The Red Magician

by Lisa Goldstein

  “Yes,” said the cousin. Kicsi could almost hear him move forward in his chair, so eager did he sound to hear the story. She moved closer to the door.

  “I think Kicsi fell in love with him,” said Imre. “She’s always had that love of distant places, exotic people. I think she expects him back, and she will be very disappointed. The man has gone away for good.”

  “But was he a real magician?” said the cousin.

  “No, I don’t think so,” said Imre. “Just a man who had traveled widely. Please don’t mention this to Kicsi. In time, I hope she’ll get over it.”

  Kicsi was furious. How dare he tell that unfeeling oaf of a cousin that Vörös was not a magician? And that he would not be coming back?

  She ran to the room she shared with Ilona, the next oldest sister. The big gray cat had gotten on the bed again, and she dropped him to the floor without noticing where he landed. Slowly she reached her hand into her pocket, feeling like her oldest sister furtively taking out a pack of cigarettes when she thought that no one was looking. She took out a pack of cards. Her father printed them, and she had taken a set without asking (though he would have given them to her if she had asked) the last time she was in the plant.

  She shuffled through the cards, wondering how one did card tricks. Pick a card. Now I will tell you the card you picked. Did Vörös read minds? Did he know she was waiting here for him? She felt lost, cold and alone in the big stone house. Surrounded by her family, she felt separated from everyone. How much longer could she go on like this, listening at doorways, slinking through the old drafty house, turning into a ghost, into wind?

  She fingered through the cards without seeing them. Kings, queens, diamonds, hearts fell to the floor to land beside the cat. When would he return to her?

  That night she had a dream. There were groups of people, caravans, coming over the distant hills to the wedding. There was a man among them, a tall man with hair the color of a wheat field. She knew that he had been badly hurt once in a soccer game and had had three teeth knocked out. A long scar ran across his upper lip, and to hide it (for he was very vain) he had grown a mustache of the same wheat color as his hair. He had worn the mustache for years. Now they had promoted him, and they had told him that he must shave it off. He had not wanted to, but he had done it, because he had always done as he was told. The scar, he was surprised to see, had faded over the years to a thin, barely noticeable line. He fingered his bare upper lip as he walked along the roads, proud and happy to be a part of a great and worthwhile plan. He was coming over the distant hills, coming with an army at his back, coming not for the wedding, but to destroy—to destroy—

  Kicsi woke up suddenly. The sheets were drenched in sweat. She moved cautiously, glancing at her sister in the next bed, an indefinite shape in the moonlight. Good, Kicsi thought. She hadn’t screamed in her sleep. She twisted in the bed, trying to get comfortable, trying to remember the shape of the dream. The man had smiled and his mouth had been black, toothless. Is he coming to destroy us? she wondered. Not all people from distant places mean us well, she thought, and turned over a final time and went to sleep.

  She did not remember the dream in the morning, but something—a sense of restlessness, of people moving across the borders—stayed with her through the day. She avoided Erzsébet after school and walked along the gravel-paved streets of the town, winding through a maze that seemed to be drawing her deeper and deeper, in toward its heart. She passed the synagogue, passed Erzsébet’s house, where her father the doctor practiced, passed the graveyard, and came to the outskirts of the town, where the old forest stood. She had been warned about the forest with tales of ghosts and demons, but she stayed a while and watched the green and orange leaves shifting in the sunlight and listened to the tall trees rustling in the wind, endlessly passing along the old secrets. Then she retraced her steps and came at last to the rabbi’s house.

  It was the day before the wedding. People came and went, getting ready for the feast to be held there the next day. She was not the only one to be drawn to the rabbi’s house out of curiosity; a small crowd stood to one side of the house. The day was growing colder. Clouds moved quickly across the sky like cards in some trick of sleight of hand. Mother will be worrying about me, she thought, but she could not resist joining the crowd of people.

  They were watching a juggler. Kicsi stared at him in wonder. She thought that she had never seen colors as bright as those of the balls he tossed in the air: the red like the core of fire, the blue like the depths of the sea, the white like stars fused together. They shone like jewels. The juggler reached into the pack on his back, without losing the fragile clockwork rhythm of the circling balls, and pulled out a ball black as midnight, which he tossed into the air to join the dance of the others. She thought she could see, tiny but precise as a bead of water on a stem of grass, small white stars arranged around the face of the ball. And all the while she was thinking those thoughts, she wondered why it was that no one had yet recognized him.

  She saw that he stood in shadow, and so his hair was not as bright a red as she remembered, and that he stood stooped over, so that he seemed not as tall. She saw that he had fixed everyone’s attention on the quick and cunning work he did with the balls—now tossing one behind his back, now sending one under his knee—and so ensured that no one in the crowd watched his face. And yet she knew. She felt her blood turn to fire. Vörös had come back.

  “He’d taught me a few small tricks with coins and flowers and cards,” she heard Vörös say, as though he were standing beside her.

  “Can you still do them?”

  “Of course. You never forget.” Then Vörös said, or she thought he said, “Please don’t tell anyone that I am here.”

  She stood silently, watching the balls blur together and come apart again, watching them disappear in one hand and reappear in the other, watching them move so quickly that they seemed to flow like water, and so slowly that they seemed to hang suspended in air. The shadows lengthened. People came and went, stopping to admire and wonder, occasionally adding coins to a growing pile at Vörös’s feet. Finally the juggler caught all the balls one by one as they fell, then held out his hand to show that it was empty. There was some applause, and the people dispersed.

  Vörös and Kicsi were left alone. The sun sent out one last ray before it disappeared behind the hills, catching Vörös’s hair and turning it to gold. Kicsi stood uncertainly as Vörös picked up the coins and put them in his pack. She had imagined their reunion in many ways, but not in this one. She had seen them run together, holding each other and crying out how glad they were to see the other again. Vörös straightened up finally and looked at her. “Hello,” he said shyly, and she realized that she did not know him at all.

  “Hello,” she said. “Why didn’t you want me to tell anyone that you were here?”

  Vörös smiled. “I’m not a popular man,” he said. “Don’t you remember? I would not care to be recognized by your rabbi, and especially not on his very doorstep.”

  “Where have you been? And why did you disappear so suddenly?” I missed you, Kicsi wanted to say, but something in Vörös’s face kept her from saying it.

  “I can’t tell you,” Vörös said. Then, seeing her face, he added, “I’m sorry.”

  “Is it because I’m too young?” she asked fiercely.

  “No,” he said. “No, of course not. I can’t discuss my business with anyone. And I pray to God you need never learn what I have discovered in the places beyond this town.”

  “Why?” said Kicsi. The evening shadows drew close around her. She felt suddenly cold. “Why—what have you discovered?”

  “You have entirely too much curiosity for someone your age,” Vörös said easily. “Say something to me that isn’t a question.”

  “Where are you staying?” said Kicsi. “Oh—I’m sorry. I mean, you can stay with us if you’re not busy elsewhere. Oh, no, you can’t either. We have a cousin staying with us. He’s come for the
wedding.” She felt hurt, ignored. She searched for more things to tell him. “Oh, and the rabbi’s lifted the curse on the school, I think because of what you did. I think he’s afraid of you. Can you tell me how you did that?”

  “One minute,” said Vörös. “That’s two questions you’ve asked me. I’m staying in the forest.”

  Kicsi’s eyes widened as she looked at the stranger she had thought she knew so well. “The forest? What about the—the animals, the ghosts?”

  Vörös laughed. “I’m comfortable there,” he said. “I earn a few coins with my juggling, and that brings me my food. Now come. Let us say hello to your father. Do you think he will mind one more for dinner?” He slipped his worn pack—the colors of autumn leaves—over his shoulder.

  They set off into the gathering darkness. Stray dogs followed them for a while, barking to one another, but Kicsi and Vörös soon left them behind.

  3

  “Where have you been?” said Sarah. Then, seeing Vörös, she stopped. “Oh. Sholom aleichem. I’ll set another plate. Magda! Where are the girls?”

  “Aleichem sholom,” said Vörös. “I hope I’m not disturbing you or your family.”

  “No, not at all,” said Sarah. Her eyes shifted warily from Vörös to Kicsi, as though she suspected him of some diabolical conjuring trick that had substituted this demon in place of her daughter. “Magda, set another place, would you? Vörös has come back.”

  “Vörös!” Magda said. “Hello.”

  Vörös nodded to her.

  “Vörös!” The cousin came downstairs. His eyes gleamed in the candlelight like newly minted coins. “They’ve been talking of nothing else here since you’ve gone. Is it true—did you really—” He paused as they all sat down to dinner. “Tell me—that day you stopped the printing presses. How did you do that? Was it—magic?” His tone was slightly mocking, as if he were reminding everyone that he knew more about the world than they did, as if he were daring Vörös to try to fool him as he had fooled the others.

  Kicsi wondered why Imre did not forbid the cousin to ask those questions. She remembered vividly when Imre had refused to let her talk to Vörös and suspected that the cousin was allowed more freedom only because he was older. Later she realized that Imre had not stopped the conversation because he, too, was curious.

  “The presses? I think they stopped by themselves. Didn’t they?”

  “Where did you go that night?” Tibor asked. “Why didn’t you say good-bye to us?”

  “I had important business. I’m sorry I couldn’t have waited to thank you for your hospitality. And Arpad—is he well?”

  “He’s fine,” said Kicsi. “How did you do that this afternoon?”

  “The juggling? It’s easy. I’ll teach you.”

  “Juggling!” said Tibor. “I didn’t know you could juggle.”

  Vörös started to say something, but Kicsi continued without hearing him. “No, not the juggling,” she said implacably. “You talked to me. In my mind. How did you do that?”

  There was silence for a long moment. The cousin, fascinated, had forgotten to eat. Finally Imre said, “Now, Kicsi, our guest is tired. You can talk to him some other time.”

  “He talked to me,” she said. “In my mind.” She turned to him. “Are you a magician?” she asked. Her voice was sharp with challenge. She felt betrayed by him. He should have been happier to see her. He should have told her more.

  Vörös tasted his soup. He looked up at Kicsi and nodded slightly. “I know a few tricks,” he said.

  There was a long silence. Finally Imre said, “What’s the news from the outside world?”

  Vörös looked at him levelly. “Not good, my friend. Can you—Are you prepared to leave this place? There are things moving in the outside world that I do not think your village can stand against.”

  “To leave?” said Imre. “Leave where? Are you sure?”

  “Yes,” said Vörös. “I’m sure. I’m sorry.”

  Imre shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve lived in this village for a long time. I would like to talk to the rabbi first.”

  Vörös nodded gravely. The talk turned to the rabbi, his daughter’s wedding, the news from Budapest. After dinner Tibor asked to see Vörös juggle, and Vörös got out his pack.

  Kicsi leaned forward to examine the balls. They were the same bright colors as she remembered. “Where did you get these?” she asked.

  “Istanbul,” said Vörös.

  “Oh,” said Kicsi. All her hostility melted away like ghosts in the sunlight. “Oh. Istanbul.”

  Imre looked at Vörös sharply. Vörös’s warning had troubled him more than he had shown. Now he felt another worry for his youngest daughter. The old magic had returned.

  Vörös hurried through his tricks as if aware of the tension in the room. The family watched him, fascinated. For Kicsi it was as fresh as if she were seeing him juggle for the first time. Even Imre looked interested, and rubbed his useless left arm as though it too would soon move in time to the balls.

  “Where are you staying?” Imre asked when he had finished.

  “In the forest.”

  “The forest?” said Imre. “For God’s sake, why? I insist—you must be our guest.”

  “No,” said Vörös. “I can’t. You already have a guest.” He nodded to the cousin. “Thank you. I’ll be going now.”

  “Please,” said the cousin. “I’d be quite happy sleeping in the living room.”

  “No,” said Vörös again. “I’m comfortable in the forest. Thank you so much for the meal, and for your kind faces. Good evening.” He opened the door and stepped out into the night. One of the dogs melted out of the darkness and followed at his heels. Imre tried to contain his feeling of relief.

  The next day, after she had come home from school, Kicsi saw Ilona’s dress laid out on her bed. “Mother says you’re to wear that to the wedding,” said Ilona when she returned from her bath. She started to dress.

  “I hate it,” said Kicsi. “You’re too fat. All your dresses are too loose on me.”

  “I am not too fat,” said Ilona, standing by the mirror and breathing out.

  “Why don’t I ever get my own dresses?” said Kicsi, but it was an old complaint, and the family had learned to ignore it years ago as they had learned to ignore the background noise of the printing presses. She walked out the door toward the bathroom, trailing the dress behind her.

  Later, washed and dressed, Kicsi sat on the bed and arranged and rearranged the cards. She felt uncomfortable in the new dress. The wedding would not start until evening. It was hoped that if the wedding were held under the night sky the children of the bride and groom would be as numerous as the stars in the heavens. Ilona came in the room as Kicsi was staring at the back of a card, willing it to reveal itself to her. Kicsi grabbed for the cards, but it was too late—Ilona had seen them already.

  “Whatever are those?” Ilona said.

  “Here,” Kicsi said, holding the deck out to her clumsily. “Pick a card. Please.”

  “Why should I?”

  “Don’t ask questions, just do it.” Kicsi felt an urgency sharp as hunger well up within her. “Please.”

  “A card. All right.” Ilona took a card. “Like this?”

  “Yes. Don’t let me see it. All right.”

  “Now what?”

  “Now I tell you what card you took.”

  “Do I get to look at it?”

  “Well, of course,” said Kicsi. “How else am I going to read your mind?”

  “Read my—Oh.” Ilona glanced at the card. “All right.”

  “All right,” said Kicsi. “It’s—ten of hearts?”

  “No.”

  “No? Wait, let me do it one more time. It’s—Is it—”

  “This is stupid,” said Ilona. The card fluttered to the floor like a wounded white bird. “Really. I think you’d have better things to do with your time. We’re leaving soon.” She left the room.

  Kicsi reached
slowly for the card. She remembered a time when she could tell Ilona everything, when they had stayed up talking and giggling until Sarah had had to come and tell them to go to sleep. Now she wondered what had happened, when she had stopped talking to her sister. Perhaps it had been when Vörös came. She felt for pockets for the cards, found none, and started downstairs.

  It was dark when the family arrived at the courtyard of the synagogue. The clouds had gone, and the stars in the sky were as fiery as the eyes of angels. Several people carried candles and helped the guests to their places, the men to one side and the women to the other. They heard murmurs as they passed—surprise that the rabbi had invited Imre and his family. Kicsi found Erzsébet, and they stood together, not talking, as the ceremony started.

  Three violinists started to play. The rabbi’s wife and daughter began to walk to the wedding canopy. The daughter wore a long white gown. She moved carefully through the crowd; she could not see through her heavy veil.

  Kicsi soon lost sight of them. She moved through the crowd until she could see the canopy. It was supported by four poles and made of white silk and elaborately embroidered with flowers and birds.

  The groom and his parents followed the bride to the canopy. The groom and bride had never met. Years ago, and following months of negotiations, the rabbi had agreed to betroth his daughter to the son of a family from a nearby town. The two now stood beneath the canopy, before a small table covered with a white cloth. On the table stood a decanter of wine, two goblets, and a delicate glass wrapped in white linen.

  The music stopped and the rabbi began to speak. Kicsi grew bored, shifting from one foot to the other. The bride and groom drank wine from the goblets, the bride lifting her veil to reach the cup. As the groom placed the ring on the bride’s finger, a woman nearby began to cry softly.

  Kicsi looked around. A short round woman was wiping her eyes with a handkerchief. Her soft blond wig had been pushed to one side. She took a deep breath, held it, and began, helplessly, to cry again.