Twenty; twenty-one; twenty-two …
He is at the door, tugging at the bolt, when he hears her anguished call to him. There is a sigh, an exhalation of breath, and he dare not turn around.
Again.
The sound of rats. Or the attendant laughing in the room below.
36
BESS is dreaming. Which is unusual. But so much of what is happening is different: this place; the climate; performing again after so long; the pressures mounting on her husband; the composer … and they are all in the dream from which she wakes on Friday morning. But usual roles have been swapped around, as if people had chosen cards with assigned parts from a freshly-shuffled pack. Bess is like her husband in the routine he will perform on stage at the Opera House that night: wrapped in ropes. But these restraints are being pulled in several opposing directions. Her husband is tugging at one loose end. Puccini, with his melancholy expression and soft hands, has hold of another. Now Audran, his spectacles reflecting the lights, is begging her pardon for insisting he follow her somewhere else.
She has never attempted this routine herself, though she has watched her husband pull it off countless times. So she writhes and twists, trying to sense the weakness in any of the knots. She feels progress being made, some slackness in the restraints, but stops upon hearing weeping close to her. She knows that cry. It is her son, Mayer Samuel, and when she rolls to face the front rows she sees the doll, with vacant seats on either side of him and reproachful tears trickling down his impassive face. His mouth is closed but she can still hear crying, and only when she wakes does she realise that the sounds are coming not from her son but her husband.
He returned to the Metropole much later than Bess had expected the previous evening. There had been plenty of time for her to soak in a bath with mineral salts. Time to soak her bruises and strains and wash away the smell of cologne and cigarettes and sweat. Time to apologise to her son for her absence during the day and assure him she will make it up to him.
Harry seemed preoccupied and withdrawn when he arrived, shortly after six o’clock, and said nothing about the Champion phonograph to which Bess has given pride of place in their room. It was as if he had no memory of leaving it in the morning. He was unusually silent. And wounded – a handkerchief wrapped around the knuckles of one hand. The white cloth was streaked with red, but he had dismissed her concern and muttered something about difficulties with the flying machine. Then he took much longer than usual to clean himself, carefully scrubbing his hands and forearms with soap and a brush before preparing to leave for the theatre and his Thursday-night show.
When he saw Bess standing ready to go with him, her costume folded in a cloth bag, he had stared at her, mystified. He had forgotten all about the Metamorphosis routine and her part in it.
Then he checked himself. Smiled. Offered his arm.
‘Of course,’ he says. ‘Let us go together. We will have time to talk about the day over some dinner later.’
He winced when her fingers brushed his damaged hand.
AFTER another successful show he told her he would not be returning to Diggers Rest in the morning. Brassac, he complained, had still not resolved mechanical issues. And conditions remained unsuitable. On their return from the Opera House, with his hand bandaged by Kukol, Harry asked a night porter to get word to Jordan the driver of his changed requirements. Then he collapsed on to his bed, without even removing his clothes, soon after they had entered their room.
Now, instead of waking to find him gone and another handwritten note left for her to read, her husband is still there. Another unusual event. But his rest seems troubled. His arms move as if he were swimming. The noises he is making, sounds rather than words or weeping, subside as he rolls onto one side. From where she is lying, Bess feels as if she is a spectator to another one of his performances. Just like Mayer Samuel seemed to be watching her on stage in her own dream.
But she is awake now while Harry dozes. And she has time to change her plans; rearrange the cards she laid out in matching pairs on a green baize table. Today will be for her husband. It will do him good not to head off again with Jordan and return, already fatigued, shortly before a performance. Today she will be caring and attentive. She will suggest a leisurely breakfast in the hotel dining-room and later, if it’s not too hot outside, a stroll with Mayer Samuel. First, though, there is one card to be shifted to one side. It can be played tonight – after she has scribbled a note and discreetly left it with Audran at breakfast.
37
DEMAND for seats at Harry’s shows has grown steadily, especially now that notices advise ‘Season Must Finish Soon!’ It pains Rickards to give away a ticket to a hotel guest that he might otherwise sell. Only when Audran reminds him that the Houdinis are staying at the Metropole at substantially reduced rates, a tariff that could easily be revised and backdated, does Rickards relent. But he insists that the late notice limits his options. So the composer finds himself seated near the front but towards the side of the theatre for the Friday-night performance at the Opera House.
He is unconcerned by the placement, and has assured Audran he will not risk drawing attention to himself with another early exit. With his collar tugged up high again, he has found his seat as the flickering cinematograph images signal the start of Harry’s segment of the show. In his vest pocket are both the ticket and the note that Audran brought him late in the morning. A note with just two words: ‘Come tonight.’
As Harry’s first routine unfolds, the composer pays little attention to the writhing on stage. But he does notice the bandage on his left hand: these escapes are not without risk, he thinks. He wonders if Audran noticed the slight look of disappointment that greeted him after he had knocked on the composer’s door. For the manager was not the one Puccini had been expecting. A couple of strides had taken him from piano to door, time enough to anticipate taking her hands and leaning down for a kiss.
But it was the manager at the door, and if Audran sensed any regret in the composer’s manner he was, as ever, sufficiently diplomatic not to let anything show. Audran delivered what he had brought with him, made polite enquiries about his work after apologising for the interruption, and withdrew. Only when he left did Puccini read the note. Two words he re-read several times. Before returning to the piano-stool he stood by his silent Edison machine, remembering Bess’s rapt expression while he assembled her own gramophone. If only his own music would come together so neatly: one piece here; one piece there; a satisfying click when parts were joined correctly … simple. Many small things making something much bigger and beautiful. But progress has been made. For the first time he can sense the final shape of the work he is creating.
NOW, from his seat near the side of the theatre, the composer barely listens as Harry introduces the latest challenge. He explains how he will first be laid flat on a plank, then tied with thick mariners’ ropes. Puccini knows that Houdini will extricate himself. He does not yet know how he will do so, but the result seems as inevitable as several deaths in the last Act of an opera. His mind wanders to his Dick Johnson and Minnie in the Wild West as Kukol and Vickery appear on the stage, each carrying one end of an eight-foot-long plank. They are followed by four men in the distinctive white shirts and blue trousers favoured by sailors. The one closest to the front of the stage, a young man whose forearms are covered in tattoos of mermaids and sea-monsters, is indeed a mariner, recruited that morning from Mrs Dawson’s boarding house near the docks with the offer of two pounds for his silence and a few hours’ work. The other three, lacking tattoos, are the two violinists and double-bass player who provide occasional musical accompaniment for the shows.
Watching from behind curtains at the side of the stage as Harry is secured to the plank, Bess is reminded of a Thanksgiving turkey being prepared for the oven – its drumsticks tied together and cavity sewed shut to secure the stuffing. She sees her husband smile confidently as his hands are tied, then attached to a broomstick; placed under his raised knees; with several knots securing the ends of the rope after they have been wound around Harry’s legs and torso. The rope and knots are real, though Kukol’s job is to ensure there is just enough slack in the restraints at critical points.
Harry can use almost every part of his body – his prehensile toes, his strong and flexible fingers, even his teeth – to work at the rope. His mouth fills with the taste of hemp and tar. His writhing becomes intense, the plank rising and falling on the stage with dull thuds. Everyone can hear the effort he makes to free himself and see the red marks on his arms when he celebrates another success, holding aloft one end of the rope like a jungle hunter who has slain a fearsome serpent. Puccini has decided that this rope challenge is the escape artist’s equivalent of Caruso singing scales: a display of technical excellence. Similarly, the demonstration of a handcuff escape that follows is impressive rather than moving.
Only when Kukol and Vickery manoeuvre the large curtained cabinet and trunk on to the stage, signalling the imminent start of the Metamorphosis routine, does Puccini concentrate. He leans forward as Harry reappears in his shirtsleeves and makes similar preliminary comments to those the composer heard two days previously, although his introduction of Bess is even more fulsome. He welcomes her as, ‘My wife, my shining light, my most beautiful assistant.’ Something seems to block Puccini’s throat when she appears, wearing the same boyish costume.
Once again there is whistling from the rear seats. She is smiling, yet there is also something resolute about her expression that the composer would love to see replicated by a soprano portraying his Minnie in her final scene.
As before, Bess has nothing to say until her husband has been sealed inside the long cloth bag and positioned within the cabinet. She steps forward. The crowd quietens, curious to hear what this slight figure has to say. But she stays mute, standing still and quiet as if she has forgotten her lines. She smiles and savours the intoxicating power of this extended pause. Enclosed in darkness in the cabinet, Harry wonders if something has gone wrong.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ Bess begins. Then she stops again. Puccini thinks he sees a fleeting nod of her head in his direction. He wishes he could make eye contact, but her gaze is now fixed forwards.
‘You must pay complete attention!’ she says. ‘For this is the final time I will ask this of you or any other audience. I shall now clap my hands three times. On the third and very last occasion, I invite you to watch closely for the effect.’
Then it is all as before: Bess stepping behind the curtains as they shut; the transformation; the reappearance of Harry; Bess coming out of the bag like a gorgeous gauzy butterfly from a chrysalis and taking her bows with her husband at the front of the stage. But the composer is repeating her words to himself: this is the final time. The same words that have caused Kukol and Vickery to turn to each other in the wings.
‘You hear that?’ Vickery asks. ‘Did the boss even know?’
Kukol cannot answer this. He is so shocked by what he has heard that he almost forgets to check his watch at the routine’s conclusion. A fraction over three seconds: Bess has bowed out in style. But was it really a finale?
This is what Harry wants to know even as they acknowledge the applause.
‘Did you mean it, my love?’ he asks while beaming at the spectators. She says nothing. It is only later in the dressing-room, after Bess has changed out of her costume, that she answers him. Yes, she chose her words quite deliberately. This was her last show.
‘But why didn’t you warn me, sweetness?’ he replies, upset. ‘I could hear you inside that trunk. I was so shocked I couldn’t concentrate on all I had to do. Metamorphosis might have been ruined!’ As always, it is the performance that matters most. But she stays calm as she tries to explain.
‘Why didn’t I tell you? Because I didn’t know for sure myself until just before I spoke. Then I was absolutely certain.’
‘But why now? So soon after your return. Was it those snide comments in that Sydney magazine about me using my wife as a right-hand man?’
‘Not at all. And it’s nothing you have done – or not done. I read an interview with Madame Melba in the newspaper. She said nothing but the best would ever suffice for her. That’s how it is for you too, Houdini. You have that in common. And I am not the best I can be. Not as good as I was.’
