One Frame Left

On Wednesday afternoon, Uzma found an old camera on the windowsill of the dance studio. It was not hers, and it was not Clara's. A small window on the top showed the number one.

The studio was on the first floor, above a pharmacy. Uzma had worked there for exactly nine days. Before that, she had been an accountant for six years. She had quit her job because she wanted a life with music in it. Now she was afraid of her first class.

Clara was leaving on Thursday morning for a three-week dance course in another city. That meant Uzma would lead the beginners' class alone on Thursday evening. There would be twelve students and no one to help her.

"Whose camera is this?" she asked, holding it up.

Clara looked up from her bag of shoes. "I have never seen it. It must belong to a student."

"The film counter says one. That means somebody has taken thirty-five photos and left one picture empty." Uzma turned the camera over in her hands. "Nobody leaves a camera like that by accident."

"Then find out who it is," Clara said with a smile. "You are good with numbers, and you need something to do besides worry about tomorrow."

Uzma wanted to say that she was not worrying, but it was not true. Instead, she sat on a wooden bench and looked at the camera carefully. It was heavy and black, with a worn leather strap. On the back, somebody had stuck a piece of tape. On the tape, in blue pen, was one short sentence: "Do not waste the last one."

"That is clue number one," Uzma said. "The owner is careful. Or very stingy."

She opened the little leather case that hung from the strap. Inside there were two things. The first was a crumpled sweet wrapper that smelled strongly of mint. The second was a small piece of paper with pencil writing on it.

"Clue number two and clue number three," she said, and she read the paper aloud. "'Tuesday, seven forty. Shelf three. Two centimetres.' What does that mean?"

Clara came over and read the paper over her shoulder. "Tuesday at seven forty is our jumping exercise. The whole beginners' class jumps, and the floor shakes."

"So somebody measures something at seven forty on Tuesdays. Two centimetres of what?" Uzma frowned. "And why would a student write down the shelf?"

"Maybe it is not a student at all."

They looked at each other. Then Uzma put the camera on the bench and walked to the middle of the floor. She jumped once, as hard as she could. The wooden boards creaked under her feet, and the mirror on the wall made a thin, buzzing sound.

"Everything moves a little," she said. "Even the walls."

"And under us there is only one place with shelves." Clara pointed at the floor. "The pharmacy."

Uzma laughed out loud for the first time that day. She picked up the camera again, took the mint wrapper between two fingers, and walked downstairs.

The pharmacy was quiet and smelled of soap. Behind the counter, a man in a white coat was arranging boxes of cough drops. When he saw the camera in her hand, he stopped, and his face changed.

"You found it," he said. "I looked for it all morning. I thought I had left it on the bus."

"It was on our windowsill." Uzma put the camera on the counter. "Excuse me, but I have to ask. What is on shelf three?"

The man looked at the ceiling, and then at his own shoes. After a long moment, he pointed to the wall behind him. On the third shelf stood a row of bottles with blue labels. One bottle stood a little apart from the others.

"That is the cough syrup," he said. "For eight months, I have been watching it. Every Tuesday evening, at about seven forty, it walks."

"It walks?"

"It moves two centimetres across the shelf. Then I put it back on Wednesday morning, and the next Tuesday it walks again." He sighed. "I thought the shelf was crooked. I thought the building was crooked. I even bought a small level to check the floor."

"And the camera?"

"I took a photo every week, to prove that I was not imagining it. Thirty-five photos of a bottle." He looked embarrassed. "Yesterday I went upstairs to take the last picture of the dancers, to show the owner. But a customer came, and I ran down and forgot everything."

Uzma tried not to laugh, but she could not stop herself. "The bottle walks because we jump on it. It is the beginners' class."

"I understand that now." The man laughed too, and his shoulders relaxed. "I have had a different theory every week. Last month I believed it was a ghost."

"I am sorry about the ghost. I am sure it was not there."

"I am glad about the answer," he said. "I did not want to complain. I only wanted to know."

He pushed the camera back across the counter. "Please keep it until tomorrow. If I take the last picture myself, I will feel silly. The mystery is finished, and I would rather spend the film on something better."

Uzma took the camera upstairs and put it on the bench. Clara had gone home, and the studio was empty. For a long time, she sat there and listened to the pharmacy door opening and closing below.

On Thursday evening, twelve students arrived at the studio. Uzma's hands shook as she turned on the music. She told them the story of the walking bottle before they started. The class laughed, and for some reason that made her feel stronger. When they did the jumping exercise, a few people waved at the floor. Someone shouted a polite hello to the man below.

At the end of the class, the students put on their coats and said goodbye. Uzma stayed alone in the studio. She stood at the door, held the camera up to her eye, and looked through the small window.

The mirror held the last of the evening light. The floor was smooth and quiet, and a pair of forgotten dance shoes lay near the wall. She waited a moment, then pressed the button, and the camera clicked once.