan the lure together. I’ll call the number on the card, tell Carl I’d like to see him again. I’ll explain I’m working on a performance piece about Chantal (true) and that I’d like his advice on a scene (false). If he hesitates I’ll imply I might let him come up to the loft for a look around (not a chance!). We’ll meet at the same café. At some point, after I’ve gotten all I can out of him, I’ll tell him the detective working Chantal’s murder wants to talk to him too.

  ‘At this point he’ll probably be pissed,’ Scarpaci says, ‘so after introductions you’ll excuse yourself. I’ll keep it civilized, explain I’m working hard on the case and need his help. If he balks I’ll tell him that whoever he is, I doubt he’ll want it known he was the client of a murdered dominatrix.’

  ‘You play rough, Scarpaci.’

  ‘Only when I have to,’ he says.

  In the morning, when I turn on my computer, I find the Gräfin’s reply. It’s written in perfect English.

  Dear Tess Berenson:

  Thank you for your kind message. Thanks to Chantal’s brother, I was aware of what happened, but the details are vague and I’m hopeful you can tell me more.

  I am still in shock over this. I’m also hesitant to talk on the phone about my friend. However I will be coming to New York on business in a couple of weeks. If you want to meet up that would be the place to do it.

  Thank you for offering to return my intimate letters. Please destroy them. My philosophy is never to brood upon the past, but to process it and move on. That is what I am trying to do now in regard to the loss of my dear Chantal. As difficult as this is, I am doing my best.

  With kind regards,

  Gräfin Eva

  I’m thrilled. A face-to-face meeting in New York would be perfect. As for her request that I destroy her letters, I can’t bring myself to do it.

  I run into Josh in the lobby. We step into the elevator together.

  ‘Your floor, madame?’ he asks, acting the part of elevator man.

  ‘Isn’t it early in the year to be groveling for tips?’

  ‘I’m intrigued by your use of the word groveling,’ he says.

  ‘I like that word. In fact, I used it just the other day.’

  ‘What was the occasion?’

  ‘Lunch with my ex.’

  He guffaws. The elevator stops at five. He turns to me. ‘I finished Queen of Cups. Want to look?’

  I see it the moment we enter his studio. It’s prominently displayed on an easel facing the bank of windows. It’s an excellent painting, I think, as good as and yet very different from his Queen of Swords. I like the way he’s depicted me, face open, vulnerable, as I stare out of the canvas. His painting of Chantal holding a sword exuded power and mystery. His painting of me holding a coffee cup makes Queen of Cups look friendly and accessible.

  He steps into his galley kitchen to prepare tea.

  ‘Talked to that detective friend of yours again. Like I said, he’s quite the character.’

  ‘I wouldn’t exactly call him my friend.’

  ‘Really?’ He turns to me after he puts his kettle on the fire. ‘I got the impression … well, never mind. Cozying up to him makes sense.’

  ‘Don’t know what you mean by cozying. He’s a source. I wish you were as open. You hold your cards pretty close.’

  He pours hot water into the teapot, sets it along with cups and saucers on a tray.

  ‘Why don’t you ask me outright what you want to know?’ he says as I follow him into the living area.

  ‘How can I do that, Josh, when I don’t know what to ask about?’

  ‘Give it a shot.’

  I thump my forehead. There’re too many metaphors in play – cozying up, holding cards, taking shots. Time to stop the nonsense, give Josh a serious push.

  We sit on the couch. I turn to him soon as we’re settled.

  ‘You monitored her sessions, so you know what she was into. If it wouldn’t embarrass you I’d love to hear descriptions.’

  He exhales. ‘It wouldn’t embarrass me. But I think the most interesting things about Chantal didn’t have to do with her sessions. They had to do with the weird things that intrigued her. Like that photograph I posed for. What was that all about? And her obsession with Hitler. When I’d ask her about that, she’d show me her guarded smile and change the subject. She had some kind of bug up her butt about him. She showed me pictures of his crappy paintings. She seemed to think he could be understood through his artwork. I told her artists often use their art as a way to conceal rather than reveal, and in my opinion he was more an illustrator than an artist.’ He shrugs. ‘It was like she had this closely guarded inner life she kept locked away. That’s what I think is interesting about her.’

  ‘Do you think this guarded side may have led to her getting killed?’

  ‘I’ve wondered about that. But since she never revealed what it was …’ He shrugs again. ‘I thought of her as a friend, but I understood our friendship only went so far. She compartmentalized. She didn’t want you to know who she was. She liked being a cipher. She once told me she liked hiding inside the dominatrix archetype. When I painted her I tried to work in the idea that there was a lot more to this Queen than just a mighty lady holding a sword.’

  ‘You did that, Josh,’ I tell him. ‘Your Queen of Swords is powerful and enigmatic. I love having it on loan. When I get stuck writing I turn to it for inspiration.’

  As I work on what I’m now calling the Chantal Project, I remember Rex’s admonition that every major character in a drama should possess a secret, something she holds back from the audience and other characters, something that underlies everything she says and does.

  What, I ask myself, are the secrets I can assign to my three principals? What drives them toward an intersection? I realize that if I knew that my drama would write itself.

  One thing I do know: what intrigues me most about Chantal is the hall of mirrors effect – that the more I discover about her the more distant and complex she seems to be.

  Often when I’m working, I pause and peer around the loft. I gaze at Queen of Swords and then think of the role-playing that was enacted inside these walls and the strange pleasures that were felt by the role-players.

  At other times, when my writing’s going well, I feel as if Chantal is guiding my hand.

  This is what she wants me to say, I think. This is how she wants to be seen and understood.

  Today Dr Maude wants to talk about Lou Salomé. She tells me she’s been reading up on her. She tells me she wanted to know more about this person I keep talking about, and also because Lou was a serious committed shrink.

  ‘She wasn’t a key figure in the history of psychoanalysis,’ she tells me, ‘but still she was important. From the time she and Freud met they became lifelong friends. Yet for the most part their correspondence is formal. She addresses him as “dear Professor”. After a few years he writes her back as “dearest Lou”. Once he addresses her as “My dear indomitable friend!” Each held the other in very high regard. Early on she asks him to send her his picture. He agrees on condition that she send him one of herself. When he receives it, he places it on the bookshelf behind his desk. Today if you go to the Freud Museum in Hampstead you’ll see it there just where he kept it.’

  As always, near the end of session, Dr Maude attempts to link things up.

  ‘I know you identify with Chantal. I think you’re wrong when you say you’re her mirror image. I be
lieve you see things in her you find lacking in yourself.’

  I ponder her analysis. ‘I face people and address them. She got down and dirty with her clients. I act things out. She lived them.’

  ‘Do you envy that?’

  ‘No, I’d be afraid to go so far. We still don’t know why she was killed, but Scarpaci is certain it had to do with her work.’

  ‘What about her obsession with Lou Salomé? Any new thoughts about that?’

  ‘The whip imagery in the Luzern photograph – I have a feeling Chantal fixated on that, which is why she decided to re-enact it with herself playing the Lou role. I also believe she identified with Lou in the sense that like Lou she recognized she was very neurotic. In Lou’s case that recognition led to her becoming a shrink, in Chantal’s to becoming a dominatrix. Each, I believe, genuinely wanted to help people, but ultimately each was seeking to understand herself.’

  Dr Maude smiles. ‘The quest to understand ourselves draws many of us to this profession. But don’t undervalue our desire to relieve others of pain.’

  I tell her I don’t undervalue that, but that understanding this about Lou helps me to understand things about Chantal such as her belief in ‘the pain that obliterates pain,’ the corporeal pain that can relieve the awful psychic pain deep inside. I tell her I think both women believed that, and that I do too.

  ‘I think that’s what drives me to stand up in front of an audience and tell my stories.’

  I remind her of my Black Mirrors piece, during which I stood by a pole in the center of an octagon constructed of eight panes of one-way glass, then degraded myself by stripping and pole-dancing while talking dirty with the knowledge that behind each dark mirror sat a lustful man jerking off in a private booth.

  Dr Maude nods. ‘The other day you seemed to doubt knowing who you are. I think you understand yourself very well, Tess, and why you’re so intrigued with both these women.’

  I leave the session perplexed. Is Dr Maude right? Are Chantal and I more different than I first thought? And, more to the point, can I use our differences in my play to define my quest to know and understand her?

  Late today I make a major decision. In this drama I will not present the interactions between Lou, Chantal, and myself in a real-time sequence, but will intercut them, moving back and forth in time, forcing the audience to piece the story together.

  But what is the story? And what, I ask myself, is my role in it? Prober? Investigator? Snoop? One thing for certain: I can’t be an uninvolved bystander. The story, I remind myself, has to be as much about me as about Chantal and Lou.

  Again I wake up in the middle of the night sweating and trembling. I have dreamt again of having sex with Chantal, but this time our love-making isn’t so tender. This time there’s a dominance/submission aspect: Chantal giving me instructions in a throaty whisper as to how she wants to be pleasured, and me, face buried between her legs, obeying her every command. She moans and writhes, pressing me harder between her thighs. When she comes in spasms, I raise my head to peer at her. A smile of contentment curls her lips. ‘Good girl,’ she whispers.

  I wake up, hot and wet, knowing I’m trapped now deeper than ever inside her web.

  Responding to Eva, I make no mention of her request that I destroy her letters. I tell her I would like very much to meet her in New York and am prepared to travel there once her plans are set. I also refer her to my website and tell her a little about my work. I mention that although my performance pieces are fiction, they’re always based in part on fact, and I admit that the little I’ve discovered about Chantal has inspired me to develop a piece based on aspects of her life, in particular her fascination with the extraordinary Lou Salomé. I write that I hope this does not seem exploitative. I also promise that when I see her I will fill her in on everything I know about the police investigation … my hope, of course, being that this will make her all the more eager to confide in me.

  Carl peers at me anxiously waiting for me to explain myself. Does he suspect this summons is a set-up?

  We’re sitting mid-morning in Downtown Café, sipping from lattes.

  ‘I read about you on The Chronicle’s society page,’ he tells me. ‘You gave some kind of recital in a mansion in Presidio Heights. I gathered some people thought it was pretty mean.’

  ‘Is that why you’re looking at me this way?’

  ‘I’m curious why you wanted to see me again.’

  I meet his eyes. ‘I’m curious about something too. Exactly what was your relationship with Chantal?’

  ‘I told you all about that.’

  ‘Everything?’ He peers nervously at me. ‘Frankly I don’t buy the reason you gave for wanting to come up to the loft. You know – “for old times’ sake”. Really?’

  He lowers his eyes. ‘I was totally obsessed with her,’ he whispers.

  ‘Did she know you were?’

  ‘I told her I wanted to be full-time under her control. She didn’t take that well. She said it wasn’t her I was obsessed with, it was an archetype. She said I had no idea of what she was really like. She reminded me I was a client with whom she had a fee-for-services relationship. She also said she had a strict policy regarding boundaries.’

  ‘How’d that make you feel?’ I ask, enjoying my role as amateur shrink.

  ‘Bad. I tried to persuade her, but she was adamant. The more I begged, the sterner she became. Finally she told me we should take a break. I knew what that meant. Banishment. After that she wouldn’t take my calls. I was devastated.’

  My heart goes out to him even as I realize he’d become dangerously obsessed with Chantal, and that she was right to cut him off.

  ‘Your name isn’t Carl Draper, is it?’ He shakes his head. ‘You knew Chantal was murdered when you came by last time?’ He nods, then looks down at his coffee. ‘You weren’t honest with me. Fine, we didn’t know each other. But what gets me is that you made a big pretense of being open.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Tess. You make me feel ashamed.’

  ‘That’s how you should feel. And I hope it’s not just because I found you out. It’s time to come clean, Carl. The detective who’s working the case wants to talk to you. His name’s Scarpaci. He’s sitting now at a table just outside. I think you should talk to him.’

  ‘That’s why you called me, isn’t it?’ His expression tells me he’s resigned.

  ‘Want me to introduce you?’

  ‘Do I have a choice?’

  ‘No, not really,’ I tell him.

  Scarpaci calls me late this afternoon.

  ‘His real name’s Carl Hughes. He’s a curator at the San Francisco Fine Arts Museum. He’s married, has two kids, owns a house in the Marina. He saw Chantal once a month for nearly two years. He was, in his own words, addicted to her. He was also into a rare fetish, a control game called “consensual blackmail”. In this game the sub wants the domme to accumulate embarrassing documentation about him then threaten to expose him as a pervert to his family, friends, colleagues, and employer unless he pays or performs further humiliating acts. Chantal refused to play this with him. She told him it was against everything she stood for. He begged, she continued to refuse, he continued to beg, until finally she told him she couldn’t see him anymore.’

  ‘So he wasn’t really in thrall to her. He just wanted her to threaten him with ruin.’

  ‘Yeah, but this is where his story takes a strange turn. One day he receives an envelope at his office. There’re photos inside, a series of shots taken during the photo session Chantal did with him and Josh. They show him wearing the fabric hood that exposed his features. According to Josh, Chantal trashed those images. But maybe not. Hughes says his features were clear in the pictures and that anyone who knew him would recognize him. He wasn’t frightened or upset. On the contrary, he was thrilled. He figured her earlier refusals were part of some devious power play and that now the blackmail game he’d asked her for was on. He was looking forward to the psychological struggle. Now that he’d rec
eived the photos he expected her to contact him and make harsh demands. But when he didn’t receive any follow-up he started calling and emailing her again. Finally she called him back. According to him they had an angry exchange. She denied she had anything to do with sending him photos. When he described them to her, she reminded him the first set had been destroyed, so he couldn’t possibly have received such images. She told him again she regretted having to cut him off, but that his insistence on a blackmail relationship had made further contact impossible. According to Hughes this was their last contact. He also says there was never a follow-up to the mailing.’

  ‘Wow! What do you think?’

  ‘I think he’s one sick pup. Or else he’s worked up a slick story. I asked if he still has the photos. He swore he destroyed them. No way, of course, to verify that, but in the end I believed him because his story’s so detailed and self-harming. He may have wanted Chantal to tighten her control by threatening to expose and embarrass him, but he certainly doesn’t want me or anyone else to tell his wife about their sessions or their relationship.’

  ‘So is he a person of interest?’

  ‘For now. But if he’s telling the truth, the big question is who sent him those pictures?’

  ‘You’re thinking it was Josh?’

  ‘He’s at the top of the list.’

  This morning I receive a second email from Gräfin Eva.

  Dear Tess Berenson:

  Since our last exchange I visited your website and was impressed by your work. Congratulations on receiving the Hollis Grant. You appear to be a serious artist. I’m sure Chantal would be appreciative of your interest, and would not consider your project exploitative before hearing more details.

  I am open to helping you providing you can convince me of your sincerity and that you have a positive attitude toward my dear friend. This is not to say that I plan to ask for any control over what you do, only that I must be convinced of your good intentions. As I’m sure you understand, mutual trust is essential. I believe the best way to build such trust is to meet in person.

  I will be visiting New York for approximately six days beginning on July 20. I hope this suits your schedule. I look forward to meeting you and hearing more details concerning your project, as well as any progress you can report on the police investigation.