by Tahir Shah
“Did Houdini often rig his tricks?”
“What are you saying?” cried Feroze, clasping his cheeks in his hands. “Haven’t you learnt anything? Of course he rigged his tricks! He was an illusionist. They were illusions!”
Feroze went to the bookshelf and pulled down a worn hardback volume.
“The Secrets of Houdini,” I read aloud. “By J. C. Cannell.”
“You had better read it right now.” Quipped Feroze, pulling out his pocket-watch. “I’ll give you an hour.”
Cannell’s book described many of Houdini’s devilish schemes. Anyone who has fond images of “Houdini the incorruptible champion of magic” should not read the book. Houdini might, I brooded, have been strong, dexterous and quick-thinking, but he resorted to the most base deceptions ever devised. He used bogus handcuffs. His stooges would pose as bona fide members of the audience. The trunks from which he escaped had sliding panels; the armored vans had false floors; and the giant water-filled milk-churns even had sham rivets. But then, as Feroze had so correctly reminded me, Harry Houdini was a master of illusion.
“Remember,” the Master reminded me the next morning, as he examined my essay on Houdini, “half the secret of any illusion can be put down to building up the spectacle. The more incredible the feats, then the more the audience’s tongues will wag when they leave. The greater the mystery, the faster word of the skill will spread. People are the same here in India. If a godman thrills them, they hurry away to tell others.
“Houdini was a great conjuror,” continued Feroze. “Of that there’s no doubt. But he was a far greater showman. He charmed the crowds. He encouraged them to inspect his props and equipment. And he baited them, until they were feeding on the infectious suspense he conjured.”
The Master halted to pull a ruffle from the carpet.
“It’s a beautiful morning,” he said abruptly.
“Yes, it is. The first cool, sunny morning in more than a week. Are we going to start with regurgitation this morning?”
“Another time,” he said restlessly. “Today is such a fine day. So fine it merits something a little special.”
“What, more special than swallowing stones?”
“Oh, yes,” recoiled Feroze, “much more special than that.”
At nine-thirty Rublu arrived, anticipating a swift lunch. He was, I noticed, wearing new clothes. They were rather familiar. The cotton pants were a murky shade of olive green; the shirt, also cotton, was peach. Although peculiar, the combination wasn’t original. Feroze himself had worn identical colors five days before. Then I understood. These were the clothes over which I had spewed the contents of my stomach earlier that week. Appalled by the thought of ever wearing them again, the Master had passed them on.
“Let me know when you’re ready to eat,” mumbled Rublu as he picked up the newspaper.
“Oh, we have no time to eat today, Rublu,” replied Feroze airily, “but I'm sure Gokul has prepared something for you.”
The punishment for my indiscretion with the emetic still hung over the house like a storm-cloud.
“We’ll just have a cup of Darjeeling,” said Feroze wistfully, as he led me into the laboratory. As if by magic, Gokul appeared with a tray. He shared Feroze’s uncanny ability of materializing from nowhere. Was the ancient valet under the magician’s spell, I wondered, or was he a sorcerer as well?
Pouring my tea, Gokul looked me in the eye, and winked. It was a sign … a secret signal which could have alluded only to one thing. The neem sticks had arrived.
“Now … for that special little something,” sung Feroze in a sinister staccato.
Exercises which he billed as “special” tended to be distinctly unpleasant.
“First, for a warm-up,” he said, rolling up his sleeves. “This is one of the Israeli-born spoon-bender’s favorites.”
“You don’t mean Uri Geller?”
“Of course I do … Uri Geller – the Western world’s foremost illusionist, and,” Feroze went on, “the most famous conjuror to claim that his illusions are real magic”
“Maybe he is gifted,” I said.
“I don’t doubt he has a gift,” retorted Feroze, “but it isn’t magical. Remember … all Geller’s feats have been explained: from the spoon bending to the reading of sealed documents. We can speak about that later. But now there’s work to do!”
Feroze turned his back, then presented me with a crumpled ball of aluminum baking foil.
“I want you to hold this in your fist,” he directed. “When I say so, and only when I say so, the foil will become warmer. Are you ready?”
“Yes,” I responded, clasping the glittering metal tightly in my fist.
“All right,” said Feroze, clearing his throat. “I’ll concentrate very hard on the ball of foil.”
Applying his fingertips to his temples, the magician began to focus.
“Tell me when you begin to feel the metal heating up.”
A minute passed. Then another. Nothing. The metal was room temperature. But then, as I stared at the stone floor, it began to grow warm.
“I can feel the metal getting hotter!” I burst out. “Yes, it’s getting much warmer now.”
“Good,” said Feroze softly, still with his fingertips pressed against his temples. “Now, when I tell you, the metal will begin to heat up so much that you will have to drop it.”
Rublu broke my concentration, as he called us to eat from the study.
“Rublu!” cried the Master sharply, “I told you – we’re not eating lunch. Far too much work to be done. You go ahead!”
Footsteps could be heard pacing out to the dining-room.
“Where was I?” mumbled Feroze. “Oh, yes, when I count to three, you will find the metal almost too hot to handle … One! Two! Three!”
The aluminum was already exceedingly warm. Then, as I thought about it, the ball of crumpled metal foil became too hot to hold in my fist. I threw it on to the work-bench.
“Excellent!” announced Feroze. “My powers of concentration paid off!”
“What do you mean? Were real psychic powers used?”
“You should know better than that,” he quipped. “It was magic, but stage magic!”
“How’s it done?”
“This is the Hot Foil Trick,” remarked the Master. “You may have seen that, before passing you the foil ball, I turned my back to you.”
“Yes, I did notice.”
“Well, that was to cover one surface of the aluminum with a solution of mercuric nitrate. I painted it on with the back of a spoon, before rubbing the solution into the metal with a cloth.”
“Mercuric nitrate?” I said. “Isn’t that incredibly poisonous?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact it is,” said Feroze coldly. “It’s lethal. The toxicity is the drawback of the trick. But that’s irrelevant for now. The key point,” he continued, “is that the chemical causes the metal to oxidize very rapidly. The exothermic reaction creates the heat – not mind power!”
“And this is one of Geller’s tricks?”
“He loves this one. It’s great for modest audiences or for television demonstrations. But,” said Feroze, “it’s also been widely used by godmen. They take the trick a stage further. Insert an amulet or, say, a ring in the foil ball … When the devotee finds the charm in the ball of metal, he thinks that real magic’s been at work.”
As I washed all traces of the deadly mercuric nitrate from my fingers, Feroze clapped his hands together.
“Now we've dispensed with the warm-up,” he exclaimed, “on with the piece de resistance!”
“What is it to be?”
Feroze’s enthusiasm was always fueled by one thing – pain … someone else’s pain.
“This is a very antique piece of conjury. You find it in many forms across Asia, but the basic gist is always the same.”
“What is it?”
“I going to teach you how to raise your body temperature very dramatically.”
“What
good’s that?”
Feroze seemed surprised that I had not grasped the immediate use of such a feat.
“The power to raise one’s temperature at will to 104 degrees Fahrenheit,” he said, “is enough to prove superhuman ability.”
“Tibetan lamas can raise their body temperature, can’t they?” I asked, remembering seeing a photo of naked lamas in the snow.
“Lamas can maintain their body warmth even in freezing conditions,” the sorcerer replied, “but they achieve it by anointing themselves with yak fat.”
His response was comforting: it implied we would not be rubbing yak fat across our naked bodies.
“If we’re not using yak fat,” I asked, “then how do we achieve a temperature increase?”
Ever serious when divulging a significant feat, the Master went over to the laboratory door to ensure that it was firmly closed.
“Today,” said Feroze, “you’re going to demonstrate the temperature rise. I will guide you through the procedure.”
Previous experience had taught me that the teacher only side-stepped the harshest, most exacting exercises.
“This isn’t going to be horribly upsetting for me, is it?”
“No, no,” replied Feroze frivolously, “I wouldn’t say that. No, I wouldn’t say that at all.”
“All right. Let’s get it over with. What do I do?”
“Well,” he continued, “first eat this. Make sure you chew it very well.”
He handed me a chalky white lump, about twice the size of a schoolchild’s eraser. It felt soft, yet firm, like soap. I placed it on the tip of my tongue and chewed. My initial reservations were confirmed. It was soap … of the coal-tar variety.
“How could you make me eat soap?”
“What? Don’t you like it?”
“It’s disgusting. Have you ever eaten soap?” I asked, my mouth spuming like shaving foam.
“Oh yes,” murmured the Master dreamily, “I’ve eaten soap many many times.”
When the chewing was at an end, I swallowed hard. The soap slid down my oesophagus like a scallop. My stomach, still suspicious and inflamed, squirmed with hostility as it began work digesting the detergent.
“Well done,” the Master said, when I had done as he had told me. “Now you can have your cup of tea.”
He poured a cup of Darjeeling to the brim, and slid it over to me.
“Make sure you drink the whole thing. Mustn’t leave a drop.”
The tea was boiling, but soothed my mouth. Only when it reached my stomach did I sense the familiar urge to retch. My eyes bulged with tears.
“Is this an emetic?” I asked gagging. “Am I going to be sick again?”
“No …” instructed Feroze, launching himself to the far end of the room. “Be sure not to throw up!”
My stomach was churning like a dishwasher loaded with too much soap powder. Stray bubbles were refluxing up into the back of my throat.
“What’s this got to do with body temperature?”
Feroze glanced at his pocket-watch and tapped it twice.
Give it five or ten more minutes and you’ll have your answer,” he said.
Three minutes later the soap, tea, and the acid of my stomach had moved on into my intestines. My head spun as the virulent concoction began to be absorbed into my bloodstream. My mouth was dry, my back was burning, my vision became clouded. The skin of my neck and face began to drip with sweat like never before.
“Feeling warm, are you?” asked Feroze a few minutes later.
“Yes, warm … feeling warm,” I panted.
“Toasty,” he chortled, “you’ll start feeling toasty!”
“Why’s this happening? What’s happening to me …”
Before I could finish I found myself choking. A chunk of undigested soap found its way back to my mouth.
“You ate a piece of fine Crabtree and Evelyn coal-tar soap,” explained Feroze as he fetched me a blanket from the study. “The soap – an alkaline – mixed with the tea, which contains tannic acid, causes a curious reaction when it reaches the stomach.”
“Curious?” I frothed.
“Stay still for a minute,” commanded Feroze, as he stuck a thermometer under my tongue.
“Excellent! You’re already up to one hundred and one.”
“How much higher?”
“Well, let’s give it five more minutes, shall we?”
Five minutes slipped by as I glided in and out of consciousness. The Master probed beneath my tongue with the glass thermometer, like a stoker attending to the fire hole.
“Bingo! You’re almost up to a hundred and four. Well done! This is impressive.”
Wrapped in the black, red and green blanket – a tribal shawl of the Angami Nagas – I was shaking uncontrollably.
Feroze appeared more stirred now than at any other time during my tutelage. But then again, he had never demonstrated admiration of any kind before.
“Rublu! Come in here and have a look at this!” he bellowed. “Gokul – you come and have a look as well. This is too good to miss!”
My body, now in spasm, was ignited to a temperature of inhuman severity. Shivering like a heroin addict without a fix, I tried to focus on the Master, Rublu, and the line of servants who had turned up for the unexpected treat. My mind might have entertained thoughts of revenge – but it was too preoccupied in the desperate business of maintaining homeostasis.
“Feroze,” said Rublu, “I hope you haven’t been mistreating your pupils again. You should know better.”
The Master raised one finger in the air, preparing to defend the accusation.
“Well,” he said stolidly, “perhaps I did prescribe a little more soap than I should have. But then how are we to breach the boundaries of science if we do not test them?”
TEN
Insider Information
Irritated by pebbles, potent emetics and coal-tar soap, the delicate lining of my stomach finally began to give. The magician’s latest wheeze had played havoc with my body’s finely-tuned homeostatic system. Mine was a case in which the scientist had lost control of his experiment. Decreasing the temperature of 104 degrees Fahrenheit had called for drastic action. Gokul had been instructed to find a barafwalla, an ice-seller. He ran out into the tree-lined streets of Alipore and commandeered two blocks of ice which were being lugged on the back of a cart to the nearby Zoological Gardens. Taking charge, Feroze pointed his bull’s pizzle riding crop at the servant’s bathtub; then at the ice and, lastly, at me. The barafwallas heaved their load into the bath and threw me on top.
Solace, at last.
The barafwallas, the Master, Rublu, and a gaggle of snorting servants gathered round to enjoy the spectacle. Each watched transfixed as I shuddered with cold and heat at the same time. First they observed the sea of soapy sweat surging like tainted spring-water from my pores. Then they gawked as my steaming perspiration melted the ice – revealing an entombed frozen sewer rat.
Like an amateur mammoth hunter, Gokul chipped away at the ice with the end of a spoon to excavate the rodent.
“Good work, Gokul,” said Feroze, who was having a whale of a time at my expense. “It’s a big one, even for Calcutta. When you’ve extracted it, put it in the fridge … we’ll do a dissection later.”
Three days passed before I could ingest any soft foods. Even then I limited myself to a diet of soupy daal and mashed bananas, washed down with warm water. Ever courteous, Gokul attempted to nurse my digestive tract back to its original condition. But the damage had been done. Abdominal pain, loss of appetite and severe vomiting followed: classic symptoms of a peptic ulcer. My malady would have alarmed the most hardened of surgeons.
Fortunately, despite the grave nature of my condition, I had an incentive to recover – the prospect of revenge.
On the afternoon of the third day after the trial by temperature, Gokul stuck a hand down his lungi and fished something out. It was a neat bunch of neem sticks. He blew on them lightly, apologizing that they had becom
e dampened by his private parts. But his loins were the only place hidden from the magician’s continual scrutiny. I snatched the bundle to my chest and examined it. The neem sticks were fastened together with three turquoise elastic bands. I hurried the contraband to my room, and hid it beneath the inner sole of my left shoe. Ready for action … All I needed now was the right moment to attack.
When I informed him of my deteriorating gastric condition, Feroze regarded the office calendar on the wall.
“It’s the middle of February, fancy that …” he said dryly. “Suppose it’s about time you got out of the house … can’t keep you cooped up here forever.”
“I don’t know if you understand,” I said, retching. “I think I’ve got a peptic ulcer. It has to be treated without delay.”
Feroze removed a doctor’s notelet from a drawer in the writing bureau. Then, twisting the lid from his mandarin-colored Parker Duofold, he scribbled a prescription.
“Go to the Swastika Chemist on Shakespeare Sarani,” he said, peering up from the paper. “Give them this prescription and take the pills they give you … three times a day.”
As with eating, Feroze considered illness to be a waste of time. He disliked anyone associated with him to fall victim to the weaknesses of the human constitution.
“When you’ve got the medicine,” he went on, “you are to go out and find your first example of insider information – the third element of your course.”
I clutched my belly like an expectant mother.
“Shouldn’t I take a few days off?”
“For what?” he hissed viperously.
“Recovery,” I said. “I once read a novel called Broken Spirit … the hero died an agonizing death from an ulcer much like mine.”
The Master swished his riding crop like a camel’s tail.
“Sounds like a good read,” he gloated. “I’ll have to remember it.”
“What sort of ‘insider information’ do you want me to find?”