Lime's Photograph (7 page)

That’s how it began – by chance – but most of life is made up of a series of chance occurrences which only afterwards, when they’re looked back on, make sense and form a pattern. This is how we
try to create a whole out of the fragments of our lives, just as historians try to create an overall picture from the pieces that are left. Age brings with it a desire to see the whole, a desire to believe that there was a pattern, that it wasn’t all just a matter of chance. That life is actually like a big jigsaw in which all the pieces fit together perfectly.

I let Oscar in and we gave each other a hug, as we always did when we hadn’t seen one another for a while. We were real friends. I was extraordinarily fond of Oscar and the feeling was reciprocated, even though we were so different. Back then Oscar and Gloria had probably leaned more to the left. I was more inclined to go with the Zeitgeist, whereas they genuinely believed in the new social order, in the revolution. Today we tend to laugh at the revolutionary fervour of the 1970s. Call it romantic, belittle it. It’s as if we don’t want to acknowledge that lots of people actually believed that the revolution and socialism were just around the corner. In words, at least, Oscar and Gloria, like so many others, flirted with the potential of violence, but I’m sure they didn’t follow up words with action. They looked up to the heroes of the time, such as Mao and Ho Chi Minh. When the atrocities of the Chinese Cultural Revolution began to become apparent, Gloria was disappointed and genuinely shocked, but Oscar was less troubled. Their more radical political beliefs gradually disappeared, replaced by concern for things closer to them. But once they had been as devout as Jesuit priests. We didn’t talk about the past much. In a way that was the most remarkable thing about our youthful conviction. Now it was as if it and the Berlin Wall had never existed. That Marx, Engels, the Soviet Union and the GDR had become mirages in the twilight of the 20th century.

We began earning money and that has a way of changing people. We weren’t alike, but we liked the same music, the same films and the same books, and we were hardly puritans. We thought that life was
there to be lived. I had lived too hard, but Amelia had helped me put that behind me, even though the craving would never disappear.

We no longer thought about revolution.

Oscar was a very big man, but he kept himself trim. He had a bit of a belly, but it wasn’t too pronounced, his broad shoulders were imposing and counterbalanced the bulk of his girth. He had a broad face, clean-shaven now, and peculiarly small, brown eyes. He was always elegantly and nonchalantly dressed in tailor-made suits with silk shirts, but no tie. He had a ready, loud and infectious laugh and a poised, confident gait, which announced that he was a successful man. He dominated a gathering and could charm most people. He was a born salesman and had the ability to sell in such a way that the customer felt honoured to be allowed to do business with him. He loved selling. He was essentially a manipulator of people. And, like all great seducers, his moral code was a little dubious. I was glad he was my friend and not my enemy.

We went up to the studio and I showed him the photographs. I had made ten colour and ten black and white prints. It was a nice short story in pictures. The speedboat appears in the cove, they bathe naked, maybe they make love in the water, they lie down together on the beach, the Minister sucks the girl’s toes. The last photograph was the best, but their faces were easiest to see in the shot of them on the speedboat. The Minister leans over his lover. His face is perfectly in focus and his eyes gaze down at her naked breasts. She’s moistening her lips with her tongue. I had managed to get so close that I hadn’t needed the big telephoto lens, which makes for grainy photographs. The details were clean and sharp, as if I had been invited along on their excursion. I had selected the ten prints knowing that most of the world’s celebrity magazines or newspapers would be able to use at least one of them, depending on where each nation and its press featured on the piety scale, what was acceptable practice. As he was
a politician, even the broadsheets were bound to use a photograph in articles on the political implications. This would give them a pretext for showing naked breasts, but it would have to be one of the less erotic shots. Just for the hell of it, I had made a single print of their intercourse on the beach, but it was, as I had anticipated, far too pornographic and Oscar didn’t give it a second glance. He knew there wasn’t any money in it.

“Nice work, Peter,” was all he said as he slowly and carefully looked through the series again. I could almost hear his brain calculating which customers should have which photograph.

Oscar, Gloria and I were partners in the agency, which we had named OSPE NEWS. My name had never appeared under a single one of the exposés and other paparazzo photographs that I had taken over the years. I was unknown beyond my professional circle, but a photograph copyrighted to OSPE NEWS featured practically every day in a magazine or a newspaper somewhere in the world. And the money came rolling in. Even my famous photograph of Jacqueline Kennedy was still selling. We had branches in London and Paris and supplied many other photographs, not just of the famous. The agency represented conventional photojournalists, and one of our photographers had won awards for his coverage of the war in the former Yugoslavia, and we also had some excellent sports photographers on our books, but the really serious money came from photographs of famous people in private situations.

Oscar took the photographs and sat down at the white table in the middle of the spacious room where I drank coffee with business associates, or with the clients who sat for me when I was engaged on the other side of my trade. I took portraits of the famous, who paid me a fortune, or of faces which suddenly caught my interest on the street, in a café or a waiting room. I did those free of charge. My own name appeared on the portraits.

Oscar looked at me. “They’re worth even more than you think,” he said.

“He hasn’t been a Minister for long enough to be particularly well known outside Spain,” I said.

Oscar smiled his wolf’s smile. “Peter, old boy. It’s written all over your face. You don’t know who she is!”

I waited. Oscar read celebrity magazines in 17 languages. Not because he was an inveterate voyeur, but because it was part of his job. He studied the international jet set with the same sensitive barometer that a skilful speculator uses to study stocks and shares, balance sheets and foreign news. To be at the cutting edge, to keep one step ahead of the market, the new God of our times. To keep abreast of who was hot right now, in the limelight and thus vulnerable and marketable.

“Italy,” was all he said.

I picked up one of the photographs. The attractive, smooth face was just like any other pretty young female face, but then again not quite, because it rang a bell. The pouting mouth and the large, slightly slanting eyes. I tried to imagine her wearing make-up. Make-up can change a face so radically that it’s almost unrecognisable, but before I could place her, Oscar told me who she was.

“It’s Arianna Fallacia. It has to be her.”

I looked at the photograph. It was true. She had just missed out on an award at the Cannes Festival. She was a hot newcomer in Italian film. That in itself wouldn’t be enough to make her a household name in Italy or anywhere else, but before she’d started in films she’d been a scantily-clad hostess on one of Italian television’s idiotic game shows – and that made her most definitely profitable.

“You’re right,” I said. “Where the hell would they have met each other?”

“The old lecher has interests in one of Berlusconi’s television
stations. Besides, he’s rolling in it. He’ll have seen her in a newspaper and sent his private plane to pick her up. Lovely girl. She’ll be even more famous now. It won’t do him any good, but her stock will rise once Lime’s photographs clear the front pages in Italy and Spain. Who do you think should have exclusive rights to break it first?”

“Do you want a beer or a coffee?” I said.

“Cola.”

I fetched two colas from the fridge and put them on the table. Oscar looked at me.

“What’s on your mind, Peter?”

“Maybe we should forget about it?”

“Could be a million or more. Undoubtedly more. You must have a pressing reason.”

“I have.”

I told him the story. He listened carefully. Oscar could flit about, be garrulous, superficially cheerful, but it was a façade he wore for the outside world. He was a sober businessman through and through, and he knew me well enough to respect that if I had misgivings there would be good reason. I had taken thousands of photographs in my life, and hundreds of photographs that people would prefer I hadn’t, so Oscar was well aware that it wouldn’t be moral scruples that led me to have misgivings.

“We’ll bring Gloria in on this one,” he said. “But I can’t see a problem. It’s a non-starter. It can’t be substantiated. You haven’t done anything wrong. They were in a public place. Your name won’t be mentioned. It’s always like that. And anyway, anyone who knows anything knows that often when OSPE runs really revealing photographs they’ve got the Lime signature, right?”

It was true, so I nodded.

“It’s just a hunch,” I said.

“I respect that. Gloria can snoop around a bit.”

“OK,” I said, but I had the feeling that we should leave it alone, although I had complete confidence in Gloria’s and Oscar’s ability to assess the situation. They knew all about the minefield, the borderline between the legal and the possible. They knew how to make the most of people’s instinct for gossip, but they also knew that if we broke the law our profits would soon be eaten up by lawyers’ fees. That’s simple arithmetic, as Gloria was wont to say.

“We’ll give it a couple of days,” said Oscar, and got up to use the telephone.

He rang Gloria. I heard him putting her in the picture. He was standing next to my desk and I saw him pick up the black and white photograph that had turned up from out of the past. He glanced at it and put it down again. We had known one another for so long that he wouldn’t think he was poking his nose in my business. Then he picked up the photograph again and stood holding it as, suddenly preoccupied, he responded to Gloria in his slow, heavily accented, but correct Spanish.

“Four o’clock?” he said at the end of their conversation.

I shook my head. I had an appointment with the Japanese. I needed it. I had that strange uneasiness in my body, tingling fingers, shivers down my spine, churning stomach, dry mouth. All the danger signs. I needed to get physically tired, and maybe I should think about going to a meeting again soon. I had hoped that it wouldn’t be necessary any longer.

“Peter can’t,” said Oscar. “What about now?” he suggested.

I shook my head again. Oscar was holding the photograph in both his hands, the receiver clamped under his chin. I had a sitting in half an hour, with a 56-year-old diva from the Royal Spanish Theatre who had decided to give her latest lover a portrait, which I had promised would make her look as enigmatically beautiful as the Mona Lisa.

“Six?” said Oscar. He looked at the back of the print before putting
it on the desk again. I nodded and he blew kisses down the telephone. They were a couple, those two. Either in love or living separate lives. He turned round so that his backside was resting on the table, and lit a cigarette.

“Who’s the mystery woman?” he said, pointing at the photograph.

“I’m not entirely sure.” Actually I was, but I couldn’t be bothered to explain. I wasn’t surprised that he asked. Oscar had been born nosy, which was one of the many reasons that he was so good at his job.

“What’s it doing here?”

I told him about the woman from the National Security Service in Copenhagen.

“Have you got the negatives then?” he asked.

“Why are you so interested in an old photograph? Do you know her?”

“No. But she’s beautiful. In an enigmatic, mysterious sort of way. As if she’s saying ‘I have many secrets. Only a strong man will be able to find the key to them. It’s difficult to unlock me, but if you do the reward will be considerable.’”

I laughed. It was typical of Oscar. That’s how he viewed women. He conquered them, discovered their secrets, and as soon as he thought he knew their bodies and souls, they began to bore him. Only the unpredictable, astute, sexy Gloria had held onto him long enough for a separation to be too inconvenient. Besides, he loved her in his own peculiar way, and periodically he would be madly in love with her, as if they had only just met and there were still secrets to be revealed. That usually happened when he had been away on business for a while.

“Have you?” he repeated.

I pointed at the fireproof steel cabinets along one wall.

“You know I never throw a negative out. They’ll be here somewhere or other. The photograph doesn’t ring any bells, but I dare say it’s around. Maybe up in the attic.”

“So you’re going to dig it out?”

I shrugged.

“It’s not at the top of my list,” I said.

“It’s a real Lime photograph,” he said. “It’s got everything: proportion, tension, mystery, disquiet, danger, joy. You were good right from the start.”

“Goodbye, Oscar,” I said.

He gathered up the photographs of the Minister and the Italian actress and put them in an envelope, patted my cheek and left.

I switched on my mobile phone. When I wasn’t out on an assignment I often let its answering machine act as my secretary. There was a message from Clara Hoffmann asking if I would ring her. I decided I wouldn’t just then. Instead I walked over to the steel cabinets and opened the first one. It contained a huge part of my life in small squares packed in grey, soft negative paper. The negatives were arranged by year. I had written the date and subject of the shots on each roll. There were thousands. I had travelled around a lot during my life, but had always been systematic about organising my photographs. Even during the most chaotic periods, when I had teetered on the brink of an abyss, I had kept my negatives in good order. It was as if I knew that once my pictures got into a mess there would be no going back and I would be dragged down into a pit, which would be impossible to climb out of. In the first few years, when I didn’t really have a permanent address, they were stored in cardboard boxes in the basement of my parents’ house. Later, when I moved into my first little flat, which was now the kitchen and family room of our large flat, the boxes came with me. The images which froze time in a thousandth of a second were now to be found in the steel cabinets, beautifully organised.