‘Yes?’ she asked.
‘Hi, I’m Edward Glass. It’s my first day today. I was told to come here and I’ll be told what to do.’ He fumbled in his pocket and unfolded a crumpled letter. She did not take it.
‘Has no one instructed you?’ she asked, rather irritated.
‘No,’ he said.
‘Which department are you in?’
‘I’m in the archive.’
‘The archive?’ she asked, almost disbelievingly.
‘Yeah.’
‘Are you sure that’s right?’
‘Yeah.’ He read from the letter: ‘The Subterranean Photographic Archive Department.’
‘Well, okay... you go down that corridor,’ she said, pointing. ‘And you keep going, right to the end, and you go to that door. There will be a staircase, and you go down four floors. That’s the archive.’
‘Right, okay, thank you.’
‘Okay,’ said the woman, who mumbled to herself as her gunshot shoes returned her down a corridor.
Edward walked briskly down the corridor, along which the light faded the closer he reached its end. Along the walls were unmarked doors, some without even handles. The corridor seemed impossibly long, for however much Edward walked, he didn’t seem to come any closer to its end. Looking back, the light from the foyer had become minute, and in turning, he almost walked straight into the door at the end of the corridor. This door, too, was unmarked, but it at least had a handle. Opening it, he found a metal staircase that began right at its threshold. He stepped onto it and found the black spiral staircase to be particularly rickety. As he descended, as he looked down through its central spiral, he saw that the black paint of the staircase deteriorated the further down he went; in its place came rust. The air, too, transformed; in place of a pleasant nothingness came a stale, dank smell that rose up from below. He soon came to the first door: unmarked. He looked down the central spiral: darkness. He continued to descend. The staircase became more and more rickety, more and more unstable. He passed the second door, and then the third door. He watched his feet step-step-step-step, a rhythm that became a run. And the staircase then became eternal, because as much as he step-step-stepped, the staircase never came to an end; his steps became endless: a blur of feet, a run, a dizziness that spiralled. That was until a toppling over, a stumble, a falling onto his head, a body travelling round and round, until: the forth door. He had no choice: the staircase ended there. He had fallen as far below the earth as he could possibly go.
Edward picked himself up and pieced himself back together. The dizziness did not subside for some time, and only when his vision came back into focus did he notice the heavy metal door. It was distinctly different to the bland, unmarked doors he had seen so far. It was more like that of a bank vault, or a nuclear bunker. Edward tugged at the wheel attached to it, but it did not move a fraction. Instead, he spun it, and the door began to shift. The door was heavy: one foot of solid impenetrable metal. Edward was no more the wiser once he had managed to step inside. For inside was darkness. There was something there in the darkness, but he could not yet see it. It took him a while for his eyes to adjust. Then, gradually, he saw aisle upon aisle, partitioned by walls almost as tall as Edward. As Edward walked towards one of these aisles, he realised that they were not walls at all; they were made of wood. Within this wood, uniformly, were small square drawers, running right down the aisle, as far as he could see: these were not walls then, but filing cabinets. He opened one drawer. Photographs. Hickeldy-pickeldy. Black and white, sepia, colour: pictures of people. In one was a child’s birthday party: a baby sitting at a cake with a party hat, another of some people sitting in a living room. Another, a man walking his dog. Edward closed the drawer. He continued walking. There were no signs, no directions. He walked until he thought that these aisles would never end. Only then did he notice drawers even smaller than those he had just seen. Only three inches by three inches. He pulled one drawer out: inside were photographic slides lined in single file. Edward heard a rattling. His eyes darted up to the ceiling. There, in the darkness, was a jumble of pipes of different sizes running through and around each other. This rattle travelled along the network of pipes, only to disappear somewhere in the distance. Then a gurgle. Then silence.
Edward continued to walk. Whenever there was a gap in the aisle, a space between cabinets, he would take it. This lead him on a random path, and soon it was clear that he was in the midst of a labyrinth. The more he walked, the more everything looked the same; if he turned back, and turned back he did, he would not know his way back to the entrance. He looked at his watch: it was 9.50am. He had been down here longer than he thought. He was now late for work. Lost at work. Then he noticed a glow, a light coming out from beyond the cabinets. He hurried as fast as he could, up and around the aisles. When he found where the light was coming from he discovered a partitioned office: four thin walls with large glass windows; inside: two office desks, a lamp and a telephone on each. One desk was empty. The other was covered with papers; photographs, to be precise. Sitting at that desk was a small man, an old small man, whose eye was right up close to a large magnifying glass. His hair was long, his beard thick and grey. On the glass door of the office was embossed: ‘R. P. Stilts, Head Subterranean Archivist’. Edward knocked on the glass door, which rattled in its frame. The old man’s head darted up: his eyes squinted and his lips pouted, so much so that, along with his wrinkly skin, it looked as though the top and bottom halves of his face were closing in on his elaborate nose.
‘Yes?’ he snapped. Edward opened the door a little way.
‘Hi, I’m Edward Glass.’
‘Who?’ said the old man loudly.
‘Glass,’ said Glass.
‘Who’s Glass?’
‘I am.’
‘And who are you?’
‘I am Edward Glass.’
‘Sure I know that, but who are you?’
‘I was told to come here,’ he fumbled in his pocket. ‘I have this letter.’ The man took it and inspected it with his magnifying glass.
‘Ah, they’ve sent you here to help me have they?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh well. Just like the last one.’ Edward opened the door a little further to step inside, but the man got up slowly from his chair. Before he did anything else, he removed a pair of slippers from one of the drawers of his desk-indeed, his feet were bare-and proceeded to pull them onto his small feet; but before he did that, in order to see, he put on his thick-lens glasses which, when he looked up at Edward, had magnified his beady eyes. Standing, it became clear how short he was: an entire head shorter than Edward. Not only that, but he was also hunched forward, the result of a hump having developed over years of peering through that magnifying glass. ‘Out we go,’ he said. Edward left the office as soon as he had entered. The man walked slowly, hobbled in fact, and walked out along one of the aisles. He stopped suddenly and turned. His small pupils, engulfed by the now magnified whites of his eyes, stared right at Edward.
‘This...’ he said, ‘is the hub of the Subterranean Photographic Archive, and I, Mr Stilts, am its chief archivist. Many of these drawers are filled with the hard work of my own life.’ He talked as though he were speaking to a group, as though he had done this many times before. He opened a drawer. ‘Inside here are photographs. Many were once the personal possessions of people, people like you and me, and that is why we have many 4x6s, 4x8s, 4x10s, Polaroids, etcetera-depending on the age and model of the particular camera it was taken with-and that is why they are family pictures: pictures of babies, pictures of husbands, wives, loved ones. But, not only do we have family pictures taken with consumer cameras, we also have many professional photographs. If we are lucky, we will find a still by a once-famous photographer, or a picture of a once-famous movie star. It makes our job all the more easy when celebrity faces are involved. We have photographs from many years back-a hundred years old in some cases, and not only that but we have newspaper clippings, magazine
back-issues, music hall posters, shoe polish advertisements, and some nitrate film reels. Of course, some of these items-such as the music hall posters-are illustrations, but they are all helpful when cross-referenced in the identification of certain photographs. Now, it is our job as archivists to become photographic archaeologists, to lift out the past from these present images. The majority of these photographs-not all, but ninety-nine percent of them-are of faces. And now this is the important part, so listen carefully: it is our job to, firstly, extract photographs from the archive-from the designated archive section-then to identify the face in the photograph. Once the face has been identified, we must catalogue our findings before re-archiving the image back into the archive. So that’s Extract, Identify, Catalogue and Re-Archive-E. I. C. R. -which may make it easier to remember. Any questions?’
Edward needed a moment; he had many questions. ‘So we are finding out who everyone is in these photos?’
‘Yes.’
‘How many photos are there?’
‘Millions.’
‘Millions?’
‘At least.’
‘And how are they organised? What’s the system?’
‘Many of them are not yet organised.’
‘So they’re not in any order?’
‘Well... some are, those I’ve managed to identify, but on the whole, it’s basically organised via its medium: photo, slide, newspaper, etcetera.’
‘I thought you said there are designated areas of the archive?’
‘There are. Those that have been identified, and those that haven’t.’
‘How many have and how many haven’t?’
‘I’d say about ninety percent haven’t.’
‘Haven’t been organised?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well then there’s a lot of work to do.’
‘Yes, a lot of work.’
‘And how are they organised once the person has been identified?’
‘Well, if and when we do identify someone, then by name, of course.’
‘And how do we actually identify them?’
‘Well, that’s what I was about to show you. Come on. Take some photographs.’
‘Any of them?’
‘Yes, any are as good as any others.’ Edward opened a drawer at random and removed a small pile of photographs. The old man hobbled back to the office. Edward sat at his desk and spread the photographs out over it. The pictures were indeed mostly those of families: children on bicycles, parents with push-chairs, birthday parties, visiting relatives. Mr Stilts pulled up his chair next to Edward.
‘Now, choose one of the photographs.’ Edward did so: a picture of a woman standing outside, smoking a cigarette. ‘Now, we have to extract every piece of information we can from this one piece of evidence. Firstly, the obvious: is it colour, or is it black and white? It is an important point to note. In fact, it is no way to go about dating the photograph. You may think that since it is in black and white that it must therefore be an old photograph, pre-1960, say. But is it not possible for a black and white photograph to be taken even today? Even tomorrow? And even colour photography occurred much earlier than it would have you believe-not in consumer cameras, maybe-but even that is something to be disputed. See, the key is to be vigilant, always be asking questions. So, its black and white or colouring is a fact to be noted, but not as a way for dating the photograph. But also take into account what kind of black and white or colour it is. Is it sepia? Is it faded? See, this is a colour photograph, but it is only a little faded. That says it is either a relatively old photograph or it has just been exposed to light for too long.
‘Then, always turn the photograph over. There might be some vital information on the back that you might otherwise miss. Often, the companies would print the brand of film used, and sometimes from this you can decipher what kind of camera was used.’ At that point, Mr Stilts took out a phone-book-sized directory from Edward’s drawer and slammed it on the table. ‘Here we have evidence of every camera ever put on the market.’ He opened the catalogue and presented Edward with a series of reference numbers: pages and pages of random numbers and letters, codes for automatic or manual flashes, of the length of lenses, of aperture sizes, of focal points: indexed every which way in minute, blotchy type. ‘It also contains information on all the types of film more or less ever created. Now, if we look up Kodak in this book, which is what is printed on the back of the photograph, it will give us all the information about Kodak from its conception to a few years ago-this volume is not as of yet up to date.’ He turned to a page where the word Kodak repeated itself all the way down, page after page: more serial numbers and reference codes. ‘It may not be much use to you yet, but once you can pinpoint which film was used, then it takes you to all those cameras that would have been able to have taken that film. All those cameras are dated to the day of their original manufacturing. You can then, of course, pinpoint roughly the time at which the subject of the photograph lived.’
‘Are they dead?’
‘Who?’
‘All the people in the photographs.’
‘Well... yes.’
‘All of them?’
‘Yes, all of them. This is a photographic graveyard.’
‘So every person in those drawers is no longer alive? Even the babies and children?’
‘If they were, there would be no reason for their picture to be here.’
‘Why?’
‘Because we’d know who they are. The identity of every single one of these people have been lost.’
‘So we’re actually trying to bring people back from the dead..
The old man’s wrinkled face lit up. ‘Exactly,’ he said. ‘Now,’ he continued, ‘once you have investigated the technicalities of the photograph, you must then, of course, look at the content. Look at this woman’s clothes, her hair. The overcoat she’s wearing is somewhat nondescript, her hair pulled back; on the face of it, it could be any decade. But look at her eyelashes, for example, and her shoes. These to me suggest that the decade is the seventies. What kind of cigarette is she smoking? It’s of course hard to tell from this picture, but you can see that it does not have a filter. That is one thing you could investigate. I’d say it’s the things that are most clear in the photograph that you investigate first. Her overcoat would be where I’d go to because it is so prominent in the shot. I’d attempt to decipher who made this coat, when and where. That way we can start to make connections.’
‘How would that help me find out who this person is?’
‘It’s not about you calling up the coat company and they telling you that so-and-so purchased this coat from this store at this time: it’s one of many pieces in the puzzle. The point is not to leave any stone unturned: every avenue must be investigated. This kind of information may not help you immediately, but after a while, the accumulation of evidence will point you in the right direction.’
‘But what if the coat doesn’t work? What else can I possibly get from this photo?’
‘Use your eyes, boy! There’s still a lot to look at.’
‘Like what?’ asked Edward.
‘Like everything around here.’ The old man’s finger circled the photograph. Look at all these trees, this woodland. You can immediately tell that it is autumn from the dead leaves on the ground. And here is what looks like a barn behind her. This is a clue. Can you see what’s written there? Some kind of sign above the barn door: something “... wood.” Words are gifts. You ever see a street name, a shop front, you can pinpoint it easily. All you need is an A-Z or a business directory.’
‘But even once we have all this, even once all this is done-we’ve found the place where the photo was taken, we’ve found what jacket they’ve worn-we still don’t know who the person in the photo is.’
‘Once you’ve found the location and time period, then you can set about finding who lived in that area at that time. The link is family. We’re always trying to find living relatives who can tell us everythin
g in the space of one phone call. They can be a godsend, and often the final link in identifying the photograph. Now I know it’s your first day, so I don’t expect you to find a lot of information, but I want you to see what you can find out about one of these people. You can chose any one of these photos. Okay? There’s the telephone if you need it, and you can always ask me for help.’
‘Okay, I’ll have a go,’ said Edward.
‘Okay,’ said Mr Stilts, who wheeled his chair back to his desk.
Edward had many photographs to choose from: pictures of men and women from times past. As much as he looked over these other pictures, however, his eyes were drawn back to the woman with the cigarette. He looked over her coat, her face, and stared into her eyes. After a period of intense scrutiny, he took out the notepad from his drawer. He opened it and scribbled the words: over coat red in red ink. Underneath he wrote: outside autumn, unfiltered. Almost instead of crossing these words out, he drew a large question mark on the page, part of which cut through these words. He went over it a few times until it was deeply scarred into the paper. He then let the pen fall and lay back in his chair. Seeing a directory on the floor, he immediately picked it up and slammed it down on his desk, opening it at whatever page it fell to. It was the business directory. He immediately started looking through: M... K... G... E... C... colleges... coffee beans... coats... no entry... cl- cl- clothing retailers. An advertisement: one of London’s oldest retailers, Est. 1896. He picked up the phone, dialled the number. It rang. A male voice.
‘Hello, Sticher’s...’
‘Yes, I’d like to know about a coat...’
‘Certainly sir. What did you have in mind?’
‘Well I don’t know much about it, except what it looks like...’
‘Well we mainly make coats to order here at Sticher’s.’
‘You don’t sell any?’
The Glass Book - A London Love Story Page 15
