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“Damn it, you moved!”
Jackson’s voice cut through air, pulling Cornelia back into reality and away from the strange haze she had been stuck in since the words ‘knows it already’, where only Eli and herself existed, pinned on a painted backdrop like two butterflies under glass.
“I’m sorry,” she responded, half unsure if she was directing the words to Jackson or to Eli.
From behind the camera Jackson sighed as he bent down and pulled the plate out of the back. “Well, nothing to be done about it now. I’ll try developing it, maybe we’ll get lucky. If not, guess we’ll just have to take another one.”
Folding the plate under his arm he strode off across the grass and into the tiny make-shift darkroom he’d constructed inside his tent, leaving Cornelia and Eli silent and inert, still posing for a photograph already taken.
Cornelia had rehearsed a thousand variations of her confession the night before but no matter how she imagined the end it had always begun the same way: first, the picture — for him to remember her by and for her to know she would be remembered; then a silent walk away from Jackson and the tent; and finally, having steeled herself sufficiently, the confession itself. She’d agonised over how much detail to give. How much she wanted to say, how much Eli would want to hear. Should she go into the prognosis, the stages, the symptoms? Should she bare her hands or her chest and reveal the necrotic flesh there? Should she recount the violation that lay at the heart of the infection?
All questions that had turned out to be pointless. Between the two of them — his words, her movement — anything she had planned had proved fruitless or mercifully unnecessary. Her only regret was that she may have ruined the photograph and that was minor in comparison to the relief she felt; the gift of quiet understanding Eli had given her. The picture could always be retaken.
Eli’s hand tightened on her shoulder where it still rested and Cornelia realised too late that he must have said something.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that,” she said.
“Asked if you were alright,” Eli replied.
“I– I’m fine Eli. I just think I need to stretch my legs.”
Rising swiftly from the chair Cornelia set out toward Jackson’s tent in the absence of any other destination. She’d been still for too long. She had to move. For a brief moment Eli hung back as though uncertain if he should follow but then set off after her, remaining just a few steps behind. Unwilling to stray too far from the tent Cornelia wandered about in front of it, pacing like a caged animal as Eli stood quietly watching. The movement was an inadequate outlet for her nerves but there was nothing else to do. She couldn’t sit on the grass and risk ruining the one good set of clothes she had remaining that were not soiled by travel, not when she likely had another picture still to take. She couldn’t enter the tent until Jackson was done. There was nothing to do or look at for miles around but if she didn’t do something she would scream. So, she paced.
When Jackson reappeared from the sealed tent entrance he was shaking his head.
“No luck,” he said.
He handed the freshly developed photograph to Cornelia and she took it in. Her eyes moved from the perfectly captured image of Eli to her body — still and proper, hands clasped in her lap — and finally to the blur where her face should be. If she stared hard at it, the way Eli was doing over her shoulder, she could just make out her profile. The bridge of her nose. The curve of her lips. Faint lines. The ghost of a woman.
Her voice was shaky when she spoke, “I’m terribly sorry to waste your time Mr Jackson but do you have another plate ready, can we try again?”
Eli remained silent by her side, his attention squarely fixed on the print in her hands.
“Now, now, I’m not going to begrudge the two of you a do-over. Take a moment, get yourselves ready, then meet me back over by the backdrop.” Jackson turned to directly address Cornelia with a fond smile tugging at his lips. “And this time try to stay still no matter how distracting you may find the surroundings.”
Before either of them could move Eli spoke up, “No need. This one’s fine.”
“Eli, are you sure?” Cornelia asked, “This is for you, so you have something to remember me by.”
Remember my face by, she doesn’t say, before the disease spreads to it, ravages and consumes it. She doesn’t have to, even so the words hang in the air between them — unspoken but understood.
“This’ll do just that.”
“Well, if you’re certain?” Jackson asked and Eli answered with a firm nod, “In that case I’ll go take down the backdrop. Give you two some privacy.”
Then he strode off, leaving the pair alone.
“Eli—“ Cornelia began before Eli cut her off.
“Don’t want to remember you sat still. I want to remember you as you are: living, breathing, moving.” Eli brushed across the burred outline of her face on the photograph, his thumb catching on the still slightly tacky surface. “For that, this is perfect.”