Mrs. Houdini (23 page)

Bess set her jaw to keep her lip from trembling. She would not let Harry ruin her night. “It's all right,” she said. “I'll go alone.”

She expected him to protest, but he only looked at her surprised. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.” She picked up her handbag. She thought of the candlelit tables and the chairs garlanded with roses, waiting for her arrival. “I'm very sociable, you know.
I
can talk about politics all night.”

Young's Million Dollar Pier had been open for only a few months, but it had become a sensation among tourists. Built as an arcade and amusement hall, it was not yet as famous as Steel Pier, but Harry had chosen it as the location for his jump because the closest jetty was over a hundred yards away. The millionaire John Young, who had built the pier, met them on their arrival and took them to survey the site. He had booked Harry to give a performance to attract attention to his new project. Harry would jump, handcuffed, into the ocean, free himself, and come ashore. The publicity from the jump would help sell tickets to his theater show, which would take place the following three nights in the pier's theater.

Bess took a liking to Young immediately; he was a natural showman, like Harry. Everything about him was grand, down to his colorful neckties and his perfectly coiffed hair. Part of his charm was his careful attentiveness. He complimented Bess on her filigreed brooch, resting at the base of her neck. “The pier is almost two thousand feet long,” he explained. “But you don't have to worry. It's very sturdy; it was built with concrete. There's a concert hall, a theater, and a telegraph station inside. We are finishing the aquarium right now. There will be sea creatures on display I guarantee you've never seen.”

Harry followed them inside, but Bess could tell he was barely listening. His eyes were darting across the room, examining the structure from every angle. It was early springtime, but the ocean was cold and rough, and the sea spray came up to the windows, the salt caking the glass. She wondered if he was concerned. He rarely told her about any hesitations. “My chief task,” he liked to say, “is to conquer my own fear. If I can do that, I can do anything.”

The inside of the pier was like a glamorous hotel. There was music playing softly from a piano across the room, and shining white floors. Young led them toward the center of the building, which opened onto a vast lawn, cluttered with sculptures and small potted trees. “This is my home,” he boasted. “When the post office delivers my mail, they deliver it to Number One Atlantic Ocean.”

Bess was awed. She and Harry had seen a great many spectacles in Europe, but a house in the ocean was not one of them. Across the lawn, the gray stone of Young's residence glistened like glass.

“I had no idea this was here,” she said. “From the outside, you can't even tell.” A cold burst of air rushed over the lawn. Bess wrapped her mink stole more tightly around herself. “It is cold, isn't it, Harry? Perhaps we'd better go inside so you can warm up before you perform.” She could tell he was distracted. He did not like being in the company of others, besides her, for very long.

Harry nodded. “Yes, that's a good idea.”

Young led them inside the house, and Bess let out of a cry of amazement. The foyer walls were made entirely of colored seashells.

“It's marvelous.”

“My wife designed the inside,” he explained. “She apologizes that she cannot be here. She has an engagement in New York and won't be back until tomorrow.”

Young had invited them to stay with him. He showed them to their room so that they could rest before Harry's stunt, which had been billed for four o'clock that afternoon. Over three thousand people were expected to attend.

The room was more traditionally decorated than the foyer, with silk wallpaper and thick Persian carpets. Bess unlaced her shoes and lay down on the bed.

“The water's cold today,” Harry said, looking out the window. The room, on the fourth floor of the house, was two stories higher than the pier and looked out over the writhing ocean. “If this were a river, it would be frozen.”

Bess tried to sit up but was suddenly overcome by wooziness. She lay down again and put her hand to her forehead. “Maybe you should postpone the stunt if it's too cold.”

Harry pressed his hands against the glass. “No. I can survive in cold water.”

“Come here and feel my head. I think it's very warm.”

Harry sat down next to her and put his palm against her cheeks and forehead. “You are warm. Maybe you shouldn't be outside today.”

Bess looked at him. “I have to be there!”

“But you really don't look well,” he assured her. “And you know how you can be with these jumps.”

He was right about that. Of all his tricks, the bridge and pier jumps were the ones she feared the most. He trained for them, submerging himself in ice baths, gradually lowering the temperature to under thirty degrees to ensure that he could still hold his breath in temperatures so low. “Complete mental serenity” he called his experience in the baths. But Bess had her doubts. She suspected the baths were extremely painful, even for him. She tried to disguise her concern, but the danger in bridge and pier jumping was very real. What the audience never knew was that Harry always had with him a rope man, who was instructed to go down and retrieve him if he did not appear after two minutes. This had not happened yet, but certainly one's luck could not last forever. Harry was often careless with his life. For his Detroit bridge jump, the river had frozen over the night before, and he had had to cut a hole into the ice so he could continue with the performance.

She was feeling poorly, it was true, but she was still saddened by their argument the night before. She hated the coldness that came over Harry whenever he was immersed in his work. While her ability to see through his new tricks had once enthralled him, recently it seemed to frustrate, and even insult, him. When he was attentive to her, he was the most loving man. But now he seemed to be more attentive to his work than to her, on an endless quest to earn larger audiences, greater fame. She suspected it was a result of his having achieved a little fame, but not enough to secure their future. She knew he worried over how to keep himself relevant in an increasingly competitive field. Whenever word reached him that another magician had stolen one of his tricks or claimed he could outdo him, Harry would rush off to the magician's next performance to challenge the man and reclaim his title. She felt so much less a part of his world than she had when they had shared the stage. The more success he achieved on his own, the more Bess's value seemed to lie in assuring his emotional well-being, boosting the confidence that waxed and waned according to his publicity.

Finally she agreed to stay inside and rest for the afternoon. Harry kissed her forehead distractedly and went out to meet his rope man and the rest of the crew, who had just arrived on the train, and to examine the site of the jump more closely. Bess changed into a silk robe, lay on her side, and tried to sleep. Outside she could hear the wind rattling the windows. The sky was growing gray, and the clouds were coming in.

Ten minutes after Harry left, there was a knock on the door. Relieved, she climbed woozily out of bed and padded her way, barefoot, across the carpet. Of course he had come back to ask her to go with him to the jump. He needed her.

But it wasn't Harry in the hall; it was Young, bearing an armful of white towels.

“My wife told me to put these in your room, but I forgot,” he confessed.

Bess blinked. “Thank you. I didn't notice they were missing.” Surely someone as rich as he had staff to do such things? “Harry's just left.”

Young looked at his watch. “Of course. I should be going out there soon as well. It's already past three o'clock. When are you going down?”

“Actually, I'm staying here to rest. I'm not feeling well.” She wondered if he could read from her expression that they had had an argument.

“I'm so sorry to hear that.” Young looked past her into the room. “Do you mind if I set these down?”

Bess took a step backward. “Of course, I'm sorry. It is your house after all. Please come in.”

Young closed the door behind him and set the towels on a table by the window. Looking at the sky, he said, “It's a good thing we're doing this within the hour. There's bad weather coming in.”

Bess went over to his side and followed his gaze out the window. “I'm sure Harry will be fine. He's done this kind of thing before, in much worse weather.”

Young turned to her. “I must admit, I was surprised by how young you both are. I had thought you older.”

Bess laughed. “Is that a compliment?”

“Of course. Actually, you are much more beautiful than your photographs in the papers.”

“That's quite kind, I think.” She blushed as his hand brushed against hers. She had never stood so close to any man who was not Harry. She felt that familiar rush of blood run through her. Young was not as handsome as Harry, and he was at least ten years older, but he had a confidence that reminded her of the Harry Houdini she had first seen onstage.

Suddenly, turning from the window, he seized her hand. She looked at him, astonished. “What are you doing?”

He pulled her against him and kissed her, hard, on the mouth.

But she didn't pull back. It felt nice. Not for the first time, she wondered if she had rushed into marriage too soon. If she hadn't married Harry, would her life have been more fulfilled? Could she have had children?

John Young led her toward the bed. She followed him blindly. “You don't have to be afraid,” he said. “You do find me attractive, don't you? I find you very attractive.”

She tried to picture Harry's face, to inspire her to act quickly, to move away from him before things got out of hand. But strangely, the Harry of her imagination was muted, his features dulled to gray, and the woman who had married him was slipping away, too.

“I'm not afraid,” she said.

She stood, trembling, as he reached behind her to untie her robe. She tried to envision that it was not John Young standing in front of her but Harry, and that he desired her the way he had desired her ten years before, when she was an eighteen-year-old girl, and he had gripped her arms and kissed her fiercely on the beach.

Young pulled the robe off her shoulders. She stood naked before him, shivering. He reached out and placed his hand on her back, then pulled her roughly toward him. She arched her back so that her hips were against his. “Beatrice,” he moaned.

Bess stepped back, alarmed. No man had ever called her that except Harry. Suddenly, she felt exposed. Outside, there was a loud swell of voices. People had begun cheering. Harry must have arrived on the pier. He was fifty feet below her, right outside the window. She grabbed her robe and covered herself, then reached behind her head and repinned some of the hair that had fallen out. “Go.” She tried to steady her voice. “It's already three-thirty.”

Young's face reddened. “
You
wanted this,” he said angrily. “You're nothing but a goddamn tease.” He stalked out the door, slamming it behind him.

When he had gone she fell onto the bed and felt numb. The wind was growing stronger outside. She thought about her mother's warnings, that Harry would make her into a bad woman. She certainly was a bad woman now, but she didn't blame Harry for it, or even Young. She had been willing—frozen, but willing. How could she even have contemplated being with someone else? She felt the emptiness coming over her again, realizing how close she had come to betraying Harry. Was she really so weak that she would break her vows over a few harsh words? She wondered if it was possible that she had imagined it all, that her fever had brought on hallucinations. But when she looked at the table she saw the white towels piled neatly by the window and she knew it had been very real.

There would be three thousand people, Young had said. Usually Harry prefaced the stunt by talking for ten minutes or so, then made a great show of putting on the handcuffs and leaning over the railing to examine the water. When he jumped in, it usually took him only a minute to release himself, although sometimes he took longer to increase the suspense.

She looked at her watch. It was a quarter to four. She pictured Harry at the end of the pier, stripping to bathing trunks in the icy cold, holding out his wrists to a policeman to be handcuffed. He liked to chat with the policemen and some of the reporters before the stunt; it put him at ease. John Young, certainly, would partake in the banter. But he would not say, “I just came from your room.” He would not say, “I have seen your wife naked and she is beautiful.” He would shake Harry's hand with the same hand that had touched her, and Harry would climb over the railing and one of his assistants would hold him in place until he gave the cue, the rush of wind stronger now than before, and the gray ocean churning underneath; then he would be pushed into a free fall, and he would drop, and no one would see him until he emerged again.