“Excuse the interruption,” he says and gestures that she should take a seat opposite him. “A customer calling from Brazil with an order.”
She sits on the edge of the settee. “You have a customer from Brazil?”
“I have several,” he says. “The majority of our business has always been mail order. We send out catalogues quarterly. We tend to service what is called the plush end of the customer base. Cosmopolitan. Educated and urbane. Old family money.”
“I had no idea. I mean, this isn’t what I expected to find in here.”
“You’ve passed by our store before?”
“A’ few times,” she says. “I’m not from this part of the city.”
“You’re a native?” he asks and seems surprised.
“Whole life. I went away to college but that’s it. You’re not from here, are you? I hear an accent.”
A teakettle begins to whistle and he smiles, mouths the words excuse me and moves again to the back of the store. She hears a moment of muffled clatter like dishes clinking together, then the whistle sound dies away and it’s silent in the store and suddenly she starts to think she should get up and leave before the old man comes back.
Instead, she opens one of the art books on the coffee table and finds herself looking at a full-page artist’s rendering of some obscure and acrobatic coitus. The style is clear and detailed, close to photo-real. There’s a man and woman, fully naked, sprawled on a stark white background and depicted from above. And she can’t take her eyes off them until she hears Mr. Quevedo clear his throat and turns to see him standing behind the settee carrying a small silver tray that holds a teapot and two cups.
She closes the book immediately and shifts her position. She’s both embarrassed and nervous, as if her mother had caught her disobeying some strict commandment. But then it occurs to her—the man’s blind, right? He can’t see what I’m doing, can he?
Whatever Mr. Quevedo can or cannot see, he makes no mention of the book. He places the tray down on the table and fills her teacup with a steaming, rose-colored liquid.
“I was born,” he says, picking up the conversation, “in Buenos Aires. A small suburban district called, if you will believe it, Palermo. But I spent a good deal of my formative years traveling the continent. Actually, I’ve resided here in Quinsigamond longer than anywhere else. It took me years to find a city that fit my needs. I have no intention of moving again.”
Sylvia takes a sip of the tea. It has an overly perfumed smell, but it tastes delicious. “And how did you come to live here?”
“That,” he says, “is a long and very tedious story.”
He pours himself a cup, sticks his little finger into the tea, waits a beat, then uncaps the pot and pours his cup back inside. He brings his hand up to his mouth and dabs at his lips with the little finger.
She looks away, takes another sip of her tea. She says, “You mentioned that you might know how I could find Mr. Derry.”
“Possibly,” he says and she can’t help but stare at his eyes. They’re like those cloudy marbles you used to see in the candy store as a kid. They’re like sockets of watery milk. They’re off-putting and they almost make her cringe, but she can’t stop focusing in on them.
“Is there a reason that Mr. Derry would have stripped the shop and disappeared like this overnight?”
He gives her an indulgent smile.
“The problem, my dear, is that there are many reasons.” He pauses, changes the tone of his voice and asks, “You purchased a camera from him recently?”
“A used Aquinas. A real find. It’s twenty years old, but it’s in great shape. The thing is, Derry told me to take it home and try it out. I haven’t paid for it yet.”
“Forgive me,” he says, pours another cup of tea and goes through the same routine with his little finger. This time, however, he leaves the tea in his cup. “Most people would not deem this a problem. I think most people would consider this a great stroke of fortune.”
“You’re saying I should just keep the camera.”
He sips at the tea and shrugs. “You came today to pay the man. Your intentions were honorable. You are not the one who disappeared, are you?”
“Well, no,” she says, “but—”
He leans forward a bit. “There is another problem?”
“It’s not a problem, really, I just wanted …”
“You had questions about the camera?”
Sylvia feels like he’s pressuring her, leaning in toward her. She feels like she doesn’t want to tell him about the photographs. And yet he may know something about how to find Derry. So she says, “There was some film left in the camera. I assume it belonged to the previous owner. I was hoping Mr. Deny could help me return it.”
“Return the film?”
“Yeah. Exactly.”
“Couldn’t the previous owner simply purchase new film? I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
She can feel the manipulation. The old guy wants the whole story. And it’s clear he’s not going to come up with any help until he gets some explanation.
She puts down her teacup. “I guess I haven’t made myself clear. You see, the film had been exposed. The previous owner had already taken some pictures. I wanted to return the pictures.”
He sits back, makes a big effort at crossing his legs, exerts a lot of energy. Then he folds his hands together and rests them on his belly. He stares at her, suddenly no longer grandfatherly but more like some weary grade-school principal who’s too long in his job and too far from retirement. Sylvia’s uncomfortable with his look and she wants to leave, maybe drive out to the Snapshot Shack and relieve Cora, sit in the booth alone for the rest of the day listening to AM radio and looking over people’s vacation pictures.
“You developed the photographs,” Mr. Quevedo says quietly.
“I have a darkroom,” she says, “In my cellar. I’m a photographer.”
He waits for a minute staring at her the whole time, then says, “Would I be familiar with your work?”
Now she’s embarrassed.
“It’s not like that,” she says. “I don’t make my living at it. I just take a lot of pictures. I go out and shoot a lot of film.”
“A hobby then?”
She hates the word.
“Not, not at all. Not a hobby.”
She’s fumbling. She can’t seem to order her thoughts.
“I’m just starting out,” she says. “I’ve had some problems. Some …”
“Complications,” he finishes for her.
“There was a family illness. My mother passed away.”
He nods, concerned. Patriarchal.
“I’m very sorry,” he says.
“I just got off track for a while,” she says. “I lost my focus.”
More solemn nodding. He pulls at the stiff cuffs of his shirt and they sit in silence. Sylvia tries to concentrate on the tea, looks down and pretends to study the swirling patterns of the carpet.
“These photographs you developed,” he says, “the ones from the camera. What did you find?”
Her eyes come up to his face and she says, “They were stunning.”
“Nature scenes?” he asks.
“No. Nothing like that. There were seven shots. All of the same subjects. A woman and her child. An infant. Inside an old building of some sort. Incredible use of shadow. The gradations were—”
“Masterful?” he says.
She’s getting annoyed with his interruptions.
“The best thing I can say is they were genuine. They hit me like a bullet. They hung on. It’s difficult to explain.”
“Believe me, Sylvia,” he says, “twenty years in this business, you come to understand the importance of the elemental image.”
She looks past him at the Fouquet.