A Flickering Light Read online

  “He says you did not keep your agreement with him.”

  “But I’ve run the studio for him. For you. Why would he object to my having my little camera back? I’ve taken no photographs on my own. That’s what I agreed to. They’ve all been for the studio.”

  “Mr. Bauer has his ways,” Mrs. Bauer told her. “That’s all I know. You’ll have to work it out with him.”

  The Bauer foyer was a place she’d gone to twice a week since then. Jessie would sit on the hat bench and wait for Mrs. Bauer to confer with Mr. Bauer. Sometimes Winifred joined her, and the time would go faster then as the child chatted about her bear or told her stories of imaginary friends. At least, Jessie assumed they were imaginary with names like Hestia (whom Jessie knew was the Greek goddess of hearth and home) and Hera (known to be jealous but also the protector of marriage). Mr. Bauer was likely reading the classics to Winifred, as these were things he spoke about sometimes at the studio when they worked in the darkroom or waited for clients. He probably had a few leather-bound books in the case that told such stories too.

  Mostly Jessie sat alone in the Bauer foyer, where a fire warmed the open room. She could hear muffled conversations between the two. After a time, Mrs. Bauer would come down the stairs and convey Mr. Bauer’s concerns about her work. There were always complaints, and a part of Jessie wondered if she ought to continue the portrait appointments since Mr. Bauer was apparently so upset with her skill. But Mrs. Bauer insisted she proceed, and the clients liked the results. Jessie had made the commitment to run the studio, and she’d keep it, at least until he was well, even if he hadn’t kept his word to return her camera.

  She’d looked for her Kodak, wondering where he might have put it. It wasn’t in the operating area. Well, of course, he wouldn’t want his customers seeing something so amateurish. It wasn’t upstairs in the attic portion, or downstairs. It wasn’t anywhere in the studio that she could find. She even had Voe looking for it on the high shelves that Jessie couldn’t reach without standing on a ladder, and even then there were cubbyholes she never could see far enough back into. Her shortness was an annoyance. So was not getting that camera back.

  She had to put those thoughts aside now as she hustled Roy along so they could attend the Christmas concert. She arrived in the kitchen just as her uncle August stomped the snow from his boots. “How’s my little camera girl?” he said as he swung Jessie around the room.

  “Neatly dressed and ready to go…until you came along,” she teased. He set her down and she straightened her hat, held her muff with one hand.

  “Well, pickle my fingers then,” he said. “Here.” He handed her a small box not much larger than her palm. “For my favorite niece. An early Christmas present. To go with your camera.”

  “You spoil the child,” her mother said, but her tone was kind. Jessie suspected that her mother’s next-to-youngest brother was a favorite of her own. His ears stuck out from his head and looked like loose flaps on a man’s winter cap.

  “May I open it now?” she asked.

  “We really should be going,” Lilly said, joining them.

  “Are Grandma and Grandpa out there waiting?”

  August nodded his head.

  “I’d better hold off then. It’s cold, and they don’t need to be in it longer on my account.”

  “Oh, go ahead,” August urged. “They’ve got hot bricks under their feet and a buffalo robe to wrap them.”

  Jessie removed her gloves, tore off the string, but carefully folded the paper for later use. Inside the box were two little silver spoons embossed with St. Louis World’s Fair. “These are just precious,” Jessie said. “Little salt spoons.” She showed them around.

  “I’ve saved a few trinkets from St. Louis. I’ll dribble them to you now and then,” he said. “For your trousseau.” He winked at her.

  “If my girls ever marry,” their mother said. She pointed her finger at Lilly, who scowled.

  “I do wonder what boy would want a scamp like Jessie,” August said.

  “One with good sense,” Jessie said. “I could support him better than your suspenders.”

  He faked pain.

  She helped settle Roy down as he put his coat on. “Boys are silly and thoughtless. Not you, Roy. I’ll wait for a gentleman.”

  “You have to be wary of older men,” August teased.

  “I don’t think years necessarily add wisdom. They could just count up years of dementia. You’re seventeen years older than I am. Are you demented?” She grinned as she said it, as his face again showed mock pain.

  “L-l-let’s go!” Roy ran out the door, followed by the rest of the family.

  Within minutes they were driving through the night on a sleigh pulled by her grandparents’ big team, the ping pingle ping of the bells jangling in rhythm to the horses’ hoofs. Later, the older people and August would spend the night, the girls giving up their bed for their grandparents and August bunking in with Roy. Jessie and her sisters would curl up in quilts on the parlor floor before the little stove, and there’d be a huge breakfast in the morning with bacon from the farm and eggs and the cinnamon rolls her grandmother Schoepp had spent days making. Jessie loved her grandparents, and it always pleased her to be able to say that she’d grown up “just down the road” from their farm. Jessie’d even been born in their home.

  At the other end of the valley lived her other set of grandparents, as slender and small as her Schoepp parents were large and looming. Her mother’s parents had settled early in the Cream valley, claiming the flat, rich farmland fed by a year-round stream. They’d come into Winona the following morning after attending a service at the Herold Church up on the bluff. She couldn’t imagine a better life than to have so many relatives so close, and getting along with one another too. Family was what mattered. She looked at Roy as they sped along the wintry streets, and tears threatened to freeze on her cheeks.

  Inside the newly rebuilt church on the corner of King and South Baker, Jessie was hit with the smell of kerosene lamps swinging from overhead wires. At the two stoves, people had placed their bricks to reheat them. They’d be bundled in blankets later to keep everyone’s feet warm on the ride home. Evergreens and red bunting decorated the sanctuary. Dozens of tiny candles lit the branches of a tree that rose to the ceiling. Men stood next to the evergreen ready to replace any candles that burned too close to the greenery, but Jessie always imagined they guarded the presents that would be given out to all the children. She was too old for those gifts now, but she remembered the joy of receiving treasures at the Herold Church when she was little. A china-faced doll with leather arms still sat on the dresser. The Gem Roller Organ, ten years old now, had been a Christmas gift. Putting the rolls in and listening to the hymns play was still a special feature of the Gaebeles’ Christmas morning.

  Selma and Irene sang like angels in the concert, her sister’s alto voice melting over them like pure maple syrup. The choir followed, then a piano solo that made Jessie wish she could play such music. She could plink out tunes so long as she remembered the melody. Something happened to her hands, which seemed to move without her when she sat on that round stool in front of the keys. If she looked at her hands while she played, she’d get stumped, but if she just let the music flow through her, she could sometimes play trills and chords and sound like someone who had practiced for years.

  This experience was somewhat like faith, she decided: if you tried to think about it too much, you’d stumble, but if you just trusted and kept going, there’d always be the next note to come. Sometimes Jessie went with Selma to the sanctuary for her rehearsals and she’d play after the real accompanist left. But she’d never dream of playing in public. Besides, she had another life now, one she’d always dreamed of having—capturing beauty through photographic art.

  Jessie looked around at all the different faces shining in the lights. A wood stove burned hot in the back, but she could still see the breath of those sitting near the front. Just a little breath, and the gi
rls all kept their hands inside their muffs. These faces: every one of them could be a portrait, Jessie thought.

  Jessie’s mind wandered as the room filled with worshipers. Part of what she’d liked about running the studio with Voe these past weeks were the adventures she could look forward to each day, the new clients, the freedom to experiment in the darkroom, and the independence to eat lunch when they were hungry and not just when Mr. Bauer said to. They’d done well for the studio, or so she thought. She’d written ad copy that was published each week. Appointments were scheduled. Collections came in soon after she sent out the statements, and she made bank deposits just as Mrs. Bauer had told her to.

  Mrs. Bauer was cordial, and even when she shared bad news with Jessie about how her husband didn’t like certain aspects of the photographs she’d taken, Jessie found her easy to work with. Jessie took the criticism as lessons she still needed to learn and didn’t carry away bad feelings either about Mrs. Bauer or her own work. Mr. Bauer was expected back after the first of the year, and a part of Jessie wasn’t really looking forward to it. She might be limited to the darkroom again or, worse, relegated just to office work, working the typing machine and answering calls. There was the matter of the camera they’d have to work out, not to mention the rash of critical comments. She’d made notes. She wanted to learn. It wouldn’t be a pleasant discussion with him, but a necessary one.

  The Gaebele children sat on either side of their parents on the long pew. During a change up front, when the choir left and another soloist stepped up on the stage, Jessie leaned forward, scanning to see if she knew anyone on the other side of the relatives’ pew. Uncle August winked at her and she waved. Her mother frowned. Jessie turned and looked back. Her eye caught Winifred’s. The child wiggled her fingers in greeting. Jessie waved her gloved hand in reply. The child had a good memory.

  She saw Mrs. Bauer and Russell too, though neither noticed her. Then she saw Mr. Bauer. He looked so thin! He’d always been slender, but now he barely had skin enough to cover his bones. He’d lost some of his hair. The woman seated beside him moved, and her hat now kept Jessie from seeing any more of the Bauer-filled pew.

  Here she’d been thinking poorly of him, almost wishing he wouldn’t return because it was going to interfere with her enjoyment of her profession. She hoped to catch his eye and nod hello but didn’t. She turned back when her mother tapped her knee and motioned for her to pay attention. The pastor had begun.

  He spoke of light and what it meant to the world when Light flooded the darkness of men’s souls. Jessie turned her attention to the front. This was a divergent sort of sermon for him, as he often spent time on darkness and sin. “Light is directional, telling us which way to go when there’s a storm. The lantern swings to move us right or left to safety,” the pastor said. He had a thick German accent, and Jessie had to focus on each word. She could understand a little German, though she didn’t speak it. She believed that God’s light offered guidance, but she still struggled with why things happened to innocents like her brother. Well, she knew in part. She worried about why she didn’t always do what she knew she should.

  “Light is warm. Those of you sitting far from the stove tonight might question that, way up here where the heat doesn’t reach.” The pastor was being cheerful, Jessie thought. Tonight many people who weren’t members attended to enjoy the fine musical numbers. Perhaps he hoped to lure them back for another time with his gentler words. Jessie wondered if he’d hold the usual altar call at the end of this service. Selma went up every week to reaffirm her faith. Jessie had done it once, and that was enough.

  “Light can not be pushed or rushed. It is either there or not, and no matter how quickly we want a sunrise after a dark, dark night, light takes its own time. It is the absence of light that we notice. That’s what darkness is, especially to men’s souls, an absence of Light.” He paused, and for a moment Jessie thought he might go into that familiar theme of darkness. She fidgeted. She deserved to be reminded of all the wrongs she’d committed. But he continued with his voice light and joyous. He held a candle, which he now lit.

  “Light can go out,” he said. “But even after it does, there is an afterimage, isn’t there? You look at this candle I hold. Stare closely now.” Then he blew it out. “Now close your eyes, those of you with them still open. Close them and what do you see?” Jesse did this. “Do you still see the candle? Yes? That is the Lord’s light in our hearts, burning there. Even when we make mistakes in our dark hours. Even though He has gone away from our sight, even when the light goes out—as the lives of those we love do—we can know that that life lives on as an afterimage in the hearts of those who remain behind. Remember that as I invite you forward tonight. Remember that and be drawn into a new place in your hearts and out of the darkness of men. Amen.”

  Jessie hoped he also meant women could have the darkness drawn from their hearts, then felt a little guilty to have thought that. It wouldn’t be an idea of which her mother would approve.

  In the shuffle of gathering up hymnals for the final selection they’d all join in singing, Jessie turned back. As she did, the woman with the large hat who had kept her from seeing Mr. Bauer bent to retrieve her song book, and when she did, Jessie watched Mr. Bauer wipe his eyes. Tears? Perhaps the talk of the afterimage brought his deceased child’s life burning into his eyes.

  Jessie lowered her eyes and turned them to the front. It wasn’t her place to intrude on another family’s pain. She watched as Selma once again rose, not to sing but to go forward. “Come along, Jessie,” she urged. Jessie shook her head. Some things didn’t need to be repeated.

  The Eye Behind the Camera

  COLD SUNLIGHT BATHED THE operating room windows on the day Mr. Bauer returned to his studio. Jessie dreaded this meeting, uncertain of her future given his criticisms of her work. Should she even bring it up or wait for him to? If he didn’t, she’d always wonder about it, carry with her the confusion of whether she held a warped view of her ability or if she truly needed much more training.

  Jessie pushed at her spectacles. Her nose perspired even in the cool room. Mr. Bauer sat with her and Voe, who crossed her ankles and chewed gum as they perused the ledgers, the appointments, the prints requested and provided, those paid for and those still pending.

  “Would you not chew your gum, Miss Kopp? It’s highly unprofessional and not very complimentary of your face.” Voe complied, putting the glob into a tissue that must have wrapped up one of her Christmas presents. Mr. Bauer appeared ready to begin their day, when Jessie cleared her throat and said she wanted to speak with him about the photographs he’d criticized. Voe excused herself.

  “Don’t go,” Jessie said. “I mean, you might learn something from what Mr. Bauer didn’t like about the ones we set up,” Jessie said.

  “I did what you told me to do,” Voe said. “So you can tell me later if you want to change it for next time. I’m going to make some tea. Would you like some, Mr. B.?”

  Voe called him Mr. B. with Jessie, but she’d never called him that in his presence.

  “Mr. Bauer,” Jessie hissed at her.

  “Mr. Bauer.” Voe curtsied.

  Instead of being upset by the familiarity, he smiled at Voe. “Mr. B. is just fine. I think of myself as FJ,” he told them. “A good short version. No reason you can’t have a short version of your own. As a matter of fact, I wonder if it would be acceptable for me to call you by your given names, Voe, Jessie. When others are about, of course not. We’ll keep it professional. But when it’s just we three, I believe we can be a little less formal, don’t you think?”

  “Suits me swell, Mr. B.,” Voe said.

  “I’d like that, Mr. Bauer,” Jessie said. “Mr. B.” She tried it on, felt her face grow warm with the unfamiliarity of it spoken in front of him.

  “Or FJ if you prefer. Now then, let’s get back to your concerns about the prints. You have a list there, I see.”

  “Yes.” She looked pleadingly at Voe, who waved
a palm of encouragement as she left to make tea. “Mrs. Bauer told me what you didn’t like about them,” Jessie said. “I tried to use your comments to improve the next sittings, but I never seemed to get it right. The clients were happy, though.”

  He frowned. “I’m confused. Aside from the first print of Mildred Simmons, the one that I felt you had no authority to take, I had very little to say about your work. For an amateur, I thought you performed adequately.” He coughed. “Maybe you misunderstood Mrs. Bauer.”

  “She was very specific about what she said you didn’t like. Look here.” She showed him a print. “The background was too dark. That’s the note I took. But I wanted it that way, to put more contrast to the faces of the children. And here.” Jessie pointed to another picture. “Here you said that I had a poor angle, that it made the woman look harsh. But the photo actually softens her. And I thought that the line of the window behind her moved the eye to that side of her soft face. Here you said it was out of balance, but see, the book is in the lower right quadrant and the vase with flowers is at the upper right. They offset each other, just as you taught me.”

  He lifted several of the prints, put them down, picked them back up, squinted and pushed his glasses up. “I don’t remember saying those things,” he said. “I might have been delirious with the fever. I’ll have to ask Mrs. Bauer.”

  “So you do like them?”

  “Oh, there are improvements to be made, but you’re quite inexperienced. That you’ve managed to have so many happy customers is reassuring. You’ve made it quite clear what the subject of the photograph is, and that’s very important. No diffusing. Clarity. But Mrs. Bauer’s telling you the problems like that—some of her comments don’t make any sense. You must have misunderstood her.”

  She risked another issue. “Am I wrong about your not wanting to return my camera to me either?” She pushed her spectacles up on her nose, crossed her arms over her narrow chest.

  “Why, it’s at the house. I never intended to keep it. I was sure I told Mrs. Bauer to return it to you when you began being paid. She did pay you?”