Serafim and Claire

by Mark Lavorato

  “I have news! I got this job I told to you.” Claire was smiling, euphoric.

  He looked up at her, frozen, thumb in the ankle of his left sock.

  “So,” she continued, “I will need to go and practise each Monday for all the morning, and I will need to go and dance five nights in the week. But I will still do all my jobs here. I think it is okay.”

  “I . . . You . . . No. No, it is not okay.” He stopped taking his sock off. “I’m . . . afraid that you cannot.” He stood up from the bed, stepping towards her. “I am sorry. But you will not.”

  Claire had expected him to say this. She nodded, grinning dangerously. “Yes. I am. You will let me. If you do not, I will tell your wife.” She watched the colour drain from his face. “And I will tell your neighbours.” She straightened, her hand on the doorknob at her back. “I will tell everyone about your visits in my room.”

  While Claire had prepared herself for things to go wrong, it was surprising to her how quickly it all unravelled. His voice deepened, became sinister. “Why, you conniving little . . .” He lunged forward and clamped his hands around her throat. Grabbing onto his wrists, she kneed his groin with a well-trained, highly athletic kick, and as he folded onto the floor, she dashed from the room.

  Rushing into the laundry room, she bolted its heavy wooden door behind her and, calming herself, turned on the gramophone that she’d placed on the floor there, just prior to his visit. She slipped her oldest and baggiest dress over her head, grabbed the valise that she’d already packed, and climbed her way out of the coal chute. He was pounding on the laundry room door, his shouts and threats to open it resonating through the wood. She wiped the dusting of coal that was on her hands against the sides of her old dress, pulled it over her head, and threw it down the chute. Then, without shutting the trap door, the neighbours already opening windows at the commotion emanating from the chute, she walked away, striding buoyantly along Sherbrooke Street, making her way to her friend’s house. Claire was going to take her up on her offer to become a roommate after all.

  That night, a Saturday, Claire went out as an unchaperoned, unhindered adult for the first time in her life. She and her friend went to a cabaret where one of the dancers who lived in the apartment was performing, and when she was finished, she joined them at their table, five young women together, all of them independent and unquestionably sovereign. Claire was astounded at how many people came up to the table to praise the girl who had performed, telling her how she’d stolen the show. Drinks were bought for them and placed on the table in the midst of an endless stream of flatteries and advances.

  Well after midnight, two young men, proud McGill University students, came in, surveyed the room, and were soon shuffling onto a bench in the intimate corner where Claire and her friend were sitting. They confessed straight away that one of them had stolen his father’s car for the night, and that they’d just finished steeping its furnace with coal. “What! A steam-powered motor car?” Claire laughed. “Impossible!” But they swore it was true, and even offered to take them out for a drive around town inside it, if they wanted. The two girls exchanged a daring look, and agreed.

  Sure enough, the car was just as they’d said it was, a Stanley Steamer, as one of them called it. It was an open-air cabriolet, and with a right-hand drive, it was unlike any vehicle they’d ever seen. They climbed in, Claire in the front with the driver, who asked which direction they should head in first. Claire said she needed to deliver a few letters, and now was as good a time as any. Wanting only to joyride, the driver wasn’t all that interested in running errands. He suggested an alternative route, reaching down on his right to give the brass horn two quick squeezes.

  “No,” Claire said in her innocent accent, “you don’t understand, this is special.” She hooked her arm into his, leaned closer. “Because . . . I need you to protect me.”

  The young man required all of one and a half seconds to think this over before agreeing, though with considerable reluctance. “All right, where is it, then? Sherbrooke? Okay, sure. Right, is everyone holding on back there? Because here — we — go!” There was a gradual hissing acceleration, then the night wind picked up, a sea-breeze whisper at first, which surged stronger and was soon whooshing through their hats, until they had to hold on to them, palms pinning them down to keep them from taking flight, the tree-lined streets soaring past on either side like a stratospheric tunnel of green clouds.

  When they pulled up to the English couple’s house, Claire and the young driver, with exaggerated stealth and stifled chuckles, stole across the lawn and eased onto the regal portico. Claire slipped an impeaching and scandalous letter into the mailbox without the slightest hesitation, knowing that it was his wife who collected the post every morning. Claire wondered how splendid and magnificent she would think her husband upon reading the letter. The two of them then delivered the same letter (Claire had written it out five times in all) to the two adjacent neighbours, and then, for good measure, to the two manors across the street as well. After that, they returned to the ol’ Stanley Steamer, climbing into it on the weightless rungs of teenage laughter. Then, with a sudden valve release and burst of vapour from the exhaust pipe, the vehicle began to creep forward, inching gradually into higher speeds. There were random whoops and yippees shouted from the cab and into the early summer air as they drove off.

  When they could feel the wind again, Claire turned around to face her friend and new roommate, who was nestled in the leather of the open back seat, holding on to her hat once more. Claire giggled at her, the mansions of Sherbrooke Street now dwindling in the distance; and as they receded, so did the possibility, in Claire’s mind, that the thing she had just done would ever be able to follow her. Her friend, like a champagne bottle foaming over with jubilation, suddenly threw back her head and laughed, one of her arms spilling out over the back seat, flailing into the night behind them. She and Claire laughed up at the stars and into the long pearl boulevard of the Milky Way.

  It was the beginning of summer 1920. They were seventeen. And the times — you could feel it — were changing.

  Medium:Gelatin silver print

  Description:Joan Forsyth, candid portrait

  Location:Lamego, Portugal

  Date:1925

  Pencilled onto the rear of the print is a note, dated March 1926, which, in Portuguese, reads:

  In regards to our discussion, the exposure I spoke of, and for which I was recompensed. To you, with my deepest and most heartfelt affections, S.

  It is a photo of a young girl wearing an ornate and formal dress, the kind not likely permitted to be worn while playing, even if that is precisely what the girl appears to be doing. It is unclear whether her palpable sense of mischief stems from this rebellion or from the fact that she is digging for something, through the plants, with her right hand. She is tiptoeing to reach into a decorative planter with ornamental leaves that spout from its centre; she is dwarfed by its foliage fountain, its splashing froth of flowers.

  The fist of her left hand is clasped onto the rounded cement lip of this planter, pulling her higher to explore the secret world between the stems of the undergrowth. She is looking over into the lens of the camera, at exactly the moment her hand seems to have finally come across the object she has been searching for — her reward for winning a difficult game. Her expression also conveys that the object she has just discovered is not quite equal to the accumulation of all the anticipation and coaxing that has led her to this hiding spot. But her eyes still dance. At least she has found it. And for now, it is hers. All hers.

  10

  Serafim thought very carefully about what time he should arrive for the dinner party at the Sá residence. If he went too early, he would risk giving himself away as eager to the point of maladroit fixation, which was of course the case, so, cunningly, he opted to be fashionably late. As it turned out, however, his timing was less fashionable and more
just plain late. He was given a formal, if cold, reception at the door from Mrs. Sá, and then a dismissive introduction to the rest of the guests by Mr. Sá in the drawing room. Serafim gradually inched himself into a corner, at first to inspect a framed photograph and then to lean on a column and sip his aperitif, listening to the static wash of overly polite banter and the profane distortion of a gramophone crackling from an adjoining salon.

  The conversation had already sculpted the room with its niches and bas-reliefs, the company standing and sitting in their chairs at angles to listen to the most intriguing and charismatic of the guests, the spotlights already set fast for the diorama, radiating with flair. It was evident that every male guest who had been invited was there for the courting and the courting alone, seizing this sliver of an opportunity to make a festering impression. After assessing the competition, and disheartened by what he saw, Serafim found himself cataloguing the articles on display in the room — the plush carpets, wrought-iron light fixtures, untouched finger food laid out in silver serving dishes on the tables, and convoluted trays with decanters and carafes of Scotch, brandy, and port.

  Inês was nowhere to be seen.

  Then, as if out of thin air, she materialized right beside him, in the shadowed alcove of his retreat. She spoke to him in a hushed tone, so as not to become the centre of the room’s attention just yet. “Do tell me. Would they make for a good photo, sitting as they are right now, not ready to be photographed?” She gestured at the company.

  Luckily, Serafim had assessed the shot long before she’d asked, and answered with factual automation. “No. The lighting is in all the wrong places. I would need a tripod, and there is, frankly, not much of a story to be captured at the moment.” Serafim turned to reassess the scene, shocked at how relaxed he’d sounded, even confident. “Though,” he reconsidered, “if I could get closer to that well-dressed man who’s speaking . . . who is quite animated . . . and had a great deal more direct light on his face . . .”

  “So do you see everything in life as if you were viewing it through a camera lens?”

  “Yes.”

  “And don’t you find that at all peculiar?”

  “No. I think we all see our world through the filters of our own obses —” Serafim checked himself “— of our keen interests. In fact, I would hope that everyone alive has, in some way, some kind of burning . . . fascination. Yourself?”

  Inês inspected her hands with a quiet smile then leaned forward, close enough that Serafim could smell the soft sea of her skin beneath the citrus of her perfume. “In truth, I do — though I’ve been told it’s a rather unbecoming curiosity for me. Cuisine. In fact, I was just now in the kitchen, with the cooks and servants, wearing a common apron, whilst everyone scolded me for treating this like every other meal they’ve made. Since I was very young, I have loved being in the kitchen with the maids. Such smells and colours. And do you know, every, every last recipe has a secret to it? Out of tradition or chemistry or folklore. Every one.”

  “Really.” Serafim’s voice sounded mildly sedated. “Like what?”

  She leaned in even closer, as if to whisper, but would not be given the chance.

  “Why, Inês!” the well-dressed gentleman called out. “There you are. You make such a stranger of yourself! Come out from the dark there and join the discussion. We’re speaking of the American fashions making their brutish way to Europe.” A burst of agreeing laughter followed his declaration.

  Serafim’s chance to speak with Inês alone, or with any kind of intimacy, was over. She would be monopolized for the rest of the evening; while Serafim would eventually become the reluctant focus of the spotlight.

  It happened during the dessert, after Serafim had sat quietly through every other course, revelling in the thought of Inês’s fingers and secrets pinching salt into the various dishes he forked between his lips with slow artisanal appreciation. There was talk of where everyone would gather after the dessert, when tea was served; and if any of the young women present wanted to show their talents at the piano, or bring out their paintings or sketches. The mere mention of art made a well-dressed gentleman’s eyes, which had scarcely seemed to notice Serafim before, hone in on him with all the iris flame of a hawk. Serafim’s fork paused, protruding from his mouth, waiting for the man to speak.

  “I understand that you have taken to dabbling in photography, Mr. Vieira?”

  Serafim removed the fork, swallowed. “Yes.”

  “I, too, have a camera, a Kodak Brownie, and take pictures on all my travels in the countryside, sending my films away to be developed three times a year. So what do you make of this debate, that photography is art?”

  “I don’t think there is a debate. It simply is.”

  “You should read more, Mr. Vieira. There is quite a debate. It is interesting to consider that, if you’re right, then I too am an artist. I must confess, I’ve been quite unaware of it until now.” Laughter.

  Another gentleman broke in. “Have you read any Baudelaire, Mr. Vieira?”

  “No.”

  The man appeared to find this fact amusing. “Well, Baudelaire, an exemplary critic of the arts, believed photography to be useless, incapable of depicting what he called ‘the monsters of his fantasy.’ In fact, he saw the photographic calling as the lot of failed painters. But I think that photographers such as yourself have moved forward from this initial criticism, and now make a conscious effort to arrange people and props in your studios in as artistic a way as you can, and it is there, I believe, that the art comes in — in the deft orchestration of the composition. Is that not the case?”

  “No. I would consider none of my studio work art. However, I would consider the photos I take, which are entirely spontaneous and candid, to be exactly that: art. The orchestration you speak of is then in your positioning, your timing.”

  “And your luck,” the gentleman who had begun the conversation added.

  “Yes,” Serafim conceded, watching the same well-dressed gentleman look away from him, dismissively moving on to something else, “and your luck.”

  “Have you ever sold one of these ‘art’ photographs?” asked the Baudelaire proponent.

  “Yes. One.”

  “One,” he confirmed, deadpan.

  There was a dense quiet. Inês gave Serafim a reticent smile. Inês’s mother placed her dessert fork soundlessly onto her plate.

  Mr. Sá gave his hands a sudden clap. “Why don’t we serve tea back in the drawing room.”

  The company moved into the other room and Serafim sat in an out-of-the-way chair near an end table. His hands fussed over each other in his lap, and he was glad not to have a hat to scrunch like a peasant. He politely refused a cup of tea, and after everyone had been served, Inês, quite unexpectedly, approached him. Walking gracefully, floating over the floor along the hem of her dress, she asked, “Are you sure you wouldn’t like a cup of tea, Mr. Vieira?”

  Serafim stumbled into thoughts of the secrets she kept. “You know, I think I would.”

  “Let me get it for you.” Everyone in the room watched her out of the corners of their eyes, everyone waiting for her father to insist that this was a task for the maids to do, not the feature aristocrat’s daughter; it was almost laughable. Indeed, her father cleared his throat in disapproval, but Inês wilfully dismissed proper decorum and left the room to fetch Serafim some tea. She returned with a tray, beautiful and defiant, and poured a cup of caramel-coloured liquid that swelled to the lip of the whitest porcelain. “Sugar?”

  Serafim preferred his tea with nothing in it, plain and bitter. “Yes. Please.”

  She didn’t ask how many teaspoons, as if she knew. He watched her long fingers, the creases and folds of her wrist as it swayed and lifted, the downy hint of hair climbing into the dark of her sleeve.

  “Milk?”

  “Yes,” he answered, whispering. As she was pouring the
dab of milk, one hand on the handle of the carafe, the other on the lid, he felt a kind of disorderly, irrepressible urge to simply lean in and put her hands into his mouth, suck back all the luscious flavours and salts of her skin. He wanted to run his lips over each knuckle, nail, and furrow. Inês lifted a spoon and stirred the honey-coloured mixture, the rhythmic, swirling scrape of metal against the bottom of the cup. Serafim felt a kind of darkness descending over him. He felt his control and restraint slipping off the sides of his body like the skin of a snake squirming free of a cumbersome moult. He bent his shaky head closer to the cup, his mouth falling open as it neared her hands.

  “There you are.” Inês tapped the rim of the cup with the spoon and placed it at a reckless angle on the saucer, before lifting the tray and turning on her heel to walk back to the centre of the room. Serafim, somehow spent, slumped back into the chair.

  Later, Serafim wouldn’t remember drinking the tea, the taste of it, or how warm or heavy the cup felt in his hand, but he did remember its image, with precision. Serafim memorized the cup of tea, his head cocked at an angle, staring at it unflinchingly, taking in every shade, glint, curve, and bend of light, until he could feel it burning into the glossy film of his mind’s eye.

  The next afternoon, he asked his aunt for a cup of tea, taking milk and sugar for only the second time in his life. He would get used to the new taste, but never quite used to how shocking and implicit was the sullied spoon that lay sated on the saucer afterwards, its only purpose, the only point of its existence, served. And sometimes he wondered if these constant flights of fancy were healthy. Sometimes he thought they weren’t.

  His obsession drove him to find out what church she went to, and he would attend, sitting near the back just to watch her in her veil, with only the fine rim of her face showing when she turned from the altar after Communion. Above her, the rococo nave was blazoned in gold and leafed out from the ceiling like ten thousand gilded springtimes, cherubs grinning mischievously, as if dwelling upon the naughtiest of divine intimacies. Then one day she looked up at him, smiled, and flashed an encouraging, even flirtatious, look. It had been five weeks since he’d dined under her roof, and this, he deemed, was a signal, the cue for him to act or be forgotten.