Caraliza Read online

  Caraliza fell asleep in the bed she shared, naked, with the brute for almost two years. She missed dreams, but for her, it seemed there was nothing left to dream.

  Hours into the oppressive night, the drain clogged in the street, and a putrid trickle found its way down the stairs, seeping under the basement door. When Caraliza noticed the smell, she hurried into her dress, and up the steps, out into the rain. She shivered as she felt at the drain in the familiar place and pulled a wad of paper and manure from the grate; she tossed it further down the street.

  The foul trickle down the stair stopped, and she came back through the slime, to mop up at the door. Standing at the kitchen sink, wringing her dress so she could wash it, she suddenly realized, she had nothing to wear the next day. Her other dress was not in the day's wash and was far worse than the one she just wore in the rain to clear the sewer.

  “Als je blieft laat de zon gaan schijnen morgen,” Please let there be sun tomorrow - she silently prayed again, “Als je blieft laat hem weggaan!” Please let him be gone

  Both washed dresses were hanging on the drying rack as she walked naked back in to the bed. Caraliza was hoping that moment, the rain would stop, it was just another of the torments she could barely endure.

  Yousep was closing the shop when the drunk came back to the basement stairs. Watching with a mixture of terror and curiosity, he wondered, could the dark brute be the girl’s father? She was fair under the grime; Yousep was sure. She was half the brute's size. She was too young it seemed to be married to the man. Yousep could not imagine her accepting a marriage, to a form like the one drunkenly trying to make it down into the basement.

  He desperately hoped marriage did not cause them to share the dark world he viewed from the shop window; however, it left only one other option, if the others were not true. He supposed it unthinkable she was prisoner, to the frightening man disappearing into the darkness beneath the stoop.

  She could only be his daughter; people divorced and remarried, she could be his daughter by marriage, though Yousep never knew any other person to descend those stairs or return from them. Yousep could not help desiring to know her name, but he was not stupid; he did not dare cross the street to that stair, even for desire.

  He quietly walked the half-mile to his parent’s home. Still misting a bit of rain, the weather made the walk unpleasantly wet after such a distance. On very bad days, he would take a carriage, but it was so expensive for his meager pocket; his parents needed the money he shared, and he was glad to give most of it, saving very little for himself. They adored him and lived in dread of the day he found his way free of the slums. He was their only child and he had a respectable job - if not very prosperous; with his help, they afforded their rent and good food.

  They would have worried, if they had known; a girl somehow stirred his youthful heart. From such things as love, harm could come. They would arrange his marriage one day, as was expected. That a young Jewish boy would constantly look across his shop street to stare after a girl? That was simply unthinkable.

  As he walked in the door, his mother greeted him from the kitchen.

  “We should have chicken for the Sabbath. Can you bring us a chicken?”

  It was Thursday, and Yousep expected to answer, “Yes, Muter,” each day until the Sabbath. He took his place at the table, eager for the fish and greens she prepared for his supper. His father smiled and asked if he sold a camera today.

  “No, Pape. I developed the plates for Mrs. Hollsworth.”

  “Perhaps tomorrow, you will sell a camera?” his father replied.

  Such was their discussion every night, until dinner was done. He rarely answered ‘yes’ to selling a camera.

  Yousep rarely found the chance to make camera sales, only about four other times had he done such a thing. He knew the devices well; he heard Papa Reisman explain them so many times to customers in the shop. One thing he knew very well, it was important to ask the type of photography the customer expected the camera to produce. He should not sell a portrait camera for landscaping or casuals. It would be bad for the shop's reputation to have an unsatisfied customer.

  His father sat reading the paper, repeating the news of the troubles in Europe; but it was home - they loved it and still felt pain at the strife others endured there. His parents were Polish Jews, who fled the political unrest and persecution in that country. They learned English, quickly, upon arriving in New York City. Something other immigrants struggled to do.

  Yousep was determined to speak well.

  He only spoke English now, to his parents’ amusement; they continued to speak Yiddish at home to him. They agreed, they must be Americans now, but God preferred Yiddish, they would say as they smiled.

  The meal finished and the news shared, they would say a prayer and his father would start a lesson while his mother cleaned the kitchen. Yousep grew increasingly distracted by the sound of the continuing rain outside the window. His father said he hoped it would rain all night.

  On the way to work the next morning, he happened upon a carriage load of college graduate students. They were frolicking on the carriage, taking impossible poses for the distracted photographer on the walk beside them. Nearly ten handsome young men pestered their fellow on the walk to get about his business and produce their photo, before the passing clouds hid the morning sun. They were causing nearly more commotion than the poor carriage could bear.

  Yousep noticed the photographer was no novice; he had a second camera at his foot, an extravagance to be sure. Suddenly as the fellow shifted to adjust his tripod, he lost his footing. In his tumble to the walk, he fell against the extra camera and hurt himself. That would have been terrible enough an event in itself, however, the pain caused him to lash out his leg and his mounted camera was suddenly at Yousep's feet, the lens shattered and the plate ruined in the slide.

  The outcry in the carriage was shocking. They laughed.

  The poor hapless fellow had ruined an instrument worth nearly six months of Yousep's pay, and likely damaged himself to no small extent. Yousep mourned for the broken camera and said the first thing that came to mind.

  “I don't like the looks of that lens now, but the slide is not badly harmed. We could change those lenses with a bit of patience. I bet we could fix it.”

  The fellow on the walk was sitting up and trying to reach the bruise on his back. He looked up at Yousep with an odd expression.

  “How would you know anything about that Waterbury?”

  Yousep decided the fellow was not being rude, but merely in pain from the accident.

  “We sell that model, and last year’s Putnam Plate camera in our shop, just three streets over. Those use the same lens, and we have those as well. I think I know on which shelf to find them right off.”

  The fellows in the straining carriage scrutinized him, and one of them yelled that perhaps Yousep should catch the photograph himself, with the undamaged camera at his feet. The photographer on the ground shrugged his shoulders and waved his approval.

  It was quite a notion - the shop boy taking over as the photographer, but Yousep quickly changed the damaged instrument off the tripod, and within moments, he was focusing on the overloaded carriage. The photographer on the ground was impressed with the skill and care which Yousep displayed, and was about to compliment the young fellow when Yousep turned to him with a wink.

  “Never send a boy to do a man's job!” he smiled.

  The carriage crew erupted into gales of laughter and merriment, caught completely off-guard. He tripped the shutter, and stood back smiling with satisfaction.

  “That will do them nicely, Sir.”

  Everyone watching was staggered. The injured photographer on the ground extended his hand to Yousep and smiled a tremendous smile.

  “I could never have caught a better pose! It is impossible just getting them all still. Who the hell are you?”

  “Yousep, Sir. Our shop…where I work, it is just three streets over. Reisman Portraits. Please s
top by if convenient. We can help you with this, and it might save you the camera.”

  “Tell you what, Yousep…that's Jewish, right? Well, tell you what, if this photograph is as good as I think it should be, I'll come by tomorrow right after class.”

  He clapped his hand around Yousep’s shoulder and said with admiration in front of the carriaged louts, “Who would have thought it would take two men to catch an image of a team of little girls?”

  Again, there was more activity in the carriage than it could hardly bear.

  Yousep walked hurriedly to the shop, as he was probably late, and surprisingly, found himself suddenly on the basement side of the street, across from his shop, and halted his stride, petrified. He stood at the stoop wondering how he had forgotten to cross again.

  Looking into the gloom under the stoop, he wished the mysterious girl would appear. Yet, he was so terrified the brute would come up those steps; he rushed almost headlong into a wagon before he came to his senses. He was still trembling at the shop door when Papa Reisman let him inside, wondering why Yousep should be cold on a perfectly beautiful May morning.

  A delivery wagon occupied the curb outside the shop, and filled the window the entire morning. When the horses were each led away and the wagon remained, Yousep was glad of it. Eventually it was loaded, and when it finally went on its way Yousep shuddered, remembering with shame the terror he felt at the top of the basement stair.

  He felt as he had, standing as a child, with his father at the open casket of his grandfather. He was afraid to stand next to the box, he could not see in but he knew the body was someone he loved, someone who could not hold him now.

  The body lying in the box was a dread thing; he did not want to see it. He tore away in panic when his father reached to lift him at the casket side. He dreamed it would speak to him, not as a living thing, but as something appalling, for many months after. The stair across from the shop held something as dreadful as the casket in his nightmares, and, more horrible to him, it also held something he felt a growing longing to know.

  So distracted, Yousep dropped an unexposed glass pane he was coating in the darkroom. Papa Reisman rushed in distress to the closet and asked if it were a portrait glass that had been ruined. Papa’s relieved exclamation was still awful for Yousep to bear. He would pay for the glass, and no customer would be lost for the want of an attentive clerk, but his day continued, shrouded in fear and shame, and the window did not lure him at all.

  Still, he was missed.

  Caraliza stole a moment at the basement door, after the brute had gone out to seek his day’s work. When a boy rushed to a teetering halt on the walk moments later, and seemed about to burst headlong into the stair, she pushed the door shut to a slit, more startled than he. She could see only the boy’s feet now, his shoes beneath his hemmed trousers. When he turned and disappeared, she waited several breaths, before daring to venture out of the door again.

  So sure he nearly came to her door, she crept only to the level of the walk behind the rail, and looked in the direction the boy had turned. The only boy within view stood across the street; beautiful small boxes of wood and brass in the window of the shop behind him. She knew they were cameras, she remembered seeing them used as a child. That boy wore the shoes she had noticed above the stair. She looked again at them to be sure.

  She looked at his face and was suddenly drawn to him because of it. He was let into the shop and the window stared out to the empty walk again. She looked to see him in the window because of what she saw on his face. She recognized his terror, and understood it.

  Caraliza would look to see him again, each time she dared go out into the air.

  The next day brought some luck to Yousep he did not know he had. The carriage photographer was outside the window, looking at the cameras in the display. Polished and warm, they showed the care Papa Reisman gave them each day; none looked as though they indeed waited perhaps even a year to be held and discussed.

  Yousep was needed in the closet for some waiting plates, and could not say hello. He entirely forgot to mention the broken camera to Papa and now regretted it. So very anxious to chat, and perhaps get a chance to repair the broken lens, he closed the closet door reluctantly, but strained as he worked, to hear what discussions might transpire; he heard nothing.

  Disappointed that perhaps the photographer had not been pleased with the displays in the window, he turned back to his waiting plates, and resigned himself to the work. Nearly finished, a gentle rap at the closet door surprised him.

  “Yousep? Did you speak with a photographer yesterday about a broken lens?”

  His heart raced and he eagerly answered, he had.

  “Please come out when you have dried the plates. He wishes to speak to you again.”

  It was more unexpected than the strange chance to make the photograph at the carriage! With a customer waiting, Papa Reisman would be cross if Yousep took longer than was polite, so he dried each plate carefully, and placed them between the heavy papers and into their box.

  Papa was smiling broadly, the photographer at his elbow, when Yousep crept out. The broken camera was, sadly, nowhere to be seen. Quizzically, Yousep offered his hand to make a very polite introduction. The photographer, Martin Bryant, took his offered hand and shook it warmly.

  “Your photograph was superb, Yousep!” he said with a clap to the boy’s shoulder. “A single exposed plate, and perfectly done! I wanted to thank you. You saved more than just a camera with that chance encounter.”

  Menashe Reisman raised an eyebrow and beamed at his clerk.

  “Did you bring the Waterbury, Sir? I should really like the chance to put it right for you. They are excellent instruments and it would be a shame for you to lose it.”

  “It is already lost to me young fellow,” Martin replied. He noticed the disappointed look in Yousep’s face. “Wouldn’t you rather make a sale of a new one?”

  The boy looked timidly at his employer and made a bold statement for a shop clerk who needed to sell cameras; he was about to discourage a good purchase.

  “I truly regret the loss of such an expensive camera, wanting only for new lens. I would not assume your money was so easily spent, Sir,” he was quite afraid to look up at his employer, and was surprised when Papa chuckled at him and walked away.

  “Today is a good day for us both, Mr. Yousep the Clerk,” Martin boasted. “I have need of another camera, whether the Waterbury is ruined or not. And -,” he said with a flourish, “-I have five fellows in my photographers class at University who will need instruments as well!”

  He stuck out his hands and gathered Yousep’s into his, shaking it with some vigor. The clerk just stared in disbelief. Hoping to sell a single camera was bold enough; selling five other cameras because of it? He was incredulous! Menashe Reisman rejoined the two again, with a package wrapped and tied, which he handed to Martin with a wink.

  “This Kodak Autographic is a fine pocket camera. We stock the films and will soon do the developing as well. For your beginners, such a camera would do nicely. Beginners can be so clumsy with plates.”

  “Don’t I know that? Our darkroom lessons are often a disaster. Shards of ruined glass fly everywhere!” Martin said with a knowing smile. “But, Sir, this is a portrait shop, are you the portrait master? Where is your studio?” Mr. Reisman nodded, and gently shook his head immediately after.

  “We were a portrait shop. When we lost the beautiful morning sun in our windows-,” he indicated towards the wall behind them; windows looking into a dark, brooding brick wall across the narrow alley outside, “-we were unable to make the room bright enough for good sittings. The studio is this way if you care to visit?”

  Martin and Papa Reisman wandered back to the corner doorway behind the counter, and Yousep stood watching them, wondering what became of the Waterbury.

  He was busy dusting the display cameras, and adjusting to fill the spot the little Kodak once occupied, when the two men returned, chatting excitedly,
grasping hands. Martin walked to the clerk, shook his hand again for a warm goodbye, and promised to return the next afternoon with the student photographers in tow. Martin was walking passed the shop window with a smile, when Yousep saw the girl looking at him, from just below the rail on the basement stair.

  It sent a shiver into his back and he suddenly felt either very hot, or very cold, but he silently rejoiced.

  “Yousep! Lad, my very fine lad! Come here boy, come here!”

  Papa was bouncing on his toes behind the counter, too anxious to stand still. Yousep stopped his cleaning and hurried to hear what might have put his employer in such high spirits.

  “Outstanding work dear boy! That very young gentleman is actually the graduate assistant to the Professor of Photography at the University. They indeed have students who must purchase cameras to join the studies! He is going to instruct them to each purchase a different model, so they may learn the use of them all!” Papa beamed. “He is bringing them here directly, all at great thanks to you and your talents!”

  Yousep smiled, and hoped it was not too prideful to do so.

  Still, his employer had another surprise waiting.

  “They are in need of good portrait instructions and have invited me to discuss my possible use for those lessons. I am to visit this very afternoon, and see how I might be of help.”

  He stood next to Yousep, repeatedly clapping and holding the boys shoulders as he spoke, but he turned and stepped behind the counter curtain to the back shelves, continuing to explain as he disappeared.

  “Our good Mr. Bryant has a gift for you, Yousep!”

  He returned, with the injured Waterbury, held in his hand like a great prize. Only slightly chipped on the side of the case, its lens sleeve was dented on the edge; the plate slide looked crippled and useless.