Serafim and Claire Read Online Free PDF

at the ceiling and thought of Cécile. With a false name, her sister would have no chance at all of tracking her down, or of even knowing that she was ill and had had an operation. Claire knew that the moment she had the energy, she would have to write to her sister. She hoped Cécile wasn’t worrying, though she understood her sister well enough to know that, by now, there were likely a number of letters from Quebec City stuffed into her mailbox, urging Claire to send news that she was safe and sound.
    The nun gave Claire another sidelong glance as she brusquely tucked a sheet under a mattress. Claire realized that (contrary to what she would be writing to Cécile) she was not at all out of danger. Not yet.

Medium: Wet plate; albumen silver print
    Description: Maria Antónia da Silva (carte de visite)
    Location: Penafiel, Portugal
    Date: 1903

    A vignette portrait of a girl, just on the cusp of being considered a young woman. Her hair is dark, thick, and heavy, its weight sagging down on all sides from a point high in the back where it has been clasped. Her jawline ascends into milky shadows to meet the lowest drape of her mane, where a single strand can also be seen, having strayed from her barrette, reaching down to touch the tight neckline of her white dress.
    She is clearly handsome, her expression at once self-conscious and unassuming. She is also fighting back a smile, her lips pressed tight, laughter mischievous in her eyes. One gets the feeling that she finds the entire portrait-taking ordeal somewhat ridiculous. One also senses that the photographer does not share this amusement; which has only managed to increase it twofold for the young woman.
    The portrait, measuring only five by nine centimetres, is bordered with a frosty halo, drawing the eye helplessly in to the young woman’s high cheekbones. It is as if she is sitting in a tubular oval of light. And as if this bright tunnel is irrevocably closing in around her.

4
    Serafim’s long-term memory was ter rible. He noticed that when other people reconstructed their pasts, the access they had to previous moments in their lives seemed to be much like looking through a kaleidoscope, in that each infinitesimal compartment glowed just as brightly as the next, and merely by focusing on one particular chamber they could almost transport themselves to that place, to feel its textures, hold up its velvet tastes and sounds, and feel the air as crisp as the day they’d lived it. Whereas for Serafim it was more like looking back onto a grey beach, where a long, twig-scratched line in the sand gradually vanished into the sea haze of the distance. Squint as he might, the farther away it was, the less he could see.
    He believed his earliest memory was of standing in a courtyard, being scolded by his father for appearing shy, if not frightened, of a new maid who had come to live and work in their house. He realized now that the maid before this — though there might have been several — had likely been employed as his wet nurse, as well as his nanny. But this nanny, arguably the most important one in his rearing, had no image or name to go with her; nor a reason for her disappearance, in the same way that the constant coming and going of other maids in the years that followed transpired without explanation. Between all the nannies, there were also discrepancies regarding how a well-raised young man was supposed to act.
    He was taught never to speak in adult company, then to speak only when addressed, though not very much — a “yes, sir” or “no, ma’am” would suffice. Some told him not to slouch when he sat, or to fold his hands on his lap, or to scrunch his hat like a peasant; while others didn’t mind any of these things at all. He was taught to eat with his fork and knife, never switching hands, which was consistent enough; but he also remembered a new maid arriving one day, horrified at the way he soaked up his