Photographing Fairies: A Novel

by Steve Szilagyi

“Hm.” Cole threw the broom aside. “Old enough for ghosts.”

  “Ghosts?”

  “So they tell me.”

  “Who is ‘they’?”

  “Esmirelda.”

  “Has she seen them?”

  “Oh, yes. In the rooms, she has. And out on the road.”

  “Out on the road? Where?”

  “Why, right along here. Between here and the Gypsy camp. She says there’s a ghostly rider, all pale, and shrieking, and headless. Late at night, lonely travelers have been known to come back, their hair as white as snow, unable to speak another word as long as they lived.”

  Oh, that’s just wonderful, I thought as I packed up my camera. A ghost on the road I was to take that night. I tried to control the shiver in my spine. Cole must have noticed it.

  “It’s not true, of course.”

  “You just said it was.” I exhaled to compose myself.

  “It’s just a story.”

  “Well, I’m going to be taking that road tonight.”

  “Then you’ve got more to worry about than ghosts.”

  “Like what?”

  “Tramps. They hide in the hedges. Jump out. Knock you on the head. Take your money. Very dangerous.”

  “What about Gypsies?”

  “Bah. They’re nothing. Henpecked blokes what live in wagons. Just stay away from those Gypsy women.” Cole winked. “You might end up living in a wagon yourself. Now when do I get these pictures?”

  “As soon as I set up my darkroom,” I said.

  “Not here, I hope.”

  “I’ve got a place in town.”

  “Nothing personal, you know. The smell, though — the other guests . . .”

  “I understand.” I took my things up the stairs.

  “Oh, by the way,” Cole called after me. “Did you hear the one about the photographer and the lady?”

  “No,” I sighed, and awaited the inevitable.

  “What did the photographer say to the lady?”

  “I give up. What?”

  “Step into my darkroom, my dear. I’ll take a picture of you naked.”

  “What?”

  “No — that’s not the story. Wait a minute . . .”

  “I’ll be taking a nap, Mr. Cole,” I said, continuing up the stairs. “I’d prefer if no one bothered me.”

  “‘. . . Step into the darkroom, dear. Just don’t tell my wife.’ No . . . Wait a second . . .”

  Ghosts. I was still thinking about them as I came to my room. I paused outside the door. A faint rustling sound could be heard within. Before I could scare my self through speculation, I grabbed the knob and opened the door.

  Esmirelda sat on my bed. She didn’t look surprised. Standing up, she went through the motions of smoothing the quilt. Then she began dusting. I folded my arms and watched. The woman’s figure had been before my eyes all day, it seemed. Not that there was anything wrong with her figure as such. I mean, taken in an objective, historical context. In another era, it would have been greatly admired for its massive grandeur. Our own era, however, honors only a slim, boyish female form. Like Linda Drain’s. The classically proportioned, like Esmirelda, go uncelebrated. Worse, they must wear the current fashions. These only accentuate their disparity from the current ideal.

  “Oh,” I said, after a moment’s observation. “It’s you. I thought it might be one of the ghosts.”

  “What ghosts?” Esmirelda lifted the lamp and polished the tabletop.

  “Mr. Cole was just telling me about the ghosts that haunt the Starry Night. And the road between here and the Gypsy camp.”

  “He would do that.”

  “Are there ghosts around here?”

  “Who’d be stupid enough to believe that?” Esmirelda stared at her own reflection in the newly polished tabletop.

  “He said that you told him — ”

  “It’s only stories. I tell him because, with his bad leg, he can’t run from them. That scares him twice as much.”

  “So there are no ghosts on the road. I mean, the road between here and the Gypsy camp.”

  “You won’t see any. If you don’t believe in them, you won’t see them.”

  “Do you believe in ghosts?”

  “Not a bit of it. Don’t believe anything you can’t see. That’s what I say.” She scraped at a tiny imperfection in the tabletop with her fingernail.

  “How about fairies?” I asked. “Fays, sprites, elves, and will-o’-the-wisps?”

  “I don’t.”

  “Does anybody around here?”

  “Only the police.”

  “The police?”

  “Well, one policeman.” Esmirelda put the lamp back down on the table. “You know who he is.”

  “Michael Walsmear.”

  “Ask him about Bea Templeton. Brian Templeton’s wife.”

  “But she — she died, didn’t she?”

  “You know she did.”

  “It was an accident, I heard.”

  “They say.”

  “You mean it wasn’t an accident?”

  Esmirelda’s thick features were blank. Unreadable. “What do you want, Mr. Castle? A murder mystery or a fairy tale?”

  She thudded out, shutting the door behind her.

  Chapter Fourteen

  How I Met a Fierce Dog

  It was a bad nap. I woke feeling out of sorts. All my sleeping and waking habits had been mixed up since Constable Walsmear had come to visit my studio. I would get up confused. I wouldn’t know where I was. The sky would be red. Was it sunset or dawn? I’d wake up thinking I was a boy again; that I was back in the North End. I woke up from my nap at the Starry Night and began walking in the direction of what had been the outdoor privy behind my childhood home. I came to my senses in the Starry Night’s strange hallway. Someone was peeping at me from behind a crack in the door. (It is strange: Now in prison, I wake up sometimes thinking that I’m back in the Starry Night. I leap up, thinking that I’ll be able to undo what has been done; that all that has happened was only a premonitory dream. My true situation returns to mind with the cold gray light from the tiny window up near the ceiling.)

  I splashed some water on my face, and got ready for my assignation with Walsmear. I wasn’t crazy about the idea of walking to the Gypsy camp. But once I was out on the road, I felt better. In fact, I felt terrific.

  The crisp, rain-washed air drove the lassitude from my brain. Gating at the last rays of sunset, I felt a soaring joy in my heart. The fall of darkness only slightly dampened my pleasure.

  I didn’t forget what Cole had told me about tramps. I imagined seeing them in the darkness. Any hedge or hillock could be a hiding place. They could jump out, knock me on the head, and be off — with no one the wiser. Except me.

  But there were worse things out there than common tramps. And I don’t mean ghosts. I was thinking of Paolo and Shorty. They were still at large. That meant they could have been anywhere. They could have been hiding along that roadside, hoping to waylay an innocent traveler. Imagine their surprise when they saw it was me headed toward them. Were Paolo’s eyes still burning from the chemicals Linda had thrown into them? Could Shorty still use the arm I had stabbed again and again with that broken bottle? I knew I could expect no mercy if I fell into their power; only terrible vengeance.

  With this in mind, I appreciated the sight of the occasional lighted house or cottage. I would slow as I passed each one, and hurry up through the dark stretches in between. But the dark stretches were getting longer as I got farther out of town. The road was quiet. My own footsteps seemed to thunder. Would-be ambushers could hear me a mile away. I thought it would be a good idea to arm myself. A stout stick would do. I looked around for one.

  The moon was rising. By its light, I saw a fallen limb. It looked like the perfect weapon. I trott
ed over to where it lay. The back part was lost in some shaggy bushes, so picking up the end that lay in the road, I pulled. At that moment, there was a noise from the bushes; a deep, guttural growl.

  I had come across my weapon just in time. I pulled it harder. But something had hold of the other end; something hidden in the bush. Instead of pulling, now, I gave a mighty push. I hoped to unbalance whatever was holding on.

  Suddenly, a huge black shape leaped out at me. It was a giant dog. Two paws, as big as a man’s fists, slammed into my chest. With the beast’s hot breath in my face, I tumbled over backward. Flashing white teeth lunged for my throat. Desperately, I tried to control the furious mass of fur and muscle. My hands clung to its jaw and tore at its ears.

  At the same time, I could hear a human being crashing through the bushes. A man’s voice called out, “Rollo — Rollo — hoy, boy hoy!”

  “Help,” I gasped. “Get him off of me. Help.”

  “Hoy, damn it.”

  The speaker kicked the dog square in the ribcage. It yelped and backed off. As I stood up, I saw the man aiming more kicks, which the dog dodged, whimpering and barking at the swinging foot.

  “Goddamn, stinking, swining, smelly piece of rat bait,” the stranger shouted after the cowering beast. After a few more kicks, he came back to where I was standing. “Sorry, sir. Rollo didn’t mean to hurt you. He’s just playing. He’s a good dog, basically.”

  “Oh, is he now?” I said, catching my breath.

  “Rollo never hurt anyone.”

  I held my fingers out. “This far,” I said. “I came this far from hitting my head on a rock. That wouldn’t have hurt?”

  “Well, as that’s your attitude, I have to say you asked for it.”

  “How did I ask for it?”

  “You poked him. With that stick. I saw you.”

  “I grabbed the stick. I didn’t know there was a dog in the bushes.”

  As I brushed the mud, twigs, and dog saliva off my jacket, I looked the man over. He was small and swarthy, wearing an old cardigan over a dirty undershirt. He didn’t look like a tramp. Perhaps it was the cardigan. I guessed that he must live nearby.

  The dog came back. It bumped up against its master, panting and sloshing its tongue.

  “All right, apologize to the nice man, Rollo,” the stranger said. “Go lick his hand.”

  “Please, that’s not necessary.”

  “All right, then. We’ll be on our way. Get along now, Rollo.” The stranger started up the road ahead of me. Then he paused to let me catch up with him. “Bit late to be out on the road,” he observed. His accent was somewhat foreign, but I could not place it.

  “Yes, it is, isn’t it?”

  “You’re not lost, are you?”

  “No. I don’t think so.”

  “Not looking for something, are you?”

  “Like what?”

  “A place?”

  “I might be.”

  “A camp, maybe?”

  “Something like that.”

  “A camp with wagons? And fortune tellers? Men with earrings and violins? Spicy stews cooking over open fires? And girls? Beautiful, barefoot girls? Young girls? Very young girls?”

  The man took a step closer. Beneath a damp mustache, his teeth shone white in a suggestive leer. A smell of uncleanliness and strange spices rose from his person.

  “I’m looking for the Gypsy camp,” I said, confident that I was speaking to a member of that strange nation.

  “Oh, are you, now? Well, if you are, let me recommend my Grenda. My beautiful Grenda. Very reasonable. And what she will do for you, you wouldn’t believe. Why, in your wildest imagination — ”

  “I’m looking for a policeman.”

  This shut him up for a moment. Then he lifted an index finger of enlightenment. “Pokey!” he said. “You’re the American who’s looking for Pokey. Am I right?”

  “Who is Pokey?” I asked. “I’m looking for Constable Walsmear.”

  “Same guy,” said the stranger. “Pokey’s short for Hocus Pocus. That’s what we call him. He does magic tricks. We taught him when he was a boy. He never got good at it. But he got a taste for Gypsy food. And Gypsy girls. Ha ha ha. But now, he’s a copper. What do you call him, a flatfoot, yes? You Americans. Ha ha. Hey, I told him if I ran into you, I’d make sure you got to the camp. So come on. I’m going back there now. Follow me.”

  The dog seemed to read the man’s thoughts. It ran through a break in the shrubbery. The man followed. I stood alone for a moment, then decided to go after them.

  Both the man and the dog followed an almost invisible trail through the ragged foliage. We climbed down a culvert, then up a low grassy hill. At the top of the hill, I saw the edge of a woods up ahead. Flickering lights burned from deep inside the woods. A weird glow danced on the trees. We crossed a field. As we came closer to the woods, I could see lanterns and campfires burning within. I saw figures, a few horses, and many wagons.

  It was the Gypsy camp.

  It was not what I expected. My idea, like most people’s, of what a Gypsy camp should look like comes from operetta. Of course, nothing in life is as it is in operetta. (Especially love. So I’ve learned from painful experience.) Still, I expected to see a circle of colorfully painted wagons; hearty bonfires; young women in bright scarves beating tambourines; fat men in earrings; and dancing — wild, abandoned dancing.

  The prosaic look of the man in the cardigan should have prepared me. Nonetheless, as I followed him into camp, I was surprised by how dull, meager, and poor it was. The wagons were all of different shapes and sizes. None was brightly, or even recently painted. Most bore the devices of previous owners: Watson’s Plumbing or Purity Milk. Tents of a sort spread out from the backs and sides of many of the wagons. They were improvised out of dirty canvas, old bedsheets, and cement sacks. Candles and lanterns glowed behind the threadbare coverings.

  Though it was late, children were everywhere. They were dirty, barefoot, and dressed in rags. A very fat woman poured a basin of dirty water onto the ground. Another struggled up the back stair of an unsteady wagon, carrying a pair of sloshing buckets. She pushed open the door with her shoulder and disappeared inside.

  What music I heard came from phonographs. There must have been three or four playing; each melody clashed with the others.

  The ground was a mix of mud and horse manure. It sucked my shoes under as I walked.

  We approached a group of men sitting under a tree in a circle of light.

  “There’s your friend,” the man in the cardigan said.

  I saw Walsmear. He was dressed in civilian clothes — the loud jacket was slung from a tree branch overhead. Three Gypsy men sat around him. They wore ragged caps, filthy shirts, and mismatching pants and vests. They sat on boxes and broken chairs. Overhead, the tree spread its branches like a canopy.

  I was about to go over to them. But the man in the cardigan stopped me.

  “Before you go, you’ve got to let Rollo apologize.”

  “Really, it’s not necessary,” I said.

  “Oh, but he’s got to. I know Rollo. He won’t sleep if you don’t let him say he’s sorry.”

  “Oh, for crying out loud.”

  The man brought a contrite-looking Rollo over to me. Wagging its tail gently, the dog proceeded to slobber all over my hand until my shirt cuff was soaked.

  “There, that’s better,” the man said, moving on with his pet into the darkness.

  There was a burst of laughter from the men under the tree. They didn’t see me. They were watching Walsmear perform a card trick — badly, I presumed. He was in the midst of a flourishing shuffle as I stepped into the circle of light.

  Some of the men looked at me. Walsmear did not.

  It took a great deal of courage for me to speak up. “I’m glad to see more of your tricks, Consta
ble,” I said. “Apparently you’ve got quite a reputation.”

  One of the men got up and offered me his chair. The cane had been ripped out of the chair’s seat, but I accepted it and sat down.

  “I taught him,” said one of the men. He was large-bellied, with a whiskey voice. He was also the only Gypsy man I saw with an earring: a little brass circle on his flappy lobe. “My name is Zob. What do they call you?”

  I introduced myself.

  “Very nice. Very nice,” said Zob, shaking my hand. “But this is not good magic that he is doing here. Pokey is very bad. Very bad. Give me those cards, Pokey. Let me show him.”

  Zob did some tricks. He was good. No stage patter, however. And the work made him sweat and breathe hard. I could see Walsmear studying his fingers.

  The other Gypsy men were not interested in Zob’s tricks. One by one, they got up and left. But Walsmear and Zob got involved in a technical discussion of Zob’s sleight-of-hand techniques. They went on and on. I was completely ignored.

  Lanterns and torches were going out all over camp. The phonographs ground down, and a deep silence settled in. Walsmear had yet to address a word to me, or even recognize my presence. That made me very nervous. I didn’t want to be on my own in the Gypsy camp. They were strange people. They had strange customs; different values. I didn’t even know exactly where I was. We were deep in a woods, and I wasn’t sure where Burkinwell was, or even in what direction. I needed Walsmear, I realized, if I wanted to get back to town that night.

  A passing breeze made me feel even lonelier and more isolated.

  “Come on now,” I said. “Pay some attention to me.”

  Walsmear and Zob stopped talking.

  “If you wanted attention,” Walsmear said, “why didn’t you say so?”

  “I know you didn’t ask me to come to Burkinwell,” I said. “But you did invite me here. And now that I’m here, we might as well talk about what I came here to talk about.”

  “Did you understand that, Pokey?” Zob asked

  “I did.” Walsmear nodded. And to me: “What did you come here to talk about?”

  “The girls.”

  “What about them?”