Mrs. Houdini(89)

“Why?” Bess had asked, alarmed. “Did you forget something?”

“Please don’t ask questions. Just turn around and go back.”

Rain was coming down in torrents by the time they reached 113th Street; Bess could barely make out the street signs. When the driver slowed, Harry jumped out of the car and stood under the open sky, looking up at the house, as if it was the last time he would see it.

“Harry, your coat!” Bess cried. “You’ll get soaked!”

But he didn’t seem to hear. He stood on the sidewalk for a moment and then slowly turned and got back in the car.

“You’re sopping wet now!” Bess threw his coat over his shoulders and tried to pat him dry. “Why didn’t you go inside?”

Harry shook his head. “I thought I forgot something, but I didn’t after all.”



After the blow to Harry’s stomach, they made their train to Detroit from Montreal, but by the time the curtain went up on Harry’s next show, his temperature had soared to 102. During one phase of the first act, he was to pull a thousand yards of silk ribbon from a glass bowl on a table. But he was so weak that he could not finish. He beckoned to Jim Collins to come out and complete the trick. Standing by Jim’s side on the open stage, he glanced over at Bess, sitting in the wings. Spread across his face was the saddest expression of humiliation she had ever seen. After the second act she heard him say to the stagehand, “Drop the curtains, I can’t go any further.” When the curtain descended, he collapsed in her arms.

Harry was admitted into Grace Hospital that evening. Bess wired Dr. Stone about Harry’s condition and asked what to do. He wired back and told her to agree to an operation, and asked if she wanted him to come from New York. She thought about it but declined; she didn’t want Harry to think his condition was too serious.

As he was being wheeled into the operating room, Harry tried to stand up and walk. He was almost incoherent, and Bess had to coax him back onto the gurney. As he lay there, staring vacantly at the ceiling, Bess collapsed. Jim Collins, who had not left their side since the theater, rushed to her. “Get someone over here!” he cried. He put his hand on her forehead. “Jesus, she’s got a fever of her own.”

Harry, in his own state of delirium, did not seem aware that she had fallen. “Say, I could still lick the two of you,” she heard him say to the orderlies.



When she awoke, Stella was by her bedside. “Are you really awake now?” she asked. “You’ve been waking up and going back under for days.”

“What day is it?” Bess asked groggily. She had a pounding headache. “How did you get here?”

Stella glanced at the clock. “Jim telephoned. He said you and Harry had both been admitted to the hospital, so I rushed out.”

Bess heard a sound from the hall. A man appeared in the doorway, his figure obscured by the sun streaming through the windows behind him. “Oh, Harry,” Bess said, relieved. “There you are.” The man took a step forward into the shadows of the room. It was not Harry; it was Dash Weiss.

“Oh, thank God, she’s up,” she heard him say.

Stella shook her head. “Only just.”

Bess struggled to sit up. “Dash?”

“You have to come to Harry’s room. He hasn’t got much time.”

“Much time for what?” A nurse came in behind him and, seeing that Bess was awake, rushed over to her bedside.

“It’s okay, I’ve got her,” Dash told her, helping Bess out of bed and into a wheelchair.

“Come on, we’ve got to go.”

“Time for what?” Bess demanded. No one answered. Stella laid a thin blanket over her lap.

Harry’s room was three down from hers. Through the open door, she could see him lying in his hospital bed, unmoving. A tube had been inserted into the side of his mouth. One of the doctors was monitoring his heartbeat with a stethoscope. Nurses were standing along the walls, as if at attention. Bess screamed.

Stella touched her arm gently. “They say he had a gangrenous appendix. He’s had two surgeries since he came in. You’ve been out for days.”

Harry’s eyes flickered open, and he saw Bess. “Darling,” he mumbled. His lips were very dry; the skin was peeling off them. She stumbled out of her wheelchair and onto the edge of the bed. “Remember the code,” he whispered, gripping her hand. “Rosabelle, believe.”

“No, Harry,” Bess sobbed. “Don’t say that.”

“I have been tired for a long time. Sometime or other we all grow tired.”

“Give them a goddamn moment, would you,” she heard Dash say, behind her. He ushered everyone out of the room. He himself was the last to go. He put his hand on Harry’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, old boy,” he murmured. “About our quarreling.” They were two men who had lived a century between them, but in that moment they were merely boys again, shuffling cards together in Wisconsin, playing at fame. Bess reached for Dash’s hand, the same hand that had shaken hers so many years before, outside Vacca’s Theater. Whatever had become of Doll, she wondered. Pretty, petite Doll, with her ears like perfect shells? And Anna? It seemed like a lifetime ago. She wasn’t quite sure what was happening. Just a few moments ago Harry had been going into surgery, and suddenly she was sitting beside him and he looked ten pounds lighter.