FOUR

June 12, 1918

THESE MEN HAD never been to war. Edward could tell from the way they were disembarking, the way they filled up the small station at Épernay with excited chaos that belied their small numbers. They climbed out of the train, passed bags and cases through open carriage windows, collected in small groups, smoked, talked in loud voices to hear one another over the din. One of the men dropped his pack as he handed it down, making the soldier below him jump backward out of the way, the abrupt movement of a startled animal. The men around them laughed. The sound was warm.

“Hey, careful with that,” said the man whose bag it was, leaning out of the window. “Clumsy idiot!”

“Why? What’s in there that’s so damn special? Your mother’s best china?” The jumper folded his arms and stuck his chin out defiantly.

“No. Your wife’s wooden leg,” said the man at the window. Again laughter, and this time the man on the platform rushed to the window and swung upward with his fists at the face that vanished, grinning, into the interior.

“Kelsey, hurry it up over there!” called one of the sergeants, a broad-shouldered man with a dark mustache. The noncoms were circling the confusion like sheepdogs. “Save your fight for the Huns, for God’s sake.”

Three men wearing lieutenant’s high collars and insignia on their shoulder straps came over to where Edward was standing at the end of the platform.

“Captain Steichen?” asked the first of them. Edward nodded. They saluted smartly.

“At ease,” Edward said, feeling foolish as he always did with formal military gestures. He looked down at the mimeographed list of names he’d received from Barnes. “Which one of you is Eric Lutz?”

“I am, sir,” said the man who had spoken previously. He was tall and heavy-set, and his square, ruddy face was a mask of earnest enthusiasm.

“And you are …?”

“John Dawson.”

“Lewis Deveraux, sir.”

Dawson was dark-haired, with a sleepy, handsome face; Deveraux was short, wiry, with a nervous restlessness about him. He shifted his weight from foot to foot as he stood. They all looked, to Edward, excruciatingly young.

“OK. When your men have disembarked, take roll and make sure everyone in your section is present. It’s four miles to the airfield. Have them form up for the march. Extra baggage can be put in the tender that is waiting outside the station. Make sure you pack the cameras so that they won’t move around too much during the ride and don’t pile any heavy baggage on top of them …” The three lieutenants were exchanging anxious looks. “What is it?”

“Well, sir,” Lutz spoke up. “Which cameras would you be referring to?”

“The cameras that you brought with you. You are supposed to have a consignment of equipment for the Photo Division, which you brought with you from the States. Do you?”

“Oh yes, sir,” Deveraux put in. “Each man in these sections brought a sealed case with him. Special equipment.”

“Well, that’s OK then …”

“But I don’t think that they are cameras.”

“Why not?”

“Sir,” Lutz said, “perhaps you should take a look at the cases.”

Edward looked at the three perplexed faces before him.

“OK,” he said. “Deveraux, will you bring one over here?”

“Yes, sir.” He ran off down the platform and disappeared into the crowd.

Edward turned to the two lieutenants still beside him.

“Tell me about the men. They’ve all had training with cameras, I suppose,” he said. Dawson looked at his feet, then away down the platform.

“Well …” he said.

“Perhaps I had better not suppose anything. What kind of training have they had?”

“They’ve all had basic training. Army wouldn’t send them abroad otherwise.”

“What about flight training? Have they flown before?”

“I have. So have Deveraux and Lutz here, and the noncoms, Sergeant Daniels, a few more. Some of the others have some experience with taking pictures.”

“About how many of them know how to use a camera?”

“I really couldn’t say for certain. Perhaps ten or so.”

“In each section?” But he knew the answer before Dawson spoke:

“No, sir. Ten in all.”

Edward shook his head in amazement. “OK,” he said. “OK. It isn’t your fault. You’d better go and help the rest of the men get ready to move out.”

“Yes, sir.” The two men saluted energetically, as if to say at least they could do that right, and walked rapidly away. Edward raised his hand after them in a half-effort, but he was too overwhelmed to hide his disappointment. Only ten of them with training in photography. It was a disaster.

A few minutes later Lutz came back down the platform toward him, with one of the sergeants following close behind. They both wore worried expressions.

“What’s the problem?” Edward asked.

“There’s a man with our unit who isn’t on any of the rosters. None of the others have ever seen him before. He insists he’s meant to be here. Says he knows you, sir.”

“Knows me?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, send him down here. Tell him to hurry. I don’t want him to hold us up.”

“I don’t know if he can do that … hurry, that is …”

“What do you mean?” asked Edward.

“Well, his legs are kind of a mess.”

A moment later he recognized the slow, uneven gate and unblinking eyes as Gilles Marchand pulled himself down the platform until he stood in front of them. Gilles saluted, his face expressionless as ever.

“What is he doing here?” Edward asked. The men looked at him blankly. He turned to the sergeant.

“What’s your name?”

“Reece, sir.” He was a tall man with colorless skin and hair, as though he had been bleached slowly by the sun. His chin sloped into his neck until it vanished.

“What is he doing here?” Edward repeated.

“I don’t know, sir.”

“What did you think a kid with one good leg was doing headed for the front?”

“I didn’t notice his legs.”

“Well, I’m glad we’ve hired you as an observer. So far you’re doing an excellent job.”

He turned to Marchand.

“What are you doing here?”

“They are closing up the office in Paris in a few weeks and moving everyone to Chaumont. They won’t need me. I know as much about cameras as the others. I want to work as an observer.” He met Edward’s gaze and stared straight back at him, his eyes unwavering.

“But you aren’t American.”

“Lots of Americans fought for France before America came into the war.”

“What about your foot?”

“I don’t need to walk around inside the airplane, sir,” said Marchand as if nothing could have been more obvious. “Please. I want to fly.”

Edward hesitated.

“Come in the car with me up to the airfield. We’ll talk to Colonel van Horn when we get there.”

Deveraux appeared carrying two identical wooden cases, one in each arm. When Edward saw them, his stomach sank. There was no possibility that they contained cameras. They were oblong and nearly flat. They looked like cases for woodwind instruments.

“Are they all like that?” Edward asked.

“Yes, sir,” Deveraux said.

“And those are the only things they have?” Deveraux nodded.

“Well, we’d better have a look inside them and see what we’ve got here.” They laid the cases on the ground. Deveraux knelt down beside one. He broke the seal and sprung the two catches at either end, then began to pry open the lid. Lutz, Reece, and Edward all bent over him, peering down, like people crowding around a man who has fallen in the street. Edward thought, What a comic spectacle we would be to anyone with the time to notice.

Lutz eased the lid up on the first case. Inside lay a long, wooden handle with a flat steel trowel at one end that finished in a point.

“An entrenching tool,” said Reece, nodding, pleased with his own perspicacity. Edward stared at it in disbelief.

“My God,” he said. “They sent you men all the way from America with seventy-five top-secret shovels.” He turned away. “Special equipment …”

Edward walked up the platform to clear his head. He looked back at where the lieutenants were gathered in a small group near the case open on the ground. The men stood around awkwardly, shifting in place, unsure of what to do next, of how to respond to this new turn of events. They kept looking down at the entrenching tool, as though they were checking to make sure it was still a spade and hadn’t turned into a camera while they weren’t paying attention.

Through his irritation he suddenly felt a wave of sympathy for them. They were well meaning and certainly not stupid. They had just arrived and they clearly wanted to do their best. But they looked to Edward like a flock of confused birds, all alarmed by the same noise but not knowing whether to fly off or stay where they were … and all at once he began to laugh. He tried to stop so the men wouldn’t notice, but he couldn’t, and the infection spread. Lutz looked up and saw Edward with his hand over his mouth. He snorted once and immediately tried to suppress it but instead let out a sound that could have come from a donkey. That set the rest of them off.

“Entrenching tools …” Edward mouthed between spasms of giggles. “Entrenching tools … unbelievable …”

Eventually, he caught his breath and wiped his eyes. He turned to Lutz and Deveraux. “Get the men formed up into companies,” he said, trying to sound stern and commanding. “We have several miles to walk to the airfield before supper.”

From the station steps he watched them getting ready to march, the lieutenants counting heads and calling roll. How, he wondered, are we ever going to begin work? Barnes had said they wanted photographs of the front by the middle of the week. But with no cameras, what could they do?

“We’re ready to go, sir,” Dawson reported to him.

“OK. Move out, Lieutenant,” Edward said. And they filed down the road, the sound of their footsteps keeping clumsy time.

COLONEL ROBERT VAN HORN was a short man with big, solid shoulders and a face that fell naturally into an attitude of barely contained irritation. He spoke in short, explosive bursts and paced while he talked, a combination that made him seem threatening even when he was pleased.

“Have a seat, gentlemen,” he said when Edward and the three lieutenants entered his office. He flung his arm toward a circle of chairs opposite his desk. “Find your rooms comfortable? Good. Pleased to hear it.” He had not waited for a reply. “We’ve had a new advance out of the Aisne salient in the past two days, at the western side, toward the railway junction in Compiègne. Not the huge show we are expecting soon, but some fireworks. They crossed about ten miles on a front south of Noyon and then halted without reaching the junction.” Van Horn himself stopped pacing when he said this, as if to illustrate. Then he began again in the other direction.

“We still can’t say for sure whether this is preparation for a big push, or a decoy,” he continued. “If this is the real thing, they will want to make good on these advances soon. The longer they wait, the more Yanks will be added to the line. So we are expecting another large-scale offensive soon. I’m sure I don’t have to say that this makes the work you are doing even more urgent.”

Van Horn pointed to a map that covered one wall. It was thick with different-colored pins “These are French units,” he said, pointing to the green markers, “these,” indicating the black ones, “are German. And these,” he pointed to a couple of isolated red pins near them, “are American.”

“We’ve got boys from the 42nd Marines in the line, and 2nd and 3rd divisions up between Château Thierry and Lucy-le-Bocage.” Above them the semicircle of black pins swelled forward menacingly. “We need to know where the Germans will come from next. We have a squadron of DH-4s that can start taking observers on reconnaissance flights as soon as you can process their photographs. When will you be ready?”

Edward cleared his throat. “There’s a problem,” he said. “The equipment that was supposed to come for these men has not arrived. We have no cameras for them, and none of the other photographic materials we’ll need. No paper, no developer—”

“I didn’t ask you about problems,” van Horn said, catching him up short. “I asked for an estimate of when you can have your operation up and running.”

“Three days.” Edward was almost surprised to hear himself speak with such certainty, but there it was: he’d said it and he sensed that it was the right answer. He felt the other men in the room exhale collectively, relieved. Across the desk, van Horn waited for him to continue. “Where are the other American installations in this section of the front?” He stood up and walked to the map, so he was standing beside the colonel.

“Here,” van Horn pointed, “at Châlons-sur-Marne. There is a supply depot and an American Red Cross hospital. There’s also a French airfield.”

“Give me a telephone and a car,” Edward said. “We’ll have our men ready in three days to start shooting.”

“Very good, Captain,” said van Horn. He turned to the lieutenants. “The tasks will be divided up as follows: Dawson, you will be responsible for the observers and the flight schedules and routes; for the moment, you’ll want to send them out on high-altitude runs keeping close to our side of the lines.

“Deveraux, you’ll oversee developing and printing; and Lutz, you’re in charge of the photo interpreters. You’ll also be Captain Steichen’s assistant. Any questions?”

“Sir …”

“Yes, Lutz?”

“If I’m to work with the interpreters, will I be flying?”

“Everyone will be expected to fly when they are needed. As the ones with the most experience, officers will go up everyday.”

“Excuse me, sir,” asked Deveraux. “But did you say we’ll be flying in de Havilland 4s?”

“That is correct, Lieutenant. Is there a problem with that?”

“No, sir. Just …”

“The pilots at Tours,” Lutz said, “thought DH-4s were …”

“What is it Lieutenant?” Van Horn drummed his fingers on the desk impatiently.

“They called them ‘flaming coffins,’ sir. They said they were badly designed and dangerous. That they crash during landing.”

“All airplanes are dangerous,” van Horn said. He looked fixedly at Deveraux. He seemed to be daring the lieutenants to continue this line of questioning. Lutz sat looking unhappily at his folded hands.

“Yes, sir, of course, but …”

“The DH-4 is nose-heavy,” Edward cut in. “But the pilots here have been trained to fly them and they’ll know how to compensate for it. I went up in them with British pilots at St-Omer many times. They are fine planes.”

While he was speaking, he’d avoided looking at van Horn, but now he glanced over and the colonel looked, not pleased exactly, but less annoyed than Edward had yet seen him.

“Oh, well, of course, sir, we didn’t mean to imply …”

“No, of course you didn’t,” Edward said.

“Well, if there are no other questions, you three are dismissed.” The lieutenants stood, saluted and filed out, obviously grateful to be going. Van Horn watched them leave, then turned to Edward.

“That was not badly handled, Steichen,” he said. “You restored their confidence.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Van Horn sat down in the chair behind his desk. He seemed about to say something, but instead he looked Edward over with narrowed, appraising eyes. At last he said: “I’m curious. What were the St-Omer pilots doing with the DH-4’s? I’ve seen those damn things fall on their noses like rocks, back when I was flying. Not pretty.”

“They sandbagged the tails,” Edward said. “Made them murder to steer, but at least they could land.”

“Sandbags?”

“The height of modern technology, sir.”

Van Horn frowned. “Well, I don’t know what these kids are complaining about. They come out here expecting it to be some kind of cakewalk, and then they are surprised when it is hard work.” He looked across, again with his eyes narrowed. Edward wasn’t sure if he was looking for agreement or disagreement; he sat, saying nothing.

Abruptly, van Horn stood up and rang the bell to call his secretary.

“Well, Captain, unless there are any other matters we need to discuss …”

“Actually, sir, there is one more thing.” Van Horn folded his arms across his chest and waited for Edward to continue. “We have a boy who would like to join our section who is not officially enlisted.” And he explained about Gilles Marchand, how he had followed them east, how he wanted to fly.

“It shows spirit,” van Horn said, “following you out here. It shows initiative. You say he can work a camera?”

“He claims to be able to. And if he can’t, he’s no worse off than most of the others.”

“Well, I’ll consider it.” There was a knock at the door and van Horn’s secretary came in. Van Horn said: “My assistant will show you to an office you can use. My driver is at your disposal,” and he presented the door to Edward as though it were a work of art. The interview was over.

Two Women. Île de La Cité, 1903. Pigment print.

SHE HAS NEVER seen him act like this before. He is restless and uneasy. Several times during dinner he jumps up from the table and paces the room for no reason. He’s not really listening to a word anyone says; he just nods and looks away toward the dark squares of the windows.

She doesn’t know what to make of it. Usually, he is so attentive to the people around him, to her. When Marion Beckett asks him about the exhibition in London, he changes the subject right away. Usually, he likes nothing more than to discuss his work, especially with Marion, who generally has insightful, useful things to say. Clara wonders if perhaps he is tired from his journey—he arrived home just this morning—but that would explain only the dark circles under his eyes, the fatigued way he leans his elbows on the table, not the agitation, this energy that seems to have no specific purpose. Even Arthur notices.

“What is wrong, Ed? All night you’ve been wriggling around like a fish on a hook.”

“Nothing’s wrong.”

“I don’t believe you. Miss Smith, what have you been doing to him? Or is this how all young men act when they’re six months engaged?”

“I haven’t been doing anything to him,” Clara says. Typical of Arthur to be so appallingly crass. “You must remember, Mr. Carles, I’ve not seen him in a week. There must be some other girl who is driving him to distraction.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, darling,” Edward says. He fishes in his jacket pocket for his cigarette case, then goes over to the open window and leans out of it. He lights a cigarette, flinging the match into the darkness below.

“I know,” he announces so the whole room can hear. “Let’s all walk down to the river and look at the cathedral. This is too nice of an evening to be cooped up indoors. Who’s coming?”

“I’m in.” Arthur stands up. Never short of enthusiasm, at least.

“Marvelous idea,” says Leo Stein. “It’s a sight worth seeing, on a clear night.”

“Isn’t it very spooky?” asks Clara.

“Not at all. It’s magnificent.”

There are murmured affirmatives from the rest of the group—Mildred, Marion, Lottie and a boy called Billy Paddock who is courting her.

“Good,” says Edward. “Let’s go.”

Then there’s a scramble for hats and jackets as they make their way into the hallway, down the stairs and out into the evening street. Edward comes last, a quietly triumphant grin on his face. He loves things like this, loves to be the one who directs the next scene, who decides where the players will stand. He’s good at it—people follow his lead naturally. He takes Clara’s arm, and she feels that flush of excitement that comes over her when he is around. They have known each other now for more than a year, and she still experiences that same dizzying sweetness when he touches her.

“Oh,” he says, suddenly, “let me just run home and get my camera.”

“Must you?” Clara asks. “Won’t you walk with the rest of us?”

“It will only take me three minutes. I’ve wanted to shoot that place at night for ages.”

“Well, I’ll come with you, then. For the walk.”

“Oh no, darling, there’s no need. You go ahead. I’ll meet you on the bridge.” He is already several paces down the street, waving them to go on without him.

“What he means is that he really wants to take more pictures of his lovely fiancée,” says Arthur.

“Well, in that case,” she says, “I give him my blessing.”

“Go on, Ed. I’ll escort the lady.” And he puts his arm through Clara’s before she can say anything to object.

Edward nods and blows her a kiss, then runs off down the street without another word. She stares after him. He has never made that gesture before, and at the moment it seems to her like the combination of a cough and the motion one makes when swatting at a troublesome insect. She cannot shake the sense that there has been something evasive about his actions this evening. Something is wrong. And she is going to find out what it is.

She turns to Arthur with her sweetest and most engaging smile. “Shall we go?” she asks.

EDWARD WALKS TOWARD the river feeling buoyant, swinging his arms. His camera case hangs on a strap across his shoulders. It feels good to be outside at last, to be walking, to lose himself a little in the motion of his own limbs. The evening streets are crowded with people and noisy with the sounds of their talk and laughter. He makes his way along the Boulevard St-Michel, past the red awnings and open doors of restaurants that spill sharp electric light onto the pavement, through the dull orange flicker of the streetlamps where the shadows of strangers turn like clock hands and vanish. He is thinking about Kathleen.

He knows he should not be thinking about her, but he has told himself to stop a hundred times and none of his attempts have worked. So he has given up censuring his brain and instead he is floating quietly along on the memory of her hands, her soft mouth, the way she has of opening her eyes very wide when she wants to say something serious. She really does have wonderful hands: long articulate fingers, each knuckle a little rough and dry where the clay she uses for modeling has sucked out all the moisture. He inhales deeply and feels a precarious exhilaration. The street around him resonates in sympathy. This city, he thinks, is like magic, a trick of the light. You can drink it through your skin.

Does Clara suspect something? He dismisses this thought: Of course she doesn’t. What is there for her to suspect? Almost nothing. He has hardly done anything wrong.

He met Kathleen Bruce last year when he was in London for an exhibition. She introduced herself and complimented him on some prints of the Brooklyn Bridge that he’d taken. It turned out she was an artist herself, a sculptress. They liked each other right away. Since then they have written letters back and forth, mostly about their work, a little about their lives outside it. When she came to visit Paris earlier in the summer, he showed her some of the sights. They dined together and attended the theater. She met Clara, and the two of them got along famously. After that they had continued to correspond, and when he learned he would be in London to exhibit again this year, he wrote and told her. She made arrangements to come down by train from Edinburgh, to stay with an aunt who owned a house in Kensington. This time, she wrote, I can be your guide.

But then there was that afternoon, just two days before he was due to return to Paris. They were walking in Hyde Park together, Kathleen’s idea, intending to stroll over to Kensington Palace. They were alone. Edward was in a bad mood: his prints had sold badly and he believed it was because of where they had been hung—a rear corner of the exhibition hall, in bad light. Kathleen had sympathized, but she seemed distracted, sad for some reason she didn’t explain, and the conversation had slowed, then stopped altogether. What’s wrong? he asked her eventually. She didn’t reply right away, just kept walking, looking away from him so he couldn’t see the expression on her face. He took her wrist and pulled her around toward him. Her face was contorted, her mouth held in the rigid effort of a smile. You must be stupid to ask that, she said. Then: I’m sorry. Please excuse me. I don’t know what I’m saying. She cleared her throat. Why don’t you walk me home? I don’t feel like seeing the palace today after all.

No, he said. He held on to her wrist. I don’t want you to go home yet.

Oh, don’t, she replied. She sounded tired. Playing the overwrought romantic doesn’t suit you, Edward. I’m sure your fiancée would agree. Will you take me home, or do I have to go by myself?

Irritated he let go of her hand and they walked out of the park. They hailed a cab to take them the rest of the way. They sat in silence as the streets rolled by the open windows, and at the end of her aunt’s road, Kathleen reached up and knocked on the ceiling. When the cab stopped, she held out her hand to him. Well, goodbye, she said, her voice wooden. He took her hand and instead of the perfunctory shake that she’d intended for it, he drew it up and kissed it slowly, one small knuckle after another. She pulled it away, a sharp, angry motion, and for a minute he thought she might smack him, but then she was kissing him and he forgot about everything else.

It is this kiss which pulls him into its whirlpool, drawing him down, so he tastes her mouth again, and feels her body rise against him in the shaded interior of the cab. He tries not to remember it. It was only once, after all, and afterward they had fallen away from each other, guilty, unable to speak. Kathleen had wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, slowly, still watching him as she did it, her eyes slitted narrow like a cat’s.

“Edward!” Clara calls from the other side of the street. The sound of her voice breaks in on him, and he starts as though he has been discovered doing something illicit. There is the whole party waiting for him on the riverward side of the Quai Montebello. He waves and calls out: “Hello, darling!” then wonders if he sounds too falsely hearty. He crosses toward them. Clara comes and slides her arm though his, and they move off across the bridge. In the middle she stops to look down at the black water slipping away beneath them. “How I love rivers,” she says, and cranes her neck down to peer into this one. “It’s so dark, you can’t see anything in its surface. Not even us.”

Through the sleeve of his shirt he can feel her body pressed against his arm, and when he leans down to see what she sees, he smells the dark scent of her hair. He looks into the water where she is pointing, and she is right: there is nothing below them to show that they exist at all. But for the fact they can sense each other’s life and warmth and solidity, they might easily be ghosts. He has an overwhelming feeling of tenderness, of wanting to protect her from the world, from the worst parts of himself. Surely this feeling is love, he thinks. This is what separates love from all those other transient desires that we lazily call by that name. And then, suddenly, he is terribly sorry for what he has done.

THE CATHEDRAL RISES into the darkness until it disappears, and at night the great rose window looks like an empty eye, the arched doors like open mouths. Gas lamps send a dim, wavering glow over the hunched figures of the patriarchs and saints that crowd the western face.

“Like bees,” Marion says, and Clara thinks this is a good way to describe them.

“For years,” Leo says, “there was no stained glass in the nave. Since the revolution, in fact. It’s only recently that they’ve restored the windows to their original state.”

“I don’t care what you say,” Clara says, “it is spooky.”

They walk around to the side of the building. When they are a little way from the others, Clara says to Marion, “Edward seems out of sorts this evening, doesn’t he?”

“Perhaps he is tired.”

“Oh, no. I don’t think it is only that. He seems so, well, absent. Like his head is somewhere else entirely. I don’t know what’s gotten into him.”

Marion sighs. “I think I know what it might be,” she says. “Something to do with his trip to London. I don’t know whether or not I should tell you.”

“Oh, you must!” says Clara.

“Are you sure? I could be wrong about this, you know. Wouldn’t it be better to simply ask him yourself if there is anything the matter?”

“Men don’t tell you things just because you ask them.”

“Well, I would hope if you were marrying them, they might.”

“Just tell me what you heard.”

“All right.” Marion draws her away along the side of the cathedral. They find one of the wooden park benches and sit down on it. They are almost fully immersed in shadow so they can hardly see each other’s faces.

“Something unexpected happened while he was in England. Mildred told me this. At the exhibition.”

“Well?”

“The photographs that he took to the show. They didn’t sell—or not very many of them. Mildred said it was a great disappointment for him, all told. He thinks they were put away in a corner where people couldn’t see them. He was quite angry—apparently he argued with Fred Holland Day about it; I don’t think that they parted on good terms.”

“Oh, the poor thing!” Clara cries. “Why didn’t he tell me?”

“Well, perhaps he didn’t want to burden you with it. Think about it. He is getting married to you next year. He wants to be certain he can provide for his wife. He doesn’t have family wealth to fall back on like some of us, so he must earn money. He doesn’t want you to start to doubt him now.”

“But if I’m going to be his wife, he needs to tell me things like this. I have to help him through difficulties, support him—that is what wives are for!”

“Listen, I’m not certain about any of this,” Marion says. “It is all hearsay. I’m not sure that is what is really troubling him, or that he didn’t intend to tell you eventually.”

“No, I’m quite sure you are right,” Clara says. “It is the only reasonable explanation.”

“Please, don’t be hasty, Clara. Think before you say anything to him.”

“Of course. I must draw him out on it. He must learn to trust me.” She jumps to her feet and grabs Marion’s hand. Almost at a run, she pulls her back toward the western end of the building where the others are, pausing only to kiss her on the cheek and whisper, “Thank you. You are such a good, wise friend.”

That must be it, Clara thinks. He is disappointed. His work was received badly, and he doesn’t want to admit it. He is a man who has had a great deal of acclaim almost from the very beginning of his career, and he is not accustomed to dealing with failure. He isn’t even used to being disappointed. But she can help him learn to do this—every artist will have good and bad times, and surely it is the love and support of their wives that gets them through the difficulties. Look at Rodin and Rose Beuret. Look at Amélie and Henri Matisse. Yes, helping him to accept this setback in London and move on from it will bring them closer than mere romance. It will be her first real act as his wife. As she walks toward where he is setting up his photographic equipment, she feels as though an entirely new chapter of her life is beginning.

HE SETS HIS tripod across from the western façade while the others wander around the immense perimeter of the cathedral. He can see them as vague shadows in couples and threes, their individual figures nearly indistinguishable. If he peers closer, he can see Leo’s pointed beard and spectacles, and Mildred’s slightly stooped form beside him. He can see Arthur pointing up at the flying buttresses and gremlins on one corner. He isn’t sure if there will be enough light to capture this scene, but he will try with a flashbulb. He puts his eye to the viewfinder, and through it he sees one of the figures separate from the darkness at the side of the building, no, two figures, walking quickly and close together, one pulling the other along by the hand. Marion and Clara, though in this darkness and distance he cannot tell which is which. One woman stops near the main door to the nave, and the other continues to come toward him. As she gets closer, he sees that it is Clara.

“Stop right there,” he calls. “I wonder if I can get you and the cathedral together. Will you look out toward the river for me?”

She obliges by turning away from him. “Is this right?”

“Yes,” he says. “Perfect. Just let me get the flashbulb set up. Don’t move.”

He loves night photography because it can suggest forms without having to show them in stark detail. At night the world softens, its distinctions blend, its objects bleed into each other. Their imperfections are hidden; they can tell a larger story than they could if they were photographed straight; they can keep their mystery. It is a process that he can enhance later with his brushes when he prints the exposures, altering them to make the forms less individuated and distinct. In this way photography can ascend toward the level of painting as a means of creating beauty; it can become more fully an art.

He will open up the camera and let as much light in as possible. The cathedral will not go anywhere, so he can afford to extend the exposure time. If Clara will just stay right where she is … there. He can just fit Marion’s silhouette into the frame, where she stands some twenty feet further away, gazing up at the balustrades. Two women, and the moon just risen in the black face of the river.

“Hold still,” he says to Clara. The flash goes off and he takes the picture, but with night photography it’s hard to be certain it will come out. He wants to make sure he captures this scene. “Just one more,” he says.

“Darling …” Clara says quietly.

“Yes, my dear?”

“I don’t mean to bother you, but is everything quite all right? I mean did everything go well in England this time?”

He stops adjusting the camera and stands up straight so he can see her with his own eyes.

“Yes. Fine,” he says. “Why?” His heart jumps in his chest. His palms feel suddenly damp. She knows. She must know. Otherwise, why these questions? But she doesn’t seem angry or upset. In fact, if he looks at her, she seems almost to be glowing, her eyes shining and calm.

“You seem a little out of temper. That’s all. I just wanted you to know that if anything happened, that was, well, unexpected or even bad, that you can tell me about it. I won’t be upset or doubt you—if I’m going to be your wife, my purpose is to help you. Through whatever happens. No matter what it is.”

He stares at her. He is speechless.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “You seemed upset so I asked people about it. I know you had an incident with a certain acquaintance there. Forgive me for going behind your back about it.”

Does he know this woman, standing not ten feet from him, whom he has courted and loved for nearly a year now? Did he have any idea of the depth of her generosity, her greatness of spirit? He would never have predicted this from her. If anything, though he loves her, desires her, he has felt, at times, a certain parochial rigidity to her opinions and ideas; he has suspected her of not really being very freethinking after all. How has he misjudged her so thoroughly? This is more extraordinary than he could even have supposed. She does know about Kathleen, and she has chosen to rise above it, to recognize it for the folly that it was. In his surprise he forgets to wonder who knew and who has told her. He goes to her and kneels down and puts his arms around her hips, and buries his head in her skirt.

“My love …” he says. “Do you really mean it?”

“Of course I do,” she says serenely. “Every word.”

“I wanted to tell you. As soon as I saw you, I wanted to tell you about her, but I was afraid of what you would say.”

He looks up in time to see the smile freeze on her face as she takes in his words. Something, he realizes, has gone terribly wrong.

“Her?” she asks.

—

THEY LEAVE AS quickly as they can.

“Miss Smith is feeling fatigued,” Edward tells the others. “I’m going to see her back to her rooms.”

“Yes, it just came over me all of a sudden,” Clara puts in, the recklessly strained attempt at a smile stretched across her face. “Thank you for a lovely evening, Mr. Stein.” Her voice comes out in squeaky bursts. Not noticing this, Leo waves easily to them, and goes back to discussing the architecture with Arthur.

“Clara, are you sure you are quite all right?” Marion comes running toward them.

“Yes, yes. I’m fine.” Clara backs away from her, trying to conceal that she is on the verge of tears.

“Well, if you are sure you’ll be fine …” Marion says.

“Quite fine,” Clara says. “Good night!”

They walk quickly, in silence across the bridge. When they reach the other side Clara says, “I’m perfectly able to see myself home from here.”

“Clara, I’m not going to leave you in the middle of the city at night on your own. Let me get a cab.”

“Thank you, but I can get one for myself.” She begins to walk away down the street.

“Stop!” He strides after her, reaches out and grabs her by the shoulder. He holds her there, his hand fastened around her upper arm. She pulls against him, but he doesn’t let go. He is surprised by his own reaction. He had not intended to reach out for her when he did, or to prevent her going by force. He does not know where the fierce energy comes from that now flows through his arms and says that she must not, cannot, leave him.

“Please, Clara,” he says. “Stay here. Just let me find a taxi.” She nods, slowly, assenting, and he charges off down the street hailing every wheeled vehicle in sight.

Eventually, he finds one and helps her inside, then climbs up himself. He gives the driver the address of the hotel where she is staying and sinks back into the seat. She sits at the other end of the bench, as far away from him as she can get, looking out of the window with her face turned away. He feels he must say something. He must say it now. But he cannot think of what it should be.

“Clara, it was a mistake,” he says. She doesn’t even acknowledge that he is speaking. All he can see are her contours, cheekbones and neck in amber relief. Too soon they are at the hotel where she and Charlotte have taken rooms for the summer. The cab halts in front. She stands up and he climbs down to help her from the carriage, but she pushes his hand away. He stands aside and lets her past, then pays the driver and waves him on. They stand facing each other at the foot of the front steps of the hotel.

“I’d think it only courteous if you take steps to avoid our meeting socially, while I make arrangements to return to New York,” Clara says.

“What? You can’t be serious.”

“It is the least you can do.”

“Don’t you think you are overreacting to this just a little?” Clara doesn’t reply. “I mean,” he goes on, “can’t we at least discuss …”

“Discuss what?” she asks. “I don’t feel inclined to discuss anything at all with you, Mr. Steichen. Unless you would care to manhandle me again as you did before,” and she holds out her arm to him, crooked, elbow foremost. Her eyes on him are sharp, illuminated. “No?” she asks. “Well, then.” She searches in her pocketbook and withdraws her key, then abruptly turns away, hurries up the stone steps and disappears inside the building.

He stands looking after her. The street is quiet. He can’t imagine trying to sleep right now. His body and brain are still alight, so that the events of the past half hour don’t seem completely real. He can’t stop picturing the way she looked at him as she held out her arm, goading him, daring him to lay hold of it and reveal how far his anger would go. How could he sleep after that? Perhaps he can just wander through the city until he is so tired that he can slip into unconsciousness untroubled. Perhaps he should find a place to get a drink.

As he begins to walk down the street, he sees something on the pavement almost directly under his feet. He stoops down to look at it more closely. It is a single woman’s glove. When he picks it up and holds it to the light, he recognizes it. It is Clara’s. She must have dropped it as she searched for her keys, though how she couldn’t have noticed it falling—something that big—is beyond him.

He thinks that he had better take it back to her. If she was indeed serious and intends to depart for New York and, he supposes, to break off their engagement, she will miss this when she is packing. And if her words were only a threat … well, she’ll still miss it. He should still return it to her. Shouldn’t he? He decides to walk around the block, calm down and then go after her. Holding the empty fingers of the glove in his hand, he sets off down the street.

THE LADY CONCIERGE is insistent, however.

“No gentlemen visitors in the hotel. What time of night do you call this anyway?” she says.

“But the young lady dropped her glove. I am only returning it. Can someone go up and knock on her door and tell her that I have it?”

“At this hour?”

“Please, madame.” He has run out of arguments. “Please.”

“Well,” she says, her voice like a door creaking open, “I suppose gloves are an important item in a lady’s reticule.”

“Yes,” he agrees.

“Especially in high summer.”

“Definitely.”

“I’ll send the maid up to see if …”

“Miss Smith.”

“To see if Miss Smith is still awake. Wait here please.”

She rings and a girl comes from beneath stairs and is given Clara’s room number. He waits, while the concierge eyes him from behind the desk, amused. Running a ladies’ hotel, it must be one of the consolations of her job to see young men in his distraught state on a fairly regular basis. Fortunately, it is only a few minutes before Clara comes downstairs, taking each step one at a time, watching him as she descends. From her eyes, he can see that she has been crying, but otherwise she is still dressed as she was when she left him. He is struck with the conviction that she dropped the glove on purpose, intending for him to find it. She has been waiting up for him to come and return it to her. Her reaction was, at least in part, an elaborate performance, her idea of how a wronged woman ought to behave. It seems absurd, but he is nonetheless convinced that this is the case. When she reaches the foot of the staircase, she holds out her hand to him solemnly. He takes it and feels again energy, anger, desire for her inextricably entangled.

“May we sit in the front parlor?” Clara asks the concierge.

“He said he wanted to return your glove.”

“Only for a few minutes.” The woman nods resentfully and ushers them through into a small sitting room.

“I’ll be just out here should you need anything,” she says, looking meaningfully at Edward. Then she goes out, drawing the door closed behind her.

—

WHILE WAITING FOR him to come, she has been making rules in her head. She can accept it, as long as it was only a single occurrence, not an ongoing affair. And as long as no one else knows about it. And as long as he is genuinely contrite. As long as he agrees not to see this other woman, whoever she is, ever again.

When the door closes behind that fussy, officious concierge woman and they are alone together, he takes both of her hands in his.

“Please,” he says. “Let me explain. Hear me out.”

As long as he never does anything like this again. People, men especially, make mistakes like this out of momentary fancy and make amends for them. And women put up with a lot worse than a man who strays a little once. Rose Beuret, for example; everybody knows the infidelities she suffers; and with women who she must then see when she goes into society. That would be unbearable, Clara thinks, and though she admires Rose for her steadfastness, it is not what any woman would wish for herself.

As long as she is never brought to their house as a guest or as a friend. As long as whatever he did is hidden, far away, separate from their life together. As long as this is not an omen for the future, she can take him back with her dignity intact. Here he is, standing before her, his face full of pain and concern, and she loves him so much that she is actually quite certain that taking her hand out of his right now and walking away would feel something like dying.

“All right,” she says. “Tell me.”