picture. After Maria turned up at Sachs’s apartment in 1979, a meeting between Sachs and Lillian Stern became possible. It took several more unlikely twists before that possibility was realized, but each of them can be traced directly back to Maria. Long before anyof us knew her, she went out one morning to buy film for her camera, saw a little black address book lying on the ground, and picked it up. That was the event that started the whole miserable story. Maria opened the book, and out flew the devil, out flew a scourge of violence, mayhem, and death.
It was one of those standard little address books manufactured by the Schaeffer Eaton Company, about six inches tall and four inches across, with a flexible imitation leather cover, spiral binding, and thumb tabs for each letter of the alphabet. It was a well-worn object, filled with over two hundred names, addresses, and telephone numbers. The fact that many of the entries had been crossed out and rewritten, that a variety of writing instruments had been used on almost every page (blue ballpoints, black felt tips, green pencils) suggested that it had belonged to the owner for a long time. Maria’s first thought was to return it, but as is often the case with personal property, the owner had neglected to write his name in the book. She searched in all the logical places—the inside front cover, the first page, the back—but no name was to be found. Not knowing what to do with it after that, she dropped the book into her bag and carried it home.
Most people would have forgotten about it, I think, but Maria wasn’t one to shy away from unexpected opportunities, to ignore the promptings of chance. By the time she went to bed that night, she had already come up with a plan for her next project. It would be an elaborate piece, much more difficult and complicated than anything she had attempted before, but the sheer scope of it threw her into a state of intense excitement. She was almost certain that the owner of the address book was a man. The handwriting had a masculine look to it; there were more listings for men than for women; the book was in ragged condition, as if it had been treated roughly. In one of those sudden, ridiculous flashes that everyone is prey to,she imagined that she was destined to fall in love with the owner of the book. It lasted only a second or two, but in that time she saw him as the man of her dreams: beautiful, intelligent, warm; a better man than she had ever loved before. The vision dispersed, but by then it was already too late. The book had been transformed into a magical object for her, a storehouse of obscure passions and unarticulated desires. Chance had led her to it, but now that it was hers, she saw it as an instrument of fate.
She studied the entries that first evening and found no names that were familiar to her. That was the perfect starting point, she felt. She would set out in the dark, knowing absolutely nothing, and one by one she would talk to all the people listed in the book. By finding out who they were, she would begin to learn something about the man who had lost it. It would be a portrait in absentia, an outline drawn around an empty space, and little by little a figure would emerge from the background, pieced together from everything he was not. She hoped that she would eventually track him down that way, but even if she didn’t, the effort would be its own reward. She wanted to encourage people to open up to her when she saw them, to tell her stories about enchantment and lust and falling in love, to confide their deepest secrets in her. She fully expected to work on these interviews for months, perhaps even for years. There would be thousands of photographs to take, hundreds of statements to transcribe, an entire universe to explore. Or so she thought. As it happened, the project was derailed after just one day.
With only one exception, every person in the book was listed under his or her last name. In among
It was one of those standard little address books manufactured by the Schaeffer Eaton Company, about six inches tall and four inches across, with a flexible imitation leather cover, spiral binding, and thumb tabs for each letter of the alphabet. It was a well-worn object, filled with over two hundred names, addresses, and telephone numbers. The fact that many of the entries had been crossed out and rewritten, that a variety of writing instruments had been used on almost every page (blue ballpoints, black felt tips, green pencils) suggested that it had belonged to the owner for a long time. Maria’s first thought was to return it, but as is often the case with personal property, the owner had neglected to write his name in the book. She searched in all the logical places—the inside front cover, the first page, the back—but no name was to be found. Not knowing what to do with it after that, she dropped the book into her bag and carried it home.
Most people would have forgotten about it, I think, but Maria wasn’t one to shy away from unexpected opportunities, to ignore the promptings of chance. By the time she went to bed that night, she had already come up with a plan for her next project. It would be an elaborate piece, much more difficult and complicated than anything she had attempted before, but the sheer scope of it threw her into a state of intense excitement. She was almost certain that the owner of the address book was a man. The handwriting had a masculine look to it; there were more listings for men than for women; the book was in ragged condition, as if it had been treated roughly. In one of those sudden, ridiculous flashes that everyone is prey to,she imagined that she was destined to fall in love with the owner of the book. It lasted only a second or two, but in that time she saw him as the man of her dreams: beautiful, intelligent, warm; a better man than she had ever loved before. The vision dispersed, but by then it was already too late. The book had been transformed into a magical object for her, a storehouse of obscure passions and unarticulated desires. Chance had led her to it, but now that it was hers, she saw it as an instrument of fate.
She studied the entries that first evening and found no names that were familiar to her. That was the perfect starting point, she felt. She would set out in the dark, knowing absolutely nothing, and one by one she would talk to all the people listed in the book. By finding out who they were, she would begin to learn something about the man who had lost it. It would be a portrait in absentia, an outline drawn around an empty space, and little by little a figure would emerge from the background, pieced together from everything he was not. She hoped that she would eventually track him down that way, but even if she didn’t, the effort would be its own reward. She wanted to encourage people to open up to her when she saw them, to tell her stories about enchantment and lust and falling in love, to confide their deepest secrets in her. She fully expected to work on these interviews for months, perhaps even for years. There would be thousands of photographs to take, hundreds of statements to transcribe, an entire universe to explore. Or so she thought. As it happened, the project was derailed after just one day.
With only one exception, every person in the book was listed under his or her last name. In among
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