An Absence So Great: A Novel (Portraits of the Heart) Page 5

  “That he tried out on you,” I said.

  She shrugged. “I like trying new things too.”

  I wanted to ask her what she was thinking about the day I took the picture. It’s one of the fascinating things about a photograph: when people see one of themselves, they often remember what was on their mind, whether they were happy or impatient, the context of their exposure. Sometimes they even talk about who wasn’t in the picture and why they were absent. I never outright asked, but occasionally people volunteered such information. Minnie did.

  “I don’t look so happy there, do I?” she said.

  “You look…thoughtful,” I offered. “Resigned.”

  Minnie frowned.

  “Accepting,” I corrected. “Willing to submit to something uncomfortable. Posing can be…awkward for some people. Others take to it like cats lap milk.”

  “So much money he spends on frivolous things.” She flashed the ring again. “While others scrape and save. I’m glad my hands aren’t in the photograph. He’s did so much for me. I make mistakes. You noticed. Siegfried corrects them so’s I won’t sound bad. Or…what’s the word? Embarrass him.”

  “I don’t see how being who you are would embarrass him,” Jessie said.

  “I was thinking when you took that picture that I weren’t worthy of such finery. That dress. And on top of that, I make mistakes.”

  “Seems to me that Siegfried, Mr. Raymond, cares for the person who makes mistakes, the person you are. And that dress looked lovely on you. If you lived in Winona, I’d give you my sister Lilly’s card. She’d sew up the perfect dress for you. Looser in the arms,” I added. From the expression on her face, I was sorry I’d spoken.

  “The sleeves was too tight. Does it ruin it, you think?” She held the portrait in her hands.

  “Not at all. You can’t tell. It looks natural as a baby’s smile. I shouldn’t have mentioned it at all. That’s my mistake.”

  “I’ll be embarrassed to show this to my mother. I’ve put on such pounds since Siegfried and I married, while she’s still so thin. He gives them money,” she defended. “He does. He’s very generous.” I wondered what had brought them together. “We should just take the photograph of the two of us, leave this one behind. I told him I’d bring back the proofs so he could decide which he wants.”

  “I suspect your mother would be pleased to see you looking well, that you’ve made a good life for yourself with a man who loves you.” I told her that because I believed it and not just because I feared I might lose the commission. “I think it’s a lovely portrait. I was about to ask you if we might use it in a new advertisement we’re considering. To show quality portrait shots to promote the studio.”

  “You’d want one of me?”

  “I’ll need to check with Mrs. Johnson, but yes, you.” A smile lifted Minnie’s lips.

  In the end, Minnie wasn’t certain whether Siegfried would approve, but she took the print with her, saying she’d ask his permission. It’s what women do, seek permission from those who have authority over us. I’d resisted such seeking from my parents, doing things they later disapproved of. And here I was, in another state, far from any earthly authority.

  I did have the authority of my employer, I supposed, realizing I’d offered something to Minnie without Suzanne’s approval. But by the time Siegfried had rendered his agreement to our using Minnie’s photograph in the newspaper ad, so had Suzanne. “It’s a fine rendition of my wife,” Siegfried said when he came to pay for the final prints. “I’d like the world to see it. You’ve a fine talent, Miss Gaebele,” he added.

  I remembered that the pastor had said the word “talent” came from a Roman coin and was a currency. “If I could just learn how to spend it wisely,” I said. Wise choices proved a constant challenge to my days, a position I was resigned to.

  Surprises

  “LOOK WHAT I’VE GOT FOR YOU, JESSIE!” Marie Harms met her at the door. “It’s a surprise!”

  Marie spoke in exclamation points, Jessie decided. Everything was worthy of note.

  “You’ll have to let me take my hatpins out and remove my coat,” Jessie said as she closed the door behind her. Her eyeglasses fogged up in the transition from the December cold into this well-heated home. Mr. Harms liked it warm, and the coal delivery came weekly to ensure his comfort. The house smelled of cinnamon, and Jessie considered making a detour through the kitchen, but Marie stood right in front of her, wearing enthusiasm.

  “I’ll just follow you up to your room and bring the surprise with me,” Marie told her, pulling a large string-wrapped box from the table behind her. “Go on,” she urged Jessie as she started up the stairs. “Oh, I’ll go first.” Marie pushed past Jessie, who grabbed the banister to keep from falling. “Oh, I’m sorry,” Marie said at the landing. “I’m just so excited.” Her expression changed. “Are you all right? I forget how much room I take up on these stairs.” Jessie thought to correct the girl’s self-criticism, but Marie motioned for her to proceed. “I’ll be waiting for you upstairs,” she sang.

  Jessie rested a moment on the landing, gazing out through the round stained-glass window that looked over the trees and onto the lake. Whitecaps dotted the water like whipped cream on cupcakes. Jessie couldn’t hear the girl racing up the carpeted stairs, and it surprised her that a young woman of Marie’s size was as light as poppy seed on her feet. At seventeen, Marie had the vibrancy of Jessie’s younger sister, Selma. Marie’s love was participating in activities with her friends. At least that’s what she chattered about whenever she and her mother, and sometimes Jessie, were alone together. Lately her chatter had been about the first dance of the season.

  “You must come with us,” Mary Harms, Marie’s mother, had told Jessie. “You’d be the belle of the ball with your tiny waist and winsome ways.”

  Jessie gracefully declined, said she lacked the proper dress for such lovely events. Truthfully, she hated denying these kind people anything at all, as they’d been so good to her, but she had never been to a dance in her life. Her parents had strictly forbidden such a thing as a principle of faith, and Jessie accepted their view. Having once been held closely by Fred, she realized how dangerous a dance could be. The Harmses didn’t push Jessie further even though Marie spoke often of her “real grown-up” event. Jessie encouraged the girl as she swirled her dresses across the bed or considered what powder to purchase to smooth out the occasional bump on her skin.

  At the top of the last flight of stairs, Jessie caught her breath. Her camera was heavy. She’d taken it with her to work that morning, though she usually didn’t. New snow had fallen, and she couldn’t resist the chance to capture crystal on the tree branches etched against an azure sky. She’d even caught the streetcar afterward so she wouldn’t arrive late at the studio, looking carefully around but not seeing Mr. Behrens, who claimed to take this route often enough to have seen her before. Jessie decided that had been his “I’m a potential beau” approach.

  In her room, she found that Marie had turned on the gaslights and now moved from side to side in happy anticipation, pointing to the bed. Jessie set down her camera, pulled off her gloves, removed her muffler; the hatpins she placed in the porcelain holder on her dresser. She unbuttoned her suit jacket, deliberately taking her time, teasing as she would have with Selma back at home.

  “Open it, open it! I told Mama I wouldn’t wait until she got home. Oh, I hope you like it.”

  “Your family is much too kind to me,” Jessie said. “It’s an awfully large box. And early for Christmas.”

  She lifted it with both arms, shook it, and slowly untied the string. The box had no label, but it was large enough to house new bed linens, and Jessie wondered if that might be what it was. With winter coming, flannel sheets would bring welcome warmth. The coal heat didn’t rise efficiently to her third floor. The box was heavy.

  “Shall I guess?” Jessie said.

  “Yes! But quickly.” Marie hopped onto the bed, bouncing the box.

&nb
sp; Jessie stabilized the box. “Piecing for quilts. That would be perfect for me. I need something to do with my hands in the evenings.”

  “No, it’s not piecings. What else?”

  “Hmm. Books? I don’t have many to read. Books would be pleasant.”

  “Just take the cover off,” Marie said. “Oh, here. Let me.”

  Marie leaned forward and whisked the box from Jessie’s hands, pulling it onto her crossed legs as she sat on the bed. She shook the cover loose. Pink tissue covered whatever was inside until Marie folded it back. Hundreds of beads glistened in the gaslights. Marie pulled the cream-colored gown out of the box and held it before her.

  “It’s… I…”

  “Close your mouth, silly,” Marie told her. “It’s a pleasure to behold, isn’t it? Mama’s seamstress is just the most marvelous of anyone we know. Madeleine makes all my dresses, but this one will look wonderful, which it must for a woman with a tiny body like yours. Try it on.”

  “I couldn’t. I can’t accept it.”

  “Of course you can. People accept presents all the time.”

  “But you’ve already… Your family has already done so much for me, letting me stay here, feeding—”

  “Oh, we receive payment for you being here,” Marie bubbled.

  “I’m certain that the time I spend helping you learn about your camera is insufficient payment for all your family has done for me,” Jessie corrected.

  “Maybe,” Marie said. “See if it fits. I guessed at the size, but I think I captured it. I’m pretty good at judging dimensions.”

  Jessie took the gown from her and held it to her breast while looking in the mirror. “I’d say your guess was quite accurate,” Jessie said. She felt as though she held butterfly wings in her fingers.

  “Slipping Madeleine one of your own dresses helped get the sizing right,” Marie said and smiled. “I bet you didn’t even notice it was gone. Well, she only had it for a day.”

  “You gave your seamstress my dress?”

  “Mama gave it to her. I collected it and put it back.”

  Jessie had wondered if the Harmses’ maid had brushed her suit when she noticed the hangers hung differently. She’d been grateful, though now the action felt invasive.

  “I’ll have to be more aware,” Jessie said.

  “Oh, Madeleine has your measurements now, so I won’t need to revisit your closet.”

  “Well, it’s certainly…elegant,” Jessie said. “But…” She put the dress back in the box, or tried to.

  Marie grabbed her wrists. “You at least have to try it on, see if it fits.” Jessie shook her head. “So I can admire Madeleine’s work. Didn’t you say your sister was a seamstress? Wouldn’t she want her work worn once? It honors the maker.”

  That made sense. Jessie laid the dress over the screen panel, then stepped behind it to finish unbuttoning her jacket, to remove her clothes and corset. The dress was beautiful, of delicate workmanship. Each tiny bead that covered the bodice would have been stitched on by hand. The whole must have taken hours to secure. She ran her hands over the beads that flowed out like streams onto the skirt, felt the material beneath it. Silk. So grand. It slipped like warm water over her head, settled onto her shoulders, surrounding her lower limbs. Its weight surprised. She stepped out from behind the screen, and Marie gasped, her hands clasped beneath her chin.

  “Oh, Jessie, it’s like a slipper on your foot, it fits so perfectly. Swirl now. Pick up the train. It has a bracelet tab you can use. That’s it. Mama’s seamstress took the tucks in just where they needed to be. She probably had enough material leftover to make you a matching purse.” Marie pawed inside the box while she said, “You’re slender as a chicken leg.”

  “I’ll receive that as a compliment,” Jessie told her.

  “Oh, it’s meant so,” Marie assured her. “I’d loan you a pair of my slippers,” Marie continued, “but I declare, you have feet smaller than a rabbit’s. You’d drown in my shoes. What size are they?”

  Jessie looked down at her toes. “They’re a three. Not that it matters. They hold me up and take me walking; that’s all I care about.”

  “And now dancing. You’ll set all the boys to whistling, Jessie.”

  It would be lovely to wear, but…

  Again those toddler thoughts reached up and screamed, full stops out, Don’t do it!

  Though she knew she shouldn’t, Jessie admired herself in front of the long oak-framed mirror. The Harmses’ seamstress had witch’s fingers. She must’ve turned one of Mary Harms’s older dresses, three sizes too large for Jessie, into this creamy tubular sheath, the very style Jessie had read about that had caused a stir in Chicago papers. If she wore this in public, her mother would gasp, as the dress not only revealed a bare neckline and marked her slender waist, but the material fit tightly over her hips, conforming to the back of her thighs and widening only slightly at her calves and ankles before pouring into a pool at her feet. The neckline was suggestive; the tinsel-wide straps left her shoulders bare. Her sister Lilly would shake her head. Selma would smile and clap, and Roy would grin. She wasn’t sure what her father would feel: probably a mixture of admiration and concern.

  “Now you have no excuse, none at all. Oh, and look, here’s a jacket and a purse.” Marie held them up, one in each hand. “Try this on too. Mama will be home soon and you can give us a fashion show.”

  “Marie.” Jessie turned from the mirror. “I just—”

  “No one else will be able to wear it, so you may as well accept it. It was meant for you. You didn’t ask for it; it arrived unbidden, the very best kind of gift. It would be rude to reject it.”

  “I know this may sound strange to you since you’ve grown up around… dancing, but I’ve never been to… one. It wasn’t just the lack of clothing keeping me from your plans. I should have said that before you went to all this effort.”

  “Never danced? How could you not? As pretty as you are? You must have had a dozen invitations. Didn’t you ever go to barn dances at least? Rebecca usually goes home to Cedarburg in the summer to help with harvest, and she says there are lots of barn dances in the country.”

  “Winona isn’t in the country,” Jessie said.

  “Even I have invitations this year,” Marie continued.

  “You should have. You’re a lovely girl, Marie. Most of the boys I know are just chums,” Jessie said. “We went on hayrides, but always with others around from our church.” She cleared her throat. “I can’t wear it. It’s just too stylish.”

  “You can and you will.” Marie crossed her arms over her chest the way Selma might.

  “Marie. I don’t dance be—”

  “Because you don’t know how. I’ll teach you! Papa will help. It’s good fun, Jessie. It is. Here I am, younger than you, but about dancing I’m wiser.”

  “In a dance there’s nothing to separate a man and a woman…” She felt her face grow hot with the memory of being so close to Fred once that she could feel his heart beating against hers. The fabric that separated them had seemed to melt, only cloth and good intentions keeping skin from sizzling skin. She cleared her throat, “I’d be uncomfortable that close to, well, doing movements that—”

  “Is that what you’re worried about? It’s not one of those sporting dances,” Marie said. “Goodness, Mama wouldn’t let me go to those places either. We have chaperones and no alcohol at all at our dances, and girls and boys only touch their hands together. Surely you could do that.”

  “It’s the idea of it,” Jessie said. “Knowing my family wouldn’t approve.”

  “I declare.” Marie thumped a pillow on the bed. “There’s nothing wrong with dancing, Jessie. There just isn’t. Papa and Mama wouldn’t do it if there was.”

  It wasn’t Jessie’s place to tell the story of Exodus and how angry Moses became when he came upon men and women cavorting about. That’s the story her parents told her in explanation, along with vague descriptions of the iniquities of the dance halls, where girls
earned a dime for a dance. Her sister Lilly said those dimes bought more than dancing. But even the chaste dances sponsored by the Eastern Star or other civic groups were off-limits to Jessie’s family.

  Still, Jessie was a guest here, and guests did what was expected of them. She hadn’t put others first often enough, but here in Milwaukee she was doing her best to ride a different canoe across a murky lake.

  “It’s… My parents have always forbidden it.”

  “I can quote you psalms and verses in Jeremiah telling about young girls dancing and old men being merry and mourning no more,” Marie said. “Dancing helps people from being sad, Jessie.”

  Jessie thought there might be more to those verses than a call to swing and sway, but she didn’t pursue the subject. “My family, my mother, would be disappointed in me if I showed up in this. I’m sorry, Marie. I should have stopped you before Madeleine spent so much time making the alterations.”

  “They weren’t alterations,” Marie charged. “Mama bought the material new. Just for you.”

  Such finery! The gift had no ulterior motives. Yes, they hoped she’d join the family at dances, but there was nothing sinister in that, not for those who found nothing wrong with men and women moving cheek to cheek. Jessie had read about the newest dances, like the Bunny Hug and Grizzly Bear.

  Marie looked close to tears. “I’ve already promised my friends, nice young men, that you’d be there. They’ve seen you at church. You can’t disappoint them.” Whining was an annoying habit Marie had that her parents indulged and that usually worked for the seventeen-year-old.