The Prestige

by Christopher Priest

  Back in the laboratory we all examined the ‘original’ piece. Stone-cold it was, but undoubtedly identical to the twin that had been made of it across the emptiness of space.

  ‘Tomorrow, sir,’ Tesla said to me, ‘tomorrow, and with the consent of my noble assistant here, we shall endeavour to safely transport the cat from one place to another. If that can be achieved, I take it you will be satisfied?’

  ‘Indeed, Mr Tesla,’ I said warmly. ‘Indeed.’

  20th August 1900

  And indeed it has been done. The cat has crossed the aether unscathed!

  There was a small hitch, however, and Tesla has returned to the preoccupations of his calling, and once more I am banished to my hotel, and once more I find myself fretting about the time that is slipping away.

  Tesla promises me another demonstration tomorrow, and this time he has told me there will be no more problems. I sense a man who is anxious for the remainder of his fee.

  Caldlow House, Derbyshire 11th October 1900

  I did not expect to live to write these words. Following the accidental demise of my elder brother Henry, and because of his having left no issue, I have finally come to the title and lands of my father.

  I am now permanently in residence in the family home, and have abandoned my career as a stage illusionist. My daily routine is occupied with the administration of the estate, and by needing to attend to the numerous practical problems that have been created by Henry’s whims, peccadillos and sheer financial misjudgements.

  I now sign myself,

  Rupert, 14th Earl of Colderdale.

  12th November 1900

  I have just returned from a visit of a few days to my old house in London. My intention had been to clear out the place, and my former workshop, and sell both properties on the open market. The Caldlow estate is on the verge of bankruptcy and I am in a hurry to raise some cash for urgent repairs to both the house and some of the estate buildings. Naturally, I have been cursing myself for squandering practically all the accumulated wealth from my stage career on Tesla. Just about my last act on leaving Colorado, as I returned to England in haste on the news of Henry’s death, was to hand over the rest of the fee. It did not occur to me then how radically my whole life was to be changed by the news.

  Returning to my home in Idmiston Villas had an unanticipated effect on me, though. I found it full of memories, of course, and these were as mixed as all such memories can be, but above all I was reminded of my first days in London. Then I was hardly more than a boy, disinherited, callow in the ways of the world, incompletely educated, not trained in any skill or profession. Yet I had carved out a life and livelihood for myself against the odds, and in the end made myself moderately wealthy and more than usually renowned. I was, I suppose I still am, at the top of the magic profession. And far from resting on my laurels, I had invested most of my money in new and innovative magical apparatus, the use of which would clearly have given my career a new momentum.

  I thought in such wistful fashion for two days, and finally sent round a note to Julia’s address. She was on my mind, because in spite of the fact that we separated many years ago I still identify my early days in London with her. I cannot any longer distinguish my early plans and dreams from the period in which I fell in love with her.

  Rather to my surprise, but to my intense pleasure, she consented to meet me, and two days ago I spent an afternoon with her and the children at the house of one of her women friends.

  To see my family again in such circumstances was emotionally overwhelming, and any plans I might have made beforehand to raise practical matters were abandoned. Julia, at first cool and remote, was obviously much affected by my expressions of shock and emotion (Edward, sixteen now, is so tall and good-looking!; Lydia and Florence are so beautiful and gentle!; I could not keep my eyes off them all afternoon) and before long she was speaking kindly and warmly to me.

  I then told her my news. Even when we were married and living together I had never revealed my past to her, so what I had to say to her was a triple surprise. Firstly I had to tell her that I had once renounced a family and estate of which she had never heard, secondly that I had now returned to it, and thirdly that as a consequence I had decided to abandon my stage career.

  As I should have guessed in advance, Julia appeared to take all this calmly. (Only when I told her that she should henceforward be correctly addressed as Lady Julia did her composure momentarily break.) A little later, she asked me if I was sure I should abandon my career. I said I saw no alternative. She told me that although we were separated she had continued to follow my magic career with admiration, regretting only that she were no longer a part of it.

  As we spoke I felt rising in me, or more correctly sinking out of me, a despair that I had thrown away my wife, and more unforgivably my splendid children, for the sake of the American woman.

  Yesterday, before leaving London, I sought out Julia a second time. This time the children were not with her.

  I threw myself at her mercy, and begged her forgiveness for all the sins I had committed against her. I pleaded with her to return to me and live with me once more as my wife. I promised her anything in my power to grant, should she accept.

  She said no, but promised that she would consider carefully. I deserve no better.

  Later in the day I caught the overnight train to Sheffield. I thought of nothing but reconciliation with Julia.

  14th November 1900

  However, I am obliged to think of nothing but money, faced once more as I am with the realities of this decaying house.

  It is ridiculous to be inconvenienced by shortage of money so soon after squandering that huge amount, so I have written to Tesla and demanded a refund of everything I paid him. It is nearly three months since I left Colorado Springs and I have not had a single word from him. He will have to pay, no matter what his circumstances, because at the same time I have written to the firm of attorneys in New York who aided me in a small legal matter during my last tour. I have instructed them to start proceedings against him from the first day of next month. If he refunds me immediately he receives my letter I shall call off the hounds, but he will have to take the consequences if he does not.

  15th November 1900

  I am about to return to London.

  17th November 1900

  I am back in Derbyshire, and weary of travelling on trains. I am not, however, weary of life.

  Julia has put to me a proposition about a way we could possibly be together in the future. It boils down to my having to make a simple decision.

  She says she will return to me, live with me once more as my wife, but only if I resume my magic career. She wishes me to leave Caldlow House and return to Idmiston Villas. She says that she and the children do not wish to move to a house in a remote and, to them, unknown part of Derbyshire. She has put the point to me in terms so simple that I know they are non-negotiable.

  To try to persuade me that her proposal is also for my own good, she adds four general arguments.

  First, she says the stage is in her blood as much as mine, and that although she now sees the children as her first duty she would wish to participate wholly in all my future stage endeavours. I presume by this she means I will not be allowed foreign tours without her, so there will be no risk of another Olivia Svenson coming between us.

  At the beginning of this year, she next argues, I was at the peak of my profession, but that by default the wretched Borden is on the brink of taking my laurels. Apparently, he is continuing to perform his version of the switch illusion.

  Julia then reminds me that the only reliable way I know of earning money is to perform magic, and that I have a duty to go on supporting her as well as running the family estate she has never seen and had never heard of until last week.

  Finally, she points out that I will not lose my inheritance by continuing to work in London, and the house and everything that goes with the estate will still be waiting for me when the time comes f
or retirement. Urgent matters, such as repairs, can be managed from London almost as easily as from the house.

  So I have returned to Derbyshire, ostensibly to attend to matters here, but in fact I do need some time alone to think.

  I cannot walk away from my responsibilities here in Caldlow House. There are the tenant farmers, the household staff, the commitments my family have traditionally made to the rural council, the church, the parishioners, and so on. I find myself taking these matters seriously, so I presume they have always been flowing, unsuspected, in the blood hitherto.

  But what practical use can I be in any of these functions if I am to become, as seems likely, bankrupt?

  19th November 1900

  What I really want is to be with Julia and my family once more, but to do so means accepting Julia’s terms. Moving back to London would not be difficult, but I do feel a terrific resistance to the idea of going back on the stage.

  I have been away from it for just a few weeks, but I had not realised what a burden it had all become. I remember the day, back in Colorado Springs, when the news of Henry’s demise belatedly reached me. I thought nothing of Henry and his humiliating but appropriate death in Paris. What I felt was for myself, a burst of relief, genuine and uplifting relief.

  I would be free at last of the mental stresses and strains associated with performing illusions. There would be an end, a thankful end, to the daily hours of practice. No more overnight stays in appalling provincial hotels or seaside lodging houses. No more tiresome train journeys. I would be free of the ceaseless attention to practical matters: making sure the props and costumes would arrive in the same places as me and at the same time, checking the backstage areas of the theatres for the best use of my props, employing and paying the staff, and a hundred other minor chores. All these had suddenly vanished from my life.

  And I had also thought about Borden. There was my unshakable foe, lurking out there in the world of magic, ready to resume his campaign of pranks against me.

  If I never went back, I would miss none of it. I had not realised how the resentment had been growing inside me.

  But Julia tempts me.

  There is the happy laughter from the audience when I work a surprising effect, the radiance of the lights beaming down upon me, the friendship of the other artistes I meet in the daily round, the applause at the end of my performance. Inevitably also, the fame, the admiring glances in the street, the respectful regard of my contemporaries, the recognition in the highest areas of society. No honest man could say these mean nothing to him.

  And the money. How I crave the money!

  It is of course no longer a question of what I will decide, but how soon I can convince myself I must do it.

  20th November 1900

  To London once more by train.

  21st November 1900

  I am at Idmiston Villas, and I have found here a letter from Alley, the assistant to Nikola Tesla. I now transcribe it:

  September 27, 1900

  Mr Angier, Sir:

  I don’t expect you have heard but Nikola Tesla has left Colorado already, and is rumored to have moved his operation to the East, probably to New York or New Jersey. His laboratory here has been seized by his creditors, and it is currently looking for a purchaser. I have been left in the lurch, with more than a month’s pay due to me.

  You will wish to know, however, that in some matters Mr Tesla is a man of honor, and before our work here was completed your equipment was as instructed shipped to your workshop.

  Once the apparatus has been correctly put together (I wrote the assembly instructions myself) you will find it is in complete working order, and operates exactly to the agreed technical specification. The device is self-calibrating and self-regulating, and should continue to work without adjustment or repair for many years. All you should do is keep it clean, brighten the electrical contact points should they become dull, and in general ensure that no physical damage goes unrepaired. (Mr Tesla enclosed a set of spares for those parts which will, in the ordinary course, require replacement. All the other parts, such as the wooden struts, may be replaced from normal sources.)

  I would of course be fascinated to learn what illusions you work with this extraordinary invention, because I am as you know one of your greatest admirers. Although you were not here to see it for yourself, I can testify that Snowshoes (the name of my children’s pet cat) was safely transported several times by the device, but is back once more with our family as a domestic animal.

  Let me say in conclusion, Sir, that I was honored to play some part, no matter how small, in building this apparatus for you.

  Yours most sincerely,

  Fareham K. Alley, Dip. Eng.

  P.S.: You were once kind enough to admire, and pretend bafflement by, the small tricks I had the temerity to show to you. Since you made such a point of demanding an explanation, perhaps you would like to know that my little illusion with the five playing-cards and the disappearing silver dollars was achieved by a combination of classic palming and a card force. I was most gratified by your response to this trick, and would be delighted to send on detailed instructions about each move in turn, should you require them. F. K.A.

  As soon as I read this I hurried around to my workshop. I enquired of my neighbours there if a large package might recently have been delivered from the USA, but they knew nothing of it.

  22nd November 1900

  I showed Alley’s letter to Julia this morning, quite forgetting that I had not yet told her about my most recent trip to the USA, and what I had done there. Of course her curiosity was aroused by it, and I then needed to explain.

  ‘So this is where all your money has gone?’ she said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And Tesla has apparently absconded, and we have only this letter to show for it?’

  I assured her that Alley was trustworthy, and pointed out that he had written his letter without solicitation from me. For a while we discussed what might have happened to the package while en route to me, where it might be, and how we might recover it.

  Then Julia said, ‘What is so special about the illusion?’

  ‘Not the illusion itself,’ I replied. ‘It is the means by which it is achieved.’

  ‘Is Mr Borden something to do with this?’

  ‘You have not forgotten Mr Borden, I see.’

  ‘My dear, it was Alfred Borden who drove the first wedge between us. I have had many years to reflect, and I trace everything that went wrong to that day when he attacked me.’ Tears had started in her eyes, making them gleam with grief, but she spoke in quiet rage and without any trace of self-pity. ‘Had he not hurt me I should not have lost our first child, and the aftermath, in which I felt a great divide opening between us, would not have occurred. Your restlessness began then. Even our dear children who followed could not compensate for the cruelty and stupidity of what Borden did that day, and that the feud between you continues is proof of the outrage you too must still feel.’

  ‘I have never spoken to you about that,’ I said. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because I am not a fool, Rupert, and I have seen occasional remarks in the magic magazines.’ I had not known she continued to subscribe to those. ‘You are still prime amongst my concerns,’ she said. ‘I wonder only why you have never spoken to me of his attacks.’

  ‘Because I am, I suppose, a little ashamed of the feud.’

  ‘Surely he is the aggressor?’

  ‘I have had to defend myself,’ I said.

  I told her about my investigations into his past, and my attempts to discover how he worked the illusion. Then I described the hopes I had for Tesla’s equipment.

  ‘Borden relies on standard stage trickery,’ I explained. ‘He uses cabinets and lights and make-up, and when he transports himself across the stage he does so by concealment. He enters one apparatus and emerges from another. It is brilliantly done, but the mystery is not only concealed by his props it is also made banal by them. The beauty
of the Tesla device is that the trick can be carried out in the open, and the materialisation uses no props at all! If it works as planned I shall be transporting myself instantly to any position I like: to an empty part of the stage, to the royal box, to the front of the grand circle, even to an empty seat in the centre of the stalls! Anywhere, indeed, that will produce the greatest impact on the audience.’

  ‘You make it sound a little provisional,’ Julia said. ‘You say this is still being planned?’

  ‘As Alley says in his letter, it has been despatched to me. I have yet to receive it.’

  Julia was the perfect audience for my enthusiasms about Tesla’s device, and for the next hour or more we discussed all the possibilities it presented to me. Julia quickly identified the instinct that had been at the heart of it. If I were to perform this illusion on any public stage it would thwart Borden forever!

  Were there any remaining doubts about what I should be doing, Julia dispelled them forever. Indeed, so excited was she that we began our search for the shipment at once.

  I proposed, gloomily, that it would take several weeks to tour around the many shipping agents’ offices in London, trying to trace an undelivered crate. But Julia said, in her familiar way of cutting through the Gordian Knot: ‘Why do we not begin our enquiries with the Post Office?’

  So it was, two hours later, that we located two immense crates addressed to me, waiting safely in the dead-letter section of the Mount Pleasant Sorting Office.

  15th December 1900

  Most of the last three weeks have been an agony of frustration, because I have been waiting for electricity to be supplied to my workshop. I have been like a small boy with a toy I could not play with. The Tesla apparatus has been erected in my workshop ever since I picked it up from Mount Pleasant, but without a supply of current it is useless. I have read Mr Alley’s lucid instructions a thousand times! However, after my increasingly frequent reminders and urgings, the London Electricity Company has at last done the necessary work.