The image made Callum laugh, much as he didn’t want to.
“And here they are.”
Callum looked up to find Frank smiling at them.
The tall man he’d been speaking to at the Eldorado, soon introduced as Karl, stood by Frank’s side and gave them a curt nod. “Welcome. We are always pleased to meet Frank’s friends.”
Callum muttered a hello. The man didn’t seem very ‘pleased’ about anything.
“I’m sorry,” said Anne brightly, getting to her feet. “My cousin’s forgotten his manners.”
“Yes, sorry. I’m Callum.” He extended a hand, which Karl accepted with clear scepticism.
“Karl is the Institute’s chief archivist,” said Frank. “He also runs tours here.”
“Until yesterday. Sadly, there has been less and less interest in supporting our work in recent times. But it continues, despite our troubles. You appear to have had some of your own?” Karl pointed to Callum’s bandage.
“Oh, no, I just fell.”
“In the bathroom at Suzi’s. Can you believe it?” Anne chirped. “I did promise him adventure.”
Karl nodded. “Perhaps you are having too much adventure.”
“No such thing for Magnus, it seems,” Frank said. “Paris, indeed?”
“Yes, Paris,” Karl muttered. “Frank, will you join us?”
“Someone has to keep you honest,” Frank joked.
Karl cracked what Callum suspected was the closest he’d get to a smile, and led them inside. Callum wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting, but ten minutes in, his mind’s eye was awash with photographs. Men, women, transvestites, gender-changers, and people who defied the established social order of man or woman entirely. Attractive women in well-pressed suits and top hats. Women doting over one another in the domesticity of their kitchens. Men who confidently embodied the kind of prim ‘pansy’ the boys back home always mocked. Some filled out fine dresses in a style that would have put most fashionable ladies to shame. Women standing proudly alongside their husbands, both dressed in fine skirts. And then, there were blokes like him. Simple looking fellows, draped around others, smiling with no care for what the world thought. He’d seen plenty of blokes dancing together in Berlin’s clubs, obviously, and women too, but photographs? These were undeniable and irrevocable proof of who they were and what they could be. He'd done his best to pay attention when Karl had gone into the more detailed science and fancy names, but it had gone over a head too full of those faces.
“Amazing place, Berlin,” he’d said at one point.
“Berlin?” Karl raised an eyebrow at him. “My friend, this is everywhere.”
The tour continued through the Institute’s research, even an operating room where Karl claimed several people had successfully altered their outward gender. It would have all feltfantastical to Callum, had the last day or two not put his wildest imaginings firmly in the realm of the possible. This, however, was no dream. This is what people like Karl and Frank were doing for real. He halted on that thought as Frank left them alone. What was Frank doing here? What did the man do at all, besides showing up at oddly ideal moments, being charming?
“Karl,” Anne said. “You know how much I admire your collection, and all the work you do here, but it does bear one glaring omission.”
“You’d like us to photograph you?” he asked, stifling a laugh.
“I don’t see why not. Callum was just saying last night, I’ve a face made for the pictures, weren’t you?”
It wasn’t quite how Callum remembered their conversation.
“Why don’t we get a picture together, darling? For the Institute’s archives, or for science or something? A sort of… cousins in queerness thing.”
“No, I don’t think so.” Callum reflexively pulled away from her.
Karl offered them another faint smile, this time seeming genuine. “Only if you wish. Unless you are afraid that people will see… in England?”
Sparks of anticipation teased his fingertips. All his life, he’d wanted to be seen for the man he was, but documented? Perhaps even a face on the poster? Would they use it for recruitment— No! That was stupid. He could no more ‘recruit’ anyone to their cause than he’d been recruited himself. Anne’s Communist friends had a better chance co-opting him for the noble crusade of the working man. And if it would make Anne happy, he could always say that’s why he’d done it.
“All right,” he mumbled with hands in his pockets.
“Really?” Anne asked, seemingly shocked.
“I said ‘all right,’” he said again.
