Waiting for Robert Capa. Susana Fortes

the moon looming over it, when she heard him say:

      “It’s not surprising that on nights like these people leap from bridges.”

      “What?”

      “Oh nothing, it’s just some verse,” he said.

      “No, really, I didn’t hear you because of the music.”

      “That sometimes I want to kill myself, Red. Get it?” He said it loud and clear this time. Taking her chin in his hand and looking her straight in the eyes, never erasing that slightly sarcastic smile from his face.

      “Yes, this time I heard you, and you don’t have to yell,” she said, taking the glass from his hand without his noticing. She hadn’t realized until then that he was completely drunk.

      A short time after, they were alone, walking along the riverbank, she letting him do the talking, half of her paying attention, the other half pitying him, as if he had come down with a fever or some harmless sickness that would soon pass.

      What he had, which might very well pass or not, could be called deception, wounded pride, a desire to be fussed over, exhaustion … He had just returned from an assignment for Vu magazine in Saarland.

      “Sarre…” he said its name in French as if he were dreaming.

      But Gerta understood what he was trying to say. In other words, the League of Nations, carbon, bonjour, guten Tag … and all of that. André had told her that he had been in Saarbrücken during the last week of September, where there were posters and banners with swastikas everywhere. They walked along the river’s edge, staggering slightly, him more than her, gazing at the moon, her coat collar up, shielding her from the night fog. He had gone with a journalist friend named Gorta, who—he went on to say—with his hair long and straight like a Sioux, was more like a Dostoevsky character than a John Reed. Carbonfilled clouds in the shape of whirlwinds had snuck into all parts of the city. There are steady winds and variable winds. Ones that change direction with a force that can knock down both jockey and horse. Winds that suddenly reorient themselves, turning the hands of time counterclockwise. Winds that can blow for years. Winds of the past that live in the present.

      André’s speech wasn’t very well put together. He jumped from one thing to another, without transitions, using awkward wording. But nonetheless, Gerta, for some reason, at least that night, could see through his words as if they were images: at the forefront, an image of a cyclist reading the lists the Nazis had posted on the streetlamps, workers drinking beer below an equilateral cross or passed out in the shade beside the trash containers, the filthy gray of the sky, Saarbrücken’s main street filled with banners hanging from its balconies, crowds of people leaving factories, cafés, greeting one another with a “Heil Hitler,” their arm raised, their smile casual, innocent, as if saying “Merry Christmas.”

      There were still a few months left until the plebiscite’s outcome would decide if the territory would join with France or become a part of Germany. But, judging from the photos, there wasn’t a doubt. The entire carbon basin had been won over by Fascism. SARRE—WARNING—HIGH ALERT was how the report’s headline read. The images and text credited to a special correspondent by the name of Gorta. André’s name did not appear anywhere in the report. As if the photographs were not his.

      “I don’t exist,” he said with hands in his coat pockets, shoulders slumped, though she spotted the vertical lines at the corners of his mouth hardening. “I’m nobody.” Now he smiled bitterly. “Just a ghost with a camera. A ghost photographing other ghosts.”

      Perhaps it was right then and there that she decided to adopt that man abandoned at the edge of the Seine, with those cocker spaniel eyes. Soon after, they found themselves sitting on a wooden bench. Listening to the trees, the river. Gerta with her knees to her chest, hugging her legs. For certain women, there’s great danger in having someone place a fairy godmother’s wand in their hands. I’ll save you, she thought. I can do it. It may cost me and you might not deserve it, but I’m going to save you. There isn’t a more powerful sensation than this. Not love, piety, or desire. Though Gerta still hadn’t learned this, she was too young. That’s why, somewhere along the way, she rubbed his head with a gesture that was a cross between messing up his hair and taking his temperature.

      “Don’t worry,” she said in a good fairy’s voice, poking her chin over her sweater. “The only thing you need is a manager.”

      She smiled. Her teeth were small and bright, with a tiny gap separating the two front ones. It wasn’t the smile of a full-fledged woman but of a young girl—better yet, a fearless boy. An adventurous smile, the kind you put on in front of your opponent during a game. Tilting her head slightly to one side, inquisitive, teasing, as the idea ran through her head like a mouse in the floorboards above.

      “I’m going to be your manager.”

       Chapter Five

      It was all a game at first. That shirt I like, that one I don’t. While he went into a changing room at La Samaritaine department store, she would wait for him at the entrance of the dressing area outside. Lounging with blasé entitlement on some sort of a red velvet sofa with her legs crossed, swinging one foot back and forth, until she saw him step out transformed into a fashion figure. Then, with arched eyebrows, she’d mockingly look him up and down, make him take the bullfighter’s lap of honor, scrunching her nose a bit before giving him her approval. In reality, he looked like a film star: clean-shaven, a white collared shirt and tie, polished shoes, an all-American hairdo. His eyes, on the other hand, were still that of a Gypsy. This could not be fixed.

      She enjoyed the distance that he maintained around himself, a space that was necessary in order for each to occupy their place. He was never bothered by her reprimands or when she told him what to do. He began calling her “the boss.” This pact filled them both with a curious energy, as if there were a signal floating between them in the air, meeting at Le Dôme Café without having planned it, or when he passed below her window whistling without a care in the world, or, by coincidence, they both happened to be trying out a new restaurant on the very same night. Although by then, they both knew that their casual meetings were not the least bit casual.

      Operation Image Makeover had its immediate results. Gerta was right. Her mother’s teachings had proven themselves once more. Being elegant will not only improve your living, it can also help you earn one. Part two of the Sarre report became André’s rite of passage. An air of success begets success.

      Ruth rushed up the stairs with the breakfast baguette in one hand and the new edition of Vu magazine in the other. SARRE, PART TWO, stated the headline. ITS RESIDENTS’ OPINIONS AND WHO THEY WILL VOTE FOR. Gerta, still in pajamas, desperately waited for her in the stairwell, wearing thick socks, her eyes swollen from having just woken up. And though it was still very early, she could hardly contain herself. Pushing aside the teapot and cups, she cleared a space on the kitchen table in order to spread open the magazine as if it were a map of the world. A flashy headline, its words moving across the page in a diagonal, and the photos she had originally seen stuck to the bathroom tiles as contact sheets were now enlarged and well emphasized on the page. She inhaled the smell of fresh ink from the page, as she had with her Magic Markers when she was young. In black lettering, the photo credit read: ANDRÉ FRIEDMANN. Gerta smiled over her gray pajama top and instinctively raised her fist to the air as a sign of victory. Exactly like Joe Jacobs did when he raised Max Schmeling’s winning glove before the flashing cameras. When it comes down to it, not all boxing matches are fought inside the ring.

      She liked to think of it as just a temporary alliance, nothing more. A mutual aid society for Jewish refugees. Today for you. Tomorrow for me. Besides, thought Gerta, it was not as if she had nothing to gain from it. She also received something in return. It was comforting to think like this, as if not getting too involved made her feel better. They got into the habit of waking up early to walk through the neighborhood and catch the first cart deliveries of fruit and fish to the markets. Together they’d wander through