Working Prints

Dorus had a strip of paper stuck between his jacket and the zip. He tugged at it while Anouk held the door. The paper tore at the end.

‘Leave it for a moment,’ she said. ‘Come inside first.’

In the hallway, he freed the remaining piece. It was a collection slip from a parts shop. He folded both pieces together and put them in his pocket. Vera saw that he hadn't brought a box. Only a thin folder, with an elastic band around the bottom corner.

Anouk had asked him to come at eleven. On the phone she had told him what she wanted: to find out what he still had and arrange to get it back. Not settle on a price before they even knew the extent of the problem. Vera was there at her request. She had time until early afternoon and had leaned her bicycle against the fence. Milan had class on Thursday; today was not a day when she could stay away longer without anyone noticing.

Dorus placed the folder on the table and did not sit down until Anouk pointed to the chair. He pushed it back a little. One of the back legs landed on the joint between two floorboards. His shoulder jerked with each adjustment until the chair finally stood level.

‘I don't want everything I've done to disappear from the credits,’ he said.

Anouk remained standing opposite him. ‘You took two of the photographs in the selection. Nobody’s disputing that.’

‘And the printing?’

‘That can be added. But today we’re talking about the things themselves.’

He drew the folder towards him with a quick movement. He slid the elastic off and took out two invoices rather than photographs. At the top of one was a name she did not recognise. The other had ‘paid’ written on it, followed by a small tick. Anouk sat down now too.

‘This is what I am getting this month,’ he said.

She did not look at the amounts immediately. ‘Before we get there: which box is still with you?’

‘My working prints.’

‘The fifth box?’

‘That small one with the proof prints, yes. Not another box of negatives.’

Vera heard herself take a deep breath. She had known one group was unaccounted for, neither at the foundation nor with Bente or Otto. Hearing him say, so calmly, that it was still at his house was another matter. Anouk took the contents list out of her own folder and laid it down in front of her.

‘Twelve working prints, the selection list, and the assignment papers.’

He looked at the sheet. ‘There are notes of mine in there too.’

‘Those can stay with it. I want to see what’s there.’

‘I can bring them here.’

Anouk shook her head. ‘I want to come and look first. At the box as it is now.’

She said it plainly, without raising her voice. Dorus sat with two fingers under the loosened elastic band. He let it bounce back against the folder.

‘Do you think I’m going to pick something out before I come?’

‘I don’t want another selection handed to me without knowing what’s been left out.’

He looked at Vera. She looked at the list, which bore no handwriting of hers. Vera wasn’t going to soften the question for him. Anouk had asked the question, and Dorus would have to answer her.

‘It is my workspace,’ he said. ‘There is other people’s work in there too.’

‘I don’t need to see that.’

‘And my own prints.’

‘That box on the table. That is all I ask for now.’

He waited. From the street came the hissing sound of a road sweeper. Through the window, Vera could only see the top; the thing moved slowly past the parked cars.

‘Friday afternoon then,’ said Dorus. ‘I have to deliver something in the morning.’

Anouk asked what time. Half past three, he suggested. Vera was available, she said. Friday’s cover was already arranged. She wrote the time down with the appointment she had put in her phone, not as an extra block in Milan’s rota.

‘You put the box down,’ said Anouk. ‘We’ll look at what’s inside together. Your other assignments and your house stay out of it.’

‘And don’t photograph everything right away.’

‘I’ll ask about that if necessary.’

He nodded, pulled out the invoice with the tick from under the others, and turned it towards her. The name was covered by a folded corner. Vera could only see that it was for a small print job.

‘I don’t have four hundred and eighty lying around.’

Anouk folded her hands. ‘I don’t know. You received the money.’

‘That went towards the arrears.’

‘You should have said that earlier.’

Vera wanted to ask him how much was left in arrears. Anouk was already looking at the next line.

He had written one hundred and twenty on the sheet and underlined it. Below came three monthly payments of the same amount. A heavily crossed-out line showed where he had tried to divide it differently. She couldn't read what had been written there.

‘I can spare this now,’ he said. ‘Once the fixed expenses are paid. This comes from that small job that is already finished. I still have to set those other three aside.’

‘What if those orders don’t come?’ asked Anouk.

He tapped on the invoice. ‘These are here.’

‘I mean after that.’

‘Then I’ll have to find another way.’

She looked at his three months. ‘Bente can’t say yes to that yet. And neither can I on her behalf.’

‘I’m not saying you have to.’

Vera thought he might have hoped for exactly that, though he hadn’t said so. He pushed the sheet back and smoothed the corner of the top invoice. The tick disappeared under his hand.

Anouk asked him if that one hundred and twenty was an advance from a new client whose work he hadn’t delivered yet. He shook his head. Completed work, he said. There were other assignments for which he still had to do something; he hadn’t put that money in his list. He pointed out the entries. Anouk looked where he indicated, leaving the invoices on his side of the table.

‘I want to see the box on Friday,’ she said. ‘That’s where we start. After that, it has to go back where it belongs. The financial arrangement is between you and Bente. I want to know that my things can be returned without having to pay for them again.’

‘I didn’t ask for that last part.’

‘Then we agree on that.’

Agreeing on that did nothing to ease the tension. Dorus put the invoices away. Vera slid her own note to Anouk: Friday, half past three. She had written underneath it that it concerned the fifth box.

‘Shall I put that in a message?’ Anouk asked him.

‘Yes. Otherwise, I’ll only have it on that torn-off thing in my pocket.’

When he was gone, Anouk didn’t clear the chairs away immediately. She stayed by the window until he had taken his bike off the fence. He ran his thumb along the edge of the saddle and got on. There was nothing remarkable about the man cycling away down the street.

‘He says it so easily,’ she said.

Vera didn’t know which part she meant. That he had the box, that they were working prints, that he didn't have the money anymore. She asked.

‘That those invoices will make it all about something else,’ said Anouk. ‘And I’ll end up explaining why I want the photographs.’

She picked up the contents list and put it back. Her hand rested on the folder for a moment.

‘Do you want me to call Sanne about the other boxes?’ she asked.

‘Let's call her together. Then I'll hear it too.’

Sanne was at work. Could she call back in five minutes? Anouk made tea. Vera sat down on the kitchen stool, out of reach of the papers, and looked at the small pinboard next to the fridge. A postcard hung there from someone who had been to the seaside. There was no person in the photo. The sender had drawn one in it with a thick pen.

When Sanne called back, Anouk took the call. She explained that Dorus would show them the box at his house on Friday and that she wanted to arrange with the foundation how the two boxes there could be returned.

‘I don't want us to wait for a new exhibition to give something back,’ she said.

Sanne’s board wanted the contents checked against the intake list at the handover. They could do that at De Werf, where there was a room and a table for it. The two boxes were there and would remain there. It was not necessary to bring them to the café for a meeting.

‘I hadn’t asked for that either,’ said Vera.

‘No. I’m saying this because someone suggested putting them down at your place right away yesterday. I didn’t do that.’

Vera pictured her own low shelf, where a box of napkins now stood. She might have said earlier in the week that it would fit. Anouk asked about the large prints too. She wanted to be able to check the complete set, even if a loan was discussed later.

Sanne confirmed that the prints would not quietly be mixed up again. The current set remained with the two boxes, her photos with the intake list. They left the date open until Anouk had seen the box on Friday. After that, she could suggest a day and Sanne would book the table and put the time aside. She also had other work at De Werf, she said, and not every afternoon was free.

Anouk wrote down what had been agreed. Then she sent Dorus the message: the appointment to look at the box at his home, with the box and its contents. No acceptance of his repayment proposal. She let Vera read only the last sentence to check if there was anything ambiguous in it.

‘No,’ said Vera. ‘That is clear.’

At a quarter past twelve Vera said goodbye and cycled back to the café. A fine rain began to fall, not quite enough to make her stop and put on her waterproof trousers. She thought about Friday afternoon, and the seven prints at De Werf that didn’t match the recorded originals. She now knew where all five boxes had ended up. She had not seen what was included in the box at his house.

Yasmin stood behind the till unwrapping a roll of coins. The paper did not tear along the indicated line. She already had three coins in her hand and the rest were still stuck.

‘You can probably manage a pair of scissors,’ she said.

Vera took a pair out of the drawer and carefully cut along the side. Then she brought her bike inside and hung her wet coat separately. Her afternoon held no more appointments about the photographs. She had to finish an order and had promised to call someone back about a table by the window. When she dialled his number, she saw that she had put a question mark next to the number of people.

The man answered with his surname. Before anything else, Vera asked how many of them there would be. Four, he said. Not a meeting, just coffee before a trip they were taking together. She wrote down four and asked what time. Meanwhile, her raincoat was dripping a small circle onto the floor. She slid the mat from under the coat stand underneath it and continued listening.