Houdini's Last Trick

by David Khalaf

CHAPTER ONE

  EVEN THE SUN was conspiring against Nina Beauregard, she was sure of it. It bore down upon her face like a celestial spotlight, revealing every laugh line, every forehead crease, every sunspot that her Yardley’s English face cream had promised to remove.

  What do the British know about sun?

  She stepped out of the car and pulled on a hat with a brim so wide it could have been a flying saucer. It hid her from the daylight and, she liked to tell herself, the jealous eyes of pedestrians on Hollywood Boulevard.

  The harsh sunlight reminded her of that fateful screen test she had done for Mr. Selznick—the one where the gaffer had neglected to use a light filter to smooth out her face. He had done it on purpose, she was convinced, because he favored Vivien Leigh for the role. That was why Beauregard had lost what was bound to become the greatest role in 1930s cinema—that of Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the Wind.

  “If you wouldn’t mind.”

  The man who had driven her handed her a pair of shaded glasses. They looked like the typical sunglasses that were becoming the fashion, but when she put them on they completely blocked her vision. There were even small flaps on the sides that prevented a peripheral view.

  The driver took her arm in his to guide her down the sidewalk.

  “If I may.”

  You certainly may.

  Although he was older, he was one of the most attractive men Beauregard had ever met. His strong jawline, his salt-and-pepper hair, his piercing blue eyes—she couldn’t believe he was merely someone’s help. He should have been a star, like her.

  They walked two or three blocks, though in which direction Beauregard couldn’t tell; the man took a number of sudden turns that must have been intended to confuse her. After walking across some uneven pavement, he placed Beauregard with her back against a concrete wall and told her to wait. The wall was hot against her back.

  She was sweating heavily underneath the green, long-sleeve crepe gown, but she didn’t show her arms in public anymore. It was all because of that wretched screen test with Mr. Selznick, when she had taken off her caped coat underneath the hot studio lights, and they had stared at the skin hanging from her arms, jiggling like twin turkey necks. True, Beauregard was more than a decade older than Scarlett O’Hara was described in the book, but she had better experience and better credentials than the rest of the actresses combined. She was from Georgia by way of Louisiana. She had grown up on a plantation. Her grandfather had been a Southern general in the war, for heaven’s sake. If anyone deserved to be Scarlett O’Hara, it was Nina Beauregard.

  And instead they give it to an Englishwoman.

  She heard the man’s footsteps; it sounded as if he were pacing back and forth. After a few moments there was a sound of scraping stone and the man took her arm again. They walked down a steep flight of stairs, descending into air that was cold and stale. They reached the bottom of what must have been a small room, because Beauregard could hear the sound of her heels echo off nearby walls.

  “Please sit,” he said. She obeyed.

  Beauregard became aware of someone else in the room, someone standing just inches from her.

  “If you do this, there is no going back.”

  The voice was a whisper, so soft and neutral that Beauregard couldn’t pick out any defining characteristic. It could have come from a man, a woman, even a child. It might have come from the wind itself.

  “There are dangers,” the voice said. “Not in the procedure. In the outcome.”

  “Yes, yes,” Beauregard said. “I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t already decided. Continue on.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Are you simpleminded? I said continue on!”

  “Very well.”

  The driver removed Beauregard’s glasses, but it did her little good. The room was dim, lit by only a single line of tiny glowing lights in the ceiling. The figure in front of her was wearing a baggy white doctor’s coat and white pants. Covered with a surgical mask and hygienic head covering, the person revealed no more information than when Beauregard couldn’t see. Even the doctor’s eyes were covered in strange medical goggles.

  “Will it hurt?” Beauregard asked.

  “Yes,” the doctor said.

  “Good.”

  Anything worth doing has a cost.

  Beauregard didn’t mind pain for a purpose. She was already suffering from a face that, year after year, looked less like her July 1926 cover in Photoplay. Wasn’t that pain enough? If the results were even half of what the driver promised, she’d gladly swallow a burning coal and wash it down with metal tacks.

  The doctor removed a small object from a box. It was polished wood, conical in shape with one end larger than the other. Both ends were flat and had circular pieces of glass set into them, secured by brass bands around the edges. It looked less like a medical device and more like a trinket from an antique store.

  “Look into it,” the doctor said, holding up the larger end to Beauregard’s eye. She leaned in and looked into it. There was nothing to see. It was dark, with only a hint of light coming in through the other side.

  Beauregard saw the doctor crouching down to be at eye level with her. She heard the doctor remove one side of the goggles.

  Then Beauregard saw a blurry eye looking through the other end of the device. When it came into focus she saw that it was big, hazel, and quite attractive. But before she had the chance to consider it, the eye seemed to fracture into a thousand little eyes in a kind of honeycomb pattern. One of those tiny eyes began to glow. It became bright very quickly, and Beauregard had a sense of staring directly into the sun. She was about to pull away when there was a sudden jolt, as if she had been shocked by electricity. Then she did pull away, but apparently that was the end of the procedure because the doctor took away the device and quickly pulled the goggles back on.

  “Go,” the doctor said.

  Beauregard stood, but she felt disoriented. She had a fading blind spot over one eye and she had the sense of tingling all over, the way a limb falling asleep feels when it starts to wake.

  “That’s all?”

  The doctor turned away and said nothing more.

  “How do I know it worked?”

  The driver, who had waited in the corner, grabbed Beauregard’s elbow and turned her to a wall. He reached for something and flicked on a switch. Lights flooded Beauregard’s face, so bright that she had to close her eyes. She was standing in front of a dressing room mirror lined with bulbs.

  She slowly opened her eyes and looked at herself. She saw nothing especially different. Not at first. But after a moment, she saw a quivering near her eye, as if she had developed a small twitch. The crow’s feet around her eyes rippled like a current in the ocean, and then disappeared altogether, smooth as a glassy sea. The same happened to her laugh lines and the creases on her brow.

  At first she thought it must be her eyes adjusting to the light, but she next noticed her lips swelling to a fullness she’d never had, not even when she was eighteen and full of curves. Although she had lipstick on, she could see the natural color of her lips deepening. Her eyelids pulled upward like someone retracting a curtain, leaving her fresh-faced and youthful looking. Beauregard’s brittle hair was dyed black, but she could see it becoming full, glossy, and shiny before her eyes, with a fullness even the best stylist in Hollywood had never been able to give her.

  She smiled, and saw that even her teeth were whiter and seemed stronger. The front right tooth, which had always been slightly crooked, had straightened itself out.

  “It’s a miracle!”

  “Is it?” the doctor said, placing the device back in the small box on the table.

  Beauregard felt her arms becoming firm and lean in her sleeves. She looked down at her hands. Her brittle nails, which were always breaking these days, were now growing out before her eyes. The skin around her knuckles pulled taut and became smooth. The liver spots on her hand, which she always covered with foundation, appear
ed to be gone. It wasn’t just her face; it was everywhere.

  She needed to get out of that room. She needed to go home, to inspect every inch of her new body in front of a full-length mirror.

  If only this had happened before my screen test with Mr. Selznick.

  “How much do I pay you?” Beauregard asked. She was prepared for anything, and she would offer anything. Her car. Her home. Her soul.

  The doctor turned back to her.

  “You fail to understand. You’ve just paid in full.”

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