Eyes

by William H. Gass

  He could not spirit these evidences from their walls. Suppose he could persuade Mr. Gab to squirrel them away in some quiet sequestership of his own where they couldn’t be seen let alone seized let alone certified as Grabbed by Gab. In so doing, in going along with Mr. Stu’s suggestion, wouldn’t Mr. Gab be confessing to his crimes? Then, though, if he did that, perhaps he’d be relieved of his reticence. What stories Mr. Gab could tell about each one—Cunningham’s magnolia, that late Baldus, or Weston’s two shells—how he had found them, stalked them, and withdrawn them from the owners’ grasps (even slipped them out of their countries) as if they were already as much his as his hand was his, leaving a handclasp to wave farewell to their properties.

  At first, of course, u-Stu’s head, heart, conscience were all firmly set against the notion, voiced by their enemy from the earlier street, that Mr. Gab’s stock contained stolen articles. His mind could not figure out how Mr. Gab might have managed. He seemed taciturn not sly, blunt and biased not crafty or devious, and it was difficult to envision Mr. Gab as young, vigorous, and thievish, climbing walls like a lusty vine, seeping like pulverulent air (his word to work on for the day) under doorframe or window sash; yet so quick-fingered as to pry open cases in a wink, slip a photo from its frame in a trice, and then to saunter carefree and concealing from a museum or pretentious shop straight through customs declaring only a smile and a bit of a cough. Nor had he the heart to imagine Mr. Gab to be no more than a fence for those more slick and daring than he—as if Weasel were—what a laugh; yet appearances were deceiving, who knew better than he how that was, for he, Mr. Stu, no longer the Stupid Assistant, never had been, only looked so, on account of his one cross eye and leaking lip. Conscience…well conscience made a coward of him. Made him fear a fall. From his stool of course. From his room, job, only relation. Because he actually would have loved to believe that Mr. Gab was a Pimpernel of prints. He knew that conscience, if it had to compete with pride, wouldn’t stand a chance, and could be cowed into silence. So that to have the prince of purloiners for a pa…well…that would be okay. That would be quite all right.

  He might have to get used to some such idea. Evidence was more prevalent than fingerprints. There was that envelope postmarked Montreal in which the Baldus was, contrary to custom, still kept: an absolutely perfect albumen silver print of the train station at Toulon, with the Baldus signature stamp lower right; the envelope carrying the capital letters CCA outlined in red on its front flap: rails running straight through the glass-gated shed into the everlasting; the envelope dated in a dark circle May 1, 1995: about a foot and a half wide, the sky, as almost always in Baldus, kept a clear cream, the scene so crisp as to seem seen through translucent ice; the print in heavy plastic slid between tough protective cardboard: uncluttered, freight cars parked in place, not a sight of mortal man as usually, in Édouard Baldus, was the case, a document that documented as definitely as a nailed lid; but now, so overcoated, the thing bulked in the box it was shoved in, crying out to the curious.

  What a quandary. Surely Mr. Gab would see the wisdom in such a gleaning of the incriminating prints whose very excellence made them enemies, and surely he would understand, in such circumstances, the good sense in ceasing for a time to acquire anything more that might entrap Mr. Gab against his will in the terrible toils of the law; yes, surely he would have to recognize how wise it was to heed these warnings, to back off and go double doggo; but Mr. Stu knew that Mr. Gab would bite on that Sudek if it were offered, that he could not resist Quality which overcame him like a cold; because what he understood to be Quality was all that counted in the world, Mr. Stu had come to grasp that. Not warmth, it threatened the prints; not food which merely smeared the fingers; not leisure, for where would an eye go on vacation but to its graphs—to bathe in their beauty as if at a beach? Not shelter since his pictures furnished him his bricked lanes and cobbled streets, damp from rain, and all his buildings defined by shade and the white sky and the dark freshly turned fields and the veined rocks and river water frozen while falling into a steaming gorge; not a woman’s love, since the photos gave up their bodies ceaselessly and were always welcoming and bare and always without cost—after, once, you had them; further than that there was the flower petal’s perfection, the leaf’s elemental elegance, the militancy of rail and vagrancy of river line, rows of trees, a hill, a château, a vast stretch of desert dotted with death and small mean rocks. Mr. Stu had a dim hunch about how, for Mr. Gab, they had replaced his mother’s flesh. I touch you. You touch eye. That eye owns the world.

  So what to do. Just broach the subject? Just say: I think, Mr. Gab, we should take these precious ones away for safer keeping. There are robbers out there looking for swag. The richness of your stock might get about, remarked here, mentioned there, whispered around until the information reaches the wrong ear. And then in the night when you are asleep up there, wherever it is, some thug may force his way in, easy enough even if the shutters are shut and the door is locked; these days they have pry irons and metal-cutting torches and lock picks and credit cards they cleverly put to illegal use. Mr. Gab, is that you, sir, someone said, startling Mr. Stu out of his thoughts as though they were dreams. We, sir, are the police. You have been denounced.

  4 THE DAY OF RECKONING ARRIVES

  I’ve—?

  You have been informed upon.

  Mr. Gab gave Mr. Stu a look of such anguish and accusation his assistant’s heart broke. Mr. Stu felt his blood was draining from him and put his hand to his nose. Then Mr. Stu returned Mr. Gab’s anguish with his own, a pitifully twisted expression on an already twisted face. Mr. Gab immediately knew his suspicion was false and unfounded; it had followed the awful announcement as swiftly as the sting from a slap; there had been no time to take thought, show sense, conceal his feeling. He realized how horribly he had wounded his adopted kid, his loyal assistant whom he’d helped from the Home and taught to grow up, reaching the rank of Mister. Mr. Gab understood now that he’d left a son a second time. Whose only mistake was being born. Or being in the neighborhood when Mr. Gab was nabbed.

  We have a warrant.

  A warrant?

  To search your shop and to remove these boxes and place them in our custody while they are examined. It’s been alleged you have been in receipt of stolen goods.

  Mr. Gab tried to rise from his chair by pushing at its arms with his fists. I have no receipts. Long ago they each arrived, these photographs, like strangers off a boat, you understand. There are decades of desire boxed here. Though they are good photographs. I admit that. Good. It makes for envy in others. But he was not speaking to the detective who had probably been chosen for the job because he didn’t look like a detective is supposed to look, because his look, now, was deeply troubled too. And it made his figure seem puny, his hands small, his nose abruptly concluded as if it had once fallen off. Mr. Gab was not even attending to himself. He was being borne down by a lifeload of anxiety and a moment of misguided distrust.

  It is said these boxes are full of stolen pictures.

  They are mine. My prints. They live here.

  These pictures may not belong to you.

  They are prints not pictures. They are photographs not pictures. They are photographic prints.

  They may not belong to you.

  They do. They belong. In these, of all boxes, they belong. But Mr. Gab was not attending to the officer either. Bulky men were entering the shop, one by one, though they had begun trying to enter two by two. The detective held forward a folded sheet with an insecure hand. Out in the street, Mr. Stu saw the Russian without his hat—his hair, in the sun, shining from the effort of a thick pomade. The bulky men wore overalls with a moving-company logo on them. Here is the writ that empowers this, the detective said, beginning softly but adding a hiss by the end. He sensed he was not impressive. He shook, again, his folded paper. Mr. Gab still sat as solemn as a cat and seemed to be registering one blank after another. The warrant was placed in his lap. This gives
us the right to remove (the man waved) and to search the premises. If the allegations—which I must tell you come from high up—powerful government agencies—if they are unfounded, these materials will be returned to you. You shall be receipted.

  Receipted? At that, Mr. Gab gathered himself. The paper slid to the floor as he rose. For the first time, he seemed to be taking in the police and the moving men. These are my eyes, and the life of my eyes. One man bore a puzzled look but picked a box up in his arms anyway. Bring in the hand trucks, somebody said. You are using Van Lines? There will be a complete and careful inventory, the detective reassured him, looking intently about the store. Maybe you will finally learn what you have. Then he peered at Mr. Gab. You understand, sir, that later we shall want to speak to you at length. A hand trolley stacked with a box at its top marked PRAGUE rolled out. PARIS NIGHTLIFE went next.

  MISCELLANEOUS LANDSCAPES followed.

  There are not a lot of these prints left, Mr. Stu heard himself say.

  Why don’t you help us by taking those pictures on the hangers down, the detective suggested to Mr. Stu. That way, nothing will get bent or soiled. So Mr. Stu did. First finding an empty carton to keep them in. Which took time because he was bloodless as a voodoo victim, and the bulky men and their boxes were in all the aisles. The enormity of everything took his blood’s place.

  One of the movers stopped for a moment to stare at a photograph Mr. Stu was about to unfasten. How dare you, Mr. Stu shouted. The burly man shrugged and went about his business. No one else cared.

  Mr. Gab no longer protested. He simply stood beside his desk and chair and with an empty gaze followed the men as they pushed their trolleys past him. Mr. Stu made out a truck parked at the curb. Against its pale gray side the Russian figure leaned. As each box was loaded into the rear of the truck, he wrote something on a clipboard. Mr. Stu suddenly thought: where are his witnesses? Every transaction took place in the back, behind the rug, between the two interested parties, and was always in cash, Mr. Stu had been given to understand. There weren’t any records. What could they prove?

  Mr. Stu rocked into the movers’ doorway. You shit from a stuffed turkey, he shouted, though it was doubtful the Russian understood him, he hardly looked up from his list. Turkey turd, yeah! A big moving man easily hipped him out of the portal. We’ll get you guys, he later feared he had u-stupidly said. Mr. Gab’s position or posture hadn’t altered. His eyes were unnaturally wide and seemed dry. Why was his face, then, so wet all over? One aisle of tables was vacant. How strange the shop seemed without its brown boxes. Now the entering men with their empty trolleys went down the open aisle and returned to the street through one that was solidly cased. Wire hangers lay in a tangle on the trestle tops. The big moving men were tossing the beanbags on the floor, often in fun. Mr. Stu thought of saving several of the displayed photos by concealing them under his shirt, but the detective had two public eyes on his every move. The toe of one of Mr. Gab’s shoes was on a corner of the warrant. Tears were sliding from his eyes in a continuous clear stream.

  Evidence, Mr. Stu feared. They had evidence aplenty. Who had owned the Julia Cameron before it had come to hide and hovel here? she who specialized in wild hair and white beards? about whom he’d read had breathed the word “beautiful” and thereupon died, her photographs “tumbling over the tables.” Was this an orphanage Mr. Gab ran, and were all these wonders children who had wandered or run away from their homes and families to find themselves in alleys and doorways and empty squares instead of warming hearthsides and huggie havens. No, they all had owners once and, Mr. Stu feared, had been—as if by fairies—stolen. Picsnapped. So they’d be traced—every trade and traduction. And then what? Mr. Gab’s presence in the town nearest his lordship’s estate, his lodging at the inn, his visit to the household—each would count against him; his travels to Paris at opportune times, his many friends in the army who might turn up a bit of art here and there for some of the crown’s coins, complaints from shops about losses they had suffered shortly after his employ—they would surely count against him too; oh so many collaborators, filchers anonymous, partners in crime, many of whom would be still around to testify, and, for a break from the court, would see no need to lie. The prospect before Mr. Stu and Mr. Gab, Mr. Stu decided, was nothing short of calamitous. That was what he had thought to call it before: calamitous. In any case, and the awful moment came back to him like a bad meal, Mr. Stu could hardly work for a man who was so immediately ready to suspect him; who believed he might be a traitor, a child sent by society to win his trust, trip him up, and dispatch him to jail.

  Mrs. Cameron was a woman of good character, and did not retouch, Mr. Gab had once confidently claimed, but she was far too social in her choice of subjects. Social might have been a good idea, Mr. Stu now wanted to say to Mr. Gab. Friends in high places might have stood Mr. Gab in good stead. Tennyson. Darwin. Could come to the rescue. Attest to Mr. Gab’s character. Honest fellow, as trustworthy as a hound. His museum was being removed, his life looted. Such a painful wrench and one deceitfully turned. The Russian—and Mr. Stu now saw his blurry figure counting boxes as they were taken off to jail—might have been an Albanian in disguise. He might be wearing that goo to fool Mr. Gab and Mr. Stu into thinking him sufficiently shiny to do business with. In reality, he was probably some Fed who lived in town with wife and child.

  What’s back there, the detective said, as if asking permission when he wasn’t, and pushing the rug aside to see. Kitchen, came his voice again. George, he shortly cried. One of the busy big men turned away from his work and went to join the detective out of all sight. They will surely find the special treasures, Mr. Stu thought. Soon enough the big man returned carrying within both arms a large box clasped against his chest. What’s this, the detective asked when he reappeared. It has no label. Tell Amos to list it as “Kitchen Closet,” he shouted after Shoulders as Shoulders bore his burden out.

  Mr. Gab’s eyes ran without relief.

  It’s terrible. Why do you have to take everything, Mr. Stu asked desperately. Can’t you see how awful it is for Mr. Gab?

  What?

  Mr. Stu tried to speak more clearly—slowly and precisely as, in the Home, he had once been taught. By switch and rule and ruler.

  Order of the court, seized on suspicion, the detective finally said, leaving the place himself. The walls were bare except for the shiny zinc heads of the roofing nails. The tables sheltered nothing under them now, while the emptied tops merely supported that absence, and reflected the glare of canned bulbs through a mist made of shoe-scuffled dust. The air though was heavy, and Mr. Stu felt the trestles groan. Then the men with their big damp backs were gone. The truck was driven off, and the detective and his Albanian henchman vanished as though they’d become street trees.

  Mr. Gab was where he’d been the entire time, still painfully silent, his face oozing away into grief, perhaps not to return. Mr. Stu, out of a need to soften the barrenness about them, slowly turned the cans off, so only the late-afternoon light, made gauzy by the dirty window it oozed through, illuminated the room. Then Mr. Gab moved to wreeeeek the shutters down. Here and there a streak of sun would reach deeply into the darkness of the shop. What are we going to do? Mr. Stu spoke to himself more clearly than he spoke to strangers. At least you have those photographs engraved on the balls of your eyes.

  Don’t accuse me, Mr. Gab finally said, smearing his face with a shirtsleeve. What evidence can they have—from that fellow, I mean, Mr. Stu ventured. I gave him the slip, Mr. Gab said slowly, separating the words with consternation. He wanted a receipt for his cash. So I gave him the slip. He’ll have a—Well, maybe not, Mr. Stu said and received a bleak look for his pains. Not the first times, but the last time. Then I gave him one. Still, Mr. Stu persisted, you couldn’t have known—I knew, and he knew I knew, Mr. Gab said firmly. It was a Lange I had to have. A face of pain—pale gray—as if—a face worn wooden by a wind. I’m sorry, Mr. Gab added. They’ve taken away my beauties, but
I’ve taken away your world, u-Stu, as thoroughly as they’ve taken away mine. Mr. Gab wavered when he walked, a pushover who now resembled the old rug he had hung for a door.

  Mr. Stu sat carefully in Mr. Gab’s chair. It was not all that comfortable. Slivers of sun, as though from a fire at their front door, raced through the shutters and ran up the rear wall, now wholly exposed, the faint shadow of a table against the plaster like a patch of unsunburned skin. When someone passed by on the sidewalk, the pattern palpitated. It was true that Mr. Gab didn’t have much of a life. He sat in this not very comfortable chair most of every day, letting his eyes lie idle or roam randomly about like a foraging pooch, thinking who knew what thoughts, if he thought any, and if he thought any, who knew that either. Now, and even more often then, Mr. Gab would reluctantly help a customer, and once in a great while do a bit of business behind the rug where the rug quite muffled the doing. You’d have to account it a life overflowing with empty. But that life had better prepare to be so much worse, and embrace mere absence like a lover. Nevertheless, who knew how to count these things: the quality of an existence—especially when you compared it to the meager stuff that took place in the deranged world outside—in walking these formerly narrow aisles, talking occasionally, eating meagerly, drinking rarely, sitting rudely on a board seat long hours, leafing a leaf from an out-of-date mag, arguing with an image in a catalogue, watching faint figures pass?