Taking pictures has slowed things, and Alex has not caught up. Still, he cannot let the chance pass. Again he throws down his gloves and raises the camera. Jacobo leans farther in the door, and Alex can feel him counting the bales that lie jumbled on the floor. Jacobo scowls. The relay thrower throws. The shutter clicks.
Again, on with the lens cap and gloves, and down into the jumble to heave the bales in place. Much later, in the darkroom, Alex sees that it’s this shot that is the good one. It has the bale in the air, the distant mountains, the light slanting through. But what makes it work is the gnomish posture of the old man leaning through the partly blocked doorway, the old man whose scowl gives the picture its pith, and whose evident displeasure was the one thing Alex did not want to see.
