"Hey,
Aphrodite." Toby rapped loudly on the door. "You got visitors."
I
felt a flicker of real excitement. I thought of the pictures in
Deceptio
Vivus
,
of a Medusa's frozen face gazing from a black-and-white photograph. Then the
door opened, and those Medusa's eyes were staring at me.
10
She
was so small and finely built that I felt huge and ungainly standing in front
of her, silver-white hair to her shoulders, white skin, bright red lipstick
carelessly applied. Her face was lined, but otherwise she looked remarkably
like the woman in the photo. Behind a pair of wire-rimmed glasses the familiar
onyx eyes glittered, bloodshot but still challenging. She wore a black woolen
tunic, black leggings, scuffed-up moccasin slippers. She looked like a girl
headed for dance class, or a wizened geisha doll.
"Who
are you?" she demanded.
Without
warning a mass of dark shapes surrounded her, growling and whining. I backed
away in alarm. "Jesus—"
"They
won't hurt you." Aphrodite gestured at me impatiently then crooned,
"Runi, Fee—down, get
down!'
The
writhing shadows resolved into three immense dogs, the biggest dogs I'd ever
seen. Toby put a reassuring hand on my shoulder.
"Those
are her dogs," he said.
"No
shit." I pulled away from him. One of the dogs jumped toward me, its head
brushing my chest before I pushed
it
down. Another stood on its hind
legs and pawed at Toby's shoulders. It was so tall it looked as though they
were dancing.
"They
won't hurt you," Aphrodite repeated. The look she gave me was disdainful.
Toby
took a step back, toward the trees. "I better get going," he said.
"I'll see you later."
"Hey,
wait," I said and pushed at a grizzled, narrow muzzle. "I didn't pay
you yet."
"Not
to worry," he said. "You can catch me another time."
"Get
inside," ordered Aphrodite. "Fee! Tara, Runi!
Now!'
The
panting dogs receded. As I followed them inside, one thrust its nose against my
hand and stared up at me with moist, imploring eyes.
"I'm
Cassandra Neary," I said as Aphrodite yanked the door shut. "Man,
those are some big dogs. Are they wolfhounds?"
"Deerhounds."
She
hissed a command, and the dogs pattered off. We stood in a narrow foyer, its
pine flooring scratched and furrowed, tattered rugs askew. A line of windows on
the opposite wall looked across the cove to open water and a gray prospect of
islands and gathering cloud. There was a bench heaped with yellow rain slickers
and boots, split kindling and old newspapers, aerosol cans of Deet, several big
flashlights. Kerosene lamps hung from the ceiling alongside coils of rope and a
pair of snowshoes. Aphrodite's small, black-clad figure was incongruous among
all this North Woods clutter. She stared up at me imperiously, finally asked,
"Who did you say you were?"
"Cass
Neary. Cassandra Neary." My mouth went dry. "I'm supposed to—Phil
Cohen said he'd spoken to you. About an interview for
Mojo
magazine."
"Never
heard of it. An interview?" She made a throaty sound that I realized was a
disgusted laugh. "I never give interviews. Who sent you?"
"Phil
Cohen."
She
continued to stare at me, shrugged and turned away. "Never heard of
him."
"You
never heard of him?" I asked weakly. I thought of what he'd told me.
She
specifically asked for you, God knows why.
Now
I knew why. She hadn't asked for me at all. This was another of Phil s
screwed-up plans, sending me on a fool's errand because he was too lazy or
chickenshit to do it himself.
Another
Phil Cohen favor. And I was so desperate, I'd fallen for it.
"Have
you had breakfast?" It was the same tone she'd used with the dogs.
"I—I
wouldn't mind some coffee." I felt sicker than before but did my best to
sound calm. "Thanks."
"This
way, then."
I
gritted my teeth and comforted myself with images of Phil with his nose broken.
Aphrodite moved with small darting steps; that and the Klaus Nomi makeup made
her look even more like some bizarre automaton. As we walked through the hall,
heaps of kindling gave way to stacks of magazines and books, shoes in varying
stages of decay, fifty-pound bags of dog food, cases of bottled water, cartons
filled with empty liquor bottles, and baskets of plastic film canisters.
I
glanced at one of the baskets then looked up. Aphrodite stood in a doorway with
her back to me. I grabbed a film canister, shoved it into my pocket, and went
on.
"Do
you have your own darkroom here?" I asked.
"No.
Sit down." She looked at me irritably. "You should have left your
jacket in the mudroom—no, give it to me, I'll do it."
I
handed her my jacket but kept my camera bag. As she retraced her steps, I
looked around at a big old-fashioned kitchen. A woodburning cook-stove stood in
the center, deerhounds flopped beside it like mangy fur rugs. There were
fragments of Turkish carpets on the floor, and a trestle table covered with
papers and the remains of breakfast. I set down my bag, wandered to the window
and stared out at the cove. A small dark shape loped along the water's edge
then disappeared beneath the pines. It was too small for a deerhound. I
wondered if it was a fox, or a lost cat.
"I
see Toby got you here in one piece."
I
turned. A man was beside the stove, pouring coffee into a mug. I stared at him,
incredulous, as Aphrodite came back into the room.
"This
is my son, Gryffin Haselton." She picked up a kettle from the stove and
walked to the sink to refill it. "Do you want coffee or tea?"
"Coffee
would be my guess," said Gryffin. He crossed the room to hand me the mug
he'd just filled. "I took your berth on Everett's boat earlier. Toby said
he'd make sure you got here okay. The way you were putting it away last night,
I figured you'd sleep in."
"You
figured wrong." I took the coffee.
"Well,
you got some local color, anyway."
Gryffin
turned to get another mug. The deerhounds moaned softly as he stepped between
them, and I reached down to stroke one warily. Its head felt like a skull
wrapped in worn flannel. Aphrodite leaned against the kitchen counter and
regarded me with those glittering black eyes.
"Tell
me what this imaginary interview is supposed to consist of."
I
told her, glossing over the fact that
Mojo
was not a photography
magazine and I was not, in fact, anywhere on its masthead. When I mentioned
Phil Cohen's name again, she frowned.
"Phil
Cohen." She stared at her moccasined feet then shook her head. "I
never heard of him."
"He
said he used to come up here sometimes." I fought to keep desperation from
my voice. "He said there was, I dunno, a commune or something."
Gryffin
glanced at his mother.
"Denny,"
he said, as though that explained everything. He stared at me in disgust.
Aphrodite
gave him a quick look then turned back to me. "I have to check the
woodstove."
She
left. Gryffin settled at one end of the trestle table. He pushed up his
sleeves, displaying that scrawled scar on his wrist, crossed his long legs at
the ankle and surveyed me with bitter amusement.
I
drank my coffee and looked more closely at his face for any resemblance to
Aphrodite.
Yeah,
I should have seen it,
I thought.
Once, I would have.
That
odd sense of recognition I'd felt when I'd first seen him outside the motel? It
was his eyes. They were Aphrodite's eyes, oblique, the green spark in his left
iris a sort of optic smirk. His smile, too was hers; though what was cold in
Aphrodite's face became wry, even rueful, in her son's. I thought of the joy in
his photograph and wondered if he'd inherited that from his mother as well. I
doubted it.
But
I felt no recurrence of what I'd sensed earlier; no damage. He wouldn't have
waited for you, you know." Gryffin glanced out the window at the cove.
"Everett. I would've gotten a ride with Toby like I'd planned, and you'd
still be sitting there in Burnt Harbor."
I
took a seat at the other end of the table. "No. By now I'd be on my way
back to the city."
"Really?
You don't seem like you'd give up without a fight. I would have guessed you'd
have started swimming over." He looked at my beat-up cowboy boots and
black jeans. "My other guess is you've never been north of the
Bowery."
I
didn't take the bait. "So. Did she abuse you as a child?"
"Nope.
She drinks too much, but I bet you can relate to that. Cassandra Neary. I googled
you. You get a few hits. Your book does, anyway. Did you bring a copy?"
"No."
"Too
bad. That might have given you some street cred with her."
"Phil
Cohen said she knew I was coming."
"She
didn't. And I have no idea who this Phil Cohen is. But if he's a friend of
Denny's ..."
His
voice trailed off.
"Who's
Denny?" I asked.
"You
really don't know?" I shook my head, and an expression that might have
been relief flickered across his face. "Good. Keep it that way."
He
leaned forward and added, "I don't need to tell you she doesn't do this
often, right? See people."
"My
impression was she didn't do it at all."
"She
doesn't." He sipped his coffee. "You're not going to find out
anything new, you know. I mean, you're not going to find where any bodies are
buried, because there aren't any. You probably wish there were."
"She
said she didn't have a darkroom here. Is that true?"
"She
told you that? Christ." Gryffin looked annoyed. "Of course she has a
darkroom. Downstairs, in the basement. It's been locked for, I dunno, ten years
at least. Maybe longer."
He
gave a sharp laugh. One of the dogs looked up in alarm. "Aphrodite hasn't
taken a picture for years and years. She used to talk about getting another
book together, showing in a gallery. But she never did. Maybe you can light a
fire under her."
He
shot me a look, then shrugged. "My guess is, that ain't gonna
happen."
I
held my mug so tight it shook. Hot coffee spilled onto my hand. "You can
go fuck yourself," I said.
"Yeah?
I'll call you if I need any help with that."
He
stood as his mother entered the room.
"I'll
leave you two," said Gryffin. "I've got some work to do
upstairs."
In
the doorway he stopped and looked back at me. "Stick around for
dinner," he said. "We're having crow."
Aphrodite
watched him leave. Her face was flushed, the glitter in her eyes banked to a
glow. I caught the burnt-orange scent of Grand Marnier on her breath.
"Let's
go into the other room." She started back down the hall. "The fire's
going in there."
"What
does your son do?"
"He's
a rare book dealer. On the internet—he had a shop, but he closed it a few years
ago."
I
was glad I hadn't mentioned the Strand.
I
followed her into the next room, an airy space that looked out across the
reach. This was more like I'd imagined Aphrodite Kamestos's home. Twentieth
Century Danish Modern furniture, Arne Jacobsen armchairs, a cane and bamboo
Jacobsen Slug chair, a beautifully spare Klint dining table that served as a
desk. A small black woodstove sat upon a tiled heath.
Surprisingly,
there were no photos. But I saw a bookshelf on the far wall, filled with
oversized volumes. Some I recognized from my own collection; others were books
I had held covetously at the Strand but didn't try to steal—too big, too
valuable. There were pristine copies of
Mors
and
Deceptio Visus;
the
limited Ricci edition of Lewis Carroll's photos; Cartier-Bresson's
Images a
la Sauvette. Pictures of Old Chinatown, Untitled Film Stills;
books by
Avedon, Steichen, Arbus; Herb Ritts, Larry Fink, Joel-Peter Witkin, Katy
Grannan.
It
was a small fortune in photography books—the Cartier-Bresson alone was worth a
thousand bucks. And the presence of those last few artists signaled that
Aphrodite had kept up with the field. It made the room feel like a museum, or
the kind of place where you instinctively remove your shoes. I looked furtively
at my scuffed boots.
"Sit."
Aphrodite settled into one of the armchairs. "Did you forget your tape
recorder?"
"Hmm?"
I took a seat and looked at her, puzzled.
"Your
tape recorder. Did you leave it in the other room?"
"My
tape recorder." I winced. "Shit! I forgot—"
Aphrodite's
thin eyebrows lifted. "You left it in your car?"
"Yes."
I rubbed my forehead. "Back in Burnt Harbor."
That
was a lie: until now, I'd never even thought of bringing one. I rubbed my hands
on my thighs and stared at them. My computer was five hundred miles away in my
apartment. I didn't even have a spiral notebook.
"Well,"
I said quickly. "I guess we can do it the old-fashioned way. I can just
write everything down." I nodded at my bag. "I have my camera—"
Aphrodite
stared out the window. The full daylight on her face showed her age; her white
skin looked as though it would tear if you touched it with a fingernail.
"No,"
she said. "I don't allow myself to be photographed."
She
didn't sound angry or disappointed. Her expression was resigned, as though when
all was said and done, she'd been expecting no better than this. She turned,
and I could see where the corners of her mouth twitched slightly upward in an
ironic smile, just as her son's had. For a moment I felt as though this had all
been some kind of bizarre, over-elaborated joke. Then she stood.
"I
have some things to take care of."
"Wait!"
I got to my feet and without thinking reached for her. She recoiled.
"Your
photos—I mean, you know what they are." I didn't care if I sounded crazy
or just pathetic. "They changed everything for me. When I first saw
them—it was like I'd never seen anything before that! It made the whole world
look different, everything.
Deceptio Visus
—that book? It's what made me
want to be a photographer."
"A
photographer." Her lips curved in a thin smile. Her gaze was hateful.
"Is that what you think? Every dilettante I ever met was a photographer.
Every
little vampire. Every little thief."
She
spat the last word.
"Deceptio Visus"
she went on. "You
never could have seen those pictures."
"The
book," I repeated weakly. "I have the book—the original, not the
reprint."
"They
were all shit." She stared at me as though daring me to argue.
"Nothing was like the originals.
Nothing!'
She
slashed at the air so violently she lost her balance. I reached for her again.
This time she hit me, so hard I staggered back a step.
"Don't
you touch me," she whispered. "I never let them touch me."
I
rubbed my arm. Her dark eyes had grown distant. Or no, not distant: they seemed
to focus intently on something in the air between us, something I couldn't see.
What Phil had said about her paranoia suddenly made sense.
Without
another word she turned and headed from the room.
I
called after her. "Your photos."
She
didn't stop, but I had nothing left to lose.
"Deceptio Visus.
I
won't touch them. I just want to see them. Please."
She
stumbled in the doorway. It was the first gesture of hers that seemed to belong
to an old woman. "Gryffin will show them to you."
She
was gone. Bam, just like that.
I'd
blown it.
"Fucking
hell," I said.
I
drew a deep breath. I shook uncontrollably as I sank back into the chair, a
chair worth what I earned in six months. I felt the same surge of rage that had
come when I'd hit Christine, my hands burning like they'd scorch right through
the chair's arms, right through anything they touched. I clawed at my jeans and
felt five hundred dollars' worth of fabric tear.
A
door slammed. A moment later three sleek gray forms streaked down toward the
cove, followed by a slender figure in a barn coat. I sat with my head in my
hands until I heard another door behind me. I looked up and saw Gryffin
Haselton, carrying a laptop.
Oh.
Hey." His brow furrowed. "Where's my mother?"
"Gone."
I stood unsteadily and looked away. "I fucked up. I forgot a tape
recorder. I guess she doesn't like that."
"She
doesn't like a lot of stuff. I wouldn't worry about it." He set his laptop
on the table and plugged it in. "Don't worry, I'm not sticking around.
Just recharging."
He
fiddled with the computer then glanced at me.
"I
don't know what the hell I'm doing here," I said. Something about him made
me feel calmer, or maybe I was just exhausted. I ran a hand through my filthy
hair. "Christ, what am I doing? You saw me last night! Why the fuck didn't
you tell her I was coming out to talk to her?"
He
looked at me, bemused. "I don't know you from Adam. But even if I had told
her, she wouldn't have let you in."
"Whatever."
I sighed. "She did say you could show me her pictures. If you don't
mind."
"No.
I don't mind." His voice made him sound younger than he was. "I just
flew up for a few days to deliver something."
"You
live here?"
"Chicago."
"Your
mother said you're a book dealer." I hesitated, then said, "I work at
the Strand."
"Yeah?
I don't do much business with them anymore. Too expensive. The internet's
ruined it for everyone. That's why I had to close my shop."
"You
don't do photography, then? It's not the family business?"
"Christ
no. I've never wanted to know anything about what she does. Not that she's done
much of it since I've been alive. She blamed me for it."
"For...?"
"You
name it," he said. "Her marriage. Her work. Her drinking. All of it.
She needed an excuse. I was it."
I
digested this. After a moment I asked, "Why are you here, then?"