The Same Twenty-Eight

Dorus arrived with a bag containing two small prints standing upright. He did not place it by the foundation's boxes, but next to his own chair. Vera saw the white edges sticking out above the handle.

Sanne had placed five chairs around the table. Bente sat at the far end, her coat still on. She had shut the shop for the meeting and needed to be back by half past five. Anouk had laid her papers out in front of her. When Dorus asked if the window could be closed, she stood up and closed it.

Vera had placed her bag on the chair behind her. Her copy of the receipt was in the front. Before she had gone to De Werf, she had shown Milan the delivery for tomorrow and told him where the extra cups were. He had said that he knew where the cups were. It was his fifth scheduled extra afternoon. After that, she had only said goodbye.

Dorus took the two prints out of his bag. Vera recognised them from the selection: the two work photographs he had taken himself. He laid them side by side on the empty part of the table. One was slightly darker than the other, although she didn't know if that was due to the light.

‘Those are mine,’ he said.

Anouk nodded. ‘The photographs, yes.’

‘And what I did with the rest.’

Sanne slid the list with the original selection towards him. His name was next to those two images; the printing work was listed separately. He read the lines and tilted the sheet for a moment.

‘That isn't like on the first card.’

‘That first card was incorrect,’ said Sanne. ‘We're going to fix that.’

He looked at the heading. It didn't say 'from the Dorus collection'. There were two different names listed for taking the photos and one for printing.

‘You knew this, didn't you?’ he said to Anouk.

‘Yes. That didn’t stop being true when I asked for the boxes back.’

Vera looked at his hands next to the prints. It seemed as if he had expected to have to fight for his work here. He read his name again and then went to the other documents.

Anouk began with the order. Five boxes for storage and copying, the payment she had made for them. She pointed to the line with the box descriptions and asked if this was the same agreement as the copy he had shown them at home.

‘That is the same one,’ he said.

‘And where does it say that you were allowed to sell those two boxes?’

‘It doesn't say everything.’

‘Then I want to know when I asked for or allowed that.’

He looked at Bente. ‘We talked about less work. About giving up the large space.’

‘I gave up the studio,’ said Anouk. ‘Not my photos.’

Bente asked if there was an agreement she hadn't seen yet. Dorus didn't say that there was another piece of paper lying somewhere. He started talking about the boxes Anouk hadn't picked up for months. That he should have done something about that too, he said. He didn’t have endless space.

Anouk let him finish speaking. Then she asked if he had let her know that he was going to sell. He replied that he had wanted to discuss it. She asked when he had done that. He looked at his two prints and said nothing.

Bente placed her purchase record next to the box list. Four hundred and eighty. The two groups were described. The money had been paid. Then came the part she had sold to Otto, along with the return arrangements she had since confirmed with him. Dorus did not pick up the sheet.

‘So he wants something back too,’ he said.

‘He is giving something back,’ said Bente. ‘And I am giving him his purchase amount back. That is not another ninety-five on top of what you owe me.’

The four hundred and eighty still stood at the bottom of the page. Vera saw that Dorus checked it and then pointed to the foundation's list.

‘Those were already there. They weren't gone.’

Sanne turned his own offer towards him. The two boxes, as part of his collection as a whole. Anouk placed his message next to it, stating that she had received the entire collection back via the café. The two pieces now lay with their top edges aligned.

‘Here you say it is yours,’ said Sanne. ‘And there you say it all went back to her.’

Dorus pushed his chair back. He looked at Vera.

‘Something was definitely handed in at that café.’

She took the complete receipt out of her folder and laid it down. Her real V was under the description of one presentation folder. The narrow top line was no longer cut off.

‘I accepted that folder,’ she said. ‘Anouk picked it up that evening.’

‘Then you signed for it.’

‘For the folder. Not for five boxes.’

He pointed at the V without touching the sheet. Vera felt herself wanting to raise her voice. She had thought about accepting the delivery on enough sleepless nights for that little letter to feel unbearable again.

‘Erik’s record of that delivery says one folder too,’ she said. ‘The other stop wasn’t at my place. He showed us that.’

Anouk pointed to the sentence in Dorus’s message. He hadn’t written that something more might have come back somewhere on an unknown day. He had named this particular journey, this particular receipt.

‘That was the paper I had,’ he said.

‘But that wasn’t what you had returned,’ she said.

He looked at the line for a long time. Outside the closed window a trailer jolted through a pothole. The short metallic sound faded away before anyone spoke again.

‘No,’ said Dorus.

There was no relief that changed the atmosphere at the table. The folder had already been examined. The boxes had been seen elsewhere. His no did not undo his earlier message. But he no longer held the V between himself and Anouk.

Sanne brought up the comparison of the seven mounted prints. The current number eleven lay supported on the table; the old version was on the intake photo and in the photograph Anouk had taken at his house on Friday. He looked at it and said he knew the difference.

‘Then I want us to talk about the same agreement,’ said Sanne.

She read only two lines from the instructions she had sent beforehand: reproductions separately, original set intact. Then she read his list: twenty-eight registered prints put back, seven reproductions delivered separately.

‘I didn't ask you to change my two boxes,’ said Anouk.

‘They were the same images.’

‘But not the same pieces.’

He looked at her, then at the current mounted print. ‘I thought those new ones would hang better. Without that mess on the back.’

‘And the other seven?’ asked Sanne.

‘I took those away.’

‘We saw that,’ said Anouk. ‘Why didn't you put that on that list?’

Dorus sat still for a while. He looked at his own name under the preparation.

‘Then it wouldn’t have been a complete collection any more.’

‘What wouldn’t have been?’ asked Anouk.

‘What I had offered.’

Bente let out a breath. How could it have been a complete collection, she asked, with the negatives at her shop and some already sold on? He couldn’t solve that by taking seven mounted prints home. Dorus said that he saw that now, too.

‘Now,’ said Anouk.

He let the word stand. Vera saw how he pushed his two own prints closer together. It took a moment before he said that he had wanted to show them as he saw the work. Let the selection stand first, and talk about the rest afterwards. The notes would have raised questions about images that were no longer there.

Anouk asked why that couldn’t have been said earlier. He didn’t shrug his shoulders. He said that he had hoped that the folder and that list would be sufficient. It sounded small. Vera hated how small it sounded after the weeks they had spent on it.

Sanne turned off the screen. The photos were kept, the pieces remained on the lists. Today, agreements had to be made regarding what would actually be returned. Anouk had brought a brief overview. She went through it with him: Friday, the two boxes from the foundation and his home box, containing the seven old mounted prints and the twelve loose working prints. The documents went along. Then, on Tuesday, Bente’s two boxes, complete with Otto’s six strips and six contact sheets.

‘I want to be able to restore the old order,’ she said. ‘Not receive another selection again.’

Dorus nodded. He asked whether he could have copies of the loose prints later. Anouk said that they could discuss that separately. That was no reason to make the return incomplete now. He agreed.

The seven new pieces would remain separate at the foundation, accompanied by a description of what they were and why they were being kept. Dorus said that he did not want to offer them again as original work. Sanne noted his agreement. The final public description would cover only a small agreed selection; Anouk decided which images she wanted to make available for this.

Then came Bente's sheet. One hundred and twenty now, three instalments of one hundred and twenty on the fifteenth of each of the next three months. They wrote the three separate payment dates, along with the month, on their copies. Bente read back every date. At the second one, Dorus corrected her: that wasn't the first, but the fifteenth. She said she meant the same thing, looked at her own handwriting, and wrote it again.

‘I can’t promise it’ll be easy to find the money,’ he said.

‘I didn't ask that either,’ said Bente. ‘I want to know that this is the agreement. And if you can’t pay, I want a call before it’s overdue. You’ll still owe the money.’

He said yes. The money didn't come from a client for work yet to be done; he had it available. She gave him her account number and waited while he made the payment. His glasses were in his bag. He put them on, read the number again, and had her check the recipient's name before confirming.

Bente looked at her own phone. The payment appeared. One hundred and twenty. She wrote it on the first line and left the three remaining amounts. Vera saw that the balance on this sheet was now decreasing, without anyone having carried the boxes to Anouk yet.

Anouk asked if there was a condition attached to the settlement that prevented her from making the correction public. No, said Bente. Dorus looked up.

‘I don’t want people writing about me everywhere.’

‘I won’t leave any incorrect announcement up,’ said Sanne. ‘We’ll explain the error in the announcement and credit everyone’s work correctly. Not a story about the rest of your life.’

Anouk said that her documents and her report would stand. She would not promise confidentiality in exchange for getting her belongings back. Dorus looked at the data already on the table and agreed. He wanted to read the wording about his work before it was published. Sanne said that he would receive the factual wording, just like Anouk, but that he could not choose to leave the earlier false account of ownership uncorrected.

They each signed their own part. Vera did not sign for the repayment or for the boxes she did not manage. She only confirmed her description of the receipt of the folder on the accompanying sheet. The pen felt thicker in her hand than the one she had used for that V.

Bente folded up her copy and briefly called Otto at the door to confirm Tuesday. Sanne arranged with Anouk what time they would arrive on Friday. Dorus would bring the small box himself. He took his two prints back with him in the bag; they had not been lying on the table here as payment.

As he put on his coat, he asked whether Anouk’s photographs would be warm enough where she planned to keep them at home. Vera thought Anouk would get angry. She just glanced at the table where her contents list lay.

‘I have a place for them,’ she said.

Dorus nodded and left.

Vera checked the time by the bike. She could get back on time. She texted Milan that she was on her way. Anouk was still standing in the doorway with Sanne, who was adding the appointment for tomorrow to her calendar. When Vera cycled away, they were still choosing a time.