Photographing Fairies: A Novel

by Steve Szilagyi

“Do you want to help them or don’t you?”

  “Watch out,” Zob leaned over and whispered loudly to Walsmear. “He looks like a tricky one.”

  “I am not tricky.”

  “Then why do you deny it?” Zob asked. He folded his arms and turned to Walsmear. “Do you see what I mean?”

  “Let him go on,” Walsmear said.

  I could have kissed his feet.

  “Let me start from the beginning,” I said. “From that remarkable photograph. You don’t know this, but I made two copies of prints from your negatives. One set I gave to you. The other I kept.”

  “Oh — what did I tell you?” Zob slapped his knee. “He’s devious, Pokey. Don’t trust him.”

  Walsmear gave a regal wave of his hand

  “Thank you.” I continued, “I was impressed by what I saw in that enlargement. And I thought that you should have credit for having been correct about it. So I took a copy of the enlargements to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.”

  Walsmear let out a loud snort. He poked Zob with his elbow.

  “This Doyle bloke is some kind of author,” he said.

  “I know,” said Zob. “Sherlock Holmes.”

  “Who?”

  “Oh, Pokey, you should read more. You’re missing half the pleasure in life.”

  “I get plenty of pleasure.”

  “Oh, sure.”

  “Will you let Mr. Castle speak?” Walsmear snarled. “Go ahead, Castle. What did he say?”

  “He did not see there what we saw there.”

  “Ha!” Walsmear snorted. “I knew it. He’s blind.”

  “Blind, but not disinterested,” I said.

  “Speak English.”

  “I mean, Doyle has photographs of his own.”

  “What kind of photographs? You mean — ?”

  “That’s right. It’s a crazy coincidence. But Doyle has his own set of fairy photographs.”

  “What do they look like?”

  “They’re a lot like yours. But they’re different. They show little girls playing with fairies. But the fairies are fake.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Trust me. They’re phony. They wouldn’t fool a child. Doyle will become a laughingstock when he releases them to the papers.”

  “So why is he doing it?”

  “Well, from what he said, I got the impression he’s on a personal crusade. He thinks the world would be a better place if everyone believed in fairies. And he thinks they will once they see his photographs.”

  “He must be crazy.”

  “Indeed. Crazy. But he still knows how to communicate. And he knows that to get a message across to millions, you’ve got to make it clear and simple and direct. You’ve got to hit people over the head with it. Now, for all I know, Sir Arthur may actually see the same thing in your picture as we did. But your picture is of no use to him. It’s too vague. Too subtle. Too dependent on the viewers’ sensitivities.”

  Zob sighed. “I used to enjoy Sherlock Holmes.” He lit a cigarette and leaned back. “I used to steal every issue of the Strand, as soon as it came out. I even bought one, once. This Doyle must be a very wealthy man.”

  “He is,” I said. “And like many wealthy men, he thinks he can control the world with cash. . . .”

  Here I told Walsmear how Sir Arthur offered money to keep the Burkinwell photographs out of the public eye. I didn’t mention how much money he had offered.

  Walsmear was surprised. “That proves one thing,” he said. “It proves that he thinks the photographs are real. I’m satisfied. That’s good.”

  “What I’m wondering,” I asked, “is if you’d be interested in selling — ”

  “They’re not mine to sell,” said Walsmear. “Talk to Brian Templeton.”

  “That’s my next point. I was hoping that you’d help me approach him.”

  “Why should I help you? The photographs were real. I’m satisfied. Now I’m through with the whole thing.” Walsmear gave an energetically dismissive wave of his arm. A small fountain of playing cards gushed from his sleeve.

  Zob almost collapsed in laughter. I bent down and helped Walsmear pick them up.

  After the interval, I took the argument on a different tack. “The girls,” I said. “You’re forgetting them.”

  “What about them?” Walsmear said.

  “They could use the money.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Rev. Drain and his wife told me all about it.”

  “Don’t drag the girls into this.”

  “You’re being very selfish. Do you want those girls to grow up poor?”

  “They’re good girls.”

  “Yes. But think about it. A poor girl doesn’t have a choice in life. She has to crawl for pennies. She has to marry whoever asks her. And who might that be? Some crude, foul-smelling lout. A disgusting pig of a man, who would take what he wants from her, then throw her aside when he’s satisfied his filthy lusts — ”

  Walsmear’s fist shot out. It might have done to my face what it had already done to the wall of my darkroom. Fortunately, I saw it coming and ducked.

  “I’ll kill him — ” Walsmear was saying.

  I scrambled around to the back of the tree. Peeking around, I saw Zob restraining Walsmear by throwing his body in front of the enraged copper and waving his hands in his face.

  “You can come out,” Zob said after a few minutes. “He’s all right now.”

  “You just watch what you say,” Walsmear said.

  He pointed his index finger a few inches from my nose. Foreshortened thus, it looked huge. Way down at the end of his arm, I saw his crimson face. His eyes, as they say in books, burned like coals. I had made my point all too well.

  “We were talking about money,” I said.

  “Go ahead.”

  “As I said, Sir Arthur is offering money for the fairy pictures.”

  “It better be goddamned thousands and thousands.”

  “As a matter of fact, it’s not.”

  “Then why bring the girls into it?”

  “Because Sir Arthur’s money is just the beginning.”

  “The beginning of what?”

  I looked over at Zob. The talk of money made his features perk up like an alert hound. He seemed like a genial old Gypsy, and he’d certainly done me a favor in checking Walsmear’s wrath; but who the hell was he, anyway?

  “The beginning of what?” asked Zob himself.

  I caught Walsmear’s eye and nodded toward Zob.

  “You don’t have to worry about him,” said the copper.

  “I’d like to talk business,” I said. “But I don’t really want to cut anyone else in on this.”

  “Zob doesn’t want any part of it,” said Walsmear.

  “Oh?” I said. “As far as I know, Gypsies don’t take vows of poverty. Nor are they averse to a little hanky-panky when it suits their purposes. No offense, Mr. Zob, but you understand — ”

  “Shut up, you fool,” Walsmear thundered.

  “Hey, hey, hey,” Zob laughed. He patted Walsmear’s knee in a fatherly way. “Calm down.” To me, he said, “What Pokey here is trying to say is that I don’t care about money anymore. All that is past. I’m a dead man.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I’m sick. The cancer, you know. It’s hopeless. The doctor says I can’t be saved.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  How I Fell Down the Hole

  Zob continued, “My family, they are all sons of bitches. For them, I wish slow starvation. I have only one friend. Old Pokey, here. Ha ha ha. It is strange. All my life, the police are my enemy. Now that I am dying, I have only a policeman to bury me and pray for my miserable soul.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. I felt great pity. But Zob would not meet my eyes. Fo
r a moment, we were all silent.

  In that moment, I heard the slow crunch of twigs and saplings. Squinting into the darkness, I could see a car driving through the woods, its headlamps off. Zob and Walsmear paid it no mind. A man got out of the car and walked over to a nearby wagon. An old woman seated on its steps got up. The man handed her money. She motioned for him to climb into the wagon.

  I had been seeing a lot of this sort of thing in the Gypsy camp. Non-Gypsy men were arriving quietly on foot, bicycle, and horse cart. I tried not to stare; but out of the corner of my eye, I saw young women roused from beneath the ragged tents and lined up for display.

  I was busy with Walsmear. I didn’t have time to think about it. Now, I realized: The Gypsy camp was a rural bordello. Far from being the end of the evening for the Gypsies, the night was only the beginning. The phonograph ground to life once more. The children were back, running errands for the camp’s clients and girls I felt a sick pity and revulsion. It was a drab, sordid scene. It made one long for even the shabby, artificial gaiety of city vice.

  We’d had an interval of respectful silence for Zob’s impending mortality. That interval was now protracting itself beyond the point of comfort. At least for me.

  After a respectful nod at the old man, I went on, “Let’s forget the pictures we already have,” I said. “Let’s sell them to Sir Arthur. We can take our own pictures. Really good, quality pictures. I’m a professional photographer, for heaven’s sake. I’ll experiment. Find out how to get precise, detailed photographs of whatever’s in that garden. Do you realize what pictures like that would be worth?”

  “Hey, Pokey,” Zob said. “This fellow is looking out for himself. You look out for yourself, too. Make sure you get a cut of all this money he’s going to make.”

  “We’ll see.” Walsmear narrowed his eyes at me.

  “I know what’s wrong,” Zob said. He hauled himself up by grabbing the tree limb overhead. “We are not drinking anything here. I’m going to go get a bottle of wine. Then you can talk business “

  He ambled off into the darkness.

  “What I’m talking about here,” I said, “is a partnership. You, me, and Brian Templeton. We’ll control the pictures. We’ll send them to whom we want, when we want. We’ll also control the garden — if that’s where the fairies are . . .”

  I suddenly had a mind-boggling thought. It’s a wonder that it didn’t occur to me earlier. If there were fairies in Templeton’s garden, we could actually capture them. Put them on display. Who knows what else?

  Almost the same moment I had this idea, I rejected it. The notion of captive fairies was horrifying. Sprites in chains. Myself a kind of Simon Legree. On the other hand, it was bound to occur to others. The fairies would have to be protected, I resolved. No question. As to whether the fairies could be both protected from captivity and exploited for our benefit, I left that issue to be resolved in the future.

  “Once we’ve proven the fairies exist,” I said, “the possibilities are endless. The demand for anything having to do with the fairies will be enormous. After the photographs, we’ll take moving pictures, we’ll sell books, postcards, you name it. Burkinwell will become the greatest tourist attraction in the world.”

  Walsmear sneered. “All because two little girls took some pictures?” he said. “You’ll get rich?”

  “So will you. So will Brian Templeton. So will the girls.”

  “I don’t want any part of that kind of money.”

  My heart sank. It was late. I didn’t have the energy for any further appeal. I’d have to find a way to get to Brian Templeton myself. “So you don’t want to be a partner?” I asked.

  “I’ll be a partner.”

  “You will? But I thought — ”

  “I don’t want any money. But seeing as how you’re probably going to go through with this anyway, I might as well be there to protect the girls. Make sure you don’t take advantage of them.”

  “What about their father?”

  “Brian’s useless.”

  “Hey, what did I hear?” It was Zob. He emerged from the darkness with every shape and size of bottle known to man piled up in his arms. “Did you two make a deal or what? Hey, look at what I got. You’d be surprised what these people keep in their cars. Let’s see, we got some wine here, some whiskey, what else . . .”

  I looked at Walsmear. He was, after all, a policeman. Zob had stolen all the bottles of drink he was now setting up on the ground around us. Shouldn’t Walsmear have arrested him? Shouldn’t Walsmear have arrested the whole camp, for that matter? It goes without saying that he didn’t arrest anybody. He was able to forget his job at the Gypsy camp. It is not that I didn’t think Walsmear was honest. He was. But it did kind of prove what people say about the temperamental affinity between the police and their prey. It’s real. It’s there.

  A bottle was shoved in my hand. Zob, holding his own bottle, proposed a toast to our new business arrangement.

  I drank. The hot liquid poured down my throat.

  The sight of bottles attracted the attention of other men. Soon, there was a merry little group of a dozen or so under the tree. Further discussion of business was out of the question. Zob had bottles in all of his pockets. I finished my bottle, and he handed me another. He was pouring drink into every proffered cup, tankard, or bowl. The crowd clamored for Walsmear to perform magic. He did so, badly. A rope that was snipped in two never came back together. Water poured into a paper funnel merely trickled out the bottom. Someone’s watch — mine, actually — was hammered to pieces in a handkerchief and never reassembled. Zob leaped up and did a dance. He turned alarmingly red, then fell on his side in the dirt, where he lay panting and groaning.

  After the dancing — music. A man showed up with a fiddle. Another had an accordion. They argued about which songs to play. The accordionist started playing on his own. The fiddler couldn’t get in tune. He blamed the weather, the company, fate. Then he stalked off. Some women came by and pulled the accordionist away.

  A tree-swinging contest broke out on a low-hanging branch. One of the men stripped off his shirt. He hooked his knees over the branch, then couldn’t get down. There was discussion about whether to leave him there or help him to the ground. By the time it was over, he’d fallen on his head and was crawling around looking for his shirt.

  I was enjoying myself as much as any of the crowd dancing, pushing, and shouting at each other under the tree. But my new partner Walsmear was no longer among us. Nor was Zob. We were all strangers. And there wasn’t one I wanted to know any better.

  “Have you seen Zob?” I asked no one in particular. “Have you seen Walsmear?” No one knew who I was talking about.

  “I got a job,” said one of the men. “And a damn rotten one it is.”

  “Not job,” I said. “Zob. The Gypsy. And Walsmear. I have to find him.”

  “What for?”

  “We just made a business deal and I forgot to shake his hand.”

  “Here, I’ll shake your hand.”

  I reached for the man’s hand. He pulled it away and jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

  “Ha ha ha!”

  I decided to leave this bunch and head out to see what I could see. I came back a second later, grabbed a half-full bottle, and headed back out into the woods.

  I wasn’t quite sure where I was, as I drank what was left of the bottle’s strong spirits. There were figures out in the darkness. Shadowy groups could be seen here and there. Some were heading toward the camp, others were headed away from it. When I saw one of these groups, I would come up to it and study their faces, looking for Zob or Walsmear. All I found, however, were strangers; men and women. Some shrank at my approach and hid their faces; others tendered unwholesome invitations. Beyond the wagons, a huge bonfire swirled to life. The fiddler started up a strange, discordant tune. From out of the darkness came laughter and
muffled cries of pleasure — or distress, I could not tell. Unable to see straight, unable to think straight, I began to panic.

  “Zob, Walsmear,” I shouted, running back and forth through the woods. I stopped figures, checked their faces. I looked under wagons and cars. I kicked over washbasins and lifted the sides of tents.

  Where was he? How was I going to get back to town?

  Sparks from the bonfire rose high in the sky, swirling like a furious constellation. The accordion wailed. A woman sang, wordlessly. The fiddle keened a weird, broken jig.

  Shouting the constable’s name, I crashed into wagons and ran through lines of hanging wash. Thorny branches caught my shirt. Roots sent me sprawling. Searching through the darkness, I found naked couples, trios, quartets. Fists shot out at me. I mumbled apologies, tripped over people’s limbs, spun into yet another copse and another group.

  I was alone. Among strangers. In the dark. Far from home. Who would save me?

  Then I saw a familiar face. Thank God! It was someone I knew. He would lead me back to Burkinwell. I approached him with my hand out.

  “Don’t we know each other?” I said — or my mouth tried to say. “I’m Charles Castle, I don’t really recall your — ”

  The face of the other showed no recognition for a moment. Then its eyes filled with surprise, fear, and anger.

  At that moment I recognized him, too: Paolo!

  I should have run, but I was paralyzed with fear. Paolo’s stockinged foot shot out and caught me in the midsection. I fell over backward onto a sapling, which cracked and broke under my weight. I thought it was my spine cracking.

  “Help,” I shouted. “Police!”

  “Shorty,” Paolo shouted. “Let’s get him.”

  I rolled across the ground, leaped to my feet, and started running. I could hear several men in pursuit, shouting and pounding after me. I burst into the circle of revelers around the campfire. Burning brands scattered around my pumping shins. New pursuers joined the crowd at my heels. There were shouts of “Stop him, get him,” and, most alarmingly, “Kill him!”

  I headed away from the lights of the Gypsy camp. Soon, I was running toward the edge of the woods, my pursuers right behind me. They continued to shout as they smashed through the undergrowth. I squinted into the darkness and saw a cultivated field ahead. That would mean a farmhouse, I thought, and safety. I angled over and started running across the field. My pursuers started dropping away. I could hear their footfalls receding. Far behind, someone laughed and said, “Let him go.” In time, all I could hear were the sounds of my own feet and my own tortured breathing.