The Prestige

by Christopher Priest

  I have been rehearsing ever since, wrapped up mentally and emotionally in the demands this extraordinary device makes on me. Here, in no particular order, is a summary of what I have learned.

  It is in full working order, and has been ingeniously designed to work on all presently known versions of electrical supply. This means I may travel with my show, even to Europe, the USA and (Alley claims in his instructions) the Far East.

  However, I cannot perform my show unless the theatre has electrical current supplied. In future I will have to check this before I accept any new bookings, as well as many other new matters (some of which follow).

  Portability. I know Tesla has done his best, but the equipment is damnably heavy. From now on, planning the delivery, unpacking and setting up of the apparatus is a priority. It means, for instance, that the simple informality of a train-ride to one of my shows is a thing of the past, at least if I wish to perform the Tesla illusion.

  Technical rehearsals. The apparatus has to be erected twice. First for private testing on the morning of the show, then, while the main curtain is down and another act is in progress, it has to be re-erected for the performance. The admirable Alley has included suggestions as to how it might be carried out speedily and silently, but even so this is going to be hard work. Much rehearsal will be necessary, and I shall require extra assistants.

  Physical layout of the theatres. I or Adam Wilson will always need to reconnoitre beforehand.

  Boxing the stage. This is practicably straightforward, but in many theatres it antagonises the backstage staff, who for some reason think they have an automatic right to have revealed to them what they consider to be trade secrets. In this case, allowing strangers to see what I am actually doing on stage is out of the question. Again, more preparatory work than usual will be necessary.

  Post-performance sealing of the apparatus, and private disassembly, are also procedures fraught with risk. I cannot accept any bookings until these procedures have been worked out and ensuing problems resolved.

  All this special preparation! However, careful planning and rehearsal are in the essence of successful stage magic, and I am no stranger to any of them.

  One small step forward. All stage illusions are given names by their inventors, and it is by these that they become known in the profession. THE THREE GRACES, DECAPITATION, CASSADAGA PROPAGANDA, are examples of some of the illusions at present popular in the halls. Borden, stodgily, calls his second-rate version of the trick THE NEW TRANSPORTED MAN (a name I have never used, even when I was employing his methods).

  After some thought I have decided to call the Tesla invention IN A FLASH, and by this it will become known.

  I also use this entry to note that as of last Monday, 10th December, Julia and the children have returned and are living with me at Idmiston Villas. They will see Caldlow House for the first time when we spend the Christmas holiday there.

  In Caldlow House 29th December 1900

  I am a happy man, given this, my second chance. I cannot bear to think of past Christmases when I was estranged from my family, nor the thought that somehow I might again lose this happiness.

  I am therefore busily preparing for what must follow, all in order to avert that which might otherwise follow. I say this with deliberate obscurity, because now that I have rehearsed IN A FLASH a couple of times, and I have learned its true working, I must be circumspect about its secret, even here.

  When the children are asleep, and Julia encourages me to attend to business, I have been concentrating on the affairs of the estate. I am determined to put right the neglect my brother allowed.

  31st December 1900

  I write these words as the nineteenth century draws to a close. In an hour from now I shall descend to our drawing room, where Julia and the children are waiting for me, and together we shall see in the New Year and the New Century. It is a night resonant with auguries for the future, also with unavoidable reminders from the past.

  Because secrecy again has a hold on me, I must say that what Hutton and I did earlier this evening could not be avoided. It had to be done.

  What I am about to write will be written with a hand that still trembles from the primaeval fears that were aroused in me. I have been thinking hard about what I can record of the experience, and have decided that a straightforward, even bald, description of what happened is the only way.

  This evening, soon after nightfall, while the children were taking an early nap so that they could be awake later to see in the new century, I told Julia what I was about to do, and left her waiting in her sitting room.

  I found Hutton, and we left the house and went together across the East Lawn towards the family vault. We transported the prestige materials on a handcart sometimes used by the gardeners.

  Hutton and I had only storm lanterns to guide us, and unlocking the padlocked gate in near darkness took several minutes. The old lock had grown stiff with disuse.

  As the wooden portal swung open, Hutton declared his unease. I felt terrific sympathy for him.

  I said, ‘Hutton, I don’t expect you to go through with this. You may wait for me here if you like. Or you could return to the house, and I’ll continue alone.’

  ‘No, my Lord,’ he replied in his honest way. ‘I have agreed to this. To be frank I would not go in there alone, and neither, I dare say, would you. But apart from our imaginings there is nothing to fear.’

  Leaving the cart by the entrance, we ventured inside. We held the storm lanterns raised at arm’s length. The beams ahead did not reveal much, but our large shadows fell on the walls beside us. My memory of the vault was vague, because the only other time I had been inside I was still just a boy. The shallow flight of roughly cut stone steps led down into the hillside, and at the bottom, where there was a second door, the cavern widened a little.

  The inner door was unlocked, but it was stiff and heavy to move aside. We grated it open, then went through into the abysmally dark space beyond. We could sense rather than see the cavern spreading before us. Our lanterns barely penetrated the gloom.

  There was an acrid smell in the air, so sharp that it was almost a taste in the mouth. I lowered my lantern and adjusted the wick, hoping to tease a little more light from it. Our irruption into the place had set free a million motes of dust, swirling around us.

  Hutton spoke beside me, his voice muted in the stifling acoustics of the underground chamber.

  ‘Sir, should I collect the prestige materials?’

  I could just make out his features in the lantern’s glow.

  ‘Yes, I think so. Do you need me to help you?’

  ‘If you would wait at the bottom of the steps, sir.’

  He walked quickly up the flight of steps and I knew he wanted to be done as soon as possible. As his light receded I felt more keenly alone, vulnerable to childish fears of the dark, and of the dead.

  Here in this place were most of my forebears, laid out ritually on shelves and slabs, rendered down to bones or fragments of bones, lying in boxes and shrouds, wreathed in dust and flaking garments. When I cast the lantern about I could make out dim shapes on some of the nearer slabs. Somewhere, down the vault, out of the range of my lamp, I heard the scuttling of a large rodent.

  I moved to the right, reaching out with my hand, and felt a stone slab at about the height of my waist and I groped across it. I felt small sharp objects, loose to the touch. The stink immediately intensified in my nose and I felt myself beginning to gag. I recoiled away, glimpsing the horrid fragments of that old life as my beam swung around.

  I held the lamp high, forcing myself to look for what was there. I knew the reality could hardly be as unpleasant as my imaginings. I sensed that these long-dead ancestors were being roused by my arrival, and were shifting from their positions, raising a grisly head or a skeletal hand, croaking out their own obscure terrors that my presence was arousing in them.

  One of these rocky shelves bore the casket of my own father.

  I was torn b
y my fears. I wanted to follow Hutton up to the outside air, yet I knew I had to plunge further on into the depths of the vault. I could not move in either direction, because dread held me to where I stood. I am a rational man who seeks explanations and welcomes the scientific method, yet for those few seconds Hutton was away from me I was tormented by the easy rush of the illogical.

  Then at last I heard him again on the steps, dragging the first of the large sacks containing the prestige materials. I was only too glad to turn and give him a hand, even though he seemed able to shift the weight on his own. I had to put down my lantern while we got the sack through the door, and because Hutton had left his own light with the handcart we were working in almost total darkness.

  I said to him, ‘I’m profoundly glad you are here to help me, Hutton.’

  ‘I realise that, my Lord. I should not have cared to do this myself alone.’

  ‘Then let us complete it quickly.’

  This time we went back to the handcart together, and dragged down the second large sack.

  My original plan had been to explore the crypt in full, looking for the best place in which to store the prestige materials, but now I was here I lost all wish to do anything of the sort. Because our lights were so inadequate at penetrating the darkness I knew that all searching would have to be done at close quarters. I dreaded having to investigate any more of those shelves and slabs that I was so readily envisaging. They were around me on both sides, and the cavern extended far beyond. It was full of death, full of the dead, redolent of finality, life abandoned to the rats.

  ‘We’ll leave the sacks here,’ I said. ‘As far off the floor as possible. I’ll come down here again tomorrow, when it’s daylight. With a better torch.’

  ‘I fully understand, sir.’

  Together we went to the left wall, and located another of the slabs. Bracing myself, I felt across it with my hand. There seemed to be nothing significant there, so with Hutton’s help I lifted up the two sackfuls of prestige materials. With this done, and without saying another word between us, we returned quickly to the surface, and pushed the outer door closed behind us. I shuddered.

  In the cold air of the night-time garden, Hutton and I shook hands.

  ‘Thank you for helping me, Hutton,’ I said. ‘I had no idea what it was going to be like down there.’

  ‘Nor I, my Lord. Will you be requiring anything else from me this evening?’

  I considered.

  ‘Would you and your wife care to join myself and Lady Colderdale at midnight? We plan to see in the new year.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. We shall be honoured to do so.’

  And that was how our expedition ended. Hutton dragged the handcart away towards the garden shed, and I crossed the East Lawn then walked around the periphery of the house to the main entrance. I came directly to this room, to write my account while events were still fresh.

  However, a necessary delay arose before I could begin. As I entered the room I caught a sight of myself in my dressing mirror, and I stopped to look.

  Thick white dust clung to my boots and ankles. Cobwebs straggled across my shoulders and chest. My hair had become matted on my head, apparently held down by a thick layer of grey dirt, and the same filth caked my face. My eyes, red-rimmed, stared out from the hollow mask my face had become, and for a few moments I stood there transfixed by the sight of myself. It seemed to me that I had been hideously transformed by my visit to the family tomb, becoming one of its denizens.

  I shook off the thought with the dirty clothes, climbed into the filled bath waiting for me in my dressing room, and washed away the grime.

  Now this account has been written, and it is close to midnight. It is time for me to seek out my family and household for the simple and familiar ceremony that celebrates the end of one year and, in this case, one century, then welcomes in the next.

  The twentieth century is the one when my children shall mature and thrive, and I, of the old century, shall in due course leave it to them. But before I go I intend to leave my mark.

  1st January 1901

  I have been back to the vault, and moved the prestige materials to a better position. Hutton and I then put down some rat poison, but in future I shall have to find something more secure than canvas sacks in which to store the materials.

  Idmiston Villas 15th January 1901

  Hesketh Unwin reports that he has received three bookings for me. Two of them are already confirmed, while the other is conditional on my inclusion of IN A FLASH (which is now temptingly described in Unwin’s standard proposal). I have agreed to this, and so all three bookings may be considered secure. A total of three hundred and fifty guineas!

  Yesterday, the Tesla apparatus arrived back from Derbyshire, and with Adam Wilson’s assistance I immediately unpacked it and erected it. According to my clock it took under fifteen minutes. We must be able to be sure of doing it within ten minutes, when working in a theatre. Mr Alley’s sheet of instructions declares that when he and Tesla were testing its portability they were able to erect the whole thing in under twelve minutes.

  Adam Wilson knows the secret of the illusion, as he must. Adam has been working for me for more than five years, and I believe I can trust him. To be as sure as reasonably possible I have offered him a confidentiality bonus of ten pounds, to be paid into an accumulating fund in his name after each successful performance. He and Gertrude are expecting their second child.

  I have been putting in more work on my stage presentation of IN A FLASH, as well as rehearsing several of my other illusions. As it is several months since my last public performance I am a little rusty. I confess I approached such routine work without enthusiasm, but once I settled down to it I began to enjoy myself.

  2nd February 1901

  Tonight I performed at the Finsbury Park Empire, but did not include IN A FLASH. I accepted the commission as a way of testing the water, to experience the feeling once again of performing before a live audience.

  My version of THE DISAPPEARING PIANO went down exceptionally well, and I was applauded loud and long, but at the end of my act I felt myself frustrated and dissatisfied.

  I hunger to perform the Tesla illusion!

  14th February 1901

  I rehearsed IN A FLASH twice yesterday, and will do so twice again tomorrow. I dare not make it any more than that. I shall be performing it on Saturday evening at the Trocadero in Holloway Road, then at least once again in the week following. I believe that if I can perform it regularly enough then extra rehearsals, beyond stage movements, misdirection and patter, should not be necessary.

  Tesla warned me that there would be aftereffects, and these are indeed severe. It is no trivial matter to use the apparatus. Each time I pass through it I suffer.

  In the first place there is the physical pain. My body is wrenched apart, disassembled. Every tiny particle of me is thrown asunder, becoming one with the aether. In a fraction of a second, a fraction so small that it cannot be measured, my body is converted into electrical waves. It is radiated through space. It is reassembled at its designated target.

  Slam! I am broken apart! Slam! I am together again!

  It is a violent shock that explodes in every part of me, in every direction. Imagine a steel bar smashing into the palm of your hand. Now imagine ten or twenty more hammering down in the same place from different angles. More fall on your fingers, your wrist. A hundred more strike the back of your hand. The ends of your fingers. Every joint.

  More explode out from inside your flesh.

  Now spread the pain through your whole body, inside and out.

  Slam!

  A millionth of a second of total agony!

  Slam again!

  That is how it feels.

  Yet I arrive in the selected place, and I am exactly as I was that millionth of a second earlier. I am whole in myself and identical to myself, but I am in the shock of ultimate pain.

  The first time I used the Tesla apparatus, in the basement of Caldl
ow House, with no warning of what I was to experience, I collapsed to the floor in the belief that I had died. It did not seem possible that my heart, my brain, could survive such an explosion of pain. I had no thoughts, no emotional reactions. It felt as if I had died, and I acted as if I had died.

  As I slumped to the floor, Julia, who of course was there with me for the test, ran to my side. My first lucid memory in the post-death world is of her gentle hands reaching into my shirt to feel for a sign of life. I opened my eyes, in shock and amazement, happy beyond words to find her beside me, to feel her tenderness. Quickly I was able to stand, to reassure her that I was well, to hold her and kiss her, to be myself once more.

  In truth, then, physical recovery from this brutal experience is itself speedy, but the mental consequences are formidable.

  On the day of that first test in Derbyshire, I forced myself to repeat the test in the afternoon, but as a result I was cast into the darkest gloom for much of the Christmas period. I had died twice. I had become one of the walking dead, a damned soul.

  And the reminders of what I did then are the materials that later had to be put away. I could not even face that gruesome task until New Year’s Eve, as I have described.

  Yesterday, here in London, in the electrical brightness and familiarity of my workshop, with the Tesla equipment reassembled, I felt I should undergo two more rehearsals. I am a performer, a professional. I must give an appearance to what I do, give it a sheen and a glamour. I must project myself about the theatre in a flash, and at the moment of arrival I must appear to be a magician who has successfully performed the impossible.