Writers of the Future, Volume 28 (10 page)

The Paradise Aperture

I
eyed the door with distrust. The
shocking blue was brighter than I usually photographed, but maybe that was where
I’d been going wrong. Marie had always loved vibrant colors. If she was behind
any door, it would be one like this.

Two years ago, I’d barely left the Midwest, let alone the country.
Yet here I was, halfway across the world, standing in the long-dead garden of an
abandoned house in Tunisia.

The town of Sidi Bou Said spread along the sparkling Mediterranean
below, stark white buildings accented in bold strokes of blue. Once I would have
been entranced by the breathtaking vista. Now it just looked tired and
dusty.

I turned back to the door. Set in white stone and arched at the top,
it had been intricately inked in swirling black dots reminiscent of henna. I
rested my hand on the rough wood and closed my eyes. It didn’t feel any
different than a normal door, but then, they never did.

I shook my head, halting my admiration. I couldn’t be sidetracked.
The mystical blue doors had drawn me here, but ultimately they were just a means
to an end.

“We waitin’ for something, Jonny
?
”

The voice belonged to my daughter, Irene. One hand on her hip, she
watched me with a tapping foot, occasionally blowing swooped bangs from her
eyes. She had Marie’s hair, a fire-engine red that looked fake but wasn’t.
Unlike her mother, Irene kept it short—like her temper.

“The sun needs to be at the right angle,” I said patiently, wishing
again she wouldn’t call me Jonny. Usually I ignored her when she called me by my
first name, but if I did that all the time, we’d never talk. The girl sure could
be persistent.

“How the hell do you know that
?
”

I laughed. If she only knew the dozens of letters I got every day
asking that same question. I guess you might say it was a gift, but too often,
it felt like a curse.

“For one thing, I watch my language,” I said.

“Seriously.”

“Gut feeling,” I said, shrugging. “I just know.”

Irene wrinkled her nose and folded her arms across her chest, but
said nothing. She played tough, but I knew the tribal tattoo down her left arm
was a five-year temp and that she hated the onyx stud in her nose more than she
hated her ex-boyfriend.

A cool breeze rose off the bay, stealing a moment of heat and
bringing sounds of the festival from the streets down the way. Ankle-deep in
twisted weeds, I wiped sweat from my forehead and forced a clearing for the
tripod.

“Hand me the Deltex,” I said.

Irene stared at me blankly.

“The gray camera case.”

With the gracelessness of inattentive youth, she fumbled with the
case slung behind her back, unzipping it with one hand and peeling out the
camera. I fought the urge to cringe, even when she tossed the camera instead of
walking the two steps to hand it to me. Five thousand dollars of hardware
whirled through the air, but it wasn’t the first time this had happened. I
caught it easily.

“What have we said about throwing things
?
”

“Easy, Pops. You caught it fine. What’s the big deal
?
”

Honestly, with money no longer an issue and three backups over her
shoulder, it wasn’t a big deal. Not in the mood for a fight, I almost let it go.
Almost.

“The big deal,” I said, very calmly, “is you need to learn respect
for people’s things.”

“Not like you can’t just—”

“It doesn’t matter how many cameras I can afford,” I said,
anticipating her biggest argument. “It’s a matter of principle.”

“Principles suck.”

I grinned. “That’s a matter of opinion.”

She stuck out her tongue, but didn’t argue back. She knew I was
right and, with Irene, that was as good as a victory.

I squinted up at the sun, a searing white orb in the empty sky. It
still didn’t feel right, but I set up the camera anyway, careful to frame the
door with enough stone. Any cropping would destroy the image, so the proportions
had to be perfect. If they weren’t, the door would never open and I’d be left
with a very expensive, very useless life-size photo.

I couldn’t take that chance. Once I captured a door, it couldn’t be
recaptured no matter how identical the image. I’d found that out the hard way
with a few photos, but I tried not to think about them. Surely, Marie wouldn’t
have been behind those doors. They’d been so unexciting.

“Why are we all the way up here
?
” Irene
asked. “We’re missing the festival.”

“We’re not here for the festival,” I said, adjusting the shutter
speed for a longer exposure. “And I can’t risk some clumsy tourist ruining the
picture.”

“What’s so special about these doors
?
”

I looked up from the viewfinder. “You got a lot of questions today,”
I said. “Something on your mind
?
”

Irene’s head dropped and her shoulders sagged. Suddenly she was far
younger and more vulnerable than eighteen already was.

“You really think Mom’s still out there
?
” she asked.

“I can’t believe anything else,” I said. God knows I’m not the same
man without her.

“Nana thinks you’re cracked. She didn’t want me to come.”

I grunted. My mother-in-law hadn’t spoken with me since we’d lost
Marie. I couldn’t really blame her. If it wasn’t for my photos, Marie might
still be here.

“What do you think
?
” I asked.

She bit her lip, hesitating. “I think . . . I think we’ll find
her.”

I nodded. “Then don’t ever let that go—no matter what anyone says.
We’ll get her back, Reenie. I promise.”

Irene seemed to relax. She even smiled, which was not something I
was blessed with often.

“I saw a yellow door on our way up here,” she said.

A yellow door in a town of blue and white
?

“Sounds like we’ve got one more stop after this,” I said. “Nice
catch.”

The sun finally where I wanted it, I looked through the
viewfinder, exhaled slowly and took the shot.

S
everal weeks and a hundred
photos later, we stood in Heathrow Airport, the ebb and flow of thousands of
strangers bubbling around us. Crowds had never bothered me before, but it was
different now that so many of them seemed to recognize me.

Irene leaned against a pillar, eyes closed, bobbing to the music
from her oversized headphones. I still don’t know why I agreed to bring her
along. At times, it seemed like she didn’t even
want
to be along. But I knew how helpless she must feel. She wanted her mother back
as much as I wanted my wife.

A bald man in a business suit and overcoat wandered over, glancing
at me over his newspaper. I nervously checked my watch. The only thing I hated
more than flying was waiting to fly.

The bald man made up his mind and moved toward me. I sighed
internally. Here we go.

“You’re that guy, aren’t you
?
”

I pretended not to hear, positioning myself between the man and
Irene. Sometimes these guys turned out to be real headcases.

He edged closer and tapped my shoulder, ignoring all concepts of
personal space.

“Yeah, I’ve seen you on the news,” he said, jabbing his finger at
me. “You’re that photographer.”

“You must have me confused—”

“What do you call those pictures you take
?
” he asked. “Reclusive doors
?
”

I gritted my teeth. He obviously wasn’t going to leave me alone. Did
they ever
?

“Recursion doors,” I corrected, checking my watch again. Boarding
time was two minutes late.

“Yeah, that’s it. World within a world or something, right
?
”

“Now boarding first class,” the flight attendant announced.

Finally.

“Something like that,” I said, nudging Irene and eagerly pushing
forward to hand over our tickets. A few people glared at me, but I ignored
them.

The man persisted, grabbing my sleeve. I turned to say something,
but stopped. The man’s breathing was heavy, his eyes bulging. I’d seen that look
of fanaticism before.

“Is it true what they say
?
” the man
asked in a fierce whisper. “Did you really discover paradise
?
”

The color drained from my face. Had the idea already come so
far
?
It was like a virus I never meant to
spread. I pulled my arm away and retreated down the ramp without answering.

How could I
?

I
slept for two days after
returning home. The endless rounds of travel were definitely taking their toll,
but it didn’t matter—pure exhaustion was the only way I slept these days. On the
third day, Irene unceremoniously woke me.

“Jonny!”

She stood by my bed, snapping her fingers and pointing at the phone
in her hand. I stared at her in the confusion of the half-awake.

“It’s Nana.”

I let my head fall back to the pillow. Why now
?

Irene put the phone in my hand and I lifted it to my ear.

“Hello, Margaret.”

“It’s time to put an end to this nonsense, Jonathan,” my
mother-in-law said.

“Good morning to you too.”

“I’ve humored you long enough. It was one thing when your actions
affected only you. Now you’re bringing your teenage daughter along
?
”

“It’s her decision.”

She gave an exasperated sigh. “We’ve all accepted it. Why can’t
you
?
”

“Because I haven’t given up hope,” I said, sitting up. “I just have
to find the right door.”

“Damn it, Jonathan. The fire was two years ago,” she said. “You have
to let it go. The door is gone.”

I was silent.

“Your daughter needs you,” she said. “And she needs the chance to
move on.”

“You want me to tell Irene her mother is dead
?
”

“I want you to be her father.”

“What happened to you
?
”

Her voice softened. “I’m tired, Jonathan. For the longest time I
wanted to believe you were right. But I can’t anymore—it’s just too hard. I’m
too old for false hope.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said. “We’ll talk again soon. Goodbye,
Margaret.”

I hung up without waiting for an answer. My hands were trembling. I
balled them into tight fists and pressed them against my forehead. Everyone
thought I was crazy. What was so crazy about wanting to believe your wife was
still alive
?

The day I lost Marie, I’d come home to our little apartment over the
antique shop and found it ablaze. A caravan of firetrucks, police cars and
ambulances had blockaded the collapsing building, a crowd of onlookers gawking
into the flames with mixed looks of wonder and horror.

I’d screamed and twisted and torn at the firefighters like a madman,
but they’d held me back, told me the building was empty. They hadn’t understood
that the building could appear empty, when it was not. They couldn’t have known
that while they’d held me down, my wife had been inside.

Maybe I was crazy, but I knew one thing: Marie was alive.
The door to our world was gone, but I would find another way in. I had to.

A
round noon, I dragged myself
from bed and returned to the office. An unmarked stone building along the
Chicago North Shore, it had a second-floor showroom, a first floor jammed with
massive industrial printers and a basement full of discarded attempts to find my
wife.

Someone had stuck a sign to the front door, imploring me to repent
of my evil ways. Needless to say, not everyone thought highly of my gift. I
pulled the sign down, wondering again what good it did to have an unmarked
building when everyone already knew where you were.

I fumbled with my keys a moment before realizing there was no longer
a keyhole in the door. I frowned at the keypad on the wall. Kensuke, my curator,
had recently convinced me to upgrade the security system. It made sense,
considering the inventory in my basement was valued in the billions; I just
hadn’t ever used it. When had he found time to get it installed
?

I scratched the back of my head and stared into the surveillance
camera, struggling to recall the eight-digit passcode. It was probably so
obvious I’d never remember it. I threw up my hands in exasperation, suddenly
regretting I’d asked Kensuke to leave off the buzzer.

“Might I have a word, Mr. Ward
?
”

I sighed and turned around. The man had the distinct look of a
weasel in a suit, which was disappointingly unoriginal. His peppered hair was
receding, the little he had left slicked back in greasy curls.

Couldn’t these people stick to the phone, instead of ambushing me at
my front door
?
At least the phone I could
ignore.