He had been there three times already, initially to meet Gull and one of his men, to be given the keys and instructions about the rooms, but also, more importantly, to be given a file on Josephine, as well as a small mirror and a hand-bell.
The next visit had been to supervise the arrival, unpacking and assemblage of his equipment. Gull had been as good as his word and provided for everything; he had not baulked at the sets of expensive lenses or the intricate, hand-made brass gearing systems. Muybridge now had all he needed; the secret in the shadow and atmosphere, which somehow lived and thrived in his photographs, was within probing distance. The new zoopraxiscope would be a very different machine to its forebears.
Muybridge’s third visit had focused on the most delicate element of the plan: the installation of Josephine. She had arrived in the middle of a spring downpour, with a companion and one of Gull’s servants. Muybridge had been irritated by the surgeon’s absence; surely such a crucial moment should be overseen by its instigator, especially in a case such as this? But it wasn’t to be. The servant had explained that the companion would be staying for a week or so, until Josephine ‘got to know the ropes of the place’. The servant introduced her to Muybridge and she curtsied, holding herself in a modest way, which he appreciated, but from a professional distance. He certainly had no intention of visiting the rooms while two females lived there, even if they did know their place.
The servant showed him that the rooms were well stocked, with every possible comfort provided for. ‘You’ll be snug as bugs in a rug,’ the man said amiably. Muybridge gave him a withering stare, privately wondering if Gull recruited all of his staff from his list of ex-inmates. The impertinent fellow talked him through the basic details of the house, the most intriguing of which was a small, concealed compartment in the wall to the right of the kitchen door. Hanging inside was a thick, flat cosh made of leather. Its short but significant weight was achieved by the lead shot that filled its interior.
‘Just in case, sir – we all ‘ave ‘em.’
‘Is there a chance I’ll need to use it?’ asked the alarmed Muybridge, who was beginning to have serious doubts about the whole business.
‘No chance, sir. Some of ‘em cut up rough, but not Josie, she’s good as gold.’
Nevertheless, the photographer resolved to always be careful. He would carry his trusty Colt pocket revolver with him at all times; who knew when it might be needed for protection, outside of the rooms or in?
Their first sittings began a little awkwardly. He found her silence uncanny and her eyes unnerving. Whenever he arrived and quietly let himself in, he would find the rooms full of birdsong, as if dozens of bright and active creatures were whistling with great joy. This would stop abruptly, the moment she sensed his presence.
She had been alone in the rooms for the last three weeks, and seemed calm and happy. She made him tea and he drank it in silence, stealing glances at her when she was not aware. Her savage beauty still amazed him. He had seen such perfection occasionally flare in the many primitive peoples he had visited and lived with; he had photographed an Aztec woman of magnificent sensuality in Mexico; he remembered two Moduc women whose striking appearances had remained with him long after his meeting with them had passed, their balanced symmetry accentuated inside their broad, flat faces.
But Josephine had something more. There was a glow of strength and dignity inside her ideal proportions, which made her every movement hypnotic to him. It soon dawned on him that this was attraction: his masculinity was being nudged awake by her, roused from a slumber he had been hitherto oblivious to; the part of his life he had long considered dead and shrivelled was wakened in her presence. How fat and stupid Flora had been in comparison to this demented vision, and how petty her vanities now revealed themselves to be. But still, it was better to put such thoughts out of his head; they could only lead to pain and confusion, as history had so deftly proven. Better to work, to trust the life he had invented, the one that paid him so handsomely and seemed to ask no price in return.
‘I am going NEXT DOOR to SET UP the CAMERA for your PHOTOGRAPH,’ he said, over-pronouncing each slow syllable as if talking to a deaf person or a foreigner. ‘It will take ONE HOUR; then I will COME FOR YOU, do you UNDERSTAND?’
She nodded and allowed a small smile to grace her lips. Muybridge felt the snag of it in his lungs, as if it were a slow shutter of great precision, catching a fast and out of focus world. He left the room in a daze and shut the door behind him, the room ricocheting with the chirps, whirrs and clicks of the fast, invisible bats held apart from his company.
Cyrena left her house at noon for another meeting with Ghertrude Tulp, intent on forging a plan of campaign to find Ishmael, before he became irrevocably lost. As she walked through her garden to leave by the side gate, she slowed under the balcony to look up for a moment, then back down at the hard ground where the vase had smashed. Naturally, there was no trace of it: her enduring kindness to her servants kept them diligent and discreet. She felt a brief shudder of satisfaction before exiting into the narrow street that ran parallel to her garden wall. Her mind, indulging in the private pleasures of rebellion, barely registered the shabby figures that loomed outside her wall, and she would have missed their presence entirely if one of them had not addressed her directly.
‘Pardon lady, pardon us being here so.’
She blinked and stopped, and found herself without speech. There were six of them – all of different ages and sizes – standing together beneath the shadow of her wall. The young man closest to her spoke again, and the juxtaposition of his polite tone and his undeniable poverty amazed her; yet again, sight had given too much information and poisoned his sad voice.
‘We’ve come here to you, lady, to be healed. It is said that you make blind people see and deaf people hear; that’s why we’ve come.’
She looked into his milky eyes to ease the shock of his words, then her own eyes darted to find the lame and diseased parts of them all. ‘I am truly very sorry,’ she faltered, ‘for you all. But I am afraid you are mistaken. I can help nobody. It was I who was healed by another.’
A sinking silence ensued, and those who were able exchanged suspicious glances. The spokesman sensed the unrest and pressed further. ‘Who was it who healed you? Are they here, are they inside?’ He pressed his hand against the wall, some loose stone crumbling beneath his touch. Her pity transformed to annoyance at the thought of them dogging poor Ishmael.
‘He left weeks ago,’ she said, hearing the flutter in her voice.
‘Where’s ‘e gawn then?’ said another, this time without a trace of politeness.
‘I don’t know. He did not tell me, he just left.’
They moved forward into the gap she had created, to hear her voice more carefully. ‘Why did ‘e go then, what made ‘im, did you chuck ‘im out, chuck somthink at ‘im?’
Terror crawled in her sight; she had never known intimidation before. Her fears had always had been internal and speculative, only walking in the cloisters of her imagined future. This was very real, and she was losing authority over its direction.
‘I don’t know what you mean and have had quite enough of this!’ she said curtly. ‘Now, I must be going, I’m already late. Please do not loiter around my door any longer!’
She turned to leave, but a figure stepped out behind her, blocking her path. He had been born without eyes or nose; smooth planes of skin covered the areas where the sockets and nostrils should have been. He reeked of vomit and gastric juices, and was laughing in astonishing proximity to her face.