Serafim and Claire (32 page)

Helping Antonino out with his increasingly important food co-operatives around the city, Serafim sometimes lent a hand picking dandelion leaves, which the Italians used as a pungent addition to salads. He would then bring home the modest yellow flowers and put them in a glass jar on Claire's bedside table, where they would smoulder in the corner for a short spell before drooping and fading away.

But of all these efforts to bring her round, none was as promising as what he stumbled upon one regular afternoon in August. He had been working at a studio with one of the more important francophone photographers of the day, though he had been demoted from doing even lowly darkroom work (in order to make room for someone in the photographer's family) and was simply there to sweep and clean, offering patrons beverages between shoots.

He reeled through the door with the news. “You will never guess who I met today,” he proclaimed, flinging off his shoes and traipsing to where Claire was sitting on a chair near the window. “Two famous dancers, a young couple, who posed for their shots in impressive acrobatic lifts. They have apparently been dancing their way through America for some time now, touring with very big acts. They were originally from Montreal, and have returned to take over a dance studio that the man's father has run for years but can't anymore, on account of his health. L'École de Danse Lacasse-Morenoff is what it used to be called — now Le Studio de Danse Moderne. Anyway, when I was refilling their waterglasses, I took the opportunity to mention that I too knew a talented dancer, and one who might be able to help them in some way at their studio. They asked your name (just to be polite, you could tell), but it turns out they know you, said they danced with you when you were younger. And they would like very much to see you, to speak with you about, maybe, teaching lessons or something of the sort. Can you think of better news than that?”

Claire felt suddenly and inexplicably drained. “And what do you think a cripple could possibly offer them?” The question wasn't meant to be answered, and she returned to her bed as if amazed at herself for ever having had the gall to emerge from it.

The autumn came and went. Antonino's wife, who had gotten pregnant only four months after their wedding, had a child, a boy, in November. Serafim tactfully waited for the couple to invite him over after the delivery, not wanting to impose at such an intimate time. Antonino called him five days later — in a voice that seemed bent on not waking the baby — and asked him to drop by, and to bring his camera along with him. Serafim put his Leica in a shoulder bag and set off, having just splurged on two mid-range cigars.

He returned a few hours later to find Claire lying in bed, in the same position she'd been in when he left. She didn't notice his mood, or that he'd taken a seat across from her and was toying with his camera; she simply continued staring through the window. He took a picture of her, which in turn had her snapping a cross look back at him, as she knew she certainly wasn't looking her best. He hadn't taken a photo of her in well over a year.

She narrowed her eyes. “You
must
have something better to do than sit around here, taking my photograph. There are more interesting things, I'm sure.”

He was in a peculiar mood, and didn't look away from her. “Yes, there are. But I had a single exposure remaining in this film. I used the others to take photos of Antonino's newborn.” Serafim laid the camera in his lap, adjusted its weight, still watching her. “His son is dead. Antonino just asked me over to record what he looked like, to help him remember. The boy died of jaundice two days ago. He's still yellow. They don't have the money to bury him. I've lent him what I can, but he needs more. The child will have to stay in the basement until they scrape together enough to pay for the funeral. They're trying to get through it gracefully. I'm not sure they will.”

Serafim retired into the kitchen to rummage up some food, leaving Claire in bed, still looking for words to say. And while he might already have made a point — by including her on a film whose every other exposure captured a child who had passed — he further emphasized it by bringing her a copy of her photograph several days later. He left it on the table just before setting out for one of his loose-end jobs. Claire sat down in front of the picture and was soon bent over it as if studying from a book. The photo was so lifeless, so dull, that she held it ever closer to her face, searching for hints of a spark somewhere, deep, hidden behind her expression. She could find nothing.

After she'd inspected the picture for quite a while, she crumpled it and got up from the table to throw it away and pour herself a bath. When she got out, she stood in the centre of the main room, straightened the simple dress she'd put on, and tried to stand on her toes, one of the exercises the doctor had given her to increase mobility in her ankle. It was soon sore and fatigued, and she spent another long while painfully stretching it out, straining to pull it back and push it forward, then wincing at the tenderness as she rolled it from side to side. It soon became an everyday ritual, her ankle continuously aching, though finally getting stronger. She also began going for walks around the block, three times a day, until the snow fell. Then, afraid she would lose all the progress she'd made, she went out late one afternoon in December to talk with the Morenoffs.

After theatrically kissing their long-lost hellos, her ankle was one of the first things they asked about. She made something up on the spot, which became the story she would use for the rest of her life: she was in a vehicle, driving too fast, and something went terribly wrong. To her amazement, the couple mistakenly assumed this was a recent event, and that Claire was still on the mend, that her walking, and dancing for that matter, would be returning to normal at some point in the near future. She didn't correct them, her confidence stepping up a notch in that one moment alone, filling the voids that reality had so eagerly kept empty.

It turned out they had a proposition for her. They didn't need instructors per se, as both of them were more motivated than ever and keen on doing all the teaching themselves. They did, however, have a few students who had managed to pay the full price in these hard times but who were lacking in either training or talent, or both, and to a degree that they were holding back some of the ambitious projects the school had on the go. They wondered if she might offer these girls some extra tutorship and guidance, revisit the fundamentals with them. The school, like every other in existence, was now mostly concentrating on the “black-influenced” dances, the Charleston, black bottom, varsity drag, the lindy eight and lindy six. Was she familiar with these? Danced at the Terminal you say? Well, then, you're probably better versed than we are. Though we would also expect some of the standards as well, warm-ups on the barre, a bit of tap, the buck time, waltz clog, maybe a few soft-shoe routines. You don't say? Well, you sound like just the woman we need. They pointed out that such an arrangement would also help keep her in shape while she worked that ankle of hers towards a speedy recovery. She'd be back into the (admittedly floundering) circuit by springtime.

Unfortunately, they added, the way things looked, it was doubtful they would be able to pay her — to start with, anyway. Money was tight. But it wasn't as if such hard times could possibly draw themselves out for years, decades. Just as soon as it was financially viable to pay her, they would, they promised. Even if, as a primary motivation, something like this shouldn't really be done for the money, should it? they asked. Claire smiled. No, she agreed, it should not.

They provided her with a small space in the building of the original dance studio, where Claire had spent the better part of her childhood. The grim fact was that there had been a terrible mishap with the elevator there, which saw two young girls plummet to a gory demise at the rebarred bottom of the shaft. The lift had since been dismantled, but still, no one wanted to buy, or even rent, the space that had been liberated in its stead. This space they were now stuck with adjoined a storage room where the studio kept its obsolete props, in case they might one day be salvaged or reused. It wasn't much, but it was all they had to work with. So, if it was all right with Claire, she could start the very next week.

Claire took the keys from them and dropped by on her way home. Outside, the winter sun was sinking, yellowing the building to the colour of aged newspaper, elongating its shadows like the slender letters of an art deco font. Inside, the place was cold and cheerless. It would need some work. A gramophone, a metronome, plenty of coal for the stove. She moved one of the backdrops to clear up more space, dusted her hands off afterwards, and scowled at the bare bulb that dangled from the ceiling.

The first student she had was a clumsy girl of thirteen who seemed, for all intents and purposes, hopeless. Claire had her tapping her toe to a waltz for an entire session until, at long last, she began to feel its three/four rhythm in her foot. Then another girl was added, and another — all of them faltering and insecure, shoulders pushed forward, heads hung low, hiding behind the smallness of their voices. Claire had them shouting, together now, louder. Now clap,
harder
, she encouraged, partly laughing with them but mostly commanding with sober necessity.

Both before and after each lesson, Claire would use the space herself to practise, figuring out steps, turns, and kicks that she could perform using her left foot only, while carefully planning her other movements to rely on her right foot as little as possible. She had soon developed a repertoire around her handicap, which would fool no one professionally but would at least make her seem like an authority to the few tatty students who frequented “the basement,” as it became known. For Claire, it was increasingly important to impress this bedraggled set of girls. And likewise for them. Their teacher, they had learned, was the type of woman who gave compliments only when they were rightfully deserved. Her pupils were respectful enough to return the favour.

Paris, França; 5 de outubro de 1933

Caro Serafim,

The only thing the few photographers left in Paris can talk about is the exhibition showing at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York. It's said that it'll change everything. And this, with the kind of photos we've been dabbling in all along. Have you heard of Henri Cartier-Bresson? I met him once at the
Café Cyrano
in '27. He was just a frustrated painting student then. Now they say he's set to definitively “legitimize our art.”

I know I've been complaining about it in every letter, but the exodus of talent continues to flee Paris for the U.S.A. Everything is suffering: the visual arts, literary, performance. One can actually feel the spirit in Europe changing, nationalism rearing its divisive head in every corner. Have you been following the exploits of Germany's new chancellor, arresting or killing off his Communist opposition? And sadly, this Hitler fellow isn't alone in his paramilitarism and hysterical propaganda.

Of course, Salazar's new constitution in March was welcomed as a harbinger of stability, but there's much in his Estado Novo that worries me. I certainly don't believe Portugal needs “saving” from the moral decay of modernism; and even if it did, I doubt that patriotic fervour and Catholicism would be the things to save it. Between you and me, Serafim, I have a terrible feeling that our homeland is opening its arms to precisely that which it should be rising up against: a military that looks just like Mussolini's, the strictest of state censorship, and a secret police already shipping dissidents off to unseen prisons in Cape Verde.

Who knows? Maybe I'll be heading your way soon enough. I envy you there, in Quebec. Though, the way I see it, you've always had a knack for being at the right place, the right time.

O teu amigo,

Álvaro

Hope that better
financial times were just over the horizon soon spindrifted away like the last of the precious topsoil. The price of wheat plunged, and kept plunging, until it was only a third of what it had been before the Crash. The construction industry came to a standstill, with the lowly builders having to swallow many of the unpaid contracts from bankruptcies further up the ladder. Close to a quarter of the population of Montreal became dependent on relief, channelled through denominational agencies — Catholic, Protestant, Jewish. The Catholics, being the poorest, saw many of their parishioners switch to the English-backed Protestant faith, just for the better handouts. (The Jewish associations were known for not being charitable to fakes.)

Housing became a pressing problem, with sleeping stations set up in now-vacant office spaces. Single men and women banded together in scruffy apartments, four or five of them lying side by side on a mattress, others below them on the floor, flicking off cockroaches through the night. Only a select few of the elderly were fortunate enough to have pensions, and the winter months saw homeless seniors forced to seek refuge in jail.

With no money for gasoline, new vehicles appeared on the streets: automobiles towed by horses, dubbed “Bennett buggies” after the millionaire prime minister who lived in a posh suite at the Château Laurier in Ottawa, and who believed that in a free enterprise system governments had no place intervening in the public's affairs or hardships. The exceptionally rich found solace in the lowered prices of exclusive goods, the newest fashions from Paris were still being imported, and the opera was still running.

Radical “solutions” and political movements ebbed and flowed ineffectually. Work camps were initiated outside the city, providing single men with slavish employment and lodging in bunkhouses, but they were run at best like prisons for delinquents, and at worst like totalitarian regimes. They proved both unpopular and unsuccessful. Soup kitchens and breadlines were established. The streets saw strikes, marches, demonstrations, riots. Immigrants who had the audacity to ask for relief, and whose papers had only been stamped within recent years, were deported.

By 1933, Antonino had failed in turn as a coal merchant, a cement contractor, and a baker. Along with many other Italians in the city, he had moved north, along the Main and near the Mile End train station, where property was cheaper and there were still fields nearby in which French Canadians (for reasons no one could fathom) weren't using to grow their own vegetables. Antonino's wife had had a second child, who survived. She spent her days caring for the baby and preparing whatever Antonino brought in from the different green patches he was squatting on; making
conserva
from sliced tomatoes laid out on wooden boards in the sun; roasting peppers to store in jars; frying beans in olive oil and garlic; rolling homemade pasta to trade for large containers of tuna or a leg of salted ham that could be whittled from throughout the darkest months of winter.

Antonino's being deprived and in debt didn't mean he was any less politically engaged, however. The food co-operatives he'd set up had become more important than ever, while the spare hands needed to cultivate, organize, and transport the provisions were never more eager or easier to come by. In addition to this, and despite stern warnings from the Department of Immigration about his anti-fascist activities, he continued to do everything in his power short of founding another newspaper.

In the middle of July that year, one of the most eminent fascists alive was on his way to Montreal. General Italo Balbo was travelling with the Italian air force, and was setting out to make aviation history. He intended on crossing the Atlantic via the treacherous east-west route — something that had only barely been accomplished by a few solitary aircraft — and he was attempting it in a massive twenty-four-seaplane formation. Everyone knew that such a venture could only end in tragedy — or triumph. And as news arrived that it was likely to be the latter, Antonino and his friends began to organize as best they could.

Antonino's sole aim was simple: to keep the vainglorious fascists from being honoured, or even received, by any of the local politicians. To do this, he had thought of writing and printing copies of a persuasive diatribe and handing them out at city hall, but he was afraid of the potential backlash from something so overt. It was Serafim who suggested a more subtle tactic. Why not just print photographs of some prominent people Balbo's fascists had assassinated and hand those out instead? Serafim proposed that the photographs might even be without captions, hence inciting people to talk about them more, become curious, exchange information on who they thought these people were and why they were being handed their photos, for free, on this day in particular. Antonino had given Serafim a hearty slap on the back, produced a photo of a well-known and well-liked priest whom Balbo had ordered one of his fascist squads to kill, and sent Serafim on his way with it, across town to a friend's printing press. Fifteen thousand copies were run.

On the day the fleet of planes landed near the waterfront in Montreal, Antonino and his friends, eight carloads full, distributed the photographs to officials, as well as to everyone in and around the Mount Royal Hotel, where the airmen were staying. The protest was a success in that Balbo was received by no one in the local political sphere. He was escorted around with as much pomp as the local blackshirts could afford, phalanxes of men who punched and pushed reporters out of the way, overrode the authority of the official security (the Quebec Provincial Police), and lined up at the entrance of every building Balbo walked into and out of, to raise their arms in a fascist salute.

The following day, Serafim and Antonino went down to the harbourfront to watch the seaplanes take off, each of them having to confess how exhilarating the sight was. They had both, it turned out, had a childhood fascination with flying machines.

Two months later, a painting was completed on the dome of the Madonna della Difesa, the principal Italian church in the city. Its fresco depicted Mussolini on horseback with several of his distinguished minions gathered around him, General Balbo among them. In a sermon soon after, the priest pointed up at the painting and repeated what Balbo had been quoted as saying to an ecstatic Mass celebrated by Italian Americans in Madison Square Garden: “Be proud you are Italians. Mussolini has ended the era of humiliations.”

It was mid-October, and Serafim had stopped by Antonino's house. As he usually did while visiting, he was lending a hand in one of the small gardens for the food co-operatives. Neither of them were inherent green thumbs, both of them hating the feel of earth as it crammed and pried beneath their fingernails. But food in exchange for some sweat, backaches, and dirty knees was a fair trade, and one that others had little access to. They talked disjointedly, pulling weeds and picking vegetables that were overripe and needed eating as soon as possible: eggplants whose skin had grown tough and dull, carrots diverging into coarse knuckles, onions with layers slicking caramel.

At one point in the afternoon, a group of boys passed by and called out from the other side of an adjoining fence, begging for food. Antonino stood up, slowly ratcheting his spine straight. Sure, he said, but they would have to do a bit of work for it. They weren't afraid of work, were they? The boys were shaking their heads as they scrambled to get over the fence. Once on the other side, the men could see they didn't own any shoes (or if they did, they were so worn out as to be reserved for winter use alone), their feet blackened and callused from the long urban summer. Antonino showed them how to dig for potatoes, marking off a small patch for them to mine, telling them they could keep half of whatever they found beneath. They dove into the task with the enthusiasm of panners for gold, digging and sifting through the soil, holding every treasure they came across up to the sun, cleaning the dirt from the nugget before tossing it onto a frayed cloth that had been laid on the ground beside them.

When they were finished, the two men returned to Antonino's townhouse, each of them with one hand on the heaped wicker basket of vegetables that swung between them. They washed their hands in a bucket of rainwater outside, and Antonino stepped in to say hello to his wife and child before returning with some glasses of water and cigarettes. He'd opened a window near the stoop so they could hear the gramophone he'd put on —
Nabucco
, his favourite opera. Serafim knew that when Antonino's favourite song, “Va pensiero,” came on, he would lose his friend for a few moments, his eyes fixed on some distant place in the bushes nearby as the first stanza was sung in Italian:
Fly, thought, on wings of gold; settle upon the slopes and hills, where, soft and mild, the sweet airs of our native land smell fragrant
. But for the time being they both lit cigarettes, settled until they were comfortable on the wood of the front steps, elbows resting on the stair at their backs, legs splayed out in front, diagonal in the autumn sun. The neighbourhood sleepy, windless, the leaves rusting dry in the trees.

After a short silence, Serafim mentioned the letter he'd just received from Álvaro, which led them into politics, from the growing unrest in Spain to Roosevelt's “New Deal” and whether they thought his ambitious economic programs would work. They agreed it was doubtful. This led Antonino to the topic of the local fascist groups again, whose most recent solution to the difficult times in Montreal was to organize and facilitate immigration back out of Montreal, to Libya.

As Antonino and Serafim were each lighting a third cigarette, a man walked past, giving a wave. Suddenly Antonino was gesturing for him to come towards them, calling out in his faltering French, a language Serafim seldom heard him speak. “
Approchez
, gentilhomme, approche
z
!
”

The man stopped in front of the stairs, shaking hands with each of them. Antonino introduced Serafim with unaccustomed formality. “Yves, I would like very much for you to meet Serafim Vieira. This is the photographer we spoke of, whose album of pictures you were so impressed with.”

“Why, of course. How do you do, Mr. Vieira?” said Yves.

“How do you do?” responded Serafim, before looking over at Antonino. “I'm sorry, what album of pictures?”

“The pictures you've given me over the years — I've put them all in an album. Yves here works at
La Presse
, and he was particularly impressed with some of the photographs you'd taken in the streets.”

“Yes, they were good, if I recall,” said Yves. “Made you feel for the people they depicted. Actually, I have a story I'm writing tomorrow, about the workers striking downtown. We might be able to use such pictures for the article. We've been told to incorporate more pertinent photographs with our stories. I can't make any guarantees, least of all about pay, but if you can head down there at some point and take a few shots, we might be able to work something out. I might be able to use them.”

“Sounds fair enough. I'll see what I can do,” Serafim agreed.

Yves tipped his hat. “Well, I best be moving. Enjoy the rest of your day, gentlemen. One of the last warm ones, I fear,” he prophesied, setting off into the languid afternoon.

“Good,” Antonino said after some time. “I have a good feeling about it. I think things will work out for you, with this
La Presse
thing.”

“Yes, well, we'll see. I know by now not to get too excited.”

“Of course, of course — times are difficult. What I meant was, if there is anyone whom something like this would work out for, it is you.”

Serafim cocked his head to the side. “I'm not sure I understand.”

“I just mean to say that I think of you as someone whom luck smiles upon.”

Serafim leaned forward. “Really? Álvaro mentioned something similar in his last letter. I really must confess, Antonino, I've never quite seen it that way myself.”

“I know you haven't. But that is the remarkable thing about luck: it doesn't care how we see it.” Antonino butted out his cigarette. “Which reminds me, I have something for you.” He stood up and gestured for Serafim to follow. The men passed through the house, Serafim kissing a quick hello to Antonino's wife, and were soon out in the backyard, where they stopped in front of a table covered with odd and bulky shapes wrapped in butcher paper.

“What are these?” asked Serafim.

“Well, a friend of a friend who works in transport hit a deer on the road last week. He brought the poor mangled thing over, thinking of the food co-operatives and not wanting to waste the meat. So I had a butcher friend volunteer to gut and divide it. Apparently skinning it would've taken too long, so the hide still has to be removed from several portions.” Antonino picked up a medium-sized bundle and handed it to Serafim, “Why don't you take this. I think it's a shoulder.”

Serafim held it up, turned it over. “Yes, but I haven't a clue how to dress it. There's an actual leg sticking out of this.”

“I'm sure you'll figure it out. When is the last time you ate meat?”

“A fair point, yes. Well, thank you.”

“Every little bit helps, said the man pissing into the sea. Why don't we get you some vegetables while we're at it.”

Serafim soon filled the wooden crate he'd mounted on the back of his bicycle (whose patch-ridden tires had a wobble that prevented him from advancing along the streets with any real speed or efficiency). Antonino, not wanting to be accused of favouritism to his friends when handing out food from the co-operative, made sure to give Serafim only the most unsightly of the produce they'd picked: yellowed lettuce with slug-emptied holes, blighted potatoes, the softest of the onions. The two men shook hands and Serafim cinched his hat down tight, hopped on his bike, and wove away down the street.