The Fountains of Silence(20)

“Quieter here,” he says. “No one talking about makeup.” He yanks at the knot in his tie, loosening it, and lights a cigarette.

“This hotel is deceptively huge,” says Daniel. “It doesn’t seem that large from the outside, but once you step inside, it’s massive.”

“Deceptive. Good word,” says Ben. A waiter appears and discreetly slides an ashtray under Ben’s hand, forecasting the gray snowfall from his cigarette. “I’ve gotten lost in here and I’ve never even made it to the labyrinth beneath. The location is strategic, you know.”

“What do you mean?”

Ben sighs. “Come on. An American hotel in a country ruled by a fascist dictator? It’s no coincidence that the U.S. Embassy is practically across the street. There are several levels belowground in this place. Ask the pretty girl that you came in with.” He grins.

“She’s assigned to help my family. It was just a visit to the camera shop.”

“Which one?”

“Miguel Mendoza’s.”

“Miguel,” nods Ben. “Great guy. Great little darkroom as well. I’d invite you to use the bureau’s darkroom—ours is light-tight—but then you’d have to deal with the censors.”

“Miguel seems nice. I’m happy to give him the business. He’s developing a couple rolls for me and also looked at my portfolio.”

“All right, my turn. Hand it over.”

Daniel quickly retrieves the album from his bag and slides it across the table. It’s a great opportunity. The man in front of him reports for one of the largest newspapers in the world.

Nothing about Ben Stahl is fast. It takes him forever to order from the menu, even though he knows what he wants. It takes him even longer to look through the portfolio. He turns the pages slowly, analyzing each image as if it were a coded message.

Daniel shifts. It’s uncomfortable watching his work reviewed. Ben knows it. He gets to the end of the album, studies the final photograph, and closes the portfolio. Ben takes a long, silent drag on his cigarette. He looks up at Daniel.

“You’re a fraud, cowboy.”

“Excuse me?”

“Your father told me that you’re going into the oil business. But the truth, it’s here. You have as much interest in oil as I do in Hi-Fi makeup.”

“I don’t want to be an oilman.”

“So why’d you tell your father that you do?”

“I didn’t. He knows I love photography. I want to be a photojournalist, but my dad doesn’t support it. He’ll only pay for college if I study engineering at Texas A&M.”

“A&M? No, you should go to J-School.”

Daniel looks at Ben, grateful. “I want to go to journalism school. I’ve been accepted at Missouri but my dad won’t pay tuition for J-School.” He pauses. “Speaking of payment, is my dad paying you to keep an eye on me?”

“Your dad? No.” Ben looks at him. “But Shep and the embassy might slide me a few favors if you keep to a darkroom instead of a jail.”

Daniel nods. Of course. His father has an arrangement with Mr. Van Dorn and the embassy. A quiet safety net in the event of trouble. But there is no trouble. Is there? Ana said the crow-like guards don’t patrol the city center. But . . . Max Factor says he saw them today?

“Listen, forget about your dad’s motives,” says Ben. “People discouraged me from journalism too. But clearly, you’ve caught the bug. The stuff in this portfolio is as serious as my blood pressure.” Ben wipes sweat from his hammy brow. The speed of his lecture accelerates.

“Sincerity. It’s important. If you take photos with this type of sincerity you may as well be holding a gun. There’s a meaningful story here in Spain, a human story. But it’s virtually impossible to tell and even harder for an outsider to understand. You need to be smart about it. This is a dictatorship. Franco’s regime censors everything. Freedom of the press doesn’t exist here. And you better believe the censors read everything I write before I send it to New York. I’m too visible. But you . . . You!” Ben slams his hand on the table. A waiter comes running.

“We’re fine. Sorry, Pepe,” he tells the waiter.

He leans in to whisper. “But you. You can capture a real story here—a photo essay to show a different side of Spain than the one on the postcards. All the foreign correspondents are chasing the same threads—that Hitler survived and Franco smuggled him to South America; that Texaco secretly fueled Franco during the Spanish Civil War.”

Daniel’s eyes expand. “Are those things true?”

“Who cares if they’re true. That’s the wild boar everyone’s hunting so one day they’ll run it down. But they’re missing something. What about the people of Spain? What is life like under a dictatorship? What’s it like for young people when textbooks are government sponsored? What are their hopes and dreams when there are no free elections and only one religion?”

The waiter delivers their hamburgers and milkshakes. Ben gestures to the plate with his cigarette. “Everyone seems to understand what 1950s Middle America is like. They say it’s hamburgers and milkshakes, right? For years I’ve been trying to explain to the world what it’s like for the average person in Spain.”