The Vanishing Act

by Mette Jakobsen

  After Papa finished stacking the chairs along the wall, he asked Priest, who was pacing near the door and peering anxiously into the rainy night, if he would like some company on the walk home. Priest looked gratefully at Papa, then thanked Boxman for a delightful evening.

  Papa blew Mama a kiss, and said, ‘Come home soon, I will make coffee for us.’ Priest waved from the doorway, and we all shouted ‘Goodbye, goodbye.’

  ‘No,’ I heard Papa say on the way out, ‘I don’t think she hurt herself. She has been practising. Yes. For many weeks.’ And then from across the yard, ‘The church does indeed look beautiful with all the light. Easy to find even in the rain.’

  I finished snuffing the candles and Boxman climbed down from the ladder, took off his top hat and began to juggle the leftover pretzels.

  ‘Have I ever told you,’ he said to Mama, as one pretzel flew higher than the next, ‘that few women act as well as you do in the box trick?’

  Mama, who had been pushing hard on the suitcase in an attempt to lock it, smiled and leaned against the drawers. ‘I knew that already,’ she said, and caught one of Boxman’s pretzels midair. Boxman juggled faster. Mama laughed and tried to catch another, but Boxman ducked and weaved. Mama laughed harder and pretzels flew higher each time. Then, without warning, she began to cry. She leant into Boxman, who let the pretzels fall to the floor and hugged her.

  ‘Are you sad?’ Boxman looked worried.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, and leant her head on his shoulder.

  ‘Is it because of the vanishing act?’ I asked.

  ‘No, silly,’ Mama tried to smile.

  ‘You are a great performer,’ said Boxman and gave her a squeeze. ‘One of the best.’

  I was waiting for Mama to say something that would explain her tears. But she wiped her eyes, laughed and said, ‘No more of this nonsense.’ She turned to me. ‘Are you all right to walk back by yourself, Minou?’

  ‘Yes, Mama.’

  ‘I will be home soon. Then we will have coffee, the three of us. But first I need to help Boxman finish up.’

  I was putting on my jacket when Boxman fetched his top hat from the apothecary’s desk and ceremoniously placed it on my head. ‘You were a great clown, Minou,’ he said. ‘This is for you. You deserve it.’

  I went to the big mirror. The hat was large and fell onto my forehead. It had a big black velvet band and I thought it made me look mysterious, like a real magician.

  ‘Your papa is waiting,’ Mama prompted. ‘Help him get the coffee ready.’

  I blew them a kiss the way Papa had done and walked out into the rain. All the lights had been turned off and the yard was dark. The rain smelled of seaweed the way it often did before a storm, and I could hear a low rumble in the distance. Mama’s laughter stopped and the whole island grew quiet.

  The top hat was lovely and warm. I lifted my arms as Boxman did when he introduced Mama and made a circle in the air. I tried it again and whispered, ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ then paused dramatically. ‘You are about to see … of great renown …’ I tried to say it the way Boxman did, making the word sound sweet; like one of the last apples in summer. I repeated, ‘of great renown,’ as I walked across the yard towards the forest path.

  I was almost on the path when I heard something. It was a strange sound, a whimper almost. I stopped and listened. Then I heard it again. It sounded almost the way No Name did when he howled, but not as loud. I went back across the yard again, unsure. The barn door was ajar. Then I heard another whimper, soft and drawn out, and I leaned forward and looked through the crack. I couldn’t really see anything, just the empty stage. The curtain hung heavily, drawn to the side. The mirror was leaning against the wall, and smoke from the snuffed candles was still hanging in the air. But then I saw a reflection in the mirror. At first I wasn’t sure what it was. I reminded myself that Boxman could conjure up doves, rabbits, roses and coins and that nothing was unusual in his barn. But Mama’s lips, her closed eyes, and Boxman’s hand, his red-stone ring against her pale breast, looked real and not a trick.

  Then I ran, my heart beating and fluttering like a leaf on a windy day. I was still wearing Bukowski’s shoes and the path was slippery. And halfway through the forest I fell hard between two big pines. My chin and elbow hit the ground first. The top hat flew off and cold puddles of mud and water filled up the shoes and seeped through my clothes. But I didn’t get up. I listened. The pine trees moved in the rain. Their grey reaching arms brushed against each other, again and again, like huge breaths, ‘huu, huu huu’.

  ‘Stop,’ I shouted, furious at the pines. ‘Stop moving, stop,’ I shouted in a high-pitched howl. I got to my knees, close to crying. But I remembered Papa’s words. I remembered that logic is a shield against snowstorms and years without apples on the apple tree. And I sat on the muddy path trying to remember Papa’s favourite line from Descartes’ Meditations, but it kept escaping me.

  When I made it home Papa was standing in front of the stove, making pancakes, and I realised how cold I was.

  ‘But, Minou, my girl’ said Papa. ‘What happened to you? You are covered in mud. And your face. Did you hurt yourself?’

  The kitchen table was set with plates and cups. On each plate was a crane folded the way Priest had once taught Papa and me.

  Papa helped me out of my wet clothes and put a blanket around me.

  ‘What happened, Minou?’ He attempted to brush the hair out of my face and I realised that I had forgotten the top hat in the forest. ‘Have a pancake.’ Papa handed me a large sugary pancake. ‘We can start before your mama comes back. She won’t mind. Is she still cleaning?’

  I nodded, feeling shivery. I began to eat, and felt sorry for the serviette cranes. Their necks were too short.

  ‘You didn’t do their necks right.’

  Papa followed my gaze and laughed. ‘It wasn’t as easy as I thought. Priest makes it look so simple. But I wanted to do something special to celebrate. It was quite a performance tonight, wasn’t it? How about your mama?’

  I looked at Papa and felt again as if I was going to cry.

  ‘The vanishing act, Minou.’ Papa placed the jam next to me. ‘She was phenomenal, wasn’t she? And French, what a surprise. And I have never seen a better clown in my life.’ Papa laughed. ‘You scared Priest.’

  I looked at Papa, feeling the pancake go cold in my hand.

  ‘And No Name,’ added Papa. ‘The way he flew through those hoops. I must say, he is an interesting dog. So many talents. I wonder if Descartes liked dogs? I think the cardigan suited him.’

  Papa poured coffee into the three cups he had lined up on the table. ‘And what about the box trick, Minou? I know that there is logic behind it, but it looks real, doesn’t it? Your mama is such a talented actress, I was about to run up and rescue her.’

  ‘Papa,’ I shook my head. ‘Papa, I am not feeling well.’

  But Papa didn’t hear me. He was laughing. ‘She would probably have liked that, don’t you think, Minou?’

  I stood up, unsure on my legs.

  ‘Minou, what’s the matter?’

  ‘I want to go to the lighthouse, Papa.’

  ‘But the coffee is ready. Don’t you want to wait for your mama?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘How about you get washed and get into your own bed?’

  ‘No, Papa.’

  He put his hand on my forehead. ‘I think you have a temperature, my girl. I don’t know. Maybe we should wait for your mama to come back.’

  ‘I want to go to the lighthouse, Papa. Now.’

  ‘Well, then.’ Papa looked hesitant. ‘Do you want to take your coffee?’

  I nodded, and put on the cardigan that Papa offered me. It was his, and far too big, but it smelled nicely of books and coffee.

  ‘Descartes never said anything about magic. But then again, Minou, he died so young. Imagine all the things he would have said, if it hadn’t been for that unfortunate time in Sweden.’ Papa fetched my boots and wra
pped a scarf around my neck. ‘I am beginning to believe that magic is more enjoyable than I first thought.’

  I left the kitchen unsteadily, and spilled most of the coffee as I climbed the stairs in the wind and rain. There was only a spoonful of brown sugar granules at the bottom of the cup when I put it next to the mattress and climbed under the blankets.

  I woke in the lighthouse a few hours later. The storm had come and Priest was ringing the church bell again and again. Wind and rain moved forwards and backwards, as if clinging to each other in a never-ending wrestle. Papa was standing next to my mattress. He was bent over, a dark shadow next to the bulb, staring out the window in the direction of Boxman’s barn.

  ‘Papa.’ I sat up, wide awake. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Sorry Minou,’ he said, and started to retreat. ‘I just wanted … your mama … I was trying to see if … go back to sleep, Minou … everything is fine.’ And a rush of wind tore at my notebook as Papa opened the door to the staircase and left the lighthouse.

  But I didn’t go back to sleep. I dipped my finger in the coffee cup and scooped up the sugar as I peered through the foggy glass towards Boxman’s barn. The rain obscured the view. I couldn’t see the barn or even the forest path. All I could see in the bleak light from the downstairs windows was the edge of the forest where the wind pushed and pulled the trees. They looked like a dark sea.

  Then Mama appeared. I wiped the glass. She stopped just out of the forest. Her dress hung wet and sagging around her. She stood holding her suitcase, framed by the moving pines, just looking at the house. I kept wiping the window, watching her, until she went inside.

  Later I heard her shout. Her voice reached the lighthouse through the floorboards, like a wave crashing beneath Theodora’s Plateau.

  Boxman still had his arm around me. ‘Your mama isn’t here,’ he said. He closed the lid of the blue box. ‘She is dead, Minou. But I see her sometimes as well. When I least expect it. I miss her too.’

  ‘I think you should give No Name a name,’ I said. My voice sounded loud in the quiet barn. ‘It’s important to have a real name.’

  ‘Then we need to think of a name, Minou.’ He looked at me. ‘Did you know that your mama used to see things too? She once saw a zebra standing where you are now. I knew straight away that it was Franz from my old circus. Franz wasn’t very good at tricks and the circus wanted to send him to a slaughterhouse. I had to come up with something to save him.’

  Boxman’s voice started to sound like the wind far away over the ocean. But I nodded, feeling my head go heavy, as Boxman led me out of the barn.

  ‘Come, Minou, let’s get you home. Isn’t it strange?’ he said. ‘I can smell your mama’s orange cake. It makes me quite melancholy.’

  Boxman kept talking about Franz as he steered me along the forest path. The stars were out, the moon climbed the trees and the snow squeaked beneath our feet.

  ‘And then I remembered that Franz didn’t like the accordion. Every time I played he would neigh in protest, but in a funny way it sounded as if he was singing. We ended up performing together until he died one summer morning, head resting on a tuft of grass in the paddock. He looked happy. It was a good way to die.’

  Boxman had his arm around me as we walked. My eyes kept closing. For some reason I thought of Uncle and his investigation of the lighthouse, and how I had tried to draw a picture of him while he was searching for ghosts. Uncle was too tall to stand up in the tower, but I had given him a cushion to sit on. And, after admiring the big bulb, he folded his legs with slow, laboured movements, while I went and selected a red scarf out of my pile.

  ‘What a view,’ he said, as he wrapped the scarf around his neck with delight. ‘Water everywhere, it feels like we are at the edge of the world.’

  He switched on his ghost machine. Lights flashed and needles danced. He waved a microphone in different directions while turning one of the knobs up, then down.

  I was trying to draw him looking scholarly and serious, but he kept moving around, and I couldn’t get my drawing right. After a while I got my knitting out instead.

  As Boxman guided me through the forest I remembered how relieved Uncle had looked when he turned off the machine. ‘There is nothing to worry about, Minou,’ he said. ‘There are no ghosts here. The coast is clear … so to speak.’

  ‘But lots of people went mad up here,’ I protested, ‘all the lighthouse keepers, because of the mercury.’

  ‘That’s unfortunate, Minou. But they are not here any longer. Most probably because of the ocean. Ghosts don’t like water much.’

  It seemed as if Boxman and I walked along the path forever. I drifted in and out of sleep and dreamed that I was caught in a howling snowstorm. Everything around me was white, and I shouted to No Name, who was wearing knitted gloves, ‘Ahoy, ahoy, where is the edge of the world?’

  No Name pointed into the distance and there was Franz, the zebra, singing, not realising how close he was to the surface of the deep, not knowing that he was about to fall in. I went to the edge and looked down, and saw Mama’s hair, fanning out, pulling down, deeper and deeper. And from somewhere far away I heard Boxman’s voice saying. ‘I am sorry, Minou. I am so sorry.’

  I woke in my bed downstairs. It

  I woke in my bed downstairs. It was still night. My green jumper was tangled around me and my arm stuck in the sleeve. Papa must have helped me out of my boots and jacket, but I couldn’t remember getting home or even saying goodbye to Boxman. And I couldn’t remember going to bed.

  I sat up. The ocean was grey with moonlight, and I could hear Boxman across the forest playing the accordion. I straightened my jumper, then got out of bed and walked across the corridor to the blue room. The colours on Mama’s wall painting were muted in the moonlight, and a third raven had joined the other two in the windowsill. The dead boy looked calm beneath the frost, almost like he was sleeping.

  ‘Sorry for disturbing you, dead boy,’ I whispered as I closed the door again.

  I found Papa working in the study, and saw straight away that Grandfather’s postcards were no longer on the wall.

  ‘My girl.’ Papa turned towards me, his eyes looked sad, like the ocean before a big storm.

  My hand felt for the postcard in my pocket. I had squashed it a bit in my sleep.

  ‘Why did you take them down, Papa?’

  Papa took off his fur hat and put it on the table. He rubbed his eyes. ‘Your mama kept saying: “You can’t reason about the war. It’s not a reasonable thing. Search instead for what you love.”’ Papa picked up a pen from the table. ‘I didn’t understand it then. I just thought finding the truth might help. Your mama was so sad at times, and I keep dreaming about the cellar.’

  ‘What was it like being in the cellar, Papa?’

  Papa stared at the desk. I thought he hadn’t heard me. But then he started to speak.

  ‘Like I was forgotten. Alone in the whole world. There was no night, no day. Nothing. Just the smell of onions and carrots, and filth and soil. All I had was my mind. But even that turned against me.’

  ‘How, Papa?’

  ‘I kept thinking about milk. I didn’t want to think of milk. If you think too much about something you haven’t got, then it will break you. But I couldn’t help it. In here’—Papa pointed to his forehead—’something reminded me of milk, always of milk.’

  ‘But you don’t like milk, Papa.’

  ‘I do. Very much. But I don’t drink it now because I cannot stand losing it again.’

  Papa put on his reading glasses to inspect the book in front of him before putting it on the shelf. ‘When the war finished it took them two months to find me. I couldn’t straighten my legs and they had to carry me out. But the worst thing was that I didn’t know if I wanted to come out. I no longer felt safe anywhere. I wanted to go back to the place where I had suffered so much. It didn’t make any sense.

  ‘When I came here, I had to learn everything all over. To walk, to see, to talk. It took
me months before I could see colours again. Even the smallest bit of light hurt my eyes. But by the time your mama came I had my sight back, and what luck, because she was so beautiful, Minou. I have never met anyone as colourful as her.’

  Papa straightened in the chair and rubbed his neck. Then he said, ‘Boxman brought you home. We talked. About what happened.’ Papa stared into the pretzels that swayed silently above us. ‘I have shown him the dead boy, Minou. He is bringing a box tomorrow morning.’

  I thought about Mama and how long it was since Boxman had come for morning coffee.

  ‘Have some fish before you go to the lighthouse, my girl. I might sit with the dead boy for a little while, to say goodbye.’ Papa turned to his desk again.

  I didn’t go to the lighthouse, instead I went back to bed. I lit a candle and sat facing the window with the blankets pulled over me. Boxman was still playing the accordion, and I heard Papa leave the study and open the door to the blue room.

  I got the postcard from my pocket and read it again: ‘… it is in the heart and not in the words—not even in the most beautiful ones—but in the heart, in the skeleton bird pushing against your chest, wanting to fly, that we know for certain who and what we love. That is all we have, and all there is.’

  I still didn’t understand what it meant. But I thought of Papa in the cellar and how he didn’t have any milk. And how his legs had been all bent. And I thought about how Mama had said that Papa was asking the wrong question.

  My notebook was next to me on the bed. Boxman must have carried it for me when he brought me home. I opened it.

  I could hear Papa across the corridor, talking to the dead boy in the blue room. ‘Dead boy,’ I said aloud, hoping he might hear me, ‘I will write you the end of the story.’ And then I wrote. For a long time.

  The sea was green and clear. Pirate was worried that there was going to be a storm. He looked into the water with a serious expression, while Monkey clung to his neck. ‘It’s not uncommon to get storms at the end of autumn,’ he explained. But the boy wasn’t scared. He thought Pirate could handle anything; he was after all a pirate.