Learning to See

by Elise Hooper

  “We’ve gone through this before. Your technical ability is not as good as these other guys’.”

  Beads of sweat rolled down my back as I shook my head in protest. “I’ll bet my photos get the most reproduction requests.” He looked away and I felt a swell of triumph knowing I was right. “And now that Ansel prints most of my negatives, I thought we’d stopped worrying about all of the development issues.”

  He took a drag on his cigarette. “You know my budget’s always being slashed. Every penny, all of the postage and shipping—”

  “Oh, come on, I keep my costs low and you know it. Why, you pay me less than all of those other photographers. I’m a bargain. My dedication to this project is greater than anyone else’s you could possibly find. For crying out loud, I’ve crossed the damn country to come and tell you I want this job back.” I leaned forward, aware that people passing us were glancing curiously. “I need this job back,” I said in exasperation.

  “Your husband needs to stop calling me insisting that I do this and that for you. And you must stop going over my head on things. This is my department. You don’t know how it all works out here,” he huffed. “I spend way too much time writing you letters about things you should just leave alone. It feels like I’m repeating myself all the time.” He gave me the stink eye through the cloud of cigarette smoke enveloping him.

  I paused to think about this. He’d never liked that I often demanded my photos of Negros be circulated to more newspapers. During my previous trips to the South, the miserable conditions of Negro sharecroppers and repressive segregation rules never failed to appall me. I’d written to Stryker over and over begging him to promote my photos of the sharecroppers more, but he’d responded that newspapers weren’t interested in writing about race. I had no response for Stryker’s complaint on this one, but he would get no apology from me. “Well then, just agree with me if you don’t want to say no all of the time.”

  He grimaced. “And another thing: you’ve got to stop bossing my girls around.”

  “Oh for Pete’s sake, sorry I don’t have time to spritz my stationery with Chanel before sending them my supply lists. I tell them what I need. Bet they don’t complain when your fellas do that.”

  We glowered at each other, but then he exhaled loudly and dropped the cigarette to the ground, rubbing it out with his toe. “Let’s see what I can do when I get my new budget in September.”

  “September?” I narrowed my eyes and glared at him.

  “I’ll do everything I can to hire you back in the fall,” he said more forcefully.

  “Fine, but I’m not going away. I won’t let you forget about this.”

  “If there’s one thing I can count on in an uncertain world, it’s that you’re not going away. Just keep your husband off my back.”

  His sarcasm rankled, but I kept quiet. While I knew Paul made occasional phone calls on my behalf to Washington, I didn’t realize he had made so many. I smiled to myself, pleased with his defense of me.

  “All right,” he said, interpreting my smile as acquiescence. He straightened his tie and glanced at the building. “Are we done here? Do we have an understanding?”

  “Yes,” I said, folding my arms across my chest.

  He wished me a safe trip and marched back to the building’s main door. If only I spent more time in Washington, I felt certain we wouldn’t have all of these flare-ups over miscommunication. Walking to my station wagon, I pictured how Marion had captivated everyone in that office. I’d certainly never enjoyed that type of attention from the staff there, but I’d also never reduced myself to simpering and prancing about the way she had. Why, she might as well have offered to peel off her clothes down to her unmentionables and do the Lindy Hop. No, thank you. That kind of carrying on was not for me, but boy, it sure got results. I kicked the tire of my automobile before slumping into the driver’s seat. Despondency over Stryker’s betrayal stuck to me like spit-out bubble gum on the heel of my shoe. Could I trust his assurances?

  Chapter 33

  On our drive back to Berkeley, we stopped in Nevada to retrieve Dan. After a mere six weeks on the sheep ranch, he was already being sent home to us for being too disruptive. As soon as he collapsed into the backseat, he closed his eyes, uttering only occasional grunts when we tried to speak with him. Silence, brittle and oppressive, hung between the three of us on the final stretch to California. We arrived in Oakland exhausted and settled into home. A dull ache in my stomach had nagged at me since my divorce from Maynard, but a new pain, sharp and urgent, had taken its place during our drive back to California.

  Paul took me to the hospital in Oakland, where a young doctor met with us. His clean-shaven cheeks were as smooth as the pages of a freshly opened book. Immediately, I regretted not driving farther to a hospital in San Francisco to find a doc with more mileage on him. After inspecting me, he announced I needed an appendectomy. When he left the examination room, I turned to Paul and whispered, “Did you see how excited he looked when he announced I needed surgery? Do you think I might be his first operation? Good heavens, let’s go to the city.”

  Paul leaned over to kiss the top of my head. “No, I don’t want to risk moving you. You’ll be safe here.” He left to consult with a nurse, fussing about more pillows for me. I kicked at my sheets in annoyance and groaned as new pain flashed through my abdomen. I was stuck.

  Several days later, I lay in a narrow hospital bed, woozy from pain medication when I was told I had a telephone call. Paul wheeled me to the nurses’ desk and handed the receiver to me. It was Stryker.

  “Lange, why are you in the hospital?”

  “Umm, I’m visiting a friend.” Paul raised his eyes and shook his head at me crossly, but I ignored him.

  “Huh, a kid back at your house told me to find you here. Well, at any rate, any interest in being a staff photographer for me again? I can even give you a raise this time. We’re no longer a division of the RA. A little government reorganization has given us a new budget and a new name. We’re now the Photography Unit of the Farm Security Administration, the FSA. More alphabet soup, brought to you courtesy of President Roosevelt.”

  I mustered a smile at Paul while working through the logistics of my return with Stryker. Though my surgeon insisted on me remaining in the hospital for several more days, I plotted my escape. First, I urged Paul to attend a meeting on campus at the university. Once he was out the door, I called Imogen’s house to find Rondal, telling him to meet me at the hospital immediately. I changed out of my hospital gown and got back into bed, pulling the sheet to my chin to cover my street clothes. Not more than fifteen minutes later, Rondal strolled through the door and plunked himself down on the chair next to my bed. His white teeth gleamed as he gave me a wide grin and ran a hand through his red hair.

  “So, what now, boss?” he asked.

  “Good heavens, that was fast. Did you fly here?”

  “You’d be surprised how quickly I can get places when you’re not hanging out the window with your camera telling me to slow down. Plus, Ma warned me you’d leave on your own if I didn’t get here in time. Who knew where you’d end up? I think she couldn’t bear the thought of Paul wasting away without you.”

  “Oh stop. He’s the smartest man I’ve ever met.”

  “Well, I don’t think he’d know what to do without you. Now, no more time for chatting. Let’s get this jailbreak under way.” He stood and held his arm out to me gallantly. “Our getaway vehicle’s out front.”

  I smiled to myself, easing out of the bed to hobble outside on Rondal’s arm. While he opened the car door, I closed my eyes and inhaled the dry smell of fallen leaves. The warm September sunshine on my shoulders felt heavenly after the antiseptic stifle of the hospital. After settling me into the passenger seat, he looked at me. “Where to?”

  “Home. We’re back in business. Stryker’s hired me again and wants us to make a trip down to the Salinas Valley. The newspapers are reporting labor unrest with the cotton pickers.”r />
  “Think you should rest longer? You can barely walk.”

  “We’re not leaving today. Maybe two or three more days and then we’ll hit the road.”

  He gave me a dubious look but then glanced over his shoulder as he backed out of the parking spot. “Paul will never agree.”

  “Don’t worry about that, I’ll take care of him. When we get to the house, I’ll give you some cash. I need you to go pick up film for the Juwel, the Graflex, and the Rolleiflex.”

  “You’re not going to bring the thirty-five-millimeter?”

  “No, I don’t like how I must lift it in front of my face. It makes it hard to talk to people.”

  “How long will we be gone? How much film should I get?”

  As I tallied up the days in my head, storefronts slipped past outside the car’s window. It felt good to be planning another field expedition. We continued discussing the trip until we arrived at the house. Rondal led me into the quiet foyer, lowered me onto the couch in the living room, and then brought me a notebook so I could start making lists while he disappeared to the back of the house to assemble supplies in my studio.

  He returned, scratching his head. “Did you take the Rolleiflex to the shop to get it cleaned?”

  “No, it’s in fine shape. I polished all the lenses myself and put everything away in the usual places when Paul and I got back from Washington. Look again.”

  He shrugged and left, but was back after a few more minutes, empty-handed. “Dorothea, I swear that camera is not there. I’ve looked everywhere.”

  I groaned while he raised me to my feet and helped me back to the studio. But he was right. My camera was gone.

  “Dorrie?” Paul appeared in the doorway, hands folded, expression stern. “What in the world are you doing? Dr. Englund was very clear about you remaining in the hospital for longer.”

  “I’m fine, but where on earth is my Rolleiflex?”

  “Your camera?” Paul said, looking back and forth at Rondal and me in confusion. “Are you going back to work?”

  “No, not immediately,” I hedged, turning from Paul. “But where is it?”

  My gaze swept across my studio. An empty spot on my desk stopped me. “Wait, and where’s my typewriter?”

  Footsteps echoed in the kitchen. Margot and Kathy popped their heads in next to Paul in the doorway to welcome me home. Their smiles fell as they saw our troubled expressions.

  “Where’s Dan?” I asked Kathy.

  She shifted from foot to foot and lowered her eyes to the ground. “I’m not sure. He hasn’t been around much.”

  “Where in the world has he been?” I demanded of everyone. No one could answer. Rondal returned to assembling the materials we would need for our upcoming trip. I returned to my spot on the couch, a sense of dread settling over me. From the coatrack by the front door, Paul snatched his hat and announced he was going to look for Dan. Berkeley was small, everyone knew everyone—someone would be able to help us find him. Or so I hoped.

  Kathy brought me a grilled cheese sandwich on a tray that evening while I tried not to worry about the darkness outside the window beside me. My stomach ached with anxiety. I could barely touch my dinner. Why in the world had Dan taken my equipment? When the front door swung open shortly before nine o’clock, Dan skulked into the front hallway, followed by Paul. I fell back into the couch with relief. Paul nudged Dan forward to face me.

  “I found him at the library,” Paul said.

  “The library?” I repeated, surprised.

  Relief must have dawned across my face, because he shook his head. In a stern tone, he said, “Now tell your mother about her camera. And her typewriter.”

  MY TRIP TO the Salinas Valley was delayed by a week while Paul tracked down my equipment. While I’d been in the hospital, Dan had stolen my camera and typewriter and pawned them to a shop in Oakland. When Paul drove there to inquire about my possessions, both pieces of equipment rested in the storefront as if waiting for me. I was so angry with Dan, I could barely speak. The thought of him going into my studio and taking my Rolleiflex left me reeling. I’d had that camera for years. Why would my own son do such a thing? What had gotten into the boy’s head? He blamed me for working too much, but when he saw my pictures of children covered in sores and flies, playing in tattered clothes, didn’t he see what happened when parents couldn’t support their families? Couldn’t he see how other families suffered? We were lucky, damned lucky. Why couldn’t Dan see that?

  Finally, with everything back in place, Rondal and I started working again. We traveled around California for Stryker over that winter, but I shortened my trips to keep an eye on Dan. Still, it was no good. Increasingly, he stopped attending his high school classes and would disappear, sometimes for several nights at a time. When I tried to get Maynard involved, he remained unmoved, convinced the boy would grow out of these rebellions. But I could not stop worrying. I feared the direction in which Dan was heading.

  IN APRIL 1939, John Steinbeck published The Grapes of Wrath, a novel about a migrant family in California, based on the research he had done for “The Harvest Gypsies.” It became an overnight success. One morning, about a month after the book was released, I sat at the breakfast table across from Paul after the kids had left for school. The window next to me was open. A warm breeze blew through the room, riffling the pages of the San Francisco Chronicle opened on the table in front of me. I skimmed through a brief interview with the author.

  “It appears 1939 will be the year of Steinbeck. Sales numbers for The Grapes of Wrath are through the roof. It bodes well for our book, don’t you think?”

  Paul leaned back from reading a report and stirred cream into his coffee. The liquid swirled, creating a pinwheel of white upon dark that vanished after an instant. “I spoke on the phone with Nelson yesterday.”

  “Our agent?” I asked absently, relieved to leave the business arrangements of the book to Paul.

  “Yes. He’s worried the market’s saturated with these stories and thinks interest in our book is exhausted.”

  “Exhausted?” I repeated, snapping to attention. I tapped my finger against the newspaper. “But it says right here there’s interest in the movie rights. People can’t get enough of this.”

  “Apparently, they can,” he said.

  “Well, that’s not right. It’s important.”

  Paul pushed a plate of orange slices toward me. He had driven all the way to the city to my favorite store in Chinatown the previous day to surprise me with them. I didn’t have the heart to confess how oranges aggravated my stomach pains. My appendectomy the previous fall had solved little. If anything, my stomach pains worsened. It had gotten to the point where I could barely eat.

  “Nelson suggested seeing if Steinbeck would write a foreword for our book.”

  “That’s a good idea. I can’t imagine it will be a problem since my photos have been used so often to accompany his articles.”

  “Do it soon. I suspect our window of opportunity closes a little with every passing day.”

  “But that’s crazy. People are consumed with this story.” I scanned the rest of the newspaper. “Who do you think they’ll cast as the lead in the movie? Let’s hope it’s a big name. Clark Gable? Spencer Tracy? Maybe Cary Grant?”

  Paul chuckled. “Since when did you become such an expert on Hollywood?”

  “I’m not, but honestly, I swear Kathy’s obsessed with film stars. All she talks about is Olivia de Havilland, Hedy Lamarr, and Katharine Hepburn. If you ask me, the girl’s head’s been turned.”

  He nodded absentmindedly as he underlined a passage in the report lying next to his breakfast plate.

  “Paul, listen to me: I don’t think she takes anything seriously. Her biggest concern these days is making sure her hair is styled in the latest fashion. She doesn’t think about anything larger than herself.” I held back from saying she took after her mother and looked at him expectantly, but his eyes stayed on his report.

  “I’ll
talk to her,” he murmured after a moment.

  I shook my head and nibbled on a piece of toast, scanning a headline about Adolf Hitler. “As if it wasn’t enough to invade Czechoslovakia, now Germany’s dividing it into two.”

  Paul’s head shot up from his report. “That man. Someone needs to stop him.”

  He reached for the first section of the paper, and I handed it to him. Concerns about his daughter went right past him, but world events couldn’t be missed. I sighed, eager to stop thinking about depressing events half a world away. We had enough to worry about in California. The fall elections had brought in a new crop of conservative politicians, and I feared for the FSA’s future. I shifted the newspaper over a corner of my plate, hiding the remainder of my toast so Paul wouldn’t notice my diminished appetite.

  I WROTE MY letter to Steinbeck that afternoon but it did no good. He declined to write anything for me. I wrote another appeal, but he remained steadfast in his refusal. I said nothing to anyone, not even Paul, but it grieved me that the writer refused to cooperate. No doubt “The Harvest Gypsies” was fine journalism, but my photos enriched his work—of that, there was no doubt in my mind. And when the movie version of Grapes of Wrath was released a year later, it was practically an homage to my photography. Rumor had it that the film’s director, John Ford, used my work to design and direct his scenes. Despite my hurt feelings, I complained to no one. Yet somehow, even without Steinbeck’s coveted participation, a publishing house out of New York City bought our book, American Exodus, and scheduled its release for the end of 1939. We toasted the victory over two mugs of coffee one morning. While it was a thrill to have our work being published, the most satisfying part of it was that the book represented the strength of the relationship between Paul and me. We had spent hours sitting on the floor studying photos, grouping them in interesting combinations, discussing and debating the text that should accompany them. After years of working on my own, I couldn’t get over my good fortune to have found him.