The Magician's Lie (12 page)

I agreed to come, accepting the ticket she handed me. And I tucked the money into my blouse. So whatever ended up happening, I'd come out ahead, just a little.

***

The next night, I was delayed by some minor tragedy of Clara's and then by a slow streetcar, and in the end, I was almost half an hour late for the show. I hoped I wasn't missing the whole thing. Still I paused when I saw the majestic bulk of the Opera House. It was a tall, yellow brick box with square corners and a triangular peak on top, crowned with a rosette window. Its color stood out clearly among the darker bricks of the other buildings nearby. I scurried around the side and in at the nearest door, handing my ticket to a grim-faced usher. I entered the back of an enormous auditorium, rows and rows and rows of seats stretching out toward a stage.

Adelaide Herrmann was onstage, I could see in the first instant, and she would have commanded attention even if she hadn't been facing a sea of guns. Her robes were almost Oriental, but not adorned. Behind her, a series of great Greek columns rose, white on white, and had something less amazing been happening in front of them, they would have been enough to stare at. But there was this woman. And from the apron of the stage, a firing squad faced her, guns at their shoulders.

I stared in dumb fascination at first. I simply couldn't grasp what was happening. And then, I could.

She was a great, grand woman facing down a crowd of men with their guns pointed toward her heart, and as I watched, one man stepped forward and pulled back the trigger of his rifle, and I couldn't help myself—I shouted “No!”—but no one even turned to look at me, and when I heard the loud report of the gun crack through the silent air, I closed my eyes and prayed to God for a miracle.

I still had my eyes closed when the thunderous noise began. I grabbed immediately for the door frame, thinking perhaps it was an earthquake, since I'd never seen or heard one, and you can't understand a new thing until you've had the experience of it. But the noise was not an earthquake, nor an explosion, nor a steam engine.

It was applause.

I'd heard applause, but not from the back of a room this large, so full, so strong. I realized that not only were the seats on this level full to capacity, but I could hear a whole crowd in the balconies above me, clapping their hands together in a waterfall of dozens, hundreds, of individual acts of praise. The firing squad had laid down their guns, except the dumbfounded man who had stepped forward to fire, and the statuesque woman stood there before them. She looked unharmed. She extended her fist toward the audience, turned it so her fingers were facing up, and uncurled them like the petals of a flower.

I was too far away to see, but I knew from the presentation what she was showing them: the bullet.

The crowd around and above me leapt to their feet, applauding even more wildly. The applause surged and echoed around the high walls and ceiling of the enormous Opera House, and whatever thrill I'd felt from applause before was like a pale shadow of this new, powerful, crackling energy, and I never wanted it to end.

***

She was still signing autographs by the stage door when I found her a half hour later, and I waited a half hour after that until she'd finished. I couldn't help thinking she was moving quickly for someone who'd been shot. There wasn't a spot of blood or gunpowder anywhere on her pale robes. I wondered what the secret of the act was. What if she could actually do magic? Did she have some power that allowed her to snatch a fast-moving bullet out of the air? If there was a trick to it, I certainly couldn't guess what it was. All I could do was be amazed.

Once the last stragglers were gone, I stepped up to her and said, “That was amazing, Madame Herrmann.”

“Wasn't it though?” she said, and from a fold of her elegant robes, produced her pipe. “Adelaide Herrmann, Queen of Magic, first successful performer of the bullet catch in America. Though she is not American. As I'm sure the papers will say. Which is acceptable. As long as they say something, and in large type.”

“I have some questions,” I said to her.

“I have some answers. Let's get a drink.”

We sat at the tavern for hours, and she answered my questions, every last one. Although she had come to New York City for the bullet catch and sometimes performed here, her magic show was not based in the city. They traveled by train on the vaudeville circuits. She was the star of her show, as she should be, but she used a team of assistants in her various illusions, and they were one short at the moment. A young person with a good amount of talent and a willingness to work hard could find success with the Great Madame Herrmann's show. Her voice was wistful as she told me that she herself loved the stage and was never happier than when she stood in front of a thunderstruck crowd, performing. And in her words, I heard the echo of that amazing, all-embracing storm of applause, and I knew I was ready to sign on for the adventure. She was offering me another audience, and I was hungry for it. The promised salary of fifteen dollars a week instead of ten-and-change didn't hurt either. And with bed and board provided—even if that room was on a moving train, it was still no cost to me—I'd have far more of that salary to keep.

And still in the back of my mind, the fear of Ray was there, logical or no, and if by chance he came to look for me in New York, he would never find me. I would be on the move constantly. What better way to be invisible than to never be still?

When the light began to touch the sky outside, she said, “Settled then. We're off to the station.”

“Now?”

“Now.”

“My things are back at the rooming house,” I said. “I need to go pack them up.”

“Ah, no need,” she said. “I'll send a boy to take care of it. He'll get your things. The address, write it down.”

I did as she said, printing in careful letters. I wasn't used to having other people do things for me, but as it turned out, I got used to that quickly enough.

1897–1898

The Dancing Odalisque

My entire life changed immediately, which actually made the change easier. I simply had to let go of everything I knew and welcome whatever came my way. I learned to brace myself while sleeping on a swaying train so I wouldn't roll off the mattress, change my dress in a roomful of other women without exposing my private flesh, and wash my entire body in under five minutes in bathwater I was neither the first nor the last to use that evening. I learned to study the schedule in advance and find out which nights were one-night stands in small towns instead of longer engagements in larger ones, since the food was often better in the small towns but we were threatened with being left behind if we took too long over dinner. The train pulled out when the train pulled out, and Madame Herrmann wouldn't wait on anyone. When we left a male assistant named Billy behind in Oconomowoc one night, Madame reminded the assembled company that she was our boss, not a friend or sister or confessor or nursemaid, and above all, she was a woman of her word. I heard enough to know that her warmth upon meeting me was not characteristic. Those who crossed or disappointed her could expect anything from a shout to a slap or some of each. I resolved to do nothing to provoke her.

As for the job itself, learning the ropes on Adelaide Herrmann's traveling show was nothing much like either of my previous positions. Neither the discipline nor the routine were as strict as they had been at Biltmore. There was little in the way of training; we were expected to figure things out on our own. And while I remembered a friendly atmosphere backstage on
The
Belle
of
New
York
, here I received only a chilly reception from my fellow dancers. The girls' railcar was divided into sleeping berths, four beds lining two walls, and mine was shared with three girls named Scarlett, Marie, and Belladonna. When I had little luck with them from the first, I analyzed my behavior to try to figure out what I'd done. Had I been unkind? Too haughty? I couldn't remember having done anything to offend. Then one night when Marie was in her cups, she told me flat out: with one of the four bunks empty, a girl could enjoy some small measure of privacy when male visitors came calling, knowing no girl was trying to sleep either above or below. When I moved in to occupy the fourth bunk, I'd ruined everything. I had no urge to bed down with men in the company just for the sake of it, and even if I had, I wouldn't have confided it to these girls, so we had no common ground for conversation. What free time I had I often spent with a book, but these three were hardly readers. It turned out the dancer I was replacing had been forced to leave the tour because she was in the family way. I'd have been much more shocked by that news if I'd learned it earlier.

When I joined the Great Madame Herrmann's show, they were midway through a circuit around the Middle West. It was still possible to book a single act into a theater individually, but many theater owners had allied with each other to form circuits, so that a set roster of acts would tour together, making the booking process easier on all participants. A season might consist of many circuits or only one. Ours would be many, assuming this first circuit went well enough for us to book the next. We went as far east as Muncie and as far west as Wichita, with many stops in between—the Majestic in Dubuque, Turner Hall in Galena, the Creighton in Omaha, and many more. We crossed our fingers against the snowstorms, having heard plenty of sad tales of trains marooned by bad weather on this circuit, but our luck seemed to hold, and we performed all our shows on schedule. The foolhardy but resourceful Billy, who we'd left behind in Oconomowoc, caught up with us three days later in Davenport and went onstage that night without fanfare. It took more than such a mundane disappearance and reappearance to make an impression in our remarkable world.

The illusion Madame hired me for, and the only one I performed during my first month with the company, was the Dancing Odalisque. It was one of the simplest illusions in the act. The set gave the suggestion of a painter's studio, with easels and paint pots scattered about and a trompe l'oeil window of streaming “daylight” positioned upstage right. I was wheeled out in an enormous picture frame and appeared to be a painted girl coming to life as a real one. The secret was that it was never a painting. It was always me. What looked like canvas was a trick of the light. So all I needed to do for the first sixteen bars of the music was remain perfectly still as I was wheeled out. The seventeenth bar was my cue to extend my arm and begin the slow, gradual awakening of my dance. The steps themselves didn't matter, she had assured me, as long as the dance took up the right amount of time. At the end of my piece of music, I returned to the picture frame and settled into the same position I'd held on my entrance, and Madame Herrmann strolled out in a painter's smock, clouds of sweet incense hovering low around her feet, and gestured to “turn me back” into the painting. I remained stone still, barely daring to breathe. She rested one hand on the edge of the frame and wheeled it offstage—with some help from an invisible stagehand who had snuck onstage under cover of incense—and we left the stage empty as the music shifted to a light, lilting melody setting the tone for the next illusion.

The Great Madame Herrmann's show, and the entire rail-bound enterprise supporting it, seemed huge to me. Besides the dancers and assistants who appeared onstage, there were a dozen others who worked behind the scenes. Six men were required to manage the props, setting up and breaking down. In addition, there were specialists like Jeannie, who sewed and repaired our costumes, and Hector, who looked after the animals. There were two dozen humans and two dozen animals in our entourage, including a full-grown Bengal tiger that seemed to regard me about as favorably as Scarlett, Marie, and Belladonna did, with even less provocation.

This all seemed like the largest possible company to me, but I was quickly informed that the company had been much larger six months earlier, when Madame's husband Alexander had been in charge. He was a very well-known magician, a proven draw, performing a two-and-a-half-hour program booked into theaters as a solo act. But his health had begun to decline, and he'd decided—possibly on the advice of Adelaide, who was not only his wife but his assistant—to book into a vaudeville tour. The money was good, the demands less onerous, and the tickets practically sold themselves. In October, he booked into a six-month circuit. In December, he died. And it was that circuit we were now completing, his wife having picked up where he left off as best she could. Her employees might not love her, but she provided a good living and had a good hand at keeping the wolf from the door.

Jeannie was the one who told me Alexander's story. She was an excellent source of information and the closest thing I had to a friend. After more than a year spent in either Biltmore uniform or Broadway chorus garb, there was something I found irresistible about the variety of fabrics and embellishments at our disposal, and I couldn't resist stealing a few moments in the costume closet here and there. We fell to chatting, and she invited me back whenever I liked. Jeannie was a short woman, and her voice was low and raspy like a man's, but her body swelled as generously above and below as the native fertility figures on the shelves of Mr. Vanderbilt's smoking room, the ones we'd only given the most perfunctory dusting. She'd been sewing her own clothing since she was a child in Abilene and had taken in whatever fancy work was needed there, of which there wasn't much. But her talents were in great demand at the local theater, where Madame, on tour, discovered and claimed her. Jeannie worked her own sort of magic on torn skirts and sleeves, making things good as new or even better. Her needle absolutely danced. There wasn't a gown she couldn't improve, expertly spangling a bodice or whip-stitching rows of lace to a skirt even as she kept up a steady stream of patter. I loved to listen.

Adelaide's costumes commanded attention without being immodest. Her Oriental robes showed her shape at the waist but were otherwise wide and flowing. On a typical night, she might change her gown three times, and each was a marvel. A soft underrobe of thin cambric was overlaid with a heavily embroidered satin piece that extended all the way to the floor in front and back, meticulously worked with Kelly-green birds and beaded gold branches. For an illusion where she was to play the lady at home, Madame wore a tea gown with frills at the collar and cuffs and pronounced leg o' mutton sleeves, the height of fashion for such a character. Her most elaborate gown was for her Cleopatra. This had a bodice so laden with stones and beads that it easily weighed twenty pounds atop a gauzy skirt and train, with long swinging chains of beads that dangled from the waist and bounced merrily whenever she moved. Jeannie was responsible for keeping all of these neat and tidy, as well as sewing new costumes whenever Madame thought it necessary and extending the same attention to the dancers' and assistants' costumes. It was also Jeannie's responsibility to secure the fresh flowers Madame wore in her hair every night, a circlet of gold with a small cluster of white blossoms on each temple. We had fake flowers for contingencies, but Adelaide hated them, and on nights Jeannie couldn't find fresh flowers, we all held our breath just a little bit through the whole performance.

As for the rest of us, the dancers and assistants, our skirts only reached our knees. Our arms were bare from the elbow. The costumes were modest by the standards of the Broadway theaters, but they would have shocked the stuffing out of Mrs. Severson. I had a sudden urge to write her a picture postcard and show her where I'd gone but instantly thought better of it. Let the past be the past, I told myself. Magic was where I had a future.

But the thought stirred something else within me, and I needed to settle it finally. I wrote a plain note on plain paper and posted it from Chicago. I didn't sign it. It said simply,
I
am
well
. Whether my mother saw it or not I couldn't say, but it helped, knowing I had made the attempt.

Then I threw myself into the future. The time that the other seven dancing girls spent figuring out how to divide up only four eligible boys between them, I spent learning. I watched the entire show, all through, every night, choosing a different angle from one night to the next. Unlike my experience on Broadway, where I was on and off the stage constantly for the whole show's two-hour duration, I had time before and after my appearance in the Dancing Odalisque to spare. Madame Herrmann was often the headliner, but because there were plenty of other acts on the bill and an audience still in their seats, we couldn't load up our sets and equipment and be on our way until the entire evening's entertainment was finished. When our part of the show was over and the other dancers crowded into the wings to watch Miss Ella's Comedy Joy or the Singing Gardini Sisters, or made themselves scarce for other, lustier purposes, I picked our show's illusions apart one at a time.

The Dove Pan was a shallow silver dish with a lid that could be used to produce anything the size of two fists or smaller. It got its name, of course, from hiding doves. Adelaide used it to produce a sweetly singing finch. It was an easy matter for me to find the pan's false bottom and to realize that from then on, the audience never saw what they thought they saw.

Slightly more challenging was the Light and Heavy Chest, a trunk that couldn't be raised from the stage by any number of people in the audience but that Adelaide herself could lift one-handed with no visible strain. I examined the trunk many times from all angles, inside and out, and found only one clue: the top and sides of the chest were ornately carved, expensive wood, but its bottom was made of bare, flat steel. I shadowed the prop master for two weeks, trying to ferret out the secret. It was the night we didn't perform the illusion that gave the game away—I asked why, and he muttered that there was no space under the stage. At the next theater, I snuck under the stage during that portion of the act, finding a large metal box with a switch on the side installed on the underside of the floorboards, with an assistant there to operate the switch at the right moment. When Adelaide cued the assistant with two sharp stomps of her foot, he flipped the switch and the box hummed with electricity. Moments after came the roar of the crowd. Of course. Activated, the electromagnet held the wooden chest directly above it in place, and no one short of God could have pried the metal bottom of the chest away.

And yet this knowledge did nothing to disrupt my enjoyment of the show. Even when I discovered the secret behind the illusion I loved most, it ruined nothing. From the beginning, I had been transfixed by the illusion Lady to Tiger. It was a simple, impossible thing, where Madame magicked a large empty cage into existence on the stage, strode purposefully into it, and then reached outside the bars to draw a set of curtains closed. When only moments later an assistant drew the curtains aside, Madame was gone—and a large, roaring tiger was there in her place. I never volunteered to be the assistant in this act. I was extremely concerned about losing a finger, or worse, to the tiger. But I wanted to know what the secret was, so I watched every night and scrutinized every aspect of the illusion until I figured it out.

By looking closely, I could tell that the back of the cage was solid when Madame walked into it and the base of the cage was a raised platform about half a foot off the stage floor. There had to be a reason for both. I guessed that there were two hidden compartments: one in the back to hide the tiger before its appearance, and one in the floor to hide Madame after hers. I was certain of it and confirmed it with the prop master one night outside Lancaster. He outwardly grumbled that I was too inquisitive for my own good, but he gave me that look like Mrs. Severson had given me when I'd done something impressive, so I paid little attention to his grumbling. And even after I figured out the secret of Lady to Tiger, I continued to watch it every night just as avidly. I knew that Madame was not the tiger, that the tiger existed separately as a real flesh-and-blood animal at all times, but I still believed somehow. In that moment where the switch was made, I was seeing a woman transformed.