Permission

chapter 3: The Rule

Elena learned the house rules quickly.

Rule one: Jonah woke at five. Always. She heard him through the glass - no walls to muffle sound. The coffee machine, the darkroom door, the soft thud of bare feet on concrete floors.

Rule two: He didn't eat lunch. He drank coffee and then more coffee, and then around three he would make a bowl of something simple. Pasta. Soup. Bread he baked himself that was always a little burnt.

Rule three: He didn't like to be watched while he worked, but he liked being watched when he chose to work.

It was day two. She was sitting at the low wooden table that served as his dining table and her desk. Her laptop was open, dead - no Wi-Fi. Her notebook was open instead. She had written three pages of notes that said almost nothing.

He is guarded. House is minimal. No photos of people. Burns on arms from the darkroom.

It was not a memoir.

Jonah was outside, shoveling snow in just that black sweater and boots, no coat. The wind was brutal, but he moved like he didn't feel it.

The darkroom curtain was open. Just a little. He never left it open.

Elena told herself not to look. She had read his rules. She had signed a paper Margot gave her that said she would respect his privacy, his space, his archive.

Then she stood up.

The darkroom was warmer than the rest of the house. Yesterday's prints were still hanging, dry now. The one of her in the window was still there, at eye level. He had left it up.

On the workbench, there were three metal boxes. All labeled in white marker: ICELAND 2022, ICELAND 2023, DO NOT PUBLISH.

The third box was not closed all the way.

Elena should have closed it. She really should have.

She lifted the lid instead.

Inside were not prints. They were rolls of film, at least twenty of them, each in a small plastic canister, each labeled with a date and a name. Not a place name. A person's name.

LENA - AUG 2021

ELI - NOV 2021

MARK - DEC 2021

And at the bottom, one that was newer, with fresher handwriting:

ELENA V. - DAY 1 - WINDOW

Her hands went cold.

She heard the front door open and snow being kicked off boots.

She dropped the lid back on, but not fast enough.

"What are you doing?"

Jonah was in the doorway of the darkroom. He wasn't angry. His voice was flat, which was worse.

"I... I was looking for paper. For notes."

"There is paper on the table."

He walked into the darkroom, and suddenly it was too small for both of them. He saw the box. He saw her hand still on the lid.

"That box is not part of our agreement," he said.

"You photographed me. Again."

"I photograph everything that comes into this house. It's how I remember."

"Who is Lena? Eli? Mark?" The names came out before she could stop them. "Are these the editors?"

He took the box and placed it on the highest shelf, where she couldn't reach.

"Those are people who asked for permission I couldn't give."

"And me? I'm in there now too?"

"Do you want to be?"

The question stopped her. He wasn't being cruel. He was asking honestly.

He stepped closer. Not touching. Never touching. But close enough that she could see a small scar on his bottom lip.

"Here is how this works, Elena, because you clearly didn't understand my rules. You can look at anything I leave out. Anything I put away, you ask. Do I have permission to look? Do I have permission to ask? If I say no, you stop. Understood?"

She swallowed. "Understood."

"Good. Now ask."

"What?"

"Ask properly."

Her face was hot again. This whole house was making her hot and cold at the same time.

"Do I have permission to know who is in the box?"

"No."

Simple. No explanation.

"Do I have permission to know why you photographed me last night?"

He paused. Considered it.

"Yes."

She waited.

"Because you looked like you were deciding whether to run or stay. And I wanted to remember the moment someone stayed."

It was not a line. He said it like a fact. Like he was noting the weather.

Elena felt something tight in her chest loosen.

"Do I have permission to ask one more question?"

"You can always ask. I can always say no."

"Do I have permission to photograph you?"

That surprised him. For the first time since she arrived, he looked actually surprised.

"No one has asked me that in three years."

"So? Do I have permission?"

He looked at the camera on his kitchen counter - his expensive Leica - then back at her.

"No," he said. "But you have permission to try to earn it."

He left the darkroom. She was left alone with the red light and the prints of empty landscapes and that one photo of herself in his window.

That afternoon, she tried to work. She wrote down his rule in her notebook and underlined it three times:

He doesn't touch unless you say he can. He doesn't answer unless he gives you permission to know.

Underneath it, she wrote something she didn't mean to write:

What would happen if I gave him permission?

She crossed it out so hard the paper tore.

At 6 p.m., he knocked - actually knocked - on the glass wall next to her table.

"Dinner," he said. "If you want it."

She did want it. She wanted the soup he had made, and she wanted to sit across from him and watch how he ate without looking at her too much.

He ladled soup into two bowls. They ate in silence.

Then he said, without looking up, "Tomorrow the storm starts. No power sometimes. The generator is old."

"What do we do when the power goes?"

"We talk. Without notebooks."

She looked at him.

"Do I have permission to be nervous about that?" she asked quietly.

He finally looked up and met her eyes.

"Yes," he said. "You have permission to be nervous. You have permission to be anything you want in this house. That's the point."

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End of Chapter 3