Serafim and Claire (8 page)

Medium:
Gelatin silver print

Description:
Women strolling, Palácio de Cristal

Location:
Oporto, Portugal

Date:
1925

The sky is boiling. Billows of shaded cumulus flex in the backdrop like the close-up of a cauliflower in negative. Its bulbs of dark expanding, distending.

The setting is a public place, on an apparently very public day. A dense crowd of people are passing through the frame, from left to right. Women in full dresses, men in full suits, tightly packed between the high stalks of trees and the low ruffles of bushes.

The branches of one of the trees, silhouetted in the mid-ground against the sky, are almost bare. Three leaves dangle so loose and low that they seem to be reaching out to the garden floor, as if wanting to join the others of their kind there, let go, surrender to gravity's tug at last.

Two young women, dressed in white, are in the foreground, and of the multitude of dense figures in the picture, they are the only ones looking at the photographer. Though it is much more like peering, focusing deep into the lens as if trying to decipher something through it — the one who is slightly taller in particular, who seems fixed, almost cross. Much like the sky, her expression toes the line between anger and delight. Much like the sky, it appears, both light and lifting, but heavy with warning.

Sunday was not
a day of re
st for Serafim. There was church to go to, and after the service (before the public at large retired to their social clubs and private dinners for the evening) most of the population would spend an hour or two promenading through the pruned grounds of the Palácio de Cristal, a florid garden situated at one of the highest points in the area, overlooking the city of Oporto and the banks of the Douro, where they parted from each other and folded out into the open sea. At times the massive and ornate gardens would be so crowded that people had to shuffle through with elbow room alone, brushing against women with their piquantly sweet perfumes and the contrast of their white dresses and black shawls, the fabric fluttering like doves taking flight at their feet as they walked, while above, a knot of swan necks seemed to emerge through the dark embroidery at their shoulders and peck at the height of their elaborate hats. Men stepped smoothly in their Sunday best, elegantly poised, bow-tied, and pulling the gold chains of their pocket watches just to make sure that, indeed, all the time in the world was still theirs. For a photographer, the opportunities were endless.

One late October day, Serafim, attracted by the looming drapery of the clouds tethered above, paid a visit to the gardens. Some of the trees had already lost their leaves, which added an intriguing contrast as the crowds fluxed between them with all the pomp of spring flowers. He had found a bare branch and a position — near a wall fountain made up of a face with a wide-open mouth that was drooling a tongue of moss and algae — where he was low enough to frame the sky as a backdrop to the people walking by.

Crouching there, he waited for everyone's gaze to become accustomed to his peculiar position; waited to fade into the surroundings, become static in their periphery. As people cast suspicious glances his way — a few of them even whispering and pointing him out — he wasn't yet free to take the Leica out of his pocket. Instead, he picked a fallen leaf from the ground and twirled it slowly between his fingers, as if he were an amateur botanist trying to key the specimen. While he did this, he thought about the settings he would need for the shot. Being backlit, it was going to be tricky. He would have no choice but to overexpose the sky and underexpose his subjects, hopefully finding the middle ground between the two, and then correct it in the darkroom by way of a technique known as dodging, and burning-in.

So Serafim wasn't ready for any shot, let alone one of the most important he would ever take. He had looked up from the violet leaf in his fingers and met a woman's eyes, suddenly overcome by a surge of self-consciousness.

She was walking arm in arm with another young woman, who had much the same bone structure, though without enough of a likeness to be her sister — a relative, perhaps. Their intimacy hinted towards this as well, as they leaned into each other, their faces bowing low to hear the other's murmur and whisper. They chortled giddily, walked with confidence. The woman was striking. And she kept glancing at Serafim as he crouched on the ground, dumbly twirling a leaf and forgetting what he was there to do. He had almost lost the shot completely when he remembered the Leica in his pocket. He tossed the leaf aside, fumbled madly for the camera in his jacket pocket, quickly turned the dial to advance the film, and held it, straight-armed, out in front of his face. It was enough movement for both of the women to inquisitively turn his way. He released the shutter.

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 —
ther
e
? 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 clinking, 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.