The Girl Who Wasn't There by Ferdinand von Schirach Read Free Book Online Page A

care to take the photographs for it.
    ‘How did you find me?’ asked Eschburg.
    She smiled. ‘Not by way of your famous portraits. Years ago I saw one of your photos in the office of your former employer. You weren’t there yourself that day. It was hanging in your office. A small black and white photo of a woman.’
    Eschburg had kept the pictures of the naked woman that he took in the photographer’s bread-and-butter studio. One of them hung over the desk where he worked.
    ‘Yes, that’s the one I mean,’ she said, pointing to the picture. She went over to the desk and looked at it. Eschburg stationed himself beside her. Sofia leaned forward; the nape of her neck was slim.
    ‘I like that picture; it’s honest. Just the kind of thing we could use in the campaign,’ said Sofia. She turned to him too quickly, so that their faces almost touched. They stood like that for a moment.
    ‘Show me some more of your photos, would you?’ she said.
    Eschburg placed the pictures that he had taken over the last few years on the desk. She picked up each in turn. Sometimes she said, ‘That’s good.’ She sounded very sure of her judgement.
    ‘Would you like a coffee?’ he asked.
    She shook her head; she was concentrating so intently that she seemed to perceive nothing else. After half an hour she had made a selection.
    ‘Can I take these photos with me? You’ll get them back,’ she said. Light fell on her face through the high windows.
    ‘May I take a photograph of you?’ asked Eschburg.
    She laughed. ‘I’d have to put something else on. I look terrible.’
    ‘No, please don’t; we can do it now. It will be good, you’ll see.’
    He brought the 10 x 15 centimetre baseboard camera down from his apartment; its casing was made of wood, and he had bought it in a flea market years ago. Sometimes he took photos with it; he liked its weight, the complicated mechanism, the elaborate development of the photos in the darkroom. He had converted the camera to use modern flat film.
    ‘You mustn’t move,’ he said as he screwed the camera to the tripod and prepared the cassette. ‘Only a second. This camera has no depth of focus; if you move the picture will be lost.’
    Sofia stood in front of the back wall of the studio. Suddenly she pulled the zip fastener of her dress down and let it slip to the floor. She kicked it off and stood naked in front of the bare bricks of the wall. Although she was in her mid-thirties, she had the body of a young girl. She folded her hands behind her back.
    When he had taken the picture she said that she would like something to drink now. He went to get a bottle of water out of the fridge. When he came back, she had dressed again. She closed her eyes as she drank, swallowed the wrong way, and water ran down her throat. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
    Half an hour later she went away, leaving the agreement for the energy company’s photographs and her business card lying on the desk. She had written her mobile number on the back of the card.
     
    There had been many women in Eschburg’s life during the last few years. Women liked him, and he never had a particularly difficult time. He slept with them, but that never really moved him. Usually he couldn’t even remember their names a few days later. If he happened to meet them again he was courteous, but was not to be pinned down. Twice he had thought he was fond of a woman, but the feeling had worn off a week later.
    That night he developed the picture of Sofia. He enlarged but did not retouch it. He hung the print on a wall in the studio. The background was blurred and dark, a strand of hair fell over her forehead, her face was pale and intent.
    Her arms were outside the picture; she was only a torso.

14
    Sofia called Eschburg a few days later. She said she would be spending the weekend in Paris, where her agency was organizing a dinner. He really must come; the electricity company would pay for everything. Eschburg packed