Trick of Light Read online

"Beats me, Kay."

  I pick out one of the Nikons, an F-model, one she may actually have used in Vietnam. I smile. The camera's battered and the brass shows through the coating. Amateurs like to keep their equipment nice; pros, particularly photojournalists, work theirs hard. I set the shutter speed to 125/sec, cock the shutter, trip it. The mirror clanks loud; the shutter speed sounds right. I think: Of course it works—if it didn't she wouldn't have kept it.

  I turn to David. "What if I donate them to the Art Institute to be loaned to photography students?"

  "Great idea," he says.

  We haul the boxes into my building, load them into the elevator, take them up to the ninth floor. After we've got them neatly stacked in my front hall, I offer him a glass of Chardonnay.

  He takes it, sips, walks to my living room window.

  "You've got the best view in the city, Kay. Maddy said so and she was right."

  "She was only up here once. I showed her my darkroom."

  He turns. "There's a load of darkroom stuff in her storeroom. I'd like to sell it. I don't know where to begin."

  I suggest he call me next week, I'll meet him at Maddy's, we'll go over everything, I'll help him sort it out. We stand looking at one another. The moment feels awkward. I realize this is probably the first time we've been alone together, and that though Maddy was like a mother to us both, we have little else in common.

  "I was over at the Hall of Justice this morning," I tell him. "I spoke with Kremezi. I hope you don't mind."

  He gazes at me.

  "My dad was a cop for nearly twenty years," I add. "I know a lot about cops, good and bad. I went over there to see what's going on, make sure her case is in good hands."

  "Is it?"

  "I think so. Kremezi seemed an okay guy."

  He turns again to the window. "I thought he acted pretty detached."

  "Cops are like that, David—trained to keep their distance. He says he doesn't have any place to start. No leads, since no one saw it happen."

  "Yeah . . ."

  When David turns back to me I detect disturbance in his eyes.

  "Would it bother you if I kept after him?" I ask.

  "Do you want to?"

  I nod. "Yeah, I do. My dad's still in touch with lots of cops. He can pass the word. And my friend Joel, he's an investigative journalist—if I ask him he'll keep on top of it. When the press shows interest in an investigation, S.F.P.D. tends not to let it fade."

  David stares at me, whether with gratitude or irritation I can't be sure.

  "It's not like I'm looking for revenge," he says.

  "Of course not, though I'm sure you'd like to see some justice. I guess what I really want to know is what she was doing there."

  He shakes his head. "I don't understand it."

  "Neither do I," I tell him. "And I want to. I really do."

  This morning I decide to take a close look at Maddy's cameras. I pull the boxes into the living room, sit among them, open them up, spread everything on the rug.

  Lots of Nikons, the tough reflex camera she preferred, and a good selection of Nikon lenses, most in the wide-angle category—24mm, 28mm, 35mm—since Maddy liked working close. I also find six Leica range-finder models, including an old screw mount, again with an array of wide-angle lenses. One camera particularly stands out, a fairly unblemished Leica M6 mounted with a 135mm lens, an oddity since the camera is relatively unscathed and the telephoto is attached.

  I pick it up, examine it. It has a databack, a documentation device that inscribes the date and time of exposures directly on the negative. Just as I'm about to open it, I notice a curious thing: the camera is loaded, the shutter dial showing that the roll inside has reached frame 22.

  A camera isn't like a gun in the sense that there's a test to show whether it's been freshly fired. Still, if you work a lot with cameras, it's possible to acquire a sixth sense about them. Maybe it's just a matter of dust on the viewfinder and lens, skin oil on the shutter and grip. Whatever, I start getting a definite feeling about this particular M6—that it has been recently used, and thus the film inside wasn't left in by mistake but because it had yet to be shot out.

  I take it into the darkroom, carefully rewind the film, open the camera and remove the roll: Kodak Tri-X with a year to go before expiration. Suddenly I feel a chill. Maddy, it's clear, has recently worked with this camera, which puts the lie to her declaration that she hadn't picked up a camera in years.

  My hands are steady as I process the negative, transferring it first, in total darkness, to a developing tank. From this point the process is mechanical. The moment I'm certain the images are fixed, I unravel the strip, hang it up, examine it wet.

  I'm used to reading negatives, but this one's got me stumped. I can't make out a thing. Oh, there're images, the film's been exposed, but all I can detect are occasional dabs of light amidst pools of darkness, nothing I can properly define.

  I cut the long negative into six-frame strips, arrange them in a proofer, expose a proof sheet, process the paper and look again.

  Doing so, it strikes me there's something ironic in this, a reversal of roles—me the student examining the proof sheets of my teacher, trying to see what she was after, just the way she used to look at mine.

  I still can't make out anything intelligible, anything that looks real. Could the pictures be abstract, extreme close-ups of textured surfaces? Could they have been shot deliberately out of focus?

  I dismiss both possibilities. Abstraction was against everything Maddy stood for; razor-sharp focus was her pride. I recall her admonition: "I like to see the pores on their faces, the grooves on their palms." Her pictures were famous for their stamp-minted crystalline quality. That was her trademark, along with the concentrated density of her images.

  So, I ask myself, could such a strong-willed artist radically change her style late in her career? What's on this strip of film? Was she merely testing the camera mechanism, the lens?

  I study the databack information. The dates inscribed on all the frames are either March 3 or 4. I check my calendar; March 3 was a Wednesday, six weeks before the Wednesday when Maddy was killed. The times on the frames range from shortly before ten P.M. to a little after one A.M.—night shots, which may explain the large dark patches in the proof sheet frames. Such a span of time, three hours long, suggests a session of work.

  Clearly there's something on these strips I'm not seeing. To reveal the content I must blow them up. A photographic session occurring six weeks before her death which ended at nearly the same hour she was killed—that work product has to be examined.

  My first prints don't tell me much. The resolution isn't good. Despite the excellent Leitz lens on the camera, the images are grainy and unclear.

  However, after working awhile with several of the negatives, I begin to detect a pattern: a consistent uneven black latticework imposed upon the images which tells me they've been taken from the same position off a tripod. Since Maddy preferred to shoot handheld, this consistency of position suggests a new approach.

  Working up more prints, then looking deeper, I discover a second pattern, this one less evident: a consistent obfuscation in the upper right and lower center of the images, telling me there was something between Maddy's camera and her subject which partially blocked the light. Since whatever it was is out of focus, it's barely discernible, but being familiar with the effect, I recognize the cloudiness that appears in pictures shot through soiled glass.

  Now I've got it! She was shooting through a dirty window, focusing upon action on the other side. The fuzzy latticework that seems imposed upon the images is probably an out-of-focus unevenly painted window frame.

  Forget the foreground—it only confuses you. Concentrate on the background. Try and decode what's behind the glass.

  Now, with a clear objective in mind, I get down to serious labor. I start blowing up the frames, larger and larger, ignoring the latticework, trying to resolve detail out of the blocks of nebulous gray light
in between.

  I realize, after a time, that I may have improperly developed the roll, that most likely Maddy exposed it at double or even triple the normal rating while I developed it straight. I had no reason to do otherwise; there was no notation on the cassette. Also, no reason there should have been. Since the roll wasn't shot out, Maddy didn't have the opportunity to mark it for special development.

  No matter. Examining the negative strips on my light table, I feel there's enough in them to provide me with readable images. By burning in the light grainy areas within the window frame, I should be able to produce intelligible pictures.

  I start concentrating on the dark gray areas, using all my darkroom tricks to resolve them. I employ filters, then a stronger than normal solution of Dektol. I even heat some up and rub it into the exposed paper. Little by little I come up with patterns suggesting human beings—a partial cascade of hair, an image of fingers and half a hand, the tubular shaft of a thigh, the round of a shoulder, the hollow of a navel, a shape that could possibly be a nipple, field after field of unclad and undifferentiated flesh.

  Then, in the ninth frame, I discern a shape that tells me I've not just been imagining all of this: the profile of a nude woman from her waist to her neck, nipple, breast, arm and belly defined. The image, though grainy and soft, is nonetheless unmistakable: a human being, an incomplete nude, perhaps visible only because of the particular angle at which she's standing relative to an unseen source of light, and the fact that, at the moment she was photographed, she was standing in front of something dark.

  I start working with this frame, exposing and developing enlargements at different densities. My problem is that the more closely I define the female, the more I cast the object behind her into shadow. Finally, I map out a complex printing plan, highlighting areas to be dodged, shading in areas to be burned, then set to work.

  I blow my first three attempts, discarding the sheets without bothering to develop them. My fourth try, though awkward and poorly resolved, at least proves to me the job can be done. It takes six more tries before I obtain a satisfactory print. When I do I'm well rewarded. What I took to be a murky contrasting field behind the woman turns out, upon close inspection, to be a second person, a male, dressed in very dark clothes. I'm able to make out the buttons on his jacket, the diagonals of his lapels, can even see his hand overlying the stomach of the woman, a watch on a metal strap dangling from his wrist.

  At four P.M., I stumble out of my darkroom, disoriented and dizzy. I've spent, I realize, nearly eight uninterrupted hours inside, a marathon considering the level of my concentration.

  Seeking nourishment, I wander into my kitchen, find an apple, skin it, cut it into slices, embellish the slices with thin slices of cheese, devour it at the counter standing up.

  I know I can't go back into the darkroom today; my mental energy's too depleted. What I need now is exercise, a hard clarifying workout at the dojo, where the concentration is of a different stripe, not of the mind but of the body.

  Usually I wait till dark to take aikido class, but today I feel desperate. Something's been revealed to me. I've turned nonsense into pictures. But though I've resolved some images, I'm haunted by the question: What do they mean?

  Most particularly I want to understand why Maddy felt a need to capture them, a need so strong it compelled her to take up her camera once again, then shoot under terrible conditions, in poor light, through filthy glass. Maddy was a pro, her mind was sharp, she knew exactly what she was doing. Which means she had to know that whatever results she obtained could not possibly meet her standards.

  "Use your camera to face your demons, Kay!" she used to tell me. "Shoot what you fear!"

  What, I wonder, were Maddy's demons? What was it she feared and thus felt compelled to shoot?

  "Pain, Kay, can be your most important teacher."

  Thus speaks Rita, at Marina Aikido, as I gingerly lift myself off the mat onto which she has just flung me with transcendent, indeed ineffable grace.

  To fling and to be flung, to learn to give up our fear of falling and to feel the joy of flying—such is aikido training . . . and both activities require finesse. What can be most beautiful in aikido can also be painful. I know Rita never intends to hurt us, except, possibly, when she feels doing so will be to our benefit.

  I look into her eyes. We stand facing one another on the mat. Other members of the class sit in the seiza position, watching us, trying to divine the lesson.

  I am the uke, the attacker. Rita is the nage, the thrower. It is she who is applying techniques. It is I who am being vanquished by them.

  It's five P.M. The sky outside is bright, but for me the light in the dojo is tolerable. I don't wear shades on the mat; to do so would be dangerous. But here, even in daytime, my visual acuity improves and my photophobia recedes. I can't explain it. It's one of the mysteries of the martial arts experience. Rita says it's the result of the inner clarity that aikido instills.

  I breathe deeply. Rita does the same. The air in the dojo always smells good to me, though others, outsiders, might find it overly pungent. The scent here is slightly sour, composed of human sweat, the fabric of our practice uniforms, the material of the mat, the solution with which the floor and walls are cleaned, all suspended in the sweet San Francisco breeze that flows in through the open windows and skylight.

  I breathe deeply again, then suddenly rush at Rita full force. I intend to bash her with a head strike, but she's too quick for me, too formidable. At the last moment she moves, perhaps only a few inches, enough so she can deflect my attack, take hold of my wrist, twist it in such a way that I swirl with her as she turns, blend with her, become subject to her control, then go flying through the air to land again upon the mat with a mighty thud.

  "See what I did?" Rita asks the class. She nods to Ralph, recently relocated from Seattle, a young, lithe, eager, well-practiced black belt new to our dojo.

  "You threw her away," he says.

  Rita smiles. "Is that what I did?"

  Someone else suggests that she shed me.

  "'Shed'—I like that better than 'throw away.' Anyone else?"

  "I felt you maybe kind of . . . abandoned her."

  "Abandoned? Really?" Rita turns to me. "Tell us, Kay—did it feel like that to you?"

  "Not at all," I say. "I never felt abandoned. Or thrown away. Shed perhaps, but only at the end. The good part was when we were in touch. Then I felt lifted, like I could fly."

  "And you did," Ralph adds.

  The class titters.

  "I lost my feet."

  "There you are!" Rita says. "She lost her feet. And it wasn't so bad, was it, Kay?"

  "It actually felt good."

  "That's because we blended. My feet became your feet—until I let you go. That's sometimes the sadness of it, I think, the melancholy of our techniques—that after a second or two we must let one another go. Yet . . . let go we must."

  She has something there, something I feel but can't properly explain. I wasn't thrown away, or shed. I was, I now realize, guided, then let go. The best parts of class are these times when Rita departs from technical instruction, speaking instead of feelings, delving into the mysteries of our mysterious shared beautiful/violent art.

  Our eyes meet. We bow to one another. She motions to Ralph to join her on the floor. I take his place among the others, join my breathing to theirs. Sometimes everyone in the dojo seems to breathe together. At such times I feel joined to a marvelous cosmic process that extends far beyond my body.

  When Ralph attacks, Rita applies the same technique she applied to me. He flies well, better than me, I think, certainly lands with more poise, springs up with a smile. Seeing the throw like this, from outside, gives me insight into what I felt, my ecstasy in giving up control to the powerful one who could make me fly.

  After class, in the changing room, I mop my body with a towel. No showers here, just a pair of sinks. Marina Aikido is clean, provides good space, but isn't luxurious.
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  On my way out, Rita spots me passing her office, gestures for me to come in. For the past month we've been discussing whether I should try for my black belt at the end of the summer when the next ranking tests will take place. In principle I've agreed, though without a formal commitment.

  "You were good today," she says. "I felt the flow. You blended really well."

  "Not as well as Ralph, I'm afraid."

  "Actually better," she says. "I mean it, Kay. Don't sell yourself short. You were good."

  Suddenly I feel moisture pulsing to my eyes. I squint so as not to let it show. What Rita has said is the very sort of thing Maddy would say whenever I felt discouraged about my work. Not surprising since Maddy was also a coach, though in an entirely different field. Still, to receive strong encouragement from a woman who does not readily dispense it is to be reminded that though I have incurred a major loss, I have not been cast out on my own.

  "I know you're ready to go for your shodan," she says "The question is—do you know it?"

  "Oh, I know it," I tell her, feeling a fresh surge of confidence. "You're right, I was good today. Thanks for reminding me."

  Rita grins. "My pleasure, girlfriend."

  Dr. Sasha Patel is an emergency room resident at St. Francis Memorial Hospital. He also has the dreamiest, most beautiful eyes I have ever seen. Born in London of Gujrati parents, he came to America to study medicine. He keeps a small apartment on Jones Street to which he has graciously given me a key.

  We both understand the rules. I'm to call first to be sure he's home and not ministering to one of his numerous nurse girlfriends. "I'd give them all up for you if you'd have me, Kay," he's told me several times, with his trademark blend of irony and sincerity. "But you won't, will you?"

  "Sure . . . sometime," I tell him. "You know I like you, Sasha."

  "'Sometime' just won't do it for me, Kay. Because what I feel for you is more than just liking."

  I understand, but there's nothing I can do about that. As fond as I am of him, and appreciative of his adoration, I cannot oblige; thus we have worked out our arrangement. Each of us is always there for the other when needed, which is not to say simply for sex. Also for cuddling, kissing, holding one another, talking, advising—all the lovely things one enjoys doing with a lover whether occasional or not.