“Certainly. I followed you here.”
She did not know whether to believe him, but it was, surprisingly, a nice idea. “Eight o’clock? In the dining room?” she suggested.
“I’ll be waiting for you by the door,” he replied, then turned and walked away up the hill easily, straight-backed.
The next moment, Margot appeared on the steps from the square. She was as unlike Elena as sisters could be. Margot had dark eyes and hair like black silk. She was lean and elegant, no matter what she wore. Elena was the same height; she had a certain grace, but she could not match Margot’s. Her eyes were quite ordinary blue, and her hair was nearly blond. She felt insipid beside Margot’s drama.
“Daydreaming again?” Margot asked, exasperation thinly veiled in her voice. She hardly ever forgot her four years’ seniority. “If you want to be a serious photographer, you’ll have to take some decent pictures, which you won’t do standing here.”
“I don’t know,” Elena said patiently. She had been nagged many times before, and although she knew it was true, she also knew Margot said it out of frustration and affection. “I got a couple of a woman dancing alone in the square below, in a scarlet dress. A little crazy, but a nice study.”
Temper flashed in Margot’s eyes for an instant, and then vanished again. “I’ll have them, please.”
“Don’t be daft!” Elena said impatiently. “I’m not wasting film on you. I just like watching you enjoy yourself.” It was the truth.
Margot put her arm around Elena and silently they walked up the hill, toward the hotel.
* * *
—
After lunch, Elena went out to see if she could get any pictures that captured the beauty of Amalfi. The town was very old and had once been one of the biggest ports in the Mediterranean. There was an unfailing permanence about it that was an ironic backdrop to the frenetic happiness of the people holidaying, escaping reality for a brief season. The clinging grayness of the Depression melted in the sun here. The American music, with its haunting tunes and its clever, bittersweet words, emanated from the bars, encapsulating the emotions perfectly. In her imagination she danced to it in the arms of the young man whose hair was almost auburn in the sun.
But what picture would show the fragility of this place, the beauty that haunted it? You knew it, even as it wrapped its warmth around you. She had seen life-changing photographs of the faces of hunger and hopelessness, figures struggling against the overwhelming, and they had moved her to tears. But what could capture this? She really needed Vesuvius in the background, the sleeping disaster that hovered over Naples and could be seen on the skyline of every picture. It had been nearly two thousand years since it had buried Pompeii and Herculaneum in fire and gas and burning lava. But it was waiting!
She imagined a dragonfly in the sun. Something that lives exquisitely, for just a few days. She needed a face that would mirror that, except with a knowledge of its own briefness. There must be one, if she were imaginative enough to recognize it. How could the camera show in black and white, light and shadow, all the brilliance and nuance of color?
That was why she had not photographed Margot dressed in red, dancing by herself. It needed the splash of color to say what she meant. A woman dressed bravely in scarlet, dancing alone. It was the perfect image of a million women in Britain—nearly two million, actually. They were called “surplus.” That meant “surplus to requirements,” because there were no men for them to marry. Elena was another of them.
But maybe that was better than being locked in the arms of someone who marched to a different tune.
* * *
—
In the slanted light of the lowering sun, Elena saw exactly the picture she wanted to take. A young woman, younger than herself, perhaps twenty, was standing half-facing the light. The light was soft, almost gilded, and it touched her gently, catching her youth, the totally unlined face. She had a mane of tawny-colored hair, and the light reflected in her pale, hazel eyes. All the lines around her were straight, angular, classical. Only the smoke from her cigarette curled up in front of her, vague and wandering, but she did not see it.
Elena had her Leica out of her camera bag and found the focus, steadied a moment, then took the picture.
The girl heard the faint click of the shutter and turned. The moment was gone.
“I hope you don’t mind,” Elena apologized. “You’re lovely, and you fit the scene so perfectly…”
The girl shrugged. “I don’t care.” She gave a half smile and walked away.
* * *
—
Elena was still thinking about that picture when she went up to the room she shared with Margot. It was time to change for dinner. She was looking forward to dining with Ian Newton, more than she had with anyone for quite a while. Margot was ready for the evening. She had changed the red dress for a sequined gown in purple. It clung to her outrageously, and yet it was flattering. On someone else, it might have been vulgar, but she was so slender that it suggested her shape rather than revealed it. She looked gorgeous, and she was clearly aware of it, but then Margot always was.
“Where have you been?” she asked as Elena came in. “There can’t possibly be an economist all that interesting.”
“I got a picture of a girl in the fading light, which could be really good. The shadows caught and heightened the lines of her face,” Elena replied. “For a moment, she was truly beautiful…and young…and hopeless. It was as if she could see time rushing by in front of her, disappearing even as she put her hand out to touch it.”
“And so it is,” Margot said briskly. “We’ll be late for dinner if you don’t get a move on.”
Ten minutes later, Elena was out of the bathroom, washed and changed, her hair brushed and her face lightly made up, no jewelry but the ring she always wore on her right hand.