“Sweet dreams,” said Jurgen.
“Oh …” said Rudolfo as he tumbled again into troubled slumber. “I don’t dream.”
But he did that night. He dreamt many, many things, so many that in the morning he couldn’t believe that he had slept for just one night. He’d dreamt his whole life, a strange version of it, anyway, with new endings and altered circumstances. He dreamt of the walk-in closet in Bern—his mother Arnold and her artist friends rampaging drunkenly just beyond the closed wooden door—but instead of his crib being surrounded by plush, stuffed animals, the closet was filled with a menagerie of breathing creatures. He dreamt that he woke and stumbled out of the closet, rubbing sleep from his eyes with tiny, clenched fists, and there in the apartment was a man with a moustache like a chimney-brush and an air of distraction. The man was by the walls on hands and knees, scratching away with a pencil. “You know,” he said, catching sight of the little boy with the albino leopard clutched to his breast, “I think I fucked up here.”
Rudolfo spent the next morning digging through his vast collection of CDS. He knew exactly what he was looking for, although he was unwilling to name it even to himself. It took almost two hours to find the right album, and when his fingers finally touched it, he began gasping, suddenly desperate for air yet unable to drink it in. His selection—La Bohème—acknowledged what Rudolfo was unable to: soon, Jurgen would be gone forever.
So that was what the audience was listening to now, Rodolfo’s lament for the dying Mimi.
He walked onstage and received a smattering of applause. Rhonda Byng ran after him, flushed, already so sweaty that her costume clung to her and made her appear naked. The two wandered through the huge silver geometric objects.
Jurgen descended from on high, the grimy hem of his robe rising up, the garment puffing out like a parachute. The crowd sent up a howl that was awful and deafening. Jurgen merely raised his hands gently and they were silent.
“Okay,” he said, as his toes lit upon the stage. “It’s time for Up Close and Personal.”
In the audience, Lois Sweet rose uncertainly. These words were her cue —up close and personal—and she was a professional. She slowly made her way to the stage.
“Hi, Lois,” said Jurgen.
Rudolfo couldn’t help himself. He rolled his eyes and tsked. Then, operating more out of habit than anything else, he asked, “Where you from, Lois?”
“Fort Dix, New Jersey,” she answered.
“No, you’re not, Lois,” said Jurgen. “You’re from Sandusky, Ohio.”
Lois nodded slowly.
Jurgen opened a hand and revealed a deck of cards. “Name a card, Lois,” he whispered. “Any card.”
“The six—” began Lois.
“Any card,” Jurgen corrected himself, “except the six of spades.”
“But—”
“I like a challenge.”
Lois Sweet had left Sandusky, Ohio, years and years ago, when she was young and pretty enough to think that she might become an actress. Now here she was, a stooge in a magic show, and things were still fucking up.
“The queen of hearts,” she snapped.
“Yes,” said Jurgen, and he tossed the deck of cards high into the air.
The cards hovered there, like hornets smoked out of the nest.
“Put out your hand like so,” commanded Jurgen gently. He demonstrated for Lois, rolling out his fingers and baring his palm. Lois did as she was told. The cards continued to swarm in the air above.
“Very good. Now, you said the queen of hearts, correct?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“You spoke the name of the card with a certain amount of bitterness. The ironic tone was not lost upon me. The Queen of Hearts. But, Lois, you will now see that all things are possible.”
One of the cards bumped its way free of the cloud. It sat in the air for a long moment before dropping gently into Lois’ palm.
Lois returned to her seat clutching the playing card between her fingers.
“Now, everyone who’s wearing glasses,” said Jurgen. “I want you to take them off.” He spoke quietly, his voice no louder than he might pitch it in a kitchen; still, all the people wearing glasses responded. They responded with alacrity, because they’d heard about this trick. “Take your glasses,” instructed Jurgen, holding out an invisible pair by way of illustration, “and twist and mangle them. Stomp on them until the lenses are broken.” The showroom filled with crunching sounds. “There.” Jurgen was suddenly out of breath, and this last word was more gasped than pronounced. He reached up and rubbed at his own eyes, removing the makeup from around them, making the upper part of his face shine with milky radiance. “You don’t need glasses,” he whispered.
Rhonda Byng was inspired to step forward and spread her arms in an emphatic, though silent, ta-da.
The crowd murmured as they looked around the hall and at each other. There was a sigh of great happiness and a smattering of applause from the people who had never needed glasses in the first place.
Down in the laundry room, meanwhile, an industrial-sized washing machine, made cantankerous from years of stained bed-sheets, shuddered to a stop as its wiring unravelled. Sparks shot out and bombarded the wall, made of cheap particle board. Fingers of flame took hold.
Jurgen brought up his hands and smacked them together. “Ladies and gentlemen.” The robe fell away, revealing the ghostly body, the dingy loincloth. “Laddies and lassies,” said he, “the next miracle is the globally celebrated and much ballyhooed Hindu Rope Trick. I, alone in the Occident, possess the arcanum of this wonder, having learnt it firsthand from the Cingalese. But, hear me, why should I perform this chef-d’oeuvre inside this theatre, opening the doors for accusations of subterfuge and chicanery, insinuations of thin wire attached to the lighting grids holding up the rope? Instead, I shall perform the deed upon the boulevard without!”
It took Rudolfo many long moments to figure out was zum Teufel Jurgen was on about.
“You should therefore stand and effect an egress in an orderly fashion.” Jurgen stepped from the stage. He did not tumble into the audience, because, as Rudolfo had rightly pointed out to Dr. Merdam, he was no longer obeying the law of gravity. He raised his hands and pointed toward the recesses of the showroom. “The youngsters in the last row should go first,” he said, “then the penultimate, etcetera. Follow me and you will see a miracle that shall go down into the vaults of historical annals!” Jurgen floated over everyone’s head; his course was not true—he wavered and pitched like a party balloon, sometimes rising and bumping into the lighting grid, sometimes dropping fast and grazing the people’s hair. “Follow me!” he commanded, while Rudolfo gathered up the small animals and loosed the big ones from their cages.
The hardened gamblers didn’t pay Jurgen much attention as he floated past. Many were annoyed that their concentration had been momentarily destroyed, but they squinted and reapplied themselves to heavenly whim. Less ardent players, vacationers from out of town, found themselves caught up and marching along with the crowd.
Cocktail waitresses abandoned their trays to follow him. As the crowd neared the doors, the pantalooned pituitary giants gave up their posts and sentry boxes.
So it was that several hundred people spilled out of the Abraxas Hotel and filled the long circular driveway.
Rudolfo stood among them, craning to see over the heads. But Jurgen—isolated in the centre of a huge circle that the respectful, even fearful, crowd had made—found Rudolfo with his empty eyes and waved his hand. “Come on,” he urged. “After all, this is the Jurgen and Rudolfo Show.” Rudolfo pushed people aside and joined his partner. They linked hands and took deep bows and then—even though Rudolfo had absolutely no idea what was about to happen—they clapped with unearthly synchronicity.
Jurgen waved toward the ground where a rope lay coiled into an orderly column. Rudolfo had not noticed the rope, of course, but that meant nothing. This was the realization that had descended upon
him over the past long months: there were many things he didn’t notice, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. Indeed, everything was there, somewhere. If one were careful and observant, all would make itself known.
Samson and Rhonda Byng stood inside the circle, too. Samson stared at the ground dolefully, occasionally lowering his huge head to lash a tongue through the gossamer tufts that blossomed out of his paws. He wasn’t really disinterested, of course. But he was a shy cat, and wasn’t given to public displays of emotion. Not like Rhonda, who bawled and bawled and didn’t bother to wipe the tears from her face.
Jurgen pointed at the rope and an end worked itself free. It ascended a few inches and twitched rapidly, like a serpent’s tongue searching the air for the taste of prey. Then the rope drove upwards, the coils disappearing. It stretched to a height of twenty or so feet and then stopped so abruptly it produced a throbbing low note that filled the world. Jurgen reached out and steadied the rope, wrapping his hand around it. He tested its strength and flexibility. The rope seemed as solid as a metal pole. Jurgen turned and faced the crowd. A grin spread across his face and he opened his eyes with delight, almost blinding the people in the front, because his eyes gleamed like quicksilver.
Jurgen wrapped his legs around the rope and then began to climb hand over hand. His ascent was rapid and effortless. He reached the top of the rope and disappeared into the heavens.
If all you knew of the strange case of Jurgen Schubert were the reports given in Personality magazine, then you would believe that this was the last that was seen of him, that he reached the top of the rope and dissolved into the welkin. The most fanciful eyewitness reports have it that Jurgen Schubert was picked up by a hovering interplanetary spacecraft, but these are discounted by almost everyone. Most people say they saw him explode into dots of white light, almost as though he had been a projected image and the projector was suddenly unplugged. But the more skeptical and sober-sided claim that he disappeared, not into nothingness, but into the first of the clouds of black smoke coming from the Abraxas Hotel.
This is possible, because the huge hotel was, indeed, on fire for many moments before anyone noticed.
The gamblers inside didn’t notice until pieces of flaming chandelier fell upon the gaming tables.
The people outside didn’t notice—they continued to stare into the sky, awaiting Jurgen Schubert’s magical return—until an awful siren sounded, a mourning wail that could be heard for miles around.
It was heard in the desert, where Miranda sat in the moonlight, depressed and pissed off. She turned and saw a strange glow bloom above the dark shadow of the city.
The wail was certainly heard inside the George Theater. Preston lifted a finger and wiped a tear from his cheek.
Somehow Rudolfo managed to find the long white limousine that evening, to open the rear door and climb wearily into the cool leather interior. Bob was turned around in the front seat, his black face glistening with tears. He nervously removed his hatband and began to speak in his native Dogon. Rudolfo waved a hand at him rudely.
“Ja, never mind any of that. Drive me home.”
Bob nodded and smiled, although tears continued to stream out of his eyes, and drove the limousine away from the tower of flame. Fire engines and police cars screamed by them, hordes of curious onlookers, tourists with their videocams screwed over their eyeballs. Soon, though, all that was left behind. Rudolfo stared into the streets. He saw tiny figures parading along the sidewalks—gremlins and poltergeists, witches and familiars. He realized that it was Hallowe’en, All Soul’s Eve, that spirits were free on this most special of nights.
So he was not surprised, when he entered his bedroom later that evening, to see Jurgen floating in front of the Spirit Cabinet, clutching the back of a chair to prevent himself from ascending to the vaulted ceiling. He was vaporous, now, except for a few strands of hair (the colour of bone in the desert) and his eyes. His eyes were of a hue rarely seen, the colour of elements in the triple digits of the periodic table. They were at the same time endless and impenetrable.
“Hiya, Rudy!” he sang out.
Rudolfo sat down on the chair that Jurgen was using as a tethering place and reached up so that he could lay his hand upon Jurgen’s. But his fingers met no flesh, only wood and upholstery and the smooth heads of tacks, so he removed his hand and folded it into his lap.
“Well,” said Jurgen, “I think I have to be going now.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Wait a bit. Let’s talk for a while.”
“Okey-dokey.”
“Okey-dokey.”
“I think,” Jurgen said softly, “that Düsseldorf will win the FA Cup.”
Rudolfo closed his eyes and a few teardrops were forced out.
“That was a joke,” said Jurgen.
“Yes. I know.”
“Because Düsseldorf is no good.”
“Jurgen, I want to say something to you. But I don’t know the words. I don’t know them in English. I don’t know them in German.”
“Just speak, Rudy. Don’t worry what language.”
Rudolfo did speak. He did not know what language he was speaking in; the words simply arrived like guests at a party. “I think about my life, Jurgen, and how it was. How very strange it was.”
“Everyone has a strange life, because life is so strange.”
Rudolfo allowed a little video to play in his mind, filled with quick cuts, short clips. He saw himself briefly in the furry bosom of the only real family he ever knew, four bears in a stone pit in the capital of Switzerland; then the institutions, die Berufsschulen, where he had been sent, not for any real wrongdoing, but for becoming hairless and freakish; then the wrong-doing, of course, the taking of another man’s life, which stung very badly because he’d been trying to save General Bosco, so not only was he a monster, he was an incompetent monster; then he’d been a beggar in Münich and he’d followed a couple of freaks to Miss Joe’s mouldy establishment …
“I just think,” Rudolfo said suddenly, as if he’d been gathering his thoughts instead of letting them run free, “that it’s a miracle we ever met.”
“Oh,” said Jurgen, and he lifted one hand away from the chairback so that he could raise the index finger with scholarly precision, “it’s not technically a miracle.” Half-loosed, Jurgen started to rise, like steam from a pot when the lid’s been removed. He pulled the free arm through the air and managed a descent, enough that he could grasp the chair once more.
“Well,” said Rudolfo, “I don’t know as much about miracles as you do.”
“No.”
“It may not be a miracle, technically,” shrugged Rudolfo, “but it feels like a miracle. That’s the important thing.”
“Not precisely,” noted Jurgen. He wouldn’t free a hand this time, so he underscored his point by unwrapping both index fingers from the perch on the chairback.
“Oh, shut up,” said Rudolfo. “I’m trying to talk to you. To tell you something.”
“You’ll have to tell me quickly, then.” Jurgen jerked his head toward the Spirit Cabinet. His head glowed so brightly that it left behind ghostly traces, smears of luminance. Rudolfo saw that light leaked from the Spirit Cabinet, and strange sounds, too, harmonious zephyrs, winds that wailed and keened. “I’ve got to be going,” Jurgen whispered.
Rudolfo sighed. “Go, then.”
“Okey-dokey.” Jurgen released his hands and floated away. He pulled through the air with both arms, then added a strong frog kick, because, don’t forget, he’d been an amateur swimmer, a member of die Haie, the winner of three small, tarnished trophies. He reached the Spirit Cabinet and the righthand door swung open. Rudolfo tried to peer inside, but the glare was too much. He had to turn his head away and even so was forced to close his eyes.
“I love you,” he said. He never knew whether Jurgen heard, never knew if his partner was then inside the Spirit Cabinet or merely entering. He never heard the sound of the door being
closed—he could hear nothing except the wind raging in the room, sending up a howl that had driven all the animals in das eindrucksvollste Haus im Universum to seek shelter in the shadows.
Then there was light, pure and radiant, and then there was nothing.
The lefthand door swings open. Before he can stop himself, Rudolfo Thielmann steps inside the Spirit Cabinet.
Chapter Twenty-eight
A few days after the fire on the desert, the one that had destroyed das eindrucksvollste Haus im Universum, Theodore Collinger took himself down to the George Theater.
He was an elderly man. His hands, once long and graceful, were stained with age spots and shook uncontrollably. Collinger had been renowned as a magician, his speciality being the Chinese rings. It was quite some time ago that the rings had begun to clang and clatter whenever they neared each other, begun to meld when they should have stayed distinct, and separate when Collinger tried to display a chain. Since then he had applied himself to the art as a kind of scholar and amanuensis. He wrote a column for Hocus Pocus magazine in which he related news concerning the craft. “Collinger’s Corner,” it was entitled and he often reflected, bitterly, at how apt the title was, because in whichever sense a magazine can possess a corner, that was what was alloted to him, a tiny space in which it was impossible to get comfortable. And it paid nothing. His monthly stipend was pitiful, forcing him to live in a shithole motel with a clutch of aged showgirls who played Scrabble and discussed farfetched plans for restoring lustre to their sagging breasts. Collinger had taken to drink, of course.
He knocked on the glass doors of the George Theater and peered through into the foyer. The velvet within was blurry with dust and cobwebbing. He reflected that he may have come too early. He lifted his thin wrist and tried to catch a quick look at the watch there. Eight-thirty-seven. Hmmm. Perhaps a little ill-timed. He recalled that when he was young and played all the big hotels, he likely wouldn’t have even made it to bed by eight in the morning. Unless it was with a comely young person, gender immaterial. Theodore Collinger scowled, feeling decrepit and sexless.
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