Saving Houdini

by Michael Redhill

  BLUMETHAL AND WOLFGANG

  Performers of the Mysterious

  Exclusive Photoplay

  “CHARMING” MISS MARY MILES IN

  HER WINNING WAY

  8pm, 25¢ Admission all seats

  Suddenly his hands were tingling. Blumenthal?

  BLUMENTHAL!

  Tonight.

  But where was he going to get a quarter? One he could actually use in 1926?

  7

  Late on a fall afternoon in the distant past, Dashiel Woolf sat in his empty bedroom and stared at the wall. If school worked here as it did in his own time, Walt would be getting out around now. Then he’d see if his new “friend” would bring him so much as a banana.

  At around what must have been four o’clock, Dash at last heard the door downstairs creak open. He went to the top of the stairs and was about to call down when he heard the voice of a woman. She was saying,

  “… and enter into the gracious front hall, with rooms arranged in spokes around it …”

  Dash flattened himself to the wall. He listened to at least three people moving beneath him.

  “Dining room—certainly you could fit a table and have service for eight around it”—ten, thought Dash—“and here is a door that communicates directly with the kitchen behind, which”—she paused for effect—”is a beautiful, modern kitchen with a brand new four-compartment Bohn icebox …”

  “Ooh,” said a voice. “I like it, Mummy! Is this our house?”

  “Now, dear, Daddy and I are looking at a lot of—”

  Dash crept back into his bedroom and closed the door quietly. He was sure his thudding heart could be heard from downstairs. He had to get out of there, but he’d break his legs if he jumped from the second floor. Maybe there was grass. He stole a glance out the window. No, no. What was he, barmy? Maybe he could run out the front door while the family was busy in another part of the house. He opened the bedroom door again, but they were coming up the stairs! He saw their long shadows stroking upwards against the curving wall beside the steps. The girl was a lot younger than he, probably three, and her long black hair fell to either side of her neck in pigtails. He went back into the room and stood with his fist on the doorknob.

  “Three bedrooms,” said the agent. “One for the two of you, one for Adele, and one for whoever is coming next!” There was warm laughter.

  He backed up toward the window and tried to lift the inner pane. Maybe he could climb onto the roof and wait. And what if he fell off the roof? Now they were in the hallway.

  “Which is my room, Mummy?” came the girl’s voice.

  “Let’s go look first at the master,” said a male voice, friendly and stern all at once. They walked by the door.

  Dash scooped up all of his belongings and threw them into the closet. They lay there as plain as anything but there was nowhere else to put them. And then he realized he had nowhere to put himself either, so he got into the closet too.

  “This could easily be Adele’s room,” said the agent, entering. “With a desk under the window, and her bed right here in the corner.”

  “Oh, it’s lovely, Trevor. Don’t you like it?”

  “Very roomy. What is the asking, again?”

  “Sixty-two.”

  “Wow. That’s a lot of money,” the father said. There was a brief silence and Dash heard them move closer to the other side of the closet door. Trevor spoke quietly. “I thought we were going to try to keep it under fifty-five, Lois.”

  “Do you know what this house will be worth one day?” said Lois. “You won’t think twice of spending sixty-two hundred dollars when we sell it for twenty thousand.”

  “When’s that? Two thousand and six? When we’re a hundred?”

  He moved away. Dash heard the lady sigh. Then they all followed the agent back into the hallway, and she was saying, “Perhaps it will go for less, but I doubt it. I heard of a house on Logan that went for seven thousand.”

  And then he was alone again. He’d been breathing so shallowly he was beginning to feel light-headed. It was getting hot in the closet. He pushed the door open a hair. He felt the cool, fresh air rush in. He opened it another crack, half an inch. Then he saw the shoe. The little, black polished shoe. Just the side of it.

  “Are you bad?”

  The girl was standing in the middle of the room, holding the head of a doll in her hand. She was turning it thoughtfully. “No,” he said. “Are you?”

  “Mama and Papa are buying a house. This isn’t your house.”

  “I’m just here for a couple of minutes,” he said.

  She fixed her huge brown eyes on his. She wasn’t half as scared as he was. With a look of serious consideration on her face, she began twisting her upper half to the left and right. “Do you live in there?”

  “Um, yeah. For now.”

  “Where do you make tinkle?”

  “I think I hear your mum calling you.”

  She left the bedroom. He heard her voice out in the hall. “There’s a boy in that room!” she called out gaily, and everyone ignored her. Then their voices faded as they all went back downstairs to the main floor, and out into the front garden.

  Dash breathed slowly. The voices rose around the side of the house. He came out of the closet and warily looked out the window. The agent—a lady in a shiny black fur coat—led the family into the backyard. The mother was very pregnant and she held Adele’s hand. The father, it seemed, was no longer interested in the property. He smoked a cigarette and walked behind them with a distracted manner. As they passed out of his view, the girl turned around and looked at him through the glass.

  Then he heard footsteps clomping back up the staircase and he lunged for the closet again.

  “Kid? Are you still in here?”

  Walter.

  “First bedroom at the top of—”

  “Come on,” Walter said, appearing in the doorway, “better getcher stuff before they come back round the front!” He spotted the clothes on the closet floor and grabbed them.

  Dash ran out to join Walter in the hallway and he stood at the top of the stairs.

  “What made you change your—?”

  “I brought you an apple, some bread, and two boiled eggs. That’s all I could get out of—”

  “Oh god, can I have it please?”

  It must have been the look on Dash’s face that caused Walt to stop right there and get the food out. Dash ate the apple in about three bites.

  “Jeepers,” said Walt. “Don’t give yourself a tummy ache.” The voices were coming around the front again. “Is there a back door to this place?”

  Dash gestured with his head and the two boys continued down the stairs. “To your left!” He passed Walter to lead him through the kitchen and toward the mudroom. The possible future-owners of 94 Victor Avenue had come into the foyer, and Dash threw the back door open just as the agent came back through the front door. Walter and Dash snuck into the backyard and hid behind a chestnut tree. They craned their necks around either side of the tree and watched the house.

  After a minute, Walter retreated out of sight and beckoned Dash to join him. “That girl saw me,” Dash said. “She thought I was a ghost.”

  “As good a guess as any.” Walter was staring at him. It was hard to read his expression. He said, “Show me the trick.”

  “What trick?”

  “The one you showed my sister.”

  Dash got a quarter out of his pocket. He let Walt see it before he put it into his palm. Then he waved his hand over it—“Once, twice …”

  Walter grabbed Dash’s hand, the one that was doing all the waving. The coin was still in his palm. Walter stared at it. Then, still holding Dash’s wrist tightly, he looked up into his eyes. “I’m not your friend, you know.”

  “Fine,” said Dash.

  “I don’t have to do anything for you.”

  “I know.”

  “Finish it.”

  Dash waved his hand over the coin for a third time, and i
t was gone.

  “Again,” said Walter.

  It took him a while to get the whole technique, but by the time Dash was finished showing him (for a fifth time), Walter could do it fitfully. It wasn’t smooth or convincing, but he seemed to have the basic mechanics.

  “It takes practice,” Dash reassured him.

  Walt shrugged. The agent and her clients were gone now and the house was quiet. Dash led Walter back in and took him through to the foyer.

  “This is the front hall,” Dash said. “There’s a table here.” He held his hand about three feet off the floor, laying it on top of the phantom table. “This room is the dining room, but usually we eat in the kitchen. My mum bought a chandelier made out of antique chef’s knives. It’s nicer than it sounds. My dad calls it the Chandelier of Death by a Thousand Cuts.”

  “Do you really see a table and chairs?” Walter asked, squinting suspiciously with his left eye.

  “No,” he said. “There’s nothing here. This is an empty room.”

  “This is an empty house …”

  “I know. But I will live here one day. This is the only house I’ve ever lived in.” He went down the hall. Walter was watching him very carefully now. “This is the kitchen,” he said. “This is the cereal cupboard. My dad does a lot of the shopping because his hours are more flexible than my mom’s.”

  “Flexible?”

  “She’s a doctor.”

  “Your mother’s a doctor. My uncle’s a doctor.”

  “Women can be doctors, Walter.”

  “I know that. I’m just saying it’s a coincidence.”

  “Oh,” said Dash.

  “You know, a cold breakfast isn’t good for your digestion. My granny says you have to wake your stomach up gently.”

  “I have cereal and cold milk every day of my life. We have a lot of different kinds at our house. Corn Flakes, Oat Squares, Multigrain Cheerios, Fibre Plus, Oat Clusters, and Count Chocula on the weekends.”

  “Count—”

  “It’s a chocolate-flavoured cereal.”

  “Of course it is.”

  “It is. There’s a cereal called Froot Loops too, and it’s like strawberry and cherry and orange.”

  “It’s ‘like’ that.”

  “Well, it doesn’t taste the same as actual fruit.”

  “And there really is a chocolate-flavoured cereal?”

  “There is.”

  The two of them were standing in front of the bare cupboard. Walter seemed to be keenly studying its emptiness.

  “Cereal’s here, bottles and cans are here,” Dash said. “Jars with, like, pickles and spaghetti sauce in them. And this is the cracker shelf.”

  “Cracker.”

  “Dry biscuits?”

  “Oh, Hovis and the like.”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard of those. At Chanumas, my parents put them out with cheese.”

  Dash left the kitchen and headed toward the hall stairs. “Chanumas?” said Walter, catching up with him.

  “My dad is Jewish and my mum is Christian. So we celebrate both. You know, Hanukkah and Christmas. We call it Chanumas.”

  Walter narrowed his gaze. “I think you should be careful who you tell these things to.”

  “There’s a lot more than female doctors and mixed-up holidays in my time, Walter. In my time, men can marry each other.”

  Walter laughed heartily. That was a good one. “And that was your bedroom upstairs?”

  Dash led him back to the second floor and into his room. “I have a dresser against this wall, and a blue wooden bookshelf beside the closet there. And on that wall, just across, is another bookshelf. It has all my graphic novels and my adventure books and a complete collection of Guinness World Records going back to 2005, which is when I first got interested in it. Do you know what the record for living on a tightrope is?”

  “Where’s your bed?” said Walter, quietly. He was still standing in the doorway.

  “It’s right there.”

  “That’s where you sleep.”

  “I keep my best hockey cards in a box underneath it.”

  Now Walter walked into the room, cautiously, as if something could spring out. His gait was heavy. Whatever it was about this room, or things Dash had said about his life, Walter Gibson’s face was changing.

  “How did it happen?” Walt asked. “How’d you … end up here?”

  Dash said, “I’d better start from the beginning.”

  Walter Gibson’s brows had beetled downwards and his lower lip was tucked up under his nose. “If even a little bit of that is true,” he said at last, “I don’t know what to think.” He was staring at some spot on the wall.

  It had taken Dash a whole half hour to get through the story. The theatre Walter knew as the Pantages. The boy backstage and the envelope. How he’d been chosen against his will to go onstage, and how he’d ended up here.

  By the point in the story when Dash was encased in the bubble, the two boys were sitting against the wall, side by side, across from the bright window. When the bubble popped, Walt stood up and went to look out.

  “And there was no one there,” Dash said. “No one. No one on the stage, and no one in the audience.”

  “Whaddya do?”

  “I was scared to get off the stage. In case, like, it was part of the trick and I just had to stand still for it. Then some mean guy with a flashlight chased me out and I had to run away. I thought I was dreaming at first. But then I was dreaming about things I’ve never seen, not even in photos—restaurants in houses and newsboys. I saw a cart full of coal!”

  “You’ve never seen coal?”

  “I think that’s what it was. You burn it in a stove, right?”

  “Yeah …”

  “I’d never seen it before.”

  “Well, you’re not dreaming me, I can tell you.”

  “I know.”

  Walt studied him for a moment, his face in shadow in front of the window, his arms crossed over his chest. “What are we supposed to do in Montreal? You ‘n’ me?”

  “I’m not sure yet. But wouldn’t you like to meet Houdini?”

  “I guess so. But I don’t know how you think we’re gonna get there.”

  “Well, I know one other person in Toronto, and I’m thinking maybe he can help us. But I need twenty-five cents.”

  “He a lawyer or something?”

  “No. A magician. Bloom’s grandfather, in fact.”

  “The one who invented the trick.”

  “That’s right. And he’s playing at the Century in a couple of hours. If I can get into the show, I can go talk to him. Can you get me a quarter?”

  “Use one’a yours!”

  “I almost got arrested in a bakery this morning, Walt. I need a quarter from 1926 or earlier.”

  Walt twisted up his face. “I knew you’d ask for money sooner or later.”

  “It’s a quarter.”

  “Well, I don’t have that kind of money.”

  “Can you get it? From home?”

  “My father’ll tan me if I steal from him!”

  “What about your mom? Maybe tell her I’m borrowing it. I’ll pay you back.”

  “With what?”

  “I don’t know. How hard can it be to get a quarter?” Walter looked at him like he was crazy. “Come on, will you help me?”

  Walt furrowed his brow. “Show me the trick one more time.”

  8

  A small crowd had already formed along the sidewalk in front of the Century when Dash arrived at six thirty. Walt had told him that if he could get the money, he’d meet him out front. There was still an hour and a half until the show started, but Dash had been too antsy to sit at “home” staring at the walls.

  People drifted along the sidewalk. Pretty girls in long dresses, men in evening suits. There was even the odd tuxedo.

  He wondered if maybe Blumenthal would come in through the front doors and he could talk to him here, in front of the theatre. Maybe he looked like his grandson and Dash
would recognize him. That would be a lot easier, and if Walt didn’t show with the money—

  But here was the Gibson kid, coming straight at him. Early himself, and with a manic expression on his face. He was way excited. He wore a clean pair of pants, a jacket, and a tie. There was a cloth hat on his head and one in his hand.

  “Here,” he said, handing Dash the hat. “To fit in better.”

  “Did you get the money?”

  “Did I ever!” He opened his fist to show a bunch of shiny coins in his palm. “I know my dad keeps some change in his humidor. There’s almost seventy cents here.”

  “Is he going to miss it?”

  “When he discovers it, he will. But that won’t be tonight.”

  “I don’t want you to get into trouble.”

  “Do you need my help or not?”

  “I need it,” said Dash. “Thank you. That’s cool of you.”

  “Cool?”

  “Nice.”

  Walt smiled. He probably didn’t get called nice all that often.

  “And anyway,” Walt said, “your magician guy’ll give me the money back, won’t he? When he learns what kind of trouble you went through to see him?”

  “Yeah! I’m sure he will!”

  “I have enough for a bottle of mints too.”

  Walt walked up to the window to buy the tickets.

  The lady looked at him from her glass box. “Sold out,” she said.

  Walter’s jaw dropped. “Oh, gosh!”

  “Watch your mouth, Walter Gibson,” the lady said. “Yes, I know who you are.”

  Walter lowered his head.

  “Ma’am, listen. Miss—” said Dash, coming up to the window.

  “Who are you calling miss, young man?” She stuck her head forward on her neck. Her face looked like one of those warty squashes that come out in October. “Are you a friend of this one? He broke my window with a rock, you know. Not a baseball, like a normal kid, a rock.”

  “Well, I’m sure it was an acc—” Dash started.

  “No accident,” she said, with a sour look on her face. “He’s a scoundrel.”

  “I said I was sorry.”

  “You still owe me and Mr. Davis a whole dollar to fix that window. The two of you were planning on coming to the show tonight?”