Metamorphosis

by Sesh Heri

  “What did they film?” I asked.

  “They had automatic switches on their cameras that would set them turning if anything passed by in the sky overhead. And this is what happened on the night of August 22nd 1913. An object passed over Somoma Valley, circled over my ranch, and stopped in the sky, hovering up there— directly above us.”

  “What was it?” I asked.

  “It was later identified as a Martian airship,” Jack said, “their latest design. The airship hovered for an instant above the house here, and then suddenly shot a beam of light directly down, right down through the roof. And in that beam of light, my safe— the secret safe I told you about that contained the knob— was drawn up through Wolf House’s roof and into the Martian airship.”

  “The beam of light set the house on fire?” I asked.

  “Oh, no,” Jack said. “The fire was set maliciously— intentionally. You see all those people with their accusations were ironically right, but none of them had identified the real culprit. Once the safe was drawn up into the airship, the ship turned about in the sky and fired another beam directly into the wooden walls up there, and Wolf House was set aflame, burning with an intense heat. It was all captured on film, in fact captured by three separate cameras from three different positions! I know, because later I was shown all three films. Wolf House was destroyed by an act of arson— committed by men from another planet— from Mars! And this is the most incredible part: apparently the Martians realized that the actions of their airship were being captured on motion picture film! They behaved just as if they were displaying their airship to the cameras! They knew they were being watched and didn’t care. Who would believe it? The Mrs. Grundys would shake their heads, and the know-it-all professors would show their teeth and call up the orderlies from the asylum.”

  “Why did the Martians do it?” I asked.

  “Take the knob?” Jack asked. “We don’t know for sure, only that it has something to do with their experiments with time travel. It somehow relates to that thing you encountered out there on the floor of the Pacific. I think they are trying to achieve some control of the time machine here under Sonoma Valley by using that device on the floor of the ocean.”

  “Is that what Mr. Tesla thinks?” I asked.

  “That’s right,” Jack said. “That’s his theory.”

  “Why did they set fire to your house?” I asked.

  “Ah,” Jack said. “That, I think, was a personal message to me, a warning. They were telling me to keep away from the time machine, to not cooperate with Majestic Seven, or I would suffer certain consequences, and they gave me a little sample, a warning. Someday soon I will show the Martians what I think of their warning.”

  “What will you do?” I asked.

  “I will rebuild Wolf House,” Jack said. “I’m going to rebuild this whole house soon— bigger and better than it ever was before.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Other Times, Other Worlds

  “Look at the various Arts and Professions,

  and then at the old-time Magicians; none of

  them have been properly remembered!…

  A painter when he dies, leaves behind

  paintings, an author leaves as a monument

  some of his books, the music master leaves

  his inspirations, but how can a magician

  leave behind a positive proof of his genius?”

  Houdini

  The evening came on quickly. Jack and I met up with all the others back at the cottage, Bess and Charmian and Eliza. We all walked over to Jack’s “Pig Palace” and played with the pigs a bit as dusk descended in an ever-gathering fog. The “Pig Palace” was an elaborate structure, a circular wall of rock masonry surrounded by a central round-tower which stored the feed. As we strolled back to the cottage across the foggy hillside, Bess, Eliza, and Charmian and the dogs walked ahead, while Jack and I hung back in a slow walk behind them.

  “That’s quite a design you’ve got up there,” I said.

  “It’s the laughing-stock of all the farmers in these parts,” Jack said. “They think I’m the gawl-durnedest fool that ever stumbled over the hill. Just wait ‘til they see the championship pigs I’m raising. They’re going to swallow their tongues. See the feed tower? That’s the secret. Nobody knows. I’ll tell you. Notice how it’s built at the top of a knoll? That knoll is connected by a line of land stress to that anvil-shaped rock outcropping I showed you up on the mountain. In fact, so are the cottage over there and all the other structures on the ranch. They’ve all been built on little knolls connected to land stresses that run up to that big anvil rock on the mountain. I think the people who owned this land before me knew about the anvil rock and the shape of the land around here and purposely built on those knolls. The former landowners here were wine makers, and therefore were very probably folk alchemists and geomancers, practitioners of the lesser circulation.”

  “Why would they build all the structures on the land stresses?” I asked.

  “The knolls are centers of vital energy,” Jack said. “That round tower up there in the midst of my piggery is collecting vital energy out of the earth, collecting it like a magnet and drawing it into the feed. Imagine the effect it will have on the pigs! So you can see why I’m content to let the farmers laugh at my elaborate construction. Let them laugh. They love to laugh.”

  We all walked back to the cottage, and Bess and I went to our rooms to rest a bit. Jack went to his study to look through his mail. Charmian disappeared somewhere. In a bit, Sekine knocked at the door to Bess’ bedroom.

  “Dinnuh-time,” Sekine announced. “So solly to distuhb.” Sekine bowed.

  “Thank you,” Bess said.

  Sekine started to go.

  “Where’s dinner?” I asked.

  “Black of house,” Sekine said. “Black of house,” he repeated. “So solly to distuhb.” And he bowed again and went down the hall quickly.

  “What did he say?” Bess asked. “Didn’t he say something about a black house? What does that mean?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  I went out to the hall and saw Charmian approaching.

  “Nice place you have here,” I said.

  “It’s small,” Charmian said, “but cozy,”

  She reached up and adjusted my tie.

  “Didn’t Sekine call dinner?” Charmian asked.

  “Yes,” I said, “but we didn’t quite understand him. He said something about a black house.”

  “Black house?” Charmian asked, laughing. “Oh, he must’ve said ‘back of house.’ Come on.”

  Charmian went over to the back door, opened it, and went out on to the back porch. I turned around. Bess was standing right behind me.

  “Back of house,” I said.

  “I heard,” Bess said.

  We went out the back door and on to the porch and followed Charmian to another building on our right. This building was separate from the cottage, but connected by the porch. We all went into this building. Upon entry we came upon two armchairs and a curtain. Charmian pulled the curtain back and revealed a dining-room. Mats lay about on the floor. The dining table was covered in a table-cloth and set for dinner. Various kinds of curios hung all around the walls, souvenirs from Jack and Charmian’s travels.

  “Let’s go ahead and sit down,” Charmian said. “Jack and Eliza will be here right away.”

  The three of us sat down, and Sekine appeared from behind a screen, carrying a large covered platter. He put it down in the center of the table.

  “Duck tonight,” Charmian said, “Jack’s favorite.”

  Eliza and Jack came through the door and I stood up.

  “Oh, sit down, Houdini,” Eliza said, “you’re at home here.”

  Jack, Eliza, and I sat down. Jack lifted the cover off the platter, revealing the steamy roast duck underneath. He handed the cover to Sekine.

  “Mmm hm,” Jack said, catching the aroma of the duck. He stuck a fork into its side. “Sme
lls right, looks right, let’s see if it tastes right.”

  Jack carved the duck while Sekine stood by holding Bess’ plate. Jack placed a generous slice of the duck on the plate, and Sekine placed Bess’ plate back in front of her. Jack and Sekine repeated this process for all the rest of us at the table. He talked while he carved:

  “How’s that, Bess? Take a bite. Don’t stand on ‘manners.’ Be a hog, and take a bite. That’s it. Now. How is it? Oh, yes, she likes it. Go on, eat up. Eat up, gorge. That’s what I’m going to do. Gluttony! Mmm-mm! Now the way to cook a delicacy such as this— it could be any kind of plucked bird— is to stuff it very tight with raw celery. Then— put it in a piping hot oven, and roast it eight or nine or ten— or even eleven minutes. It depends on the size of the bird and the oven. Watch it cook the first time, and gage its progress. You want it blood-rare. Take it out— carve the breast with the leg, and then squeeze the carcass in a press. Take the liquid that comes out and season it with salt, pepper, lemon, and paprika, and then pour all of this over the meat. How is it, Houdini? Is it good?”

  I took a bite of the duck on my plate. The flavor was rich and subtle. “It’s delicious!” I said.

  “I’ve tried to educate the chef at the Saddlerock,” Jack said.

  “I admit,” I said, “this is even better than what they prepare.”

  “I’ve educated Sekine,” Jack said. “I’ve gotten him to follow my recipe scrupulously. He has become a great chef, at least with duck, and duck is what I love!”

  The dinner proceeded in a warm, effortless way, as it always does with great food and great friends. Jack talked of the days of his youth, his days as a sailor and his travels by rail across America as a “tramp.” I spoke about my early days, about my family, and about my mother and how she stood by me in everything I ever attempted.

  “And then,” I said, “my mother passed away.”

  “You say this was a couple of years ago?” Jack asked.

  “Yes,” I said, “two years. Just about the same time your Wolf House burned down.”

  “Nineteen thirteen!” Jack said.

  “Yes,” I said. “The thirteen, again.”

  “I can see that you were very close to your mother,” Jack said. “My mother never thought of me as anything but as a source of quick cash. Always had her hand out— still does.”

  “Sorry to hear it,” I said. “I always think of motherhood as sacred. When my mother was dying, she tried to speak, tried to tell my brother something, perhaps a message for me. I’ve spent the last two years trying to find out what that message was.”

  “How could you find out?” Charmian asked.

  “By visiting Spiritualists,” Bess said, “many, many Spiritualists.”

  “Spiritualists?” Jack asked in dismay.

  “I know,” I said. “All the ones we’ve seen have been fake.”

  “They’re all fake,” Jack said, “rest assured. My own mother was a Spiritualist, and I spent my childhood subjected to her hysterical foolishness. Eliza knows exactly what I’m talking about.”

  Eliza nodded.

  “I can tell you,” Jack said, “there’s nothing to the Spiritualists. They’re all bunk!”

  “I’m a fellow who likes to find out for himself,” I said.

  “Do things the hard way,” Jack said.

  “I’m a bit ashamed to admit it,” I said, “but years ago Bess and I did a fake Spiritualist act— played all the tank towns in the Midwest.”

  “I’m sure you know all the tricks,” Jack said.

  “They’re simple tricks, too,” I said. “It doesn’t take much to fool people when they want to believe,”

  “Then,” Charmian asked, “you don’t believe in magic?”

  “Well,” I said, “that’s what I’ve spent the last two years trying to find out. We live in a very big universe, and we know so little of it. Who can say?”

  The conversation came to a lull. Jack filled his wine glass again, and then filled Bess’ glass, and then they both took a long drink. Charmian watched them as Eliza began discussing the operations of the ranch. Jack joined in with Eliza, and I got to understand some of the details of the ranch’s day-to-day workings. While Beauty Ranch was something of a scientific laboratory, it also was a real working ranch, a business. But from their conversation I learned that it had not as yet begun to turn a profit.

  “In just a few more years,” Jack said, “the ranch will start paying for itself. That’s when we’ll really begin to live. I’ll no longer be chained to my writing.”

  “You won’t stop writing?” I asked. “I can’t imagine that.”

  “Oh,” Jack said, “I suppose I’ll never stop writing, I’ve done it for so long now. But I won’t be driven to write. I’ll be able to leave off on my thousand words a day. It’ll only be as many words a day as I feel like writing, if I feel like writing any at all.”

  “I think you’ll still do your thousand a day,” I said.

  “You over-estimate me,” Jack said. “And you over-estimate what writing is to me. It would not bother me one bit if I never wrote another word.”

  “What about your readers?” I asked.

  “They’ll get along just fine,” Jack said. “They can find other books and other causes. I’m through with leading causes. I’ll live the life of a scientific farmer. There are great things to be accomplished in that field.”

  “A writer turned farmer,” I said.

  “It has been done,” Jack said. “Look at George Ade. He made a fortune on Broadway and now he’s managing his farm in Indiana. I could be like George Ade. I mean, in regard to the farming. I don’t care for his politics.”

  “I heard George Ade was a big supporter of Taft,” I said.

  “Oh, yes,” Jack said. “He had a big party for Taft out at his estate. George Ade and I go in two different political directions.”

  “You know,” I said, “I have to tell you, I don’t quite understand your political direction.”

  “What don’t you understand?” Jack asked.

  “Your Socialism,” I said. “I don’t understand how you could be a Socialist.”

  “Yes,” Jack said, “and I don’t understand how you could not be a Socialist.”

  “Very simply,” I said. “I’ve seen the world, and I’ve seen what happens when people try to live other people’s lives for them, especially when it’s a government that does the meddling. It doesn’t work.”

  “Meddling?” Jack said. “I’m not for meddling. Is that what you think Socialism is, meddling?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “That’s not what Socialism is,” Jack said, “not the Socialism I advocate. I’m for justice. I’m for a fair shake. Our present capitalist system is not a fair shake; it is a system of bribed legislatures, bought judges, and controlled primary elections. It is a system that mangles, batters, and destroys thousands of men, women, and children

  in the factories every year, a system that does not pay an adequate wage so that the factory work-beasts can have adequate food and shelter. In the United States there are ten million people living in poverty. I have seen that poverty. I have lived in it a bit myself.”

  “But you worked your way out of it,” I said.

  “Worked my way out of it?” Jack asked. “What of those who cannot work their way out of it— what of them? There are millions who will never work their way out of it, yet they still work and slave and kill themselves working to produce and make fortunes for those few who do not work and slave, make fortunes for some who have never worked and slaved and whose forefathers never worked and slaved!”

  “So what do you propose be done?” I asked.

  “I have made my proposals,” Jack said, “but I am through with making proposals. I am through in fighting for utopias. What’s the use? What’s the use for a few of us to fight for justice in an unjust world if the masses who are the victims do nothing for themselves? I gave a quarter of a century of the flower of my life to the revol
utionary movement, only to find that it was as supine under the heel as it was a thousand centuries before Christ. If the proletariat won’t save itself, it is unsavable.”

  “Perhaps that’s the whole point,” I said.

  “Perhaps it is,” Jack said. “Liberty, Freedom and Independence are royal things that cannot be presented to, nor thrust upon, races or classes.”

  “You don’t sound like a Socialist to me,” I said.

  “No?” Jack asked. “What do I sound like?”

  “You sound like Jack London,” I said.

  “Yes,” Jack said, looking down. Then he looked up, out into space, and said: “Perhaps that’s all I really am, all I ever really was…after all.”

  Our dinner wound to a close with a scattering of conversation, some of it concerning the events of Eliza’s divorce trial. Finally Jack rose from the table.

  “I have not written a word today,” he said. “That means I have some work cut out for me this evening.”

  “Your thousand words,” I said.

  “I must not lose a day,” he said, “or I will become lax and lose many days. I’ll say goodnight to you all now.”

  “You know,” I said, “we must leave early tomorrow morning to catch the train.”

  “I know,” Jack said. “I’ll be up to see you off. I’ll have Sekine wake me up early. Good night to you, Houdini. If our mutual friend shows up tonight, tell him that I’ve written myself to sleep.”

  Jack shook my hand.