Image Decay

by Mark Lisac

  The camera shop was absurdly close when he thought about it. Just over ten minutes away on foot. Becker breathed the dust of microscopic soil particles and dead vegetation that filled the autumn air. The light breeze rolled an empty coffee cup near him on the sidewalk. He let it pass, thinking he would leave the fun of stamping it flat to someone else, and then asking himself when he had become too grown up for the most elementary fun. The shop had a small, faded sign over the door rather than one hanging out over the sidewalk. He looked up at the sign, took in the chalky paint on the chipped window frame, and opened the door without pausing to think anything over before he went in.

  A woman with brown eyes and shoulder-length brown hair looked up from behind the counter. Becker was mildly surprised to see a Latin American face—possibly Mexican, he thought, but possibly from further south. Her direct expression and lack of any greeting other than “good morning” said she might have recognized him. He said he was hoping to talk to the owner. She said he was in back and went through the doorway to see if he was free. Ostroski came out ahead of her. He hesitated in mid-stride for the smallest moment when he saw Becker but strode behind the counter.

  “Mr. Becker, is it? What can I do for you?”

  “I’d like to have a talk. Preferably in private.”

  Ostroski considered that and said, “Adela, you can go for lunch now. Bring me a coffee on the way back?”

  She said she would. The two men looked at each other while she got her coat and went out the door, not obviously looking at the visitor, not seeming curious or concerned.

  “You never explained how you managed to get hold of my dog,” Becker said.

  “It was easy. I knew you bring them to town one at a time for the groomer and I knew you get your secretary to take them for a walk at lunchtime. I also knew she doesn’t walk them the whole time. She leaves them loosely tied to a hydrant in front of the same café every time while she picks up a snack. One loop of the leash. Nothing even to untie.”

  “Why me?”

  “Why not you? You’re the culture minister. Culture had my collection. Making the point directly with one person was better than trying to make the point with the whole government. Nothing personal.”

  “Threatening to throw my dog into the river was personal.”

  “I was the one who got tackled by a cop. And threatened with criminal charges. Anyway, you got your dog back unharmed. I got the deal I wanted for my photos. The government got the negatives of the house. And I guarantee you personally there aren’t any more negatives or prints floating around anywhere. What have we got to talk about?”

  Becker didn’t see signs of either nervousness or belligerence.

  He said, “Let’s talk about old pictures. I think you have more that I’d be interested in seeing. Not of old houses or old politicians. I understand you were in Wisconsin in 1972, visiting an old friend. Probably in a little town called Riverton, a college town.”

  “You pals with some detective?”

  “Call it coincidence, followed by diligent checking. You would have been down there just about the time a college girl got shot at an anti-war demonstration. No one ever pinned down who fired the bullet. All they knew was that a number of Guardsmen fired their rifles, but only one bullet hit one person. One of the Guardsmen was responsible. I saw the tapes from the demonstration like a lot of other people did. I saw them a number of times. The manager at one of the local stations was kind enough to run them for me. And once I saw a man in back of a crowd carrying what looked like a 35mm camera. People don’t carry cameras in a situation like that if they don’t use them. The man looked short and wiry. He had short hair, and from what I could see, a kind of a wild expression on his face. I admit the cameras only caught him from the side and only for about a second. I got to thinking this man looked something like a younger version of you.”

  “You got to thinking. You saw someone’s face from a lot of years ago for maybe a second. You thought you saw a camera but you didn’t see him taking any pictures.”

  “Here’s one thing I do know, Mr. Ostroski. I know you took some pictures out of your collection while you were reviewing it and Ginny Radescu didn’t see you doing it. I also know you had negatives of the Roussel house hidden away. That tells me you’re capable of hiding other photographs, negatives or prints or both.”

  “You been taking lessons from your dogs in barking up the wrong tree?”

  They stared at each other for a moment. Becker went on.

  “If someone had photographs from that event I would dearly like to see them, Mr. Ostroski. I think it would almost a public duty for them to be made public.”

  Ostroski let a corner of his mouth turn up. “Made public. Doesn’t sound like you’re looking for someone to turn over pictures to the provincial archives. Sounds more personal. Why would that be?”

  They looked at each other again. This time Becker gazed down to Ostroskis lightly cleft chin and down to heart-height on his chest, and then back up to his glinting blue eyes.

  “All right. I’ll give it to you straight. A long time ago I had a friend. He wanted to serve in Vietnam. I told him not to. He could have had a deferment. But he was a southerner whose father fought in Europe. Most of his ancestors fought in the Civil War. He said going was his duty. And I didn’t try hard enough to talk him out of it and he never came back. He died for nothing. I said someone would pay for that someday. But no one has. It’s hard enough to find anyone responsible for anything, let alone bring them to account. But someone can pay for that girl. I used to live in Wisconsin. Not at Riverton, but I had a friend who taught there. I know what an effect that killing had on the community and on her family. And I know that only a handful of people know or probably know who fired that shot. Even if there can’t be a criminal charge, someone can be brought to account for that murder. Someone can in some measure be made to pay. It will be at least one entry on the other side of the ledger.”

  “And you think I can finger the guy who did it. And I should be happy to help you, and maybe ruin his life in the bargain. If he’s still alive and if he cares.”

  “That’s right. I think you’re able to do that.”

  “Find yourself another accomplice, Becker. You know something? I don’t think I’ll tell you if I was there. And if I was there I wouldn’t tell you if I took any pictures or what they showed. It was wartime. A lot of innocent people die in wars. Vietnam wasn’t the only place that ever happened. Sometimes the people responsible pay and sometimes they live with what they’ve done, if they even know what they’ve done. If they have a decent bone in their body that’s payment enough. They pay every day.”

  Becker thought about making a comment like “very noble” but held it back. He looked around the shop, at the grey day outside the big front window with the chipped and faded paint on the outside sill. He looked back at Ostroski.

  “Let’s cut the crap, Ostroski. There’s another thing I know. Someone fired a rifle into my yard last night. I found a bullet hole in the wall of a shed just above where one of my dogs likes to sleep. I think someone may have been aiming at the dog and missed and lost his nerve after the first shot and left as fast as he could. And as far as I know you’re the only person who likes to take out grudges on my dogs. What grudge have you got against me? And what makes you think the police couldn’t find some evidence linked to you?”

  Ostroski let a loud sniff out through his nostrils, but he avoided flattening his mouth with contempt.

  “I don’t have any grudge against you. And I don’t fire rifles at dogs. If I did I think I wouldn’t miss. But I haven’t fired a gun since Korea. And I haven’t held one in my hands since 1953. They’re awful things.”

  More silence. “The fact remains that someone did fire a rifle at one of my dogs last night. I’m guessing it was a rifle because he would have kept his distance. And I don’t know anyone else who has threatened one of my dogs in the past.”

  “Let’s get at least this much st
raight. I don’t have anything to do with guns and if I did I wouldn’t be shooting innocent dogs. I don’t think I would even have dropped that dachshund of yours in the river. If you think no one else has any reason to do something like that, why don’t you think about what you were doing for the last week? A sour gas well blew out and drove a bunch of people out of their homes. Probably made some kids sick even if you guys wouldn’t admit it. And you were out there every day looking people in the eye like their friendly insurance salesman and telling them there was nothing to worry about and the government would make sure it wouldn’t happen again. Why don’t you think about that?”

  “Or I could report the incident to the police and suggest where they might start investigating. Would Miss Adela like it if you had to close your shop, even temporarily?”

  Ostroski raised his voice at that: “You leave her out of this. She’s got nothing to do with it.”

  Becker looked around the shop walls. Cameras sat on well-dusted shelves. One section held film packages and accessories like lens filters. The equipment and shelves were clean but the walls behind them had faded cream-coloured paint that could stand to be washed and seemed to date from the Fifties or Sixties. He turned back to Ostroski and said, “Maybe you should start thinking about yourself as well as about her.”

  Becker turned to leave. He turned back to Ostroski and sighed and said, “I’m not going to rush this. I’m not going to forget about it either. By God, someone is going to pay. I think you hold the key to that. Think about giving me that key. If not to do what’s right, then to avoid collateral damage.” He opened the door with the faded sign hanging against the glass, reading “Closed” when viewed from the inside of the shop, and walked into the brown dust and dull, overcast sky of the day.

  Ostroski watched him leave. A tightness constricted his throat. He walked into the back room, took a beer out of the fridge, snapped off the cap with a listless movement of his right hand, drank nearly half of it before he pulled it back down to the top of the work counter, and gazed at the floor, waiting for Adela to come back.

  21.

  RABANI PUSHED OPEN THE BROWN DOOR FACING THE ALLEY and gazed up the scratched, worn steps. He climbed to the upper landing. His breaths came faster from the effort. This time he did not wonder again about regular exercise and a better diet. His mind was absorbed in pain.

  He took his copy of the key out of his pocket, unlocked the door, and walked into Alex’s room. The bed was neatly made. That habit had somehow survived along with Alex’s ability to find ideas to write about. Books and papers lay in four separate piles on the makeshift rectangular table that served as both desk and dining table. Someone who didn’t know Alex might have said they were stacked at random. A typewriter with a sheet of paper in it faced away from the opposite wall, leaving an open space on the near side just large enough for a bowl or dish and some cutlery. A hot plate lay on a shelf attached to the wall on the other side of the room where a small sink denoted a kitchen area. A few cans stood on the shelf above it. A half-size refrigerator filled the rest of the kitchen space. A shirt, some socks and underwear lay strewn at the bottom of an open closet space. More shirts, two pairs of slacks, a pilled brown cardigan, and Alex’s heavier winter jacket hung in the space above.

  Rabani walked to the table, pulled out the wooden chair and sat down. He looked around the room and out the window, which faced the flaking clapboard wall of the building next door. He felt his stomach clench as he turned to look around the room again, estimating how many boxes or garbage bags he would need to gather Alex’s possessions. The jacket and canned goods could go to the nearby community centre. He would take the books and papers to sort out later. The rest could go into the garbage. It wouldn’t fill more than two or three boxes or plastic garbage bags.

  Footsteps scuffed up the staircase. Rabani had a wild thought of his brother returning and stifled it before he saw Dominic Sandro standing in the open doorway. He looked at Sandro’s broad face, a face inherited from farmers and stonemasons, strangely fitting above the grocer’s smock, and could not come up with words.

  Sandro said, “George, I saw you come in. I wanted to tell you I am very sorry about your brother. It’s terrible.”

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  “If there is anything I can do.”

  “No. Thank you. You were very good to Alex. You did more than enough already.”

  Rabani stood and walked over to Sandro to shake hands.

  “I want to thank you for looking after him so well. He was happy here.”

  “I didn’t do much. He was a good tenant. He was a good man. A little different. But always polite and never a problem.”

  “I know you gave him things, bananas and other food. Those dish towels.”

  “We have to help each other live. That is the only way.”

  “I’ll have his things cleared out by tomorrow. I may even come back later today to gather everything. Can I put what I won’t take away into the large bin out back?”

  “Of course. You just ask if there is anything you need. I’ll be downstairs until nine.”

  They looked at each other a moment. Rabani groped for more to say, at a loss for words that he never felt at work, numb with grief but not wanting to spill it onto the man in front of him. Sandro felt torn between being at a loss for words and wanting to say something more of comfort, between sadness at the death of the strange but likable Alex and curiosity about Alex’s brother, who had always been friendly but a little distant.

  He said, “I will remember him. He often had interesting things to say. I will remember how he hated the sight of cantaloupes. He avoided the aisle where they were stacked. But after the time he told me he didn’t like them he never complained about them.”

  Rabani smiled, partly out of remembering his brother, partly to acknowledge the attempt to ease the sadness.

  “You’ll have a service? You’ll let me know? I would like to come.”

  “Just an hour’s visitation at the funeral home, I think, and then the cemetery. Our mother had a plot arranged next to hers. You know it will be a small gathering, probably most of them people from my office.”

  “I will be there.” Sandro was still not sure whether to ask about what was on his mind but there could be no other time. “The police said he was standing out in the middle of the street, right on the centre line. The driver didn’t see him in the dark until it was too late and then Alex seemed to be scared and jumped the wrong way right into his path. George, I keep asking what he was doing out there almost at midnight, standing in the middle of the road just looking.”

  Rabani drew a long breath and said, “I think he was looking down the centre line. He told me he was planning a book that had to do with geometry, lines and circles. It was going to be about the game of curling but also about the way the country here is surveyed in straight lines. He said it was also going to be about the way things and people could find their places. Everyone had a place to fit in. I think he thought he fit in here. You made him feel at home here. Thank you for that.”

  Sandro tilted his head with curiosity as he listened to the explanation and nodded when it was finished. “I’ll miss him. My thoughts will be with you. My wife’s too, and she will add prayers.... I have to get back to the store. Let me know about the funeral and remember, tell me if you need anything.”

  He turned and walked slowly down the stairs. Rabani looked around the room once more and walked to the other side of the table to look at the paper in the typewriter. He saw Alex had begun an idea there and read the words: “Sundogs are rainbow circles formed in the sky on bright winter days. Unlike the aurora borealis, they do not shimmer and continually change colour. They are stable and follow definite rules of light refraction. Their colours divide prismatically and they describe a precise angle around the sun. That makes them similar to the circles on curling rinks. Can we think of patterns in the winter sky as reflecting patterns on flat ice? What is....” The words stopped there. />
  Rabani pulled the paper from the typewriter, folded it neatly in three, holding it on the table to ensure the sides of the sheet lined up and the fold lines were straight. He held the paper rather than pushing it into a pocket. He walked out and locked the door behind him without looking back. He thought he would remember the room as he had seen it now. He thought he would use plastic bags to gather the leftovers of his brother’s life later in the day. They would be easier to carry to the bin, or to the community centre if anything looked useful and reusable. A large moving box would be better for the papers and books. He would return the books to the library and thought he might burn the other papers rather than reading them. He did not know what was written on them but he knew the way his brother had thought.

  He drove across the river. It looked sluggish and dull. The sun was bright enough through the flat cloud haze to create a strobe-light effect as he passed under the iron girders of the old bridge. He turned into the neighbourhood where he and Alex had grown up until their parents had moved to a bigger and newer house the year he finished elementary school. The houses here were small compared with the ones being built now. They had a common general appearance and layout. Yet they seemed more distinct from one another than the ones being built in the new subdivisions. The yards were all individual too. Every house had its own distinctive paintwork and landscaping and, occasionally, its own fence or hedge. All these people had their own ideas. Whenever he drove around the newer areas he had an impression of similarity that he never had here, even though the old neighbourhood had probably started out in the same stamped-from-a-pattern way.