The Lesson (10 page)

It took Stan only a moment after his mother was gone to burst out with enormous news. He virtually leapt out of his shoes.

—Loring! he said. Look at this!

He had a rolled-up handbill. It advertised:

MENDUUS,

IMPRESARIO and TECHNICIAN of the IMPOSSIBLE

daily shows at the hour of 3

admittance denied upon whim

otherwise all admitted freely

cost paid for by G.I.F.P.A.

Kenstock Theatre, Kenstock & Gravil Mews, Kenstock Township

—Well, said Loring. Well, well.

—What is the GIFPA? asked Stan. And can we go?

—The Government Initiative for the Performing Arts. Kenstock, eh?

Loring looked at Stan.

—It's Menduus, he said. The magician you told me about! I told my sister and she found this—he
is
still giving shows. Will you take me there?

—Yes, said Loring, I don't see why not. But, how would we get there?

This she mused to herself.

She went into the hall and fetched the schedule.

—There is a bus, she said, in fifteen minutes that will bring us well in time. The bus returns at five. Your mother will be here at five. Some excuse must be posted on the door to say we will be late returning. But late from where?

They thought in silence.

—But, said Stan. Why say anything? She might not care.

—You're right, said Loring. It might not even occur to her to ask where we have been.

And that settled the question. Thus, next:

The Preparations for Traveling by Bus and the Seeing of a Magician in the Next Town.

Loring had a slip of paper in her pocket. It read:

You will observe the boy at the theater and record his reactions. You will ask him questions. You will learn if it is all a vile trick.

All night she had been troubled by this: might it all be a vile trick.

She had another note. That one said:

My dear love,

I am terrified all the time, but can't say why. Where before you might solve this with nearness—just the quality of being near—now there is no solution. I am an old woman writing herself notes about fear, but there is no solution. Although this is true, it is also a glowingly bright day. I have a pile of letters that I am sending as a sort of joke. This invigorates me. Shouldn't one laugh in the teeth of Thursdays and such other ignoble fools? I am writing this on a spool of thread—on a thread that I have drawn out from a spool. It will not bear reading. Yes, this all written on a piece of thread. It was an old gesture, invented by a woman named Marla Jone. She was a colonist in Massachusetts and died of the cold in her farmhouse. These were Loring's thoughts about the thread technique. She admired Marla Jone quite frankly.

The bus trip went as follows:

Loring paid for the bus. It cost almost nothing. Stan got in first. They thought it would be less suspicious that way. He went and found a seat. She got on, paid, and sat beside him. He was by a window, halfway to the back.

And who else was on the bus? Why no one at all of note. A cadre of total nothings. Forgettable. They said things like:

—Oh my

and

—The weather…x.

also

—We mustn't forget to…when we get there.

Yes, darling, I think to myself when I hear such things. You will never get where you are going. How sure you are to perish on the way. And I, presiding over it all. We mustn't give them faces.

The bus snaked through the most beautiful green country anyone had ever seen. Sheep dotted the heather, congregating in groups, teaching one another the behavior of stones, only occasionally, idiotically running all at once for fifty paces or so and then stopping stock still once more.

Ahead came a wall, yes, a town wall, even this was given them. Through it the road went and the bus, and they were on cobblestones. The bus careened to a halt.

—Goodbye, Stan told the driver.

—I come through right at five, he said. Tug that sign down if you're here. Then I'm sure to see you.

Away then, the bus.

There was a sign with a rope which when tugged a portion would drop down.

—Not yet, said Loring.

Stan took his hand off the rope.

The bus trip was like a passage along a zoetrope. The landscape repeated itself, beautifully, excruciatingly. The world spins and we pass on! First a set of trees, a house with candles in a high window. A hedge. A bright-yellow painted sign with solid-black lettering. Men walking together, carrying burlap sacks. One is driving the others. A church spire, distant across hills. The edge of a lake, obscured by bushes. The entrance to some vast estate—lovely shadows lurking along paths and the long marble approach. Then, a set of trees, a house with a candle. A hedge. A bright-yellow sign. Men walking together, driven on. Church spires, lakes, entrances to other realms!

A sort of rain began to fall and then was done. It must have been a passage rain, thought Loring, rain that comes when one crosses thresholds, valued in Roman times, but since in disrepute, for NOW they were upon that longed for thing: THE VILLAGE OF KENSTOCK.

or almost. The alley on which they were walking went between two churches. KENSTOCK MEWS was its name. Soon the churches were gone and the backs of houses arched to the left and right. Stone walls high and burdened, abounded. Weeds, cats, stones, glass, the sound of things dripping. Something churchlike loomed again, except this building FACED THE ALLEY.

A man in a scarlet uniform stood on the magnificent steps.

—I will let you in, he said, but you must hurry. In your case, one ticket will be enough if you promise to take no more between you than one person can carry.

—Of what we see?

—Yes, of what you see.

—Tell him we agree, said Stan.

—We agree, said Loring.

She paid the man and he stamped both his feet, one, TWO.

The door swung open from within.

—It must have been a church, too, at one point, said Loring.

—How come?

—Well, look at the pews. And that's the place where the altar would have been.

It would have been a small church, if a church it had been, perhaps some Quaker meetinghouse of sorts. There was room for perhaps fifty people, certainly not many more. In fact, at that moment, the place was empty.

—Take your seats, take your seats, murmured the doorman.

Somehow, he had come up behind them.

Loring and Stan sat in the first row, facing an empty stage. Behind the stage was a large window of painted glass on which many birds had suddenly alighted from the grass of a field.

A bell rang, then, and the show began.

—Menduus, said the man, who was suddenly sitting beside them, has played for the audiences of every great city. His deeds are a part of the unfailing lore of magicians. He is an old man, a very old man. Why then does he let this theater, why then does he print up bulletins, why then does he decide: I will again perform, for one season, and most often to an empty room.

Loring and Stan dared not reply. The man went on, rising and walking up the steps onto the stage.

—Because, I have come up with a new effect, and I was given the choice therefore, by my having come up with it, to either gift it to another magician, who would thereby make his name, or to enact it myself. I chose the latter. Now, I must tell you, I do not always attempt the effect. During some performances, it proves impossible. Then I must be rescued.

Menduus gestured to his left. There the doorman stood to the right of the stage, holding an enormous pair of scissors.

—You see.

Menduus gestured again, and the doorman began to crank a long box. A brass band struck up its tune from within the box, mechanically bidden. Bellows heaved, horns blew, a drum beat. When the din had subsided, Menduus bowed.

—There will be, he said, only one feat today.

He pulled a lever in the wall, and section of the ceiling opened. A gallows descended and took up the entire stage. I am going to be hanged by the neck until I am unconscious. Then, I will free myself with the aid of birds and music. At the end of the performance, I will remain alive.

He snapped his fingers.

The doorman hurried over and handed Loring and Stan a couple handbills.

They read:

—First, said Menduus, I am going to meditate. My assistant will tie my hands at some point, and the show will begin in truth.

He sat down on the stage with his back to them. The import of his costume was suddenly clear—it was the garb of a convict. The assistant had donned executioner's robes. The lights dimmed.

Stan grabbed Loring's hand.

—I am so excited, he said. Do you think he will do it?

—I haven't the slightest idea, said Loring, what on earth will happen.

She looked down at Stan and thought, wrap your arms tightly around yourself and rock back and forth. Do this the whole performance.

Stan, beside her, he wrapped his arms around himself. He began to rock back forth.

The bell rang again. The executioner dragged Menduus to his feet, and pulled him up the stairs of the gallows. At the top, they reached the rope, which lay flat on the trapdoor. The executioner bound Menduus's hands behind his back with a smaller rope. He lifted the noose and set it around the old man's neck, then tightened it until it stood on its own, stiff in a line, back and up towards the window.

He stepped away from Menduus, who stood with eyes shut, muttering to himself.

—He isn't ready, said Stan. He doesn't look ready.

The executioner knelt and took hold of the trapdoor switch. He looked to Menduus, then out into the audience.

—It is earned and it is given, he intoned, and he pulled the switch.

Out dropped the floor, down fell Menduus. The rope jerked tight, and he hung there, hanged, before them, feet jerking back and forth, body taut as a rictus grin. A spasm of the body, another, and then it was still.

One moment, then another.

Stan gasped. He was crying. He was holding his body with his arms and rocking back and forth, and crying.

Loring could scarcely look at him. Her eyes were on the stage.

For of a sudden, the hanged man's arms had come unbound. His arms came around, one from the left and one from the right, and in his right hand he held a flute.

He hung by the rope and with the flute he began to play. It was a light melody, a song of fields and dew, of starlight—something like the bubbling of a creek, or the patter of rain. The song swelled, and it was darker now, more insistent. The color was that of courts, of troubadors. He was calling now. What was he calling for?

A fluttering of wings behind them. A powerful stirring of wings, and then two birds, overhead. They circled the room, they circled the room and they dove. Between them was a line of metal, a wire of sorts. It was razor sharp and they dove, holding it between them, they dove beneath the gallows, one on each side of Menduus, and severed the hanging rope.

The magician dropped to the ground, landing nimbly on his feet. He blew a last salute to the pair, who disappeared into the darkness, and bowed to his awestruck audience.

Loring jumped to her feet, and Stan as well. They were both clapping and clapping. Loring called out,

—You are a prince among men!

—I have been told that, said Menduus, bowing once more.

He called his assistant on stage, and they bowed together. Then he went away and out a door in the back. The assistant stood watching them.

—It's over, he said. You can go. But you mustn't speak of it.

—Oh, I won't, said Loring.

—I didn't mean you.

—I know, said Stan. Not a word.

The assistant let them out the front door, which was much nearer the bus station. It was only four-thirty, but the bus was already waiting for them.

—I was about to leave, said the driver, but then I saw you coming.

Loring sat with a cup of tea and her head in her hands, drinking in this one thing: her eyes sidelong seeing the boy rocking, with knit cap and brown quilted coat. It was so nearly there. She could so nearly feel Ezra's life in the boy. But it flickered. It was there and gone. A lilt to a particular vowel, an angle to the face. She counted on her hands all the things she longed for, and there was simply one. One thing—to have the freshness of that first encounter once again when she had seen him in the boy.

—I will see you again, she said to herself. I know I will.

was to give Stan some sheets of paper on which she'd written things Ezra had said. Read these, she said, if you would be like him. These are the sorts of things he would say. And here is how he would say them. She had set him up on the floor and show him how he would stand. This is how he would stand, she had said. This is where he would like while he spoke. I will see you in a week, she said. In a week, we will have our next visit.