Mario Muscar

The Calligrapher's Ghost

by Kelly Strautmann

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The note on the door is what drew Maren’s eye to the building. The sun must have been hitting it perfectly. A white speck on the old glass pane, beckoning to be seen. Those who would be paying attention to their surroundings at such a time would definitely see it. Maren couldn’t miss it. 

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She had walked past these buildings countless times on her lunch hour, some days barely looking up from her feet. She was usually trying to shake whatever daily annoyance work had provided in the first half of the day. Her lunch hours were a chance to start over and to try to gain a new perspective on the day before it all escaped in the late hours of the afternoon. Before she was suddenly headed home, another seemingly pointless eight hours behind her. Lately she had been having the kind of feelings that made her wonder if any of it really mattered anymore. If her place in the world was relevant. What it truly meant to exist.

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There weren’t a lot of original buildings left in downtown. Most had been torn down and replaced with fast food restaurants. Others had been left to rot for years until finally being razed to provide another lonely, square parking lot with rows of mismatched cars. The door with the note belonged to an old Victorian building that stood, shoulder to shoulder, with only two other older buildings. They stood together in unspoken solidarity. A reminder of the past. Of how beautiful architecture could be in a time when everyone moved a little slower and thought a little differently.

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Maren slowed her walking pace down to see the note more clearly and decided, on a whim, to see what it read. She walked right up to the large door of the only photography business left in town. There was nothing special about the message of the note. It was the way it was written that made her look at it in wonder.  OUT TO LUNCH. BE BACK SOONER OR LATER. The simple message was written in the most exquisite calligraphy she had ever seen. When was the last time she had even seen handwritten calligraphy? It must have been when she was a child, for she was positive she had never seen it as an adult or had even thought about its existence in years. A memory started to creep into her mind of a pen pal she had in third grade and how one letter she had received from her friend across the country had been written in her best calligraphy – all messy loops and shaky lines – but it had still impressed Maren, even at a young age. Something different in the middle of the mundane.

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Maren started to smile and reached her hand out to trace the letters of the note with her finger. Her eyes followed the curve of the letters, lost in thought, until she realized she was looking right into the eyes of someone else. A reflection. She jumped and whirled around.

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“Oh, gosh, I’m sorry. I hope you weren’t there long—”

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“Do you have an appointment?,” he asked.

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Maren took in the man standing before her. He leaned on a cane and was dressed quite professionally, with a vest and coat. His curly gray hair was blowing into his bloodshot eyes. It was impossible to know his age. She spoke quickly trying to cover her embarrassment. “I…I saw the calligraphy, and – did you write this note? Because I thought calligraphy was a…well, dead. A dead…way to write.” She laughed nervously.

This reply made him crack a smile. “If it’s a dead art form, then I am guilty of trying to keep the dead alive. In more ways than one, unfortunately for me. My name is Charles and I co-own this dump. Care to step inside?” Charles walked around her and unlocked the door and held it open for her.

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“I’m Maren,” she said as she stepped inside the building.

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“Maren—Of The Sea—it’s nice to meet you. Have you ever been here before? We have a special on something or other right now, probably.” Charles seemed a little unsteady as he led Maren across the floor of the photography studio. The walls of the old building were full of elaborate frames hosting awkward high school seniors, beaming their smiles into the unwritten future. Baring their perfect teeth bravely into the unknown. There were families posed on green grass, in front of red brick buildings and fountains. They were beautiful photographs.

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“Lovely photos,” Maren said gazing up at the walls.

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“Eh, everyone is a photographer these days. Phones and apps, editing tools in the comfort of their own living rooms, but no one pauses to get the really good shot anymore, you know?”

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“Do you?”

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Charles turned around from the counter and looked directly into Maren’s eyes for the first time since their eyes met in the reflection of the window. He suddenly seemed a little tired, leaning heavily on his cane.

 

“Since you seem to have an appreciation for the dying arts, maybe you’d like to see my ‘dying art’ project.” He shuffled over to a door in the corner of the room, which was emitting a red light from under the door. Maren was suddenly feeling uncomfortable, like she was intruding.         

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“Um, I need to be heading back. My hour is almost up.”

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“It’s just my dark room,” Charles laughed at her hesitation. He opened the door and Maren could see photographs hanging in the sea of red and black.

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“Dark room? Wow, I took a class once, but it was ages ago.” Maren stood just outside the door and leaned in, taking in the smell of the chemicals, her eyes adjusting. Closest to her, hanging a few feet away, she saw what seemed to be a series of photographs of the same subject, over and over.  A white church. It was photographed from different distances and from different viewpoints. Some of the photos were taken in the daytime; some were obviously at night. They were ominous in the glare of the developing light. A secret was there, waiting to be seen.

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Maren leaned back. “I really do need to get going. It was nice to meet you. Maybe another time you can tell me more about your…special project.” She reached out her hand to shake his. Charles gave her a sad smile. “Anytime. Stop by tomorrow. I’ll be here.”

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Maren walked back to work unable to hide her amusement at her encounter. Charles was intriguing, to say the least, but she also felt like she had just awoken from a dream as she climbed up Main Street. A reality different from her own was out there and she had come very close to it. To step into someone else’s world so completely, even for just a few minutes, was something new for her. Even if she could sense pain in that other world, she didn’t feel like she could just walk away and pretend it had never happened. She would go back.

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And so an acquaintance and friendship began a few times a week during her rushed lunch hour. Maren told Charles about herself and how her mornings were at work, and he began to reveal more about his business.  She could tell he wasn’t completely well. Something was off about him, but it only added to his mystique. A puzzle to solve. And she learned about the photographs in the dark room.

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“So my mom? She just disappeared when I was 16. And the last place she was seen, by any of us, was church the morning she disappeared,” Charles said, not looking up from his coffee mug. Maren could see the pain in his face. “Except that she was seen again — sort of.” Charles handed Maren a picture of the church. “There’s no real way to say this without just saying it. My uncle claimed he saw her ghost a few years after she was gone. He saw her standing next to the church, and she was beckoning to him to come closer. Instead, he ran away from her, scared. And for that I will never forgive him.” He took a long drink from his mug.

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Maren didn’t know what to say. “So you believed him?”

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“Believed him? What choice do I have? If someone told you it was possible to see and talk to the one person missing from your life who meant the most to you, believe me, you’d try to make it happen. So I go there and I photograph the church, hoping that if my eyes see nothing, my camera will.”

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“Like orbs? I’ve seen those in pictures before.”

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“I have captured some of those, yes, but I’m waiting for something more. I have caught some unexplainable shadows as well. But I’m still waiting for the day I see my mother. I know it will come.”

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Maren had never been a believer and had always been a skeptic. Charles was challenging her. She could see that this project was at the center of who he was — whoever he was. She was still trying to figure him out. And if she shrugged this off as something that did not matter to her now, she knew their friendship would be over. She at least owed him the decency of being someone he could talk to about this. She was starting to think he had no one. She swallowed her bitter skepticism.

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“That’s kind of amazing. You keep going there hoping to capture a picture of your mom? And you’ve never found out what happened to her? I’m so sorry.”

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“I never found out. If her ghost truly existed, I would ask her.”

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Maren thought about him out there on his own, working on this project, as he called it, over and over, and for how long? It was alarming and it was also inspiring, this determination he had. “When do you go? To the church?”

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“Quite often. I was thinking of going again tomorrow night. I don’t like to be away from there for too long. I don’t want to miss anything.”

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“I could go with you, if you want, the next time you go,” she quickly said, staring at her hands. “I mean, you could just show me the church, we wouldn’t have to stay, if it would be weird for you to have me there—”

“You’d go? No one has ever gone with me before. It might be nice, to, um, to have a friend for a change.”

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They met in the alley next to the studio the following night. The forecast was calling for wind and rain. Maren tried to hide her nervous energy when she handed Charles the styrofoam cup of coffee she brought him. Charles reached into his lapel and pulled out a flask and winked at Maren. He opened his coffee lid and poured a little in, and then took Maren’s cup from her and did the same. They smiled at each other with their shared secret.

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The drive to the church was all winding roads and high beams. Fall was ending and winter was beginning its slow grip on all things colorful, but a few leaves remained and would occasionally swirl in front of the windshield. As they sipped their spiked coffee, they quietly listened to the radio. The sad voice singing, “Just walk away Renee. You won’t see me follow you back home” made Charles break the silence. “This song is so good it makes you want to change your name to Renee.” Maren laughed and turned the volume up.

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They pulled onto a gravel road that led to the church, their headlights the only ones to be seen for miles. The slam of their car doors echoed in the silence as they stood in front of the small country church. Charles steadied himself on his cane and Maren handed him his camera bag. A single outside light threw shadows onto the front of the building. It was a small, modest church. The tall maple trees on either side made it picturesque. It was easy to imagine families coming here once a week. Maren could imagine a young Charles here with his family, unaware of the future event that would haunt his life.

“Here it is. The last place I saw her.”

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Maren walked ahead glancing up at the church, trying to imagine what it must be like to chase something. A dream; a ghost. Lately it seemed that just getting through the tasks of every day life left little energy for any chasing. She heard the shutter click on the camera behind her and turned toward Charles. The camera was aimed at her and he was snapping away.

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“No, no, no. No pictures of me.”

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“Too late. What? Did you think you had a free pass, coming here with the man who photographs it all?”

Maren grinned and gave her best melodramatic pose, one hand in the air, the other on her hip. The ridiculousness of the situation hit her and she doubled over with laughter. She was feeling the effects of the alcohol and it was making her brave. She began to sing the song in the car and twirled around. “Now as the rain beats down upon my weary eyes. For me it cries.”  She stopped to catch her breath. “Don’t we have to be quiet if we expect a ghost to show up?”

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“This ghost has never shown itself to me,” Charles quietly said. Maren walked up to him and stood right before him.

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“Maybe that’s the way it is supposed to be. Maybe she would have shown herself to you by now if she wanted to be seen.”

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“Then what has all of this been for? Have I wasted my life away, coming out here taking pictures no one has seen, chasing something that doesn’t even exist? I don’t even remember the sound of my mother’s voice. How would I know if I heard her?”

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“I’ve seen them. I’ve seen your photographs. And they are beautiful.”

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Charles was quiet, studying Maren’s face.

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“Seriously, Charles. There has to be someone who captures the beauty out in the world. Like you do. Whether you choose to take photos of families or the same church over and over again, you’re doing something. You’re after something. You have a purpose, even if it’s based on something, or someone, you can’t prove. I don’t even know what I’m doing anymore. I always feel lost. This? At least this is real. This is raw emotion being documented.”

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“Maren, beauty has no purpose if there is no one to notice it. You, you notice. You notice ‘the dead art forms,’ and that speaks volumes about the kind of person of you are. I never said thank you for coming here tonight, and I’ve been wanting to thank you for a while now for, well, for noticing.”

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A light rain started to fall as they turned back to the church and stared at the walls in silence, both going over the conversation in their minds. Maren turned toward Charles again and was about to say something when they heard the unmistakable sound of car wheels on the gravel road that led to the church. Charles turned to Maren in astonishment.

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“Never, ever has someone else driven here at night while I’ve been here.” His whisper of a voice sounded panicked and Maren was surprised at how upset he seemed. “We need to leave. Now. We can’t be seen,” he said.

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Maren was startled. “How? They’ll definitely see us driving away!” But Charles was already moving. He held tightly to his camera and began to run, forgetting his cane. He stopped and hissed at Maren. “Let’s go.” She felt like she had no other choice and began to run in the rain behind him. He turned again and this time grabbed her hand. They were headed into the woods behind the church. The wind whipped Maren’s hair into her eyes as they ran, blinding her. They descended over a hill and Charles slipped in the loose leaves, causing them both to stumble. He caught himself, winded, and kneeled down. They heard a female voice shouting behind them near the church.

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“Charles! Charles. I know you’re out there.”

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Maren ducked down and crouched next to Charles in the dirty, wet leaves. The wind and rain was all around them as they tried to catch their breath.

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“You’re being ridiculous, Charlie!”

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He refused to look Maren in the eye. He seemed to have gone to some place inside his head, for she was staring a hole through him that he would not return. The voice was quiet for some time and Maren wondered if the person it belonged to was coming to find them, crouched in the dirt and leaves, hiding like criminals. The rain had soaked them both through by now and Maren was shaking, but she didn’t know if it was from the cold rain or from fear. The voice made one last offer to the night. A scolding. “Such a child, Charles! Grow up.” And then they heard a car door slam and the engine accelerate and speed off, spewing gravel in its wake. Maren could see Charles crack from the inside out, as he slumped over onto the ground. He reached for his flask inside his coat from earlier and drank. And then his shoulders began to shake and it took Maren longer than it should have to realize he was crying. Her confusion and anger were pushed aside as she joined him instantly and put her arms around him as he shook. Then she was helping him to his feet and they began the long trek back to the car.

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“I think I should drive,” Maren said as they neared the car. Charles’ forgotten cane lay discarded on the ground. “I don’t even need it. It’s a prop,” Charles said as she picked it up off the ground. Those were the only words spoken to each other on the drive back to the studio, the radio silent on the return trip.

 

Maren’s mind was racing with so many questions, but one look at Charles told her he would not be able to speak. She didn’t think she had ever seen a man so broken as he was at that moment. When they got back to the studio he simply mumbled a thank you in her direction and closed the door, not offering for her to join him inside. She stood looking at the closed door that had held the calligraphy note just a few weeks earlier, wondering how one piece of paper had led her here.

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It took several days for Maren to recover from her strange outing with Charles. She felt angry for a long time, not understanding why he had shut her out as soon as they heard the car driving up the lane. And she had a burning curiosity to know who knew him well enough to find him at the church, not to mention how this person had no problem scolding him like a child. Soon her anger gave away to concern for Charles.  She couldn’t forget holding him as he cried in the rain and she started to feel like something was wrong. They had never exchanged personal phone numbers. She could have tried calling him at the photography studio, but their whole relationship had been based on a chance face-to-face meeting and she decided she needed to see him in person. When Maren finally decided to return to the studio she practically ran there on her lunch hour only to find it closed. She went back the next day and then the next. Finally, about a week after their outing, the lights were on in the old building and Maren felt like a weight had been lifted off of her shoulders as she opened the door. The smile on her face fell when she saw a woman sitting in Charles’ usual place by the window.

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“Good afternoon. Can I help you?”

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Maren froze. She recognized that voice. “I’m looking for Charles.”

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The woman stood up and looked at her for a long time. “You must be Maren. I’ve been waiting for you.”

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“Where’s Charles?”

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“Listen, please sit down. I need to talk to you about my brother.”

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Brother.  Maren slowly walked over to the woman, speechless.

 

“I’m sure you’ve gathered that Charles is a little eccentric. I’m afraid it goes deeper than that. He is sick. He is an alcoholic, and he suffers from delusional thoughts. And I’m pretty sure it’s more than alcohol that he is addicted to. I’ve been trying to get him to seek help forever.” The woman looked away from Maren. “But after his night out with you I found him the next day, here, in his dark room, and he was in pretty bad shape. But he said he was finally ready to try and get better. We’ve been down this road before, but I can only hope it’s for real this time.”

 

Maren was dumbfounded. “Delusional thoughts? I don’t understand.”

 

“Charles likes to think our mother died when we were kids. The truth is — and the truth Charles refuses to accept — is that she just abandoned us. She’s still alive, living a different life in Florida. I tracked her down once. But Charles will not believe me.”

 

Maren thought of the dark room and the series of photographs of the church, and all the time and effort Charles had put into his project. She could feel her heart breaking for Charles as she sat there. “What about the uncle who saw her ghost?”

 

“My brother believes what he wants to believe. When something this awful happens to a family I assume you either deal with it and grow up and realize you can’t change the past -- that you can’t blame yourself for your parents’ failures, or…or you turn out like Charles. Our mother left us in the middle of a church service and drove away while we were holding our hymnals, oblivious, thinking she had just gone to the car to get something. We were raised by our father and grandmothers, what little raising was left to do. And thank God for them and good riddance to our mother. I’m sorry to be so harsh, but these are the realities.”

 

Maren could barely process all of the information. She thought of Charles’ bloodshot eyes, his fake cane, his beautiful photographs, how he made her laugh. “I have to see him. Now,” she blurted out.

 

“You can’t. Only family is allowed visitation at the center.”

 

Maren was feeling desperate. “Let me help. I want to help. Please, can you give him a note, anything, from me?”

 

“As a matter of fact, he left something for you.” She searched around on the counter and handed Maren a manila envelope. “And, yes, I’d be happy to give him a note from you. I’m allowed to see him once a day.” Maren grabbed the closest scrap of paper she found as the woman handed her a pen. She didn’t even think. She just wrote the clearest possible message she could for Charles.

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Charles, get well. Get better. I’ll be here waiting for you. We have many more adventures ahead of us. First on the list: teaching me the dying art form known as calligraphy. Your friend, M.

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She handed Charles’ sister the note. “Thank you. Please let me know what I can do to help. Charles has become a good friend of mine.” His sister took the note and smiled. “Thank you, Maren. Stop by anytime. I’ll be here doing my best to keep things going while he’s gone.”

 

Maren stepped out onto the stoop where she had met Charles the first time and closed the door behind her. She stood there trying to gather her thoughts, and it was then she remembered the envelope in her hand from Charles. She quickly opened it and found a picture. At first glance she didn’t recognize herself in front of the church. She looked different. Her face was turned just slightly to the camera and she was mid-twirl, her feet hidden amongst the golden leaves on the ground. Her arms were outstretched on either side of her. The white background was a startling contrast to her frame. On her face was a slight smile. She looked carefree. She looked confident. She looked beautiful. Here was proof that she existed. Maren looked up at the sky and smiled, and then put one foot in front of the other.

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