Saving Houdini
Page 20
A small Canadian flag hung from a rod on one of the painted columns that framed the steps. He climbed them as quietly as he could, his breath tight, and went up to the door. Through one of the windows in the front he saw a room full of books.
He knocked. A few seconds passed and then he heard footsteps from inside. No big, mustachioed face appeared in the window, but the door opened a few inches, and then all the way—and there, standing on the threshold, was the boy he’d seen backstage. The same boy, with the same dark-brown hair and clear blue eyes.
“You’re early,” he said. “He’s here!” he called down the hall.
A voice came from deep inside the house. It said, “Well, let him in, then.”
Dash stepped tentatively into the hallway. It led back into the main floor of the house. It wasn’t made of apartments anymore. Some of the walls he’d seen were gone now. It was brighter and more open.
“Take your shoes off,” said the boy.
Dash did, and the boy brought him into the kitchen, which looked out onto the garden beyond. An old woman in a light blue dress was sitting at the table.
“I’ve only just put the pie in to heat!” she said. She picked up her glasses off the table and put them on. “It really is you,” she said.
Dash looked behind him into the living room, but it was empty. An old typewriter sat on a table. “Who are you?” he asked.
“People call me Wendy now. But you know me as Dee Dee.”
Dash pulled out a chair from the table and slowly lowered himself into it. “Dee Dee?” She took her glasses off again and he saw her blue eyes. Like the boy’s. Like Walter’s. “Dee Dee,” he said under his breath. “Oh no …”
“It’s all right—”
“The card was from you? Where’s Walter?”
“Oh, pet” was all she said, and Dashiel put his head down on his arms. He heard the boy shuffle out of the room.
“He died a long time ago,” said Dee Dee.
“I thought he was going to be here!”
“I’m sorry. He passed twenty-one years ago. At eighty-five.”
He lifted his head. “I can’t believe it. I was just with him.”
“I know. And I was so hoping you would come and tell us all about it. I’ve waited so long to see you again.”
“But—”
“I know. It must seem very odd to you. You’ve been through a lot in such a short time. But you have to understand: this is a wonderful day for me. I’ve waited my whole life for this day.” She rose from the table. “Come and sit.”
He followed her into the living room, and sat quietly in a chair. Her house was comfortable, with soft, yellow light. But there was a hollow feeling in his belly.
Dee Dee brought out lemonade she’d had chilling in the fridge and poured him a glass, but he couldn’t touch it. She moved a ball of yarn off a chair and sat.
“He had a wonderful life,” she said. “He had children, and grandchildren. And then he got old and he died. He would have loved to see you again.”
“I thought …”
“Sometimes,” she continued softly, “when we were younger, you were all he could talk about. He told me everything that happened. More than once, in fact. Although, I forget some of it now. He would always say you’d escaped without paying him back his quarter!”
“I brought it to give to him.”
She made a sad face. “What a dear boy you are. Oh, bless.” She leaned forward and pushed herself up. “I’m burning that pie.”
“I don’t really want—”
“Of course you do,” she said, waving her hand at him. “It’s quince.”
She returned to the kitchen and he waited in the living room feeling empty. Walter was dead. Dead! He wanted to cry.
She returned with three plates. “My mother had made a quince pie that day, if I’m remembering correctly. I hope I am.”
“She did,” said Dash. “I was starving.”
“And I had a little cold. I was only six. You entertained me.”
“Yes.” He put his head down again to shield his eyes.
“Oh dear,” she said, and passed him a napkin.
“Did you believe him?” asked Dash, accepting a plate and a fork. “About me?”
“I did. He never told the story differently. And Walter, you know, he wasn’t the most imaginative kid on the block. He was made for other things. When we were older, he didn’t talk about it much, but nearer the end … the memories came back. He remembered you as if it were yesterday. It made him happy, to feel you near. He left me that envelope in his will. Told me to make sure it got to the right seat, on Halloween 2011. I added the note, of course.”
He sank his fork into the tender crust. The first taste was like getting into a time machine again. “That’s the same pie.”
“I still have her recipe.”
He saw how it made her happy to watch him eat. Dee Dee. That little girl.
“He left you something else, Dash.”
He lowered the fork. “What?”
“Herman Blumenthal performed the trick only the once, you know.”
“I know.”
“He never took it out of its crate again. Wouldn’t perform it, and people offered him good money too. When he died, Walter got a letter. Blumenthal had left him the trick.” Dash’s fork clinked onto his plate. “And Walter kept it safe. For Joseph Bloom. And for you.”
A wide smile spread across his face.
“It’s yours now.”
“It’s mine?”
“When you turn eighteen, yes.”
His thunderstruck expression made Dee Dee laugh. “So maybe you will see Walter again.”
Yes, he would. He touched the ring on his jacket.
“Ah,” said Dee Dee, looking past him. The boy had come into the room. “This is my great-grand-nephew. Named for his great-grandfather. There are three Walter Gibsons now, I must tell you.”
Dash laughed. “That’s too many.”
“Hey!” Walter Gibson narrowed his eyes. “Good thing you had at least one, from the sound of it.”
“So you know?”
“Know what?” growled Walter. He remained at the edge of the room with his fists balled against his hips. “That you went back in time?” He snorted. “Yeah, and I’m Elvis.”
“Come in and sit down, young man,” said Dee Dee. “There’s no need to be rude.”
The boy entered, glowering. Dash offered his hand. “Dashiel Woolf,” he said.
“Whatever,” said the boy, but he shook Dash’s hand.
Dee Dee passed him a plate of pie. “He met your great-grandfather, you know. He remembers him better than I do.”
“She’s been telling this story since I was four,” the boy muttered.
“I did know your great-grandfather,” Dash said quietly. “When he was eleven. You look just like him. You even talk like him. And he would half-close his left eye—like you’re doing right now—when he didn’t believe what he was hearing. Which was often, at first.”
Walter Gibson looked away. “You really knew him?” he asked.
“I saw him last night. And you know what?”
The other boy ran a fingernail between his front teeth.
“Walter?”
Walter looked back. “What?”
“I owe him twenty-five cents. I was going to pay him back if he was here …” He took out the 1924 quarter and offered it to him. “Can I give it to you?”
Walter glanced at the quarter and then up at his great-grand-aunt. She nodded to him, and he reached forward and took it from Dash.
“That means my debt is paid,” Dash said.
“You think so?” said Dee Dee, smiling mischievously. “I don’t see any quarter.” She lifted her chin toward Walter, who held the coin in the flat of his palm.
“Keep your eye on it,” he said.
Dash watched him wave his hand back and forth slowly over the coin.
“Once,” said Walter Gibson, grinning. “Twic
e …”
AUTHOR’S NOTES
A Note to Readers
The lecture Harry Houdini gives in this novel happened on October 19, 1926, in the afternoon, at McGill University in Montreal. For the purposes of this story, I have changed that date to October 20, 1926. The characters of Sol Jacobson and Jacques Pelletier are fictional. Houdini had an English agent named Harry Day with whom he was close, but Day didn’t accompany him on tour. Finally, it is unlikely that Houdini performed the Water Torture Cell in his performance of October 22 owing to the fact that he’d injured his ankle in Albany, New York, earlier in the month.
Two of Houdini’s speeches in this novel are taken from real life: much of his speech to the lecture audience at McGill, and his stage pattern for the Water Torture Cell.
A Note to Magicians
I’m not absolutely sure how to do the Soap Bubble Vanish. My theory about how it could be done is reflected in little textual clues in the various discussions about and depictions of the trick. But I’m not talking.
Still, I’d love to see it.
How about it, magicians?
A Note to Time Travellers
If I’m wrong about any of this, please let me know.
MR
February 2, 2014
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My thanks first and foremost to Hadley Dyer, who cajoled and jollied me until I wrote a novel for young adults, and I’m grateful to her for her persistence as well as her marvellous editorial eye. At HarperCollins, my gratitude as well to Maria Golikova and Allyson Latta.
Thank you to my long-time friend and agent, Ellen Levine.
Especial thanks to the following, all young readers who volunteered to read an earlier draft of this novel and who responded to it with verve, excitement, and many valuable comments: Karim Alatrash, Adam and Oliver Bock, Abigail Cooper, Max Friedman-Cole, Beatrice Freedman, Gemma Fudge, Katharine Galloway, Frances and Edward Hayward, Nico Heer, Henry Morrison, Michael O’Regan, and Summer Singh. Thanks also to the mums and dads who volunteered their kids and who, in many cases, read the draft themselves and were generous with their comments.
About the Author
MICHAEL REDHILL is a fiction writer, playwright, and poet, and is the co-editor and former publisher of the literary magazine Brick. His first novel, Martin Sloane, a finalist for the Giller Prize, won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and the Books in Canada First Novel Award. His Novel Consolation received the Toronto Book Award, was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and was the winner of the keep Toronto Reading "One Book" campaign. A father of two, Michael Redhill lives in Toronto. Saving Houdini in his first book for young readers.
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Praise for
MICHAEL REDHILL
"Some of the best historical fiction about Toronto…Home and muse, the city that has ignited Redhill’s imagination will captivate and haunt the imagination of readers."
THE VANCOUVER SUN
"A beautiful and dreamy stroy, gorgeously written and movingly told.… Redhill’s recreation of old Toronto is so vivid you can almost hear the rumble of carriage wheels on the cobblestones as you turn the pages."
CALGARY HERALD
Credits
COVER DESIGN BY GREG TABOR
HAND ILLUSTRATION COURTESY OF CORBIS IMAGES
Copyright
Saving Houdini
Copyright © 2014 by Michael Redhill.
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EPUB Edition MAY 2014 ISBN 9781443409964
Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
FIRST CANADIAN EDITION
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