“Come along, then,” Wurlitzer was saying, gesturing to the wings and leading the way. “Enough of the stage, we shall go upstairs and enjoy the small refreshment that Lena is preparing. Perhaps she can also give you a cold cloth for that nasty bump over your eye. You must learn to be more careful.”
“Upstairs” was gained by means of a large iron staircase, curving from the stage-right wing to a point high above the stage itself. Wurlitzer’s soles clacked on the perforated metal steps as he climbed. He didn’t look back until he had rolled aside the small iron door set into the brick wall at second-story level and entered an upper room, where he waited for Michael to pass him.
“Lena, Lena, we are here,” the old man called, urging Michael ahead and indicating that he should go to the end of the passageway. Here another door, which had been left open, admitted them to a second passage on the right side of the stage wall. From this passageway, Michael could see down the staircase to the ground level and up to other floors overhead.
“Just to the end, if you please,” Wurlitzer said. He passed Michael again, held open the door at the far end of the hall, and showed him in. “Here is Lena’s parlor,” he said, gesturing his guest toward a chair, “and music room, I should add, for that is what she calls it.” Michael looked around the room, which was crowded and cluttered with old furniture, shelves with books and papers, a large table under an overhead lamp, a piano, a music stand, and, everywhere, antimacassars.
“Galena!” Wurlitzer shouted through the doorway, then went and stood by the clock on the mantel. “Sit down, my boy, sit down,” he said. “She is surely coming. In the meantime, where were we?” He seemed to become all vague and bumbling, absently patting his pockets, fingering his stiff collar, stretching his neck, shrugging his jacket up and down. For a moment, Michael thought of a harmless, absentminded professor: Einstein wondering where he’d left his notes. The painful tightness around Michael’s eye when he smiled at this image caused him to revise it. Absentminded, perhaps; but definitely not harmless.
At last he settled in a well-worn armchair, placed at an angle to the sofa where Michael sat, and slowly turned his head to face him. “Ah, yes, I recall,” the old man said, sitting up ramrod straight and riveting Michael’s gaze with his searching single eye. A cold, unnerving force seemed to flow out of him; every element of caricature, of absurdity, fell from him like a shed disguise. “Let us pass directly to the heart of the matter,” he said, his bleak voice like an ominous wind in Michael’s ears. “I have a serious proposition for you to consider.”
Michael sat bolt upright, perched on the edge of the sofa like a bird poised for flight, his position mirroring the old man’s, all his faculties concentrated on this moment, these words. Outside, the city’s fevered pulse raged on, its cacophony shifted from crescendo to crescendo; inside, in Lena’s parlor, time moved with glacial slowness, and silently.
“I have lived for a long time,” Wurlitzer began. “I am weary of this theatrical life, of this world of trickery and illusion. I wish to make a final, permanent exit from the stage.” He paused again, as though contemplating his own words with a hint of regret. Then he continued. “But before I take my last bow, I require a helper, let us say a kind of apprentice. Such a person must be talented, clever, and ambitious. On the first two counts, I am fairly satisfied with you, but I know nothing of your ambitions. What are they?”
This was an easy question. “I have only one,” Michael said earnestly. “To be the greatest magician in the world.”
The old man’s fierce gaze relaxed, became almost indulgent. “And what are you willing to go through to realize this noble, if somewhat solemn, ambition?”
Michael found this one easy too, though the answer frightened him. “Whatever it takes,” he said.
“It is as I thought,” Wurlitzer replied in his dry, rasping voice, like a prosecutor handed a clinching piece of evidence.
Silence fell between them again. Michael sat stiffly, staring at Wurlitzer in astonishment. Surely it couldn’t be this simple. All his hopes, his dreams, all those imagined conversations with the Queer Duck, thus neatly tucked into a package, as though his wildest fantasies were being delivered to him, made to order. “I would be your assistant?” he asked hesitantly, fearing to break the spell.
“Yes-yes-yes, assistant, helper, whatever you choose to call yourself.” The old man spoke impatiently, desiring to have the matter settled.
“How would I assist you?” Michael wanted to know.
“As you must have observed, there is much to do here, chores for which I need your brawn more than your brains. There are things to be built, items to be repaired. To say nothing of rehearsals, working out new routines, and the like. If all goes well, then we shall prepare for the Grand Finale.”
“The Grand Finale?” Michael asked, as he was clearly meant to do.
“My farewell to the stage, upon which I have strutted and fretted long enough.” The old man, absorbed in his own imaginings, shifted his gaze to some indefinable point above Michael’s head and spoke eagerly, pridefully. “I am planning a spectacular show, the likes of which no magician has ever performed. That show will be the ultimate goal of our—what shall I call it?—partnership.”
“I’m extremely interested,” Michael said, “but I still don't understand the terms of the proposition. What would the pay be?”
“Pay?” Wurlitzer looked amazed and spoke sharply. “Who talks of pay? Of late you have discovered that money comes when you need it. Your pay will be in what you can learn.”
Michael could scarcely contain his joy. “So you’ll teach me what you know?”
The magician gave a wary answer, though whether the wariness was feigned or genuine Michael couldn’t tell. “There will of course be some transfer of knowledge and techniques, as always happens when members of our profession come together. Personal style, to be sure, cannot and should not be tampered with. You have your own tricks, as I have mine. Yours do not interest me particularly. Mine, however”—he broke off, his eye piercing Michael like a laser beam—“I have many stage routines that will be of interest to you.”
Michael felt himself too near the goal to be deflected by coy double-talk. “This all sounds good, but I have to be sure of what I’m getting,” he persisted. “I’ll do whatever you want. But in exchange, I want you to teach me.”
The magician made a snorting sound, short and contemptuous, mirthful yet humorless. “As I’ve said, I imagine I can teach you one or two little tricks, yes. You are quick, you should learn fast.”
“I don’t mean sleights. Or illusions.” Michael rose to his feet, leaned closer to the old man, and spoke in a charged, intense voice. “I mean another kind of magic.”
“What other kind?”
Michael bent still closer, enduring that terrible eye at short range, mindful of nothing but his own will. “The kind you do. Like the frog. Night magic.”
This time the magician laughed outright, a harsh cackle that literally took Michael aback. “Do not speak to me of such things,” Wurlitzer said. “They are not—transmittable.”
“You must have learned it somewhere,” Michael said.
“Oh, eh, somewhere. One learns everything…somewhere. There are many kinds of magic. Still, it’s all illusion, really. And how can one teach illusions?”
“Isn’t it a question of what’s behind the illusion?”
“Yes, of course, and also what’s in front.” Pausing, Wurlitzer seemed to be considering some urgent matter. Michael watched him carefully. He’s drawing me in, the old fraud, Michael thought. Just where I want to be. Then, abruptly, the magician spoke again. “Let us put an end to these negotiations. I will teach you stage magic. You will help me as I need you, and we will rehearse. You will learn the workings of many astonishing illusions unique in the history of magic. In the process, perhaps I can convey to you one or two…ideas. I will further your ambition as I can. Are we agreed?”
He remained seated, proffering
no handshake, searching Michael’s face. “Agreed,” the young man said.
“Then it is settled.” Wurlitzer rose and went to the doorway. “Lena, come in now,” he called, muttered, “Where can she be?” and left the room.
Michael stood at the window, feeling a great sense of triumph, a flush of well-being, a tingle of excitement. He had bagged his Queer Duck, he was sure of it. The bargain had been struck. Not only would he learn what stage illusions were to be discovered, but he was sure that his apprenticeship would lead to other things, through that door he had thought of so often, that baffling, shadowy door that would now swing open for him. The old man had the key; if he kept it hidden, Michael would find it, steal it if necessary, but the door would be opened. And behind it lay his entire future. Beyond hocus-pocus, beyond abracadabra. Presto the Great. The Greatest Magician in the World.
He looked out at the street. It seemed alien, different. Inside this room, this building, the theater downstairs, this was the world he wanted to enter. What took place outside the window was for the ordinary, the commonplace, the everyday. For Dazz and Emily and his landlady and his aunts. Here, in this place, dim and smoky and smelling of cabbage, this was the near side of the door. He lifted the lace curtain, held it back from the glass. Directly across the street, at a second-story window, a fat woman was watering some plants. She leaned on the sill, her fleshy arms cushioned by a pillow as she searched for something interesting to observe. Look here, woman, he thought; see me. Presto the Great. See the magic. A dog came and pushed its muzzle under the woman’s bosom, and she made room on the cushion. Ordinary dog. Neither noticed him, dog nor woman, they were looking to the corner, where a truck dropped off wired bundles of papers at the newsstand. Ordinary news. But here, behind the glass, in this ordinary room, things would take place, matters would proceed. Here, among the books and papers, the dusk, the shadows, a little night magic.
Steps at the doorway. He turned in profile. The old man came in, followed by the woman, who carried a tray on which were glasses, plates, things to eat, a bottle of wine.
“Now, we must celebrate,” the old man was saying. He stepped back to clear the way to the table. Michael turned farther from the window toward the woman called Lena, and their eyes met. Elation shone in his, but hers were sorrowful, pitying, damp with remorse. She held the tray awkwardly, as if she didn’t know what to do with it. “Well, Lena,” Wurlitzer said briskly, “put it down, can’t you?”
She murmured inaudibly and set the laden tray on the table. Then she stood erect, her eyes full on Michael, as Wurlitzer said, “Mr. Michael Hawke has agreed to join our small company, Lena. Welcome him.”
She held out her hand, darting her eyes to it as to something she didn’t recognize. “Welcome, Mr. Hawke,” she said in a weak voice.
“Michael,” he said, gently taking her trembling hand.
“Michael,” she repeated. “I wish you good luck, Michael.” She freed her hand and turned to leave.
“Won’t you stay with us?” he asked, surprised.
She faced him once more. “No, you have business matters to discuss, and I have some chores to do. We’ll see one another again,” she said, and her kind, sad face reminded Michael of the woman in the bus station, the one who had tried in vain to help him as the men dragged him away. She gave him one last, regretful look and stepped through the doorway.
“Lena will not be always shy,” the old man said as he poured two glasses of crimson wine. “You will get to know her after you move in,” he went on, handing Michael a glass and raising his own in a toast. “To magic.”
Michael stood with his glass raised, too stunned to drink. “Move in?” he asked in disbelief.
“Of course,” Wurlitzer said, as if nothing could be more self-evident. “Your room is already prepared. I am certain you will find it quite comfortable.”
“But I didn’t think—”
“My dear boy, I may require your services at any hour. Do you wish to renege on our agreement?” The sneer of cold command had returned to his voice.
“No,” Michael stammered, “it’s just that I have things to take care of, my landlady, friends—”
“Your apartment will be no great loss, I think,” the old man said. Then, as if struck by a sudden insight, he continued, “But you are worried about your little flute player. Is that it?”
Michael looked at the floor, formulating a reply, but the magician anticipated him. “Let me remind you of your purpose, as you have stated it to me. You say you have ambition. You wish to rise to the pinnacle of your profession. You wish to learn all I have to teach, even to my deepest secrets. You are willing, you say, to do whatever is necessary to accomplish your desires. Do I overstate the case?”
Michael looked up but could not meet the old man’s flaring eye. “No,” he mumbled.
“Therefore,” the sepulchral voice went on, “I give you your first lesson. The path you have chosen requires isolation, discipline, singleness of purpose. You must withdraw from everything, even your ordinary self. You must love nothing more than what you wish to achieve. Before I go—”
“Go where?” Michael interrupted, his thoughts in disorder.
“That is, before I leave the stage,” Wurlitzer said irascibly, “before I retire, I will try to convey to you certain things. I will try to teach you how to raise your mind until it transcends itself, how to fix it, more intensely than you can now imagine, upon the images you seek to evoke. If your mind is divided, you shall fail. I ask you again: do you wish to cancel our agreement?”
“No,” Michael said softly, and then, more firmly: “No.”
“Then drink up, my boy,” the old man said jovially. “And don’t fret. Things of minor importance can always be suitably arranged.”
Twenty minutes later, Michael stood on the street, confused and disquieted. He had accomplished his purpose; so why did he feel so uncertain? He was willing to do whatever it might take, that much was true enough; so why was he so unwilling to break this news to Emily? He sighed, slouched, straightened his shoulders and began to walk, resolutely, step after step. Steps on the way to becoming the Greatest Magician in the World.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Night School
SUPINE ON HIS NEW bed, closer than ever to his heart’s desire, Michael was nevertheless staring joylessly at a picture on the wall, a framed reproduction of a fresco: St. Francis Preaching to the Birds. None of the last forty-eight hours had been very pleasant. His landlady, reconciled without difficulty to the idea of losing him as a tenant, had proved more intransigent during the ensuing negotiations concerning the return of his damage deposit. Dazz had replied to the announcement of Michael’s plans with questions about stipends and box-office percentages; Michael’s answers left him shaking his head in uncomprehending disapproval, convinced that his friend was making a bad career move. Telling Emily had been, of course, the worst of all. He tried a display of enthusiasm; he had, after all, gone out and gotten exactly what he wanted—but Emily saw through it, right into the uncertainty he knew he must not entertain, and she was quick to pull from him the information he least wanted to give her, that Max had made it clear Michael would not see anyone else for an undetermined period of time.
Her sad, hurt look filled him with guilt, nearly swaying him from his purpose. But she remained silent, as though disdaining to press so cheap an advantage. While he was vowing to keep in touch, indeed to call her as soon as he was settled, her features hardened from dismay into resentment. “Don’t make any promises you can't keep,” she said bitterly. As he stood by the door, preparing to leave, she kissed him on the mouth, then embraced him tightly, her cheek resting on his shoulder. “You can still walk away from this,” she whispered before she let him go.
After that, transferring his few belongings had seemed a relatively painless, though certainly time-consuming, ordeal, and the spacious, attractive room that was his new home had been an agreeable surprise; he was braced for something altogether more
monastic, or more menial. Wurlitzer, reading his face, assured him that mortification of the flesh was not a requirement of the magician’s discipline. “You were expecting some dreary cell?” he asked sarcastically. “Perhaps your own personal sackcloth? No, no, my boy, it is distracting to be uncomfortable, and I require your concentration. Life brings enough discomfort as it is. Especially,” he went on in a musing tone, “to the old—and the ambitious.”
Truthful words, Michael thought, as he lay on the tufted chenille bedspread, fatigued by the labors of packing and moving, weary from two nights of restless dreams, convinced he had earned the right to fall asleep at once, yet held back from oblivion for a long, impatient while by the echo of Wurlitzer’s voice, the memory of Emily’s face.
On another count, the master, as Michael now thought of him, had spoken the unvarnished truth: there was plenty of work to do. Props and equipment were scattered everywhere—in the wings, behind and under the stage, in various storerooms and workshops in the basement—and nearly all of them needed refurbishing or repair: boxes, cabinets, trick tables for various sawing, vanishing, and levitation illusions, safes, cages, chains, ropes, locks, multifarious arrangements of lights, containers and compartments of every description, Chinese linking rings, weapons, cauldrons for magic brews, even a couple of gallows. Wurlitzer had been famous for gruesomely impressive performances in the course of which he appeared to be executed, died on stage, but rose again before the end of the act. There was likewise an incredible array of all sorts of costumes and enough conjuror’s gadgets to keep Michael enthralled, and busy, for months.
It was, however, not only the magician’s equipment that languished in need of renovation; his act itself, as he freely admitted, was stale, tired, outmoded. Michael was to help him revamp it, to provide fresh ideas and techniques and variations for it, to join in the creative process, to transfuse the magic shows at the Little Cairo Museum of Wonders with his youth, his energy, his enthusiasm and skill. The stage act must improve, beginning almost at once and progressing steadily until, in a few months’ time, they reached the immediate goal: a brand-new, scrupulously professional, revived and reinvigorated magical experience—“born-again sorcery,” Wurlitzer called it, cackling horribly—for the loyal patrons of the Little Cairo. But this achievement would be as nothing, he averred, mere conjurors’ artifices compared to the grandiose spectacle he envisioned for his farewell to the stage. Should their collaboration prosper, should they do well as a team (it was clear to Michael that when the old magician said “we” in this context he meant “you”), then they would begin the even more intense preparations necessary to produce the Grand Finale.