Mrs. Houdini(61)

Gladys, who was sleeping in the other bed, had woken next. Harry had pressed a piece of the heavy gold into his sister’s hand. “See what I’ve done,” he’d told her. “This is yours.”

“What is this?” Gladys had rubbed the coin with her thumb.

“It’s gold. And it’s real.”

Bess had watched the festivities from the doorway, smiling a small, tight smile. She had tried to reconcile with her own mother, only to find the old neighborhood changed, Mrs. Rahner’s mind nearly gone. “How can I forgive you?” the withered woman had asked, staring up at her, confused. “I don’t even know you.”

But it was her sister Ada whose aging haunted Bess. The toothless baby was now a girl of eighteen; she looked startlingly like Bess had at that age. For years Stella had passed along news of the family, as their siblings moved out of New York one by one, leaving only Ada at home—but the others had wanted nothing to do with Bess, and she was almost always traveling.

“I read about you in the papers,” Ada had said shyly. “You’re very rich.”

“Not very. Only a little rich. Have you gotten the money I’ve sent?”

She’d nodded. “Mother said it was the devil’s money, but she kept it anyway.” Ada had stepped toward her. “Are you staying tonight?” Her voice rose a little in desperation.

“I can’t stay,” Bess had said softly. “I’m married now. I live with my husband.”

“Harry Houdini.”

“Yes.”

“You’re lucky,” Ada had said. “You got out.” The wistfulness in her voice had shattered Bess.

Now she could see Harry becoming more and more enamored with this wealth—even if only to give it away—and this worried her. The irony of his situation was not lost on her; he flaunted his gold while obsessing over death—that vast, black arena where one’s treasures could not go. Then, in the pink hours of the Catskills morning, as if in response to her fears, Harry had woken her with a small shake.

“Bess,” he’d whispered, terrified. “I’ve just been to the toilet. I’ve passed some blood.”

Bess had called Dr. Stone to Pittsburgh as soon as they arrived. Harry had refused to cancel his show and go back to New York, and so the medical tests were performed in the early hours of the morning, before the day’s work began. Dr. Stone slept in the room adjacent to theirs in the hotel; more than once Bess hurried him into their bedroom in the middle of the night, where Harry was writhing in pain, grasping a pillow and shimmering with sweat.

She wished Harry would reconcile himself to the fact that he would never be—as he hoped—invincible. A few months earlier, during a bridge jump into the dark, churning waters of New York Harbor, a corpse had floated to the surface as he sank to the bottom. Bess, along with a thousand spectators, had initially thought the corpse was Harry’s, until he appeared a few moments later, his head coming to the surface within a foot of the dead man’s arm. Looking over to find the grayed mass bobbing beside him, Harry could not breathe. Flailing in the water, tangled in a cluster of weeds, he’d had to be rescued and dragged to land. For days, neither Bess nor Harry could rid themselves of the image of the man’s dark open eyes.

But instead of succumbing to Dr. Stone’s diagnosis, Harry resisted it. He declared his new ambition to be buried alive. He had mastered the art of managing his breath, and dirt, he reasoned, would be little different from water. He had Jim Collins bury him, manacled, under one foot of earth, and then two, while he practiced his escapes. Each time it took only a few minutes for him to break free, pushing out of the dirt like a mole. But when Jim put him in a hole at six feet—the depth at which he was intending to perform—he did not emerge. Bess felt a crazed and paralyzing chill come over her, but Jim’s eyes were fixed on his watch. He had been instructed to go in after Harry at exactly four and a half minutes. After four excruciating minutes Harry burst into the daylight, choking for air, his face and eyelids black with dirt.

That night when they got home, Harry was very quiet. He lay on the bed with his eyes closed for a long time. Bess lay next to him, afraid to disturb him. When she thought he was asleep, she crept out of the bed and went over to the closet to change into her dressing gown.

She had removed her shirtwaist and drawers when she heard a noise behind her. She turned to see Harry standing there in the dark, watching her. “I thought you were asleep,” she said, startled. “Did I wake you?”

He didn’t answer. He pushed her against the bedroom wall and pulled her stockings off. “What are you doing, Harry?” she asked. “Are you all right?”

“Are you afraid?” His voice was very quiet.

“No,” she said, honestly.

When she was undressed, he turned her around, so that her back was against the blue flowered wallpaper.

She didn’t make a sound. Instead she found herself moving as if she were detached from herself, as if she were watching another woman from above. He wrapped his arms around her waist. It felt like she was being filled when she had been empty. She and Harry had not made love this way since they were first married, not with this kind of passion. She turned, lifted her legs, and wrapped them around his waist, and when it was over, she did not feel lonely anymore.

“You can’t do the burial stunt again,” she said.