What Anouk Would Ask

Anouk had cleared the table, but not the chair next to it. A shopping bag, a jumper, and three magazines lay there. Vera pushed the bag aside and asked if the jumper could go on the windowsill. Anouk said it had been there before. Somehow it always came back.

A small printer stood by the window. On the top sheet, only the first half of a photo had appeared. A white band cut off the rest of the man in the picture.

‘The ink?’ asked Vera.

‘The sheet jammed. I put it in at an angle.’

Anouk picked up the sheet and turned it over. On the back, she wrote three things. The five boxes. The seven old mounting boards. The credit for her work. Then she laid it down so they could both read it.

It was Tuesday morning. They were going to speak with Dorus on Thursday; the comparison had been sent to him and he had confirmed the appointment. He had not submitted any other document showing that he was allowed to sell the boxes. Last night he had written that he did not simply accept that everything in his workspace belonged to Anouk.

‘I don’t want to negotiate over every sheet as if I’m seeing it for the first time,’ she said.

Vera read the three lines. The magazines on the chair slid slowly towards her knee. She laid them on the floor.

‘What do you want to ask him?’

Anouk looked at the half-printed photograph. ‘To stop offering it as his collection. To give back what he’s got. And to return my negatives without making me pay for them first.’

‘Those are clear questions.’

‘Yes. Only asking makes it sound as though he can still say no.’

Vera didn’t know how to resolve that. Anouk could say what she wanted, seek advice, take the documents to someone who could help her take it further. But nothing Vera could say would bring the box here, onto this table. A small green light still blinked on the printer.

Anouk turned off the machine. ‘I also don’t want everything to be hung up again immediately just because he is returning the stuff.’

She talked about the smaller space she was now working in. The commissions she still took, the work that no longer justified renting a studio. Dorus had done a lot for her during the clearing out. That remained true, she said, even when she wrote down the rest. He had dismantled the old cupboards and carried the boxes on a day when she could barely think beyond what to put in the car first.

‘When I asked if he could keep it, he said yes. Not: I don’t know for how long. Not: what happens if I run into financial difficulties.’

Vera thought about the arrears he had mentioned on Thursday. None of those costs were part of the original five-box agreement. She didn’t say that. Anouk stood up to open the window a crack. Something was being unloaded across the street; a man called out that the other door needed to be opened.

‘I should have asked sooner myself when it would be ready,’ said Anouk.

‘Maybe.’

She turned to look at Vera.

‘But you hadn’t asked him to sell them,’ said Vera.

Anouk stood by the window for a moment and then sat down again. On the back of the printed sheet, she added a fourth line: no new use without an agreement. It mattered to her which print would hang where and who would be looking at it. That was the reason she wanted to proceed, not a condition that only made things more difficult.

She let Vera read the short reply she intended to send. She had set out the five groups on her list, the seven prints they had found and the false claim that everything had been returned. The two images Dorus had made himself were mentioned separately. His printing work remained listed with the correct series.

‘That seems fine to me,’ said Vera.

Anouk pointed to a sentence about the delivery through the café. ‘Did I get that right?’

One presentation folder, on the Tuesday described, picked up by Anouk afterwards. Vera nodded.

They had arranged to meet Bente at eleven o'clock. In the shop, a man was turning a small box on a shelf. Each time, he held it at a slightly different angle and asked if it could be done without the small stand. Bente replied that it could, but that the stand was included. She let him choose while Anouk and Vera waited by the door.

When he had left, Bente turned the sign round and said that she had half an hour. Someone was coming afterwards to look at another collection. Not Anouk’s photographs, she added, before seemingly catching herself being defensive.

Anouk said that wasn't what she had come for. Bente took them to the back room. The two boxes were in the agreed-upon spot. They were not opened today. Today they were discussing how to return them.

‘Otto has confirmed,’ said Bente. ‘He wants it in writing, and his money at the handover.’

‘That’s possible,’ said Anouk. ‘I’ll agree on that one photograph with him this week. One ordinary print of a work photograph. No permission to copy his entire purchase.’

Bente nodded and wrote the amount on her sheet. Ninety-five to Otto. Below that, four hundred and eighty from Dorus, with one hundred and twenty for the first payment and three subsequent lines.

‘Those two aren’t both his debts,’ she said. ‘Otherwise, I’ll be paying myself back for my own sales.’

Vera saw Anouk checking it. Bente had spent four hundred and eighty. She had received ninety-five and was going to give that ninety-five back. She had to get the full four hundred and eighty back, not another ninety-five on top of that.

‘And what if he doesn’t pay after that first one?’ asked Anouk.

‘Then I won’t get three hundred and sixty back.’

She left it at that, her pen beside the three amounts.

‘I can’t ask that of you,’ said Anouk.

‘You can ask for your things back. I decide what I agree with him.’

She drew the sheet towards her. ‘But I want it to be clear that I haven’t suddenly decided I never paid anything. He received the amount. I didn’t get that box for nothing.’

Anouk said the full amount had to stay in the agreement. Bente wasn’t making a gift, and Anouk wasn’t buying her possessions back. Nobody was writing off a debt for the sake of sitting round the table again. Dorus would still owe Bente the rest.

Vera asked why she wanted to give it back already, then. The question sounded harsher than she had intended. Bente turned her chair slightly towards the light.

‘Because I’ve seen where it came from now. And because I can agree on an amount with him. All that box gives me now is an argument with whoever opens it.’

She looked at Anouk. ‘I should have asked earlier what his own collection meant. That is different from saying that I knew at the time that you were asking for them back.’

‘I didn’t say that either.’

Bente nodded. She would not sign a settlement saying she had known something she said she hadn’t. It could record the purchase, the description, the resale and the return. Anouk said she didn’t need another statement going beyond what they could establish.

The phone rang on the other side of the shop. Bente looked at the clock and let it ring out. She did not assign dates to the three instalments before Dorus had seen them. Those would be chosen on Thursday. Anouk could already confirm to him that she wanted to discuss one hundred and twenty immediately and three times the same amount as a proposal.

They set the physical transfer as a plan: upon agreement, the negatives and contact sheets on Tuesday, with Otto's share included. Bente would check the day before that his arrival was still convenient. She could pay the ninety-five without waiting for a subsequent instalment from Dorus. They would not leave a box in Vera’s café simply because someone was there every morning.

Anouk asked her what she should do if Dorus refused on Thursday. Bente said that her willingness to return the items did not depend on a confession. Then she would have to reconsider how to recover the money. That was no reason to change the comparison.

Vera looked at Anouk. Anouk wrote it down as a proposal, making clear that nobody had agreed to it yet. De Werf had provisionally kept the table free for Friday. She noted that appointment beside this plan.

Back in the shop, the man with the small box was standing in front of the window again. Bente sighed and went to the door. He pointed to the stand. Now he specifically wanted to know if he could get two. Anouk kept the folder with the agreements closed while Bente answered. They went outside when he came in.

Vera had to go back. Anouk walked along to her bicycle and asked if she would be there on Thursday as well. Yes, Vera said. It was in her rota. She would speak about the delivery she had accepted and what she had seen, not answer for Anouk. Anouk said she was glad, then set off into the wind with her phone.

In the café, Vera found a message from Dorus, addressed to Anouk copied to her. He had read the overview. He wrote that he could not say anything about the foundation’s timings. But he could say something about his working prints. He had bought materials for them and put in his own hours. The small box was therefore not simply part of what she was supposed to receive back.

Vera read it a second time while Yasmin asked her something about bread. She put her phone away and asked if she would say it again. The half loaves for Thursday had to be ordered today, Yasmin said. Not like last week, the evening before. Vera took the list from her, checked the quantities, and sent the order off.

Afterwards, she called Anouk. She had already replied to Dorus. Spending money did not give him retrospective permission to change the agreed set; the box and its contents were on the original order. If he had paid extra costs, he could say exactly what they were. Doing good work on them did not turn them into different photographs.

‘He called back,’ said Anouk. ‘He asked if I didn't see how much better they looked than those first proofs.’

‘What did you say?’

‘That I could see it.’

There was a moment of silence on the line.

‘And Thursday?’ asked Vera.

‘He's coming. He wants to have his own two photographs included.’

‘They're on the list.’

‘Yes. I said that too.’

After the conversation, Vera checked the staff hours. The Thursday afternoon block was there; Milan had confirmed it. She sent him the time she would be back. Then she took out Yasmin's list and put away the order confirmation. Thursday’s bread order was taken care of.