The Shadow Catcher

Edward took the gentleman’s hand and introduced himself, while Clara still held back.

“Would you like to see my photographs, Mr. Rothi?” Edward asked, proffering his monogrammed portfolio.

“I would rather see your money,” Mr. Rothi said.

“In that case I will have to see the darkroom.”

“In the back. Studio is up these stairs,” he pointed, “where there’s light. Skylight on the upper floor,” he started to explain but Edward had already disappeared behind the counter through a door toward where the photographs were printed.

“I’m sorry you are ill, Mr. Rothi,” Clara said, still keeping her distance, but before she had even breathed another breath Edward had returned, racing up the stairs. She could hear his footsteps on the floor above and then, within an instant, he was back. How much? he asked.

Clara took a small step toward him.

“—perhaps Mr. Rothi would like to show you his accounting, Edward,” she said, but he waved her off.

“One hundred and fifty,” Rothi said. “For half share of the business.”

“I’ll give you a hundred.”

“And I’ll give you the door.”

Clara watched the two men stand off with each other.

She wondered how Edward had acquired so much money, or if he even had it, but noted that nothing in his posturing before the older man suggested otherwise.

“I’ll work the difference off — work without a share in profits until the balance’s paid,” Edward offered.

“One hundred and fifty. Cash in hand. That’s my final,” Rothi told him.

Edward tendered their farewell and turned and left and Clara followed and once outside he grasped her wrists and said, “This is what I want—I could learn so much from him! What a tough old character, a man like him could teach me all I’d need to know about how to operate a business—”

“Edward,” Clara had to ask: “Do you have a hundred dollars?”

“—why, of course. Salary from all those years, odd jobs, and from the sawmill. I can raise the extra fifty, I suppose — I could sell the homestead, Father paid three dollars an acre for it — fifteen acres — plus, now, there’s the house and barn…”

“—but, Edward, if you do that…where would your mother and sister live?”

“—here. Seattle. They could live with us.”

Clara held her breath.

“—but, dear,” she argued: “Where would that be?”

“—we’ll find the rooms to rent…”

“—rooms for six? The city’s overrun with boarders from the fire. How would they pay? Where would the rent come from?”

“Asahel has work. Asahel has money saved. I could borrow—”

“Do you really want this, Edward?”

“So much, Scout. So very, very much…”

“—then here.” She reached into her bodice for the money she had left from Lodz.

Edward looked at the money then took it without speaking, nursing it from her fingers without touching her, though his eyes spoke an emotion she interpreted as ratified devotion.

She waited outside the building, watching the sun slide above the rooflines, pushing the shadows to one side of the street, while Edward went inside to deal with Mr. Rothi. She could hear a church bell clanging on the hill above her and detect a buttery aroma from the bakery nearby and she began to reinhabit the delights of city living, that sense of feeling others close at hand who share one’s cultural language and experience. She watched a carriage arrest at the corner where a well-turned-out gentleman descended, top hat and cane, and helped a lady in a fashionable dress dismount onto the pavement, as he took her arm and nuzzled his head close to hers before they sauntered, slowly, out of sight. I will have this life again, Clara thought. She felt her heart quicken — with a surge of pride she thought, I have paid to have this life again. She smiled, and told herself: with Edward.

He emerged from Rothi’s shop, his face more radiant than she had ever seen, and announced, “It’s done.” He took her arm and backed her up into the middle of the mews facing the building and swept his hand across its bland façade. “‘Rothi and Curtis,’” he pronounced. “‘Photographers.’ Thank you, Scout.”

She felt that she might cry from joy.

“Now let’s go see about these wedding rings,” he said and started toward the jeweler on the corner at the trot she was learning was his natural speed.

“Where did you get this, sir?” the jeweler, assaying the gold nugget, asked from behind his loupe.

“Why do you want to know?”

“I already know,” the jeweler said. He assessed Edward and Clara more carefully. “I want to know if you know.”

Edward held his gaze without answering.

It had been forty years since gold was found at Sutter’s Mill but superstitions and suspicions still swirled around the protocols of discovery, as if the gold, itself, were the product of alchemy, not nature, and it was unnatural to give away details of its provenance because of the vestigial fear of being claim-jumped.

“I would wager California on the Nevada line,” the jeweler said. “There are traces of BORON in the fasciae.”