The Immortalists(72)

‘I know that,’ says Ruby dully. ‘Everyone tells me that.’

She leaves to take a walk in the snow. Daniel watches her clomp through the slush in her Ugg boots and hooded sweatshirt, dark tendrils of hair floating next to her face, before she disappears into the trees.





25.


Hallelujah. Praise God in his sanctuary. Praise him in the firmament of his power. Praise him for his mighty acts. Praise him according to his abundant greatness. Praise him with the blast of the horn. Praise him with the psaltery” ’ – here Gertie pauses – ‘ “and harp.” ’

‘What’s a psaltery?’ asks Ruby.

When she returned from her walk, she was chipper again. Now she sits between Raj and Gertie on one side of the table. Mira and Daniel hold hands on the other.

‘I don’t know,’ says Gertie, frowning at the Tehillim.

‘Hang on. I’ll look it up on Wikipedia.’ Ruby pulls her flip phone out of a pocket and types efficiently on the tiny keys. ‘Okay. “The bowed psaltery is a type of psaltery or zither that is played with a bow. In contrast to the centuries-old plucked psaltery, the bowed psaltery appears to be a twentieth-century invention.” ’ She shuts the phone. ‘Well, that was helpful. As you were, Grandma.’

Gertie returns to the book. ‘ “Praise him with the timbrel and dance. Praise him with the loud-sounding cymbals. Let every thing that hath breath praise HaShem. Hallelujah.” ’

‘Amen,’ says Mira, quietly. She squeezes Daniel’s hand. ‘Let’s eat.’

Daniel squeezes her back, but he feels unsettled. That afternoon, he learned of an explosion in the Sadr City district of Baghdad. Five car bombs and a mortar shell killed more than two hundred people, largely Shiites. He takes a long sip of wine, a Malbec. He had a glass or two of a white Mira uncorked while they were cooking, but he’s still waiting for the pleasant fog that comes over him when he drinks.

Gertie looks at Ruby and Raj. ‘What time are you leaving tomorrow?’

‘Early,’ says Raj.

‘Unfortunately,’ says Ruby.

‘We have a show in the city at seven,’ Raj says. ‘We should be there before noon to meet the crew.’

‘I wish you didn’t have to,’ Gertie says. ‘I wish you’d stay a little longer.’

‘Me, too,’ says Ruby. ‘But you can come visit us in Vegas. You’d have your own suite. And I can introduce you to Krystal. She’s a Shetland and a total chub. She probably eats an acre of grass a day.’

‘My goodness,’ says Mira, laughing. She cuts a group of green beans in half with her fork. ‘Now, I have a personal request. I didn’t want to bring it up, because I’m sure people ask this sort of thing all the time, the way our friends are always trying to get Daniel to diagnose them – but we have two magicians in the house, and I can’t let you leave without trying.’

Raj raises his eyebrows. It’s nearly silent in the dining room – a result of this wooded area of Kingston.

Mira sets down her fork; she’s blushing. ‘When I was young, a street magician did a card trick for me. He asked me to pick a card as he flipped through the deck, which couldn’t have taken more than a second. I picked the nine of hearts. And that was what he guessed. I made him do the trick another time to make sure the deck wasn’t filled with nines of hearts. I’ve never been able to figure out how he did it.’

Raj and Ruby share a glance.

‘Forcing,’ says Ruby. ‘When a magician manipulates your decisions.’

‘But that’s just it,’ Mira says. ‘There was nothing he said or did to influence me. The decision was entirely mine.’

‘So you thought,’ says Raj. ‘There are two kinds of forcing. In psychological forcing, a magician uses language to steer you toward a particular choice. But physical forcing is likely what he used – that’s when a particular object is made to stand out from the rest. He would have paused at the nine of hearts for just a millisecond more than any of the other cards.’

‘Increased exposure,’ adds Ruby. ‘It’s a classic technique.’

‘Fascinating.’ Mira leans back in her chair. ‘Though I confess I almost feel – disappointed? I suppose I didn’t expect the solution to be so rational.’

‘Most magicians are incredibly rational.’ Raj is slicing meat from a turkey leg, placing it in neat strips on one side of his plate. ‘They’re analysts. You have to be, to develop illusions. To trick people.’

Something about the phrase needles Daniel. It reminds him of what he’s always resented about Raj: his pragmatism, his obsession with business. Before Klara met Raj, magic was her passion, her greatest love. Now Raj lives in a gated mansion, and Klara is dead.

‘I’m not sure my sister saw it that way,’ Daniel says.

Raj spears a pearl onion. ‘How do you mean?’

‘Klara knew that magic can be used to deceive people. But she tried to do the opposite – to reveal some greater truth. To pull the wool off.’

The candelabra in the center of the table throws the lower half of Raj’s face into shadow, but his eyes are lit. ‘If you’re asking me whether I believe in what I do, whether I feel I’m providing some kind of essential service – well, I could ask you the same thing. This is my career. And it means as much to me as yours does to you.’