The Trick

by Emanuel Bergmann

  “Grandpa!” said Max.

  The bartender looked accusingly at the old man.

  “He is not my grandson,” Zabbatini said. “I know the boy not.”

  The bartender put her dishrag down and walked over to Max. “Where are your parents?” she asked.

  “They’re fighting,” Max said.

  “Over what?”

  “Over me. They’re getting a divorce and now they hired a doctor to make me feel good about it, and I ran away.”

  The bar lady was moved by his plight. The dancer finished her set and carefully walked off the stage. She had on large, clunky, high-heeled shoes that made it difficult for her to move about. But the guys who frequented the place liked shoes like that. They liked a great many uncomfortable things.

  Zabbatini applauded loudly. “Bravo!” he shouted. “Bravissimo!”

  He was the only one.

  The jukebox switched to the next song, “Dream Weaver” by Gary Wright. The dancer put on a bathrobe and approached Max.

  “Hi, cutie,” she said. “What are you doing?”

  “He’s looking for his grandpa,” said the bar lady and pointed at Zabbatini with her thumb. “That old geezer over there.”

  “I’ll get him for you,” said the dancer.

  Zabbatini saw her approaching and reached for a dollar bill to slip into her thong.

  “I stick this in, yes?” he asked hopefully.

  “You shut your mouth, old man,” the dancer hissed at him. “Your grandson is here.”

  “He is not my grandson,” Zabbatini insisted.

  The bar lady glowered at him.

  “You!” she hollered. “Take the kid and get out of here. I don’t want any trouble.”

  “I am paying guest,” Zabbatini declared, somewhat helplessly.

  “Not anymore. Get out.”

  Outside, Zabbatini began griping at Max. “It is your fault they throw me out. It is paradise and they throw me out!” He started to walk away. “Leave me in peace already.”

  Max stood there for a minute, indecisive. Then he scrambled after the old man. He caught up with him at Sunset Boulevard. “Zabbatini!” he said.

  Zabbatini turned around and pushed him. Max stumbled and fell on the pavement. “Hey!” he yelled.

  He got up and charged at Zabbatini. Within seconds, the old man and the little boy were fighting. It wasn’t a very graceful fight. It was like the final battle of Godzilla vs. Mothra. Zabbatini had Max in a feeble grip and started to spank his bottom.

  “Bad boy!” he screeched.

  “You left me!” Max was yelling. “Everybody leaves me!”

  “Good!” Zabbatini hissed. “You miesnik!”

  “Old fart!”

  Max kicked the old man in the shin. Zabbatini moaned and began hopping about on one leg. When the pain subsided, he took a swing at Max with his crippled arm. Max dodged the blow, tipping over a metal trash can. It fell with a clanking sound, scattering papers, empty soda cans, used condoms, and discarded fragments of pizza over the sidewalk. Zabbatini stumbled over the trash can and fell. He attempted to leap to his feet, poised for the next attack, but Max was already coming at him.

  Meanwhile, a group of five beefy Armenian men in Adidas tracksuits and gold jewelry, who had been smoking cigarettes outside of Zagir Chicken, rushed to join the fight. They descended on Zabbatini and Max with an agility that belied their substantial bellies. They were the last of a tribe of battle-hardened warriors, a force to be reckoned with, whether by the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates in their ancient kingdom, or today, in “Little Armenia.”

  “Yo, asshole! Leave boy alone!” one of them shouted.

  Another man struggled to subdue the raging eighty-eight-year-old magician. He didn’t have to struggle very hard. A third man held Max at bay.

  “The fuck are you doing?” he said.

  Zabbatini and Max exchanged bitter words. Then, suddenly, the Armenians looked toward the fast food store. The glass doors opened and a short, squat, hairy man with a stubbly beard stepped out. He was wearing stained khakis, an undershirt, and a beret. He lit a cigarette.

  “What goes on?” he demanded.

  The men began to explain the situation in Armenian. Neither Max nor Zabbatini knew it, but the man was Aram Iskander, son of an Armenian immigrant, owner of Zagir Chicken, and no less than the highest authority of Solomonic justice in East Hollywood. Having listened to the report, Iskander decided that violence in front of the hallowed doors of Zagir Chicken—home of the famous chicken in garlic sauce—was unacceptable. Both Zabbatini and Max seemed to instinctively grasp the power of this man and became very quiet.

  Iskander rendered his verdict.

  “You,” he said to Zabbatini. “No more hitting boys, unless they are assholes.”

  “But he is—” Zabbatini began.

  Iskander raised his hand.

  “This boy no asshole. I can see. He is idiot. There is difference.”

  Zabbatini lowered his head. He had to concede the man’s point.

  “And you,” he said, pointing at Max. “Leave your elders alone. Show respect.”

  Zabbatini nodded in agreement. Max stared at his feet.

  “Now hug!” commanded Iskander.

  Zabbatini and Max glared at each other in mild disgust.

  “Hug! Or no more chicken. Never again.”

  Both Zabbatini and Max had been to Zagir Chicken before. It was a Los Angeles institution. And neither of them wanted to live out their remaining days without its renowned grilled chicken dish. So, reluctantly, they hugged.

  “Good,” said Iskander, and he went back inside to supervise an order of shawarma.

  A few minutes later, Zabbatini and Max were sitting next to each other on the bus bench at Sunset and Normandie.

  “I’m sorry I called you an old fart,” Max said.

  “And I’m sorry also,” Zabbatini said. “I had an important meeting. Not even my beer they would let me keep.”

  “Why did you just leave us?” Max asked.

  Zabbatini sighed. “Your mother hit me. I love her, you see.”

  “You love my mom?” Max asked incredulously. He couldn’t understand how anyone could possibly love his mom. Except his dad, of course.

  “Ach,” Zabbatini said. “What is the love? It is only a crazy.”

  Max nodded. He was thinking of Myriam Hyung. What Zabbatini said had the ring of truth to it. Zabbatini leaned closer to Max. “Your mother said I am bad influence. I make you unhappy.” And then he added, “I don’t want to make you unhappy. So I left.”

  “But you don’t,” Max said. “You make me happy.”

  Something vaguely unpleasant happened to Zabbatini at that moment, something that hardly ever happened to him: he was touched. After a life on the stage, he found it hard to believe that there were people who actually meant what they said.

  Max reached for Zabbatini’s hand. And Zabbatini took it. Neither of them spoke.

  This is how Max’s parents found them, sitting side by side on a bus bench, holding hands. Deborah and Harry saw them and looked at each other.

  “You’re jealous,” Deborah said. “You’re jealous of the guy.”

  “No, I’m not,” Harry said. “Why should I be jealous?”

  “He’s there for your son, which is more than can be said about you.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Harry said, but left it at that.

  For months, they had fought and argued so much that all that was left now was a feeling of inner weariness and quiet despair. During the search for their son, they had rehashed all the reasons for their breakup, which could pretty much be summed up in two words: yoga instructor.

  Deborah felt justified in throwing her worthless, no-good husband out after discovering his affair with the yoga instructor.
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  Harry accused her of sexual and emotional neglect and explained that his affair with the yoga instructor was in fact Deborah’s fault for not being nicer to him. “There’s a reason I was vulnerable to this,” he said.

  “Yes,” Deborah replied. “Because you’re an asshole.”

  Deborah had met Eleanor fleetingly, because she had posted her business card on the bulletin board of Om Sweet Om, advertising her services. Never in Deborah’s life would she have imagined that her own husband would fall under the sway of that slut. She herself had suggested to Harry that he try yoga, for his health! God! For weeks she had been clueless; then one night he’d come home smelling of a sweet, unfamiliar perfume. Unable to withstand her inquisitorial gaze and subsequent interrogation, he had made a full confession. Deborah felt as if she had been hit by a car. A sudden impact, a moment of weightlessness, then the hard landing on the asphalt.

  That was months ago. Now Deborah and Harry were just plain tired; they had fought their war, and both had lost. There was nothing left to say.

  They pulled up by the bus stop. Zabbatini was sitting there blinking like a lizard in the sun. When he saw Harry, he asked Max, “Who is that schmuck?”

  A VISITOR

  In January of 1939, Julia and Moshe ordered a new vanishing trunk at Conradi-Horster. Their show at the Wintergarten needed some spice. Moshe’s love spell wasn’t quite worked out yet, so they decided to include the “Vanishing Princess” instead. It had taken Zabbatini quite some effort to convince Julia to do it, since she was still deeply unsettled by their final experience at the Zauber-Zirkus. But in the end, she relented, if only to keep Moshe happy.

  Conradi-Horster was one of Moshe’s favorite places, an old, musty store filled with leather-bound books and magic equipment. Afternoon sunlight filtered in lazily through the dirty yellow-tinted shopwindows. Friedrich Wilhelm Conrad Horster, who went by the name Conradi-Horster, was a shining personality in magician circles. Born to a family of Prussian bureaucrats, he had transformed himself into an accomplished magician and inventor of countless illusions and magical apparatuses. His career had begun in the retail business. As a co-owner of the Hamburg department store Borwig and Horster, he had begun including magic items in the store’s catalogue in the late nineteenth century, shortly before an outbreak of cholera ravaged Hamburg. To escape from the dreaded illness, Conradi-Horster moved to Berlin, where he opened his own shop in the area of Schöneberg, the first “factory of magical machines on the continent.” His beguiling shop was soon considered the “mecca of magic.”

  The Great Zabbatini was delighted when the owner himself showed him and Julia a marvelous handcrafted trunk. This trunk, Moshe was told, was unique, its design superior, for the illusion was not created by a mirror. Moshe had quickly realized that mirrors had a fatal flaw—they reflected everything, including the audience, if you weren’t careful. When Julia stepped into the trunk, she instead vanished beneath a false bottom. The difference between the trunk’s outside height and inside volume was carefully masked by the lining, which consisted of design patterns meant to fool the eye. The illusion was perfect. Foolproof. Moshe was satisfied.

  “What’s happening?” Julia asked from underneath the false bottom. “Can I come out?”

  “It works. But only if you hold your tongue. If you talk, the illusion is ruined.”

  He heard murmurs of protest from inside.

  “Also,” Moshe said, “you should be able to open the false bottom from the inside. A safety feature. Feel around, you should find a button near the top.”

  A few seconds later there was a click and the false bottom opened up. Julia crawled out of the suitcase. He took her into his arms.

  “I’ll take it,” he told Conradi-Horster.

  The old man simply smiled and nodded, his face revealing no emotion.

  A few weeks later, in the middle of the night, there was a knock at Moshe’s door. He flinched awake, feeling dazed. The sound continued, a sharp, rhythmic rapping that shattered the silence. Cursing, Moshe crawled out of bed, put on his robe and slippers. Julia murmured in her sleep. Moshe went to the door, looked through the peephole, and called out, “For God’s sake, what? Who is it?”

  The knocking stopped abruptly, and a muffled voice replied, “Shouldn’t you know that?”

  “How the hell should I know? What kind of idiot would make such a racket in the middle of the night?”

  He opened the door. His face went pale, and he instinctively took a step back. Two tall and rather intimidating-looking SS officers were standing there in the darkness.

  One of them politely lifted his cap. “Are you Zabbatini?”

  Moshe nodded, frozen with fear.

  The second SS man wagged his finger reproachfully and said, “Wouldn’t a psychic know who knocks at his door?”

  “No.” Moshe vigorously shook his head. “It doesn’t work like that.”

  “How does it work?”

  Zabbatini had talked to the gentleman of the SS for less than a minute and he was already fed up. Rolling his eyes, he said, “Gentlemen, surely you have not come in the middle of the night to discuss the finer points of mentalism?”

  “Not us, no,” said the first man. “But there is someone downstairs who wants to talk to you.”

  Moshe went to his hallway table, removed one of his business cards from a small silver case, and handed it to the men.

  “There,” he said. “Tell your friend he can visit me anytime during business hours.”

  The SS men, however, remained there, frozen and silent.

  What the hell do they want from me? Moshe thought. They made no attempt to accept his card. An awkward moment passed and Moshe cleared his throat, lowered his hand and, finally, his gaze. It probably isn’t wise, he thought, to look men like this in the eye for too long. He was afraid they might be able to see his secret.

  “We need you to come with us,” said the man closest to him.

  “Right now,” added the other.

  Zabbatini was shivering, and it wasn’t just from the cold. “Let me put some clothes on,” he whispered hoarsely. He’d heard rumors about people being taken in the middle of the night and shipped off to work camps.

  The SS men escorted Moshe down the staircase and then outside. A cold wind was blowing. Outside, a black limousine was waiting. A Mercedes. One of the men opened the rear door and Moshe could feel his heart thumping wildly in his chest. This is it! he thought. They’re going to take me away, to some dark cell, and then . . . He shuddered.

  “Get in, please,” the man said.

  Moshe nodded, but didn’t move. He felt as if his feet were glued to the ground.

  “Nothing is going to happen to you,” said the other one.

  He gently but firmly pushed Moshe forward. With shaking fingers, Moshe reached for the car door, then reluctantly got in.

  The door was then closed and his eyes darted around, but he couldn’t make out anything in the darkness.

  Suddenly he was aware that someone was sitting across from him. The man bent forward a little and Moshe could see his face illuminated by the streetlight falling into the car.

  At first, he couldn’t believe it. Then he took a deep breath and put on his best smile. He was a professional, after all. There was no need for fear. He had to rise above that if he was to survive the night.

  “Good evening,” Moshe said with a smile.

  “Good evening,” said the other man in a strained voice.

  There was an awkward silence.

  “I hope you understand that I cannot visit you in your parlor,” said Adolf Hitler. “The chancellor and Führer of the German people cannot be seen frequenting such places.”

  “Why not?” Moshe brazenly began, but then held his tongue. One careless word could cost him his life. But he’d already asked the question, so there was no backing off now. Forwa
rd, then, into the breach. “Even the kings of old Persia sought the wisdom of the seers.” That was better. His thoughts were whirling around inside his head. What exactly did the Führer want from a second-rate psychic?

  “I cannot allow rumors,” Hitler said. He seemed embarrassed by the whole thing.

  Moshe decided to press on. “Mein Führer,” he said, the words tumbling from his mouth, “it is a sign of greatness when a man opens his heart to the mysteries of the world.”

  “How right you are!” Hitler said enthusiastically. “But the people wouldn’t understand.”

  Moshe nodded. “How can I be of service?”

  “I have a question,” Hitler said with slight hesitation.

  Moshe had embraced his role completely by now. He was a wise man. A seer. He knew all. He knew the future. He stood above the world. That ridiculous little man across from him was no different than any other fool who came to him. At least he hoped so.

  “Yes?” Moshe said.

  “Is it true that you can see the future?”

  Moshe went out on a limb. “The future,” he said, “is in a state of constant change. It’s a mistake to speak of only one future, fixed in stone. Think of it as the strings of fate, intricate and eternal, stretching through time. But to answer your question, yes, I am—through some mercy of the gods—indeed blessed with the ability to occasionally glance at certain fragments.”

  “Really?” Hitler said, flabbergasted.

  “Yes. We are only allowed brief glimpses at the contours of our world.”

  “Do you think you might be able to make a prediction for me?”

  Moshe pretended to think about it. Then he sharply inhaled and said with a commanding voice, “Ask your question!”

  “International Jewry is trying to drive our nation to the brink of war,” Hitler said. “Surely you know this.”

  No, Moshe hadn’t known this. There had been rumors of war, yes, but he hadn’t paid much attention. He allowed an air of impatience to sneak into his body language.

  “A war on two fronts would be difficult,” Hitler said.