The Last Six

Otto had brought the folder in a shopping bag with a loaf of bread pictured on it. He held it against his knee while Bente locked the door behind them. A note in the window already said she was away. She would reopen in an hour.

Vera had parked her bicycle next to Anouk's car. At the café, Milan started the last of the six extra afternoons at three o'clock. As she was leaving, she had wanted to mention that this time it really was the last one. He had already seen the rota himself. She had thanked him and left.

There was more room round the worktable behind the shop this time. Bente had pushed a shelf aside and placed the two boxes on separate low tables. Anouk asked where Otto's folder could go. Bente pointed to the clean support in the middle of the table. He took it out of the shopping bag and laid the bag on the floor.

‘I didn't mix them up,’ he said.

Anouk thanked him and placed her own flat folder on the other side. She had brought one print with her. Vera had seen the sample she had sent to Otto: the waiting room door with the hand on the edge. Not the complete series of baskets he had initially asked for. This was the work photograph Anouk had chosen. Otto had seen her suggestion and agreed.

The print was new, matt, and smaller than the old mounted prints. At Anouk’s request, Bente had arranged for a digital copy of that one image to be made there for the print. The strip itself had stayed in its box. Otto had used the small proof from Anouk’s presentation folder only to decide whether he liked her choice.

He looked at the image and nodded. ‘Here you can see that hand better.’

Anouk turned the print over with its support. On the back were her name, the image, and the agreement that this was the one work reproduction for him. He read it more slowly than Vera had expected.

‘I want to put it in a frame.’

‘That’s possible.’

‘I’m not going to make a book out of it.’

She smiled briefly. Bente placed the confirmation beside it and asked if the six strips and six contact sheets could be checked first. Otto opened his folder.

There was nothing unexpected. The same six sheets, the same six sleeved strips they had seen on his work table. Anouk checked them together with Bente. Vera read out the numbers on the list when asked; the other two looked at the pieces. At nineteen, she had to move her finger back. She had skipped a line.

‘Say that one again,’ asked Bente.

Vera did. On the sheet were the hands and the baskets that had appealed to Otto. He bent down beside it and pointed to the small image he would have preferred to keep. Anouk left it for a moment before they continued. She told him what she remembered of the making, the man who hadn't wanted to be photographed in the middle of the lifting.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That’s what you said.’

Then he pushed his chair back so they could reach the last sheet. His feet were on the bottom rungs. He watched until Bente had closed the last envelope.

‘All six,’ said Anouk.

Bente took her envelope. Fifty, twenty, twenty, and five. She placed the money next to the receipt, far enough away from the material. Otto counted it. He moved the five to one side and checked that no note was tucked beneath the fifty. Then he nodded.

On the sales line, Bente recorded the return and the refunded amount. Otto added his name. He received a copy and the work reproduction in its own protective envelope. The strips and contact sheets remained on the table. He put the money in his wallet and looked one last time at the first small image lying on top.

‘You rarely see that kind of work,’ he said.

‘I have more of it,’ said Anouk.

He looked up.

‘But I want to look at those myself first.’

Otto nodded. He asked if she would let him know if anything became public later. She said that he could receive a message about the small presentation once it was confirmed what was coming. Bente wrote his address on a separate piece of paper for Anouk. There was no need to put him on a general customer list for that.

His empty folder now fit more easily into the shopping bag than the new sleeve containing the print. He kept that in his hand instead. At the door, Bente asked if he had his receipt. He felt in the right pocket and showed the corner. Vera walked along to hold the door. Otto turned to Anouk one last time and said that he was glad he could take something with him.

When the door was closed behind him, Bente placed her hand on the edge of the table. She stood there for a moment. Her shop was still closed. She looked at the two boxes she had bought weeks earlier and said that she was now going to get her own list first.

Anouk had already opened the contents list. One box contained eighteen strips with the corresponding contact sheets. Bente made room for the returned six. Not on top of something, but in their place in order. Anouk wanted to help with this herself. She first checked how the sleeves were positioned and carefully slid the first returned piece into the free space that had been made for it.

Vera sat at the end of the table with the list. By now she felt she knew every number. She read them slowly all the same. The last two from the box had stood after the missing group. Now the gap was closed. Twenty-four strips, twenty-four accompanying sheets. The six missing places were filled again.

Bente asked Anouk to read back a few numbers while she checked. It didn't go entirely smoothly. One cover was upside down, so the number was on the other side. Anouk turned the cover over with support. Vera stopped writing until they were sure. Then the box was closed. Their hands bumped as they both reached to clear the same space. They laughed briefly.

‘I’m used to working here alone,’ said Bente.

‘Me too,’ said Anouk.

The second box was smaller. Anouk placed her own list next to it and asked Bente to open it. Eighteen strips with eighteen contact sheets. The codes were different. This wasn’t the group of work photographs they had seen at Otto’s. Vera saw a table with people around it on one of the top contact sheets.

Anouk stopped. She did not slide the sheet toward Vera to give an explanation. She looked at one of the small rectangles, at an arm at the edge of the table, and something someone was holding in the middle. Vera could not see what it was. Bente waited without placing another sheet over the image.

‘That list is underneath,’ Anouk finally said.

It took a moment before she picked it up. She then put the contact sheet back and checked the numbers. Bente checked the other side of the box. Some notes were small and faded; Anouk recognised her own short abbreviations. There was one line she rewrote on the checklist because Vera had read her lettering differently at first. None of the strips needed to be taken out of the sleeve for the count.

Vera thought back to Anouk’s first visit. Since then she had been intent on finding where the things were. But this, too, was what Anouk had been missing: the chance to stop at a photograph without explaining herself. She waited with her next number until Anouk nodded while looking at her.

They stopped at eighteen. Everything on the original list was present. The two boxes could now be returned completely. Anouk signed the receipt and Bente filled in the date. Their copies remained on the table while they carefully closed the lids.

Bente pointed to the small description of the sale. ‘I’m keeping that. Along with the return details.’

Anouk said she understood. Returning the boxes did not mean the earlier documents should disappear. She asked only for a copy of the parts concerning her material. Bente made it and obscured the details of a client who had nothing to do with it on the other part. She showed Anouk what she removed. The lines about Dorus and the two boxes remained.

‘He has paid that first one hundred and twenty,’ said Bente. ‘That will stay there. The rest is yet to come.’

She put the sheet away in her own folder, along with the three future instalments. Anouk already had the box of her personal images in her hands. She set it down for a moment anyway.

‘Thank you for doing this now.’

Bente looked at the spot where the boxes had stood. ‘I would have preferred never to have bought them like this.’

Anouk said nothing to soften that. Bente picked up the heavier box and asked if they could go to the car. Vera walked ahead to open the door.

The wind had picked up. An empty crate against the shop window slid a few centimetres towards a neighbour's bicycle. Vera put her foot against it while Anouk pushed the tailgate up with both hands. The same support was ready as on Friday. The three groups returned earlier were already home. Today, only these two needed to be added.

Bente held the box for a moment until Anouk had smoothed the blanket. Then they set it down. The small box went next to it. Anouk checked the distance to the tailgate, the protection on the side, and only closed it then. She asked Vera if she still had any of the papers with her. Only her own copy of the appointment, said Vera. Anouk had the inventory receipt.

In the shop, Bente opened the door for customers again. Someone was already waiting with a large envelope. She thanked them for their patience and asked what was inside. Vera heard the beginning of the answer while she unlocked her bicycle.

Anouk came to stand beside her. She held her phone in one hand and had hooked the car key underneath it.

‘I’m going home now,’ she said. ‘Then they’ll all be there.’

She sent Dorus a message saying that these two boxes had also been received complete. Then she confirmed it to Sanne. The second message took longer: she still had to choose the small public selection. She wanted to do that tomorrow, she wrote. On Thursday, she would discuss with Sanne what would actually become available.

Anouk asked if she wanted to come along to De Werf on Thursday morning to review the piece about the delivery to the café. Vera could do that, then she would have to return to her own work.

They stood next to the car for a moment. Bente had laid the large envelope open inside, and the client pointed to something Vera could not see. A bus drove past. On the side was an advertisement for a kitchen that was wider than the entire vehicle. Anouk followed it with her eyes and then looked at Vera.

‘You don’t have to cycle after me to make sure I get home,’ she said.

‘That wasn’t my intention.’

‘I’m just saying. The way you’re looking at me.’

Vera gave a short, awkward laugh. Anouk was right; she had looked at the tailgate again. She stepped aside so Anouk could reach the door. The car started. Vera waited until the car had pulled away, then cycled in the opposite direction.

At the café, Milan stood in the doorway with the empty crate for the supplier. He pointed at the delivery man, who had parked his van two doors too far. Vera called after him, and the man turned around with a handcart. The metal plate clattered against the pavement. She held the café door open and thought, without needing a photo, just how heavy that thing could be with only two boxes on it.