The Woman in the Photograph (17 page)

Theodore Miller's train was due in from Stockholm at noon; after a business trip to Sweden, he'd been keen to tack on a visit to see his only daughter. Lee bustled Man into the car an hour early. “We can't be late,” she kept repeating. Man dodged trolley cars and automobiles, street sweepers and school children—nearly hitting a chubby man who'd lost his hat in a roundabout—over the Seine to the Right Bank, past the busy hub of Les Halles, to the Gare du Nord. They arrived with thirty minutes to spare and went to wait under the glass-and-iron latticework. Pacing the platform nervously, Man fumbled with his cigarette holder, then his lighter. Lee took it from his hand and lit both their cigarettes.

“Christ, Man, you act like he's bringing his shotgun with him. ‘Make an honest woman of my daughter or else!' ” She said in a hillbilly voice, raising her fist. “Really, my father's not like that at all.”

“I guess I don't know what to expect. All I really know about your dad is that he's an engineer who likes photography.” He took a sidelong glance at her, undoubtedly thinking of her father-daughter photo sessions. “You never talk about your family. Or your childhood.”

Lee raised an eyebrow. Man was hardly forthcoming about his life before Paris. In the year they'd been together, he'd only let slip a few details: his father was a tailor, he had a couple of sisters, his full name was Emmanuel, he'd been married. During the course of their relationship, she was sure she'd revealed more about her former life—always convinced, however, that some things were better left unsaid.

“All right, then,” Lee said with a decisive nod. “I'll begin at the beginning. My parents met at the hospital. My father had typhoid, my mother was a nurse. They married and had three children: first John, then me, then Erik. We all lived together on a huge farm called Cedar Hill. Now, doesn't that paint you a charming picture?”

“Sounds absolutely idyllic.”

“Ah, but wait.” Lee held up her hand with the melodrama of a silent-picture star. “My parents are progressive sorts—modern-day eccentrics, if you will—that have shocked the town of Poughkeepsie with their outlandish ideas. Birth control, atheism, colonic irrigations, electric blankets . . . Why, the gentle townsfolk didn't know what to think when my dad brought long, flat runners back from Sweden and began gliding over the snow with them.”

She chuckled with Man over these more endearing aspects of their quirky domestic life, but didn't mention the darker ones. For years, she'd overheard her parents' arguments, most having to do with her father's many affairs. Elizabeth, who had never been close to her mother—a dowdy, stern, envious woman—had understood her father's desires to have liaisons, to be with women who were warmer or more fun. Then, when
she was seventeen, her mother had a nervous breakdown. Theodore, ever practical, tried to solve the problem by giving his wife a new Ford. The next morning, after making breakfast for the family, she locked herself in her new car and turned on the engine, breathing in fumes and waiting to die. Theodore broke down the garage door and pulled her into the open air in time to save her, but that turn of events had given Elizabeth pause. It was perhaps the first time in her young life that she'd realized that other people had strong feelings, that other people suffered. It didn't, however, improve her relationship with her mother.

“What about your brothers?”

“Well,” Lee began, finding her carefree voice again. “John's my mother's little darling. When he was little, she dressed him in lace gowns and bonnets and let his hair grow long. And now, as a grown man, he's mad about flying machines and has become an aviator—hell, he even knows Lindbergh!—but he still likes dressing in women's clothes.”

Man nearly choked on a puff of smoke. “I guess you two have that in common.”

“Oh, he probably has nicer things than I do,” Lee said. “And then there's Erik, my little brother. He once told me that he was glad that each of our parents had picked a favorite before he was born. They left him alone.”

“So that makes you your father's favorite.”

“That's right.” She nodded. In fact, from the time she was born, her moods, desires, and tantrums had dominated the family home; when Florence lost patience with her, Theodore took his daughter's side. After her harrowing experience in
Brooklyn, while her mother probed and scrubbed, her father spoiled her, trying to give her back her confidence, her sense of entitlement. “But he's my favorite, too. He's always stood behind me, no matter what.”

Man took hold of her waist and pressed himself against her backside. “I'll stand behind you,” he whispered in her ear.

“Very funny,” she said, unraveling his hands and stepping away. Would Man be jealous of her father, too? A train sputtered into the station, whistling through steam; Lee looked at her watch and her face lit up. It was time. “This must be it.”

They watched the people sail past them, tall women with trunk-laden porters struggling behind them, aging blond men speaking German or Dutch, bewildered English families spending their first summer on the Continent. Lee scanned the crowd for her father with an eager smile. She finally found him down the platform—a slim, balding man, with round glasses and a high collar—and began to wave.

“That's him!”

“The one who looks like a strict schoolmaster?” asked Man, his jaw clenching.

“What were you expecting? A bohemian businessman? A foppish engineer?”

When Theodore caught his daughter's eye, his thin lips broke into a grin. He rushed through the crowd and wrapped her in his arms. “Princess!” She breathed in his scent, Ivory soap and hair oil, and felt like a little girl.

“And this must be Man Ray.” Theodore kept one arm around his daughter but held out the other to her lover; he stood opposite them, far shorter and darker than the Millers,
and managed a fidgety smile. While they shook hands, Lee watched her father inspect Man's face with his piercing blue eyes. “I'm an admirer of your work.”

“Lee tells me you're a photographer as well,” Man said. “You're welcome to use my darkroom while you're here, sir.”

“It would be an honor.” Theodore nodded, approval already registering on his face.

“Let's get you settled in at the hotel and then have some lunch at Man's studio,” said Lee. “Tanja will join us later. She's modeling at
Vogue
today.”

Theodore smiled. “Sounds perfect.”

At the studio, while Lee made coffee and sandwiches, her father browsed the artwork on the walls, the objects carefully arranged on the tables. She heard him complimenting Man on the quality of the prints (and the models) and express special interest in the rayograms. Man was explaining how they were made—the tension of meeting Theodore had rolled off his shoulders back at the station—when Lee came in with a tray.

“You know, Elizabeth, I think your friend here would have made a brilliant engineer. Everywhere I look,” he began, gesturing at Man's bricolage: the chess set he'd made from wood scraps, the makeshift minuscule cities towering on side tables, the wires, celluloid, and tools in his rayograms, “I see the work of a mechanical mind.”

“That is high praise indeed, coming from you.” Lee smiled at her father and gave Man's hand a squeeze. She broke off the end of her baguette, then asked, “So, tell me. How're things in P'ok?”

Theodore chuckled at his daughter. “Ol' Poughkeepsie hasn't
changed much. Of course, the Crash took some people by surprise. There's a soup kitchen downtown now, lots of men out of work. But our plant hasn't been affected. Everything's fine there.” He wiped his hands on a napkin and pulled a thin envelope out of his breast pocket. “I haven't taken many photos since you've been away. Elizabeth here has always been my favorite subject,” he said to Man, who nodded in agreement, “but I've taken a few.”

Lee and Man huddled together to look at the snapshots. The first ones were of the farm—the large two-story house, the pond, the pastures. “I thought you'd like to see some pictures of home.” He turned to Man. “We've got about a hundred and seventy-five acres of mixed terrain. Fields, woods, a fine stream. You should have seen our little tomboy Li-Li, climbing trees, fishing, skating on the pond, sledding. We could barely keep her in the house!”

Lee smiled down at the pictures. She'd loved growing up on the farm. That is, until she'd hit puberty, when country life suddenly became excruciatingly boring, and she'd yearned for new distractions and urban entertainments.

There was a shot of her brothers—good-looking, dark-haired young men—posing in front of an aircraft. “Erik is helping John fix that plane. It was wrecked in a flying circus.” In the next, her father kneeled beside a dead stag. “Erik took that one. Hunting season was excellent this year.” He sighed in satisfaction, then turned to the last one. “And here's your mother. She's well as ever,” he said with a trace of indifference.

Emotionless, Lee gazed at the woman in the photo, her wide, doughy face, her double chin, her cold smile. She nodded—“Glad to hear it”—then looked up at her father. He
gave her a doting look. All the things her father loved about her drove her mother to distraction. Florence had always wanted her to be ladylike, demure, someone else. She looked back at the family photos. Lee looked like none of them, not her parents or her brothers. She had no idea what strange alchemy had created her looks.

Theodore put the photos back in the envelope—“These are for you, princess”—then began to ask questions about Paris life, Man's jazz records, the pieces around the room. Lee watched the two men—her father and her lover—caught up in animated conversation. She was pleased to see them getting along so well, but couldn't help but feel a bit left out. She wasn't used to sharing her father's attention.

When their conversation finally began to wind down, Lee pulled out some prints and held them facedown on her lap. Theodore, politely deferring to his host on all subjects photographic, was acting like Man Ray was the only photographer in the room.

“Daddy, I've got some photos to show you, too. You know I've been modeling here, but I've also been doing a lot of work as a photographer. Man and I have spent hours in the darkroom together.” Lee looked over at Man, whose lips were quivering in an attempt not to smirk. “And now I'm taking pictures for
Vogue
as well.”

Excited about sharing her work with her father, her first mentor, she started off slowly, conventionally. Models in fashionable gowns, fragrance bottles reflected on a mirror. Then she took out her odder pieces inspired by the Surrealists' aesthetic: rats lined up on a wall, their tails hanging down; angry
painted cows, trapped on a carousel; Tanja's face in the bell jar. Whatever the subject, he looked at them closely, marveling at the quality, at the fineness of the work.

“I must say, you're better now than your old man.” With a warm smile, he patted her leg, then looked over at Man. “When she was a girl, I gave her a box Brownie. Even then, I was impressed with some of her photos: close-ups of the donkey, her friend Minnow covered in clover. She loved to watch me develop prints in the darkroom—she thought it was magic, that I was a wizard. But now the student has surpassed the master. As it should be.”

“Someday she may even surpass me,” Man said. He also gave her a proud, paternal smile. “I've never had an assistant who learned so quickly.”

Glowing with their praise, she brought out the last few: three solarized portraits, each one more dramatic than the last.

“What's this?” Theodore stared down at the backward tones, the dramatic outlines. “It's completely new.”

Both began talking about solarization at once; Lee about the accidental discovery—“It was all thanks to a rat!”—and Man the painstaking technique he had developed. They laughed excitedly, interrupting each other to add details.

“Really, I don't know who did what,” said Lee finally, looking at Man with affection.

“It's magnificent. One of you will have to show me how it's done,” Theodore said. “Elizabeth, are you up for some time in the darkroom today?”

“Actually, I have a sitter coming this afternoon. I would have canceled, but it's royalty.” She gave them a humble shrug. “It's the Maharani of Cooch Behar. She's lovely, always decked
out in beautiful saris, silks, and jewels. She's the regent and a mother of five, but here she is in Paris, escaping it all.”

“Lee's been getting a lot of calls for sittings since le Bal Blanc. I don't know what gave them the idea she was a photographer,” Man said drily. He turned to Theodore. “I'll be happy to show you the technique in the darkroom. Then tonight, when Lee and Tanja are free, we can all go to la Coupole. And after dinner, why don't we go hear Kiki sing?”

“Wonderful!” Theodore nodded energetically.

Lee breathed out in annoyance.

•  •  •

Toward the end of the week, after a Seine river cruise, a trip to Versailles, and an inspection of the Paris sewers, Theodore Miller was itching to take some art photographs.

“Girls?” he began, fiddling with his camera and eyeing Lee and Tanja.

They were still in their pajamas, reading the newspaper in the double bed they shared. In fact, neither of them had gotten up yet; Man had brought them coffee and croissants on a tray. They looked up at Theodore at the same time.

“I was wondering if you two could model for me today. I'd like to take some compositions like the ones we made in Poughkeepsie. You remember?” He turned to Man Ray. “I find nude studies of two or three women
together
most preferable. The overcrossing limbs, the entangled hair. Using one body as a background for another's close-up. Such artistic possibilities . . .”