13, Rue Therese - Elena Mauli Shapiro [41]
The creation of this object is long after the days of our story, almost fifteen years past our November 1928. Louise is already middle-aged when she tucks her father’s venerable metal face into a recessed corner of her jewelry box.
In the record today, we find the brooch preserved thus:
intact and sealed by her careful hands.]
Une photo de toi aussi
IN THE DOCUMENTATION IS an identification photograph of Louise’s husband:
You can see that he goes by his middle name, and not his first. You can see that he bears an uncanny resemblance to Louise’s father, only with a slightly broader face. In this photograph he is only thirty, but he is already half-bald, prematurely aged. Louise’s father, in spite of all the grief he has suffered with the loss of his wife and his only son, is well preserved and ages slowly. It is almost as if the two men are converging through the years.
This document is a driver’s license for a motorcycle, issued in Henri’s hometown of Bracieux. He bought the motorcycle there too and kept it at his mother’s farmhouse. He liked to give his wife and his mother turns riding in the sidecar. He liked to watch them grip their seats and close their eyes against the wind as he took hairpin turns along the dirt road.
The motorcycle was his one extravagance, purchased in the year before his mother died. It is a Harley-Davidson. Now that she is gone and the family farmhouse is sold, he keeps it parked in the courtyard of his apartment building in Paris, covered with a tarp. He has not taken it out since first putting it there; roaring through cramped city streets does not interest him. He wanted only to feel the rush of open air on the wide and empty road, like so:
This photograph was taken in the summer of 1926, from too far away. Louise did not know how to properly operate the camera. Despite this, Henri is recognizable, as is the outer edge of the town of Bracieux behind him. Henri, tightly packed into his suit, poses proudly on his reckless machine.
After Louise snapped the picture, her husband shouted to her, “Have you got it?”
“I hope so,” she answered. “I can’t tell. You looked so far away through the lens. I hope you come out all right!”
She should have stepped closer; she framed too much of the blankness of road and sky. But the focus is sharp enough that you can see that the man in this picture is the same fellow from the driver’s license, if you look closely.
Louise put the lens cap on the camera and walked back across the dusty road. She rearranged herself, cozy and snug, into the sidecar, the camera clutched to her lap. Henri started the engine with a swift kick, and they were off again, the cooling afternoon wind blasting into their faces. The rush of air through Louise’s hair felt almost like fingers brushing backward against her scalp. Neither of them wore helmets. They had no use for such impediments.
Bracieux disappeared behind them. Soon they were surrounded by fields, and the only sound they could hear was the rumble of the motorcycle. The vibration of it traveled all through the exoskeleton of the sidecar. When Henri went too fast, it felt almost as if the thing would fall apart around her, and she rather liked the thrill of it. They were so far away from everything—Henri from the small and painstaking nature of his work with jewelry, and Louise from the small and painstaking nature of her barren housewife life, her only true happiness stemming from teaching a girl who would surely outgrow her, become bored with her limited instruction and leave her, inevitably.
Down the road a piece there was a little forest, and when they reached it, Henri stopped.
“What are you doing?” Louise asked.
“I think I should take a photo of you, too.”
“Ah, darling, you know I don’t like to have my picture taken.”
“But look, the foliage will make for an interesting background. Come on. Give me the camera.”
Louise picked the camera up from her lap but stopped before she handed it off to Henri. She didn