I moved fast. I set the negs on the enlarger’s easel, covered them with the glass plate, and exposed them for eight seconds. I slid the sheet into the stop bath, shook it and counted to thirty, then transferred it to the rapid fixer and did the same thing again.
Even with the rubber gloves, my fingers were numb when I finally rinsed the sheet under running water. I didn’t care. I’d already seen the ghostly images bleeding through, each one an eye opening slowly, irrevocably, onto another world. When I turned the water off my hands shook with cold and excitement. The safelight was so dim I could barely see what I’d just printed on the contact sheet. I needed a loupe.
I found one in the rusted cabinet. The round eyepiece was badly scratched. It was like looking through a submarine porthole, but I needed to see if any of the images warranted an enlargement. If so, I might have something to bring back to Phil, or just keep for myself—my own little souvenir of Bad Vacationland. I squinted at the contacts, and swore in exasperation.
This wasn’t Blow-Up. There was no body; no dead body, anyway. The nude pictures were lousy, not to mention overexposed and out of focus. A dick is a dick is a dick, and no one was going to be interested in this one.
But three images were different. They showed a young woman, also nude, with light brown hair, head tipped to smile at the camera. She had a hand cupped over each breast, and her hands were holding something, coconuts maybe, or balloons.
Technically, these images were slightly better than the others. They were in focus, and the exposure seemed right. But there was something about the girl’s expression that held my eye. She looked innocent and sexy and slightly daft, Betty Boop recast as a long-haired hippie chick.
I spent another minute trying to decide which of the three was best. Finally I chose one, found the matching neg, and made a hasty 8x10 enlargement. Then, just for the hell of it, I picked one of the other negs at random and pulled a print of it too.
Both were sloppy. My buzz was wearing off. I was exhausted. My initial excitement now turned to fear of getting caught. I hung the contact sheet and the two prints on the line to dry, dumped the processing chemicals down the sink, and did my best to clean the place up. The negs went back into the canister in my pocket. I peeled off the gloves and flung them onto the cabinet, grabbed the still-damp prints and contact sheet, switched off the enlarger and safelight. I split, locking the door behind me.
The basement was cold and empty. I waved the prints back and forth for a few seconds. When they seemed dry, I rolled them into three narrow tubes and stuck them down the front of my jacket. I made sure I still had the loupe and went upstairs.
After the basement, the kitchen felt like a sauna. The only sounds were the crackle of wood in the stove and the slap of waves on the shingle outside. I pulled a chair in front of the woodstove, looked around for any sign of Aphrodite or her dogs. All seemed down for the count.
I was starting to feel the same way. I yawned. When my stomach growled, I decided against another shot of bourbon and stumbled over to the fridge.
The pickings, as noted, were slim. I grabbed two eggs and the V-8 juice. I rinsed out a coffee mug and cracked the eggs into it, filled the mug with V-8 and downed it in one long swallow. Then I dragged myself to my room and collapsed into bed.
13
I woke from a dream of a cold finger touching my forehead, pressing until it felt as though someone were driving a nail into my skull. I groaned and opened my eyes, recoiling when I saw an enormous brown eye staring at me.
I shot upright as the eye resolved into a grizzled head and cursed as the deerhound backed away. Pale light flooded through the window. The dog sat and cocked its head, staring at me. I stared back then started to get up.
My stomach churned; I doubled over and was sick on the floor. I sat shivering on the edge of the bed until I summoned the strength to stagger to the bathroom. By the time I’d showered and stumbled back, the dog had cleaned up for me.
“Nice work.” I pushed it from the room.
I dressed, opened the window, and leaned out so the icy wind could scour my cheeks. I shut my eyes and remained there until I felt my hair freeze.
I had no idea what time it was. Mid-morning, maybe. I felt lightheaded, with that deceptive lucidity you get from a world-class hangover, the feeling that you’ve finally purged yourself of everything that made you drink in the first place.
Another spasm of nausea cured me of that. I stayed on the bed until it passed then remembered the prints I’d made yesterday.
They were still tucked into my jacket. I took them out and smoothed them on my knees: the contact sheet and two 8x10s.
In the darkroom, I’d assumed all the photos had been taken by Aphrodite. The first picture—that closeup of a cock surrounded by waving hands, as though it were a Theremin—it definitely had the hallmarks of Aphrodite’s work. The uneasy juxtaposition of the familiar and the strange had been reduced to a banal attempt at 1960s hardcore, but the same eye had been behind the camera. I recognized it the way you recognize someone in a bad Halloween costume.
Like I said, it was out of focus and the lighting was all wrong. The depth of field was off. But even if it could have been improved by more time in the darkroom, what would be the point? It was crude and banal.
What a waste.
I examined the other photo. This one should have been cheesy, with its wide-eyed subject mugging for the camera, long hair tossed back from her face, hands covering bare breasts.
Yet this photo worked. It wasn’t just that the girl was cute and had nice tits, what I could see of them, anyway. It was that the photographer had trusted his instincts, and the girl had trusted them too. Even more, she’d trusted him.
And, just as I knew the first photo was by Aphrodite, I knew this one had been taken by a man. Phil used to make fun of me for claiming I could identify a photographer, no matter how obscure, by his or her images. He ranked on me even worse when I once drunkenly announced I could identify the gender of a bunch of unknowns whose pictures hung at a small gallery in DUMBO.
But I did it. I nailed every single one.
“That’s amazing, Cass,” Phil said. “Another remarkable if totally useless skill.”
Even now, I couldn’t tell you how it works. It’s like me picking up damage, like there’s a smell there, or a subliminal taste. And you’d think that would be an easy call to make with this picture, because it sure looked like it would taste like cheesecake.
But this photo was weirder than that. When I’d first glimpsed the contact sheets under the safelight, I’d noticed the girl was holding something over each breast. I thought they were coconuts, which would fit in with the whole kitschy vibe this little hippie chick projected.
Now that I looked more closely, I wasn’t so sure. Even when I got out the loupe and peered at them, I still couldn’t tell. She was holding something, and from the shit-eating grin on her face, it was something funny. But what?
I had no clue. Whatever it was, though, it made me queasy. The girl trusted whoever was behind the camera. That came through, in her smile and the way she’d tilted her pelvis toward him, which seemed less of a come-on than a welcome. She looked about nineteen or twenty. There were tiny furrows to either side of her mouth, and tinier lines around her eyes.
And the photographer had done a sharp thing there too. You couldn’t see it in the frame, but he’d set a lit candle in front of her then positioned her so that the flame was reflected in each eye, making them sparkle. A simple effect, but a good one.
For a few more minutes I sat and stared at the photo. Then I put away the loupe and slid the prints and contact sheet into my copy of Deceptio Visus. I needed coffee and something other than Jack Daniel’s as a nutrient.
Downstairs, the living room woodstove was dead cold. The one in the kitchen had nearly burned out. I wadded up some newspapers and tossed them inside, along with a few sticks of wood, and hoped for the best. Then I made coffee, trying to convince myself that my han
ds trembled from the cold and not because I had the shakes. The deerhounds heard me and came skittering into the room. They looked hungry, so I gave them some water and filled their bowls from one of the sacks of dog food in the mudroom. They ate voraciously and afterward shambled over to where I sat by the window with my coffee and a piece of dry toast.
“Poor old dogs,” I said. Their heads were almost on a level with my own. “Doesn’t anyone ever feed you?”
“That’s the way they’re supposed to look.”
In the doorway stood Aphrodite. The dogs turned and raced toward her. She put a hand to the wall to steady herself from the seething gray mass.
I stood awkwardly, pointing to my chair. “Do you want to sit?”
“In my own house? I’ll sit where I choose.”
She walked toward the sink. In the thin morning light she appeared ancient, her skin dull and her hair disheveled, eyes bloodshot behind wire-rimmed glasses. I felt a pang. She looked so frail. It seemed impossible this wizened doll could have shot the pictures in that upstairs room, let alone the grim, hallucinatory images in Mors. Her hands trembled as she pulled a coffee mug from a shelf.
“I made coffee,” I said.
“So I see.”
She reached into a cabinet and withdrew a bottle. A minute later she joined me at the table, steam threading from her mug, and the smell of brandy.
We sat in silence. I wondered if she’d rail at me again, or acknowledge that we’d met the day before. Did she even remember?
Finally I said, “Gryffin showed me your photos. The island sequence. They were—it blew me away, seeing them for real. I mean, I waited my whole life to see them, and then, last night…”
My voice died. “They’re just incredible,” I said at last.
“I was never happy with the transfer process.” Aphrodite sipped her coffee. “That whole book. I was never happy with it. The colors were muddy. Today, maybe they could do a decent job. But back then?”
She shook her head. One of the dogs whined and thrust its nose at her. She stroked its muzzle absently. “They ruined it.”
I stood to refill my coffee. “Do you want some more?” I asked.
She gazed out to where thin eddies of mist snaked across the water’s surface.
“Sea smoke.” She drank what was left in her mug and slid it toward me. “Thank you.”
I filled both mugs and handed hers back.
“The other pictures,” I said tentatively, settling in my chair again. “From Mors. I didn’t see them up there. Do you—are they here?”
“They’re gone.”
“Oh. Jeez. I—”
I stopped, afraid I’d said too much already. She seemed not to have notice I’d spoken.
“I saw them,” she said after a moment. “Your pictures.”
I looked up in surprise. “My pictures?”
“Yes. When your book came out. A long time ago. Twenty years, I suppose.”
“More like thirty.”
“Thirty.” She nodded slightly without looking at me. “Yes, that would be right. Some of them—you had a good eye. One or two, I remember. The rest, though—”
One thin hand waved dismissively. “Derivative. And late. You weren’t the only one who saw Mors. You know that.”
I stared at the table. Everything went white. There was a sharp taste in my mouth, that pressure against my forehead. It was a moment before I realized she hadn’t stopped talking.
“…his were just grotesque. Tabloid fodder. He stole from me like the rest of them did, and it was all shit. Just shit.”
I looked up. Aphrodite’s eyes shone with a hatred so pure it was like joy.
“You little thief.” She jabbed at me. “Cassandra Neary. You think I didn’t see? But you were the least of it. The least.”
One of the dogs barked as Gryffin walked into the kitchen.
“This the breakfast club?” he asked, yawning.
I shoved my chair back and stormed outside, the door slamming behind me.
I didn’t stop until I reached the gravel beach. I paced along the shore, kicking at rocks. The wind tore at my face, but I hardly noticed. I headed to a stand of small, twisted trees and boulders. Driftwood had fetched up against the rocks. I grabbed a branch and smashed it into a boulder, again and again until it splintered into dust and rot. Then I leaned against a barren tree, panting.
“If only we could harness this power for good.” Gryffin stepped gingerly up the path from the rocky beach. “I come in peace,” he added and raised his hands.
I drew a long breath. “Fuck off.”
“Here.” He held out something wrapped in a paper towel. “Ray made this for dessert last night. I brought a piece back for you.”
I hesitated, then took it: a slab of apple pie.
“He’s a good cook,” said Gryffin. “Those are his apples too. Fletcher Sweets, they’re called. They only grow here on the island.”
“Thanks.”
“A Yankee is someone who has pie for breakfast. That’s what Toby says.”
Gryffin watched me eat. “You were really whaling on that tree,” he observed. “What’d she say to you?”
“Nothing.”
“She’s a monster. But you knew that. It’s why you came here.”
“I came because I needed a fucking job and Phil Cohen lied to me that he’d set up this interview.” I finished the pie and started walking back along the beach. “And because I wanted to see those pictures. Most of which, I gather, she destroyed. So instead of this goddam trip earning me money, it’s costing me money.”
I picked up a rock and threw it into the waves. “Which I don’t have.”
“Well, she’s gone off, for a while, anyway. Her and the dogs.”
“What does she do all day?”
“Beats me. Usually she makes a circuit of the island.” He swept his arm out, drawing an imaginary circle. “Along the shore. She picks up stuff that washes up. She’ll be gone for a while, unless the weather gets really bad.”
We walked toward the slope that led back to the house. A raven hopped across the dead grass and let out a gravelly cry at our approach.
“I’m going to the Island Store,” said Gryffin. “Want to come?”
“No. Not this minute, anyway.” I sighed. “You think I’ll be able to get a ride back over today?”
“Today? Well, you missed anyone who’d be going early this morning. But someone’ll probably head back later in the afternoon.”
“What about your friend Toby? Will he take me?”
“Probably. If I see him, I’ll mention it.”
“That’d be good.”
He started up the hillside. I jammed my hands in my pockets and watched him go. The steely light burned my eyes, and my feet ached from the cold. But I couldn’t stand the thought of seeing Aphrodite again. When Gryffin was out of sight, I began climbing the hill myself.
Once I reached the pine trees, the path split. One trail bore off to the left and angled downhill again, toward the village; the other wound upward among more trees and jagged outcroppings of stone. I took the right-hand path, scuffing through a mat of pine needles and fine snow.
It was a steep climb. After a few minutes, I began to sweat. My fury diminished, bitten away by the cold. For the last few years I’d carried on conversations in my head. Well, not conversations, really: arguments. Now the voices fell silent. I found myself focusing on things I didn’t usually notice, like the vapor clouding my face with every breath, the way sounds seemed to carry from far away. Seagulls, a diesel engine, waves tugging at the shingle beach below.
As I neared the top, the hill’s crown emerged, a granite dome surrounded by oaks with a few dead leaves still clinging to them. A weathered sign dangled from a lopped-off bough.
oakwind est. 1973
Boards and buckled plywood poked up between rocks and burdock stalks, all that remained of the commune. I picked my way between scrap metal, broken bottles, old tires, a firepit. A man-s
ized standing stone reared from the wreckage of weeds and winter-killed saplings, flecks of white paint on its granite surface. I crouched in front of it and pushed away dead ferns to get a better look.
Someone had painted three concentric circles on the stone, like a target. The central circle—the bullseye—had been filled in with white paint. There was a smudge of metallic green pigment in the middle circle.
I touched it. The stone was rough and cold. When I withdrew my hand, specks of pigment and lichen stuck to it.
I felt a sudden wave of dizziness, stumbled to my feet and backed away.
From the far side of the hill a raven clacked. A late cricket clung to the standing rock, rubbed its legs then crawled toward the earth.
I kicked at the ground, then, for good measure, bent and dug at it with my fingernails. A scant half-inch of turf came up. I rubbed it between my fingers and stood again, relieved.
There was nothing buried under the stone, not unless the hippies had jackhammered their way into the hill’s granite dome. It was just a rock with a bullseye painted on it. The commune had probably used it for target practice. I started back down the hillside, but only got a few steps before I stopped again.
Tucked among the oaks was the mottled bulk of a large vehicle. An old International school bus, painted in a camo pattern with candy colors—pink, lime green, orange—that time had turned splotched and sickly. Branches burst through the broken windows. What looked like lime green paint was splattered against the glass, but as I got closer I saw this was some kind of mold, its edges curled and black.
I pushed through the underbrush until I reached the cab. Above a wooden platform that served as a step, the door hung in two pieces. I pushed it open.
It was like being in a fish tank where everything has died. Light streaked through windows hung with blackened plastic curtains that had once been green. All the seats had been removed, and wadded rugs had been chewed to fuzz by rodents. There were beer cans and condoms, signs of more recent occupation; splintered chairs, a plastic bucket crusted with brown. An exploded futon. A jagged face hung from the ceiling, lantern-jawed and with huge hollow eyes.
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