A Flickering Light Read online

  “Voe is very generous,” Jessie said, preparing the setting for her parents to see this gift as nothing to be wary of. “But let’s everyone dig into the cake or Roy will have it all consumed, won’t you, Frog?” she said. “Besides, we need to be turning the handle on the ice-cream maker or we’ll never have ice cream tonight. Papa, it’s your turn.”

  “Oops, I’m back on it,” her father said.

  “I’ll get the plates and cut the cake,” her mother said, rising.

  Selma said, “I can’t believe you can wait for such a big present to be opened!”

  “I’m a patient one,” Jessie said. “Ice cream and cake first.” She forced a smile.

  She looked across at Lilly, who wore a knowing look.

  Affectionately

  AFTER ICE CREAM, JESSIE’S FATHER, without asking, took a screwdriver and opened up the box. Roy and Selma hovered over him.

  “Wh-wh-what is it?”

  “Well, I don’t know,” her father said. Selma began pulling out newspapers that settled across the top. “You’ll have to ask our Jessie. Her name’s on it, and it’s from the Bauer Studio.”

  Jessie moved to the box then, dread caping her small shoulders. Her skirts brushed the newspapers piled on the floor. She’d tell her mother that the double exposure could just stay in the box until she had her own place to live in; then she could hang it on her own wall. That’s what an eighteen-year-old did, make these choices.

  Jessie took a deep breath. “I think it’s that double exposure that upset you, Mama. Mr. Bauer probably wanted it out of his studio display window and didn’t know where to store it so he sent it here. As a little birthday surprise. You might just leave it in there,” Jessie told them. “Is there any more cake?”

  “It isn’t a picture,” Selma said. “It’s too big to be a picture. It’s a big black satchel.”

  He’d sent her a suitcase? Why would he give her something so personal as a satchel? Maybe he wanted her to leave, and this was his way of sending her off.

  Roy and Selma stepped aside, and Jessie leaned over to look at the black handle that faced her. She started to pull, then saw the label: “Folmer & Schwing Division, Eastman Kodak Company, Rochester, New York.”

  Mr. Bauer had given her a camera? He couldn’t have known about the broken Kodak… Well, maybe he could have, if Selma told him in the last few days. But Voe and Daniel had been working on the surprise package long before that.

  She continued to pull up on the heavy object, which arrived in her hands as a rectangle. She knew immediately what it was without taking it out of the bag: a Graflex, one of the finest. She ran her fingers over the smooth leather, imagining what was inside. The lens was made by Goerz in Germany, and it would take five-by-seven plates, a perfect size for her work. The shutter speed was as fast as a thousandth of a second. Yet it was easy to carry, simple to operate, and so much more versatile than the little 3A Graflex she’d seen in the photo magazine that made postcard-size photographs. She’d seen this one in the photographic catalog, but it was much too expensive for her to even dream of. With this camera, she could take more photos that told bigger stories, like the man who’d done the exposé on the children laboring in the Carolinas. Jessie had never forgotten those pictures of emaciated children with the haunting eyes.

  Mr. Bauer understood how much she wished to take photographs out in the world, and he’d given her a gift to honor that desire.

  Roy pulled on her sleeve. “O-o-open—”

  “Open it up,” her mother finished.

  “I already know. It’s a camera. A very nice one.”

  “Did you tell him you’d broken yours in Rochester?” Selma asked.

  “Yours is broken?” This from her mother.

  “It’s a long story,” Jessie said. “And no, I certainly did not tell Mr. Bauer.”

  “It was delivered a while ago, but Daniel Henderson asked that we keep it until your birthday.”

  “From Mr. Bauer,” Lilly admonished.

  “I’m sure it’s a gift from the Bauer family,” Jessie said. “They remember my birthday because it’s the same day as Winnie’s.”

  “Let me see it,” her father said. Jessie opened the bag and passed the camera to her father as though she passed steaming water over the head of a baby.

  “I’ll look for a note. I’m sure it’s from all of them.” Jessie pawed through the packing that had been under the camera bag and felt a note there but decided to let it be.

  “Voe must have forgotten to put it in,” Jessie said, making her voice light. “I’ll check with her tomorrow. Meanwhile, let me get this packaging out of here.” She put the newspapers written in German back into the box and shoved it toward the door. Roy bent to help her and she let him. Anticipating her plan, he opened the door, and she pushed the box over the threshold and onto the back porch. “You go back in,” she said. “It’s cold out here. I’ll just get it off to the side so no one trips over it in the morning.” Roy complied. Jessie reached into the packing, felt for the slender card, pulled it from the box, and tucked it beneath her skirt supporter before going back inside.

  “The Bauers must really like your work,” Lilly said.

  “I’ve done well for them.” She pushed by Lilly into the kitchen. “And I haven’t had a vacation since I began working there. Even you get a vacation now and then.”

  “When the shop closes to maintain the sewing machine,” Lilly said.

  “Photo assistants usually do get time away, but with Mr. Bauer’s illnesses, that just hasn’t been possible. So this is their way of saying thank you, I’m sure.”

  Her mother appeared to be fascinated by the camera her father still held. He turned it this way and that. Jessie took it from them and showed them the way the top handle lifted up and formed an opening that looked like those goggles men wore when they drove automobiles. She pulled on the lens, and the bellows behind it stretched like a small concertina. “You look down through here at your subject, and there’s a mirror that reflects what you’re looking at, only backward. Images used to be upside down, but not with this camera. You put a glass plate in the side, right in that slot.” She pointed. “And then you take the picture.”

  “Can you take mine?” Selma swirled around like a dancer.

  “It has no glass plates,” Jessie said. “I’ll have to get some, and then I can. But you’ll have to sit still or I’ll put you into one of those head clamps photographers used to use when it took so long to expose a picture.” Jessie held her hands on either side of Selma’s ears and pressed gently.

  Selma laughed and then with Roy took turns looking into the camera while her father held it. Her mother said how nice it was that just when she needed it, God had provided by giving her a camera even better than the one she’d broken. “You’re a very blessed girl.”

  “You have to stop it,” Lilly said. She brushed Selma’s hair while Jessie stood to the side.

  “I’m going to try on your shirtwaist,” Jessie said. “It’s really lovely. Thank you.”

  “What should I stop?” Selma asked.

  “Not you. Jessie. She knows what I mean.” To Jessie she said, “It’s going to hurt you in the end.”

  “What are you talking about? You need to tell me. Ouch! Don’t pull so hard,” Selma complained.

  “Such an expensive gift.” Lilly shook her head, starting to brush Selma’s hair again.

  “The Bauers can afford nice gifts,” Selma said.

  Lilly frowned. “That is none of your business, Selma. People’s finances are their own personal affairs.”

  “And so their giving me an expensive thank-you gift is none of your affair either,” Jessie said. She’d moved away from the girls and slipped off her blouse, unhooking the skirt supporter. The small card she laid on the dresser with the supporter over it. She put Lilly’s gift on, let it fall over her chemise. It was a lovely blouse. “This fits perfectly, Lilly. Thank you. I’ll wear it tomorrow.”

  “Jessie…”
>
  “Better to be the darling of an old man than the slave of a young one,” Jessie told her. She kept her voice light.

  “You don’t have to be either. You aren’t allowing yourself to really—”

  “It isn’t your affair, Lilly. It’s mine.”

  “That’s just what I’m worried about.”

  Jessie felt guilty over letting the family think there’d been no card, but she didn’t want the embarrassment of having to share it in case Mr. Bauer had written something personal. She’d wanted to get up in the night to read it, but her sisters were there, always there. One more reason to be out on her own. She slipped the card into her drawer and in the morning carried it with her to work while she imagined him writing it, ordering the camera, arranging for its delivery. A block or so from home, with the air so cold she could see her breath, she pulled the note from her muff and stopped beneath one of the big walnut trees, where the snow was beginning to melt in a circle out from the trunk. She pulled the card from the envelope before lifting the cream-colored paper with a bird stamped on the front.

  Her heart hesitated. She admitted to herself that she hoped his words were more than comforting, maybe words of his fondness for her, something to indicate that she truly was special in his eyes. A wave of shame flushed through her. “I’ve done nothing wrong,” she said out loud.

  She imagined Mr. Bauer telling her the same thing in person. Maybe they’d stand in the darkroom, the orange glow covering up every blemish on her face, on his, as they stared at each other. Perhaps he’d reach out his hand to her. Maybe they would—

  She stopped herself.

  She was as bad as Selma with her ideas of romance. The thought frightened her but also made her heart beat a little faster. She wasn’t sure what she felt for Mr. Bauer, but it wasn’t romantic love. It was just fondness. Yet her breath quickened at the thought of his coming back to the studio, of being able to work side by side with him every day. Except that she was planning to go out on her own. Soon. Probably just this cold weather making my breath come fast. She looked at the cream-colored card. It would tell the story, true. She opened it and read: Happy birthday wishes to you. We hope this camera will bring you many days of good shooting. Thank you for your association with us. Sincerely, the Bauer Studio.

  Sincerely, the Bauer Studio!

  She turned it over to see if he’d written anything personal on it at all. Nothing! Why, it was practically a formed letter that might be sent to a client or maybe to one of their suppliers whose birthday Mr. Bauer happened to remember. Tears pressed behind her nose, pooled in her eyes, froze on her cheeks.

  She was so foolish. She’d been defending his feelings to Lilly as though they were nothing but good intentions from a kindly older man, and so it was, the truth laid out. It was simply a well-intentioned gift from an employer. She’d completely misread his intentions.

  She thought about tearing the card up but decided she could show it to Lilly, reassure them all that there was nothing unseemly happening. She wiped her eyes, then put her gloved hands back into the muff. She straightened her small shoulders and stepped over a pile of snow to return to the sidewalk and started to walk. Frozen tears tightened her face. She passed the studio, wanting a little more time to gather herself. What had she expected? He was just being kind to her. She had misread everything: his helpfulness, his comments on her retouching skill, the silver photo case, even the meaning of the day they’d had tea together.

  Had tea together. Jessie scoffed at her naiveté. She was no different to him than Voe was, or Selma. She was nothing special. The camera was a generosity from both of the Bauers, Mrs. Bauer and the children too. The thought of the children brought a twinge to her heart.

  She looked through her mind for the leaves that healed, Ezekiel’s leaves. With the camera, she no longer had to wait to take her own photographs. She’d be able to develop at the studio, but eventually she could arrange a space in the basement of the family home for that. And if not, in the home of wherever she moved to when she branched out on her own.

  Spring arrived in Winona with pussy willows soft and furry blooming along the river’s slough. Lilac perfume filled the air, making Jessie’s spirits rise. Not that she’d been discouraged, really. Jessie and her sisters rotated their exercises with Roy when he came home from school, and it did seem to Jessie that he slowly improved. Her father hoped to purchase a banjo for Roy’s seventh birthday in the fall, and the trips to Rochester were now scheduled for four times a year. Miss Jones provided them with written instructions to follow when they worked with Roy at home. Jessie found satisfaction in the tasks.

  In her spare moments, Jessie daydreamed of that studio of her own, but Mr. Bauer was always in it. She dreamed of having a family one day, of tending children of her own. But Mr. Bauer appeared in that daydream too, and the very idea of it made her face grow warm. If her parents knew, if Lilly knew what she thought of, how she went over the moments they’d shared, they’d be worried for her soul. She was worried about it herself, and yet she couldn’t seem to help it. She had created a world that wasn’t real; she knew that. And yet when she was in it, she felt loved and complete and forgiven in some strange way. Here she was, eighteen years old, and as Lilly said, she kept herself closed off from young men her age who could disappoint because they were real and not a romantic fantasy.

  The salary envelopes arrived on schedule without comment or notation. She and Voe handled sittings. They even photographed a wedding party at the couple’s home some miles outside of Winona, following the marriage. She’d borrowed her family’s buggy and horse, and with Voe to help her (Daniel was off on a train crew, working), Jessie had used the Graflex to shoot them all standing in front of a mostly log home. The photograph had turned out well, she thought. She’d posed the wedding party and a few guests on the porch, looking casual, the parents on either side of the bride and groom. She found a place for the dog, the children, the aunts and uncles, and a dozen friends. In the future she intended to take the photographs before the revelers found the punch, for some had trouble standing still for the exposure. But she found she liked joking and laughing with people she didn’t know who couldn’t look too deep inside her. She was in charge, but at the same time, they treated her as though she was a part of the gathering, offering food and drinks to both her and Voe. The girls declined the latter, of course, but it was pleasant to think she had their attention, at least for the moments of the posing and exposure of the plates.

  Jessie even handled a difficult guest. She’d gone around the house toward the barn and found there what she thought would make a lovely shot of puppies puddled on top of one another and curled up as though they were nearly one. She hadn’t brought her tripod so held the camera steady, looking down into the lens.

  She felt a heavy arm on her shoulder, accompanied by a strong whiskey smell.

  “Are you takin’ pitchers?” the man said. Jessie recognized the voice as one of the groom’s attendants. Maybe a cousin.

  Jessie laughed. “No, I’m washing dishes.” She ducked her head under his arm and started back toward the house. A pickup band played now, and the laughter seemed to get louder.

  “Aw, don’t be shy,” he said, stumbling along behind her. “You can wash my dishes anytime.”

  “All that would get me would be chapped hands.”

  “I could smooth those palms,” he drawled, stepping in front of her, grabbing for her fingers. She gripped the Graflex in the other hand.

  “Mr. McKay, you’ve had far too many spirits to ask to hold my hand. I only allow that in a man who has finished his day’s work, rubbed the calluses to cream smoothness, and then, only then, might I allow him to be so familiar.”

  He let go and looked at the calluses on his hands. “And what if I should touch your hand anyway? What’s a little thing like you to do about it?” He grabbed again.

  “Why, push your head into the wash water,” she said. “What else could I do?” She pushed his thumb as far a
s she could toward his wrist as she spoke. It was a trick Lilly had told her worked. He let out a short howl as she turned sideways and fast-walked to where the group stood gathered, pushing her hair behind her ears where it had loosened in the effort. She vowed to be more careful in the future about going off alone.

  “Where’ve you been, McKay?” one of the guests shouted, so Jessie knew he was behind her. “You didn’t try to take on the professional lady, now did you? She’s pretty tough to be doing what she does, carrying that pho-to-graphic thing around. She’ll clean your clock for certain.”

  “Sure, and I’ve had my share of cleaning already,” he said, rubbing his thumb. General laughter followed. He didn’t bother her after that, and when they left, he came to offer his hand to help her step up into the buggy. “It ain’t got smooth calluses,” he told her, “but they’re clean.” He grinned and stepped back, sweeping his hand low as though bowing.

  The incident had strengthened Jessie’s resolve that she could do more of these events, perhaps on her own. She’d make a few adjustments. She might be competing with the Bauer Studio, but on the other hand, Mr. Bauer didn’t like to take such appointments. She could. And if she did well enough, she might get referrals. Certainly handling unruly guests without significant embarrassment to the bride made her a valuable asset at any wedding party.

  She had sent a thank-you card to the Bauers, saying she appreciated their generosity, and she had sent a second letter—so that personal etiquette was not confused with business—in which she proposed the purchase of plates and paper and how she might pay for them with a reduction in her salary. No one responded for a long time. Then she received a note from Mr. Bauer in his quite strong and sweeping penmanship. Jessie had stared at the address on the outside for some time, running her fingers over her name, written by his very hand.

  She sighed, read on. He suggested that she keep a record of expenses for chemicals, paper, and the like, and when he returned to the studio, they would settle up. He added that he was certain to return by early summer. Nothing more. A perfectly businesslike correspondence.