Proof of Life, page 23
If there was one thing that broke all language barriers, it was money. Not far from the corner of Avenue de la Bourdonnais and Rue Marinoni, Stroud found a photographic studio. The sign on the door read CLOSED, but there were lights still on in the back and up above. He knocked on the door, and kept on knocking until a woman appeared. She gesticulated at him, making it clear that they were done for the day. Stroud held up a film canister in one hand, and in the other a fifty-franc note. The woman came out of the shadows. She was in her late twenties or early thirties, her hair fashioned into an unkempt bob that was nevertheless elegant and sophisticated. She was beautiful in that no-nonsense French way, both alluring and slightly intimidating.
‘Qu’est ce que vous voulez? Nous sommes fermés.’
‘Assistance, s’il vous plaît.’ Stroud help up the canister. ‘J’ai un film. J’ai besoin de photos.’ He showed her the fifty-franc note. ‘Argent, ici.’
The woman opened the door but didn’t slide off the security chain. ‘Americain?’
‘Anglais.’
‘Your French is pretty bad,’ she said.
Stroud smiled and shook his head. ‘Three years, one hour a week, and that was more than twenty years ago. I can remember something about the pen of my aunt being in the garden.’
‘So what do you need?’
‘I need to develop and print this film,’ he said. ‘Fifty francs.’
The woman shook her head. ‘A hundred, and that’s only if it’s black and white. You will make me very late for a dinner with my friends. It is Saturday evening, Mister English.’
‘It’s mono, yes,’ Stroud replied. A hundred francs was something like ten or eleven pounds. He was being fleeced within an inch of his life, but he couldn’t afford to wait. The only thing that lessened the feeling of daylight robbery was that it was Haig’s money he was spending.
‘A hundred francs,’ he said, ‘and I’ll get it done as fast as I can.’
‘You want to do it yourself?’
‘I would prefer to.’
‘You can do it if you like. It will cost the same.’
The woman slid off the security chain and opened the door. Stroud stepped inside.
‘My name is Stroud,’ he said.
‘And I am Daphne.’ She held out her hand and they shook.
‘This is your studio?’
‘Yes.’
‘What do you do? Portraits? Weddings?’
‘Yes. Whatever you want. Cats, dogs, kids, anything. And you?’
‘Death, mayhem, war, famine and natural disasters,’ Stroud said, ‘and that’s just in my immediate family.’
Daphne laughed. ‘Really? You take pictures of war?’
‘I do, yes. Or rather, I did. I don’t any more.’
‘This way,’ she said, and Stroud followed her behind the display panels and into a small kitchen area.
Outside, there was a covered yard, a toilet to the right, and to the left a door that said CHAMBRE NOIRE, beneath it, ARRETEZ! Si le voyant rouge est allumé, n’entrez pas!
‘Here,’ Daphne said, and opened up. The all-too-familiar aroma of developer and fixer cleared Stroud’s nostrils like ammonia.
Inside, she latched the door and handed him a spool and developing canister, then switched out the light. With the dexterity of the seasoned pro, Stroud popped the film lid, threaded the celluloid into the spool, wound it through and dropped it into the black container. He secured the lid and said, ‘Okay.’
Daphne flipped a switch, and they were bathed in the rich red light of the darkroom.
Stroud let Daphne take over. She knew what she was doing, which chemicals were in which bottles, and she went through the motions with the same degree of familiarity and expertise as he himself would have done.
‘It’s a one twenty-five ISO,’ he said. ‘Can you push it to eight hundred or thereabouts?’
‘Of course.’
She glanced at the clock above the enlarger.
‘So, war?’ she asked. ‘What war?’
‘Oh, I’m not picky,’ Stroud said.
She frowned. ‘Picky?’
‘Fussy. Choosy.’
She shook her head.
‘I will go here, but not here. I will do this, but not this.’
She laughed. ‘Difficile!’
‘Yes, difficult. I am not difficult.’
‘This is the English sense of humour, yes? You will go to any war. It does not matter for you.’
‘Right. South Africa, Cyprus, Cuba, Vietnam—’
‘Vietnam?’
‘Yes, I was in Vietnam.’
‘For a long time?’
‘I went many times. I don’t remember exactly. Eight or nine, perhaps.’
‘You know it was a French colony.’
‘Yes, of course,’ Stroud replied.
‘We were there a long time before the Americans.’
‘I met a lot of French over there. Some of the plantations were still owned and run by families that had been there for generations.’
‘It was bad?’
‘All war is bad, no matter the reason for it.’
Daphne was quiet for a while, rotating the film drum, ensuring the developer was evenly reaching the celluloid within.
‘And why are you here with this urgency now?’
‘I am looking for someone,’ Stroud said. ‘Looking for a friend.’
‘And this friend is here in Paris?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t know where he is.’
‘It is a man?’
‘Yes. Someone I’ve known for a long time. Someone who went to war with me. I thought he’d died in the Middle East, but now I don’t believe he did. I think he is still alive, and I am trying to find him.’
‘Okay,’ Daphne replied, almost as if she had heard enough of this saga and didn’t wish to know any more.
‘Your English is really good. Did you live there?’
‘Canada,’ she said. ‘I studied and worked in Canada for three years.’ She looked at the clock above the enlarger. ‘We are done.’
She took the stopper from the top of the drum and emptied the developer into the sink. She used a stop-bath solution before the fixer, and together they waited the few minutes necessary for the chemical to do its job. The film came out of the spool and was cut into six sections. The last two were blank. Stroud had used only the first two thirds of the film. Daphne put the blanks in the bin and clipped the four six-negative strips to a string with clothes pegs.
Stroud looked at the last images taken. A reverse image of faces he had been unable to discern at such a distance and in low light.
‘I can dry them more quickly with a hair dryer,’ Daphne said, ‘but sometimes it can melt the emulsion.’
‘I can’t risk that possibility,’ Stroud said.
‘So come to the dinner with me.’
‘What?’
‘Come to the dinner. It’s just a few friends. French academics and artists, you know? People with too many opinions and too little money. We will eat cheese and drink cheap wine and smoke too many cigarettes, and maybe someone will have a Serge Gainsbourg LP.’
Stroud laughed. ‘You’re teasing me.’
‘Just a few friends is true. They’re nice people. You will like them. We just go for a couple of hours, then we come back and make your prints.’
‘I don’t want to put you to any more trouble, Daphne.’
She laughed and nudged his arm. ‘Such an Englishman. You can buy the wine, okay?’
‘You’re sure your friends won’t mind?’
‘Don’t be so difficile. Come on. We go.’
47
The apartment where Daphne was meeting her friends was close. They stopped en route for wine. Daphne recommended a Saint-Émilion, and Stroud bought two bottles.
There were six people already there – two girls and four men. Daphne introduced Stroud, and within minutes two more girls, Odile and Françoise, and a man called Sébastien arrived. Eleven people in all, and within the confines of the living room and kitchen it was difficult not to be involved in numerous simultaneous conversations.
It was only when they sat down to eat in the dining room – at a table that spanned the length of the room and could have seated another two or three – that Stroud seemed to become the focus of interest. Food had been served – a cassoulet – and he added his two bottles of wine to the half-dozen that were already opened.
It seemed that they all spoke English to some degree or other. One or two seemed to struggle and requested translations. Daphne sat beside Stroud and encouraged him to engage with everyone. It was so very European, far more relaxed and informal than any similar such circumstance in England. Stroud was reminded of the time he’d spent in Amsterdam before Haig called him back. Despite the fact that three and a half weeks had elapsed, it seemed like something from a different life altogether. He had become far closer to the person he’d once been – driven, even obsessive, impelled by some indistinct need to do something, to find something, to have a story worth telling. And yet at the same time, he had a different perception of the future. That it was out there, that he would be in it, that he didn’t wish to be alone.
‘So, you are English?’ Jean-Luc asked.
‘I am, yes.’
‘And how do you know Daphne?’
Stroud smiled. ‘I don’t. I just met her this evening. I needed some film processed and she was willing to help me.’
‘You are a photographer?’ Elodie asked.
‘Yes. For the newspaper, magazines, you know?’
‘What kind of pictures do you take?’ Gabriel asked.
‘Well, in the past I have covered a lot of war, political uprisings, civil conflict. Things like that.’
Gabriel hesitated. Stroud’s answer seemed to displease him. He didn’t say anything directly, but his expression was one of disapproval.
‘War?’ Arnaud asked. ‘What, like Vietnam or something?’
‘Yes, I went to Vietnam several times.’
‘When?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. It was a three-year period between 1965 and 1968.’
‘You were in Vietnam for three years?’ Clémence asked.
‘No, I went home in between. I was out there maybe eight or nine times for several weeks each time.’
There was a brief and awkward silence.
Stroud glanced at Daphne. Her expression was odd, as if she was somehow enjoying the fact that she’d delivered a strange Englishman to dinner and he’d done something to upset the atmosphere.
‘And what did you see?’ Arnaud asked.
‘See?’ Stroud asked.
‘Yes. In Vietnam. The things you saw must have been terrible, no?’
Stroud looked down at his food. He was famished. He’d already had two glasses of wine and he was aware of its effect on an empty stomach.
‘Let him be,’ Sébastien said. ‘He is Daphne’s guest. He does not want to speak of such things, I am sure.’
‘It’s fine,’ Stroud said, conscious of the fact that he was indeed Daphne’s guest, that his negatives were drying in her darkroom, and the last thing he wanted to do was upset anyone here. Perhaps it had been a mistake to come.
‘So tell us,’ Odile said. ‘What things did you see in the war?’
‘You mean what terrible things?’ Stroud asked. ‘Or what acts of bravery? What acts of humanity?’
‘How can you use a word like humanity when you speak of war?’ Gabriel said. An undertone of aggression was there in his voice, his mannerisms. ‘Humanity is the first sacrifice of war, non?’
‘Gabriel,’ Daphne said. Just his name. Nothing else, but in those three syllables were layers of history. Perhaps he was known for his attitude, his willingness to challenge. Perhaps here was a man who made his presence felt by argument and conflict. If that was the case, Stroud really could have done without it.
‘Let your English friend speak, Daphne,’ Gabriel said. ‘Let him justify his war.’
‘They are not my wars, Gabriel.’
‘No, of course not, but you rationalise them and you agree with them.’
‘I don’t agree with them,’ Stroud said, doing his utmost to remain calm.
‘You must agree with them, or you would not keep going back like… like this… what is this bird that eats the dead?’
‘Vulture?’ Jean-Luc said.
‘Yes, this vulture. You keep going back to look at the dead bodies like a vulture. You take your pictures and you make your money, and then you go home.’
‘Gabriel, this is Daphne’s friend,’ Sebastien said.
‘They are not friends. He just met her this evening.’
‘Arrête d’être un connard,’ Arnaud snapped.
Stroud knew enough to understand that Arnaud had just told Gabriel to stop being an arsehole.
‘Your conscience is the lamb you sacrifice to fame,’ Gabriel said to Stroud, sneering condescendingly.
‘I don’t think fame has anything to do with it,’ Stroud replied. ‘I am anything but famous, and I don’t think that was the reason for doing it.’
‘For money then, eh? You did it just for the money.’
Stroud looked around the table. The expressions he saw ranged from sympathy to apology to bewilderment.
‘I really didn’t come here to argue with anyone,’ he said. ‘For fifteen years or more I’ve worked as a photographer and a journalist. I was here in Paris during the riots of ’68. I have been to Vietnam, to Cuba, to South Africa, to Cyprus. I have been all over the world, and I have seen some truly terrible things. I have also seen some things that were uplifting and inspiring. But I can’t agree with what you say, Gabriel. I certainly didn’t do it for fame, and I didn’t do it for money. I am neither famous nor rich. In fact, it’s true to say that I own nothing but my cameras, my notebooks, the clothes I’m wearing.’
‘Ignore Gabriel,’ Elodie said. ‘He is being a fucking child.’
Gabriel turned on her, but Jean-Luc spoke before he had a chance to say anything.
‘We’re having dinner, Gabriel. We are going to talk about other things. We are going to drink some wine and—’
‘Do you feel guilty?’ Gabriel asked Stroud. ‘Do you feel guilty for taking advantage of these people? Selling your pictures? Taking money for their misery, eh?’
Stroud closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He was tired. So fucking tired. He didn’t need this. He didn’t need to be challenged, or told what was wrong with his life, or shown how everything he had done had been worthless. He looked up.
Daphne put her hand on his arm. ‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘Pay him no attention.’
‘What do you want from me, Gabriel? You want me to apologise for who I am? Okay, I’m sorry. I am so very fucking sorry for being a worthless piece of shit and offending your self-righteous fucking sensibilities. Tell me everything that’s wrong, my friend. Tell me all the mistakes I’ve made. Let me beg you for fucking forgiveness. Is that what you want? Are you my judge and jury? Huh? Are you ready to give me my sentence? Tell me what I have to do to be worthy in your eyes.’
Gabriel said nothing. He continued to look at Stroud with a mean, supercilious expression.
‘So if you’re so damned perfect, what is it that you do? How are you so much better than me?’
‘Gabriel is the son of a very wealthy man,’ Françoise said. ‘Gabriel has never done a day’s work in his life, and he probably never will.’
‘Va te faire foutre, Françoise!’
Françoise laughed. She looked at Stroud. ‘He told me to go fuck myself.’
Stroud set down his knife and fork. He shifted his chair back. ‘I am really sorry,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t have come. I didn’t intend to upset your dinner—’
‘Sit down,’ Daphne said.
‘Yeah, sit down, Englishman,’ Arnaud said. ‘Gabriel is leaving.’ He turned and glowered. ‘Aren’t you, Gabriel?’
Gabriel looked awkward for a moment, and then he looked very angry. He got up slowly, glancing around the table as he did so.
‘Vous pouvez tous aller vous faire foutre!’ he snapped, and knocked his glass over. It didn’t break, but wine spilled out across the cotton cloth like blood.
He came around the table and made his way towards the door. As he passed Stroud, his elbow caught Stroud’s shoulder with some force. There was no doubt that it had been intentional. Before Stroud could even evaluate what he was doing, he was up on his feet, had pushed Gabriel back against the wall and had him around the throat. He instinctively turned his body sideways and used it to force Gabriel back, all the while conscious of the other man’s feet and knees. The muscle memory of things he’d been shown and taught on assignment, self-defence actions, things that would give him some slight chance or advantage against an assailant, came back to him. He was no fighter, but perhaps he could make-believe sufficiently well to back Gabriel off.
‘I really think it might be a good idea if you left,’ he said. ‘I feel that would be the polite thing to do.’
Gabriel pushed back. Stroud didn’t give.
‘I am going!’ Gabriel said. ‘Get off me, you fucking asshole. I am going.’
Stroud took a step back. He eased up a little. Gabriel didn’t kick or swing at him. He looked angry, but it was clear that he knew retaliation was not wise.
Stroud let him go.
Gabriel looked around the room one final time and then stormed out. The front door slammed as he left; he shouted once more from the bottom of the stairs, and then he was gone.
Stroud turned to face the people seated around the table.
‘I can’t tell you how sorry I am,’ he said. ‘I really don’t know what I said or did to upset him.’
‘Come and sit down,’ Daphne said. ‘He was being a child. He does this so much. Eat your dinner. Forget about him, okay?’
