Serafim and Claire

by Mark Lavorato

  He returned a few minutes later, locked the door, and stood at the end of the bed, Claire’s legs opening out at him, while he explained that there was a police raid in the brothel directly opposite, and that the police had already been paid off and were more than satisfied with the sum. That said, they would still have to fill their paddy wagons, a question of quota, before setting off back to the station. The raids themselves were only token, a reliable source of revenue, filling both the city’s coffers and the sergeants’ pockets with bribes and the five-dollar fees everyone arrested had to pay in order for their names to vanish from the books the following day. The police would start in the other brothels and end at the one they were in. He had time, he assured her, but would have to move faster.

  He propped her head up in order for Claire to down the last of the cheap rye, replaced the spoon in her mouth, and crouched at the foot of the bed again, disappearing behind her skirts. Then he began to forcefully scrape away at Claire’s insides, gouging long lines against the tissue at her most tender centre. Claire let out muffled screams into the wood between her teeth, held her hair in her fists, eyes rolling, even spiralling out of consciousness once, though managing to cartwheel back into it again.

  There was a knock at the door, as if in Morse, clearly coded to mean something, and the man instantly straightened up, pulled the knitting needle out of her, tugged the spoon from her mouth, threw everything into his bag, shoved it under the bed, and, as he scurried to leave the room, whispered over his shoulder that the job was done, and that, should she ever mention his name to the authorities, he had friends who could get at her anywhere. Just so she knew. Good evening to you, mademoiselle. Bowing slightly, he quietly shut the door behind him.

  Claire rolled onto her side, heaving breath, exhausted from the pain, and spinning drunk. She felt the aching at her core gradually begin to subside. An unknown amount of time passed. Suddenly the madam opened the door, put her face in the gap, and commanded Claire to lock herself in, quickly, with the latches on the inside, and not open up for anyone. She then reminded Claire that, unlike everyone else on the block, if she were caught, she’d be going to jail for a very long time. Now, lock it, she recommended. The madam eased the door closed and hurried away.

  Claire managed to get to the door, and to put on her underclothes and a Kotex, which she was happy she’d thought to bring along. Then, before returning to bed, she went to the window and looked down into the street. The paddy wagons were near bursting, the very last of the arrested men and women squeezing into their boxes. One of them, a moustached man, looked up at Claire in the lit window and locked eyes with her. She felt as if she recognized him, in some distant way; it was clear that he recognized her. He had to be shoved by a policemen to break his gaze, and with that, Claire turned from the window, shut off the lights, and slept until morning.

  She returned to her apartment, still sore, and was interrupted by instants of intense pain in her lower abdomen. The ejection of clotted matter seemed logical enough, but the way the bleeding didn’t let up was somewhat worrying. Days passed without improvement. She kept to her tiny apartment, called in sick to work, and began spending all her time in bed, playing her favourite song on the gramophone, imagining how she would choreograph a dance to it.

  After several more days, a fever lit up in her bones. She began to think she might be in real trouble, particularly as this was an illness that she could not, under any circumstances, call a doctor about. The fever slid her towards delirium. She listened to her song again, and again. In her most coherent moments she would think of ways she could approach her family doctor, ways in which he would be forced to help her, and keep mum at the same time. It began to snow, which quickly turned into a blizzard. The cold from outside permeated the windows and seeped through her skin.

  She lost track of time. Until the moment she realized that, if she wanted to live, she would have to act now. She replaced the needle on the gramophone, grabbed the telephone, and listened to the song while sitting on the floor against the coal stove, heat leaching through all the blankets she’d swaddled herself in. The song came to an end. Snow tapped against the windowpane. Shivering, and straining not to fall back asleep, Claire lifted the receiver from the telephone stand.

  “Code and number, please.”

  “Uhm . . . Lorimier. Zero. Four. One-seven.”

  On the fourth ring, Dr. Bertrand answered, his voice sleepy, checking the hour. She had once heard him say — in a tavern during the false armistice — that brave acts were, at times, done merely out of weakness. And that, thought Claire distantly, would have to do. She told him she would be heading out to his office immediately. Then hung up.

  Claire struggled to her feet. The wind outside chattered its teeth. The naked light bulb over her head flickered. She made her way to the door.

  Medium:Gelatin silver print

  Description:Italian immigrant, candid portrait

  Location:Aboard the Resolute (transatlantic)

  Date:1926

  A man sits on a long bench, his back against the steel bulwarks of a ship. One imagines the metal against his spine to be cold, dusty, coarse.

  He is young, likely in his early twenties, though his face holds the distance of hard experience, draining away the boyishness that one might normally associate with such youthfully plump cheeks.

  There is an ink-blot mole on his temple, island on a milky map.

  He is wearing a fedora and looking out of the frame, to the left; his hat is tipped down but only manages to shade one of his eyes from the harsh sun. The unshielded eye is squinting, folding into velvet creases, which will only claw deeper as he ages, eventually cinching into crow’s feet.

  His level gaze is contentious and cool; its ferocity reined in, taut, and anchored.

  It is a look that no one would want to be the recipient of. His sunlit iris stained with a dull, unnameable poison.

  16

  For the remainder of the voyage, Serafim spent much of his time with Antonino Spada, smoking cigarettes and chatting, leaning out over one of the railings, the dark water sliding past at a remarkable speed while the steamship sliced its sluggish weight through the waves. They flicked their cigarette butts into the distant water, stroked their moustaches, adjusted their caps in the salt spray, and pulled them tight onto their brows.

  Serafim marvelled at the way such different people could sometimes be drawn to each other. Outwardly the two men had little in common — Antonino with his endlessly outspoken opinions, and Serafim with his quiet views and paltry knowledge on most everything scholarly and intellectual. Which was probably why it worked: Serafim suddenly had quite a few questions about the world in which he was now a castaway, and its politics, including the new land both of them were moving to and its machinations. Antonino had a vigorous answer for every one of Serafim’s questions.

  Antonino was also a man, Serafim noticed, who didn’t have a lot of friends. Other passengers would whisper disparaging remarks in his direction, especially when Antonino was with a few of his other acquaintances on board. Serafim heard the group of them referred to as cani sperduti, stray dogs, which he found confusing. Unlike an opportunistic mongrel, and just below his abrasive growl and bark, Antonino was, undeniably, a humanitarian. He seemed uniquely concerned with both the issues and the people that no one else gave any weight or importance to, the kind of people who didn’t have the clout or voice to speak up for themselves.

  Antonino and Serafim were talking about photography when they spotted land for the first time, the ship soon entering the St. Lawrence River, whose shores constricted throughout the day into a tightening gullet. Below them, clusters of whale spouts could be seen coughing out geysers of mist before being swallowed up again by the placid surface.

  The next morning they woke to a lurch, signalling that they’d arrived at the port of Montreal. Serafim sat up in his berth, rubbed his eyes, and kic
ked himself for making such complicated promises to both the intimidating immigrant whom Antonino had advised him to steer clear of and the ship’s operators, both of whom he’d assured would receive photos the moment he arrived in Montreal. While everyone else on board would be busy finding lodging and comfort, Serafim was going to have to run around a city he wasn’t acquainted with, looking for a darkroom to rent or borrow for a couple of hours. (Though, he knew, the money he was going to save would come in handy, given that he had to set himself up in a new country. This was the kind of shrewd frugality that paid off in the long term.) He put only the money he imagined might be asked to rent a darkroom into his wallet, worrying about pickpockets, and placed the rest in his trunk, which he then locked and slid as far under his bunk as he could. He patted his jacket before leaving his quarters: his camera, the film to develop, the lens for the enlarger, the key to his trunk. He had everything he needed.

  Serafim found Antonino amidst the chaos of disembarkation, shook his hand, wished him luck. Then Serafim made arrangements with the immigrant whose photo and film he would deliver. He pointed out a place on the pier where they agreed to meet in about three hours. Then Serafim made his way down the gangplank. He had his papers stamped and made his way onto the busy quay.

  There were new sights and smells for Serafim. A vendor roasting nuts; a gentleman jauntily walking with a chrome-handled cane and a threadbare top hat; workers with white cloth aprons loading a horse carriage; a bicycle with a wooden box strapped to the back and a woman, with short hair no less, riding it. She smiled at Serafim while he gawked and watched her pass.

  Serafim, unconsciously following her, worked his way to the left, through tight streets, and finally approached a man in front of a burring machine shop. He took out his camera and began fumbling in French through a query as to whether there was a photography studio nearby. Serafim struggled with the man’s impossibly strange accent for half a minute before realizing that it was actually English he was speaking, though with a liquid cadence he’d never heard before. The man, like every male he’d seen so far, was clean-shaven, and had a slightly too-large hat that flopped and folded to a slant on his head. He pointed Serafim to the next street down.

  It was a tiny studio, on a corner, a single wedding photo propped up against the shop window. Serafim went in and, on a whim, addressed the proprietor, who appeared from the gloomy back, in English. “I wonder if I can ask of you a favour.”

  The man nodded, resting his hands on the counter. “Go on, then.”

  After he’d explained himself as best he could, the man appeared hesitant, and it was then that Serafim offered to pay for the use of the darkroom. The man spoke in dollars, so Serafim had to show him that he only had escudos. The man walked over to a phone, lifted the receiver, cranked its side, and called out a word and four numbers. It was apparently a bank, and they told him that, considering the exchange rate, the transaction would require all the escudos that Serafim had on him.

  “That is . . . rather expensive.”

  “Well,” the man countered, “you’re free to try to find another studio that’ll agree to such a request.”

  Serafim looked at the time on the man’s wristwatch, scratched his neck, and emptied his wallet onto the counter.

  The darkroom was much more spacious than the storefront, and the proprietor sat on a high stool inside, watching Serafim work, and talked idly about photography in the city, while listening for the tinkle of the bell that sounded when someone entered his shop. As the film was drying, Serafim fitted his special lens into the enlarger, asking over his shoulder, out of curiosity, if the man was from England.

  “I should hope not. Irish. Like everyone used to be here in Griffintown. But that’s changing.” Serafim turned to him, perplexed, and the man explained, beginning with a chuckle. “It’s not only French Canadians in Montreal, you know. Mostly, of course. And they’re a good lot, fine Catholics. But they’re in the east. You see, we all have our little enclaves, our own churches and hospitals. Jews, Italians, Chinamen, Negroes. While the English, par for the course, are set up in their mansions downtown and up towards the mountain, where they lord it over us all.”

  “I see. Of course.”

  “And yourself? Spanish?”

  “Portuguese.”

  “You don’t say. Never met one. So tell us, what brings you to the frozen land?”

  “I am following an important political movement, as a photographer.”

  “By the sounds of it, you already have plenty of shenanigans of the sort in your own country, what with the coup d’état that just passed.”

  Serafim spun round. “Coup d’état?”

  “Sure. Read it in the papers. Still have it if you’d like.” He left the room and returned with a journal, pointed to an article, and handed it to Serafim, who held the newspaper up to the dull yellowish light in the darkroom.

  “Portugal’s now run by a military dictator. A big improvement, by all accounts. So,” the man continued, “if it was politics you were after, I’m guessing you would’ve been better to stay home.”

  “Meaning the anarchists . . . they’re . . . It is over?” Serafim said into the newspaper.

  “Couldn’t tell you.”

  There was a chime as someone entered the studio, and Serafim was left alone with his thoughts, thoughts about where Álvaro would go, and what he would do now. Thoughts of the country he’d left behind, and what he might have captured there, at that critical moment when the republic crumbled and — just as Álvaro had predicted — something bold and brave had swept in to take its place.

  After the proprietor had served his customer, he busied himself with something else, and only returned to the darkroom just before Serafim was ready to leave. Serafim had developed four large sheets of photographic paper, the one photo of the Italian immigrant and three contact sheets in order to show the ship’s operators every shot he’d taken, allowing them to pick just the ones they wanted him to develop for them.

  The studio owner bent over the photo of the Italian immigrant and clicked his tongue. “Shame you were a second late. It would have been a great portrait.”

  “Yes, well, thank you for your time and equipment.” Serafim shook the man’s hand and took the four sheets, which weren’t completely dry yet, and put two in each hand in a way that would minimize his fingerprints and maximize the sheets’ exposure to the passing air as he walked, drying them as he returned to the wharves. Passing through the streets, brooding over his decision to leave Portugal, his determination suddenly limping, white sheets spread at the ends of his draping arms like the exhausted wings of an angel that has gone astray.

  Serafim was a little late, but he found the Italian immigrant exactly where they had agreed to meet, his hands deep in his pockets, standing over his baggage. As Serafim approached, the man was so eager to see the photo that he let his manners slip, plucking the picture from Serafim’s hand before they’d even greeted each other. The photo was apparently larger than he was expecting it to be, and less like a professional portrait than he’d hoped, but he was satisfied enough with the finished product to open one of his valises and slide it into a wide pocket. Then, without hesitation, he asked for the film, or more precisely “the thing that anyone could use to make copies of this.” Serafim, who was quite happy with the shot, had thought about telling the man a harmless lie, giving him a tiny cut-out of the contact sheet, for example; he certainly wouldn’t have known the difference. But in the end he’d decided to give in entirely to the man’s obtuse idiosyncrasies, and handed him a tiny fold of paper with the exposure in it. The man unfolded it and held the rectangular piece of film up to the grey sky and smiled. Gesturing that he was satisfied, he took out his wallet (which had Serafim thinking he might be remunerated for the peculiar favour), slid the film into the note sleeve, and replaced the wallet in his pocket.

  “What is your name?” the man
asked as he picked up one of his suitcases. When Serafim told him, he paused as if to consider it for a good few seconds, then nodded. “It’s good,” he said in Italian. “I will remember this name.” Then he shook Serafim’s hand, picked up his other large suitcase, and walked away. Serafim watched him disappear into the throng of the port, thinking him entirely eccentric. Shaking his head, he continued to the boat.

  Having to show his ticket to get back on board, he explained to one of the crew that he’d been commissioned to take photos of the ship and the people it transported. He was soon escorted into a small room where the same Portuguese gentleman with whom he’d made the ticket arrangements was noting something in a ledger. The man looked up from his work. “Why, Mr. Vieira, I see you’ve brought me some photos to look at.”

  “Well, not photos exactly, but a way for you to see the shots I’ve taken. I can develop any of the frames on these three pages that interest you.”

  The gentleman put the sheets on top of his book and bent in to inspect them. “So,” he said offhandedly, “did you hear of the coup?”

  “Yes. What do you know of the details?”

  “Little. But I sense good change in the air. The republic was a deplorable sham.”

  “Yes. Something a close friend of mine always said.”

  “And he was right. . . . .” The man flipped to the second sheet, then the third. “Mr. Vieira, what have you been taking pictures of all this time?”

  “Sir? The passengers, the ship, the everyday life on board.”

  An astounded pause, further inspection. “Mr. Vieira, I get the feeling that you didn’t compose a single photograph on our ship in any kind of proven or conventional way. It’s as if these people, who are never pictured in a charming pose, were not given warning that you would be taking their picture at all.”