Attempting to discharge a debt. on Cascade Hall

Tatiana Vorontsova

August 16, 2018 2:52 PM

Attempting to discharge a debt. by Tatiana Vorontsova

Dorian, without a doubt, was the center of Tatiana’s social circle. She stood out the most of the group, not even so much because of her efforts as because of her sex, and formalizing their language exchanges in a way had been her idea, and Jehan was the sort of person who tended to make an impression after only a very brief acquaintanceship with people, but it was Dorian who drew her and Jehan and Vladimir together. There were times when Tatiana regretted this – had it been otherwise, Jasmine might have been part of their group, and Tatiana liked Jasmine very much – but it was, at this point, a fact: Dorian was the center around which her social life at Sonora, most of what she did outside of work and sometimes within it, revolved.

The Sorting Potion had not taken long, two years before, to put Tatiana in Pecari, and there were probably few people who would doubt that she belonged in the House associated with those who were spontaneous, active, and desired quick results from their actions, but due to the centrality of Dorian Montoir to their shared circle (and, more prosaically, the fact that two members shared a House while the two non-Teppenpaws they were friends with did not), she was far from a foreign sight at the table in the Cascade Hall most associated with Teppenpaws. The addition of her sister to Teppenpaw House only increased her reasons to be there. Today, however, she was not seeking out any of her usual people when she went to the Teppenpaw table, but the boy she thought of primarily as fotoapparat because she often saw him in the Gardens carrying a device which, in Russian, was called a fotoapparat, even though she had picked up at some point that his actual name was Nathaniel.

He was sitting by himself when Tatiana approached him at breakfast. “Good morning,” said Tatiana in English, sitting down across from him. “You did not send Papa foto-shut. I got money,” she informed him, referring to their hastily conducted and poorly-translated business arrangement last year, wherein she had assured him she’d arrange to have him paid later for agreeing to photograph her repeatedly in her Ball attire.

16 Tatiana Vorontsova Attempting to discharge a debt. 1396 Tatiana Vorontsova 1 5

Nathaniel Mordue

August 16, 2018 2:53 PM

Rejecting those terms. by Nathaniel Mordue

Nathaniel often took his time over breakfast, but often had different reasons on different days for doing that. Sometimes, it was because he was turning over papers, letters to and from home or the like, and more occupied with them than with his food, something which made him feel very grown-up and like a proper head of his family. Sometimes, it was because he was lingering over breakfast as long as he reasonably could, just to make sure no letter from home was going to arrive that day – usually this happened when he was anxious about his mother. Today he was anxious about his mother, a natural consequence of being only recently back from summer vacation and worrying that she therefore wasn’t quite used to being alone again yet, but this was not why he was lingering over his breakfast. Instead, it was just that he was very sleepy and reluctant to move from his chair to get on with his day.

”Good morning.”

Someone saying this, particularly at within the friendly confines of Teppenpaw, was not an altogether surprising thing, but the thick non-American accent the words were said in were a little more unusual. He had heard Tatiana Vorontsova speak often enough last year, of course, even at the Teppenpaw table, but usually not directly to him, so he looked up in mild surprise from his second cup of tea as she sat down, surprise which rapidly turned into consternation as she explained why she was greeting him.

“Um – thank you,” said Nathaniel first, after a slight hesitation where he considered how to begin. “But I don’t want it.” He tried not to show any obvious offense at being taken for and treated like a tradesman – Tatiana was foreign, of course she would not know exactly who he was, or the proper American manners associated with his status. “I just take photographs because I like taking them,” he explained, trying to use simple words and speak slowly so she’d be sure to understand him.

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Tatiana Vorontsova

August 16, 2018 2:54 PM

Misinterpreting that. by Tatiana Vorontsova

Tatiana tilted her head and frowned slightly, confused, when Nathaniel Mordue first thanked her for being willing to pay him but then declined payment. This seemed silly to her. She had asked him to go out of his way to do something for her, he had done it – this was a business arrangement. It was as silly as if she had expected the milliner to give her a hat as a present. Certainly they always paid the photographer at home, whenever Mama decided it was time for another formal photograph to be taken of any or all of them….

“You like to take photograph of me?” asked Tatiana, slightly amused by this thought at first and then slightly disconcerted by it.

Of course she had snapped casual shots of her parents and siblings and even her friends from time to time, but – that was different. She had never even been formally introduced to Mordue here until the end of last year, though she had seen him around the Gardens often enough before that with his camera. Surely he had not been aiming to photograph her all along! That would be very strange, and also alarming – it sounded like what Rodion Alexandrovich might do, and he was taking Anya away from them. Tatiana did not want to get engaged and then get married and go away from her family, much less marry an American, or have some American wanting to marry her. Stars, what if Papa approved such a notion? Mama and Papa had both always said they would not try to make her or her sisters marry against their inclinations, which Tatiana was sure for her would mean never marrying at all, but….

16 Tatiana Vorontsova Misinterpreting that. 1396 Tatiana Vorontsova 0 5

Nathaniel Mordue

August 16, 2018 2:55 PM

Trying to correct that. by Nathaniel Mordue

“You like to take photograph of me?” asked Tatiana, and Nathaniel’s eyes widened in horror as he realized what that might have sounded like.

“No,” he said, too quickly, and then realized he might have given offense. Oh, drat, this was difficult – and it didn’t matter, he thought, if he defined ‘this’ as ‘talking to a girl’ or ‘talking to someone whose awareness of the nuances of English idiom and implication he was not entirely sure about’. Either way, he might have just given the impression he was a very bad sort of person, someone not unlike his father, or else implied Tatiana wasn’t pretty – which he supposed she was, beneath the excessive jewelry – or – or who knew how many other terrible things?

“I mean – I just like taking photographs of things. Not people, usually – but you asked, so I did,” he explained. He decided not to mention that he had thought two were good enough to preserve copies of. He didn’t, after all, particularly like them because they involved Tatiana as such – that would have been creepy and was why he didn’t usually photograph people. They had just come out artistically interestingly, in part because of the slightly exotic way she had been dressed. “That’s all.”

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Tatiana Vorontsova

August 16, 2018 2:56 PM

More or less understanding now. by Tatiana Vorontsova

Nathaniel’s explanation still didn’t explain why he didn’t want money for having gone out of his way, but did at least seem to dismiss the idea that he was somehow in love with her. This, Tatiana thought, was a very good thing, and so she would not question it much further.

“Why not people?” she asked, curious now that she didn’t feel the immediate need to flee his presence as quickly as possible before he could work up to a proposal. “I take pictures – my family, my friends. Fun to do that. Some with color – some without – paint some colors onto them, when they none have on them.”

It really was, she thought, distracted from the conversation by her own achievement, getting easier to think of words to explain concepts she didn’t know the single English word for. Partially colorizing black and white photographs was great fun at home – something that could sometimes end with things Mama or Nadezhda called artistic, and something which could sometimes end with Katya and Alyosha giggling over a picture of Mama with bright red hair, or a sister with a dress where the watercolor paints ran and blended in a way that no sensible person would ever wear on a dress, or Tatiana making a picture look as though she had been wearing a dress she liked much better than the dress she had actually been wearing. Explaining all that would have been much easier in Russian, but she thought she had done an acceptable job in English.

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Nathaniel Mordue

August 16, 2018 2:57 PM

Expressing curiosity. by Nathaniel Mordue

Nathaniel was surprised to hear Tatiana talk about photography – she seemed too flighty for something that required sitting and really thinking about the shot and how to make it its best, or even to capture it at all – objects might move in a photograph, but a moving photographer didn’t work as well, in his experience. When one did that, everything was blurry, and then the blurs moved and he found the effect highly unpleasant to look at. There was nothing preserved there, and there was nothing beautiful there, and it was just a complete waste of time and film and paper and developing potions.

“Black and white photographs?” he asked, curious despite himself when she started talking about painting colors onto photos that ‘none have on them.’ “I haven’t tried anything in black and white before, or heard of painting a photograph – wouldn’t you just develop it in color, if you wanted it to have colors?” he asked, forgetting for a moment to try to carefully plan his sentences and vocabulary to ensure he was properly understood.

Immediately, however, he almost regretted asking, because – well – what was the purpose? For one thing it didn’t sound like he and Tatiana had any common interests in photography beyond the broadest possible definition, and for another thing, it was sort of a solitary hobby. Unless he was photographing her. Which would be weird – wouldn’t it? He had read of great painters and photographers of people who had a woman who was their muse, whose image they created over and over again in different ways until somehow a painting of a flowerpot was a picture of her too, but he couldn’t imagine doing that.

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Tatiana Vorontsova

August 16, 2018 2:57 PM

Losing interest. by Tatiana Vorontsova

Tatiana hesitated for a moment, taking time to comprehend the English sentences with less-than-perfect structure which had just been lobbed in her direction, and then shrugged in response to the question.

“It is a thing to do,” she said. “Passes time. Make it like I want, too. Makes – picture-book more interesting,” she added, not knowing, or at least remembering, the English word for album off the top of her head. Besides, picture-book was just as good a descriptor for the object she was referring to as any. The family snapshot albums they kept at home took the form of very large books bound together, with pages onto which they pasted new snapshots and photographs and holiday cards received from relatives around Russia to create the contents of each book, a sort of visual account of each year. It was a book full of pictures. Therefore, according to what she remembered of Katya’s talk about the German lessons her sister seemed to enjoy so, it was perfectly reasonable to call it a picture-book.

She pushed back her seat and stood. “Well – if you do not want money, I will go,” she said. “Have a good day,” she added, a stock phrase memorized in English from phrasebooks, one she no longer thought much about but was glad existed because of how much easier it frequently made communications with English-speakers other than her friends, who didn’t mind how she spoke so much and also all had at least a scrap of Russian, too.

16 Tatiana Vorontsova Losing interest. 1396 Tatiana Vorontsova 0 5