Serafim and Claire Read Free

sun-creased woman passed the doorway with three pigs on a hemp leash, he realized that this was one of the thoroughfares to the river, where people from the morning markets ferried themselves and their goods back to their homes in Gaia, on the other side. One of Serafim’s favourite photos ever taken in Oporto was on that river, the Douro. The shot, by an amateur photographer, had been well ahead of its time, and featured a line of women loading a merchant boat, balancing baskets on their heads. He had been down to the loading docks countless times since first seeing the print, trying to catch something like it; but he just didn’t have the luck of being in the right place at the right time. Though, he reasoned, luck was a strange thing. And maybe with the luck in his life turning sour in every way it possibly could today, the luck of a perfect exposure might just coast his way. Sure, he nodded to himself, that was as good an idea as any.
    He emptied his glass one last time and stood up, feeling a wave of welcome nullity as the alcohol washed over him, pooling at his dizzy feet. Not wanting to speak to the barman, he tossed more escudos onto the table than the bottle of bagaç o could possibly be worth, and watched as one slow coin rolled along the uneven surface as languid as an ox cart’s wheel then jingled onto the floor. He didn’t care. It would give the barman something more to talk about, add some flavour to the story, to the pathetic sight of him, Serafim Vieira, the laughingstock.
    Out into the squinting light, he lumbered down the lane, which followed the lay of the land that drained every street in the city onto the banks of the Douro. He cupped his tiny camera, a Leica, against his chest; no model name or number, just solid German quality, which had been mailed to him directly from the factory a little under a year ago, only a few months after it was released onto the market. He’d been awaiting its invention for four long years. Finally, a sophisticated camera small enough that it wouldn’t be noticed by the people it captured, that could be taken straight into the heart of a dynamic street scene and remain overlooked by its subjects.
    Now he could see the water, smell the soap from all the women doing their washing on the banks and in the tributaries. He stopped to take a wobbly picture of a boy climbing to the top of a hoist that angled up over the river. The boy’s friends, swimming below, cheered him on as he dove flaccidly into the brown water. Serafim took another shot of the group of them, bobbing around in the filthy river, their heads wading through orange peels and cigarette butts, skimming prisms of oil, the pale of their skinny legs disappearing into a sienna fog.
    Serafim noticed that a ship was being loaded a little farther down the quay, and headed towards the commotion, thinking of its potential as a photograph. Longshoremen with square burlap sacks, swollen pillows stuffed to near bursting, were muscling into a tight queue and climbing onto the ship, while another gangplank of them, empty-handed and quick on their toes, filed out of the boat and towards the next parcels for loading.
    From where he was standing, it would have been a poorly composed shot, but Serafim had lifted his camera anyway, when he heard his name being called out above the noise and bustle. He turned around to see an old acquaintance from grade school, who’d since taken over his father’s merchant business, casually leaning in a doorway with his legs crossed. His friend was standing with another man, who was holding a leather-bound notebook and presumably overseeing the order being loaded.
    Serafim approached them, distantly aware that he was visibly drunk, his steps unbalanced against the uneven of the cobblestones. Abandon spilled from his swinging gestures. He was quite unsure what he would do next, feeling, for the first time in his quiet and reserved life, reckless. Just before