Waiting for Robert Capa by Susana Fortes Page A

possibility. When they received an assignment’s paycheck, they’d treat themselves to coffee and croissants at the cafés near Place Renée Vivien. Sometimes she’d accompany André on one of his photo shoots. That’s how she began her training. Setting the focus, calculating the exposure time, adjusting the diaphragm to the light. She liked to watch André lean up against the wall and mentally prepare the photo he planned to take. And though she had randomly arrived at photography, she grew increasingly fascinated with everything about it. The smell of the developing fluid. The tension of waiting and watching your own face appear, bit by bit, at the bottom of the tray. Those small and bony fingers holding her chin, the arch of a raised clavicle over the delicate skin on her neckline. The darkest shadows below her eyes. The mystery.
    Sometime later, Georg sent her a postcard from Italy. A scene from Florence’s Piazza della Signoria, taken from the Loggia dei Lanzi. André didn’t want to read it but spent the entire day squinting his eyes like a bull in heat, responding to her questions with monosyllables. If she offered him a cigarette, he preferred not to smoke; if she pointed out a red carnation in one of the stalls along the Left Bank, he looked the other way. Just another damn ordinary flower.
    Gerta could sense the storm coming and tried to tiptoe around the thunder to avoid it. It would pass. Thankfully, she had enough work to do so as not to agonize over it so much.
    She had been able to negotiate several contracts for Alliance Photo at a good price. Maria Eisner was thrilled with her. She worked hard, having slept less than five hours a night over the last few weeks. Yes, she would have preferred if the 1,200 francs she was being paid a month were for her photographs and not for her bookkeeping. But it was all there was, and she couldn’t complain. Besides, she never backed away from an opportunity to push André’s work. She fought for each and every one of his photographs as if her life depended on it. That same morning, she had negotiated a 1,100 franc advance for three assignments per week for him. It wasn’t a lot, given the high price of the materials he needed, but it was enough for him to pay his rent, eat a decent meal three times a day, or treat himself to something extra once in a while. That’s what passed through her mind as she walked the frozen streets back home with her hands shoved deep into her coat pockets, sporting a wool hat and a red nose from the cold, like an Arctic explorer. I may not be perfect, she thought with a hint of condescension aimed at herself, but as a manager I’m not bad at all. Deep down, she was proud and wanted to get home and deliver the news to André. She wanted to feel his arms around her waist, his body pressed up against hers, transmitting heat, taking her to high and faraway places, slowly, waiting for her as no one else ever had.
    It was late. She found him facedown on the bed, hair disheveled, one side of his face against the pillow, and fresh stubble darkening his jawline. In order not to wake him, she quietly removed her clothes and placed them on a hook behind the door. Then she put on an old gray undershirt that she always wore to bed and, looking for the warmth of his body, curled up against André’s back.
    It was like hugging a jackal. He let out a terrible growl. The animal inside him had been awakened and it almost caused her to fly off the bed and onto the floor.
    â€œCan you tell me what in hell is the matter with you?” she asked.
    Nothing. A deathly silence, nocturnal, withdrawn in thought. Mute as God’s shadow. Gerta flipped herself over to face the wall. She didn’t feel like fighting.
    â€œYou Hungarians are strange,” she said.
    â€œTrue,” he said, “but never as idiotic as the Russians.”
    At last the jackal had come out of his cave. A feeling of