At Close Quarters Read Free Page A

one at home to reprimand the boys and calm the dog, which sixty seconds later was seen with its front paws on the metal edge of the fence, its threatening, toothy jaws wide open.
    And then, all of a sudden, the time between one take and the next seemed to have condensed into horror. The pit bull was on the outside, biting one staggering boy in the arm, while the two others ran away in terror. Shaken, Samuel clicked ‘next’: the ferocious tenacity of the dog that would not let go of its prey, not even when faced with some passers-by who either fled the scene or cautiously, fearfully, approached it, trying to help; the pit bull sinking its teeth between the fallen boy’s shoulder and neck while a woman, visible through a window, spoke on a mobile phone, her face a mask of despair as blood stained the ground … At last, two policemen had shot the animal, which lay on the pavement by the boy, one of the officers crouching down beside him.
    The headlights of the ambulance took up the centre of the last shot, before the sequence came to an end. It had all taken barely fifteen minutes, but when it was finished Samuel was shaking. Hehad tried to capture some images of harmony, of the woman he liked so much, and had ended up with a horror scene.
     
    For several days he didn’t know what to do, although he couldn’t stop thinking about the pictures. He put away the tripod and the camera in a cupboard as if they were dangerous, even harmful, just as he would have hidden a bear trap or a gun. On the one hand, he wanted to delete the pictures from the hard drive without printing them, as though they had never existed. What did he want them for? What use were some images in which one saw a completely unknown adolescent die? Only the boy’s initials, MGS, had appeared in the papers the following day, next to a picture of the pit bull looking at the camera with a peaceful, innocent expression which belied any streak of aggression. But then, he imagined an inquiry would be conducted, and if the law required it, he was in a position to provide evidence that would cast light on what had happened, so that everyone could face up to their legal responsibilities . Keeping the images could help avoid a miscarriage of justice.
    The house had remained locked since then, and he heard a neighbour say that its owners, distressed by the tragedy, had moved away. One morning a bunch of flowers appeared on the pavement against the fence; no one touched it, and it wilted until another morning it was gone, without anyone knowing who had brought it or taken it away.
    After two weeks, however, the street returned to normal. The tragedy was fading in people’s minds and they resumed walking down the pavement they had at first avoided, the street cleaner swept the fallen leaves where the boy had lain, the postman put letters through the letter box, unafraid now the dog had disappeared.
    Until he decided what to do with the photographs, he separated the ones of the left-handed woman, created a file called ‘Dog’ and embedded it in a folder called ‘Various’, among other subfolders, committing the order to memory. Never again, he vouched, wouldhe take furtive pictures of the woman who brought her child to the bus stop. Yet neither would he stop watching her from behind the window.
    At the end of October, when it had all become a habit, a pleasant , secret rendezvous, something happened that altered that routine. The bus had already taken the children away, but the woman remained a few seconds on the wide pavement straightening the small child in its pram. And when she stood up, Samuel saw a glittering something fall to the ground. She didn’t notice, though, and walked off and across the street leaving the small object lying on the flagstones.
    Samuel acted on such a quick impulse that it was only when he was opening the gate that he realised how risky it was to pick up the object and run after the woman to return it. She would thank him, surely, but