And what would he do without Bess? It sometimes seemed a possibility. There were days he knew he could never be without her, and days he thought he could.
Before they’d found out they couldn’t have children, they’d been working for the Welsh Brothers Touring Company. It was a shoddy setup. But it was there that he’d mastered the Needles.
Evatima Tardo was one of the other performers at Welsh Brothers. She was an arrestingly beautiful woman of no discernible ethnicity. Her act consisted of resisting pain and being immune to the bites of poisonous snakes, a popular attraction.
Evatima was watching from the back when he did the Needles for the first time. He could see her clearly, and while he was used to other performers watching him this was a new trick and there was something about her that was different.
He showed the audience a package of sewing needles and a length of thread. He then put the thread in his mouth and, one by one, the needles. Bess brought him a glass of water and he drank it and opened his mouth to show he’d swallowed the needles. Then he looked out into the audience as though something had gone horribly wrong, reached into his mouth, and slowly pulled out a bit of thread. He pulled the thread some more, and out came one, two, three, and eventually a fully threaded string of needles. He looked out into the crowd and saw Evatima smile, but the audience barely reacted. He was perplexed—it had gone off without a hitch, and he knew it was a good trick. When he and Bess moved on to the Metamorphosis, he saw Evatima leave.
Later he was sitting by himself on a crate, trying to figure it out, when he looked up and Evatima was standing in front of him.
“Your trick didn’t play,” she said.
He couldn’t tell if her tone was sympathetic or lightly mocking. “No, it didn’t.”
“It’s close-up magic. Won’t work in front of a crowd. They all think you palmed the needles before they even went into your mouth.”
Houdini said nothing. He wasn’t about to tell her how the trick was done, even if she guessed correctly.
“I know you didn’t,” she said, as though reading his thoughts, “but for the trick to be impressive everyone else has to know it too.” She gave him a long look and then smiled, just a little, her head tilted to the left. He could see her tongue between her teeth. She turned and walked away.
For the next show he tried something different.
“Ladies and gentlemen, may I please have a volunteer!” He chose a respectable-looking man in his early fifties. “You sir!”
The man appeared reluctant but was egged on by his wife and children. He stepped forward.
“Good sir, have we ever met before?”
“No, we have not.”
“I am Houdini.” He handed him a package of sewing needles. “Will you please examine this package and say what you find.”
The man opened the package and removed the needles, a dozen of them. He took one, flexed it, and lightly pressed the sharp end into his palm. “They’re needles. And they’re sharp!”
The crowd laughed, a good sign. Houdini removed a spool of thread from his pocket, broke off a length, and handed it to the man for inspection. The man gave it a cursory look, pronounced it common thread, and handed it back.
Houdini then put the thread in his mouth. He held out his hand and the man passed him each of the needles, one by one, as he popped them into his mouth. He made sure that the man saw them go in. Then he called for Bess to bring him a glass of water. She came onstage and he mugged at her, which almost made her laugh. He drank half the water and contorted his face in agony the way a child does when taking medicine. He kept his hands in full view, knowing that people were looking for a switch, and handed the half-empty glass to the man.
“Sir, will you please examine my mouth to verify that it is indeed empty.”
The man stepped close, and Houdini smiled. “Closer, sir. I realize we’re not married and you’re not a dentist, but the good paying folk out there are relying on you.”
“Actually, Mr. Houdini, I am a dentist.” The crowd laughed uproariously at this. Even Houdini cracked a smile.
“Most excellent, sir. I hope you’ll excuse me for not having seen a member of your profession for quite some time.” More laughter rolled toward them.
Houdini opened his mouth wide and let the dentist look at the back of his throat and the roof of his mouth. He raised and lowered his tongue several times to show there was nothing above or under it. He then hooked a finger into each cheek and pulled, showing that there was nothing between his bottom jaw and cheeks, repeating with the upper jaw. Then he pulled up his upper lip and, finally, his bottom lip.
“I apologize for making you work on your day off,” he said. “Are you satisfied that my mouth is empty?”
“Absolutely.”
“And what, in your professional opinion, is the likely outcome of having swallowed a packet of needles?”
The dentist stood up straight. “I would imagine you are soon to be in quite a bit of pain. You will require a doctor, not a dentist.”
Houdini chuckled at this. “Most men would, good sir. But I am not most men.” His face turned serious. He looked out into the crowd and stepped toward them, his body shifting from a casual pose to a stiff and declarative one. He removed his coat and dropped it to the floor, thrust his stomach upward, dropped and then raised his chin, and pursed his lips. He reached up with his right hand, pulled about four inches of thread out of his mouth, turned to the dentist and gave him the end of the thread. He kept his hand on the dentist’s wrist, and together they pulled the thread until his arm was fully extended and all twelve needles had emerged, dangling fully threaded from the dentist’s hand.
He took the glass of water from the dentist’s other hand and drank almost all of what remained, handing the rest to Bess as she returned to the stage.
This time the audience stood and clapped and shouted. And Evatima Tardo, in the back, stood looking at him with desire.
What happened after would happen numerous times with numerous women. This was the first time, though, and the only time when he’d revealed a secret. He had expected her to behave in bed the way she was onstage—erratic, dangerous, immune. But she was almost the opposite, cautious, almost tentative, and never once did he feel as though she was the one controlling them, though she was. Afterward she’d said something that had stuck with him all these years.
“You can’t amaze anyone if you don’t first make them believe,” she said. “It’s a simple trick, your needles. The simple tricks are the best, if you make them believe.”
He opened his mouth to protest that the trick wasn’t simple, though it was.
“Don’t start with your nonsense. You had loaded needles, already threaded and tied off, in your mouth the whole time, between your lower lip and gum. You added the inspected needles, swallowed the thread, and spit the inspected ones into the water after you drank. Having the dummy hold the half-empty glass was a nice touch, but we both know that it’s almost impossible to see needles in a glass of water, even if you know to look. When you showed your lower lip you swept the loaded needles into your cheek. Then you pulled the thread out and you were done.”
He gave up. There’s no cheating a cheater. “Yep.”
Bess gave no indication whether she knew about the affair. He’d immediately been overcome by guilt and avoided Evatima as much as possible. She seemed as though she’d expected this and aside from the odd disconcerting glance didn’t approach him again. The Welsh Brothers job lasted only another few weeks, and then it was off to yet another dead end. People liked the Needles, they liked the Metamorphosis, and they liked his handcuff escapes, but none of it was getting him anywhere.
Houdini arrived back at the theatre. It was very nearly two in the morning, and he was tired and freezing. They had an early train and he needed at least a few hours’ sleep. The back door was locked, but a few seconds with a pick and tension wrench gained him entrance. He crept down the dark hallway. A light showed in the crack
underneath their dressing room door.
He removed his hat, opened the door, and tossed it inside. Then he shut the door and waited. He thought about Harold Osbourne and his wife, and wondered what they were doing, what he’d done to them. He’d lied to them. They’d come to him for a show, but he hadn’t given them the Needles or a gimmicked trunk. He’d used their pain against them, had taken advantage of them as surely as a doctor selling a false cure. You can’t amaze if you don’t first make them believe. That much was true. But there was more to it. You must make them believe the impossible, not simply prey on their fears and hopes. One was entertainment, gave people hope and brought relief from the pain of life, and the other was thievery at its finest.
The door opened. Upon entering the room he saw Bess seated on the floor in the corner. Beside her was a half-empty bottle. He sat down next to her but didn’t touch her.
“What we did tonight was wrong,” she said.
“I wish you’d lay off this stuff.” He moved the bottle out of her reach. She didn’t react.
“They lost a child. It was just plain wrong.”
“I know.”
She turned and kneeled, facing him. She smelled of laundry soap and sawdust. “Do the escapes. I don’t care how dangerous they are. I don’t know what I’d do if you were hurt or killed. But we can’t do this anymore.”
He reached out and pulled her to him. “We won’t. Don’t worry.”
“I’ll always worry.”
“And I’ll always escape.”
Once, not long after his father had died, Houdini had thought he’d seen him on the street. He looked at a man at a certain angle, mistook his identity, and for a fleeting moment he forgot that his father was dead—he was, if only briefly, still alive. And then Houdini remembered, and the pain of his father’s death came back to him with a cruelty unique to an unwanted recollection.
This is what he’d done to Harold Osbourne. He had brought his son back, and then killed him again. Or, worse, he’d given him a false hope that his son was still out there, alive in some fashion. Sooner or later this hope would be unsustainable, and Osbourne would experience his son’s death once again.
This was also, he knew, what Bess faced. They hadn’t lost a child; they had lost a child who had never existed. And there was nothing he could do about that. He could not replace it with anything, and he could not mitigate it.
But he could offer escape. He could present to her a reality where she didn’t have to think about that. If their lives were full everywhere else, if he directed her attention away from their vanished child, then maybe her pain would lessen. He could do this. He was sure of it.
He closed his eyes and saw the inside of a lock. Pins, plugs, cylinders, cams. He saw ropes and chains and irons, and he saw himself shrug them off as if they were nothing. He was Houdini, and he would mystify the world. He would fill his mother’s apron with gold. He would keep Bess safe.
MARTIN STRAUSS
Present Day
“A MAGICIAN IS AN ACTOR PLAYING A MAGICIAN.” JEAN-Eugène Robert-Houdin, Houdini’s namesake, wrote this. I’ve read hundreds of books about magicians over the years. I feel like I know them better than some of the actual people I interact with, but this quote is my favourite by far. At first I thought he was merely talking about showmanship or stage presence, but it’s a bigger idea. Unless the magician has actual supernatural powers, unless what he does alters the workings of the known universe, then all we witness is a man pretending to be a magician. Everything is an illusion.
This is what has always captivated me about magic—the idea that we can create something that seems both real and impossible. That we could be two things at once without fully knowing which is material and which is a reflection.
I want to get up from the bench, march back into the hospital and into Dr. Korsakoff’s office. I want to demand that he do something. He’s a doctor. Doctors are supposed to make you better, not tell you there’s nothing they can do and then invite you to have your picture taken with foliage. But as I’m about to stand, I’m once again distracted by the swishing of the automatic doors. The man who was there before, the one the door sensor didn’t recognize, has returned. This time the doors register his existence and swiftly part to allow his exit, and he walks with confidence and vigour into the world. What happened to him inside? He must have a good doctor.
The fight goes out of me. Of course if there were anything Dr. Korsakoff could do, he would offer it. I lean back into the bench and look out at the street. It’s a warm day. The sun is strong, not so much that I could cook an egg on the sidewalk, which I have never tried, but enough to make the world seem cheerful and welcoming. The cars that drive by are clean and colourful, their drivers likely the sort of people who willingly let people pull in front of them and merge lanes with grace and optimism.
If I’d known it would have led to this, I would never have gone to the doctor. I realize that wouldn’t have changed anything—I didn’t get sick because I went to the doctor, I only found out about it. Still, I wouldn’t have ended up on this bench, unsure of where to go or what to do.
It started innocuously. I was trying to unlock the door to my car, but the key wasn’t working. No matter how much I tried it wouldn’t fit the lock. I looked around the parking lot of the grocery store, wondering if it was possible there was another green Chevrolet nearby.
Then there was a woman standing behind me.
“Can I help you?”
“My key doesn’t seem to be working,” I said.
“That’s because this is my car.”
For some reason instead of protesting I stepped aside, and to my amazement she took a set of keys out of her purse and without resistance slid one into the lock and opened the door. She kept one eye on me as she slipped into the driver’s seat and started the car. I stood, shocked, and watched as she pulled out of the parking spot and drove away.
My ears hummed and then I knew the problem was indeed that this had not been my car. I remembered that my car was in fact the blue Honda four or five spots down.
The more I thought about it, the more concerned I became. I had never owned a green Chevrolet. I knew this. How, then, was I to square this knowledge with the fact that I had a clear memory of pulling into the lot of the grocery store and parking that green Chevy? How was it I could feel the vinyl of the seats, hear it squeak as I eased out of it, hear the thud of the heavy door slamming shut behind me?
There were other, similar incidents. Small things. I tried to dismiss them, but each time they came with a memory, a recollection that I knew to be false but which seemed real.
When I told my regular doctor about it, he looked at me as though I were lying. “You mean you’re remembering things that aren’t true?”
Eventually, after numerous assessments that led nowhere, I was referred to Dr. Korsakoff. He ran a battery of tests. His office called me in for the results. And now here I am.
Substance and illusion. Knowing which is which is difficult, maybe impossible. The audience in a magic act knows it’s a trick. They don’t believe the magician has magical powers. But they want to. They want the illusion to have substance, even if it’s a substance that’s unknowable to them. The job of the magician is to nurture this desire, twist this desire, tease this desire. It must be made to seem impossible but also possible. There must be a moment when a logical outcome is made baffling and wondrous. If he fails to create this moment, then he is a failure as a magician.
One of my earliest memories is of being maybe five or six and going on a picnic with my parents. I remember my mother in the kitchen making sandwiches, and helping her pack a basket with sweets and bottles of soda. My father carried it as we hiked to a meadow a few miles from our house. A bee chased me for a while, buzzing in my ears as it careened by, and I hid behind my mother in an attempt to confuse it. She laughed at this while my father pretended that the bee was chasing him, dropping the picnic basket and waving his hands in the air, mimicki
ng my childish hysterics.
We found a clearing and my father spread a blanket out on the ground while my mother unpacked our basket. The field smelled of dandelions, and above me there was one lone cloud that I tried to impose a familiar shape upon but it looked only like a cloud. I bit into my sandwich, the sharp tang of mustard on roast beef a puzzle in my mouth, and sat there warm and satisfied. I can still feel the cool breeze gliding across my forehead.
Years later, when I was about fourteen, I mentioned this day in passing to my father and he stared at me, his face blank, and said that we’d never been on any such excursion. As sure as I was that we had, I knew better than to argue with him. I asked my mother about it, and she couldn’t remember that day either. “There’s no meadow like that within walking distance of our house,” she said, and the more I thought about it, the less sense it made. We’d never been on any other sort of picnic like that before or since. But I remembered it as clearly as I knew my own name. Over the coming weeks I spent my afternoons combing the surrounding land for a place that looked even remotely like the spot in my memory.
I still wonder if this memory is real or false, if it’s me or everyone else who’s wrong. Because that moment on the blanket is the happiest childhood memory I have. It has become the baseline from which I judge subsequent experiences. To this day the best thing I can imagine is sitting in the sun with your family, comfortably quiet and happy for the fleeting joy of being alive. Is this illusion or substance? What does it mean if this moment never happened?
I wondered about this even before Dr. Korsakoff’s diagnosis, but now, obviously, it has taken on a new significance. If he’s right, if there really is nothing he can do about my condition, then maybe I should start to keep progress reports, like Charlie Gordon in Flowers for Algernon. It might prove useful to document whatever is going to happen to me. Perhaps if I write things down, I can create a story for myself that, through rereading, will become a sort of new reality as my ability to distinguish between illusion and substance worsens.
The Confabulist Page 4