“I don’t make multiple prints. There’s only one of each.”
“Then we’ll divide them between us.”
“Perfect,” I said.
“And as a bonus, I get to see the pictures of your daughter.”
“And I get to know you better.”
“You get to try, Mr. Brewster. But as I told you once before, you’re foolish if you do.”
“Then why did you come to see me, Sara?”
“I didn’t come to see you, Jonathan.”
Maybe not, but now I was Jonathan.
I got out the spectral portraits and gave them to Sara. I sat across the room and watched as she examined them. I would have enjoyed watching Sara under any circumstances, but there was a particular intensity to my pleasure in looking at her as she looked at the pictures. She seemed to be undergoing some strong emotions, but I couldn’t identify them. She was looking through the pictures for the second time, looking at each one for about ten seconds before going on to the next. She was chewing delicately on her lower lip, and her toes seemed to be flexing inside her scuffed, expensive shoes. I gave up trying to guess her thoughts and began to concentrate on her appearance. I had just figured out that she was long-waisted, when she put the pictures aside and said, “How do you account for these?”
“I don’t account for them,” I said. “Joanne has some friends that only she and the camera can see.”
“Do her friends talk to her?”
“The baby does, I think. The baby’s name is Colnee, and it—she—seems to be interested in food. You’ll have to ask Joanne for the details. She should be home . . .”
Sara had lowered her head and covered her eyes with her hand. Her cheeks looked a shade or two paler than they had when she arrived.
“Are you all right, Sara?”
She managed a constricted little nod. And then a tear appeared on one of those white cheeks. I had no idea what I should do. Tears call for comfort, as my daughter had given me plenty of opportunity to learn over the last four and a half years. And out of mindless habit I started across the room to take Sara into my arms. But after a couple of steps I realized that she might not recognize that my motives were paternal (if that’s what they were). So I just stood in the middle of the room, trying to think of the right thing to say. Nothing very appropriate sprang to mind.
And then one of life’s great rewards was presented to me. Sara stood up and moved quickly into my arms. For a moment she kept her hands over her eyes, and then she put her head against my chest and embraced me. There was nothing timid about the embrace. It was fierce, as a matter of fact—and ferocity was something I hadn’t expected. But I had only a few milliseconds for such speculation before my mind collapsed under a pleasureful sensory overload. My sinuses eased their tyranny enough to let me examine a complex aroma, one element of which was definitely shampoo and another of which might have been harp strings. I saw that Sara’s hair, which seemed ambiguously blond from a distance, was a complex blend of auburns and flaxes. I examined a flushed ear, which was almost rimless. As the result of some odd maneuver, my tongue encountered her cheek for a moment and was rewarded with a trace of the mineral pungency of tears. Sara’s body felt unexpectedly strong, and my sly senses concluded with much excitement, and a little embarrassment, that she was probably braless. All this was punctuated by her rhythmic sobbing.
My sense of time was badly dislocated. We stood there quite a while, I think—long enough for some moralizing corner of my brain to conclude that an act of consolation had become a less noble kind of act. But however long we must have stood there, some corner of my brain kept asking for more time.
But time ran out, or, rather, Nanny Joy walked in. She gave us a tolerant but hardly joyous glance and made a detour toward the kitchen. I was annoyed, but I wasn’t sure whether it was because Joy had discovered us or because she didn’t look as if she wanted to give us her blessing. Sara’s back had been to the door, and I don’t think she knew that anyone had come in. But she probably realized that I had regained some of my powers of reason—and that I was therefore becoming dangerous. She drew away from me and came up with a question that’s as good a spellbreaker as any: “May I use your bathroom?” I gathered we were to pretend there had been no magic interlude. I gave her the directions she needed, and she said, in a disturbingly calm voice, “I’ll be ready for picture-taking in a minute or two.”
Business as usual. I went to the studio and got things ready. My brain and my knees seemed to have turned to porridge, but I was feeling extraordinarily pleased.
When Sara came into the studio, she seemed to have regained her usual look of unassertive self-assurance, but there was a dullness to her eyes that I hadn’t noticed before. I hoped the dullness was a reflection of her own pleasure. She went immediately to the posing chair and sat down. I usually adjusted the headrest for my subjects, but I thought Sara might misinterpret my motives if I went over to her and took her head in my hands. Besides, I had promised not to direct her.
Sara adjusted the headrest herself. “Are you ready?” she asked.
“Whenever you are.”
“How many shots do you want to take?”
“I usually do a dozen.”
“Fine,” she said. “I’ll tell you when.”
Sara closed her eyes, frowning slightly, as though she were trying to add a couple of four-digit figures. When she opened her eyes a few seconds later, the dullness had gone from her expression. She seemed not to be conscious of me or the camera, but she was obviously giving her attention to something that interested and gratified her. I thought maybe she was thinking of some music. Her look of pleasure intensified, and I was beginning to wonder whether she had forgotten about me, when she said, “Now.” I made the exposure.
We repeated the process eleven times. I felt a little as if I were working with a professional model who was going through her repertoire of poses. There were a couple of important differences, though. Most models are able to call up only three or four expressions, and those expressions are vapid and strained. Sara seemed to be taking part in, or observing, some kind of drama—not a drama made up of scenes worked out neatly by a playwright, but one consisting of unexpected events involving friends.
Sara’s performance astounded me, and I began to realize how little I knew about her personality. I had thought of her as a person who didn’t believe in casual displays of emotion. At first I was annoyed to see how easily and convincingly she put on her little show, but soon I began to admire the performance.
After I had taken the last picture, Sara’s look of asceticism and self-containment returned. She smiled calmly and asked, “Was it all right?”
“More than all right. I’m eager to get them processed.”
“How long will it take?”
“I’ll do it tonight. They’ll be ready in the morning.”
“Do you mind if I stop by tomorrow to look at them?”
“You could see them tonight, if you’d like. You could stay here until they’re ready.” I stopped short of suggesting that she accompany me into the darkroom.
“I can’t do that, I’m afraid. I have some friends coming in to play chamber music.”
I tried to keep my distress from showing. Sara stood up. “I have to leave now, Jonathan.”
I wanted at least a few more minutes with her. How could I let this enigmatic person leave me? “My daughter, Joanne, will be here any minute. She’ll be upset if she doesn’t get to see you.”
“I’m sorry, I really have to leave. Tell Joanne I’ll see her some other time.”
“Why don’t we make a date now?”
“Not now. We can talk about it tomorrow. What time should I be here to see the pictures?”
“Any time you want, Sara.”
“Ten?”
“Fine.”
Sara got her bag. I watched fondly as she walked through the room. She held her body straight—too straight, perhaps—and there was a slight stiffness in her movements.
At the door, she simply said, “Thank you.” Then she brushed her fingertips across the back of my hand and walked away. I closed the door and went to a window where I would be able to see her leave the building. As I looked out Joanne’s school bus was pulling up at the curb. As Joanne left the bus Sara came out of the building. They looked at each other for a moment. Although I couldn’t see their faces well enough to be sure, their expressions seemed to indicate pleasure more than surprise. Sara squatted down and rested her hands lightly on Joanne’s shoulders. The two of them began an earnest conversation that went on for about five minutes. Sara appeared to do most of the talking. Finally, they kissed each other, and Joanne ran into the building. Before Sara walked away, she stood for a few seconds staring solemnly at the doorway.
When I let Joanne into the apartment, she didn’t—as I had expected—start immediately to tell me about her encounter with Sara. Instead, we said our hellos, and I lifted her onto my shoulder. “Did anything good happen today?” I asked.
“Ms. Abraham got hit by a ball.”
“That’s not good, Joanne.”
“Then why did it make everybody laugh?”
I didn’t want to get into a discussion of moral issues. “Did anything else happen?”
“Billy Crotters said my teeth will all fall out.”
“That’s right. But you’ll get new ones.”
“But I like the ones I’ve got.”
“You’ll like the new ones better. They’ll make you look like the ladies on the front of magazines.”
“Will I have to take my clothes off?”
“Not those magazines. I mean the ones with ladies’ faces. The ladies with the nice shiny teeth.”
“My teeth have to eat a cookie now, I think.”
I put my secretive daughter down, and she ran off toward the kitchen. Why hadn’t she told me about having met Sara? The thought of Sara reminded me that twelve moments of her life were lying in the studio, waiting to become visible. I collected the exposures and went into the darkroom, ready to see Sara in a new way—ready to look at her with the kind of intensity that people can accept in person only from someone whose love they return.
The photographs gave me a new view of Sara, all right. But it wasn’t exactly comforting. In each of the portraits, Sara was surrounded by the same kind of ghostly images that had appeared in the portraits I had done of Joanne. Baby Colnee was there and so was the man in the black suit. But there were also two other translucent figures in some of the prints: a middle-aged woman and what seemed to be an American Indian.
The time I spent in the darkroom was not relaxing or enjoyable. When I saw the first portrait, I was furious. What the hell was going on? Wouldn’t I ever be able to take normal pictures again? I had set out to do a visual celebration of the woman I loved, and instead I got some kind of paper hallucinations. Actually, Sara looked stunning in the photographs. But although I tried to convince myself it wasn’t true, there could be no doubt that she had been aware of the spectral figures that showed up in the prints. In every case, she was looking at or reacting to one of the other figures.
Since I had tried out the camera and proved that it didn’t photograph ghosts when it was alone with me, I could only conclude that Sara and Joanne were the ones who attracted the unnatural visitors. I remembered that Joanne first began to see her friend Colnee on the day that we met Sara. I really didn’t care if Sara was haunted, or whatever; that only made her seem more interesting. But I didn’t want my daughter to be burdened with more than her share of unreality. From the beginning, Sara had been more interested in Joanne than in me. Was I rumpling my daughter’s psyche just so that I could satisfy a romantic impulse?
I would have put the whole thing down to some kind of dementia on my part, but that wouldn’t explain away the evidence of the photographs. And as I examined the photographs my professional pride, such as it is, began to assert itself. I had twelve more arresting exhibits for the show Harry was setting up. Or, actually, only six, since I had promised to give half the portraits to Sara. And they were, without exception, well worth looking at—and buying.
Sara not only looked stunning in the photographs; she displayed an unusual type of vitality, which probably grew out of the contrast between her warmth and the cold deadness of the spectral figures that surrounded her. She no longer looked like a musician or like a member of any other profession that devoted itself to an abstract subject. She had also changed physically: she looked undernourished, and the flesh of her cheeks seemed to have tightened up. I was beginning to understand that the young woman I had fallen in love with was no less complicated than anyone else.
I looked at the portraits once more, and my nervous system began to close down in protest against what I had subjected it to that day. It was time for a little moderation. I left the prints to wash, and I took a tour of the apartment. Joanne was watching some fluorescent puppets on television, and Nanny Joy was sequestered in her room.
I went to my bedroom and stretched out on the bed. I stared at the ceiling, where afterimages from Sara’s portraits began to appear to me. I was surprised that they didn’t seem frightening or repulsive. In a way, they comforted me, and after a few minutes I achieved the moderate person’s ideal state: dreamless sleep.
When I reentered the world, it was with Joanne’s help. She was snorting and whooshing in my ear and reminding me that I make complicated, disgusting sounds when I sleep—a fact that various females, beginning with my mother, had pointed out to me at various times. For a few years I refused to believe that something I enjoyed as much as sleep could lead me to do anything grotesque. But the testimony to the contrary was unanimous, so I accepted it as the truth.
“I don’t like you when you sleep, Daddy.”
“Why not?”
“You make funny noises and you look funny and you don’t talk to me.”
Having someone wake me up and criticize me was not my idea of a good time, and I was about to say something to that effect, when I got a better look at Joanne. She was wearing only panties and ankle socks, and she was as beautiful and unselfconscious as a melon. A child’s body is handsome in a way an adult’s can never be. For one thing, most of us can look at an immature body without getting our hormones stirred up. And a child’s flesh doesn’t usually display too many reminders of the ills that it is heir to.
Nothing immoderate in the way of smells and hair. A hint of rib, a tightness to the tummy.
I embraced my daughter, who then asked, “Will you miss me when I die, Daddy?”
Oh, fine. Spreading cheer. I didn’t want to show my dismay, so I said, “Is that something you’re planning to do soon?”
“Will you miss me, Daddy?”
“I won’t have to. I made a pact. You don’t have to die.”
“Somebody has to die.”
“Not you, sweetie.”
“It’s all right if you miss me.”
“We’ll discuss that when you have a few stretch marks.”
“Yes.”
“Aren’t you going to ask me what stretch marks are?”
“No. I think you’re being silly.”
I let my jaw fall slack, and I did some noisy throat-breathing. Joanne giggled, but I was wondering what the hell was going on in her mind.
I spent as conventional an evening as I could manage. I dried Sara’s portraits and forced myself to forget about them and her. I asked Nanny Joy if I could deprive her of the stupefying pleasure of washing the dishes. I concentrated on the multicolored strings that made up the dishmop. I counted the chips (23), cracks (12), and different patterns (5) in the dishes.
&n
bsp; After indulging myself with a couple of giveaway-show reruns on the telly and taking my pulse a few times, I sat down with Nanny Joy.
“Does Joanne know what death means?” I asked her.
“Does anyone?”
“I’m serious. She was talking about it today.”
“Joanne doesn’t know what next week means, Mr. B. Time is hard to get the hang of. And I don’t think you really know about death unless you know something about time.”
“Then why does she talk about dying?”
“All kids talk about it. It’s in all the stories.”
“Why the hell is that? I’ve never understood why it’s in the stories.”
“Probably just because it makes a good ending.”
“A good ending is everybody living happily ever after.”
“Nobody lives ever after. Especially not the wicked witch.”
“But you don’t think Joanne’s turning strange or anything?”
“Lord, no. I wouldn’t let that happen.”
“You like her a lot, don’t you?”
“I love her, Jonathan. And I’m grateful that you gave me the chance for that. I’d forgotten what it was like.”
“Does she love us?”
“Oh, sure. But when you’re that age you tend to love everybody or nobody. She goes for everybody.”
“But we’re special.”
“Of course we’re special.”
“You’re special, Joy.” I kissed her on the cheek and started for bed.
As I left the room Joy said, “Nothing bad is going to happen to Joanne. I’ll see to that.”
Soon I was staring at my bedroom ceiling again, watching pale, now-familiar shapes. For a moment I wondered whether I had fallen into Joanne’s habit of attracting invisible friends. But the forms I was seeing were not my own creations; they were the creations—or maybe “discoveries” was a better term—of Sara and Joanne. Were the discoveries good or bad? I didn’t have to worry about that, because Nanny Joy had just told me she wouldn’t let anything bad happen to Joanne. Before I closed my eyes it occurred to me that Joy and I might not have the same definition of good. That could cause us problems, I supposed.
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