Work Text:
April 4th, 1910
Stranger on the Shore, platinotype
A man, broad-shouldered, and there’s something faintly Byronic about him, dark coat and dark trousers and boots half-dug into the sand. Stranger was the only word Erik could think to use but it didn’t seem right even as he was writing it, with the way the man fit, like he’d been missing from that curving harbour for all the years Erik’s haunted it in the fog-blue half-light of the dawn. Stranger, mysterious figure with seawater to his ankles, his head thrown back at the sunrise crack of the horizon and washed in some anguished relief of shadow and electrum. His hair, Erik remembers, his hair, salt-waved, salt-silver on the paper, but it had been an antique gold, warm backed by the cathedral-arches of grey slate stone.
Stranger, the stranger with the distant air and the hard jaw who didn’t see him as he crept away, left that long-lost fixture he never knew existed, camera clasped just a little tighter than usual.
Print tucked into a leather album, sprig of sea lavender just beside.
April 6th, 1910
To M. Philippe de Chagny,
My sincerest apologies for my poor hospitality upon your introduction to the neighbourhood. It isn’t often that I receive visitors, and it came as somewhat of a shock you came as somewhat of a shock I saw you two days ago who are you?
Who are you?
Scrap, torn bits of ephemera scribbled on in jagged, rushed hand. A dozen half-formed letters littered like leaves over the desk, the coffee table, the floor, with that name, Philippe de Chagny, no longer Stranger, not in the strict, nameless sense.
He is asocial on a good day. Has he ever written a letter in his life?
A wrinkled receipt for a bottle of brandy, gift-wrapped.
April 12th, 1910
Cornflower in Urn, platinotype
Trio of bachelor’s buttons, upright and lacy in a pewter urn, backdrop draped in dark-dyed calico. Light slants in, distinct wisping streams through the smoke of a cigar beyond the frame. Erik can still taste the wood, the dark fruit, the faint earthy vanilla at the back of his throat, at the tip of his tongue and he coughed at first, never smoked a day in his life, not a single cigarette, but how could he refuse? The eyes of him, same fog-blue of the beach that morning, crinkled at the corners and forgiving with that box of Spanish cedar and that small bouquet. Share a smoke?
He didn’t blink at the mask. Erik spent the evening watching for the cocked eyebrow that never came.
Photograph framed, matted in black, hung behind his desk. Tip of the petal of the bachelor’s button, peeking from between the pages of the album.
May 2nd, 1910
Dear M. Desrosiers,
I hope my interruption didn’t ruin your hard work last evening. Send a figure and I will compensate for the supplies wasted. Will not hear argument on the matter.
Lunch on the beach on the 4th, would be happy to have you.
With high regard,
Philippe de Chagny
Handwriting neat, angled even and just so, thick cream paper folded to crisp perfection, in thirds. Scent of it mellow, deep golden, oud maybe, or sandalwood, and bergamot, definitely bergamot. Cologne, traces from the living wrist, and there’s a bit of shame that Erik notices it, lingers for so long, takes some time to savour the knot in his belly before he closes it into a drawer.
May 1st, 1910
Wood Sorrel in Greenery, platinotype, graphite
Overexposed, nearly all gone white. Thin hatchings, delicate to bring out the petals, heavier on the leaves. Near ruined.
Framed, matted in white, hung in the kitchen. Erik tries not to smile.
May 15th, 1910
M. de Chagny on the Shore, albumen silver print, glass plate negative
He seems a painting. An old-fashioned portrait, the sort with military captains in full uniform and some measure of pretention, only in monochrome, set before the long and choppy line of the ocean. Noble, and he is handsome with the straight-backed pride of some rich blood. Hems dry, neck straight, hair combed neat and eyes determined and profile striking.
And he is handsome. Erik’s knuckle, black-stained, hurts where he’s picked it raw.
Print in the envelope, sealed proper on the way to the door.
May 16th, 1910
Dear M. Desrosiers,
You make me almost handsome. Will clearly have to sit for you again. Tell me when.
With high regard,
Philippe de Chagny
Open on the desk, edges crinkled, fluttering from the breeze where it isn’t wedged beneath the album.
The tap-tap-tap of fingers on mahogany.
May 20th, 1910
Dianthus Caryophyllus, platinotype
A boutonniere, single carnation. It looks white, crepe-paper petals, but Erik has memorized the exact shade of pale, pale green, the way it glowed on Philippe’s lapel, the way it set off the sunset-brightened hue of his eyes. It doesn’t show in the black and white, deprived of that element, but he almost sees it in the slightest curve of a smile, the colour and the implication. Something singularly focused to just behind the camera. Something fixed and gentle and fond.
Keep it.
And Erik does, beside the first, and tries but fails to not look at it.
June 12th, 1910
Dear Erik,
Share a smoke? Will introduce you to my brother.
June 12th, 1910
Dear Philippe,
Say when.
How to sign off on these?
June 15th, 1910
Brothers de Chagny, albumen silver print, glass plate negative
Almost a spitting image, this young man, but beside each other one can see the boy is leaner, softer around the cheeks and jaw, still with that same determined air but none of the stern authority that comes with years. Could not disown one another, and by the firm hand on the youngest de Chagny’s shoulder, Erik can see it isn’t a risk.
Sends it along with an envelope, a note on the back.
Pleasure to have seen you both, and it isn’t a lie.
June 21st, 1910
Motion in Waiting, albumen silver print, glass plate negative
Raoul doesn’t have the skill his brother has for sitting still, face blurred where he turned his head just a few degrees, hand blurred where he fidgeted on the motorcycle’s handlebar. Sharp reflection of summer sun on the chassis, anxious potential energy waiting to be put to use on the pocked country roads—the helmet was Philippe’s insistence.
He takes too much after me, he had said with a wink.
The heat, Erik thinks, is what had made his ears go pink.
July 15th, 1910
Silk tie, black, starry with clean white dots, rolled tight on the desk. A shot-glass just beside it, the pale-blushing, wide petals of a fresh azalea propped inside.
I thought it would suit you, note a little less even than usual, folded twice-over.
Erik ties the tie, doesn’t look himself in the mirror, likes to think Philippe is right.
July 28th, 1910
Note left on the desk, beside a decanter of whiskey and a deck of playing cards.
See us tomorrow at dawn?
July 29th, 1910
20th Anniversary, platinotype
Was unintentional, perhaps too intimate, to have brought the camera. Two figures in front of two headstones, mist rising at their feet, grass overgrown at the base of an old, scarred aspen. Just barely overexposed, the light reflecting off the sea beyond in a white, feathered bloom.
Has he ever comforted someone in his life?
Careful, a stiff envelope, with a note.
I’m sorry.
His hand still remembers the shift of muscle beneath it, the slight melt of stiffness in Philippe’s back and the lean toward him.
August 13th, 1910
Dearest Erik,
It doesn’t bother me. Come out of hiding.
With affection,
Philippe
Tear stains blurring letters, fingers shaking on the brittle stem of a pressed red daisy, mask discarded on the floor.
August 17th, 1910
Untitled, platinotype
Erik, thin-lipped and stiff, jaw tight, and he doesn’t think there is a more tangible proof to his discomfort in the world than this, noseless profile and eyes gone narrow. Tones just so, perfect somehow to capture every twisted, warped plane of his face. Philippe has a natural talent for it—a quick study, he’d said with that crooked smile that ages his face back ten years.
Erik had half a mind to tear it up, to not even bother with developing it. But Philippe was insistent—you can’t be so cruel, that you won’t let me see my first one. He doesn’t know why, but he can’t deny him.
Slips before Erik’s eyes between shirt and waistcoat, snug to the chest, patted gently with a splayed hand over the heart. That same crooked smile.
He sees it now, when he closes his eyes.
August 28th, 1910
Dearest Erik,
Share a smoke tonight?
With much affection,
Philippe
Left on the coffee table, pinned under the crystal stopper of a whiskey decanter, discarded tie. Cigar smoke sweet in the air, in his laugh, on his tongue, on his tongue—
August 29th, 1910
Dear Philippe M. de Chagny,
I didn’t intend I was drunk Forgive me for my indiscretion. I think it best I think we should I think it best we refrain from meeting again, for my for both our for the sake of propriety proper neighbourly relations.
Sincerely,
Erik Desrosiers
August 30th, 1910
Dear Erik,
My door is open.
Balled up before he can read the rest.
September 7th, 1910
Bouquet in Silk, platinotype
They’re half-wilted from a day in the late-summer sun. Limp wildflowers—garden daisy and tufted vetch, gorse and purple heartsease—that he recognizes from the hills and trails along the harbour. Propped against a Spanish cedar box, and the ribbon shows black but it isn’t, red so rich against the sooty fingers that wind it over and over and over again. Oud and bergamot and a hint of cigar when he wraps it around his hand and holds it to his lips, stares at the lines and gradients of the flowers without seeing them.
Holds the print above the wastebasket.
Hides it in a drawer with an ache in his chest.
September 12th, 1910
Dear Erik,
Come to the beach—
Thrown away.
September 19th, 1910
Dear Erik,
Don’t be foolish—
Thrown away.
October 1st, 1910
Erik, please—
Buried under papers, under books. Tried to throw it away but failed.
October 21st, 1910
There’s been an accident.
Thrown to the floor, the door left open to the chill.
October 23rd, 1910
The Pause, platinotype
There will be a scar. Down Raoul’s jaw, where the bandage is stuck, spotted dark, viciously raw underneath where it met the road. His eye is swollen shut, variegated greys that hide the contusive, angry purples, the sickly yellow-greens. The arm in the sling is snug against his chest, mustn’t move—can’t move, really, shoulder just about shattered to nothing, humerus cracked clean in half against the tree. The doctor, out of frame, muttering something in hushed tones to Erik about how it may never be functional again.
Philippe, both hands holding Raoul’s good one, aged those twenty years of lonely, fierce brotherhood in the corners of his mouth, the dark circles, the furrows in his brow. The light hits them both just so, some holy, quiet thing made up of midafternoon and the grip of a fear Erik’s never known but that fills his lungs in the tiny space.
He feels as though he’s intruding. He can’t bring himself to leave.
October 25th, 1910
Forgive me.
Scratch of pencil on scrap that Erik folds in the silence. When he reaches, palm up, over a sleeping Raoul, Philippe doesn’t even look up. Hand closing over hand, warm against paper against cold, and it stays there, fingers tight and thumb on knuckles, tremble to it. A squeeze, a glance, a weary, aching smile.
November 6th, 1910
Recovery, platinotype
Raoul, standing in front of the bed. His weight favours one leg and his smile is lopsided, jaw and cheek still scabbed and cracked, but it’s a smile, bright and young and alive, alive, and Erik can see the thank God in Philippe’s face, the way he holds his brother around the ribs to keep him up. The way he looks to just behind the camera with watery eyes, the stark bright blue clear even in the greyscale.
A stiff brown envelope, and Philippe grins that crooked grin, fingers overlapping Erik’s own, and he’s positive he can feel the quickening pulse in them.
I’ll frame this one, I think.
November 19th, 1910
Receipt for a dozen red roses, delivery, peeking out from the corner of the ledger.
November 21st, 1910
I’m coming over.
November 22nd, 1910
Nude, platinotype
By the window. Muscles in his back, distinct, a lax and languid ease from the shoulder against the windowpane down his spine, down to the dimples, hips, barely visible striations in his skin. The light is morning downy, catches in that hair, night-tousled, and Erik knows now there are streaks of silver hidden in it, where he buried his face, where he breathed that cologne and kissed the salt and felt it on his bare, maskless cheek. Heard it in Philippe’s voice, low and slow and soft. Heard it in his own desperate whispers.
He keeps it in the album, by a hazel leaf pressed dry, note scribbled on the back in Philippe’s careful hand.
You make me almost handsome.
The warmth goes to his fingertips.
April 4th, 1911
Philippe on the Shore, platinotype
He fits. Dark coat and dark trousers and ring catching a bright glint of dawn light.