Serafim and Claire

by Mark Lavorato

  To his horror, the taller woman was affronted, and stepped closer to his shrunken frame to speak, towing her relative along with her. The fountain wagged its green tongue beside him. “Excuse me, sir. Did you just take our photograph?”

  Serafim paused, thinking of how best to answer this query, schools of diplomatic words swimming through his mind, delicate euphemisms to be used in place of that one callous word. “Yes,” he said flatly.

  “But we weren’t ready!” The two girls laughed. “What kind of picture will that be? Besides, shouldn’t you have asked our permission first, sir, at the very least?”

  Serafim was playing with the settings on his camera, still crouching. He stammered in reply, “Well . . . n . . . you . . .” He cleared his throat. “You . . . you have to see . . . that the picture will be an excellent one because you weren’t ready.” Finally, it occurred to him to stand up. “In the same way that its value lies in the fact that I did not ask your permission.”

  The beautiful woman’s mouth fell open. The other woman covered her lips and twittered, crumpling against her companion’s side. “So you’re saying that you knowingly steal that which is of most value to people?”

  At long last Serafim was calm. He could agree with that more than anyone. “Yes.”

  The relative laughed again, while the woman with the dark eyes gave a teasing smirk. “You, sir, are diabolical.”

  “Perhaps.” Serafim turned the Leica over in his hands and reset the shutter speed.

  With a closing volley of laughter, the ladies turned and rejoined the promenading bodies weaving between the trees. But before the two of them completely disappeared into the crowd, the beautiful woman cast a final glance his way. Dark, stirring clouds.

  Serafim began to breathe again. He needed to find out who the mysterious woman was, so he put the camera back in his jacket pocket and made his way to the small lake, where people paddled little boats beneath an artificial cave, water birds scattering to avoid them, blushing with their own astounding colours and the humiliation of their clipped wings. He found the man he was looking for within minutes, his station at the epicentre of all things public as reliable as the North Star, where he held a steady watch over the social constellations around him. For some reason, literature had people consulting fortune tellers and oracles for their critical information, when all one really needed to do was find the resident gossipmonger.

  Serafim shook the man’s hand, gave him some news about his uncle’s bid for the tourism board commission coming up in the spring, and got right to the point. Who was that woman strolling, he asked, right — over — there? And how, please, could he possibly meet her? The man grumbled discouragingly, taking out a handkerchief to clean the monocle that dangled from a chain fixed to his vest. She was the oldest daughter of Mr. Sá, one of the more distinguished brokers at the Oporto stock exchange. A very well-to-do family. Word had it she was about to be presented as eligible, as well, at one of the standard balls for such things, held by the Portuense, the social club of choice for that echelon of society. It will, of course, be by invitation only, he added. So then, Serafim speculated aloud, if he could become a member of this club, he too would be invited to the ball — was that correct? Yes, but it is Mr. Araújo, who runs the club, and who owns, as you know, the most popular theatre in the city, and two of its most exclusive cafés, who alone decides the eligibility of its members. You would have to talk to him. And, Serafim interrogated without pause, could this Mr. Araújo be found anywhere today? Sure, mingling, as he always does on Sunday afternoons, in Café Majestic. Serafim had already begun to turn away but stopped to ask one last question: her name.

  Inês. Inês Sá.

  Before setting off, Serafim made sure to give the man a weighty thank you. To which the gentleman did not respond, but turned slowly back to the artificial lake, with its tranquil rowboats and frantic water birds, still trying to flee the confines of their own clipped wings.

  Serafim left the throngs in the garden and walked into a street that was all but empty. A tram’s massive electric engine was winding itself down to a halt nearby, but he opted to walk instead, wanting to clear his mind, prepare himself for the high-stakes meeting he was about to have with Mr. Araújo. He turned down a different street, where he heard an old woman singing a melancholic folk song through an open window. The volume of her lament rose as he approached and receded as he passed. Serafim began to feel the low drum of his pulse on his temples, thrumming an insistent pressure in his ears.

  Inês Sá, he was thinking to himself. The name was undoubtedly a beautiful one, even if it was laden with tragedy owing to the well-known history of a Portuguese queen out of the fourteenth century, Inês de Castro. He found himself thinking of her ancient story instead of the urgency of his own. Her tale went like this:

  The king at the time had his son marry for political reasons, namely to keep the nobles of Portugal bound tightly to each other in their collective wealth. But when the new bride arrived with her entourage, she brought with her a stunning lady-in-waiting named Inês de Castro, with whom the prince soon fell incurably in love. Their affair brought with it many complications, not the least of which was that she was Spanish, not Portuguese, and had given birth to healthy, vibrant children fathered by the prince. Meanwhile, he’d only produced one legitimate heir with his actual wife, the princess, a boy who was sickly and frail. Eventually the neglected princess died, and the king demanded that the prince marry another political interest. The prince, however, refused; he would marry Inês or no one. So the king thought he would solve the problem once and for all by having Inês banished, but the prince quickly found a way to live with her, in secret, in her place of exile. The king then found out that the prince had begun to appoint Inês’s brothers to important positions at court. Fearing that his throne would fall into Spanish hands upon his death, he summoned three assassins and gave them orders. They descended upon the monastery where Inês lived in exile, and drew their swords. The prince, enraged at her murder, and knowing that the order had come from the king, organized an uprising and rebelled against his father’s reign. It took a year for the revolt to be quelled and for things to return to normal, the prince back at court and in his seat, silent. But when the king died and the prince succeeded to the throne, he surprised everyone. He had the remains of Inês exhumed and adorned in royal robes and jewels, and he told the gathered court that he had married her in secret, and that she was in fact the rightful queen of Portugal. He had her skeleton crowned, and had the entire court kneel before her and one by one kiss her decomposed hand. Then he sought out her assassins. One escaped in transport, but the other two he had brought before him, where he cut into their torsos and dug out their hearts with his bare hands. He then commissioned two tombs to be built in the country’s largest church so he and Inês could be buried facing each other. That way, on the day of the Last Judgement, when all the souls of the world rise from the grave, the first thing they would see was each other.

  Serafim reached the café where he’d been told he would find Mr. Araújo, but he wasn’t quite ready to storm inside. He stood on the walkway, smoking a cigarette, thinking that he was going to have to tackle this in precisely the same way he had other matters that had stoked his obsession. He would have to isolate the crucial steps and surmount each one individually. He would have to act as obdurately as the most extreme icons of his country’s folklore. And if he committed to such action, little, he believed, could stand in his way. He removed his cap, wrapped his fingers around the café’s brass door handle, the chandeliers glistening through the glass on the other side, and while he wanted to thrust the door wide open, he eased it ajar instead.

  He approached the first waiter he saw — trim white jacket, gold-coloured buttons and shoulder boards. “I’m looking for Mr. Araújo, please.” The waiter looked him over, then pointed to the back. As he walked between the rows of tables — conversations subdued, cups c
linking, the smell of coffee, cinnamon sticks, and pastries in the air — Serafim crumpled his hat in his hands like a peasant. The white rococo ceiling towered high above with mouldings in blues, pinks, and gold, while the ornamental mirrors on the walls followed him as he made his way to the back of the room. He asked again at the bar in the rear and was pointed towards a low-lit backroom, where Mr. Araújo sat reading a newspaper, hunched over a desk between two kerosene lamps.

  Instead of sitting up, Mr. Araújo simply peered over his glasses. “Yes?”

  “Mr. Araújo, I understand that the Club Portuense doesn’t currently have a club photographer, and I find it . . .” Serafim scurried through his thoughts for the word, the phrase having come out more combative than he’d intended. “. . . . shame. A pity.”

  “A pity?” Mr. Araújo settled back into the embrace of his leather chair. “A shame?”

  “Yes, sir. I would imagine a club of such stature should have its own photographer . . . is all I am saying.”

  “And you, Mr. . . .”

  “Vieira.”

  “You would no doubt like to remedy this deficiency of ours?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I see. At what expense?”

  Serafim hadn’t thought of this. He swallowed. “At my own.”

  Mr. Araújo took his glasses off, nibbled on the end of one of the arms, and remained silent for some time. The café murmured behind them. A bathroom door closed. “Fine, Mr. Vieira. Post me your address and I will put you on our invitation list. You may come to the first three or four functions to take these” — he waved a flippant hand — “photographs, and demonstrate for me your product, what your services can do for us. Then we will talk.” He put his glasses back on and hinged forward over his paper again. “Now, good day.”

  The first invitation was not to a debutantes’ ball but to a horticultural exhibition at the Palácio de Cristal. Serafim dutifully attended and took pictures, slipping invisibly through the crowd, snapping the frames of a number of unfolding stories: An argument between two upstanding gentlemen, their exchange taut with overstrung niceties and nuanced slights, expressive gestures agitating the invisible venom between them. A boy being stiffly disciplined for playing. A lone woman straggling on the periphery of the room, caught in a pensive moment, looking into the dark of her gloved hands.

  He attended another event the following month, a meet for horse enthusiasts with a small parade and a few races, and wormed his way imperceptibly through the flanks of onlookers. This time he found himself eavesdropping more, becoming aware of the distinctions in speech among the privileged classes. He paid close attention to what the men were wearing, to the latest styles of suits and hats, the colours and patterns of their ties, the shapes and tones of their shoes.

  The third invitation was the one he’d been waiting for.

  He had already developed the photograph of Inês strolling in the park several times. But he’d been right about it needing a lot of technical attention in the darkroom, and he hadn’t quite struck the perfect balance yet, of burning-in the sky and its wildly textured clouds while still maintaining the crisp emphasis on the two women in the foreground. He was getting close, though.

  His uncle stepped into the darkroom one morning to watch him work, standing around as if something were weighing heavily on his mind. Serafim was busy dipping two more prints out of the fixer and hanging them up to dry under careful inspection, the smell of sulphur radiating through the air. He sighed, knowing he would have to discard these ones as well, and looked over at his uncle, who in the saturated green light had a set of uncommon creases etched into his forehead.

  “Serafim,” his uncle began.

  “Yes?” While the settings and timing for the new exposure were still fresh in his mind, Serafim placed another sheet of photographic paper in the easel beneath the enlarger and made some minor adjustments.

  “I’m not . . . sure” — his uncle shifted his weight from one leg to the other — “that you have enough money.”

  Serafim, puzzled, looked at the number of sheets in the rubbish bin, then thought of the new clothes he’d just bought, the price of the tie, slacks, and jacket. He gave a factual nod. “Yes, I do.”

  His uncle seemed to want to say something more, fidgeted in the dimness while Serafim readied the equipment for another attempt. After a while his uncle slipped, wordlessly, back out the door.

  On the night of the ball, Serafim was quite confident he would vomit. He was feverish with anticipation, cold sweat in his armpits, his stomach gnawing away at its own lining. A classical ensemble was playing music Serafim had never heard before. There were high chandeliers, red carpets, long velvet drapery hung in showy bows and columns of gentle folds. The men were self-assured and handsome. The women were beautiful, wearing white dresses embellished with elegant embroidery, their hair up, delicate necks strung with pearls.

  Serafim couldn’t dance to save his life, so he had to hover out of the way, taking pictures, trying to get as close to Inês as he could. He was discouraged to see that he wasn’t the only one. Her attention was being sought by what seemed like the entire room, including other women. Serafim was beginning to lose faith, the night quickly drawing to a close, when she finally spotted him and approached as confidently as she had in the gardens. Part of Serafim wanted to turn and run from her, while the rest of him just froze.

  “I see you have that devilish camera again. Stealing more photos, I presume.”

  “I . . . have been commissioned to be the . . . club’s photographer.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. And I’ve brought something for you.” Serafim jerked round and dug into the leather satchel that was hanging from his shoulder. He pulled out a piece of folded cardboard, in which he had mounted the photo, and handed it to her. As Inês opened it, she drew in a quick breath. “Now do you see how, had you prepared for the picture, carefully posed for it, the image would never have captured your . . . essence the way this one does? Can you see that now?”

  Her voice was far away, weakened. “Perhaps.”

  “Well, it is yours to keep. And ponder, if you like.”

  “Thank you, Mr. . . . ?”

  “Vieira. Serafim.”

  “Sá. Inês.” She offered her hand, which he leaned in to kiss, planting his lips on the tops of her fingers as if they were the sacred bones of an undisclosed queen.

  It was a moment Serafim replayed in his mind much more, he supposed, than was healthy. Lying in his bed, his feet pressed tight against the wooden footboard, he was tense and agitated with a wanting so raw it corroded every one of his thoughts, infiltrated his every activity. He could scream at the injustices of courting rituals in Portugal. Every last humiliation and precarious manoeuvre was the onus of the man and the man alone. In direct contrast to the women, men had to lay bare their most private, physical desires for all of society to speculate upon. Serafim thought it ironic how the word for passion in Portuguese, paixão, had a braid of disparate meanings that somehow amounted to the same thing. Not only did it signify a corporal yearning, but it was also the word for fire, flame, the process of combustion, smoke trailing from a flare-up and dissipating into the dull sky; as well as being the word for the ordeal of Christ on the Cross. The sum total of all these meanings was how Serafim felt: strung up and naked for the world to see, his frailties exposed while his body slowly burned into a sorry heap of tepid ash. Unnerved, his hands would sink below the covers to tug out a grossly inadequate substitution that at least released him into a shallow and restless sleep.

  Two weeks after the ball, at the beginning of the day’s sesta, a quarter after twelve, Monday, February 8, 1926 (Serafim would later recall with precision), he received an invitation by post, cordially inviting him to a dinner party at the Sá residence. In the art of hosting such evenings, the note read, one must strive to strike a perfect balance of company,
of common-grained views and dispositions; and no evening would be complete without at least one aspiring artist. RSVP. Yours, Mr. Abilio Sá.

  That Wednesday, Álvaro left for Lisbon.

  On Friday, the day before the dinner party, Serafim had a single flower sent to Inês’s house. He had spoken with the florist for quite some time to find the proper symbolism for the sentiment he wanted to convey, finally settling on a gardenia, which stood for purity. It was a delicate flower of the richest, most lavish white, but when touched, it turned an acrid yellow wherever a person’s fingers had been. Sullied, tarnished, stained. Women, Serafim had been told, valued their own purity as much as men desired it.

  Ville de Québec, le 2 octobre 1919

  Ma tendre et douce petite sœur,

  I’m so glad to have told you. Though it was ridiculous that, just to meet for a coffee, you had to skip your dance classes; while you tell me it’s a miracle they’ve agreed to let you out for them at all, that your contract stipulates you can only leave their house two days a year. I honestly don’t know what Maman was thinking when she signed you on. A little extra money for the family in exchange for a daughter in shackles is how I see it.

  At any rate, now you know. Though I didn’t tell you that I’d intended to end it with him, once I actually got around to marrying Gilles, once his familial chaperones would finally let us be. But the truth of the matter is that, though Gilles certainly pleases me in many, many ways, lasciviously, he could not begin to compare. They were in two different cities, two separate realities, which I soon found afforded me the possibility of being two women: one, a wife, who was upright and proper, and the other, whenever back for a brief visit in Montreal, who was suggestive and daring, and could balk at our inane and staid traditions.