Alys finished moving the paper around in the developing tray, then placed it in the fixing solution. Looking at the image made her feel strange. Proud, on the one hand, because of the photograph’s technical perfection. That tart’s gesture as she held on to Paul. The shine in her eyes, his eyes half closed… The details made you feel you could almost touch the scene, but despite her professional pride, the image gnawed at Alys’s insides.
Lost in her thoughts inside the darkroom, she barely registered the sound of the bell announcing a new visitor to the shop. However, she looked up when she heard a familiar voice. She peered through the red glass spy hole, which gave a clear view of the store, and her eyes confirmed what her ears and her heart had told her.
“Good afternoon,” Paul called out again, approaching the counter.
Aware that the business of selling shares could be exceedingly short-lived, Paul still lodged in the boardinghouse with his mother, so he had taken a long detour in order to call at Muntz and Sons. He had obtained the address of the photographer’s studio from one of the workers at the club, having loosened his tongue with a few banknotes.
Under his arm he was carrying a carefully wrapped package. It contained a thick black book embossed in gold. Sebastian had told him it contained the basics that any Profane should know before becoming a Mason. First Hans Reiner and then Sebastian had been initiated with it. Paul was itching with desire to run his eyes across those lines that his father had also read, but there was something more urgent to be done first.
“We’re closed,” the photographer said to Paul.
“Really? I thought there were ten minutes left until closing time,” said Paul, glancing suspiciously at the clock on the wall.
“To you, we’re closed.”
“To me?”
“You’re not Paul Reiner, then?”
“How do you know my name?”
“You fit the description. Tall, thin, glassy-eyed, handsome as the devil. There were other adjectives, too, but best if I don’t repeat them.”
There was a crash from the back room. Hearing it, Paul tried to look over the photographer’s shoulder.
“Is Alys in there?”
“Must be the cat.”
“That didn’t sound like a cat.”
“No, it sounded like an empty developing tray being dropped on the floor. But Alys isn’t here, so it must be the cat.”
There was another crash, this time louder.
“There goes another one. Just as well they’re made of metal,” said August Muntz, lighting a cigarette with an elegant flourish.
“You’d best go feed that cat. It seems hungry.”
“Furious, rather.”
“I can understand why,” said Paul, lowering his head.
“Listen, my friend, she did leave something for you.”
The photographer held out a photograph to him, facedown. Paul turned it over and saw a slightly blurred picture, taken in a park.
“It’s a woman asleep on a bench in the Englischer Garten.”
August took a long drag on his cigarette.
“The day she took this photograph… it was her first outing on her own. I lent her a camera to go round the city looking for an image that would move me. She spent her time walking round a park, like all beginners. Suddenly she spotted this woman sitting on a bench, and the woman’s stillness appealed to Alys. She took a photo and then went to thank her. The woman didn’t reply, and when Alys touched her shoulder, she fell to the ground.”
“She was dead,” said Paul, horrified, suddenly understanding the truth of what he was looking at.
“Starved to death,” replied August, taking one final drag, then stubbing the cigarette out in an ashtray.
Paul gripped the counter for a few moments, his gaze fixed on the photograph. Eventually he handed it back.
“Thank you for showing me this. Please tell Alys that if she goes to this address the day after tomorrow,” he said, taking a piece of paper and a pencil from the counter and making a note, “she’ll see just how well I’ve understood.”
A minute after Paul had left, Alys came out of the darkroom.
“I hope you haven’t dented those trays. Otherwise you’re going to be the one hammering them back into shape.”
“You said too much, August. And that thing with the photo… I didn’t ask you to give him anything.”
“He’s in love with you.”
“How do you know?”
“I know a lot about men in love. Especially how hard it is to find them.”
“Things started off badly between us,” said Alys, shaking her head.
“So? The day begins at midnight, in the middle of darkness. From then on, everything is light.”