Calafia: the painter and his queen

I have always had a weakness for treasure hunts. Finding the buried, discovering the hidden, searching for traces and chasing threads was my passion, like Ariadne in her labyrinth.

In my family this hobby had always been encouraged. My grandparents used to hide chocolates all over their house and present me with riddles. The clues were hidden behind clues about history and other cultures, so the satisfaction of finding the chocolates came not only from eating them, but also from the feeling of having traveled around the world in an afternoon.

- I took Professor Galagowski's assignment as a personal challenge. If the connection between Slim Aarons and Dorothea Lange was a treasure, I was going to be the one to discover it - I told my team.

- And surely you haven't stopped until you find it - said Martina, smiling, knowing the way the ideas entered my head and did not cease to resonate.

I smiled.

- Not exactly. My first stop was the library.

***

I had stacked some books on my desk and I didn't plan to move from there until I had browsed through them all. While many students would have opted for the ease of a browser, nothing compared to the smell of stale paper, where all the secrets of the universe could be locked away. Gradually, the worlds of Dorothea Lange and Slim Aarons opened up to me. But the connection was not yet clear.

A photojournalist bent on showing the world realities different from her own versus a photographer specializing in show business and portraying the good life of those who benefit the most... how to unite two perfect opposites? Even their techniques were different. The dramatic black and white versus the most strident colors... where was the link?

- And where does Max show up? - Sofia asked. Everyone started laughing, amused by her impatience.

- Max shows up with an email.

***

"See you at 15 o'clock where the husband honored the queen" he wrote in his mail. It seemed like a competition with the professor where the winner would be the most cryptic of all. What did that sentence mean? I looked at my watch. It was 12 noon, so I had better hurry.

I divided the sentence into its various mysterious components. First I had to find the husband and then devote myself to the queen. Would he be Lange's husband? Would she be his queen? I picked up a biography of the photographer and began to leaf through the subject index, looking for her husband's name.

Maynard Dixon had been married to Dorothea Lange for fifteen years, and together they had had two children. It had been a family dedicated to art and images: while one was dedicated to capturing the moment in snapshots, the other painted sensations and breathtaking landscapes in the California desert. Their excursions to the desert were famous, where he painted while she photographed her surroundings.

Could that be the husband Max had mentioned in his message? As if attacked by a ravenous hunger, I headed for the shelves, looking for some clue that would reveal to me who the queen Dixon worshipped might be.

I found the answer in a biography of the painter. In the center was a section printed on glossy paper, with the painter's best works. And an image of a salon stood out.

- Who was the queen, then, Lange? - asked Joaquín.

- No. The queen was a story - I answered.

The Mark Hopkins Hotel was one of the most important hotels in San Francisco, witness to much of the city's history. Today its doors remained open, blending the historic with the modern. The Top of the Mark restaurant was still one of the best in the city.

Max was in the center of the Room of the Dons, admiring the queen in the mural. I approached him.

- Imagine falling so much in love with a character that you begin to look for him in reality, to the point of believing you find his land and give him his name. Imagine then that the land was not what you thought it was, but your passion for that name is so great that it has already taken root, and has survived political wars and reconquests, to the point that today it is still called the same name.

I looked at the section of the mural we were facing. A black woman was wearing dense robes. She wore a crown of feathers.

- I would love to fall in love with a book as much as Hernán Cortés did when he discovered California. I don't know what good it would do, though. There's nothing left to discover.

Calafia seemed to be watching us from above.

- You're wrong - I replied.

Max turned to look at me.

- We have yet to discover the link between our photographers.

- It's not the same - he answered me. - That is already known to the professor at . I'm talking about something that no one in the world knows.

- Do you know?

Max looked at me and shook his head in denial.

- For a moment I thought Calafia was the answer. But no, I don't know what it is yet.

- So that's something your world has yet to discover. And your world is the one that matters.

We looked at each other. He smiled.

- When do we leave?

***

The next day, Fernanda gathered us all in the meeting room.

- I was reading more information about Hernán Cortés and Calafia - he said. - Based on the story I drew this.

He placed a drawing on the table. We all approached to admire it.

I smiled.

The tree had borne fruit.