MY PENTEX

The package, wrapped in pink paper, was tied together with a complementing bow and ribbons and placed before Susan. She handled the package in her hands as her parents looked on. Susan had always wanted a camera. Not any camera, but a 35 millimeter, single lens reflect. Caressing the box she rubbed the sides as if rubbing it would make her wish come true. Susan brushed aside her auburn hair and eyed the package hoping beyond hope that the package contained her camera.  Untying the ribbon, she slid her fingers under the paper ripping it off. The paper fell to the floor as she saw that it concealed a box which displayed a red C.D. player.  She felt her stomach flutter as she looked down on the box trying not let her disappointment show on her face as she fumbled with the package.  She wanted to be grateful.  Her parents, Debbie and Peter Cook looked on as she lifted the flaps on the C.D. player box. That’s when Susan saw it. Buried beneath lavender tissue paper was a Pentex K1000, a 35 milimeter camera. Jumping up, she knocked her chair over when she ran to her parents hugging them in celebration.  

It was Susan’s first real camera. When she was a little girl she had a small Kodak instantmatic camera that shot 110 film. It was a primitive camera. It was a simple point and shoot camera. She could not make any adjustments. In her old camera there was no focus, no lighting calibration, no refining of the focal length. Now, balancing her new camera in her hands, she removed the lens cap, smiled as she brought it up to her right eye and looked through the view finder for the first time. She saw the old house and everything in it in a new way. With no film in the camera, she practiced snapping away at her parents, her friends, the couch, the piano, Chloe, her collie, her birthday cake.  

Afterwards, when everyone left and with her camera still strapped around her neck, she helped clean up the dining room. It was then that that her father said the celebration would continue.  

“This summer” he said, “we’re flying to England for a two week vacation. Now you have a new camera and you can take pictures to record our trip.”   

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Their Austin hatchback rental car, obtained two weeks ago in London, carried them throughout England and took the family to the village of Worstead in northeast Norfolk their final stop on the trip. Worstead is the village that gave its name to the heavy cloth that was woven in the village since the Middle Ages. Made from long-staple wool from twisted yarn, worst is stronger and finer, and more durable than wool. St. Mary’s Church, in the center of town, was built on the proceeds of the lucrative wool trade in the 14th century.  

The medieval church towers over the historic houses that line the narrow cobblestone streets of this small village.  Strong vertical lines, which are prevalent in the church’s windows and wall panelling pushed their eyes upward towards heaven. Massive flying buttress decorated with knobs, crockets and small pinnacles was surpassed by the elaborate and ornate vaulted roof. Like a fan, the ribs spread outwards making the gothic church an iconic structure. 

To escape the summer heat the Cook family walked into the sanctuary to cool off. Peter felt the heat more than the others. Taking off his ball cap he began to fan himself as he stood in the rear of the sanctuary. Debbie and Susan walked past the the 15th century Baptismal font coming to a stop at the centre aisle where there were painted screens of past church leaders and one to an unnamed man. It that was dated 1502.  

Pointing to the unnamed painting, Debbie said, “Perhaps he was a patron of the church, someone in the owl industry.” Debbie wondered as Susan snapped a photo.  All through the stone sanctuary Susan stopped to capture picture after picture.  They wandered around together admiring the artwork while Peter strolled toward the apse.  Tired, he collapsed on a wooden bench that people had been sitting on for over five hundred years. 

“Take your time,” Peter said, “wander around. I’m just gonna rest a minute on the pew.”  Rubbing the worn bench smoothed by centuries of worshippers, Peter could almost feel the people who had sat there through good times and bad; through wars and conflicts, through growth and depressions, through the black plague. From the alter area, Susan turned back to her father. She adjusted the F. Stop on her camera. She focused it on her dad as he sat alone on the bench. She snapped out several shots. Eventually, Debbie and Susan made their way to the apse and joined Peter on the bench. After a few minutes they rose and walked out of the church and back into the August heat.

“Sitting there must have energized you.” Debbie looked at her husband amazed at his new energy. “You don’t look as drained and tired as you were.”  

“I guess the cool sanctuary helped.” Putting his ball cap back on, Peter turned to Debbie, “Well, I don’t feel as tired either. Hey, anyone hungry?”  

Peter pointed to the White Lady Pub that was just down the street.  When they finished their fish and chips and he downed a pint of dark beer, they drove back to London, deposited their rental car at Gatwick Airport and prepared to fly back to Pittsburgh, PA.   

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Back in Pittsburgh, Susan placed her five canisters of Kodak film in mailers and dropped them off at the post office.  Eighteen days later the developed film was returned in 180, 4 x 6 glossy color prints.  Shuffling through the photographs, Susan studied her pictures of St. Paul’s Cathedral, Big Ben, The Tower of London, Shakespeare’s house in Avon, and Canterbury Cathedral. Then she stopped when she came to the pictures inside St. Mary’s Church in Worstead. Something wasn’t right. There appeared to a figure sitting directly behind Peter. The faint figure seemed to be wearing old clothes, clothes that were not fashionable in 1970, clothes that resembled outfits made of the Worstead Cloth, unique to this small village. A bonnet covered her head.  The hazy figure was that of a woman.  She was bathed in a bright white light that couldn’t have come from any of the huge decorated east windows, she seemed to sit directly behind Peter. In one picture she appeared to have her arm around him. Susan dropped her pictures. They fluttered to the floor. Turning white herself, she called for her parents.  

Debbie and Peter looked at the pictures of their day in St. Mary’s Church. A shiver ran down their backs while they studied the strange pictures. They were shocked to see that Peter had a mysterious extra something sitting behind him in the church. 

“Dad, I know that there was no one around you when I snapped those pictures.”

“And yet,” Debbie e pointed to the vague image of a woman seated behind her husband, “there is something there.”    

“I know I was alone. But, what is it?”   

From a desk drawer he grabbed a magnifying glass and began to pour over the pictures. He studied the photographs of himself seated on the bench. He saw himself in great detail.  And he saw a faint image of woman bathed in white. Each picture that Susan snapped showed the mysterious woman in different positions. The last photograph found her with her arm draped around Peter’s shoulder. Shivering from fear and confusion, a shudder ran down his back as he gawked at the last photograph.  

Grabbing the brochure of their recent visit to St. Mary’s Church, he found the phone number for the church. Going to the kitchen, he pulled the phone off the hook, dialed the number in Worstead. The vicar answered.  

The vicar said that he wasn’t surprised by Peter's comments. 

“It sounds like you captured a picture of the Lady in White.” He cleared his throat as if he was thinking how to say something.  “She’s a ghost”, he stammered. “A ghost of a healer. She is believed to haunt our church.  Some believe she dates back to the time of the Black Death. Perhaps she prayed for healing during that dreadful time. ”  He paused for Peter to catch up with the conversation.

“She appears from time to time. People have reported the mysterious image of a woman in white since the 1500’s.  She sits in various places in the sanctuary. She always sits near someone who is ill. I wonder, Mr. Cook, have you been sick?” 

He was silent. 

“Mr. Cook, the Lady in White is a caring, healing spirit.”

“Vicar, we came to England for a special vacation. I had been diagnosed with stage 2 pancreatic cancer. It was found purely by accident. I didn’t think I had long to live and this was to have been a trip of the life time. So I planned this memory making vacation.” He paused, “Our daughter, for her birthday, got a camera. She took pictures to record the trip for us, for them, to remember the good days in England.”

Peter’s symptoms eased somewhat on their trip. Six months after their trip the cancer was gone.