Serafim and Claire (2 page)

Medium:
Gelatin silver print

Description:
Women loading boat with stores

Location:
Oporto, Portugal

Date:
c. 1919

The ship in focus is in the foreground and mid-sized, having both a diesel engine and masts to sail by, from which rigging droops like barbwire against the sheen of the river behind. A thin gangplank stretches up from the bow and reaches the heights of a rocky shore, where seven women have stepped onto it, and are now carrying their loads of foodstuffs and provisions in large wicker baskets, balanced, with the help of one casual hand each, on top of their heads.

There are other boats in the frame, both larger and smaller (and slightly out of focus), anchored along the opposite bank in the background, in front of the cellars of the English-run port wine industry, likely being stocked with crates and bottles for transport that same moment.

A sturdy cable, bolted to a slab of rock, extends its rusty yarn out to another unseen vessel on the left.

The blurry dots of two seabirds perforate the sky at the top.

The women loading the boat are almost certainly the wives of the fishermen, or of the merchants — seamen — who earn their living from its deck. The delicate balance of the heavy baskets on their heads, as they walk along a teetering slat of wood onto a listing ship, which chances the temperamental seas daily, is so practised that it appears ordinary, sure, unprecarious.

Yet one can feel, in their posture and resolve, that they understand, and better than most, that this is not the case.

S
erafim Vieira stepped
hes
itantly from the glaring sun of the street and into a doorway that was dark with musty shade. He took off his hat, hung it on one of the pegs at the entrance, and peered into the gloom until his eyes adjusted, revealing that there was indeed a barman inside. The barman was standing behind a zinc counter, either drying a glass or running a grey rag over its milky sides as a means of cleaning it. Considering the type of establishment this was, a commoners'
tasco
, Serafim assumed it to be the latter. He advanced, surveying the murky interior as he walked, wooden tables arranged without any order, some without chairs, their surfaces pitted and stained. It would suit his purposes just fine. The barman turned his back to Serafim and placed the glass on a shelf, mumbling, “
Boa-tarde
.”

He stepped meekly up to the bar, but didn't know what to do with the hand that wasn't holding his camera, experimenting with putting it in his pocket then resting it on the counter, and finally just letting it hang at his side. There was a leg of
presunto
on the bar, dry-cured ham, elevated on a wooden crutch, which had already been shaven down to the pink of its bone. A fly was sponging up the rind of its gristle.

“I would” — Serafim cleared his throat — “like a glass of
bagaço
. Please.”

The barman reached for the bottle with automated efficiency, then paused, looking Serafim over for a moment, his eyes resting on his stylish vest and jacket, his beige tie in a Windsor knot, his well-trimmed moustache. Serafim feared the barman would ask if he was
sure
he wanted such a hard, unrefined, workingman's drink. But the barkeeper said nothing.

Shot glass poured to the rim, Serafim took it, watching it in his hand as he walked lest it spill over and make a mess, and sat at a table near the doorway, adjusting his uneven chair so he could look out into the bright afternoon street.

The taste was sharp, stung his eyes, scorched his gullet. He put the glass down, surprised to see it empty. Noticing that he'd placed his camera on some crumbs of bread that had been spilled during someone's slapdash breakfast, he lifted it, wiped the morsels away, and placed it gently back onto the wood again. As he did so, and out of nowhere, a swell of tears surged into the back of his throat and he had to lean forward, fighting to swallow them down. When he regained his composure, he lifted the glass to the barman behind him. “Sir?”

The second glass went down more easily. Serafim relaxed in his chair as it click-clacked between two of its legs. Across the narrow street, there was a corridor entrance to a set of apartments, shafting deep into the building, ceramic tiles woven together with azure and yellow designs that faded down the hallway into an aquamarine dark. Eventually a woman in the frills of a white dress emerged from it, her hemline dangerously close to the ground, sleeves to her wrists, a satin ruffled hat. Holding a black umbrella to guard against the sun, she stepped down into the street, tussled gauchely to open it, and strode away with all the grace of a peacock.

Once she was out of sight, Serafim turned around abruptly, lifted his glass. “Sir?”

When the barman filled it this time, the meniscus mushrooming from the rim of the shooter like bread dough after the second kneading, he placed the bottle onto the table in front of Serafim and returned to the bar. It then occurred to Serafim that the barman might already know. Though, if he didn't, he would soon enough. Oporto was a small, staunchly conservative city that festered in the rumours of its own crestfallen inhabitants. He would be made to live out his humiliation gradually, stoically, wearing it off in piecemeal degrees; the painstaking attrition of disgrace.

Serafim downed the glass, poured another, and listened to an ox cart approach from the right. You could always hear the sounds of an ox cart before you saw it: the huffs and grunts of the bulls, the sluggish wooden wheels slipping on the paving stones. A boy in threadbare pants and an oversized leather hat was leading the team, walking them as slowly as he could in order to keep the stacks of rusty terracotta bowls, separated by tufts of grass, from breaking. It reminded him of the child labour restrictions the anarchists were trying to establish; which of course made him think of Álvaro. Serafim wondered where his closest friend was at that moment. Far away and happily engaged in his work, no doubt. In the hills with the libertarian syndicalists, or in Lisbon, taking photos of every rally and protest, recording history so it
would
be history.

He threw back another shot and poured another, spilling some.

When an aged and sun-creased woman passed the doorway with three pigs on a hemp leash, he realized that this was one of the thoroughfares to the river, where people from the morning markets ferried themselves and their goods back to their homes in Gaia, on the other side. One of Serafim's favourite photos ever taken in Oporto was on that river, the Douro. The shot, by an amateur photographer, had been well ahead of its time, and featured a line of women loading a merchant boat, balancing baskets on their heads. He had been down to the loading docks countless times since first seeing the print, trying to catch something like it; but he just didn't have the luck of being in the right place at the right time. Though, he reasoned, luck was a strange thing. And maybe with the luck in his life turning sour in every way it possibly could today, the luck of a perfect exposure might just coast his way. Sure, he nodded to himself, that was as good an idea as any.

He emptied his glass one last time and stood up, feeling a wave of welcome nullity as the alcohol washed over him, pooling at his dizzy feet. Not wanting to speak to the barman, he tossed more escudos onto the table than the bottle of
bagaç
o
could possibly be worth, and watched as one slow coin rolled along the uneven surface as languid as an ox cart's wheel then jingled onto the floor. He didn't care. It would give the barman something more to talk about, add some flavour to the story, to the pathetic sight of him, Serafim Vieira, the laughingstock.

Out into the squinting light, he lumbered down the lane, which followed the lay of the land that drained every street in the city onto the banks of the Douro. He cupped his tiny camera, a Leica, against his chest; no model name or number, just solid German quality, which had been mailed to him directly from the factory a little under a year ago, only a few months after it was released onto the market. He'd been awaiting its invention for four long years. Finally, a sophisticated camera small enough that it wouldn't be noticed by the people it captured, that could be taken straight into the heart of a dynamic street scene and remain overlooked by its subjects.

Now he could see the water, smell the soap from all the women doing their washing on the banks and in the tributaries. He stopped to take a wobbly picture of a boy climbing to the top of a hoist that angled up over the river. The boy's friends, swimming below, cheered him on as he dove flaccidly into the brown water. Serafim took another shot of the group of them, bobbing around in the filthy river, their heads wading through orange peels and cigarette butts, skimming prisms of oil, the pale of their skinny legs disappearing into a sienna fog.

Serafim noticed that a ship was being loaded a little farther down the quay, and headed towards the commotion, thinking of its potential as a photograph. Longshoremen with square burlap sacks, swollen pillows stuffed to near bursting, were muscling into a tight queue and climbing onto the ship, while another gangplank of them, empty-handed and quick on their toes, filed out of the boat and towards the next parcels for loading.

From where he was standing, it would have been a poorly composed shot, but Serafim had lifted his camera anyway, when he heard his name being called out above the noise and bustle. He turned around to see an old acquaintance from grade school, who'd since taken over his father's merchant business, casually leaning in a doorway with his legs crossed. His friend was standing with another man, who was holding a leather-bound notebook and presumably overseeing the order being loaded.

Serafim approached them, distantly aware that he was visibly drunk, his steps unbalanced against the uneven of the cobblestones. Abandon spilled from his swinging gestures. He was quite unsure what he would do next, feeling, for the first time in his quiet and reserved life, reckless. Just before he'd reached the doorway, the man with the ledger mumbled something into his acquaintance's ear, who then nodded, smiling.

“Mr. Vieira. It's been months, has it not? I trust that you've been well?”

Serafim stopped, and for some reason held his tongue like a barkeeper in a commoners'
tasco
, casting a glance back at the ship being loaded. He swayed slightly, a thin tree in the breeze.

The man with the ledger, apparently discomfited by Serafim's lack of response and drunkenness, excused himself and left to supervise the loading lines.

“Listen.” His friend uncrossed his legs. “Why don't you come out of the sun. Step inside for a few minutes, have a drink. I've got a proposition for you.”

Serafim turned back, levelled his gaze, considering this, then stepped through the doorway.

Three shot glasses later, sitting on an even-legged steel chair, Serafim found himself laughing for the first time in what felt like weeks. Drinking
aguardente
, an incremental step up from his previous choice, Serafim and his friend butted out cigarette after cigarette, threads of smoke sculpting ever-changing horizons in the room. At first Serafim had scoffed at his acquaintance's offer, but then a hazy conviction began to rise, swarming between the two men and their fervent conversation, plunging through its fateful undercurrents. And when his old friend stood and told him he had to tend to the ship, but suggested Serafim sleep off the drink on the sofa in the next room and think about it, Serafim went there immediately, curling onto the red cushions and unbuttoning his vest and jacket. He glided into an afternoon sleep, convinced that this chance meeting was no chance at all; that it was fortuitous, ordained. Just think of it! That a man of the sea — and a merchant, no less — might hold the solution to his, an artist's, every problem. Serafim smiled to himself as he closed his eyes. Yes, luck was a strange thing.

Ville de Québec, le 2 février 1928

Ma très chère Claire,

I must confess how worried I am becoming. I have telephoned your apartment several times, pleading with the operator to let it ring just a little longer. Would you believe that I've been distraught enough to have even telephoned the only two hospitals I could imagine you in? Where are you, Claire?

The only thing stopping me from catching a train to Montreal is that you mentioned there were auditions coming up and you may've gone out of town. This, at least, is my hope; that you are safe and well, on a stage in another city, impressing some new agent, or maybe even trying for one of those Russian ballets that are passing through New York or Boston. And I hope this while fighting the idea that this letter is just another in a bundle crammed inside your mailbox, while you are somewhere else, in trouble.

Things here are frustrating as always. We're preparing for the suffragist delegation coming to the city for the annual march on the Legislative Assembly. I wish you would come to it one of these years, Claire, join the struggle. Or even just visit.

Please, the moment you get this letter, please telephone me. I desperately need reassurance that you are well, and that I am worrying for no reason at all.

Je pense à toi,

Cécile