The Immortalists(32)
Word has spread throughout the corridor about an experimental medication that showed promise in Africa.
‘Okay, Sy,’ Klara whispers. ‘I promise. I’ll try.’
Why, in his years with Robert, has he had such trouble expressing love? As the days become longer, Simon says it over and over: I love you, I love you, that call and response, as essential to the body as food or breath. It is only when he hears Robert’s reply that his pulse slows, his eyes close, and he is able, at last, to sleep.
PART TWO
Proteus
1982–1991
Klara
10.
Klara can turn a black scarf into a single red rose and an ace into a queen. She can produce dimes from pennies and quarters from dimes and dollars from nothing but air. She can do the Hermann pass, the Thurston throw, the rising-card illusion, and the Back Palm. She is expert in the classic cup-and-ball routine, passed from the Canadian master Dai Vernon to Ilya Hlavacek and then to her: a dizzying, dazzling optical illusion in which an empty silver cup is filled with balls and dice and then, finally, one full, perfect lemon.
What she cannot do – what she will never stop trying to do – is bring her brother back.
When Klara arrives for a gig, her first task is to rig the space for the Jaws of Life. It isn’t easy to find nightclubs with high ceilings, so she also performs in dinner theaters and concert halls, and occasionally, as an independent contractor with a small circus in Berkeley. Still, she prefers clubs for their smokiness and dark moods, for the fact that she can work them alone, and because they are populated by adults, the people for whom she prefers to perform. Most adults claim not to believe in magic, but Klara knows better. Why else would anyone play at permanence – fall in love, have children, buy a house – in the face of all evidence there’s no such thing? The trick is not to convert them. The trick is to get them to admit it.
She brings her tools in a bulging duffel bag: drop line and ascension rope, wrench and clamps, swivel mouthpiece, sash cord. Ilya taught her that every rig is different, so Klara assesses the height of the ceiling, the width of the stage, the style and strength of the battens. There is no gap between failure and success – the timing is perfect or it is disastrous – and her pulse trills as she lashes the ascension rope to the batten from a ladder, as she wraps it thrice with sash cord and puts a safety break on the reverse rope. On stage, she measures sixty-nine inches up from the floor: her own five feet six inches, plus seven for her feet when pointed, and a two-inch clearance to the ground.
She started performing the Breakaway two years ago. An assistant pulls the rope until Klara hovers at the ceiling with the bit in her mouth. But instead of floating back down, as she did in her early shows, she plunges when the rope is released. The audience always believes it’s an accident, and there are gasps, sometimes screams, until she jerks to a stop. By now, she’s almost used to the way her jaw jolts as it absorbs the weight of her body, to the whiplash snap of her neck and the sting in her eyes, nose, and ears. All she can see is the hot white of the lights until the rope is lowered inches more and her feet touch down. When she lifts her head and spits the bit into her palm, she sees the audience for the first time, their faces slack with wonder.
‘I love you all,’ she whispers, bowing – these words inspired by Howard Thurston, who repeated them before each show, standing behind the curtain as the overture swelled. ‘I love you all, I love you all, I love you all.’
11.
On an unusually cold night in February, 1988, Klara stands onstage at the Committee, a Cabaret theater on Broadway that is typically populated by a comedy troupe of the same name. This Monday, they’ve rented it to Klara, who paid more to perform there than she’ll ever make back. She’s put a business card on every table – The Immortalist, the cards read – but the audience is sparse, guys who filtered over from the Condor and the Lusty Lady or are headed there afterward. Klara is witty in the cup-and-ball act, but nobody’s interested in anything but the Breakaway, and even that has lost its novelty. ‘Enough magic, sweetheart,’ someone shouts. ‘Lemme see your tits!’ When her act is over and a burlesque troupe begins to set up, Klara puts on the long, black duster she wears on performance nights and walks to the bar. She lifts a leather wallet from the heckler’s pocket on her way to the ladies’ room and slips it back, empty of cash, on her return.
‘Hey.’
Her stomach drops. She spins, expecting to see a freckled face and whiskey-colored eyes, a uniform and a badge, but instead she’s faced with a tall man in a T-shirt, loose jeans, and work boots, a man who puts up his hands in surrender.
‘Didn’t mean to startle you,’ he says, but now Klara is staring at his light brown skin and shiny, shoulder-length black hair, both of which she’s sure she’s seen before.
‘You’re familiar.’
‘I’m Raj.’
‘Raj.’ And the light bulb. ‘Raj! My God – Teddy’s roommate. Baksheesh Khalsa’s, I mean,’ she adds, remembering Baksheesh Khalsa’s long hair and steel bracelet.
Raj laughs. ‘I never liked that kid. What kind of white guy up and starts wearing a turban?’
‘The kind who hangs in the Haight, I guess.’
‘They’re all gone now. They work in Silicon Valley, or they’re lawyers. With very short hair.’