In fact, by the time you get this I might be in California. All the companies are moving out there, to a town called Hollywood, because the weather's so good.
* * * *
13 August, 1911
Brother,
I try to picture you in Hollywood, although, as I know nothing at all about the place, I can only imagine it. I see you eating dates you have picked from your own date palm, which may be true, and riding in to work on a camel, which is probably not. One thing I am certain about is that you are still using that glass technique I showed you, painting out a drab studio here, painting in a richly decorated ballroom there. Anyway, I hope this letter reaches you, wherever you are.
I am not doing as well as you, unfortunately. The Pathés and that odious man Zecca are still causing me endless grief. I had no money for my latest film and was forced to go to them, hat in hand, and ask for their help with financing and distribution. They agreed, but only if I gave them my property and studio as a guarantee.
A few weeks ago I went to their studio, my heart trembling, to show them the new film, The Hallucinations of Baron Munchhausen. I truly believe this is my best one yet, filled with wonders, spider women and devils and dragons. It ran thirteen minutes, and I could feel every one of them, hear the racket from the film projector, even hear Zecca breathing.
And then it ended. Zecca put his head in his hands and was silent a moment, then surfaced with the pronouncement that it had to be longer. I told him he was wrong, that it was the perfect length, that it said everything it had to say.
He wasn't finished, though. The problem went deeper, he said. No one wants to see fantasy anymore. We live in an age of science, of radios and gramophones and aeroplanes. Only children still believe in giants and monsters.
I disagreed, of course. I did not tell him what I think about magic, though—even you never believed that. But I said that we needed fantasy, that science could never explain all the strange turns that life takes. That fantasy exists not in opposition to science but alongside it, each of them illuminating the other. He said that he was not there to discuss philosophy, that I was simply wrong, and the proof was that the Pathés were making money and I was not. The more I tried to explain, the less he seemed to understand. Finally I was reduced to shouting, and I told him that he ignored dreams at his own peril.
He was silent again, this time for much longer, and I realized that I had behaved very stupidly, that I had probably lost any hope I had of getting my film distributed. Then he said, sounding very reasonable, the great man of science, that Pathé studios would lose money if they abandoned the film now, that they would take it on and try to distribute it. All I had to do was add a few scenes.
I don't think he cared about the length, not really. He just wanted to insult me, to show me he's in charge. He's always been envious of me, always copying me, and now he has me in his power and he's enjoying it.
* * * *
Stevens read the letter, frowning. He didn't remember Méliés being so critical, so quick to blame his misfortunes on others. Méliés had been wrong, that was all there was to it, and Zecca had been right. Fantasy had gone out of style. People had been amused by camera tricks for a while, but now they wanted the pictures to be like life, only grander, more exciting. Millionaires really did throw lavish parties, and bandits really did rob trains, but no one had discovered a mermaid yet.
He moved to California a few months later, and in the confusion of packing, of taking the train across the country with his family, he lost the letter. When he thought of it again, driving to work past the orange fields of Los Angeles, he remembered only Méliés's bitterness, and he thought of how out of place it was in the bright sun of California.
* * * *
But a letter from Méliés caught up with him five years later, at Universal Studios.
* * * *
14 September, 1916
Dear Monsieur Stevens,
I have had a very bad time of it, these last few years. My wife Eugénie died in 1913, and my brother Gaston in 1915. I can no longer afford to produce my films, and for a while, to make ends meet, I performed my old magic shows at the Robert-Houdin. Then this terrible war started, and in addition to the tragedies all around me I was forced to close the theatre for a while. When I reopened it I discovered that few people these days go out in the evenings—and when they do, of course, they would rather see films. Some nights there were only four or five people in the audience, and in the end I had to give up performing and rent out the theatre.
Now I am desperately trying to support my grown children and their families, and I have been racking my brains for ideas. None of the studios here will hire me, not after the failure of my last few films to make money, and not after Ferdinand Zecca's attempts to turn them all against me. I don't know if I told you, but he claimed the rights to the last film I made, Cinderella, and then tried to kill it, using those butcher's knives of his to cut it from fifty-four to thirty-three minutes. I am sure he was afraid I would replace him at Pathé and was trying to discredit me, make me look like an idiot who has no business behind a camera.
I admit I despaired for a while. I thought a good deal of that first trick we ever did with the camera, the omnibus turning into a hearse, and I began to see it as an allegory. Everything turns to death in the end. Death is a greater magician than any of us.
Finally I thought of you, my friend, and it occurred to me that I might find a place at a studio in the United States. I remembered those wonderful days when we worked together, the discoveries we made. And I remembered too that glass technique I invented.
I never said a word to you when I found out you had taken this idea to the studios, not even when I heard you were claiming it for yourself. And I would not say anything now, but I am in desperate straits and need to ask a favor—if not for the sake of our friendship, which I think you have forgotten, then because you owe it to me. You've written often enough about your wealth, your success, your wonderful family, but none of that would have been possible without the black glass. I'm not even asking for money, just a simple thing, something you can do easily. Just a word from you to the right person. After all I've done for you, I deserve this much, at least.
I hope this letter finds you well.
Your brother in art,
Georges Méliés
* * * *
Stevens nearly threw away the letter in disgust. It wasn't the man's complaining that disturbed him, the whining tone, but the fact that Méliés seemed to blame everyone but himself. Of course Zecca had not turned the studios against Méliés—why would he bother, after all, when he was a big shot and Méliés a nobody? The man saw conspiracies everywhere—even Stevens, who had once been such a close friend, had become an enemy.
Stevens felt sorry for Méliés, of course he did. It was too bad the man had lost his wife and his brother in the space of only two years. He might have even tried to help, if not for all that self-pity.
The self-pity and the lying, those wild claims at the end. It was practically blackmail, and after all that talk about friendship. The friendship extended only as far as Stevens could help him, apparently. Then it was time to put the screws on.
But it was only blackmail if the other party had something to hide, and Stevens was certain he had done nothing wrong. He had come up with the idea fair and square. He ran the scene like a film in his mind, seeing the studio, the glass panes left lying around by the builders—but how had he thought of it? Had he picked up a brush and dipped it in black paint? Or had he simply seen the possibilities, how the trick could be done? There was Méliés, there was himself, but try as he might he could not remember the exact moment of invention.
Well, it was up to Méliés to prove his allegations. And Méliés had never written anything down; he was a terrible businessman, it was one of the reasons he had never succeeded in anything.
Stevens shook his head. Of course he had invented the technique. Méliés had gone senile, that was all, or
been driven mad by his troubles. Stevens crumpled the letter and threw it in the trash.
* * * *
Ten years later Stevens got a divorce from Adele. She had begun to complain about his behavior: he had changed, she'd said; he had once been light-hearted, fun to be with, but lately he seemed more and more unhappy, even secretive. It was almost as if something weighed on him, something he had done long ago that was bothering him more and more as time passed. He had laughed and asked her what it was he was supposed to have done, if she thought he had a mistress hidden away somewhere, but she had just shaken her head and said that he had changed, that was all, she couldn't explain it.
His children were grown and he felt at loose ends, and he decided to go to Paris on vacation. He remembered how happy he had been there, and while he wasn't naive enough to think he could recapture his youth he felt the city would make a pleasant change. At the very least, he thought, it would not remind him of his wife.
At the back of his mind he had expected Paris to be the same, but of course it had changed a great deal in thirty years. He saw it first in the train station, which had grown to something monstrous, unfamiliar passages branching off in all directions. And when he stepped outside, too, everything was faster and louder, more automobiles, more people.
He visited the old cafés, but of course his artist friends weren't there any longer. New styles had come along since he had tried his hand at painting, cubism and dada and surrealism. His friends had been overtaken, made obsolete, just like so much else.
One day he found himself walking in a neighborhood that seemed familiar, though he could swear he had never seen any of the buildings before. Suddenly he realized that he had to be near the Théatre Robert-Houdin. He went looking for it, but the entire street was missing, razed to make way for a larger boulevard.
After three weeks he packed his bags and took the Métro to the train station. He thought without pleasure of the life he would be returning to, his work at the studio, his nights alone in his apartment. Paris had been a change of scenery, but nothing else had changed.
At the station people hurried along the platforms, called out to porters, met their friends. Trains clattered in and braked to a stop, whistling loudly, their smoke blowing out behind them. He looked for his train but got turned around somehow, lost in the maze the station had become, and the more he walked, it seemed, the farther from the trains and platforms he found himself.
Finally he came to a nearly deserted hallway, a great echoing space with rows of stalls stretching away on either side. The sounds here were muted; even the people moved more slowly. He continued on, passing stalls selling hats and postcards and umbrellas, shabby places with few customers.
He glanced at an old man behind a counter piled high with toys and sweets, looked away, looked back. The man seemed infinitely sad somehow, and Stevens wondered what had brought him to this place, why he wasn't sitting by a fire somewhere, telling stories to his grandchildren.
But the man seemed familiar too. That neat goatee, that mustache ... As he watched a young girl walked up to the stand, drawn by the puppets and tops and wooden animals. The man smiled, a doting uncle looking at his niece, and Stevens realized that it was Méliés.
No, it couldn't be. Méliés was behind a camera somewhere, making one of his improbable films. Or designing a costume, or waving a wand over a deck of cards. He couldn't have come to this, a dingy counter in a dingy hallway.
Stevens slipped behind a pillar. The girl picked up one of the carved birds and examined it doubtfully. Suddenly the bird flew out of her hand and soared above the row of stalls, making for the ceiling high overhead. She laughed and threw back her head to follow it, watching as it dipped and rose between the rafters.
Méliés watched it too. He looked surprised, as if the bird had done something unexpected. He glanced up and down the hallway, and for a moment his gaze seemed to stop at Stevens's pillar. Then he looked up again, following the bird's flight, and Stevens let out a breath.
The bird came back, settled on the counter, changed back into a wooden toy. The girl laughed again and picked it up and studied it, more closely this time.
How the hell had the old man done that? Méliés had shown him some of his secrets, the mirrors and ropes and trapdoors, but there were no ropes here, and no sign of a mirror. And he would have needed a live bird somewhere, in his pocket or behind the counter. God knows Méliés was eccentric, more so than most men, but would he have kept a bird on the off-chance that someone would come along and pick up just that one toy?
Méliés looked up then, this time directly at him, and Stevens realized he had stepped out from behind the pillar to look at the bird. “Stevens!” the old man called. “It is you, isn't it?"
His first thought was to run away. “Come over here, you devil!” Méliés said. “What are you doing in Paris?"
Stevens went toward the stall. The girl's mother called her and she looked at the toys one final time, regretfully, and then walked away.
“You look good, my friend,” Méliés said. “Are you living here now?"
Stevens couldn't say the same about Méliés. The years had marked him; Stevens had been right about the sadness, and Méliés looked tired, too, and even a little lost. He had to be about sixty-five, far too old to be standing in a drafty hall and selling toys.
“I—I was on vacation,” Stevens said. “I'm heading home."
“Ah. And where is home, now? Are you still working for those studios?"
“That's right."
A toy on the counter moved toward him, a crocodile. Its mouth opened, showing rows of fine pointed teeth, and then closed. Stevens ignored it and looked impatiently at Méliés, wondering if the old man would ever grow up, ever get tired of those illusions of his. “How'd you manage that trick, the one with the bird?"
“I showed you some tricks before, I think.” Méliés smiled, not the kind smile he remembered but something harsher, even cynical. “One in particular, that you stole from me."
“What are you talking about? I never stole anything from you, never."
“No?” The smile was definitely unpleasant now, and Méliés's eyes flashed briefly with what looked like hatred. “What about that glass technique?"
“You're crazy. That was mine—I invented it."
“Did you?” A top began to spin, then slowed and fell back to the counter.
“Of course I did. You forgot, that's all."
“I'm a senile old man now, is that it?"
“You said it, not me. And I didn't appreciate you blackmailing me, in that letter. I might even have helped you, if you hadn't—"
“So you did get that letter."
For a moment Stevens felt embarrassed. But what did he have to be embarrassed about, after all? A puppet hanging behind the counter twisted in its strings, rattling like a skeleton, and then went still. “Yeah, I did. And I would have helped you, like I said, but then you had to threaten me. I—"
“It was the truth. Did that threaten you?"
“It wasn't the truth, can't you get that through your thick skull?” Some of the other stall-keepers were looking at him now, and he lowered his voice. There had to be some way to make this man see reason. “Look, you didn't use to be like this. You got bitter over the years. Okay, that's understandable, with everything you went through. But you have to put that behind you, remember all the good times. All those films you got to make. You know what I think, about the work I did? That it'll still be there, a long time after I'm dead. People will still go to the pictures, and they'll see it. We're immortal, people like us."
“My films are gone, though."
“What?"
“They're gone, most of them. They took my negatives during the war, and they made boot-heels out of them. I think about that sometimes. All those people, all over Paris, walking on stars and skulls and feathers..."
Stevens glanced down the hallway, looking for a clock. He had to get away; it was like he'd thought, the old m
an had gone senile.
“How did I do that trick with the bird?” Méliés said abruptly. “It was magic."
“That's ridiculous."
“Is it?"
“Of course it is. Magic doesn't exist."
“A lot of things don't exist, according to you. Friendship, for one."
“All right, that's it. I don't have to stand here and take this."
“One minute longer, and I'll let you go.” Stevens looked down the hallway again, looked back. “I learned a few things about magic over the years, though I still can't create it on my own. The two of us, though—do you remember what I said about our bond, about how we can work magic together? I know how to do it now. And I don't need your consent any longer, just your presence. Here—I'll show you."
Everything disappeared, turned black: the stall, the corridor, the train station. “It wasn't the theft,” Méliés's voice said in the darkness. “I would have given you the glass technique if you'd asked, given it gladly. It was what you did afterward."
Something appeared in the blackness, slowly, as if it were being painted. Then Stevens was inside it somehow, and he looked around, his heart pounding.
It was a house, with walls and windows and scattered furniture. He ran to the door, twisted the knob, pushed against it, but it didn't move. He beat on it with his fists, shouted something, he wasn't even sure what.
He stepped back and took a breath. This was another of the old man's illusions, nothing more. He'd rigged something up, some kind of background like the ones in his films.
He went to the window and looked out. A meadow stretched before him, some cows, a windmill and a river in the distance. He tugged on the window but it seemed locked, like the door. He picked up a chair and threw it.
The glass broke. He gripped the sill and pulled himself up, then tumbled outside. Pain lanced his hand, and he saw that he had cut it badly on the shards of glass. A drop of blood fell to the floor.
He looked up quickly. He was back in the house, the same walls around him, the same tables and chairs. The window was still broken, though, and he climbed through it again, more carefully this time.
Asimov's SF, October-November 2007 Page 26