Читать книгу A Darker Light - Heidi Priesnitz - Страница 10

Flying over the tiny speck of a Portuguese island, Sara let her head fall back. The headrest smelled of cheap perfume. With her camera lying casually in her lap she closed her eyes. Her mind was focused on the water below.

click

Blue-green water spotted with small sandy islands, like the brown flecks in a blue eye.

"You see, the thing is," he had started talking at the airport, before the plane had even left the ground, "we sell them by the boxful—square boxful." He was laughing. "I sell round rubber rings in square boxes." More laughter. "Of course, everything is standardized, organized by size." His shoulder touched hers. His blue linen suit was too heavy for the heat of Spain. She could see the sweat stains around his cuffs. "Do you know how many rings fit in a box this big?" His pudgy white hands showed no sign of tan. "One hundred and fifty. And the market is expanding. Modeque has come out with a new design for their ‘Elite' line of faucets that demands our product. Wherever one is installed, we gain a new customer. Our rings have revolutionized kitchen sinks. We've begun a whole new era of dripless faucets that truly don't drip. And it's all as simple as that." He pulled one out of his pocket to demonstrate.

Sara turned her head slightly and produced a small nod. Wisps of white cloud had formed so that she couldn't see the ocean. With her left hand, she pulled down the blind.

"These little devils are the reason I'm alive. They've given me the house, the pool, the tennis courts. Hell, I'm even building a golf course out the back." His chest was shaking with the kind of exaggerated laugh that proud men show in public. Overrun with the momentum of his own sharing, he searched his breast pocket for a photo of his four-year-old boy. "Adorable, isn't he? And handsome." The boy's fingers were covered in rings. "He plays with them like toys," the man said, "but someday they'll be made of gold." He put his photo away. "First time in Malaga?"

Sara shook her head. "No," she said.

"You know, Spain's rubber market is virtually untapped. It's a miracle, really. It was here all this time and we just didn't know about it. Of course, they don't know they need us yet, but I have a feeling that's all about to..."

Absently, Sara reached into the pocket of the seat in front of her and pulled out the in-flight magazine. She wanted to read, to ward off the suit with a mouth that she was stuck next to, but the print was small and, no matter how she angled the bulb, the overhead light was not bright enough. Flipping through the glossy pages, she found a photo of one of the mosques that had been part of her own recent assignment. This version was badly cropped—or perhaps badly photographed.

click

A mosque with half a minaret.

Sara closed the magazine.

"...he always says the same damn thing to me, but I still don't buy it! The last time I was in Missouri I didn't even bother to look him up. I just don't do business that way. Our base price is the best I can do. I offer the same deal to everyone. That's what makes it fair, and if he doesn't like it, he can..."

click

The insides of a man's mouth—three shiny fillings on the lower right side, a large dry tongue, slightly-chapped lips.

"...‘That's just downright poor form,' I told him, ‘I think you should retract that statement,' but he butted his cigarette out in my face and told me he'd already switched to my competitor. Some things aren't sacred like they used to be, I can tell you that, but to—"

"Please shut up," Sara said under her breath, keeping her face towards the window.

"—cut a man off in the middle of a business deal. There isn't any justice in that. Hey, you alright lady? You're awfully quiet over there!"

The plane hit an air pocket and the bump temporarily shut the salesman's mouth.

Sara sighed. She was thinking of an old boyfriend who had given her a small rubber ring to "keep her safe" on her journeys. At their final parting, he'd tied it to her camera bag with a thick black thread. She'd held it intermittently—smooth and soothing between her fingers—for almost a year before it was torn off in a small skirmish with a conveyor belt. She began drawing a mental map of his face just as the salesman next to her cleared his throat as if to speak again.

Sara closed her eyes and pretended to sleep.

After a short cab ride from her apartment in Halifax's south end, Sara stood at the understated front doors of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design where, for four years, she had studied photography.

Walking up the familiar stairs, she half expected to recognize the people she passed. But, of course, her friends had graduated years before. She had lost touch with most of them, since she spent so little time in the city. Opening the door to the photography labs, she took a deep breath in—the smell hadn't changed. It was the same vile combination of chemicals mixed with hundred-year-old, over-exhaled air. The only fresh oxygen was at the bottom of the stairs where it blew in off Duke Street every time someone opened the door.

Evan's office door was closed, as always. He tried to hide from the incessant chatter of the nearby hallways and common rooms. He preferred to communicate with cameras.

Sara knocked quietly, not wanting to startle him or disturb his solitude.

"Hello?" he called with an air of irritation that made her smile.

They should stick him in the basement, she thought, where no one would find him.

"Hello?" he called again, before she pushed open the door. "Try advancing the film," he said. s"It usually solves the problem."

"I tried that."

"Sara? I forgot you were coming!" He laid down the camera he was repairing. "My apologies. It's first-year trauma day. You would have been the fifth one. Come in." He wiped his hands on a fine flannel cloth and stood up to greet her. "Where's the invalid?"

"Here," she said, patting the bulging bag at her side. "I don't know what the problem is. I just can't get it to focus. I took it to a man in Spain, but either he didn't understand me, or didn't want to do the job. He brushed me off."

"Probably had to meet a woman," Evan said. "Well, let me have a look."

Sara passed him her camera. She trusted his steady hands as much as the precision of his eye.

"Meter working?"

"I think so. It's a focus problem. This is what the shots look like." She pulled a handful of photographs from her pocket and placed them on Evan's desk.

He glanced up and said, "There are quite a few like that posted in the hallway."

Sara smiled. She remembered the exercises—intentional lack of focus, capturing fast-moving objects, long handheld exposures in the blackness of night. In those days, she was proud of her blur.

"Is Marisa still here?" she asked. The wild-haired woman had been her favourite instructor in first year. She had flickered and flashed like a silent movie—bright, except for the odd dark frame.

"Yeah. She surfaces," Evan said. "Can I see your other friends?"

"What?"

"I mean, your other lenses."

"You still don't get out much, do you?" she asked, handing him a telephoto and a wide angle.

"You mean out there? No. I can't stand the romantic drivel. It starts on the other side of that door and drips its way through every street of this city."

Sara smiled. For four years she and a friend had tried tirelessly to bring him to dinner and a late-night movie, but he refused. He was comfortable with his own world and uncommonly afraid of theirs.

"I've seen your work," he said.

"You have?"

"Sure."

She stared at him with surprise.

"I do read magazines!"

"Of course," she said. "So, what do you think?"

"It's good." He turned his head to look at her. "There's nothing wrong with your lenses."

"What?"

"Your camera is fine, Sara. I don't know what to suggest."

"Well, my editor's rejecting photos. I have to do something!"

"Have you considered seeing an optometrist?"

"You think the problem is with my eyes?"

"It's possible. People wear glasses."

"Yeah, but I thought..." She stood and reached for the photos she'd put on his desk.

"You thought you could blame the camera."

"Yeah, that's what I wanted to think."

"It can't hurt to have someone take a look. Sara, it's a good camera. Be patient with yourself. It'll all work out."

"Thanks for your time," she said. "I appreciate it." She reached for the camera he was holding out to her. Its familiar body was warm to her touch, but as foreign as a lover who had betrayed her. She buried it in her bag and slowly opened the office door. With her head down, she walked out to the street, past the young, able-eyed students who filled the halls.

By afternoon, Sara was staring at eye charts in a darkened room. She could read most of what she was asked to, but still the optometrist kept working.

"Anyone in your family wear glasses?" he asked.

"My father."

"Mine too," he said, as if it was a rare coincidence. Aiming for the back of her head, he grazed the skin of her cheek and ear. He was trying to bring her face closer to the wheel of lenses. "Is it still cool out there? It was brisk this morning."

"It's cool," Sara said. But not as cool as your hands. She was already as far forward as she could go. Any further would break the bridge of her nose.

"Alright. I'm just going to slide in a little closer here." His rolling chair squeaked when he moved it. "Now..." he leaned away from his instruments and glanced at the clipboard lying beside him on the counter, "Sara, I'm going to ask you not to blink. This will only take a minute—I just want to have a good look inside your eyes."

The young optometrist's chair was pulled up so close that his knees were touching hers. She tried not to blink. As if the two organs were connected, she also forgot to breathe.

After an unnerving moment of stillness, he pushed his chair back and asked, "Tell me again what you're seeing?"

Sara sighed and her stale breath created a haze around her. This was the third time he'd asked her to describe the sensation she was experiencing.

After more examinations under maximum magnification, he pushed the equipment away and shook his head. "I've never seen anything like this," he said. "I'd like you to see a specialist. You may need surgery."

click

A nervous surgeon slips and plays soccer with her eyeball.

click

Like a sloppy tailor, the man with the needle runs out of thread.

click

Prepared in a spicy sauce, she is offered two steaming eyeballs advertised as the specialty of the house.

As she walked home the wind was cold and fierce. She had forgotten that in Halifax rain could be horizontal.

Stepping into her apartment, she heard the insistent ring of her telephone. With her boots and rain jacket still on, she walked over the hardwood floor to answer it.

"Hello?"

"Sara, I can't believe I'm hearing you!"

"Who is this?"

"You don't recognize me?"

"Kyle?"

click

A long wet kiss.

"I heard you were back in town. It's been ages—do you want to have dinner?"

click

A handful of wild roses, their thorns all carefully cut off.

"Sure. Of course. When?"

"How about in an hour?" he asked. "I'm off at five."

There was cold water running down her neck and face from her hair. "Alright."

"Should we meet at the Argyle?"

"Sure."

"Will I know you?"

"What?"

"Well," he said, "it's been awhile! Unless," he added quickly, "you haven't changed."

"I'll be the blind woman with a cane," she said. "See you soon."

Still holding the phone in her hand, she slid down the wall into the puddle she'd made. An hour with Kyle would be like an hour out of the rain.

We broke up a long time ago. She could hear the words in her head, but couldn't make her mouth say them. He was sweeping her hair aside, trying to reach her skin.

They were sitting on his parents' sofa, shoved as it was, in front of a half-empty bookcase in his small apartment. It was the item she associated with him the most, and the only thing she recognized in his new home. The curtains were drawn, making the room feel small. She stood and brushed them aside, asking, "You ever open these?"

"Sometimes," he said. "Sit down. I'll make you tea."

As Kyle disappeared into the kitchen, she sighed visibly for the first time since dinner. The corners of the room were all empty. She wondered if he was afraid of getting trapped there. His walls were bare too. He needs some photographs, she thought, or at least some good posters.

When he came out of the kitchen, he was smiling. He put a bowl of sugar and a jug of milk on a small table in the centre of the room. The way he placed the teaspoons made her think of his mother.

Together they sat down on the sofa again—he against the arm, and she somewhere in the middle.

"There," he said, "that's better."

His domestic skills had improved.

"Thank you," she said. "For the tea."

"Sara, you look tired."

She smiled mildly, suddenly unable to discern his politeness from his genuine concern. She knew he liked to feign weakness as a way of gaining sympathy and wondered if he assumed she did the same.

In one continuous movement, he poured tea, added milk, stirred and moved closer to her. "I'll take care of you," he said.

"Actually, I don't know if—"

"Sara, I've missed you."

"Hmm." She smiled. Until he called, she hadn't thought of him at all.