Fearful Symmetries (29 page)

He had the photos developed and he saw what his mother had given him.

Photos of mist, in many of the places they travelled in Europe. “Here there are ghosts,” she was saying to him. “And here, and here.”

Would he find her there, in the mist? He had to know.

He travelled to Venice, to the Ponte dell Liberta where to his great relief there was no mist, no matter how much he squeezed his eyes and squinted. So he travelled to the Bridge of Sighs, because he wanted to finish her voyage for her. He would look out as those long-ago condemned did, and he would listen for their sighs echoed in the walls.

He heard nothing, but he did see the mist, and flying in the mist, ghosts.

He knew about the belief that suicides did not pass over, that they were confined to the earthly plane. Terry thought it was the embodiment of the sigh that stayed behind. The last sigh so many made before jumping.

The window was like a slice of pizza. He could see the canal, buildings on either side. In the distance, another bridge, laden with tourists and beyond that; more buildings, so much water. He thought, “They’re out there.”

He began to follow the trail of suicides: the tallest buildings, the bridges, and he found the mist each time.

It was on the Nusle Bridge, in Prague, where he stood transfixed but somehow lost, that he understood what he could do. A young woman, shoes held by the straps, her lips red, her blonde hair wild and wispy around her head, said, “I feel as if he’s here. Don’t you? Stuck there, in the mist.”

He squinted and did see a face.

“Your husband?” he said.

She nodded. “If only you could capture him. Give him to me.” The woman ran her hand through the mist and shivered. “You might give him a second chance. Them.”

He took a photo, wanting to capture her grief, the moment she reached for the husband she thought waited there. The flash froze the mist and, within the mist, a face. He reached out to touch it, thinking it would disperse, but he could run his fingers through it and feel it, wet.

If only he could capture it.

The widow watched him, her cheeks flushed, and soon they were sharing wine, she was laughing with her head thrown back and he knew that she was using him but that made it even better.

Back home, he established his photography studio above the funeral parlour. Beryl and his mother had long supplied flowers to the parlour, and Beryl was the one who made the suggestion. “You have such an affinity with the grieving. An understanding. You’ll be wonderful,” she said, and the funeral director agreed.

It took experimentation to discover that syringes worked best to capture the ghosts, but it was not time wasted. Every capture gave him strength. Among the first was his father, trapped in a small wet mist in the backyard over the swing chair. Terry flashed the photo, froze him, syringed him. It was a gift he didn’t think his father deserved, but he wanted the mist gone.

His father became one of the yellow stains. Terry soaked it up in a napkin and he kept that with his mother’s water-stained Italian silk scarf and his own tiny t-shirt.

He wasted many this way until he remembered the words of his lover in Venice (
You could give him a second chance
), but what led him to make that first injection? He liked to think it was his mother, helping him as he pressed the needle, unseen, into a deceased elderly woman and watched her cheeks colour.

He didn’t know what happened to the spirits next. His studio was always cold and sometimes, he thought, misty. But a flash revealed no ghosts there. He liked to think he freed them, but truly he didn’t care.

12
P.M.
/ Client: Mr. S/ Subject: His Fiancée (29) Car Crash

Terry walked into the forest; it was a favourite hunting ground, when he was in the mood for a hike and the fresh air. He loved the smell of pine, and the crunch underfoot of growth and of insect bodies.

The mist was thick at the base of a massive tree, and he took his photos, gathered his spirit, before pausing for a quick sandwich and coffee from his thermos.

The funeral director came out with him once and while the man saw the mist, he did not see the faces within, although he did feel chilled to the bone and a sense of the “Heeb Jeebs,” he said.

Terry turned on soft lighting and played romantic music. He threw a satin sheet over the couch and added Erotica to the oil burner.

Mr. S was in his mid-30s. His hair was a mess and his clothes dishevelled and there was a furtiveness about him. The dead woman lay on a trolley, covered by a soft blanket.

“Slight rush on this one. Her parents hate him,” the funeral director said in Terry’s ear as he passed the trolley over. “Apparently a restraining order on him, hush hush.”

“No worries, we’re good to go.”

“Enjoy,” the funeral director said.

“It’s a sad name for a photography studio,” Mr. S said. The light from the stained glass windows in the foyer bathed him in a deep, colourful glow.

“Kind of,” said Terry, “But I also think of the last sigh as both a release and an acceptance. It tells you your loved one was ready to move on. That they are okay.” He loved this metaphor, having once read a description of Franz Mesmer’s studio as being “filled with the sighs of sweet music and soft female voices.”

He settled the dead girl onto the couch, arranging her so she appeared to be resting. Aunt Beryl was at the florist; he didn’t need her for this one.

As Terry worked, he asked, “How long had you been together?”

“Two years. But I dumped her. It wasn’t working out, so I dumped her. She went out and got blind drunk. This is my fault, I shouldn’t have dumped her.” The body was severely damaged; broken limbs, deep bruising. Her flesh was spongy in places.

“It’s not your fault. You loved her dearly. I can see that. She was a lucky woman.” Terry’s sleeves were rolled up high around his triceps. He knew he shone under the lights and that the life in him, the brightness, contrasted starkly. He was a handsome man and he knew it, square-jawed, wild-haired, and he was always flicking it out of his eyes. Women shifted it for him sometimes, tucking it behind his ears. He knew he had them when they did that.

“God, look at her,” Mr. S said. “Can’t you cover that up so she looks normal?”

The whole back of her head was dented. The funeral director had done his best cosmetically, and they nestled her head in cushions, hiding the damage.

Terry pulled on gloves, walked to his bar fridge and removed a syringe.

He’d scratched himself before, raising blisters which were filled with tiny growths, so he always wore gloves now.

“What the fuck is that?”

“It’s going to help us make her look better in the photo. Trust me. It’s an element of the universal fluid that runs through us all, even your beautiful girl. Her flow has been interrupted, but I can get it going again very, very briefly.”

Terry emptied the syringe into the corner of her eye. Stepped back. Waited for the moment. That sudden flare of colour in the cheeks, as if the flesh was infused with dye. This he needed to capture.

A twitch. The glow. “There it is!”

“Is she alive?”

“Just for a moment.”

He heard a soft sighing and it was so sweet it made all else seem empty. The smell was ammoniac, though. It made his eyes water.

He took some shots. “Touch her. Go on. She’s warm.”

There was no personality in the revival. It was the physical body alone that reanimated. No conversation, no thought process.

Still, Terry said, “Say goodbye.
I love you
always feels good. She might hear you. Think of her as in a coma. Your voice might pass through to her. And hold her while she’s warm. She’ll feel good.”

“I’m sorry,” Mr. S said to her. “I’m sorry I made you die. If you hadn’t left it wouldn’t have happened.”

Mr. S touched her.

“Go for it,” Terry said. “Most people do.”

“Really?”

Terry showed him some photos. “Really. Look. I can take a record if you want. Just for your private viewing. You have to be quick, though.”

Grief sold. Grief-struck fucking even more so.

The woman blinked. Her mouth opened.

Terry took the photos then printed them out while Mr. S went to the bathroom. He added his special touch to them, the colours he loved. Split lip red, vagina pink. All shoots excited him, but these ones in particular. He didn’t relieve himself though; he had a date that evening and looked forward to it. The only dead one he’d ever been tempted by was an actress. The funeral director alerted him, describing her wild bush, her protuberant labia, her large and obvious clitoris. There were no loved ones but that didn’t matter.

Terry took photos anyway.

They say a photographer (pornographer) should never star in his own work and Terry agreed. He took plenty of photos, though. She was a beautiful woman.

He presented to Mr. S, now waiting in the viewing room, flicking through magazines. Terry liked his clients to sit with him at the large desk on the comfortable chairs. He made coffee or cocoa or he poured wine and he had chocolate truffles to eat.

“You’re a magician. How do you do it?” Mr. S said, surprised even though he had seen the body, felt the warmth.

“I treat each photo like a work of art. Sometimes I have to add a little here, a little there.”

“You’re a genius.”

Another high-paying happy customer. Terry loved to help.

He sprayed air freshener around the studio to absorb the odours. His nose was sensitive to the smell of decay, although he was far more used to it today than he once was. He burned incense by the handful and people liked it. It made some of them think of church, which was a comfort for most.

2
P.M.
/ Client: Ms. T/ Subject: her daughter (stillborn)

He didn’t take bookings too far in advance. He needed to be ready to move, ready to snap on an hour’s notice or less. The funeral director kept him updated with lists and he watched the papers, so he could vaguely estimate his day if he wanted to. There was never a dull day, never a quiet one. He sold dreams in a different way now, but he still sold calm, respite and comfort.

Aunt Beryl took a call from the hospital. “Can you go? There’s a lady there who needs your help.”

“It’s better to do it here.” She knew that.

He’d never tell the truth of it.

The mother arrived, supported by her sisters. Hair drawn back into a loose, messy ponytail, done by someone else, he thought. Her face washed clean—the sisters again, he thought, and the clothes were her pregnancy ones, as if by wearing them she could pretend she hadn’t had the baby yet.

“Come in,” he said. He asked the sisters to wait downstairs. Before Aunt Beryl went back to her shop she filled the place with yellow roses and they brought a deep warmth. He took the dead baby gently. “So beautiful, so pure,” he said. He nestled her sideways on the soft cushions.

He syringed the mist into her small, clouded eye.

Her cheeks flushed.

“Oh!” Ms. T said. “Look! She’s alive, she is! I told them. Those doctors.” She picked her baby up, held her close. Shucked off her shirt, engorged breasts leaking colostrum.

He snapped, filmed, clicked, close up of her stretched skin, the bluish nipple moist and dripping.

The baby didn’t suckle.

“She’s warm. She feels warm. Why doesn’t she drink?”

He took photos of the baby before the warm flush faded.

“She doesn’t have the strength, poor darling.”

The baby lost her warm colour. The spirit had departed. She looked greyer than before, like marble, and so cold his fingers chilled touching her. He placed her in a basket and covered her head.

He laid roses around her. “Such a beautiful girl.”

He called for the funeral director to collect her. Ms. T sat slumped in the corner, her shirt still unbuttoned.

“That was amazing,” she said. “I don’t know what you did.”

He showed her the photos on his camera.

“She looks alive. She really does. Doesn’t she? I’m not imagining it.”

He didn’t show her the shots of her tits. He’d cut her head off for those, no need for permission.

She stood up shakily. He took her arm, held her steady. “It’s okay. This is difficult for you. It’s the worst thing you’ll ever have to go through. No one else can imagine it.”

Mothers were so grateful they often wanted to do him right there, by the cash register, as if he could make them another baby.

This one didn’t have sex with him and he didn’t want it, anyway. She’d be all messed up down there after giving birth, he knew that, but he wouldn’t mind sucking on those milky tits.

“Do it again, what you did,” she said, her voice throaty with grief.

“I can’t do it again. I only do it once. I’m sorry.”

“Oh, God, please. Please. I’ll give you all I’ve got. Have you got a girlfriend? A wife? One day you’ll have a baby and you’ll know what it’s like.”

He had girlfriends, but not the kind she meant.

She fell to her knees, her arms around his shins, begging, weeping. He was glad his mother had died first because he’d hate her to suffer like this.

He wasn’t sure how well it would work a second time. Oddly, no one had ever asked him before.

“This has to be the last time. We’ll take one last photo so that you’ll never forget your beautiful girl.”

5
P.M.
/ Client: Ms. T/ Subject: Her daughter (stillborn)

Terry dressed in a pale blue t-shirt, some lightweight pants. He didn’t have time to enjoy this hunt, so drove to the city’s tallest building where he climbed to the roof and took out his camera.

He thought of the woman in his studio with her milky, firm tits, and her needy lips, and her gratitude. And he thought of the baby and how much he loved to see them revived, how godlike he felt when that movement came to them.

He patrolled the roof until he found it, a small patch of mist. One two three ghosts there, a family, perhaps.

His studio was always cold.

Ms. T waited, sleeping on the couch. He took a few photos, wondering if she’d notice if he moved her around, shifted her arms and legs.