Photographing Fairies: A Novel

by Steve Szilagyi

  “Wait a second” I waved my hand. “You’re out of what game?”

  “Walsmear’s game. His fairy — thing.”

  “I’m sorry. Could you be more explicit?”

  “Why should I? The whole situation is ludicrous in the extreme. My dear Mr. Castle, there are no such things as fairies. Not in my garden. Not anywhere.”

  “Did Walsmear show you the enlargement? The one with the figure in it?”

  “Yes. And I saw nothing.”

  “You must think we’re mad.”

  “I don’t think Michael is mad — exactly. His conscience bothers him. He killed my wife, you know. In an accident. I was able to get over it. He wasn’t. Now he’s seeing things. And he’s using you.”

  “I’m not easily used,” I said, trying to sound — I don’t know — tough.

  “Yes,” Templeton said in reverie. “She died in that very room you’re sleeping in. Walsmear carried her in. She was broken. Broken and bleeding. Battered beyond repair.”

  Now here was a tough man. Templeton talked about his wife’s accident without a trace of emotion. I wondered if he had “gotten over” his wife’s death, or simply never faced it. Being able to make this penetrating observation made me feel superior to my host. I needed it, too. I felt hopelessly at sea. A minister cavorting naked in a moonlit garden. A constable consumed with guilt. Syphilitic Templeton. Crazy Castle. Anna and Clara. Lonely Linda. My head injury began to ache.

  “What sad men we are,” Templeton said, tracing a design in the dust on the mantelpiece.

  “Some of us are sadder than others,” I said. “But you, at least, have Anna and Clara.”

  “They won’t remember our sorrows. And the world will crush them, too. The way it crushes us all.”

  Templeton looked up at me. His eyes had milky highlights. The skin hung in pouches beneath them. I pitied the man. I hadn’t guessed it, but he was pitying me in turn. “And you’re the saddest of us all, Castle,” he said. “An opportunist without an opportunity. I suggest you move out tomorrow. Go back where you came from. This fairy business is — ” Templeton waved his long, bony hand “ — over.”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  How I Discovered the Policeman’s Strange Secret

  Michael Walsmear may have been an unconventional policeman, but he did subscribe to one of the great traditions of his calling: He was never around when you needed him.

  It was the next day. I had bidden farewell to Anna and Clara. Then I left my valises behind the bar at the Starry Night. The innkeeper seemed to know all about where I had been and what I had been doing. Actually, my adventures seemed to be a subject of which he was already tired. But — wiping his hands on his apron — he was happy to step outside and direct me to the Burkinwell police station. Perhaps he anticipated some new wrinkle to my story.

  The police station was a gloomy little house that did not reflect the majesty of the law. The door creaked as I pushed it open. I found two uniformed functionaries inside. One was a senior officer. He was giving directions to the other man, who was pecking out words on a typewriter.

  “Get that spelling right,” the senior man said, bending over the other’s shoulder. “It’s Walsmear. W-a-l-s-m-e-a-r.”

  “Walsmear?” I stepped up to the railing without introducing myself. “I happen to be looking for Constable Walsmear. Do you know where I can find him?”

  The two men looked up at me.

  “No,” said the senior man.

  Then the two went back to their work.

  “Only one L,” the senior man admonished.

  “Know it well enough,” the other fellow said.

  “Are you sure this is the right form?” said the senior man.

  “I believe so, sir. Says right here. ‘Disciplinary — Form 117dash K.’“

  “Never had to do one of these,” said the senior man. “But, I suppose there’s a first time for everything.”

  “Excuse me,” I interrupted. “I can’t help but hear that you’re talking about Constable Walsmear. And I’m looking for him myself.”

  “So are we,” said the senior man. He gave me a sly look. “American, are you?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “You’re that one who’s been staying at Templeton’s, eh? Had a little trouble over at the Gypsy camp? Been spending time in the church basement with the minister’s wife?”

  “Are you accusing me of something?”

  “Not I. No, sir. Not I. Some things are not the business of the police. Not unless you start frightening the horses, stop the chickens a-laying, or otherwise disturb the peace.” He laughed. “But tell me,” he said, leaning casually against the railing . . . “Where is Michael Walsmear?”

  “I just asked you that question,” I said. “I’ve been looking everywhere for him.”

  “Have you tried his house?” asked the senior man.

  I had.

  Walsmear lived in a rundown little house with a morose dog tethered out front. The helpful old lady next door informed me that “Little Mikey” had grown up in the house, with his mother — dead long about a decade now. Mikey wasn’t about much these days. And as she had for years, she fed the dog when he was away. No, he didn’t tell her when he was going. The dog would start to yelp after a few days, and she’d know to feed it. Did she know where he went? No — but he was always partial to the Gypsies. Maybe he was out there. They were a bad lot, of course. One or two she’d met were all right; but you have to take your friends where you find them in this world, and Mikey can’t be faulted for wanting to be by his friends. . . .

  “Yes, well.” The senior man picked up some papers to rattle while he spoke. “These behavior cases can be tricky. After all, when a man’s served on the force for as many years as — well, you owe him some consideration. But how much? Eh? How much? There’s some things you just can’t allow. Just can’t allow an officer to wander off duty in the middle of the day. No, sir. Can’t have it. Can’t have him walking around in half a uniform. Or none. And earrings? No, sir. Out of the question. No officer can be permitted to stroll about wearing a Gypsy earring. It’s just not proper.”

  “So you can’t help me?” I said.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “And you can’t find him either?”

  “If you should learn anything, let us know. That’s a good fellow.”

  Back at the Starry Night, Cole informed me that my old room awaited. “First we got to clean it,” he said. “Gave it to a man while you were gone. Salesman, I think. He ate crackers in bed. Left crumbs everywhere.”

  I went upstairs and found Esmirelda attacking the crumb problem with a broom. I dropped into the chair and watched. She swept with slow dreamy strokes, like a punter. Her hips and shoulders rolled; her cheap, ill-fitting shift clung in all the wrong places.

  “I’ll be sweeping this floor for weeks,” she said in her slow, singsong contralto. “There’ll be another man sitting in that chair. Then another. I’ll be sweeping up the crumbs that’ve hidden from me now.”

  “Can’t get them all, can you?” I pleasantried.

  “They hide, you know. They fall down in the cracks and under the table legs. They get down into the yarns of the rug. People walk over them and they work their way out. For months, they’ll be working themselves out, these crumbs.”

  “Hard to find, then?”

  “Who?”

  “I beg your pardon.”

  “Who’s hard to find?”

  “I didn’t say who. I said ‘what.’ I meant ‘what.’”

  “You’re looking, aren’t you?”

  “Looking for what?”

  “Him.”

  “Who?”

  “The Gypsies.”

  “What? What about them?”

  “They’re not like you.”

  “What do you mean?�
��

  “They don’t judge him.” She continued to sweep, broad, steady strokes. “That’s why he goes to them.”

  “You mean Walsmear?”

  “Whatever.”

  “Do you know where he is? Is he out at the Gypsy camp?”

  “I wouldn’t chase after him there. Remember what happened to you last time.”

  “I’m not chasing him anywhere.”

  “Bah. You and the likes of you. You and that Brian Templeton. You’d torture him, you would. For one mistake.”

  “I’m not sure I — ”

  “Well, you needn’t bother. He’s been torturing himself. Plenty. For ten years.”

  “How am I torturing Michael Walsmear?”

  “His little dreams of fairies. You’d smash it, wouldn’t you? It would solve all his problems and you’d just smash it. You’re just like all the rest.”

  This was too much. Standing up, I walked over and grabbed the broom from her hands. She wouldn’t look at me. I took her hands in mine. “Esmirelda,” I said, trying to catch her averted gaze. “Please, please tell me what you are talking about.”

  Her deep, liquid brown eyes lifted and searched my face. “You know,” she said, though her tone utterly lacked conviction.

  “I do not know. What is Walsmear’s little dream of fairies?”

  “Mrs. Templeton.”

  “He killed her. I mean, he accidentally ran her down.”

  “She ran under his wheels.”

  “Yes?”

  “Use your head. A grown woman? She don’t know how to cross the road? Some say she did it on purpose.”

  “Suicide?”

  “Some says.”

  “Remorse.”

  “About what?”

  “Sin.”

  “What sin?”

  “What other sin? A woman. Married. Out there in that little cottage. Not many sins she can commit. Just murder and — ”

  “Adultery.”

  A thrill passed from Esmirelda’s fingers to mine. At that moment, I knew I should break our physical contact. But I didn’t want to break her flow of revelations.

  “I never knew her,” she whispered. “But they say she was a good woman. Look at the faces of her children if you don’t believe it.”

  “I believe it.”

  “If something happened between her and another man, one of her husband’s friends, say — her husband’s only friend, say . . .” She was silent for a moment. Then: “She might not be able to live with that.”

  “Walsmear? Walsmear and Templeton’s wife?”

  “Things happen between people.”

  Esmirelda’s slightly sticky hands crept from my fingers to my forearms until she held my arms by the elbows. She was a big girl, and her eyes were almost level with mine. An image of the small, four-paned window swam in her sable pupils.

  “What,” I asked, trying not to blow breath into her face, “does that have to do with fairies?”

  “What if she didn’t just happen to run under the car? What if something was chasing her?”

  “Fairies? Chasing her out of the garden?”

  “Michael never told me. But he told the board of — of — the men, who sat at the big table — ”

  “The board of inquiry.”

  “He told them she was acting strange as she ran out. She was grabbing at the air. Like she was being chased by a swarm of bees, maybe.”

  “Maybe she stumbled onto a hive.”

  “No one ever found the hive.”

  Esmirelda’s dreaminess seemed to be catching. I felt like we were talking about persons who didn’t exist, like characters in a book, whose most mortal dilemmas could be pondered and tossed about for inconsequential amusement and reflection.

  “I have another explanation,” I said, with thoughtless dispassion. “Maybe he killed her. Perhaps they quarreled. He jumped in the car. She tried to stop him. He ran her down.”

  Esmirelda shook her head. “You don’t know him,” she said.

  Her arms slid under mine. She spoke into my clavicle, for to look into my eyes now would bring her lips close, so close to my face. At that moment, I realize now, I should have withdrawn. By not doing so, I joined her in an implicit compact. Together, without consciously admitting it to ourselves, we had ascended a peak. We were tempting gravity. Now it would draw us down. Together. We would not tumble down, to land bruised and battered atop a mound of rubble. It might have been better if we had. Instead, we floated down on a cloud. So easy. We closed our eyes and launched ourselves into the air. And when we opened them, it was a different world. The peak was far beyond us, and nevermore accessible.

  “But the fairies,” I said.

  “Suicide or accident, Michael still has to live with himself. Let him think it was fairies chasing her out of the garden. Let him have some peace.”

  I murmured some assent, as her lips slid up and down over mine, and we simultaneously sank onto the bed. My senses were filled with Esmirelda’s pale olive flesh, and the mixed odors of the kitchen and cleaning closet, blending in her hair with the sweet sweat of her temples. The bed groaned beneath us, and now and again there was a scraping and shuffling outside the door, as if someone were listening there, or peeping through the keyhole. From the ceiling came a creaking, as though someone were pacing irritably. A burst of coarse laughter rose from the bar.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  How I Learned the Girls’ Strange Secret

  I might have confided everything to Linda Drain. As it was, I’d told her nothing, not thinking, or only half-considering, that absent accurate information, people simply form their own wild suppositions. I should have told her the whole situation the next afternoon as I perched on the edge of the uncomfortable sofa in her sitting room, sipping tea from a delicate cup and gazing into her extraordinarily sympathetic smile. “Mrs. Drain,” I should have said. “Linda — may I call you Linda? Thank you. I can’t tell you how much I’ve appreciated your kindness and consideration. You’ve helped me set up a darkroom. You haven’t asked any probing questions. You’ve accepted me and let me go my own way in Burkinwell. But I can’t believe you really accept the story I gave you about why I am here. I wouldn’t blame you. I don’t even remember what it is myself.

  “Let me put your mind at ease. Let me explain everything. I’ve come here to Burkinwell to save my business. I need money and I need it soon. I’m not planning to borrow the money I need. Nor am I really prepared to earn it. My plan is to come into sudden riches through a farfetched, unlikely scheme only an idiot would consider feasible.”

  (Linda would probably try to reassure me here, as her eyes grew wide with empathic wonder. The essence of her remarks would be that I was surely not an idiot — an insulting form of reassurance that I would have brought upon myself.)

  “Wait,” I would have said, “until you hear the scheme. You see, your constable, Mr. Walsmear, came to me with some photographs showing the two Templeton girls sporting with sprites, playing with peris, basking with brownies — that is to say, consorting with real, live, actual, and existing fairies. Silly, you say? Perhaps. But Arthur Conan Doyle didn’t think so. Yes, the famous author and spiritualist. He had his own set of completely different fairy pictures. And he wants ours off the market. Do you understand?”

  Here, she might have nodded, but her sympathy would have grown less earnest.

  “Thank you, Linda, for bearing with me so far. Here, then, is the essence of the business I am on in Burkinwell. Doyle wants to destroy our pictures, as they are rivals to his own. He is willing for me to acquire the pictures from the Templetons and make them disappear. And he is willing to pay me for this service. I intend to do just that and gladly pocket the money.

  “But here’s the good part. I have a little trick up my sleeve. I will destroy the pictures Doyle wants — and then take my
own fairy pictures. These pictures will be the true, authentic fairy pictures. I will own them. I will control them. The whole thing will be worth a fortune. And not only to me, but to Walsmear, Templeton, Anna, and Clara — you, even, if you like. We’ll be rich, rich, rich!”

  As it happened, I said none of it. Linda and I spent a pleasant afternoon talking about America, religion, books, and photography. From overhead came the occasional rustle of Rev. Drain, working on a sermon or something at his desk. Twice he called down for tea and biscuits to fortify himself. Outside of that, he left the two of us alone.

  In conversation, Linda was stimulating and surprising. I could imagine her making an impression far beyond that prettily decorated but barren sitting room. She might (and still might) shine in London or New York. Before and after that afternoon, I will admit that I imagined myself selling my studio and supplies, paying my debts, and convincing her to run away with me on some wonderful adventure to Paris, New York, or San Francisco. Across the short expanse of hooked rug between us, we two were like the tines of a tuning fork, vibrating (I thought) in extraordinary sympathy. One of us, it seemed, could not say something to the other without provoking the most marvelously unpredictable, yet perfectly agreeable, response in the other. As we tripped lightly from one topic to the next, I felt our two spirits merging and rising out of the little sitting room and coming together on some plane not precisely exalted, but surely sweet nonetheless.

  Protracting such a delightful visit would have been to risk spoiling the weightless perfection of its tone, so I forced myself to rise and take my leave somewhat in advance of my true inclinations. As I stood at the foot of the stairs, saying good-bye to Linda, a door opened above and the Rev. Drain finally appeared, wearing slippers and an open-collared shirt.

  “Well, well, well.” He descended the steps, somewhat stiff-jointedly I thought. “You must think me very rude, Mr. Castle. But I’ve learned over the years that it is fatal to break the spell when the fever of creation is upon me.”

  I must have looked at him quizzically, for he explained, “Writing a sermon. New one. Might be good. Might be a disaster. That is what I’ll learn once the fever subsides.”