Metamorphosis

by Sesh Heri

  “Good?” I asked. “That’s all?”

  “Good is all a man like you needs,” Bess said.

  “Maybe I need a little more,” I said. “How about ‘great’? How about saying I look great?”

  “You look great,” Bess said flatly.

  “It doesn’t sound like you mean it,” I said.

  “That’s because you don’t look great. You look good.”

  “You know how I think you look?” I asked. “I think you look great. I think you look a treat.”

  “You big liar,” Bess said.

  “I am not a liar,” I said.

  “Then prove it,” Bess said.

  I gave her a long kiss, and then looked at her; she had her eyes closed.

  “Well?” I asked. “How was that?”

  Bess opened her eyes, smiled, and said, “Good.”

  There was a knock at the door. It was Mr. Ebey.

  “What was that commotion back here?” Mr. Ebey asked.

  “Somebody damaged the water cell,” I said.

  “Oh, no,” Mr. Ebey said.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “We’ve made a repair and we’re ready to go on.”

  “Oh, excellent!” Mr. Ebey said. “But who would do such a thing?”

  “Apparently one of your stage hands,” I said. “We tried to question him, but he ran away.”

  “Which one?” Ebey demanded.

  “The fellow with the handle-bar mustache,” I said.

  “Oh, him,” Ebey said.

  “What about him?” I asked.

  “He was just hired last week,” Ebey said.

  “That so?” I asked. “Did he have any references?”

  “He worked on the Keith time in New York,” Ebey said.

  “Did or he said he did?” I asked.

  “Said he did,” Ebey replied. “I didn’t check, I’ll admit. He seemed legitimate.”

  “Mm-hm,” I said.

  “What do you want me to do?” asked Ebey.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “Nothing?”

  “Forget about the whole thing.”

  “Very well.”

  “Might as well, for I can assure you, you’ll never even get the pleasure of firing that stagehand. You’ll never see him again.”

  The projectionist had already run the opening motion pictures, and now the first bars to Glen Ellison’s act sounded from the orchestra.

  “Well,” Mr. Ebey said, “that’s my cue.” He turned and went out front to watch the rehearsal.

  I stepped out of my dressing room and waved Vickery over to me.

  I said, “Set up a couple of electric fans along here, and get the megaphone out and clamp it to a music stand in front of one of the fans.”

  “Sure, boss,” Vickery said.

  “You’re not asking why, and that I like that,” I said, “but I’m going to tell you. We’re running a gag on Miss Davies. Pass the word to the rest of the boys. If she asks anything about the fans, you tell her they are part of Caruso’s ‘Column of Air.’”

  “Column of air?” Vickery asked.

  “A part of it,” I said. “Tell her you’re controlling the total system by wireless.”

  “Wireless?” Vickery asked.

  “From a secret box you can’t show her,” I said. “The ‘Column of Air’ is going to help her breathe, make her a great singer— like Caruso. Get my drift?”

  “Oh, yes, Boss,” Vickery said. “I get the game. I’ll pass the word— the ‘Column of Air.’”

  “Caruso’s ‘Column of Air!’” I said.

  “Caruso’s,” Vickery said.

  “And If Miss Davies asks any particulars, tell her— no— don’t tell her a thing. Tell her you can’t tell her. Caruso’s ‘Column of Air’ is a secret!”

  Collins had gotten the water cell completely assembled, and he and I carefully checked and double-checked the secret catch in the replacement stocks.

  “All right,” I finally said. “Keep your eyes on this until we go on with it.”

  The rehearsal went through without a hitch. There was first Glen Ellison’s act, “A Scot Without a Kilt,” then Clemons and Dean in “The Dance of the Inebriates,” (not very funny to me), and then a frothy comic light-opera type of act featuring the Leightons, entitled “The Party of the Second Part,” then, in rapid succession, a singing quartet, The Bison City Four, Robert L. Dailey in a comedy bit called “Our Bob,” and finally “The Lady Beautiful of Vaudeville,” Reine Davies. All that before my turn came. If all that froth and frills didn’t get the audience standing on their seats with impatience to see my act, I didn’t know what would.

  So now it was my turn. We started with a motion picture of my bridge jumps. Then the screen rolled up into the proscenium and I came out on stage, bowed, and began my spiel— the Magic of the Hindus. I brought out a turban, unwound it, and set a part of the strip on fire. The flash of fire in a crowded theatre always brings a great gasp. This morning I had to imagine that, for seated before me were only Mr. Ebey, his secretary, and a few ushers. A wave of my hand (to cover a mere slight of hand substitution of the burnt duplicate strip with the original strip) and I had apparently restored the strip to its former wholeness. I bowed to a smattering of applause, and then went into the East India Needle Mystery.

  “Mr. Ebey,” I said at the footlights, “Would you like to assist me in this effect?”

  Ebey rose from his seat and mounted the stairs to the stage. I went through the routine, brought out the pack of needles, put them in my mouth, swallowed, and then took out a length of thread, put it in my mouth, and swallowed again. I then opened my mouth for Ebey to look inside.

  “Empty!” Ebey said, and then grinned widely.

  I nodded and then reached up and pulled out the first needle. I waved Ebey over to take the needle, which he did with some reluctance, and then I motioned for him to step back. He did so slowly, and, one by one, all the needles emerged from my mouth dangling on the thread, and glittering in the lights. The ushers applauded.

  Then it was time for the old Upside-Down— The Chinese Water Torture Cell! I went off stage to change into my swimming suit while Collins directed the rest of the boys in filling the cell with water. The orchestra began playing “The Diver.” I came back on stage, lay down on the floor, and the boys locked my feet into the stocks, and hoisted me up into the air. Then the plunge! And suddenly I was upside down looking out through the water at a blurred image of the footlights and the dark house beyond— a mysterious, yawning, black gulf. There was that sudden pressure in my ears and chest from the water pushing in on me and the blood in my head pushing out— the cloying caress of tepid water upon my skin, and the bubbles tickling my face, as my life’s air escaped my nose and mouth. And the audience— the audience! I have been told that what they see before them is a dying man, tortured beyond sanity, in the last instant before his gasping, suffocating death! Now I have their attention— but only in that instant! The curtains close in front of me, and I spring into secret action! In seconds I am free and gasping the sweet air! In mere seconds more I am up and over the top and completely out of the tank! I snap and lock the stocks back into position. I am drenched in water, gulping air; my escape is complete, and yet I still do not show myself to the audience! No— I wait, and wait, and wait some more behind the curtain, until I hear the right sound. It comes up from the audience involuntarily; it is an indescribable sound— it is not a gasp— not a groan— it is patience passing its limit— it is a pressure in the air more than a sound— it is fear at the instant it becomes panic. Now in the rehearsal I can only guess. Here, the effect is not the same. It is only a few people out there and they react as individuals, not as a mass. So I wait, I guess, I count…and then I pull back the curtain.

  Mr. Ebey and his secretary sprang to their feet and began clapping their hands. The ushers sat immobile, perhaps dumbfounded or shocked— or perhaps they were completely bored and unimpressed, not fully realizing the import of what the
y had just witnessed— I couldn’t tell.

  “Magnificent!” Ebey cried. “Absolutely magnificent! What a show we will have this week!”

  “Yes, sir!” Ebey’s secretary said.

  I bowed, waved, and strode off the stage.

  The orchestra struck up the chords for the Closing Number. The dancers came out and began their turn around the stage. I went to my dressing room and put on my street clothes.

  Bess sat at the table, braiding the hair of a little doll. “No problems, huh, Harry?” she asked.

  “Smooth as silk,” I said, grabbing a towel and drying off. “Want to have lunch at a restaurant?”

  “Can I pick the restaurant?” She asked.

  “Sure,” I said.

  Ebey knocked at the door.

  “Mr. Ebey,” I said. “Please come in. Care to join us for lunch?”

  “Kind of you to ask,” he said. “But I have other commitments. About your act. It’s great, of course. But— I was surprised— it’s a little short.”

  “Mystery is not measured by quantity, Mr. Ebey,“ I said, “but quality.”

  “Yes…but…” Mr. Ebey stammered.

  “And you’re forgetting the challenge stunts I’ll be doing. Those are really part of my act. When you add the challenges in to the time, then my act is quite long.”

  “Funny, I didn’t think of that. Of course, of course,” Ebey said. “Well, Houdini, Mrs. Houdini, I’m looking forward to the matinee.”

  Ebey and his secretary went off. I began getting dressed.

  “What do you think of Mr. Ebey?” I asked.

  “He’s all right, for what he is,” Bess said. “Theatre managers, hah! What do they do, I mean, exactly? I’ve never been able to figure it out all these years.”

  “They worry,” I said. “The chains pay them to worry. When the house is half full they worry about filling it. When the house is full, they worry about it emptying out again.”

  “You know,” Bess said. “You’d make a good theatre manager.”

  “Who knows?” I said. “Maybe someday I’ll buy a theatre and we’ll settle down to one place.”

  “That’ll be the day,” Bess said. “What would you do?”

  “I’d write books,” I said.

  “Oh, sure,” Bess said.

  “I can write,” I said. “I’ve written before, and I’m going to write again. To the people of the future ‘Houdini’ won’t mean a man who was a magician, but a man who was an author.”

  “Why, Harry!” Bess said. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

  “You know I am,” I said. “Say, guess who I saw this morning?”

  “Your secret mistress?” Bess asked.

  “Don’t joke,” I said blankly. “Not about something like that.”

  “Oh, Harry,” Bess said, “you are so— so—“

  “So what?”

  “So Victorian.”

  “Maybe I shouldn’t even tell you who I saw. Maybe I shouldn’t tell you anything.”

  Bess kept staring at me.

  “So who was it?” she finally asked.

  “Carter,” I said flatly.

  “Carter?” Bess asked.

  “Charles Carter,” I said, nodding.

  “I thought he was on tour,” Bess said.

  “He is,” I said. “But he stopped in to town to see me.”

  “Why?”

  “He wanted to tell me that someone was coming to see the show.”

  “Who?”

  “You’d never guess, so I’ll just tell you. Jack London.”

  “Who?”

  “Jack London.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “’Who’s he?’— ‘Who’s he?’— Bess! It can’t be…! Don’t tell me…! Jack London! Jack London! Why— you— you don’t know who Jack London is?”

  “No,” Bess said. “Why should I?”

  “Bess! Jack London is the most famous writer in the world today! His books are read by people from here to Russia! Bess! Jack London! He wrote Call of the Wild and Sea-Wolf!”

  “Oh!” she said. “That Jack London!”

  “Yes, that Jack London. You read Sea-Wolf, didn’t you?”

  “No,” she said. “But I saw the moving picture.”

  “Bess!” I said in exasperation. I sat down at the dressing table. Bess grabbed her little doll, stuffed it in her purse, and jumped to her feet.

  “So I didn’t read a book!” Bess shouted. “So what? I don’t see you with your nose in a book all the time, either.”

  “Oh, Bess,” I said. “Please listen to me. When we meet London— he’ll probably have his wife with him— oh, God!”

  “What?”

  “Please, Bess, don’t say you haven’t read any of his books.”

  “Why? I haven’t. Do you want me to lie?”

  “I just don’t want you to say anything.”

  “Anything at all? About anything at all? About anything at all? Answer me, young man!”

  “I just want you to avoid the subject.”

  “You just want me to be a dummy!” Bess shouted. “That’s what you want! Your dummy wife!”

  “Bess!”

  “I’m going out. Get your own lunch!”

  “Bess!”

  She went out the door, fuming.

  Collins knocked.

  “Anything I can do, Mr. ‘oudini?” Collins asked.

  “Just another of her tantrums, Jim,” I said. “If only I could learn to be careful of what I say around her! She is the most peculiar woman I have ever known.”

  “Me father used to say, ‘The married man who can’t shut his mouth better learn how to duck.’”

  I looked up at Collins.

  “Sorry, Mr. ‘oudini,” he said. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “Not at all,” I said, waving my hand. “Your father was right from what I’ve experienced. Can you do something for me, Jim, something personal?”

  “Certainly, sir.”

  “I’ve just got to get away from Mrs. H for a bit so I can think my own thoughts. Just for a few hours. You understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Do you think perhaps you and Vickery could entertain her this evening after the show? You and your wives could take her up to our room for a game of cards. She loves that.”

  “Absolutely, sir,” Collins said. “It would be our pleasure. A delight.”

  “No need to tell Mrs. H today. Just suggest the card game tonight after the show in a casual way. If she goes for it, good. If she doesn’t— don’t push it.”

  “Certainly.”

  “And if you can…. Try to keep her away from the bottle. I don’t think she’ll drink in front of the rest of you anyway.”

  “Don’t worry about that, sir. Mrs. H never drinks when she plays cards.”

  “Usually never drinks,” I said. “I’ve seen her do it on the sly sometimes.”

  I looked back down.

  “Anything else, sir?” Collins asked.

  I looked back up at him. “No,” I said. “Just— thanks, that’s all, my personal, sincere thanks. I don’t suppose I say that to you much…or at all. But I want you to know that I appreciate all your efforts over the years, and….”

  “I understand perfectly, sir,” Collins said. “You need say no more. I’ll see that the boys have set up everything for the matinee before we pop off for lunch. And may I suggest, sir, that you get some rest now. Perhaps even a nap.”

  “Do I look that tired?” I asked.

  “Yes, sir,” Collins said. “You look very tired.”

  “All right,” I said. “I’ll go up to the hotel and lie down for a few minutes.”

  Collins nodded, and went out.

  I looked in the mirror before me and I saw an old man looking back. I was forty-one years old, but it seemed to me that I looked at least fifty, maybe even sixty. My father died when he was sixty-three. My once dark hair was now a faded brown, white at the temples, and the rest shot through and pepper
ed with gray. I saw that new lines had formed around my eyes and mouth. The flesh under my chin was beginning to sag just a bit. I felt that flesh. It was looser than I had remembered it being. The muscles of my body were still hard as steel, but something at the core of my vitality was fading— the living force that kept me moving. I had to find it again— somewhere— somehow. I had to get out and walk, but I knew Collins was right and I would make myself rest.

  I got completely dressed and walked out of the silent, empty theatre to the street, and then entered the door of the Adams. I went up to the hotel clerk who was reading a paper behind his little registration desk.

  I asked, “Is there a good delicatessen around here anywhere?”

  “Two blocks down on Broadway,” the clerk said.

  “Could you call over to them on the telephone and ask them to deliver some sandwiches to my room?”

  “I can do that,” the clerk said. “What kind of sandwiches?”

  “Oh—“ I said. “Any kind. I’m not in a particular mood today. Tell them to bring whatever it is that they make best. Have them surprise me.”

  “Very well,” the clerk said, “I’ll make the call.”

  I mounted the stairs to my room, fourth floor. This was an old building with no elevator. I got up to my room, went inside to the parlor, and on into our bedroom. Our pet birds fluttered in their cages— our parrot, Pat, and my two white pigeons. My fox terrier, Bobby, peeked up over the edge of the wicker basket where he slept. He jumped out on to the floor with a bark and did a somersault in the air, just to show off.

  “Can’t play now, Bobby,” I said.

  Bobby lowered his head and drew back on his haunches.

  “Not now, boy,” I said.

  I dropped my hat on the table, took off my coat and threw it over a chair, and then lay down on my bed.

  Bobby let out a whimper and then jumped up on my bed and lay down at my feet.

  “Rest,” I said to myself. “Next thing I know I’ll be in an old folks home!”

  I jumped up from the bed, grabbed my coat and hat. Bobby jumped from the bed and began barking with excitement.

  “All right, all right,” I said, grabbing Bobby’s leash and snapping it to his collar.

  “Come on,” I said to Bobby, and the two of us went out the door and down the stairs.

  When I got to the lobby, I stopped at the desk.