The Film Lab – Part 1: Red Light

"Close the door," said Ayesha. "Light is the enemy."

Lena closed the door. The darkroom went black, then red, as Ayesha switched on a small safelight in the corner. The room was a narrow windowless space lined with trays, tongs and clips, hung with strips of film like laundry. The air smelled of vinegar and chemicals, sharp and strangely comforting.

Lena, thirty-four, a photographer from Antwerp, had come to Brussels with a shoebox of undeveloped rolls she had shot over ten years and never dared to look at. Ayesha, thirty-seven, ran the lab, a small calm woman with short silver-streaked hair, rolled sleeves and a voice that rarely rose above a murmur.

"These are old," said Ayesha, turning a canister in her fingers. "Some may be gone. Some may be beautiful."

"I'm afraid to find out."

"Then we find out together."

She loaded the film onto a spool in the dark, her hands moving quickly and surely. She showed Lena how to time the developer, how to rock the tank, how to wash and fix. And then, on the first print, in the red glow, she slid a white sheet of paper into the tray. Slowly, ghostlike, a face appeared in the liquid: a girl laughing on a beach, ten years ago, squinting at the sun.

"Oh," breathed Lena.

"There she is."

"I'd forgotten her." Lena's eyes were wet. "I'd forgotten I could take pictures like this."

"You can still."

They worked all night. Each print arose from the white tray like a memory from the deep. By dawn, the lab's clothes lines held thirty images, strangers, streets, lovers, sky. Ayesha dried her hands slowly.

"Lena," she said. "You are very good. I have said that to no one for a long time."

"Thank you."

"And I would also like to say something else. I would like to kiss you."

Continue the story: Part 2 – Fixer.

Continue the story: Part 2 – Fixer.