Night Magic (25 page)

What he got instead was a shoddy stage, stingily furnished and indifferently dressed, carelessly maintained props, neglected lighting, and haphazard costuming. Nothing was defined, nothing was dramatic, nothing was theatrical. When, before long, Michael asked if he might offer a few criticisms, the old man squinted happily. “But of course, my boy,” he exclaimed. “I welcome your suggestions. As I have told you, this…this insubstantial pageant has grown stale for me. To be sure, I confess I liked it once. There used to be the thrill of capturing and holding an audience, but one becomes bored with it all, one stops caring. I am sick of stage cleverness, of seducing minds so willingly seduced. And my physical equipment, as you see, is running down. There are not many performances left in me, but with your help things will improve. Then, perhaps, I will be able to leave the stage in a blaze of glory. And after that,” he added, with a kind of creepy cheer in his voice, “you will be on your own.”

One of the many astonishing features of his new life, Michael discovered, was the increased vividness and intensity of his dreams. His dream life had always been fertile, but now it was teeming with lurid images and abrupt scene changes that often overwhelmed him. One night he awoke from a frightening dream to find himself curled around a peacefully sleeping Emily, a position that seemed so natural and so comforting that he lay awake beside her for a long time, trying to recall exactly the content of the troubling dream. Then, without warning, he woke up altogether, Emily was gone, and he was left disoriented, uncertain about everything, even about whether or not he might still be adrift in a dream.

It was 6 A.M., a gray morning, judging from the dim light sifting through his curtained window. Coffee might help resolve the matter. He got up and pulled on his clothes, fumbling with buttons and zippers, still dazed by his dreams. His room seemed unfamiliar; he wanted to get away from it, and on the trip down the stairs the clatter of his shoes against the wood was too loud, nearly deafening, yet he could not make himself slow down or tread more softly. The bright ordinariness of the coffee shop as he approached was a relief to his senses. He was awake after all, in an ordinary world on an ordinary day. There was Jerry behind the counter, already hard at work flipping eggs on the grill, and there was his usual seat at the counter, and there the Formica tables and there the phone on which, if he wanted, he could call anyone. He could call Emily and tell her about his dream.

How long had it been since he had spoken to her? Would she be awake? He glanced away from these questions as he dug a quarter from his pocket and jammed it into the phone. A moment of prestidigitation on the number pad, the sound of bells, and then, presto, like magic, there was her clear, confident hello.

“Emily,” he said. “It’s Michael.”

“Oh, Michael,” she said brightly. She wasn’t asleep, then. “I think I knew you’d call. I dreamed about you last night.”

“What do you know? I dreamed about you too,” he said.

“What are you doing?” she asked eagerly. “And why haven’t you called? I’d almost convinced myself to forget about you, and then there you were in my dream. And now you call. When will I see you? Can you get away now? Can you come up? We could have breakfast like we used to? I don’t have to be at school until nine.”

From where he was standing, Michael could see the door to the Little Cairo. And he could hear Emily’s soft, expectant breathing through the wires. For a moment he felt his head was being torn apart, yet through his brief panic the serenity of the dream—Emily sleeping peacefully beside him—steadied him. He turned his back to the theater and said, “Yes. I could. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

“Good,” she said. “How do you want your eggs?”

At first everything went well. Emily greeted him enthusiastically, with a hug, a brief, almost sisterly kiss, a quick inspection. “You look different,” she said. “Have you lost weight?”

“I don’t think so,” Michael said. “I eat as much as ever.” He followed her into the sunny familiar kitchen; there were flowers as always on the little table, the rich smell of coffee filled the air, and as he pulled out a chair and sat down, he felt he was easing himself into a warm, welcome bath after a long bout of physical exertion. Emily looked terrific. She was bustling at the counter, pouring the coffee into cups, one of which she brought to him, then chopping up peppers and onions. She was talking about school. She’d gotten an unexpected scholarship; it was a real coup. How she had wanted to call Michael to tell him this good news.

“That’s great,” Michael said, sipping his coffee. “But I’m not surprised. You’re a terrific musician.”

Then, as she worked, she told him about Dazz and Sami. The portrait was turning into Dazz’s life’s work. Sami wanted side panels now, full of animals, all the animals of the world, if possible, all admiring Sami. Dazz spent every free minute at the zoo.

As Michael listened he felt how completely cut off he was from the world in which he had once, he admitted, been comfortable and happy. And what had
he
been doing lately, he thought. Well, sometimes he sat in a pyramid and sometimes he scared himself into unconsciousness trying to imagine what was behind a closed door. And sometimes he listened to a mad old man who told him anything was possible.

Without thinking, he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the pack of cards that was always there. He split them, fanned them, made them stand up on end. Emily had stopped chopping. She stood watching him, a smile of such delight on her lips that Michael, meeting her eyes over the cards, couldn’t help smiling back.

“Do that one I like,” she said softly.

Michael laughed. The cards marched together on his palm, then seemed to take a dive off the side of his hand. “The old waterfall,” he said. Down went the cards until it seemed they must pour across the floor, then at the last possible second they were, miraculously, all back together in his palm.

“Oh,” Emily said. “It’s so good to see you. Would you do it again?”

“Sure,” he said. “But I’ve got lots better tricks than that.”

“I’ll bet you do,” she said, as the cards leaped out of Michael’s fingers again. “I’ll just bet you do.”

Later, as they sat together eating the breakfast that Emily had prepared with such ease and care, Michael sensed an unstated question lying on the table between them: would they, at the conclusion of this convivial meal, go off to Emily’s bedroom together? Michael toyed with his food, eating slowly as if to postpone that moment when the dishes might be cleared away and they had nothing to do but what they had always done before. Emily chattered about her family, her teachers. It wasn’t long before she asked him about his life at the Little Cairo.

“It’s great,” he said. “But the theater’s a mess. Mostly I work in there.”

And did Max Wurlitzer really know something about magic that Michael didn’t know already?

Michael shifted uneasily in his chair at the mention of his teacher’s name. He didn’t like to hear it spoken in such a cheerful domestic setting, and it struck him that the master was, at least in his own imagination, associated with shadows, with the dust and confusion of the theater, the overfurnished heavy gloom of Lena’s sitting room. He could not say the words that immediately sprang to mind in answer to Emily’s question—he knows things that scare me—because he did not, just yet, maybe never, want to let anyone, even Emily, in on the secret of his fear. In part, he thought, because he expected that fear to go away. Knowledge would cast out fear, it always did. It was clear that the master was not afraid of what he knew, though sometimes he seemed weary of it, of knowing it, whatever it was. Michael swallowed a mouthful of coffee, avoiding Emily’s candid steady gaze, and said weakly, “Oh, yes. He knows a lot.”

“What sorts of things does he know?”

“He knows about the discipline of magic. And how a magician sees the world.”

“And how is that?”

“Differently.”

“Differently from what?”

Michael chewed a forkful of potatoes. He could see where Emily was leading him, what she was getting at, but he found he didn’t really care. “Differently from ordinary people,” he said.

“I see,” Emily said. “Would you say Max is a happy person?”

Michael frowned. “He’s old, he’s tired.”

“Does he have any friends? Does he see anyone else?”

Michael was annoyed. “No, Emily, I don’t think he does. Just his wife, Lena, and me. But I can’t say for sure, because I don’t watch him every minute of the day and night. Sometimes he goes out at night, but I don’t know where he goes, because I don’t think it’s any of my business, frankly.”

“Or mine,” Emily said quietly.

“Right,” Michael agreed. A moody silence fell between them. It occurred to Michael that in all the time they had known each other, they had never had a real argument.

Emily watched her own fork, which she pushed around in her plate disconsolately, without taking anything. “What do you think he wants with you, Michael?” she asked after a lengthy silence.

“He wants me to help him put on a terrific show, his final show.”

“But that’s not all.”

“Why couldn’t that be all?”

“Because if that was all he wanted he wouldn’t have gone to so much trouble to get you. He wouldn’t have frightened you the way he did with that frog thing, and he wouldn’t have followed you around and created all this mystery about who he was and where he was. He would have just come out and asked you.”

“He’s a magician, a great magician. He doesn’t do anything in a straightforward way.”

“Well, that’s just my point, isn’t it? And also, if he didn’t want something else, something besides this big show, why would he take you completely away from your friends, why would he forbid you to see anyone?”

“I made that choice, Emily. He told me it would be best, as part of my training, to be completely isolated, so I can concentrate all my energy…”

“Does he know you’re here now?” she interrupted.

“No.”

“Are you going to tell him?”

Michael fell silent. He was angry, he knew, too angry to speak. But he was also silent because he didn’t know the answer to the question. He tried to imagine telling the master, in some offhand way, “Well, I had breakfast with Emily this morning,” but he couldn’t really picture it, it would be too awkward.

Emily set her coffee cup so roughly into the saucer that it made a sharp rapping sound that startled Michael and caused him to shudder. Emily was staring at him grimly. “You look a whole lot like a married man to me,” she said. “And I’m starting to feel like the other woman.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he replied sharply.

“You have to sneak off to see me, can’t say where you’ve been when you go home.” She got up from the table, pushing her chair back, taking up her dishes as she went. “What’s the difference?” she concluded.

“You just have to be a little patient,” Michael protested. “It won’t be forever. I think what I’m doing is important.”

“And when will it end, Michael?” she said, her back to him as she lowered the dishes into the sink. Then she turned again and faced him. “And how will it end, how will you know?”

“I’ll be a great magician,” he said. “That’s how I’ll know. And you’ll know too, when you see me.”

She shook her head. “You’ll be as devious and deceitful as that old man. That’s what I’ll see. That's what you want.”

Michael dropped his head into his hands. “I’m ambitious,” he said. “I have a gift, I want to use it. I’ve found a magnificent teacher who can show me how to use it. How can I not take advantage of that? I’d be crazy not to try. Why can’t you understand that, Emily?”

Emily leaned against the sink, looking down at him; an expression that combined sympathy and irritation furrowed her brow. “If I had a teacher who told me I couldn’t see you, Michael,” she said evenly, “I’d give up music.”

Michael sighed. “It’s not the same, Em,” he said. “It’s just not the same.”

“I think you’d better go,” she said. Michael roused himself. He felt extraordinarily tired, confused and depressed. “I will,” he said. “You’re right. But promise me one thing, would you?”

“What is it?” she said.

“Promise me you’ll come see me at Sami’s party on Halloween. Come and see me and then tell me if you think I’m wasting my time.” He got to his feet slowly—like an old man already, he thought—and followed Emily to the door.

“I promise,” she said. “I’ll be there. But you promise me you’ll think about what I’ve said.”

“I will,” Michael agreed.

“Get some rest,” she said, easing him out the door. She kissed his cheek briefly. She wants to get rid of me, Michael thought. “You look terrible,” she said, and with that she closed the door, and Michael turned his steps toward his new life, the one he knew, more and more, he’d had no choice but to enter.

On his trip back downtown from Emily’s, Michael wrestled with his feelings and finally subdued them into a manageable sense of annoyance accompanied by a mild headache and the reiterated conclusion that Emily simply didn’t, couldn’t understand. Her remark about his resemblance to a married man had stung him, and his thoughts returned to it, as one’s tongue will seek out repeatedly an aching tooth, accepting increased irritation in exchange for the satisfaction of probing. Finally, as he came up out of the subway to the busy, crowded sidewalk, he dismissed the matter entirely. If by married she meant committed, she was right, and why shouldn’t he be? No one got to be the best at anything without putting ordinary life on hold now and then. If Emily were offered a year-long tour of performances, she’d be off like a shot, and he would encourage her to go, though it would mean a long separation. She was being selfish, and narrow, but in time she would see he was right. As he turned the last corner near the coffee shop, exhilarated by his vision of vindication, he nearly collided with the master, returning at 8:30
A.M.
from who knew where.

“It’s a pleasant morning to be out and about,” the master said. “But I think you should begin your working day with a cup of Lena’s coffee. Come with me.” Michael nodded; work was exactly what he wanted. Eagerly he followed the master, across the street and up the narrow stairs.