2. I didn’t recognize her and promised not to reveal her identity, so I’ll just call her M.
3. Although, that night, he elucidated, with great verbal aplomb, precisely why he considered The Blair Witch Project such a failure.
4. “Who can take a sunrise, sprinkle it with dew, cover it with choc’late and a miracle or two?”
5. This despite (or possibly a consequence of) the fact that he himself had recorded rap verses in the past. For example: “I dress real cool, with an attitude; that’s why I’ve lasted longer than that Henning dude.”
15
Sleights of Mind
You do yet taste some subtleties o’ the isle, that will [not] let you believe things certain.
—Prospero, in The Tempest
One of the problems in writing magic history is that magicians rarely tell the truth.
—Simon During, Modern Enchantments
THE FOLLOWING morning, we toured the islands of Copperfield Bay, a seven-hundred-acre agglomeration of water and land. As our speedboat spanked over the waves, Copperfield pointed out each of the eleven islands, most of which were desolate, covered in twisted trees wind-battered into lopsidedness. I felt dismayed. The archipelago’s sheer square footage meant it would be hopeless to attempt searching for his fountain.
He kept pointing out landmarks. This shoreline, he said, was where the Sherpas were going to be making it snow on that haunted beach. He directed our gaze toward a rock painted to resemble a mermaid. It crinkled under the waves. The boat took us to secluded islets he described as getaway spots, places to escape from escaping the escapes.
My notes were getting increasingly psychoanalytical. Isolating ourselves from other humans is a desire to be separate from them, I wrote, to not be part of the human race, to be something more, godlike. Is this akin to wanting the Fountain of Youth?
Raf kept snapping photos, including some of Copperfield, who quietly asked him not to. “I’m not David Copperfield right now,” he said.
Back on the main island, we stopped to eat a quick lunch. Two attractive young girls sat in the dining room, each with a parental guardian. They had been recruited from his shows, they said, and were here doing modeling work for brochures about the island. That they happened to be on Musha at the same time as us made me wonder if it was an intentional PR move. He obviously knew about the leaked Scorpion-pulling docs. Or maybe he only invited pretty women to Musha for benign reasons? Either way, the two girls said they were having an amazing time.
After lunch, Copperfield handed Raf and me a one-page story to read before we went on a treasure hunt. “The Unknown Pirates” described a pirate who was David Copperfield’s great-great-great-great-uncle. This poor pirate had wrongfully been accused of something and needed to have his image restituted—which we could help with by doing the treasure hunt.
As we read it, Raf looked at me. “What’s up with asking us to clear his great-great-great-great-uncle’s name?” he questioned, frowning. “That’s so weird, isn’t it?”
“Is it just a coincidence—or is it somehow related to him trying to fix his own image?” I asked. “Did he allow this trip to happen in hopes of being portrayed a certain way? The restitution theme is so Prospero.”
* * *
The treasure hunt was a competition: Raf and I on one team, the two aspiring models on another. We split off, the winner being whichever team could solve the clues fastest, in order to clear the good pirate’s name. We began in the woods, where a fully costumed pirate gave us the first set of clues.
The hunt consisted of puzzles and magical tricks scattered around Copperfield’s domain. We had to enter a cove with skulls hanging from a hook and hike across a sharp, rocky terrain. Copperfield came along with us, making sure we noticed all the little details he felt made it somehow more authentic.
When our guide turned off the main road toward the Petrified Lake, I got out, pulled Raf aside, and told him to keep an eye out for clues to the fountain. We walked along a muddy path in the woods, which opened onto a sizable body of water surrounded by a large copse of bone-white trees. The skeletal tangle of lifelessness stretched back in for a hundred yards or more.
“What is this place?” Raf gasped. “Fucking eerie.”
We’d come to the Petrified Lake. The unmoving water, framed by that mangled landscape, seemed more like a bay of death than a fountain of youth. Copperfield kept a close watch over us as we walked down to examine the forsaken cove. The water, brown and brackish, stood completely still. The trees appeared to have been bleached with salt.
Leaving the Petrified Lake, I told Raf we’d need to go back, later, to see if we could make brown leaves turn green again.
“You know the only way you’re going to be able to prove this is by killing me and throwing me in there,” he answered.
The pursuit took us to another secret beach nearby. “Look at the rock formations, all the different shapes,” Copperfield said. “Mother Nature’s just sick amazing.”
Forging ahead, he led us down a path strewn with dead palm fronds. When we emerged onto yet another beach, he pointed to a sign with an arrow that said BLUE SPRINGS THIS WAY. “Follow your destiny,” he added, smiling.
We walked forward, past more and more signs for the Blue Springs. They led into a mini-forest, and for a moment I felt certain we’d be coming to one of those holes he’d warned me about. But, after a few twists and turns, the path spit us out into a clearing in the woods, where we nearly tripped over a dozen knee-high metal coils. It took a moment for the gag to sink in. The Blue Springs weren’t some magical waters—they were just a bunch of blue-painted metal springs spiraling out of the ground.
Copperfield gleefully told us how much the people who develop the computers we use and the people who program our book clubs love that joke. “I’m trying to create wonders a billionaire can appreciate, and that’s a tough crowd. ‘Tough’ in quotes, please. The people who come here have seen it all. They own it all. They’ve had every experience possible, so if I can make them come back, then I’ve done my job.”
Raf and I lost the treasure hunt by a long shot. It didn’t matter; we ended up sipping champagne on another beach, where the pirate did a magic performance. (The pretty girls who were here doing promotional work didn’t drink any of the champagne; they weren’t old enough.) At the climax of the show, a young female assistant levitated on the point of his sword. He also unearthed a box of pirate’s booty from under the sand. For one trick, involving a guillotine, he called Raf up as a volunteer. Before decapitating him, he demonstrated the blade’s sharpness by positioning a stubby carrot in front of his pelvic region and chopping it in two. “Castration humor, eh?” mused Raf.
* * *
“It’s amazing how you don’t feel or sense yourself transforming with age,” Copperfield exclaimed, back at the Landings, where the two of us had embarked upon the promised discussion about his fountain. “Even when I’m eighty years old, I wonder if my point of view will be different than when I was eighteen. There are certainly reminders that you’ve changed physically, but the sensibility remains the same.”
“In what way?” I inquired.
“You stay attracted to the same things. What’s fun never changes. For example, we all karaoked last night, and none of us acted our age or cared how we looked or sounded. That’s just like a twelve-year-old’s get-together with friends: you throw on some records and have a license to be ridiculous. When you’re here, you give yourself permission to have the feelings you felt when you were still discovering things. It’s very life-enhancing.”
“‘Very life-enhancing’?”
“You mentioned how you like being in the labyrinth and not knowing, and still discovering things about yourself. There was a time, when you were still young, when you were learning the rules of how to act. If you can take those away, you can feel the fountain of youth.”
“But that’s not the fountain of youth you told the media about.”
“No, but
it’s as important. As communicators we do affect people’s lives, we do lengthen their lives. The medical properties of enjoying being transported are well documented. As artists, that’s why we’re celebrated. There’s a thirst for our work. The responsibility we have is to youthen people. We prolong life. We parse verbs to get an emotion. To dream, to exhale, to have adventures—that’s almost as important as politics. As a victim of a lot of stress, I can tell you it may not be as important as medicine, but it’s right up there. Everybody has a need for the curative properties of storytelling.”
I sensed an opening. “Speaking of stories, tell me about the real fountain.”
“As reported in the press, I’m doing experimentations with the natural elements that are here, elements that have amazing qualities.” He spoke deliberately, choosing his words carefully. “Will that translate to a discovery that benefits mankind? Time will tell.”
“Yes, but is this just another Copperfield illusion?”
“I don’t want it to be brushed aside as a PR stunt or something that can be explained as a magic trick. Magicians can replicate everything in the Bible. In this case, the things that I’m talking about could have practical applications for people. The fortunate part is that I’m a magician, and it’s the unfortunate part as well. The hard part is for people to believe it.”
“It won’t be hard for them to believe it when they see it.”
“That’ll be in the future.”
“But surely you realize people assume the fountain isn’t real?”
“It’s okay to have puffery, but this is entirely different—”
“What do you mean by ‘puffery’?”
“Puffery is yeti quests, the Blue Springs, the snowing on the beach, all of that stuff. But when you’re talking about a discovery that can seriously affect people, I’d rather have all the backup done before demonstrating it.”
“So you see a distinction between the puffery and the fountain.”
“Absolutely. There’s a distinction between things that we wink at, like the treasure hunt, and something like the fountain. When you come and see my show, you know that I have permission to lie; you suspend disbelief. But when you get into things that can affect people’s health—meaning liquids that can reverse things—I want to be really prepared.”
“Liquids that can reverse things?”
“Liquids that can reverse genes.”
“Can you explain how it works?”
“I want to have my research done,” he parried, “and have all my ducks in a row before doing so.”
I pressed him, again, to explain how this wasn’t puffery.
“Look, here’s the difference,” he clarified. “Allowing people here, giving them a new outlook—it’s rejuvenating. But that’s distinctly different from a liquid that can turn a brown leaf into a green leaf.”
“Have you seen that happen?”
“Yes.”
“Can I?”
“We’ve discussed this. We have a deal. People will think it’s a sleight of hand.”
“Has anybody else seen it?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“Me and a couple of . . . biology people.”
“How did you feel when you first encountered it?”
“That there are amazing possibilities here.”
“Why did you tell the media about it if you weren’t prepared to show it?”
“When you discover something exciting, you want to share it. It’s like when you fall in love and you want to tell everybody about it—but then you realize it was maybe a mistake to do so. If it doesn’t turn out the way you’d hoped it would, next time you’ll be more cautious. So you only go into details when you’re sure it’ll last and be real. It’s the same here. There are things happening, little things that have bigger potential. But then I’m an illusionist, so if I talk about it, people will shrug. But it could be very, very cool.”
“What is the timeline?”
“Things happen very slowly down here in terms of research. It takes a long time. Certain things need to be combined with other things, and that’s a slow process. In my work I normally use science to my benefit, not the other way around. I use technology to do magic all the time, and I learn about existing science to do illusions, but the idea of doing new science that’s never been done before is new to me.”
“So is this a new technology?”
“Yes. We’re experimenting with learning certain things and combining them with other things. It’s very wild, but slower than I’m used to. This type of research and possibility can’t be rushed, so I’m learning to be patient and learning not to make promises. . . . Did I fuck up your story?”
“I think this is the story. Tell me about the scientists.”
“I’d rather not. I’ve made promises to them that I wouldn’t talk about it.”
“How seriously do you take this?”
“I don’t understand the question.”
“How important will the fountain be to you in coming years?”
“I’m not sure what the end result will be. It’s a big project. Normally, I can fast-track things in my work. I can expedite things for my show. But not in this case.”
“Let’s go back to the beginning. Did you know about the fountain before you came down here?”
“No.”
“How did you find it?”
“I spent a lot of time walking on all the islands, exploring with a machete—I mean a cutlass. At one point, I saw things that were particularly . . . vibrant.”
“What did you do when you saw these vibrant things?”
“I said, ‘We should take a closer look.’”
“But you won’t let any reporters take a closer look.”
“No.”
“So how did this story go out to the media?”
“Poorly. I’m guilty about getting very excited about something. Normally, I would have everything more detailed before showing it to people, but I got very excited. It goes back to the love analogy.”
“What’s the ETA?”
“We’re not talking months, we’re talking years.”
The rest of the interview continued in this vein, with me asking the same questions in different ways and him reiterating his answers. As we spoke, I thought of something the NDE expert Raymond Moody had said about the overlap between parapsychology and entertainment, how both evoke realities and have consolatory powers. Just as Father Gervais described watching films as a form of prayer, Moody also felt that art—or entertainment, or what Copperfield was speaking of as storytelling and magic—can plumb the depths of our spiritual concerns. “Entertainment has this really profound function,” Moody said. “It can evoke feelings of wonder and make us realize how little we know and even though it can’t prove anything, at least it can leave the crack of the door open for hope.”
In the end, despite all my attempts, Copperfield insisted that I wouldn’t be able to witness the fountain. Still, even without any firsthand evidence, he’d almost persuaded me that it might be real. He’d held up his end of the bargain: he had indeed spoken about it with great verbal aplomb. I again felt as though precious gemstones were falling out of his mouth as he spoke. “Patter” is considered a key form of attention management in magician know-how. And I’d fully succumbed to his stream of conversation.
Yet as we left the Landings, I was already planning to sneak out to the Petrified Lake to do some experimenting of my own. I asked him if he had anything else he wanted to add.
“I’m a one-trick pony, in a beautiful way, I hope.” He shrugged. “Here, watch my face”—his jaw dropped—“that’s what it’s all about. It all goes back to the ‘whoa’ factor.”
* * *
The idea of a one-trick pony who keeps blowing your mind returned to me a few hours later when, perusing the bookshelves in my room, I came upon a copy of Beyond Imagination, the sequel to his first anthology of short stories. This one, which focused on “the magic of the hum
an condition,” contained another of Copperfield’s own stories. As with the previous one, the hero’s name was Adam. This Adam loved collecting sun-bleached driftwood. The plot revolved around Adam’s discovery of an invisible baby eagle. He decides to tell people about his pet eagle, hoping it’ll make others like him, but instead, when they ask to see it and he refuses, they start mocking him. In the end, however, he makes the impossible happen, amazes everybody, and is rewarded handsomely for his magical abilities.
As I lay there, drifting to sleep, I thought of the egret that crossed our path as soon as we landed on the island, how we’d spoken about eaglets and egrets. Fiction and reality seemed to be overlapping in an almost destabilizing way. A Shakespearean hero who orchestrates an elaborate setup on his island, using “trumpery” to reinstate himself as king. A storybook Adam in a world of bleached-white wood, baby eagles, and real magic. A famous magician who’d found a liquid that no one could see that reverses genes.
* * *
That night, I dreamed that, if I stared long enough at water, I could fly. Exhilarated, I soared through the air, gravity-free, feeling an unforgettable sense of limitless potential. Then, somehow, I became David Copperfield. I fell back to land, addled with obligations. I had so many responsibilities, so much to take care of, oversee, fix.
“You have to do it all,” I told myself.
“No, I don’t,” I replied in the dream. “I’m not David Copperfield.”
On waking, I sensed the fountain must really be out here, somewhere, just waiting to be found. I opened my laptop and watched videos on YouTube of Copperfield levitating. Despite his cheesy faux-romantic touches, the trick remained as striking as it had been in my youth. He simply rose off the ground and flew through the air. Magic.
At breakfast, I told him about the flying part of the dream, neglecting to mention the creepy part where I morphed into him.
Book of Immortality Page 25
