## Chapter 392 — Before the Photograph On Sunday, 23 January, Kanno discovered that she had begun planning a photograph of a woman she had never met. The discovery was not flattering. She was at her desk shortly after ten, still in old grey trousers and a sweatshirt she would not have worn outside the flat. Berlin occupied the monitor. The wall photographs occupied two contact sheets beside it. A fresh notebook lay open under her left hand with three useful lines about the March printing budget and, beneath them, one line she did not remember deciding to write. **Aelira — portrait?** Kanno stared at it. The problem was not the question mark. She had already gone farther than that in her head. The café had windows. She knew how the afternoon light behaved there because she had watched it across Ian's face and later across her own camera. A formal portrait would be wrong. Something seated might work better. Hands around a cup, perhaps, with enough of the room visible to make the impossible setting part of the image without turning it into theatre. No. Kanno put the pen down. She knew Aelira through other people's memories, letters written in another language and Ian's account of an exhausting weekend. She knew that Aelira was a Wood Elf princess, had known Thomas and Isha for years, had repeatedly spent political authority to protect them and had apparently met Ian with sufficient composure that he had survived to complain about the experience. Kanno did not know whether Aelira liked being looked at through a camera. She did not know whether Aelira would want a portrait at all. More immediately, Aelira had not agreed to enter the café. Kanno drew one clean line through everything after the name. The result annoyed her because the idea had been good. Her phone lay face down beside the keyboard. She considered asking Ian nothing whatsoever, which was easy. Asking Isha was more reasonable. She opened their private chat rather than the group. `Kanno: Question about Aelira.` Isha replied eleven minutes later. `Isha: Yes?` Kanno looked again at the crossed-out line. `Kanno: Has she ever been photographed?` The answer took longer. `Isha: No. She has seen the photographs we sent. That is different.` Kanno knew that. She typed anyway. `Kanno: Would she like being photographed?` This time the reply came quickly. `Isha: Ask her.` Kanno sat back. There were several possible answers she could have received. Isha might have described Aelira's relationship with court painters, ceremonial presentation or being observed. She might have predicted amusement, suspicion or pleasure. Instead she had supplied the only answer that mattered. Kanno typed: `Kanno: Correct.` Then: `Kanno: I caught myself planning the photograph before meeting the person.` Isha's typing indicator appeared and disappeared twice. `Isha: Was it a good photograph?` Kanno looked at the notebook. `Kanno: Annoyingly, possibly.` `Isha: Then remember it after you ask her.` That was different. Kanno uncrossed nothing. She turned the page. The rest of Sunday went back to Berlin. Four images survived the morning. The woman with the pram remained among them, though still outside the wall sequence. One photograph she had liked in the café became weaker on paper because the repaired façade carried too much contrast at the edge. Another improved when printed smaller. By lunch, Aelira had stopped sitting in an imaginary chair near an imaginary window. That was sufficient progress. --- The invitation arrived on Tuesday at 11:38 while Kanno was correcting a client's third version of a file called **FINAL2_USETHIS.pdf**. She almost deleted it. The subject line read: **Invitation — Sendai Small Works Weekend, 25 March** The sender was a coordinator from a small independent photo-and-print event held in municipal exhibition rooms west of the station. Kanno recognised the name vaguely from the July civic-hall small-press event, though they had not spoken for more than a minute there. She opened the message because continuing with FINAL2_USETHIS had begun to feel medically unwise. The event was modest. That helped. Six regional makers working across photography, small books and printed matter would share two rooms for one Saturday. Each received a table and a short section of wall. There was no jury language, no claim of emerging excellence and no invitation to explain a personal artistic practice to forty folding chairs. The organiser had seen *Until Replaced* at the summer event, later encountered one of the copies through another participant and wanted to know whether Kanno would be interested in bringing the booklet and several photographs in March. They added, almost apologetically, that new work was welcome but not required. Kanno read that line twice. The wall series immediately presented itself for inspection. Forty-three photographs before Berlin. More now. Removed signs, patched surfaces, marks left behind by fixtures, paint that had aged around something no longer present. The sequence remained unstable. Berlin had made it worse in productive ways. The former Wall was too historically loud for a project that had until then concentrated on absences nobody had built a monument around. The event offered a wall. Her brain began filling it. She closed the email. FINAL2_USETHIS waited on the other monitor. Kanno reopened the client's file and spent the next forty minutes removing changes the client had requested on Friday and now believed had been introduced by production. At lunch she read the invitation again. The event was on Saturday, 25 March. Setup from eight thirty. Open from eleven until six. Participants could sell existing publications. There would be one informal thirty-minute conversation among the makers near the end of the afternoon, optional rather than compulsory. The participation fee was small enough not to decide anything. The time was more expensive. Kanno had become better during the previous year at protecting at least one Saturday each month from clients. She had discovered that a free Saturday could still become consumed by errands, friends, photography, travel or lying on the floor refusing to become useful. The important part was that nobody paying her salary or invoice could claim it by default. March already contained one protected Saturday in her calendar. The twenty-fifth was not it. That fact did not decide the question either. She opened a reply. > Thank you for the invitation. I am interested. > > Before I confirm, could I check whether participation can be limited to *Until Replaced* and photographs from that work? I have another series in progress, but it is not ready for exhibition and I would not want the event date to decide that for me. Kanno stopped. That sentence was more revealing than necessary. She left it. > I would also like to know whether the maker conversation is genuinely optional, and whether participants need to remain at their tables continuously or can share brief cover with the organiser/other exhibitors. She sent the email before the questions multiplied into contract negotiations. The response came at 15:06. Yes, *Until Replaced* was enough. Yes, the new work could stay private. Yes, the conversation was optional. No, nobody was expected to sit behind a table for seven uninterrupted hours like a punished bookseller. They would arrange cover for breaks. The coordinator added one sentence at the end. > We invited you because of the work you have already made, not because we need you to produce something new by March. Kanno disliked how effective that was. She left the email unanswered until after work. At home, she put rice on, changed clothes and opened her calendar. March contained ordinary obligations, the protected Saturday she had already marked, and nothing else that made the twenty-fifth impossible. She opened the invitation once more. Then she accepted. Her reply specified *Until Replaced*, up to three existing photographs from the booklet, and no commitment yet to the maker conversation. The organiser confirmed within the hour. Kanno added the event to her calendar. **25 MAR — SMALL WORKS / UNTIL REPLACED** She did not add **new wall series**. The distinction remained intact even after the calendar saved. Her phone vibrated. The organiser had sent a final message asking for a short biography and one publicity image by the middle of February. Kanno stared at the request. There was always a punishment. She forwarded the invitation, without the administrative details, to Thomas and Isha. `Kanno: I have been invited to show Until Replaced at a small local event in March.` Thomas replied first. `Thomas: Congratulations.` Isha followed. `Isha: Are you going?` `Kanno: Yes.` Then, because she knew what the next question might become: `Kanno: The wall photographs are not going.` Isha answered: `Isha: Good.` Kanno frowned at the phone. `Kanno: That was not a request for approval.` `Isha: I know.` Kanno considered fighting that and decided she had already spent enough of the day on other people's revisions. --- Thursday afternoon gave Isha a different kind of preference. The booking had looked ordinary. One adult beginner, sixty minutes, no previous visit to the centre, hired shoes and harness. The woman arrived ten minutes early, gave her surname as Sakai and listened attentively through the equipment check. She was perhaps in her early forties, compact, dressed in black sports trousers and a loose long-sleeved top, with the careful posture of someone who had chosen to try something unfamiliar and had not yet decided whether the decision was sensible. Isha introduced herself in Japanese and asked what Sakai wanted from the session. “To try it,” Sakai said. “My sister keeps telling me I would like climbing. I want evidence.” Isha liked the answer. They began with the easiest section of the beginner wall. Sakai learned the belay commands quickly enough and understood the harness explanation. On the wall, however, she moved cautiously. Every time her feet left the floor, she looked down before looking up. Isha kept her instructions sparse. “Right foot a little higher.” Sakai moved it. “Good. Now look for somewhere comfortable for your left hand.” Sakai searched, found a large hold and took it. Three moves later she stopped. “I want to come down.” Isha lowered her immediately. On the mat Sakai laughed once, mostly at herself. “That was very low.” “Yes.” “You don't have to agree so quickly.” Isha considered whether she had missed a joke. Sakai was smiling, but not entirely. “I can say it was higher than the floor.” “That is kinder.” They tried again after a short rest. This time Isha talked more. She explained what the rope was doing and why the large holds near Sakai's hips mattered more than the ones her eyes kept finding above her head. Sakai climbed slightly higher, paused and came down again. The session still seemed normal. The change came after the third attempt. Sakai stood beside the wall rubbing chalk from her fingers. Yoshida was working several metres away with two regular customers, talking while one of them struggled through a route. Sakai watched them for a moment. Then she turned to Isha. “Can I ask something rude?” “You can ask.” “Could I have someone else?” The question landed cleanly enough that Isha had no difficulty understanding it. She did have difficulty answering immediately. Sakai's face tightened. “I'm sorry. You haven't done anything bad.” “All right.” Isha looked towards Yoshida, then back. “Can you tell me whether there is something you want me to change first, or do you want another instructor now?” Sakai hesitated. “Another instructor, if that's possible.” “Yes.” There was no reason to make her justify it further. Isha asked her to wait by the bench and went to Ishikawa. Yoshida's pair were finishing early. The swap took less than five minutes to arrange. Isha moved to reception for the remainder of the booked hour while Yoshida took Sakai back towards the beginner wall. Isha did not watch continuously. That would have been ridiculous. She watched enough. Yoshida spoke much more than Isha had. Not constant encouragement, exactly. Commentary. Questions. A joke about the rental shoes. A short explanation of why adults often stared at their hands until their feet became offended. Sakai laughed. On her next attempt she climbed no higher than she had with Isha. She stayed on the wall longer. The result irritated Isha slightly. That surprised her more than the request itself. At the end of the hour, Sakai returned the harness at reception. Yoshida was beside her. Sakai bowed to Isha. “Thank you for changing.” “You're welcome.” “I really am sorry. You're very capable. I just felt as if I was taking an examination every time you watched me.” There was enough embarrassment in the explanation that Isha could have rescued her from it. She chose accuracy instead. “I was watching closely.” Sakai gave a small, relieved laugh. “Yes.” Isha nodded towards Yoshida. “Was this better?” “Much.” “Then that was the right change.” Sakai thanked them both and left with no new booking. Isha finished the equipment record and returned to the floor. For the next half hour she helped a teenage boy whose shoe strap had twisted under his heel and answered a regular customer's question about a route reset. Her work remained exactly the work she had expected to do when she arrived that morning. The discomfort followed her anyway. At the end of the shift, Ishikawa asked about the session while checking the booking notes. “Sakai preferred Yoshida?” “Yes.” “Problem?” “I don't think so.” Ishikawa looked at the note Isha had entered. **Customer requested instructor change after three attempts. No safety issue or complaint. Yoshida completed session. Customer reported preference for more conversational instruction.** “That is enough,” Ishikawa said. Isha leaned one hip against the desk. “She said I made her feel examined.” Ishikawa glanced up. “Did you?” “I watched her.” “You watch everybody.” “Yes.” “Some people like that.” “Yes.” Ishikawa returned to the booking screen. “Some don't.” There was no consolation attached to the sentence. Isha found that preferable. She changed out of her work shoes and retrieved her rings from the case in her bag. Before leaving, she stopped beside Yoshida, who was wiping chalk from the reception counter. “Thank you for taking Sakai.” “No problem.” “Did you do anything deliberately different because she asked to leave me?” Yoshida thought about it. “I talked more.” “I noticed.” “You are very quiet when somebody is moving.” “I am watching.” “I know.” Yoshida folded the cloth once and wiped the next section. “You look like you're watching.” Isha waited. Yoshida looked at her and smiled. “That sounded obvious.” “It may still be useful.” “She was nervous before she met either of us. I think silence gave her too much room to notice it.” Isha considered the explanation. “Would you have kept talking if she became unsafe?” “No.” “Good.” Yoshida laughed. “Thank you for approving my methods.” Isha realised what she had done and laughed too. “Sorry.” “That was a joke.” “I know.” “Your face did not.” Isha left before the conversation became further evidence against her. --- Thomas was chopping onions when she arrived home. He looked up, smiled and then looked again. “What happened?” Isha removed her coat. “A customer asked for another instructor.” Thomas put the knife down. “Because?” “She said I made her feel as if she was being examined.” He considered that, eyes briefly moving over her face as if checking whether the obvious joke would survive contact. It did not. “Do you want me to tell you she was wrong?” “No.” “Good. I don't know her.” Isha put her work bag beside the table and sat. Thomas washed onion from his hands before joining her. “Do you want analysis?” “No.” “Sympathy?” Isha thought about it. “Yes.” Thomas nodded. “That sounds unpleasant.” It was exactly enough. She reached for his hand and squeezed it once. “She liked Yoshida better.” “That also sounds unpleasant.” “Yes.” Thomas waited. After a while Isha said, “Yoshida was better for her.” Thomas did not answer with a lesson about coaching. He rubbed his thumb across the back of her hand. The onions waited on the board. Eventually Isha stood. “What are you making?” “Curry.” “Can I help?” “Yes. Cut the carrots.” She washed her hands and joined him at the counter. By the time the onions softened, the customer who had not wanted Isha was still real and no longer the only thing in the room. --- On Friday evening, Kanno returned to the biography request for the March event. She had written forty-seven words and disliked thirty-nine of them. The organiser wanted something simple: name, work, one sentence about *Until Replaced*, current city. Kanno had somehow produced a paragraph containing the phrase *visual attention to provisional civic surfaces*, which sounded like a punishment imposed by a postgraduate programme. She deleted it. Her notebook lay open beside the keyboard. On the previous page, crossed out beneath the date, was: **Aelira — portrait?** Kanno looked at it for a moment. Then she opened a new document for the exhibition biography and wrote: **Kanno Emi works in publishing in Sendai and makes photographs and small printed works. Her booklet *Until Replaced* looks at temporary signs, repairs and marks left by everyday use.** Thirty words. She stopped. It was enough for people she had not met yet. The photograph could wait for the person.