Serafim and Claire

by Mark Lavorato

  Each of them is looking in a different direction, away from the camera; the man in the middle looks as if he is about to drop his hands from the flanking men’s shoulders. Their faces are carved with archetypal Roman features, like three busts in an Etruscan museum.

  Behind them looms the hull of a leviathan steamship, rectangular sheets of metal stitched together in a patchwork of seams and rivets, stalwart industrial needlework.

  The man on the right is turning away dramatically, gazing slightly over his shoulder, stepping away from his companions, looking back at something that is out of the frame. One couldn’t guess what he sees, but there is a strain in his expression that seems to indicate there is a whole lot more to smile about. And a whole lot less.

  14

  Serafim stood on a wharf in northern France, deafened by what sounded like all the languages in Europe trying to drown each other out. The quayside roiled and churned around him, men and women carrying trunks for short distances before putting them down again; children crying, wide-eyed and snivelling, clinging to their parents, brothers, sisters; men brushing close to Serafim and giving him half-aggressive nudges, likely because he was the only one in the knotted crowd who wasn’t in a hurry.

  The ship from Oporto had landed the night before, and it was the morning of disembarkation. Minutes earlier, Serafim’s merchant friend had given him a few direct, seaman-type orders. He had one day to unload merchandise. If Serafim wanted, he could sleep on the ship again that evening, but they would set sail the following day at noon, so he would have to have all his belongings off the boat by then. Good luck, adeus, a firm handshake, and his friend was off into the swelling confusion, bent on making sense of at least his part in it. Which was more than could be said for Serafim.

  He was quiet in the bedlam, thinking how strange it was that his new-found freedom felt so terrifying. He wondered if complete freedom was one of those things people aspired to but secretly held themselves back from attaining. Serafim now had the liberty to go anywhere in the world, do anything. He had no land, no ties, no home to return to. He was unbound, floating illimitable; yet he had never felt so burdened in his life. What if we choose confinement, he contemplated; what if we actually seek to settle into the security of some type of bondage? A person certainly never has to worry about their bearings, or who and what they are, when held in place by a few simple, even token, chains. Rendering oneself a captive liberates one from all the squeamish dilemmas of free will.

  Serafim shouldered his way to the outer edge of the mob and began sauntering down the quayside, waiting for some idea of what to do with his day, as well as the rest of his life. He wanted an idea to spring from the chaos, pin him down, muscle his head in some direction, set his sights on something. He contemplated making his way to a train station and heedlessly getting on the first train that stopped in front of him, letting it pull him out to some waylaid village, or anonymous university city, or bourgeois suburb of Paris.

  A man bumped into him from behind. “Je m’excuse! Désole, hein?” Flashing a set of palms, backing away. Serafim told him it was nothing, in Portuguese, which either fell on deaf ears or was devoured by the flurry of moving bodies around them. Serafim passed the next ship along the pier, being loaded with burlap sacks and wooden barrels, the workers’ vision tunnelled onto the queues leading up the boat ramps and onto the deck. He waited for a break in the lines to weave through them, excusing himself as he scurried by. He passed another massive steamboat, which had fewer people in front of it, and by the time he was approaching the one after that, the crowd had become sparse enough for him to look around, observe his surroundings in a little more detail, come out of his shoulder-hunched self. As he did so, he heard music nearby.

  A group of men in black shirts, Italians, milling about in front of a steamship, had broken into sudden song with the greatest animation and bravado, several of them conducting the lyrics with clenched forearms held high, two of them with hands on their chests, swaying their heads, all of them smiling. “Dell’Italia nei confini / Son rifatti gli italiani / Li ha rifatti Mussolini / Per la guerra di domani . . .” It continued, finally reaching a crescendo with a collective hooray, which found them laughing and splintering off into smaller groups of natural conversation that became, in their own way, even more animated than the singing. The photographic potential was ideal, and Serafim lingered on the sidelines, waiting for them to get used to his presence, dawdling in hopes of becoming socially invisible. But before that could happen, one of them, crouching over a makeshift stove and brewing what appeared to be coffee, gestured for him to come over and join them.

  It was in fact coffee, or at least some kind of shockingly bitter syrup that resembled it, Serafim thought, wincing and swallowing it down like aspirin. He crouched in the midst of the men as they nodded welcoming hellos in his direction — ciao, buon giorno, salve. The man who’d given him the tiny cup of coffee felt the need to explain the song, their black shirts, the insignias on some of their things (an axe bound to a bundle of sticks with several twines of rope). Had Serafim heard of Il Duce yet? In the papers, yes, Serafim intimated, he had.

  “I am happy to hear,” replied the man, “because Benito Mussolini, he is a good, good man. He is bringing back, how do you say, restoring (you understand? — bene) restoring the dignity, the international dignity, of Italy. We” — the man made a giant, inclusive circle with his hands, encompassing the ship behind them as well — “we, all of us, are il fascio (how do you say?) — fascistas. Yes, Mussolini, he is going to change the world, amico mio. The world. You understand?”

  And Serafim, radiating with understanding, seemed to grasp the depth and import of the message better than the messenger himself. He pulled out his Leica, inspired, and asked if he could take pictures of these proud fascists. Of course, of course! A floppy hand flicked him out into the dynamic throng, granting him free passage to whatever intimacy he came across. Serafim moved from small group to group, the men often posing together, hands on each other’s shoulders, dragging other people into the frame, while Serafim pretended to release the shutter at the predictable moment and then, holding the camera at his chest, waited for the better shots to unfold, snapping them deviously, imperceptibly. Instead of this window of opportunity closing itself in the fleeting way it usually did, the exposures only got better the more used to him they became, until he was completely out of film. Intending to return once he’d replenished the film, he then thought of doing something even more active, more committed. Painted on the side of the hull that towered above them were white letters stencilled onto a low-gloss blue, the ship’s name, Resolute, which, he noticed, was also printed on a manned booth opposite the ship — presumably the ticket vendor.

  Serafim approached the man, struggling in his grade-school French. “I would like to know . . . how much is . . . a ticket for your boat?”

  “You can speak in Portuguese,” the man said, recognizing Serafim’s accent, in the way people do when they share a mother tongue.

  “Oh,” Serafim said, relieved, “you’re from Portugal?”

  “Yes, but working for this shipping company, English owned, most of my life.” The connection required little more explanation. “It sounds like you are from Oporto.”

  Serafim faltered, self-conscious. The Oporto accent wasn’t known for its refinement or beauty. “Yes, . . . . was — but now would like to get on board the Resolute.”

  “Of course.” The man opened a book, procured a pad of receipts. “What will your final destination be, Mr. . . .”

  “Vieira. Well, to be honest, it depends on where those men are going, the Italians.”

  “Montreal.”

  “They’re going to America?”

  “Well, Quebec, Canada, but the city is only kilometres from the United States, yes.”

  “I see.” Serafim turned to take a look at them again, his eyes pinpointing the insignias of what was almost
sure to become a vital political movement, the men’s expressions, telling postures, wildly whirling arms and gesticulations, the limitless potential for photos in that one moment alone. “Montreal it is, then.” He turned back to the vendor and showed him his camera,“I thought we might come to some kind of arrangement. I imagine you need up-to-date photographs of your ship, for advertisements, et cetera?”

  The man cocked his head. “Perhaps.” Then, unhurriedly, he left the booth and entered a building nearby, returning a few minutes later to rearrange the book and pad of receipts in front of him. “Have you been commissioned for commercial photography before — for shipping, commerce?”

  “Yes.”

  The man smirked. “A businessman, Mr. Vieira, must know the nuances of when and how to lie. You are not much of a businessman, are you?”

  Serafim’s face warmed. “No. But I am a sound photographer.”

  This time the man laughed, readying a pen and turning over a new receipt. “Tell you what. I’ll have you pay me, upfront, the second-lowest fare we offer to Montreal, one above steerage. At the end of the voyage, you show me the pictures that might be of use to us, and if we take any of them, I’ll deduct their worth from your initial fare and give you a refund. Sound fair to an Oporto businessman such as yourself?”

  Serafim smiled, shrugged, held out his hand. “Fair enough.”

  The following afternoon, grey plumes mushroomed from the smokestacks of the Resolute. Billows of steam, rich, slightly sweet-smelling, began first to slant then to drag behind the boat, impelling it forward, out into the open Atlantic, to carve colossal through the dark swells. Serafim had no one to wave to back on land, but he found himself waving anyway.

  His third-class cabin was deep in the ship, and was shared with three other men, two of whom snored throughout the rolling hours of the night, barrels of sound wheeling from one side of the room to the other with each sway of the vessel. The one who slept silently had yet to address Serafim, but by the way he spoke to the other two in the cabin Serafim could tell the man was coarse and abrasive. He was a man, Serafim noticed while strolling around on deck, whose sharp words either commanded respect or deeply annoyed, even enraged people. Serafim was feeling lighter and more excited than he ever had in his life, and he made a point of avoiding the man, keeping even the tight-quarters interactions in their cabin as limited as possible. Until three days into the trip.

  Serafim had been taking pictures in an out-of-the-wind but well-lit part of the upper deck when a different man — an emotionless, bland-looking gentleman — called him over and asked him to take his picture. Not in any position to say no, Serafim obliged, surreptitiously catching a shot of him after he’d relaxed from his pose, and while he was giving a haunted look to someone standing nearby. The man then asked — and Serafim, who was catching more Italian by the day, was sure he misunderstood him at first — for the picture Serafim had just taken, wondering when he would actually have it in his hands. Serafim explained that he would have to develop it in a darkroom, enlarge it in order to make a single copy, so to speak, once they arrived in Montreal. The man became perceptibly anxious, wanting to know if it was possible for Serafim to make, say, a million copies of this photo if he so wished. A million copies that might be kept for years, and handed out at any time, to anyone, such as the authorities, or one’s enemies, people who might be looking for you?

  “Well, sure,” Serafim answered, “once the film is developed, that is possible, yes.”

  “In that case,” the man commanded vehemently, “I want one photo, and this thing, this film of my photo, that a person can make copies from.”

  It was hard to believe he wasn’t joking, but Serafim felt the quiet, pressing need to agree to this.

  “Good,” said the man, “good. So, you will give me the photo and this film the day we arrive in Montreal.” It was not a question.

  “Sure,” Serafim agreed, and eased himself away from the man, stepping backwards, and in the process bumped into his controversial cabinmate.

  “Ah,” the man who didn’t snore said, “it is my neighbour. A gentleman who is clearly not Italian himself, but who, nevertheless, cannot stop taking photos of them.” He looked to be about Serafim’s age, early twenties, and, like him, wore a moustache and a flat cap.

  “Yes,” Serafim confessed, “I am interested in your political movement. And how animated you all appear. I am from Portugal, where people are guarded, reserved — probably too composed.” Serafim spoke mostly in Portuguese, throwing in a few of the main verb differences he’d managed to pick up already. To his delight, the man seemed to understand perfectly. He calmly turned and they walked together along the deck, shoulder to shoulder.

  “I see,” he began. “Well, if you would like to understand something about our ‘political movement,’ as you say, you should understand first that it is the opportunistic exploitation of the fessi.”

  “What means fessi? Sorry.”

  “The imbeciles, idiots, the easily led. Eight, nine of these people out of every ten cannot read, write, inform themselves with any kind of critical speculation.”

  “Surely there are things one can understand without reading.”

  The young man pivoted on one of his heels, facing Serafim. “Yes. There are. Like understanding who that man you were just speaking with is, what he does, why he should be avoided at all costs. Or like the situation right now in the steerage class below us, the fetid conditions there, and what those conditions brew. Like the expendability of all these seasonal migrant workers around us, travelling ahead of their wives and children to make enough for their transport — you haven’t noticed many women on board, have you? — all of whom will find employment agents waiting for them on the docks when they arrive, their own countrymen, shamelessly poised to take the fullest advantage of them. Like being able to recognize an idealistic Portuguese photographer who only sees in other people” — the man tapped Serafim’s Leica — “the light that bounces off their skin.”

  Serafim swallowed.

  The young man, seeing how serious Serafim had become, chuckled empathetically, held out his hand. “Antonino Spada.”

  “Uh . . . Serafim Vieira. Pleased to meet you.”

  Later that evening, after the subpar meal in the third-class dining area, Serafim, unsettled and curious, was drawn down the set of stairs that led to the steerage class. As he descended into the murky, lamp-wavering dark, wafts of putrid smells rose to meet him: urine, vomit, rancid sweat, burnt pot scrapings, and flatulence (though it might have been feces). People coughed, moaned above the sounds of the steam engine deep in the ship’s interior. It was almost entirely open and stuffed with bodies, black corners with people sleeping, some prostrate or sitting against walls, holding their heads in their hands. He didn’t linger long, in sudden need of the fresh, clean, sea-salty air above. As he climbed out of steerage, he passed a guilty-looking man carrying two glass bottles, frosty and freshly filled with water. Men thieving water, he thought to himself, from the third-class section of the ship. Coming up into the open air was like surfacing in the Douro after diving down too deeply for a childhood dare. The halved-grapefruit horizon traced the last light of dusk on one side and the first pinpricks of stars on the other.

  That night, antsy in his sheets, listening to the two men aside from Antonino Spada grunting and snorting — like the creaking commentators of their own banal dreams — he heard the strangest sound creeping up from the steerage class, and poked his head out into the gangway to investigate. It was two young women (of the mere handful he’d seen on board), one of them supporting the other, who was weeping silently, inconsolably, leaning heavily against her companion, clutching the fabric of her dress between her legs.

  He closed the door before they could see him and made his way back to his bunk. He spent hours fighting his way towards sleep, restlessly scanning the slats of wood on the cabin’s ceiling as if th
ey were text, until he realized that there were things to read there between the lines.

  Ville de Québec, le 8 novembre 1927

  Ma sœur adorée,

  I hope this letter finds you still in very high spirits. I was obviously elated to hear of your recent success in that renowned theatre (of which I believe even I have heard). As you say, there is no telling where such elite connections will take you. As I haven’t heard from you in weeks, I wonder if it’s already begun.

  I wish I had a success story to swap. For the first time, I feel that the women’s organizations here in the city are moving in very disparate directions, that the only thing that binds us is the fact that we all happen to be female. From the Church-oriented vice squads to remnant prohibitionists, I feel our force in this province as a whole is both angrier than ever and increasingly diluted. While outside Quebec the struggle is focused on winning the right for women to sit in the Senate, we, here, remain the last sad pocket (seemingly anywhere) that has still to attain even provincial suffrage. Again the Legislative Assembly voted against it, with a full eighty percent opposed. At times I feel we’ve become a laughingstock, a stronghold of antiquity where inequality is preached from the pulpit, and adhered to by a domesticated flock all too eager to keep itself penned in.

  In the meantime, I continue to be engaged at the YWCA. Much of our work is in education, like helping girls find domestic employment in the city, or teaching them to read. We also give courses for women seeking citizenship, wherein, ironically, we’re often confronted with immigrants coming from countries that have more rights than we’ve ever known. It is not an easy situation, Claire. At times, I envy you, in your personal aims.

  Je m’ennuie beaucoup de toi,