She heard Callum get up from where he was sitting, and then the clink of glasses. She watched down the corridor, readying herself for the possibility that he might appear. He didn’t.
As the laughter in the room increased and their breathing became heavier, she felt safe enough to tiptoe past. She made her way to the powder room farther down the corridor and eased the door open, wanting to make sure no one was inside.
“Hey, honey,” a fellow dancer called out to her. She was conversing with Claire’s reflection in the mirror in front of her. “Did you think I had a sugar daddy in here like the other one? Is that why you opened the door like a criminal?”
“No, I just was . . .” Claire pointed over her shoulder.
“So, looks like we’ll be stalling a few minutes once more. Not counting how long Isabelle’s usually late on top of that. Why don’t you come have a seat, keep me company.”
“No. . . . . have to talk to Callum about something.”
“Suit yourself.” She began to rummage through her cosmetics bag. Claire edged the door shut again.
She then made her way to the back door to unlock it as quietly as she could, which would take some time. It was a heavy metal door, with clanking bolts and hinges that whined and complained when touched. She wrestled the rusted bolts out of their sleeves, carefully freeing the plates, levers, and slots. She nudged it open to look outside and saw Serafim waiting against the opposite wall, looking guilty, holding his hat, squishing it nervously. For some reason Claire liked this little habit of his. She found it endearing in some way.
Leaving the door ajar, she crept back down the corridor to make sure Callum was still at the bar in the front and the dancer still in the powder room. The coast was clear. And by the sounds of it, the councilman and the young dancer were, if not already in the act, very close to it. She returned to the back door, pressed it open, and gestured to Serafim to come in.
Together they stole down the hall, Serafim readying his camera. They stopped just before the Chinese screen, crouching low, and Claire pointed to the spot where Serafim could achieve the best vantage point. Serafim, all business now, peeked through the gap, adjusted the distance settings on his camera, and held the lens up to the slat of light that pinstriped his face and torso in the dark of the corridor, ready to take the shot.
Which was when Callum appeared in the hallway, a grenadine-sweetened cocktail in a vodka glass pinched in his right hand.
Claire jumped to her feet in a flurry, silent as snowflakes, and hurried towards him, careful to keep her body between Callum’s line of sight and Serafim, who was still squatting in the hall behind her.
“You are so sweet!” she said, stopping in front of Callum, his progress stalled. She scooped the drink out of his hand and took an audible swig. “Mmm. Thank you. Thank-you-thank-you. Thank. You.”
Callum looked her over, perplexed.
“So good. So, so good. Really. Thank you.” Claire suddenly pointed at the front window. “Wow, how ugly is that dress?”
Callum turned and she hooked her arm into his, leading him back towards the bar. “So. Can I tell you a secret?”
Callum didn’t answer, just continued to observe her carefully, eyeing both her expression and the way her hand was stroking his arm.
“You just caught me. I confess — I was watching them. I have watched them before, too. I think it is . . . erotic.”
Having arrived at the bar, Callum took his place behind it, smiled, straightening his collar. “Oh, yeah? You . . . you like to watch, you say?”
“Yes, I do. Now” — she took a long drink of her cocktail, placed it with conviction on the bar — “would you mind if . . . . kept watching? You will not tell, I hope.”
“No!” he insisted immediately. “No. Me? Hell no. Go on. Enjoy yourself.” He winked at her for the third time that day.
Claire smiled, and in mock mischief tiptoed back towards the corridor.
As she neared Serafim, she was glad to see he hadn’t stopped taking pictures. He might already have what they came for, she thought. He was busy snapping exposures, tilting the camera at different angles against the gap in the screen and making incremental adjustments to his settings. Someone on the other side of the screen turned up the radio, their groans and sighs swelling with the volume.
Then, just above the music, Claire heard the rusted wail of the back door opening, as a fan of daylight spread across the end of the hallway. She and Serafim exchanged a panicked glance, and Claire headed towards the back door, mouthing blasphemies through every shade of vulgarity.
The other dancer stood in the daylight, looking up at the clear sky. She noticed Claire behind her. “Hey, sweetie, someone left this open. You know some rummy out in the back could walk right on in here?”
“Really?” Claire paused, feigning shock. “My . . . God.” She looked through the doorway. A tin garbage can on the other side of the alley, lying on its side, stared emptily back. “It must . . . I mean, maybe it has to do with, you know, what is going on in there.”
“Oh.” The other dancer considered this. “Maybe.”
“But you know” — Claire pointed at her — “you know, I thought I just saw somebody in the backrooms who didn’t belong. I mean, maybe some rummy did get in.” She turned and scurried back into the dark, over to the Chinese screen. The councilman on the other side gave a climactic grunt and shudder, while Claire lifted Serafim by the arm and pushed him forward, towards the light of the back door, where the other dancer still held it open. At first Serafim resisted, but he soon surrendered to Claire’s impulse, plodding along in the hope that she knew what she was doing.
“Now beat it! Filthy drunkard! Pervert!” She pushed Serafim out into the bright alleyway and fumbled to close the door behind him, as if he might try to dash back inside. The clang of metal, schlock of bolts sliding back into their sleeves.
In the sudden darkness, Claire felt her way to the powder room and opened the door, offering herself and the other dancer both light and safety. “I’m glad that’s over,” she said.
“Yeah,” her companion agreed, though she was still hesitantly working things out. “Did that guy . . . did he have a camera?”
“No . . . I don’t think so. But I wanted to ask you, do you have any mascara I can use? I forgot mine at home, and I could really use some.” Claire opened the door farther, an invitation for the other dancer to enter, move on, and forget what she might’ve just seen.
The dancer’s posture relaxed, as if physically letting the incident slough off her shoulders, no longer her concern. “Yeah, of course, in my bag,” she said, on her way to her seat in front of the mirror. Claire closed the door, sealing them both inside.
Later that evening, she rushed to Serafim’s apartment and — too impatient to knock —barged in to find him smoking on his sofa. “And?” she asked him, glad to be speaking French again. “How did they turn out?”
He gave her a stern look.
“Now, don’t tell me they didn’t work. I thought you told me you were a professional.”
“No, that’s not it. It’s the way you pushed me out, like you were going to call the police. Why did you do that? That woman saw me and my camera.”
Claire laughed. “It was to save us! Pretending you were just a drunk who stumbled in through the back door was the best way of getting you out of there, with the photos and everything intact. Now you’re just a drunkard in their minds, who was stumbling around in a place you weren’t welcome. It happens all the time. No one suspects a thing. Promise.”
Serafim thought this over, looking at his cigarette. “Well. Okay. The pictures are there.” He gestured to a large envelope near the radio.
Claire rushed over and slid the photos out. Gasping, she spun round. “These are perfect! Perfect.” She stared into the dreamy centre of the room. “By next weekend, we’ll be rich.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“I am. Nothing can go wrong now.” She slipped off her shoes, removed her jacket and shawl, and dragged it suggestively across the back of her neck. “The hardest part is behind us,” she said, already making her way towards him. “You’ll see.”
Paris, França; 7 de março de 1929
Estimado Serafim,
Thank you for sending me those last photos. I really enjoy the body language of the prostitutes and how readily they lend themselves to interpretation. The pictures got me thinking of a conversation I had the other week, about Lucien Aigner.
I’m not sure if you’ve heard of him yet, but he’s well known here, primarily for his stunts. He carries a camera in his pocket (he swears by the same model you do, in fact), and once he’s in the private settings of the notable, politicians and high society, he shoots them on the sly. “Caricatures, grimaces, the unaware moment, the pratfall, showing the mighty made human; in pyjamas if possible,” he said in an interview. The resulting photo essays printed in Vu and some of the German picture magazines have damaged more than a few reputations.
This sparked the discussion I had. It comes so easy for us to take pictures of prostitutes, urchins, street people, because, I think, it costs them little to be photographed. They are already stripped down to a fundamental state, and as I’ve seen with the models I photograph, the simple act of having to stand nude tends to make one unashamed of one’s form. This has me wondering, then, if we should not be concentrating more on the rich, on those whose baring of their true selves, whose being caught and seen as manifestly human, costs them so much more. They can, after all, afford it. If empathy is the end goal, shouldn’t we actually be seeking not only moments of majesty in those whom, like prostitutes, society has torn down, but the moments of frailty in those whom society props up?
Abraços,
Álvaro
26
Serafim was feeling light, having just finished work for the day, and was walking through the streets of Antonino’s neighbourhood, his eyes floating from one side of the lane to the other. It was a week after he and Claire had taken what was sure to become the most lucrative photograph Serafim had ever developed, and what was more, he had woken up that morning, again, with Claire sharing his mattress, and not a hint of steeped tea waiting for him on the table. Birds were returning in greater numbers. Tulips, teetering on their thin stalks, were blooming in gold and crimson. And the fateful letter to the councilman was ready to be sent to his office with an offer to exchange the incriminating film for money (all four thousand dollars of it) this coming Friday at noon.
He and Claire had agreed to continue in their routines and habits as if everything were completely normal, so that nothing might be seen as suspicious if ever looked back upon by those around them. Serafim was about to pay Antonino an unannounced visit, as he did at least once a week, though more often twice. Beneath his moustache, he was smiling as he approached Antonino’s apartment. Then he became aware of sounds that were somehow wrong — scuffles, grumbles, the severity of grown men tussling. Now came the sound of Antonino’s stomach being punched, his voice coughing out a winded rasp.
Serafim broke into a jog, holding his hat down on his head, and rounded the corner of a long row of townhouses, a carriage driveway leading to a courtyard stable. Three stout men were at its centre, surrounding Antonino, two of them holding his hands back, the other throwing hooks and jabs into his stomach. Serafim stopped, paralyzed. He was no fighter, and even if he had been, there were three of them, every one of them husky.
The one who was throwing the punches stopped to catch his breath. Hunched over, he spoke in Italian, taunting Antonino, who replied in a scratchy whisper. The man then reached into his pocket, unfolded a jackknife, and held it up in front of Antonino’s face.
Serafim looked round, trying to think of a way to help his friend, and quickly realized he could do something that he’d learned to do just a week ago. He sprinted back the way he’d come, ran into the alley, and searched for the gated entrance he’d seen through the courtyard, which accessed the stable from the rear. Finding it, he rushed up to its tall bars, through which he could see the men still holding Antonino. The knife was being waved in front of his face. Seeing that the gate was chained shut, Serafim took out his camera, stuck it between the bars, took a quick shot, then yelled, “Hey!” He snapped another photo, then another. When the men realized what he was doing, they let go of Antonino and raced towards him. Serafim took yet another picture, keeping his face hidden behind the camera.
The men’s bodies clanged against the gate, expecting it to swing open. Fortunately for Serafim, the chain held. They were incensed, pounding the metal, commanding him to stop taking their pictures, one of them shielding his face as if from a bright light. Serafim backed away, continuing to snap photos, and advanced the film without dropping the viewfinder from his eye. The men reached their arms through to grab at him, spat, threatened, cursed, until they were so enraged they spun on their heels and set out in the opposite direction, to catch him in the alley. He watched as they jumped over Antonino, who was now lying prostrate on the ground. Two of the men swept to the right of the driveway and another to the left. They were coming for him from both sides.
As Serafim was trapped, there was no time to make sure Antonino was all right. Thinking creatively, he pocketed his camera and jumped a fence into a tiny backyard where he heard children playing, assuming that the back door there would be unlocked. It was, and Serafim galloped through a stranger’s kitchen and living room, coarse shouts following him. He left the front door open as he leapt over a few stairs to a gate, unlatched it, and kept running, this time up the street.
He continued for several blocks then doubled back, increasingly confident he’d lost them. He finally stepped into an épicerie, where he pretended to peruse the shelves, watching the shop’s window for his pursuers, his pulse thumping in his throat. After a few minutes he asked to use the proprietor’s phone in the back, so he could finally check on Antonino.
It turned out he was fine and had locked himself in his house, though he doubted the men would return. He added that Serafim should wait until dark to drop by (using the back entrance) so they could talk things over. Serafim agreed and, waiting out the sinking sun, found a shabby café where he sipped watered-down coffee for several hours, and continually checked over his shoulders while trying to read a newspaper. He set off for Antonino’s apartment just after dusk, faces and shapes in the street coveting their details in velveteen blurs.
Serafim found Antonino alone at his table with a bottle of gin, the house quiet except for the creaks of wood shifting in the ceiling from the flat above. He shook Antonino’s hand and, insisting the poor man stay seated, found himself a glass in one of the cupboards, poured himself some gin (which Serafim hated drinking straight), and sat at the table across from his friend. “Are you okay?” he ventured, after looking Antonino over for a moment.
“In truth, I am not so well,” he said in a hushed tone. His eyes lagged slow and pensive, and judging by how much gin was left in the bottle, it wasn’t the drink.
“Are you hurt? Should we get you to a hospital?”
“No, no. It’s not that. It is . . . many things. All piling up at the same time.”
“I see. May I ask why those men were beating you, what that was all about?”
“Oh” — Antonino flicked his wrist — “the fault was mine. . . . . received some bad news for the second day in a row, and was passing a stoop where those men — a few simpleton thugs really — were singing a fascio march. I wasn’t thinking, and shouted at them, some ill-advised remark about that bastard son Mussolini. Insults were exchanged. They followed me to my doorstep, pulled me into the courtyard. It was for posturing purposes only, nothing more.”
“How can you be so sure? They had a knife, Antonino. A knife, in your face.”
“
Well, yes. But it would have ended there.” He paused, his gaze drifting. “Though, who knows? Maybe it would have gotten worse. Maybe I am a lucky man, and you saved my life. But I don’t think so. What’s more, I think it was unwise of you to intervene. First of all, there isn’t a person you could show those photos to who wouldn’t instantly burn them. The corruption in this city, and those who enforce it, is more endemic than you know. Those men are just brawn for hire, dimwits, but they can still work a few things out on their own. They could make the connection that it was you. They know you and what you look like. They know you’re a photographer, and clearly a good friend of mine. I tell you, you shouldn’t have intervened.”
Serafim drank some gin, winced, and set his glass firmly on the table. “Well, I do not care what you think. If I saw the same thing this moment, I would do exactly as I did earlier. In spite of the danger — and your ingratitude.”
Antonino laughed. “That is what you don’t understand, Serafim. You would be introducing danger where, without such a reaction, there is none. I have been in situations like this before, you know. I happen to understand that I have . . . ways of getting out of them — proven ways, of turning things like this around.”
Serafim crossed his arms over his chest. “Antonino, can you hear yourself? What could you possibly have that could turn that around? A Tommy gun?”
Antonino hesitated. “I happen to have a belief — and the deepest that a person can have — in humankind.”
Serafim fought back a smirk. “You will forgive me for saying this, Antonino, but that is the only time I have known you to say something that I would call naive. I am confident that all the faith in humanity that exists couldn’t stop a mindless brigand from doing what he wishes.”
“You see, that is, perhaps, one of the reasons it works. Because I believe in those men, Serafim. And I will believe in them, no matter. Even if they do not stop. Even if they cut my throat like a butchered pig.”
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