Saving Houdini

by Michael Redhill

  “Run!” cried Walt. He was already wrenching open the door at the end of the car by the time Dash registered that the rail bull was stalking down the thin space between the crates.

  “Wrong decision, lads!” he shouted, and Dash leapt up and ran.

  The car ahead, as he saw it through the door, caught the sun redly and seemed to move independently of the car he was still on. That’s because it was independent. Each car in a train moves over the track freely, the couplings like steel elastic bands, letting the cars shift around. Dash stood at the end of the car looking down at the tracks blurring past. Walt was already on the other side, holding his hand out to him. He felt the sharp sting of the bull’s truncheon on his calf and he cried out. A hand clamped onto his shoulder like a vise and the bull spun him around.

  “See what happens to train-hoppers, eh?” the man cried, but at that very moment, an apple exploded into green fragments against his forehead. His hands flew to his face and he stumbled backwards, howling.

  Clocked by a Granny Smith!

  “GIMME YOUR HAND!” Walt cried, and Dash reached out and grabbed it, almost oblivious to the roar behind him, but still very aware of the steel couplers shimmying madly like they were having a thumb war in steel. His teeth felt like they were going to leap out of his head. “Jump!” shouted Walt. “He’s getting up!”

  Dash leapt with both feet without even touching the couplings and Walt pulled him through the air into the next car. Then both boys were up and running again.

  Walt threw open the door at the end of that car and spread his legs between the space to open the next. The bull was through and running toward them. He wasn’t speaking anymore, just hollering, and Walt got the door open and pushed across. He didn’t have long legs but he was determined not to land in the bull’s hands. Dash’s calf throbbed, but he followed close behind.

  They ran through two more cars, one full of what looked like cabinets, but which Walt said were iceboxes, and then another with canvas bags hanging from big hooks lining the walls.

  There was now a car between them and their pursuer.

  “This guy’s gonna kill us,” said Walt. “We have to hide.”

  “We have to jump.”

  “Are you kidding? We’ll break our necks!”

  The sound of hollering came to them from one car away. They went over into the next one and closed the door behind them.

  They weren’t alone. This was a car with slits along the sides. Inside were kennels. Full of pigs.

  “Keep going!” shouted Walt, but Dash was standing in the middle of the car, looking around.

  “No,” he said. “Get in! Get in a cage!”

  “Are you craz—?” Walt began, but already they could hear the door in the car behind opening.

  “Look,” said Dash. He got an apple out of his pocket and held it in front of one of the cages. A pig snuffled the skin through the bars and tried to scrape at it with its teeth. Dash opened the door and tossed the apple in. “Do it, Walt! Get in!” He ducked down and scuttled quickly behind the pig. The animal moved out of the way. It was more concerned with the apple.

  “I’m going to kill you, Dash.”

  “Kill me later! Here he comes!”

  Walt wrenched open the door to the kennel beside Dash’s and held out a pear. The animal accepted the fruit with the same porcine eagerness that Dash’s had. Walt steeled himself and pushed into the cage behind it, just as the door at the end of the car flew open.

  The bull came storming down the middle. He was saying something like “Argagonnakrackenen!” and he went all the way down to the end of the car and threw that door open.

  A moment later, it slammed shut.

  “Ohhh …” Walt exhaled in relief. “That was close.”

  Dash was feeding his pig another apple. “We better stay here.”

  “In cages with pigs? I’m not going to be lunch!”

  “They eat apples, not stringbeans.”

  “Ha,” said Walter, without inflection. Then he began looking around suspiciously. “We’ll have to get off at some point. They’ll figure out we didn’t jump and they’ll come back looking.”

  “You want to try to make a break for it next time the train stops and try to outrun one of these guys on land?”

  “I guess not,” Walt said.

  “How many more apples and pears you got?”

  “A few.”

  “Get busy making friends, then.”

  The train was picking up speed. A few minutes later, the bull came back through, muttering to himself. He didn’t bother checking in the cages, but if he had, all he would have seen was pigs.

  A full-grown pig is a like a naked two-hundred-pound baby with thick, bristly hair all over it. In order to hide behind one, or so some people have discovered, it is important to position your body so that at no time will the pig sit on you. This involves soft, cajoling words and a number of apples or pears to establish that you would like to sit with the pig and not under it.

  The really good thing about a full-grown, two-hundred-pound pig is that it is excellent camouflage for a lanky eleven-year-old, and both Dash and Walt fit that description. In fact, they had much time in the six hours it took to get to Montreal to look at each other between the cages, rolling their eyes at their predicament but pleased with their bravery. They realized they could have been mistaken for brothers, both with dark hair, pale skin, and big eyes. Though Dash’s eyes were brown; Walter’s were blue, just like his sister’s.

  The pigs were both sows with heavy eyelashes and gentle expressions. They smelled like hay and sweat and poo, in that order, but the boys didn’t mind. Just the same, six hours in a steel compartment with a large, sloppy mammal and the cold air whistling through the slits can feel a lot longer, and more than once, Walter reminded Dash that getting into the cages had been his idea.

  After Kingston, they were so cold that each snuggled up to his host, and after that, it was only a matter of time before their snores rose along with those of the other creatures, who, curled up and lulled by the rocking of the train, had also fallen asleep.

  12

  Later, Dash would wonder how it must have looked to the people on the platform in the Gare de Montreal.

  First they would have seen the train pulling in, the smoke and steam spreading in a long plume against the roof of the station, and then, as it stopped, heard the sounds of animals snuffling the air. Then they were going to get a surprise.

  Through the slits, Dash saw passengers waiting on the platforms with stewards, baggage carriers, families and rail police. Plenty of bulls, in fact. Clearly, word had been sent ahead about the stowaways and bulls were watching the doors of the freight trains carefully. And a phalanx of uniformed men stepped down from the nearest platform and crossed the rails, fanning out toward the freight train.

  “Last stop,” Dash said quietly from inside the car. He and Walt walked backwards, opening the doors to the cages along the floor. “Everybody out.”

  The train shook as the men mounted the cars in unison. One of them appeared in the doorway of their car. This will be quite a sight for him, Dash thought as he and Walt paddled the pigs on their bottoms and sent them charging down the aisle in a pink, squealing throng. The man at the other end of the car flew backwards and tumbled from the train, hollering in alarm.

  Dash grabbed Walt’s arm. “Go! Now!”

  They pushed against the flow of the pigs and made their way to the door at the other end of the car. Dash opened it a crack and saw more men coming. But their eyes were on the mayhem, not the space between the cars, and Dash slid out like a shadow and quickly disappeared behind the next car. Walt shut the door and slid away as well, joining Dash behind the commotion.

  They stood utterly still, not daring to breathe. Pigs thundered toward the passenger platforms. On the faces of the travellers awaiting their train on the last platform before the yard, Dash saw a mixture of amusement and the dawning realization that they’d have to get out of the
way.

  “Go, pigs,” said Walt quietly.

  “You mean, thanks, pigs! We’re here! We better move it: the clock at the end of that platform says it’s almost eight o’clock. Houdini’s going to be done soon!”

  They waited a few moments longer, as the clattering of footsteps and the sound of whistles grew quieter. Then they ran, crouching periodically, to the end of the train, and out in front of it, making a mad dash for the safety of the crowds. They immediately slowed to a walk and melted into them. From there it was nothing to vanish into the flashing, honking, hooting, clamouring streets of Montreal at 8 p.m. on a Wednesday night in 1926.

  Walt’s face was caked with dirt. “That was … amazing,” he said. “I don’t even think they saw us.” He exhaled a long breath and laughed with relief. “Never a dull moment with you, Dash—Holy … pig! Look at that!”

  A pig was running up the street, twisting in and out of traffic. “We better keep moving,” Dash said. “We have a lecture to catch …”

  They made their way to the main road: it was called Rue Sainte-Catherine and it was a zoo up here, and not just because of the pigs. The sidewalks were crazy with people—people walking dogs; women in fine hats walking arm-in-arm with men, with other women, sometimes alone; children walking with their parents; old people taking the air. It seemed that everyone was smoking. The doors to the bars swung open and shut. Such noise! Such life!

  Dash had never visited Montreal, so he had no idea how different this might be from Montreal in the real present. But if the Montreal of his time bore any relation to the one in 1926, then it was quite the place. As they walked along the busy avenue, those black-hooded Fords were everywhere, parping their horns, pulling over to curbs, pulling away from curbs, like it was a game of musical cars. Men leaned out the windows of parked cars, arms draped over their steering wheels, talking animatedly to people on the sidewalk. It was a party everyone was invited to, a hoot. Hopefully someone in the madness could tell them where McGill University was.

  “Wipe your face!” Dash said to Walt. “You’re filthy.”

  “You are too.”

  They ran their hands over their cheeks and picked the tufts of hay out of their hair.

  It turned out everyone knew where McGill University was, only everyone had a different idea about how to get there. Dash and Walt decided the best route was to follow the brightly lit main road. A mist had come into the air, and the boys walked along Sainte-Catherine with their heads lowered, trying not to attract attention.

  Soon, they came to McGill College Avenue, wide and straight, and as they turned onto it, they saw the gates of the university ahead of them, lamps on either side casting a warm glow through the haze. Some people were entering those gates, but the avenue was much calmer than the main street had been.

  Up at the gates, they saw a big poster that said:

  WEDNESDAY ONLY

  HARRY HOUDINI

  WILL ADDRESS THE MCGILL COMMUNITY

  ON THE ILLS OF SPIRITUALISM

  THE FAMED MAGICIAN

  THROUGH DEMONSTRATION AND DISCUSSION

  WILL DEBUNK ALL THE CLAIMS OF SPIRIT MEDIUMS

  6:30 p.m.

  MCGILL STUDENT UNION BALLROOM

  ADMISSION FREE

  It was already eight fifteen.

  “Geez!” said Dash. “We’ve probably missed it!”

  They ran up through the centre of campus, big stone buildings looming in the mist, and hunted frantically for the Student Union. When they got there, the doors were already closed, locked from the outside.

  They stood on the steps and looked around. It was quiet here. Walter tried the door again and Dash searched for another way in around the side. A man walking by with a cane came out of a passageway.

  “You boys lost?” he asked Dash.

  “No,” said Dash. “We’re fine.”

  “Houdini’s in there tonight,” the man said.

  “Yeah, we know. But we can’t get in.”

  “Try the back door,” the man said, pointing with his cane. He had a white, walrus-y moustache under his nose.

  “There’s a back door?” said Dash. “Thanks!”

  “Who you talking to?” asked Walt, coming to where Dash was.

  “This man says—” started Dash, but the man was gone. “There’s a back door.”

  They ran around the side of the building, where they could hear laughter and then applause through the brick wall. There was a steel door propped open with a tin can full of sand and cigarette butts. They slipped inside, and saw people standing in the hallway, trying to listen through the open doors to the lounge. The boys crept past them and down a side hall and began trying the doors. One opened and they walked through into a wall of black suits. Men and women were standing three or four deep around the edges of the room.

  “This is where we’re standing in the picture!” Walter said into Dash’s ear.

  “Move up!” said Dash.

  Walt pushed through the men, excusing himself. The sea of tall, thin bodies parted, and they reached the middle of the crowd. Dash followed, whispering his apologies, and then there was a flash of light and he realized they’d gotten there in the nick of time. The man with the camera had just taken the picture. Dash saw him standing on the other side of the cramped lounge.

  Unless, thought Dash, he couldn’t take the picture until they had arrived. He still wasn’t sure how this worked. Had he already been here? If someone could give him a picture of himself in his time that had been taken in 1926, then he must have been here already. He’d been here then and he was here now. Although, how could any of that be? He shook his head, confounded, and then he heard the voice. He lifted his eyes and saw he was ten feet from Harry Houdini.

  The great man was sitting in a plain wooden chair at the front of the room, and speaking in a strong American accent. He was saying,

  “Do we stand idly by while the credulous and the lonesome are feasted upon? The practice of spiritualism is getting to be a very serious thing! The truth should be established beyond a shadow of a doubt, by undeniable evidence. I will tell you this, my friends: in thirty-five years, I have never seen one genuine medium. Millions of dollars are stolen every year by spiritualists, from people who are struck by grief, or living in foolish hope, and governments will do nothing about it because they consider it a religion!”

  There was appreciative applause, which extended itself when Houdini stood and took his bows. His right ankle was bandaged above the top of his shoe. Dash remembered that Houdini had broken it earlier that month in Albany, New York, performing his Water Torture Cell.

  “Now, if you’d like some rational entertainment,” he said, “I propose a performance that will nonetheless bring you to the brink of believing in spirits again. I will be performing at the Princess Theatre tonight through Saturday afternoon. I promise you an experience of great mystification and delight.” And with a flourish, Houdini walked out a door at the back of the room. He was limping, but he held his head high.

  “Come on!” said Dash. “We have to talk to him.”

  “Wait,” said Walt, as black forms moved around them, lighting their cigarettes. Like crows wreathed in clouds of smoke. “Whadder we gonna say to him?”

  “I don’t know!” Dash led the way back out into the Union’s hallways, away from the crowd. “I might have to tell him the truth.”

  “That should work like a charm.”

  “Well, what am I supposed to do?”

  “I don’t know, maybe—”

  “Where are you boys going?”

  A large blue chest had materialized in front of them. A guard with a ruddy face and hands the size of catcher’s mitts. Both boys tracked their eyes up the barrel chest to the large, dark eyes.

  “We, uh, we have to tell Houdini something,” said Dash. “It’s important.”

  “I’m sure he doesn’t need to hear from the likes of you. What are you doing back here, anyway?”

  “We came to hear him speak,�
� said Dash. “We’re fans.”

  “Fans?” said the guard.

  “Our mother died because of a spiritualist!” Walt burst out. “A lady spiritualist just down on Sainte-Catherine told ‘er that she had to get ‘er charms every week. An’, an’, an’ …” He was running out of material and looking over at Dash. He hid his face in his arm and pretended to cry.

  Dash continued. “Never mind him, sir. I understand you gotta protect Mr. Houdini. He’s a famous person! It’s just this lady spiritualist took all our money and then Mum, well … she ran away! And Mr. Houdini was talking this very night about that same lady who destroyed our family, and we just wanna thank him is all.”

  The guard was staring at them, stonelike, impassive. His eyes twitched back and forth between Dash’s face and the top of Walt’s sobbing head. “What a loada malarky, pure and simple,” he said. Then he stood aside. “G’wan. Go to the end of the hall and see the other guard. Tell him Erich is expecting you. He’ll let you pass.”

  The two of them sprung forward. The hall outside the lounge was getting busier. They came to the guard at the end.

  “We’re here to see Erich,” they said at the same time.

  “Calm down, gentlemen! He’s the third door on the right. Knock and wait to be invited in.”

  “We will!” They took urgent strides to the third door on the right.

  “Before you knock,” Walt said, grabbing Dash’s wrist. “Do I look okay?”

  “What?”

  “I’m meeting Houdini!”

  “Dude, you’re fine.”

  “You think he’ll help us?”

  “I dunno,” Dash said. “Someone has to help us! We sure can’t count on Blumenthal.”

  That’s when a voice said, “Blumenthal?” They hadn’t noticed the dressing room door was standing open. “Who’s Blumenthal?” said a man in a black suit with a vest. There was a gold chain strung between two pockets.

  “Sol?” came a voice from deeper within. “Who is it?”

  “Two boys,” said the man. “Gossiping.”

  “Excellent,” said the voice. “Invite them in.”