The sales clerk wore a raw silk blouse
and black pants that looked modern Italian, and she wasn’t
quite what Dan expected.
“I’ve been looking at
this photo. It’s made to look antique.”
She smiled broadly. “Right.
It’s a good fake. It was taken last year.”
“I suspected.”
“Actually it’s my cousin
with her mom and dad. A friend of hers took it with a plain old
Nikon 35 mm.”
“The dog belongs to Dad,”
he said.
“How did you know?”
“Your cousin is a lawyer?”
“You know her?”
“The earth woman?”
“And you are?”
“Oh, I’m just a colleague
and I’m late. Nice meeting you, though,” he tossed
the words over his shoulder as he strode out.
Context. Everything was context. You
would barely recognize your own mother if you knew, just knew,
you were looking at a photo that was 100 years old.
Dan wondered what Maria Fischer would
do, when she recognized him. He had only had one lengthy face-to-face
conversation with her and it was about a year previous. He had
waded into a demonstration at an Otran mill headed for the speaker’s
platform with a request that the crowd disperse or face the police.
Things had gotten a little rowdy in the crowd, she had jumped
off the pickup bed that served as a platform and pulled him into
the cab. It was an old red Ford with dents and rust, and with
blankets tacked on the upholstery. There they had a shouting match
before they made a deal that she would get the demonstrators away
from the mill gates in half an hour.
