Trick of Light Read online

  This morning the News is out, my fireball picture is smeared all over town. I know I should be happy about it, but I feel detached, as if someone else took the shot and it has nothing to do with me.

  As expected, Joel's article is brilliant. He writes of "a recent surge of unrest on the San Francisco waterfront, a feeling held by many that the traditional balance here is on the verge of collapse." He writes that his sources—tugboat captains, bar pilots, assorted old salts—"are unwilling to name names or cite specific incidents, but most agree that the current mood is troubled. Too many unexplained events, such as the recent explosion of a just-emptied ammonia tanker, point to a struggle over territory and control. As one knowledgeable source put it (on condition he not be named): 'There's always been struggle here, ever since the Gold Rush days. In recent years things have stabilized, contending forces have struck a balance. Now that time of tranquility may be over.' No one knows quite why, or who is responsible. But about one thing there's little disagreement—a new era of turmoil has begun."

  It's early evening. Sasha, off duty tonight, is doing me a great favor, driving me up and down the eight narrow two-block-long alleys that run from Twenty-fourth to Twenty-sixth in the Mission.

  We weave first through the botanical series, alleys named Poplar, Orange, Osage, Lilac and Cypress, followed by two named for classical authors, Virgil and Horace, followed in turn by Lucky Street—which, if not named with ambivalence at its inception, is surely an ironic designation today.

  It's Cypress, of course, that's the focus of my interest. But rather than linger here and attract attention, I've asked Sasha to give me a proper tour of the entire back street network. I want to get a feel for it, the kind of people who reside here. Although I've lived in San Francisco all my life, I've never passed through these alleyways before. Each block has its own character. One is fronted by buildings sporting gaudy murals, another is lined with garages, nothing else.

  There are clusters of garbage cans, back doors, rear cottages, fenced-in garden plots. On Lilac Alley we spot a warning painted on a wall: "Yo! Slime Boy! Next time I see your ass you're gonna get a blast of hot lead! No kiddin!"

  Cypress is no better or worse than the others. A green door, of course, is not something I'd recognize, so Sasha kindly points it out as we pass. I memorize its position, then quickly appraise the buildings across the way. The alley's too narrow and the light too dim for me to get a fix on the upper windows. When I ask Sasha to circle the block, he shakes his head.

  "I don't think we should. If we come through again, we'll be noticed," he says.

  We compromise—we'll take a half-hour timeout at the Cuban Cafe on Valencia, then make a second pass.

  Over double espressos, when he asks what I intend, I tell him truthfully I have no idea.

  "You can try and find out who lives there," he says, "then phone them up. Or come by in the morning and present yourself, though I don't recommend that."

  "What then?"

  "Maybe you should write a letter."

  "And if no one answers?"

  He shrugs. "You've got a problem," he agrees.

  Back in the car, I tell him of my decision. "I'm going to knock on that door now, tonight."

  "And if whoever lives there refuses to let you in?"

  "I'll improvise," I tell him.

  He drives me back down Cypress, finds a place to wait where he won't block the alley.

  "Whatever response you get, friendly or unfriendly, promise me you'll come back in ten minutes?"

  I agree.

  "If you don't, I'm coming in after you." He kisses me. "Good luck."

  It's with some dread that I approach the green door—which appears nearly black to me. Outwardly I'm calm, inside I'm worried. It's been forty-eight hours since I've been warned off, thirty-six since I feigned bravery by handing out flyers on the next street. Surely the people who live around here know all about my quest. If Maddy rented a room, why didn't someone respond?

  The door's set in a solid wooden wall. I don't see a buzzer, so I knock. Nothing. I wait twenty seconds, then knock again with greater force. Again no response, so I step back into the alley and look up. I make out dim light in a window on the second floor. It could be a night-light or a lamp left on to scare off prospecting burglars. I return to the door, work up my nerve, this time bang on it hard. Then, noticing a light switch set in the frame, I rapidly switch it on and off. It's then that I start hearing noises behind the door. A moment later a short elderly Chinese woman with a Mao-era haircut opens up and stares quizzically at my face.

  "Hello," I say to her. She continues to stare, waiting for me to explain myself. "I'm a friend of Maddy's." I hand her my flyer. She looks at the picture, then down at my camera. She smiles in recognition. "I understand she rented a room here." Her smile broadens; she nods, gestures me inside. I get the feeling she's expecting me.

  I follow her down a dim corridor. There's a sour smell of soy sauce, cooking oil, cabbage. She leads me through a kitchen where a teenage Chinese girl is studying at a table beneath a fluorescent light. As we pass through the room the girl does not look up.

  We cross a small sitting room, furnished with a huge TV and austere unpadded wooden Chinese-style chairs. An old Chinese man is dozing in an overstuffed chair. The TV is on, set to the Chinese cable channel with the volume turned completely off.

  Exiting this room, we arrive at a set of stairs. The old woman, who has yet to address me or utter a single word, removes a large ring of keys from a hook on the wall, leads me up to the second floor, then down a hallway back toward Cypress Alley.

  Here, to the right of the window I noticed when I looked up from the street, we face another staircase, steeper and narrower than the first. She climbs, I follow, arriving at what I take to be the attic floor. Facing us, in a cul-de-sac, are three closed doors, one in the center, the others angled at ninety degrees on either side. Employing one of her keys, she unlocks the center door, turns to me, gestures for me to enter. I hesitate. Sasha is waiting down in the alley. If I don't return soon, he'll come barging in. I turn back to the woman. Again she nods. Cautiously I push the door open with my foot. It's then, catching a faint aroma of photochemicals, that I know I've found Maddy's lair.

  There's no light inside, but my night vision's superb; it takes me but a moment to comprehend the space. The room's small, the floor's bare, the ceiling's slanted, there's a sink on one wall and a dormer window with drawn shade on the wall opposite the door. In the center of the room, halfway to the window, stands a tripod topped by a magnificent camera, a Pentax 6x7, mounted with a telephoto lens. The camera, pointing slightly downward, is aimed at the blacked-out window. On a table beside the sink there's a developing tank, bottles of chemicals, a light box, a thermometer, a pair of scissors, a magnifying glass, glassine envelopes and a file box for negatives. Above the table two rolls of developed 120mm negative, weight clips attached, hang from a wire drying line.

  I move to the window, then turn back to the woman. My body's trembling. I feel sweat forming in my armpits. She gazes at me, eyes intent. I make a gesture toward the shade. She nods. I tug it gently, then release it, allowing it to roll just halfway up.

  At once I feel I've been here before. The window glass behind is unwashed . . . as I knew it would be. I step back behind the Pentax, peer through the viewfinder. The lens, as expected, is focused on a plane behind a window in the rear of an apartment building across the alley. I recognize the same soft edges of the window grid and window frame from the film I found in Maddy's Leica.

  I turn back to the woman, but she's no longer there. Then I hear Sasha's voice below. I rush down the two flights to find him standing in the kitchen with the woman and the teenage girl. Sasha and the girl are vigorously gesticulating at one another. Seeing me, Sasha smiles.

  "I decided to come looking for you," he says. "Interesting there're all deaf-mutes here."

  I stare at him.

  "You didn't know?"

  "
I had no idea. Though, come to think of it, this lady didn't say a word."

  "That's why there's no doorbell. You switch a light on and off to signal you're at the door. The young lady here is Esther Chen. The older woman, her grandmother, is Grace Wong. Esther signs in American, so she's been interpreting for us." He grins. "Didn't know I could sign, did you?"

  I shake my head. In fact, I'm astonished. "You have so many talents, Sasha."

  He asks if I've found what I was looking for.

  "Oh, I did! It's all in a little room upstairs—camera, tripod, exposed film, the view through the window, everything."

  "I'm happy for you, Kay. I really am."

  At my suggestion, he'll stay down here and interview Grace while I return upstairs. I want him to find out, with Esther's help, how Maddy came to rent the room.

  On my way back up I pause on the second-floor landing to gaze at the apartment building across the way. It's then that I realize it's the rear of a building I've passed many times on Capp, the four-story stucco apartment house with molded escutcheon above the door that stands directly across from the spot where Maddy was run down.

  Back in the little room I'm struck by the fact that not only did she take photographs here, it was also here that she processed them. No sign, however, that she tried to make prints. For a photographer of her experience, inspection of her developed negatives would be enough.

  I pull the window shade, turn on Maddy's light box, pick up her magnifying glass, examine frames from the first of the two hanging rolls. The pictures are similar to shots I found in her Leica, but better, clearer, easier to decode. I carefully cut the two rolls into three-frame strips, pack the strips in glassine envelopes, add them to the file box, then carry it back downstairs.

  I rejoin Sasha, Esther and Grace at the kitchen table. Mr. Wong, in the adjacent room, continues to snooze in front of the silent TV.

  "Here's the story," Sasha tells me. "One morning three months ago, an elderly woman with sharp penetrating eyes appeared at the door. Luckily Grace's niece, who has normal speech and hearing, was here to interpret. Through the niece the lady asked whether it would be possible to rent a room on a monthly basis facing the street. She told Grace she wanted a quiet place to work, preferably on an upper floor where she wouldn't interfere with family activities. She said she would only use it sporadically and at night. As that didn't seem like much of an intrusion and Grace could use the money, she agreed. A deal was struck. Maddy would pay two hundred dollars per month.

  "The next time she came, she brought a heavy suitcase. And she kept her word, she came only occasionally and always at night. Grace doesn't remember which nights, but she does recall that sometimes a week or two would pass between visits. Maddy always paid her rent in cash, and whenever she came she brought a modest gift, usually a sweet of some sort or a bag of fruit. She usually stayed until one or two in the morning, though sometimes she stayed till dawn. The last time she came was the same evening she was killed.

  "Grace heard about the accident the following morning from another Chinese neighbor down the block. It turns out there are several disabled Chinese families on Cypress, placed here by social workers who visit regularly to assist. Grace was saddened by the news. She liked Maddy very much. She didn't know who to contact or to whom she should return Maddy's things. Since most of the people on Capp are Hispanic, and since neither she nor her husband can hear or speak, they have virtually no contact with their neighbors. Thus she knew nothing of your flyers. Had she received one, she assures me, she'd have immediately recognized Maddy's picture. Meantime she's been waiting for someone to come around and claim Maddy's possessions. This evening, when you showed up, camera around your neck, she knew immediately you were the one."

  Both Grace and Esther watch me closely, nodding as Sasha speaks. When he's finished they both turn to me and nod with vigor, as if to confirm that all he has conveyed to me is true.

  It's then, simultaneous with their nods, that an idea springs full-born in my brain. I turn to Sasha.

  "Please tell them I'd like to continue to rent the room and to come here as Maddy did from time to time at night."

  Sasha looks at me. "You're sure that's what you want?"

  I tell him I do, it's the only way I'll understand what's been going on.

  I watch as he and Esther sign, then Esther signs to Grace in Chinese. When Grace understands what I want she gives me a curious look. Then she signs back to Esther, who conveys her response to Sasha in American Sign.

  "Yes, you may continue to rent the room," he translates. "Grace also wants you to know the rent's been paid through the end of the month."

  CHAPTER 2: THE WINDOW

  Tonight, gazing out at my window, the city appears so serene I almost doubt my knowledge that it roils with passions. It's a pretty town, San Francisco; visitors

  are much taken by it—the whiteness, clarity of light, sweetness of air, majesty of bridges, romance of ravishing hills and tranquil Bay. All these give it the quality of an unreal place, a diorama, a stage set. But this beauty is fragile; San Francisco, built upon fault lines, can be shaken to rubble in seconds. Thrashed by vicious storms or enmeshed in suffocating fog, it can turn nasty, irascible, depressing. Ultimately, as those of us who live here know, it's a real city inhabited by real people . . . and people here are as capable of cruelty as people anywhere on earth.

  Tonight such thoughts swirl in my brain. I've spent the day in the darkroom working with the film I found in Maddy's hideaway, trying to make sense out of the images . . . with no success. Though they're clearer, more legible than the earlier material, I find nothing more than flashes of female nudity amidst males who appear fully dressed.

  Over and over I ask myself: What was she trying to photograph? The clear exposition she was seeking did not, as far as I can see, materialize. Her pictures tell me about the passion of her search, but not what she was searching for.

  I drop in on Sasha. As usual, making love we roll off his love seat onto the living room rug as the embers in his fireplace break, producing sparks. Afterwards he retreats to his kitchen. Moments later I hear the throb and hiss of his espresso maker, an old-fashioned machine, the kind you find in North Beach cafes—sculptural, with the mechanism exposed, all knobs and valves and gleaming metal.

  He returns with two demitasse cups filled with steaming coffee, which emit an aroma so enticing it makes me weak in the knees.

  As we sip I tell him about my problem with Maddy's last photographs, this sense I have that there's something hidden in the images.

  He offers me a square of bittersweet chocolate. "Ever heard of David Bohm?" he asks.

  I shake my head.

  "He was a physicist. In his final years, he became a kind of mystic. Born and educated here in the States, he joined Einstein's circle, then, during the McCarthy period, moved to Britain, where I met him not long before he died. He was a great thinker, his ideas cut deep . . . yet throughout his life he sought ever deeper theories to explain the universe. One such theory he called 'implicate order,' a hidden order enfolded in the visible surface that we know. According to Bohm, the implicate order lies beneath the visible order and gives rise to it. It is out of it that the universe we observe has sprung. It's the implicate order that I want to tell you about, not the theory, which is complex and difficult to explain, but an image that inspired it, which, I think, is relevant to what you're looking for."

  He has my attention now, knows it too, has gotten it the way he often does, speaking of something apparently unrelated to my concern, sneaking up on me until, suddenly, he connects it to an event or motif in my life.

  "Yes, tell me, Sasha . . . please."

  He shows me his deep, liquid dreamboat eyes. "The way Bohm used to tell it, he was half dozing one night, half watching TV, one of those science shows the BBC does so well, when he was struck by an experiment being demonstrated on the screen. In this experiment a quantity of glycerine was suspended between two glass cylinders. A drop o
f black ink was added. Then, as the outer cylinder was slowly rotated, the ink drop was spun thinner and thinner into a thread until finally it disappeared. The ink was still in the glycerine, you understand—it just couldn't be seen. But then, when the outer cylinder was slowly rotated again, this time in reverse, the thread reappeared, becoming thicker and thicker, finally collapsing back into the original drop of ink."

  I like visualizing this. "It must have seemed like magic."

  "Yes," he says, "which, of course, is why the TV scientist used it—to catch the viewers' interest. It caught Bohm's interest too. Then, because he was a genius, he took it another step, using it as the starting point for a theory. Think of the ink drop, Kay, as the explicate order, matter which we can see. The invisible thread of ink enfolded in the glycerine—think of that as the implicate order yet to be exposed or understood."

  "You're saying I should imagine Maddy's pictures as a kind of glycerine with ink hidden inside . . . and now I must reveal the hidden pattern."

  "That's it," he says.

  "Yes, I see. But how do I do it?"

  He smiles. "Just turn the cylinder—metaphorically, of course. Turn it slowly in reverse and then perhaps the secret structure will be revealed."

  Tonight I dream of a drama taking place upon a stage. The theater in which I sit is pitch-black. At first I can see nothing, only hear faint sounds as the actors prowl, indecipherable whispers as they speak. Ever so slowly, the stage lights come on, barely bright enough to reveal shadows, windows, doors, the outlines of the set, the dark shrouded forms of the actors. I peer into this dim light, struggling to see. Though my night vision and hearing are good, I feel as if I'm blind and deaf. I can't understand the drama taking place before me. Frustrated, desperate to know what's happening, I cry out: "Speak louder so I can hear! Pour on more light so I can see!" No one pays attention. If anything, the light level drops and the actors whisper even more softly. Then, suddenly, knowing what I must do, I leave my seat, approach the stage, leap onto it and enter into the play myself.