Serafim and Claire (34 page)

Medium:
Gelatin silver print

Description:
Woman standing at a sink

Location:
Montreal, Quebec

Date:
1933

A woman, wearing a simple and modest dress, stands before the sink in a small kitchen. Her hands are wet. One of them is reaching slightly behind her, clasped onto the porcelain lip of the basin, near a wooden cutting board that balances pieces of a carrot, unevenly sliced. The other hand she doesn't quite seem to know what to do with (likely on account of its glistening with water) and so is holding it at her sternum, as if for the interim, where it cups its own shadow.

She is smiling, the few lines drawn onto the left side of her mouth, in the shape of brackets, parenthesizing an intimacy she has with the person holding the camera. Her hair, dense and dark, falls in loose curls to just below her shoulders. The right side of these tresses is rimmed with light, which draws the eye up and into the background, where a small window hovers.

The window is overexposed, though the coarse grain of its brightness suggests that the pane of glass is somewhat dirty. Despite this, the sliver of a cathedral shaft filters through, folding into the leaves of a potted plant on the sill. There, luminescence, balling up like melted glass, drips from the sill into the washbasin, a soldering flare. This light lands just behind her, fanning out and settling into depressions and corners, as soundless as embers. And as incandescent.

The research required
to write historical fiction puts one in touch with remarkable people, and I owe immense gratitude to many of them, for their time and their passion. Though I wish to begin with two people in particular: Maria Teresa Veloso Alves Rocha Resende de Almeida was an Oporto archivist who went to great lengths to ensure I understood the complexity of her city as it was in the 1920s, which included exposing me to different sights, neighbourhoods, archives, and restaurants while in Oporto. And Armida Spada-McDougall gave me treasured information on her father, Antonino Spada, who was at first just another vivid detail of the era that kept cropping up in my research, but who soon became nothing short of a hero figure in my mind. At some point, I decided to incorporate his real character, and many of his actual stories and struggles, into this work of fiction. The information that his daughter provided to this end was invaluable.

I received guidance concerning the openings and closings of the letters, as well as ideas on names and other historical facts, from Jean-François Millette, Genevieve Côté, Sophie Wertheimer, Inês Lopes, and Salvador Maria Simões de Carvalho. Isabelle Perreault provided insight into the early years of the Quebec feminist movement. Joyce Gilmour generously gave her time to proofreading an early draft. And a place to live and write most of the book was provided by Julian and Anne Whitlock in Brittany, and Patrick Andrivet and Kathy Coit in Paris.

Archivists who went above and beyond to help out with information were:

Marie-Josée Lecours at the Bibliothèque de la Danse.

Theresa Rowat, who also helped with dance history in Montreal.

Lyne Champagne at the City of Westmount.

Nicol Huber at the Musée des Hospitalières de l'Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal.

Jean-François Courtemanche for incredibly detailed information on the Laurier Palace Theatre fire and other firefighting realities of the day.

Marielle Lavertu and Audrey Saint-Jean, who helped me find early street photographs from the massive collection of photos at the Bibliothèque et Archives Nationales du Québec.

Paula Alexandra Lages de Oliveira and Rosa Maria Teixeira at the Biblioteca Pública Municipal do Porto.

And Helena Parente at the Centro Português de Fotografia.

Of the heap of books I read, scanned, and photocopied, three stand out as exceptionally important:

Bystander, a History of Street Photography
, by Colin Westerbeck and Joel Meyerowitz (Bulfinch, 1994)

Montréal de vive mémoire, 1900–1939
, by Marcelle Brisson and Suzanne Côté-Gauthier (Triptyque, 1997)

Fascism and the Italians of Montreal, an Oral History: 1922–1945
, by Filippo Salvatore (Guernica, 1998)

Of the fourteen theses I read, three were both instrumental and an absolute joy to read, namely Master's work by Karen Herland, Marc Charpentier and Tamara Myers.

Thanks also to the wonderful editors Jared Bland and Janice Zawerbny, who I am convinced loved and understood these characters as much as I did; and to Sarah MacLachlan and all the immensely talented folks at Anansi.

And thanks, finally, to Lauren, for listening so carefully.

Mark Lavorato is
the author of two novels,
Veracity
and
Believing
Cedric
, and a collection of poems,
Wayworn Wooden Floors
, which was a finalist for the Raymond Souster Award. He lives in Montreal, Quebec.

House of Anansi
Press was founded in 1967 with a mandate to publish Canadian-authored books, a mandate that continues to this day even as the list has branched out to include internationally acclaimed thinkers and writers. The press immediately gained attention for significant titles by notable writers such as Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, George Grant, and Northrop Frye. Since then, Anansi's commitment to finding, publishing and promoting challenging, excellent writing has won it tremendous acclaim and solid staying power. Today Anansi is Canada's pre-eminent independent press, and home to nationally and internationally bestselling and acclaimed authors such as Gil Adamson, Margaret Atwood, Ken Babstock, Peter Behrens, Rawi Hage, Misha Glenny, Jim Harrison, A. L. Kennedy, Pasha Malla, Lisa Moore, A. F. Moritz, Eric Siblin, Karen Solie, and Ronald Wright. Anansi is also proud to publish the award-winning nonfiction series The CBC Massey Lectures. In 2007, 2009, 2010, and 2011 Anansi was honoured by the Canadian Booksellers Association as “Publisher of the Year.”