Mrs. Houdini(91)

Bess lifted her head and scanned the crowd. It seemed that everyone she had ever loved, or would again, was there—Stella, a grandmother now, watching with sympathetic eyes; nearby, her sister Ada, alongside three other siblings. Jim Vickery had died, as had Alfred and Dr. Stone and John Sargent, but Jim Collins was there, in the second row next to Harry’s old producer, Ben Rolfe, and beside him, Stella’s husband, Fred, and the young magicians from her old tearoom. A month after her trip to Atlantic City, she had sold it to Niall for a song; she had discovered that the chaos of the place hadn’t held her in its thrall as it once had. It needed someone young and vibrant at the helm—someone who needed something from it, as she had when she first opened it.

Saint continued, “The Houdinis always believed that if you remove the fraud, what is left must be the truth. Before Houdini’s death, Mr. Houdini and his wife made a pact that the first to go would contact the survivor. The first year after Houdini’s death found Mrs. Houdini every Sunday between the hours of twelve and two o’clock locked up in her own room, waiting for a sign. But at no time has Mrs. Houdini ever received a psychic communication from her husband. We believe that the great Houdini will, in this last authentic séance, come back to Mrs. Houdini, who, for thirty-three years, stood by the side of her beloved Harry, listening to the applause of kings and emperors and the world at large.” Saint’s voice echoed across the blue night.

On the far end of the bleachers, in the last row, Charles sat quietly with the other members of the press. He wore a badge that identified him as a newspaperman from the Los Angeles Examiner. After the stock market crashed, with the East Coast in chaos, he had moved with Bess to California. He had bought a white bungalow, with lemon trees in the yard, across from her own in the Hollywood Hills, where they had pretended to meet as neighbors. He had not gone to seminary. He wanted a child, he told Bess. He wanted to pass along Harry’s legacy. Bess, for her part, had begun her marriage to Harry with a trunk of clothes and five dollars to her name; she felt she needed to live once more as if she was only partway through a great adventure.

Gladys had almost gone with them, but then Lloyd had proposed in the garden of his crumbling Long Island estate, and she had accepted. The estate was being sold; he had lost most of his money in stocks but still had some family money remaining. They moved to a three-bedroom house in a quiet town outside the city.

“But will you be all right there?” Bess had asked her. “You won’t know anyone.”

Gladys had smiled. “Harry never really had any friends.”

Bess had laughed. “No, he didn’t. He had hundreds of acquaintances. And very loyal employees. But that’s not the same as having friends.”

“He had you.”

“Yes.” Bess had thought about it. “I was his best friend.”

Now, Saint clasped his hands together. “Let us meditate in prayer,” he moaned. “O, mastermind of the universe, please let the spirit of understanding be sent upon us who are gathered in this inner circle tonight. Please bring the light of truth to us tonight. Aid us, guide us, on this most important quest. O, thou disembodied spirits, those of you who have grown old in the mysterious laws of the spirit land, all is in readiness. Please now, the time is at hand. Make yourself known to us. Houdini, are you here?”

He paused; the air around him seemed fragile as lace.

Saint’s voice rose to a shout. “Are you here, Houdini? Manifest yourself! Bess is here, your Bess is here, pleading in her heart for a sign. Please manifest yourself by speaking through the trumpet. Lift it, lift it! Levitate the table, move it! Spell out a code, Harry, please! Ring the bell, let it be heard round the world! Come through, Harry!”

In response, there was a deafening silence. The members of the semicircle sat with clasped hands, in meditation, while the crowd craned their heads to see the items laid out on the little black table, which sat, unmoving, where they had been placed at the beginning of the evening.

At last Saint, in a voice that broke, placed his hand over his heart. “Mrs. Houdini,” he said. “It seems the zero hour has passed. Have you reached a decision?”

Bess stood to face him on unsteady legs. What she could not tell him was that Harry had, in fact, come through years before. She was done with the humiliating circuses of the spiritualists; she was done with them all. Charles, plagued by the deep-seated fear of public scrutiny, on him and on Bess, had begged her to do the final séance everyone wanted and be done with it all. They had made a pact, together, never to reveal to anyone, with the exception of a future wife, in confidence, that he was Harry’s son; Bess had arranged for his inheritance to be passed to him through Gladys, and did not mention him in her will. Nor would they ever reveal the message they had discovered in his photographs.

And so she stood in front of those she had loved dearly, in a recording that would be broadcast around the world, and publicly ended her search for Harry.

“Mrs. Houdini,” Saint repeated. “Have you come to a decision?”

Bess looked around her one last time. “Yes,” she said. “My husband did not come through. My last hope is gone. I do not believe that Houdini can come back to me, or to anyone. It is now my personal belief that spirit communication is impossible. I do not believe that ghosts or spirits exist.”

There was a low murmur from the crowd.

She bent over Harry’s photograph on the table and reached for the red lamp. “I now, reverently, turn out the light.” She kissed her husband’s lips. “Good night, Harry. It is finished.”