I remember the knife and slowly open my hand to stare at its silverysides. The pain hasn’t come. Because of the knife? Because it protects me?I’ll give him this, I think grimly. If he comes at me again, if he nears me or touches me, I’ll give him this blade in the chest, neck, arm, face—whatever’s closest. It’s what I wanted to do all those years ago but couldn’t. I lay there and received his harm, and then he vanished.
Only to reappear now? To lurk in the background of my pictures, to breathe into my ear on the telephone? I shake the illogical thought from my head and slip the knife into my purse. I’ll go everywhere with it now—even to classtonight.
19.
The lecture hall is dim but for the glowing black-and-white images projected on the screen: sunlight pouring through a row of windows, then the interplay of light and dark among trees. Paul stands with his back to us, waving his hands over the pictures as he speaks.
“Light is the essence of what we photographers do,” he says.“We’re never looking at people, places, or things, but at light, always light.” His words give me a thrilling lift. I stay sharply tuned in as he goes on speaking about how light draws the viewer’s eye—the excess of it, the slant of it, the way shadows enhance or diminish it. How brutal hard light can be, and how melancholy soft light. It’s poetry, all of it, even when he turns to the practical side of things, telling us how to “dodge” and “burn” in the darkroom to deepen or lessen shadows. The fangirls in front of me scribble notes, chew the ends of their pens, and exchange glances when Paul combs his fingers through his hair or tugs his trim beard. I can’t say I blame them, but I don’t envy their youthful, wriggling lust. I’ve tamed mine, directed it, turned it toward the end of class, when I’ll be alone with Paul, showing him my city pictures.
I’m especially proud of the self-portrait I took in the Cadillac’s side mirror. But I’m nervous to show him, scared he’ll somehow spot the impossibly small man. I know he won’t—but still I imagine confessing:That man has been following me everywhere. He grabbed me in the city, in a crosswalk. He calls me, too. I’ve started carrying a knife.
How would he react? He might look at me like I was crazy ordamaged, the way my friends did years ago, when the news article came out: “Local Girl Attacked by Afternoon Intruder.” Girls who’d been my bosom friends helped spread the rumors that I’d made it all up. They whispered in the halls, said I wasneglected at home, that Iwanted attention. Things their parents probably said—things that weren’t entirely untrue. Instead of fighting the tide of gossip, I gave up, withdrew from everyone, and counted the days until I could leave town.
Suddenly I hear my name spoken aloud. It takes me a moment to remember where I am, and to recognize Paul’s voice.
“Judith, have you brought any photographs that might illustrate what I’ve been saying about light?” Paul looks at me expectantly, a smile twitching the corners of his mouth. I sit unmoving, filled with dread, as every classmate turns to stare with expressions that range from curious and kind to envious, openly skeptical.
“Oh,” I say aloud. I fumble with the envelope of pictures I’ve brought to share withPaul, only with Paul, trying to hide my surprised anger. Holding the pictures, I look him squarely in the eye and say, “I don’t think so.” I hope he’ll understand this as a refusal—and I’m certain he does, but even so, he climbs the stairs two at a time with a determined look on his face. Unless I want to make a bigger spectacle of myself, I have to hand the pictures over. When he reaches me, I do. Then I watch as he shuffles quickly through the city prints, in front of everyone. I envisioned this moment so differently—it’s ruined now. All I can do is sit, paralyzed by fear, feeling the stillness of the room like a crushing weight until Paul speaks, quietly, only to me.
“Judith, these are marvelous. Just marvelous.”
Charlie, the dark-haired leader of the fangirls, is sitting closest to me; she overhears Paul’s comment and turns to whisper it. I’m returned to the awful days of high school as I watch them play a game of Telephone, passing the news down their little line. I have to remind myself they aren’t saying I’m a liar or a ruined whore; they’re saying that Paul, our professor, thinks my pictures are “marvelous.” Despite everything, I can’t help being pleased.
Paul chooses one without asking for my input or permission and walks to the front of the class.My pictures belong to Paul now, I think, suddenly panicked. They don’t, of course, though he’s acting like they do. He gives the chosen photograph to a student in the front row, a sloppy-looking young man who may or may not have clean hands. My shoulders tighten as I watch him take it.
The students pass my pictures around while Paul leans casually against the table up front, lost in thought, oblivious to what he must know is my great discomfort as pairs of eyes that aren’t his, aren’t mine, aren’t Tom’s, scour an image I’ve created. I’m sick to my stomach. I want to scream. If Paul thinks this will convince me to send work to a magazine, he’s wrong. He thinks he merely has to push me, like he’s pushing me now, but that only shows how little he knows me—and I thought he knew me better. Silly, perhaps, but I thought his communion with my photographs would have taught him more aboutme. I sit straight-backed and stiff with fury until the student two chairs down from me hands me my photograph with a shy smile.
“Far out,” he says, and seems to mean it. I take it from him and finally see the image Paul chose. It’s the young lovers standing on a street corner. Late-afternoon shadows drape them while the sun bathes their faces in white light. They stand close together, their hands clasped, but look separate: two bright ovals drifting through the darkness of space and time. I knew it would be brutal when I took it, that it would throw their young romance into the harshest light. But Paul has told us to be ruthless—something I never needed to be told.
I pass it to the next student with my own shy smile.
Once the picture has made its way around the room, Paul takes it gently from the last person’s hand and returns to the podium. He sets it down and stares at it for a moment. The class is quiet, attentive. I wonder if anyone—or everyone—can hear the loud thudding of my heart. Finally, he clears his throat.
“As you’ve all seen, Judith has done a phenomenal job of using the time of day and the slant of light to separate these two lovebirds whoare physically quite close.” He looks up and finds my eyes. I tell myself to be still, to sit here and endure this, or enjoy it—or both at once.
“We can see how alone they are, how distant they are from each other—even if they can’t see it themselves. It’s beautiful—beautiful and cruel,” he ends, glancing around the silent classroom. “Thisis what I mean by harnessing light, everyone. Exactly this.” Some students nod, others stare forward in what could be indifference, denial, or simply deep attention. I glance at the clock on the wall and will time to move faster.
When Charlie’s hand shoots up, I cringe. I’m sitting in a high school class again, waiting for the insult to arrive. But when Paul calls on her, she turns to me with a friendly and frankly admiring look on her face.
“Judith, how did you get this shot? Can you walk us through it?” Though I can tell she isn’t trying to stump me, I feel stumped. And panicky. HowdidI get the shot? I think back through the noise in my head to that day in the city, to that quiet moment when I came upon the couple.
“I-I was on Fifth Avenue, close to the park. I happened to turn down a side street and saw them from a distance. As I walked closer, I noticed how the light was hitting them, hitting their faces. I got as close as I could, framed the shot, and took it. Took several. This turned out to be the best version,” I say. Charlie nods and smiles, then asks if the couple noticed me. I shake my head, growing more comfortable in the glow of her friendly attention.
“No, not at all. Though it wouldn’t have mattered if they had.” Soft laughter ripples through the class. Paul gives me an approving look.
“Exactly the right attitude. This kind of masterful result is what you get when you’re unafraid.” Pride sears through me; I blink back unexpected tears. He goes on talking to the class, but I’m stuck on the word:masterful.
20.
I try to keep my eyes glued to the words I’ve jotted down as students pass by on their way out of class:Light is everything. Hard = brutal / soft = melancholy. Dodge / burn.I glance up quickly once, only to have a young woman with permed blond hair and red glasses catch my eye. She looks like she wants to say something but is too timid. I give her a friendly smile even though I’m still so angry at Paul—even if he did use the wordmasterful. Once the room empties out, I wait for Paul to acknowledge me, to acknowledge what he’s done, but he goes on placidly collecting his books and papers. I walk slowly down the stairs. He doesn’t look up until I’m standing right in front of him.
“I know you must be pissed off,” he says, raising his eyes at last. He looks only partly regretful, mostly pleased. “I know I should have asked for your permission first, but I didn’t because I knew what you’d say. Look. Those were just kids seeing your picture—and it wasn’t so bad, was it?” I hear the question, know the answer he expects, and refuse to give it.
“Maybe not tonight or even any time soon, but someday I think you’ll want to share your work with people who matter—art editors, gallerists, and…everyone else. As you know, I can help you. I’dloveto help you. You could have more of a successful run than I ever did—you could have acareer.” He leans on this last word with an intensity that borders on fury. For a moment, I can’t do anything but smile athim like a little fool, like one of those girls with bare legs to cross and curled eyelashes to bat.
But the moment passes; I’mnotone of those girls, after all. I want Paul to know that he’s crossed a line.
“You shouldn’t have done it. You had no right to pass my picture around without asking my permission. The rest of it is—nothing I’m interested in, as you know.” Though I mean to sound cold and unshakable, I can’t keep my voice from trembling. I sound more like the vexed mother of Tom Junior at the maddening height of his adolescence, when I would snap at him and watch him shrug. Still, Paul looks abashed.
