“Is this actually the original?”
Mrs. LaPointe asked Jonah the same question everyone eventually did. She held the photograph carefully, as if it might crumble. A black-and-white print, 8×10, the edges soft from age. It showed a man standing under a carport, hat in hand. The 1957 Mercedes Roadster behind him glinted in the same sun that made the man squint. He was smiling, not broadly, but in a quiet, almost provisional manner, as if the smile was a decision rather than an expression.
Jonah nodded. “Yes.”
She tilted it toward the light. “It feels… honest. It’s the way I remember him.”
Jonah smiled.
Mrs. LaPointe continued to stare at the picture, taking in every refreshed detail. She tentatively traced her fingers over the image of the man, and jerked them away quickly with a glance up at Jonah.
“Is quite alright,“ Jonah assured her. “You won’t do any harm by touching it.“
Mrs. LaPointe flashed a small smile and returned her attention to the photograph.
“I remember when he bought his car,“ she said. “I don’t remember this moment, I would’ve been just a little girl. But I know he loved that car.“
Jonah’s eyes fell to the man’s face.“Yes, he did.”
“It was such a wonderful time for us. Papa was there, so tall and strong. We were all so happy.” Mrs. LaPointe looked up with moist eyes. “It was the year before he was diagnosed, you see. None of us had any idea.“
Jonah looked at the man’s eyes he had so painstakingly restored under the magnification of Herr Baumann’s loupe.
He knew
“You are a true artist “. Mrs. LaPointe said, still absorbed in the photo.
Jonah smiled quietly and shook his head. “No. An artist creates. I restore, I reveal. Sometimes I translate.”
“Now you sound like an archaeologist,” she laughed softly. “Uncovering the ruins of old photos.”
“In a way I do excavate,” Jonah said. “I remove the damage of time and uncover the truth below the myth.“
“How mysterious.”
”Everything is a mystery until you understand it.”
“An artist, archaeologist, and philosopher,“ Mrs. LaPointe said. She selected a frame from the four Jonah had presented her as options. With deliberate, practiced motions, Jonah framed the photo, secured the back, and gave it a final wipe with his soft cloth.
Mrs. LaPointe looked at the framed photo again, her eyes wistful. She paid, thanked him, and left.
The clock chimed three. Mrs. Hellerman would arrive in an hour.
Jonah eyed the wrapped bundle of photographs waiting at the end of the counter. He stepped through the half wall into the workshop and tied on his apron.
The room was orderly as a practice of long habit achieves—tools laid with precision, projects resting in organized stages of completion. He picked up his mentor’s loupe, feeling the comfortable weight of the crystal lens Baumann had ground and shaped himself. Catching the afternoon light, the lens cast spears of rainbow-colored prism across the work table surface.
The photograph from the historical society lay on the workmat: a young Syrian boy, perhaps six years old, seated on a bus, shot in profile as he stared somberly out the grated window, his face reflected in the glass. The photo had been torn at some point and was bent and stained. Jonah had worked on it for weeks, starting as he always did – from the outside edges – then working his way inward towards the face.
Jonah settled onto his stool, pulled on his gloves, and dipped a swab into a mild solvent.
The boy’s expression was not simply somber. There was a shadow there—too serious for a face that young. With the swab he dabbed away a small residue of paste near the boy’s shirt collar. An oily fingerprint just behind his head. Jonah worked slowly and deliberately, in small blocks, revealing the story below time’s weathering.
Jonah leaned over the photo, resting the loupe over the boy’s face and bringing the eyes into sharp focus. Under magnification, Jonah looked into the war-torn story on his face. He studied the grains and peered into the shadows. He paused, brush hovering, then added the smallest touch of tint to the eyes reflected in the glass.
After 20 minutes he set the brush down, sighing as if releasing something uncomfortable, and leaned back. He took off his gloves and laid them neatly next to the photo and draped his apron on the stool.
He glanced again at Mrs. Hellerman’s package and made himself a cup of tea.
He said in his office and sip the tea, looking at the gallery wall. It was a space he kept private, out of view of the customers who came into the storefront. It was covered with several framed photographs, mostly, of people. There were a few of lonely and liminal places— a house, a highway, a derelict building.
Near the top was one of his mentor, Herr Friedrich Baumann. It had been taken sometime in the 1930s, when Bowman was a young man with dark hair and dark eyes. Jonah thought Baumann’s eyes were so dark they could suck in all the light that entered them. He had taught Jonah everything about cameras, lenses, and photography. He revealed how light and shadow became memory and record. He claimed light always found the truth in any image.
Most of the images were ones Jonah had restored and had found a place for on the gallery wall. A few had been taken by Baumann during his occult phase, when he experimented with the idea that spirits could be fixed through the lens and onto celluloid.
One photo on the wall featured a woman in robes and a turban, sitting at a table, her eyes rolled upward in a trance. In the space over or left shoulder was an indistinct blur. A smudge on the lens, a flare on the negative, a whisper of smoke. Baumann always insisted the camera didn’t see just the physical but also the energy that surrounded it. He customized cameras and ground and shaped lenses fabricated from the crystal balls of mediums.
Jonah looked at the gallery wall with the faces captured in unvarnished truth. He had spent years peering through the loupe, finding the light and restoring the revelations. Some people saw the truth, some did not. Some saw it and retreated, denying what they saw. He did not judge. It was only for him to reveal.
Jonah was sitting at the counter when Mrs. Hellerman arrived at 3:14. Her entrance was practically processional. She came in with her chin up, her shoulders back, holding the straps of her purse with a deliberate grip. She did not glance left or right but came directly to the counter with her gaze fixed on Jonah.
“I hope I’m not late,” she said, as if daring him to contradict her.
“Not at all, good afternoon,” Jonah responded.
Mrs. Hellerman gave a curt nod. “Good afternoon. You have my photos ready for me.” It was not a question.
Jonah placed the package gently before her and sat back as Mrs. Hellerman opened it. Inside were about twenty photographs she had left with him a few weeks ago. There were both black and white and color images, assorted sizes, across several years. Each was separated from the others by thin tissue paper. She examined them carefully, prepared to point out a flaw or overlooked blemish. She surrendered to silent nods of approval with each image she laid aside.
She gave Jonah a brief glance.
“I have to say, your work is extraordinary,” she allowed. “I had doubts about what could be accomplished, given their state when I gave them to you. However, you have proven yourself quite capable. I see that Mrs. Alderman did not exaggerate your skills.”
“Mrs. Alderman is very kind,” Jonah said gently, waiting. It was possible she would not see it, he thought. Not everyone did.
Mrs. Hellerman held up a photo, a tall dour man and a younger Mrs. Hellerman, standing before the doors to an ornate church.
“This is from our honeymoon,” she announced, her authoritative tone a bit more conversational. “Mr. Hellerman and I went to Prague. It was very beautiful.”
“Prague is a beautiful city.” She was getting closer to the bottom of the stack.
“Look at this,” she held up an image of a group of people seated around a table laden with platters of brats and dumplings, bowls of cabbage and stews, and small glasses of schnapps. “I remember this. It was Krampusnacht, before Heini was born. We were all young and foolish then.”
She pointed to a pretty blond woman in a red sweater. “Alice had quite a bit of schnapps that night. And Karl—” she indicated a handsome young man. “Karl had just been accepted to study at Bern. I haven’t thought about Karl in years.” Her eyes drifted over the faces in the photo.
“This was really the last time we were all together.” Mrs. Hellerman spoke softly.
She shared the history of each photo as she examined it like a nostalgic narrator. She held up one of a woman holding a newborn infant in a pink blanket. “Mama and me,” she confided with a hint of a smile. Jonah smiled back, watching Mrs. Hellerman as she reached the end of the stack.
The last photo was small. It had been folded in half when Jonah received it. The colors had washed out and details blurred. It was the one he had taken the longest to restore.
A young girl with short blond hair, wearing a green floral print dress edged with lace was sitting on a rock. Behind her an idyllic countryside stretched, cut by a river. The summer sun glinted on the fast moving water in hot white spots. The girl squinted at the camera and grinned with a picket fence smile of missing baby teeth. In the background the blurred image of an older girl, in a white shirt and red shorts, facing away from the camera, stood near the edge of the river.
Mrs. Hellerman stared at the photo for a moment, then slowly picked it up.
“Well,” she said softly, almost a whisper. “Look at this.”
Jonah folded his hands on the countertop.
“I didn’t know this was with these photos,” Mrs. Hellerman said slowly. “I haven’t seen this picture in decades. Mama kept it out of sight. That is my sister, Trudie. She was younger than me. Mama used to say I was her princess. Then Trudie was born and she became ‘princess’. I was never called ‘princess’ again.”
She held the photograph at the corners with pinched fingertips, as if wishing to touch as little of it as possible.
“I remember this day. This was the day of the accident.” She looked up sharply at Jonah. “And it was an accident. I know what people said. Mama and Papa never treated me the same again. But it wasn’t my fault.”
Mrs. Hellerman laid the photo back on the counter and pointed at it. “Look at those stupid shoes she was wearing. Those aren’t shoes for going to the river. Of course she might slip. I can’t be blamed for that.” Mrs. Hellerman’s face was gaining color, her breath deepened.
“Surely no one would have,” Jonah said quietly.
“‘Watch your sister’, Mama told me. ‘Watch my ‘princess’.” Mrs Hellerman adopted a shrill falsetto tone, edged with acid. “Well, I did watch her. I watched her play foolishly around at the edge, near the rocks and mud that were all wet and slippery.” Mrs. Hellerman drew her hands into fists. “‘Why didn’t you hold her hand?’ Mama and Papa said. ‘You should have been holding her hand’.”
Mrs. Hellerman’s lips gave a small sneer. “‘She was your sister.’ Well, she was your princess. They knew how clumsy and stupid she was. Perhaps they should’ve held her hand or watched her, slipping and stumbling around the edge of the river until—“ she caught herself with a sharp inhalation. She stepped back from the counter and looked at Jonah disapprovingly.
“This image is unacceptable,“ she said briskly. “It doesn’t look at all like the picture I gave you. I don’t know what you did, but it’s all wrong. I demand that you… unrestore it… and return it to the way it was.“ She clasped her hands in front of her.
Jonah felt the disappointment settle in his chest. He shook his head. “I’m afraid that’s not possible.“
Mrs. Hellerman‘s nostrils flared. “Well then, I shall not pay for that. This is truly poor workmanship, sir. What you have done to this image is wrong. It’s diabolically wrong.“
Jonah tilted his head slightly. “I’m very sorry you see it that way.“
Mrs. Hellerman flicked at the photograph on the counter with her fingernail, pushing it towards Jonah.
“You must take this back. I do not want it and I shall not pay for it. Really, sir, after Mrs. Alderman gave you such a good report. This has caused me to question her judgment.“
Jonah stood and picked up the photo, laying it at the end of the counter away from Mrs. Hellerman. He watched her as she looked down at the remaining pile of photographs, her nostalgic mood dissipated.
“These others are satisfactory,“ she said. “I shall, of course, pay you for these. I know we had discussed frames but I shan’t need them.” She stacked the remaining photos back together and closed the edges of the packaging. She turned her head so that the photo on the counter could not be seen even peripherally.
“Mrs. Hellerman, “ he said quietly. “I am sorry you were so disquieted by my work. There will be no charge. Not for the image that upset you, or any of the others, either.“
Mrs. Hellerman straightened. “That is not necessary. I have already said that I will pay—“
“I must insist,“ Jonah interrupted. “The reputation for my work, the work Mrs. Alderman recommended me for, relies upon complete customer satisfaction.“
“Well,“ Mrs. Hellerman said cautiously. “If you are insisting. And, yes, I think that is the most appropriate thing.“
She and Jonah stood silent for a moment. Then Mrs. Hellerman gathered up the package and held it to her chest.
“Good day, sir. And, I can recommend you for your professionalism,“ she spared the photo on the counter the final repulsed glance. “ If not for your skills.”
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Hellerman.” Jonah said.
After she left Jonah picked up the photograph on the counter. He looked at it again, seeing the truth in it. He took down a small frame and chose a buff-colored mat board. With the precision of a Swiss watchmaker he placed a pane of glass into the frame, then the mat board, and then the photograph. He secured the photo in place with archival tape and put the backing onto the frame.
He carried the framed picture carefully back through the workshop to the office. He found a small, unoccupied space on the gallery wall. He fixed a nail and hung Trudie’s photo with the others.