The Magician's Elephant Read online

  At the end of the century before last, in the market square of the city of Baltese, there stood a boy with a hat on his head and a coin in his hand. The boy’s name was Peter Augustus Duchene, and the coin that he held did not belong to him but was instead the property of his guardian, an old soldier named Vilna Lutz, who had sent the boy to the market for fish and bread.

  That day in the market square, in the midst of the entirely unremarkable and absolutely ordinary stalls of the fishmongers and cloth merchants and bakers and silversmiths, there had appeared, without warning or fanfare, the red tent of a fortuneteller. Attached to the fortuneteller’s tent was a piece of paper, and penned upon the paper in a cramped but unapologetic hand were these words: The most profound and difficult questions that could possibly be posed by the human mind or heart will be answered within for the price of one florit.

  Peter read the small sign once, and then again. The audacity of the words, their dizzying promise, made it difficult, suddenly, for him to breathe. He looked down at the coin, the single florit, in his hand.

  “But I cannot do it,” he said to himself. “Truly, I cannot, for if I do, Vilna Lutz will ask where the money has gone and I will have to lie, and it is a very dishonorable thing to lie.”

  He put the coin in his pocket. He took the soldier’s hat off his head and then put it back on. He stepped away from the sign and came back to it and stood considering, again, the outrageous and wonderful words.

  “But I must know,” he said at last. He took the florit from his pocket. “I want to know the truth. And so I will do it. But I will not lie about it, and in that way, I will remain at least partly honorable.” With these words, Peter stepped into the tent and handed the fortuneteller the coin.

  And she, without even looking at him, said, “One florit will buy you one answer and only one. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” said Peter.

  He stood in the small patch of light making its sullen way through the open flap of the tent. He let the fortuneteller take his hand. She examined it closely, moving her eyes back and forth and back and forth, as if there were a whole host of very small words inscribed there, an entire book about Peter Augustus Duchene composed atop his palm.

  “Huh,” she said at last. She dropped his hand and squinted up at his face. “But, of course, you are just a boy.”

  “I am ten years old,” said Peter. He took the hat from his head and stood as straight and tall as he was able. “And I am training to become a soldier, brave and true. But it does not matter how old I am. You took the florit, so now you must give me my answer.”

  “A soldier brave and true?” said the fortuneteller. She laughed and spat on the ground. “Very well, soldier brave and true, if you say it is so, then it is so. Ask me your question.”

  Peter felt a small stab of fear. What if, after all this time, he could not bear the truth? What if he did not really want to know?

  “Speak,” said the fortuneteller. “Ask.”

  “My parents,” said Peter.

  “That is your question?” said the fortuneteller. “They are dead.”

  Peter’s hands trembled. “That is not my question,” he said. “I know that already. You must tell me something that I do not know. You must tell me of another — you must tell me . . .”

  The fortuneteller narrowed her eyes. “Ah,” she said. “Her? Your sister? That is your question? Very well. She lives.”

  Peter’s heart seized upon the words. She lives. She lives!

  “No, please,” said Peter. He closed his eyes. He concentrated. “If she lives, then I must find her, so my question is, how do I make my way there, to where she is?”

  He kept his eyes closed; he waited.

  “The elephant,” said the fortuneteller.

  “What?” Peter said. He opened his eyes, certain that he had misunderstood.

  “You must follow the elephant,” said the fortuneteller. “She will lead you there.”

  Peter’s heart, which had risen up high inside of him, now sank slowly back to its normal resting place. He put his hat on his head. “You are having fun with me,” he said. “There are no elephants here.”

  “Just as you say,” said the fortuneteller. “That is surely the truth, at least for now. But perhaps you have not noticed: the truth is forever changing.” She winked at him. “Wait awhile,” she said. “You will see.”

  Peter stepped out of the tent. The sky was gray and heavy with clouds, but everywhere people talked and laughed. Vendors shouted and children cried and a beggar with a black dog at his side stood in the center of it all and sang a song about the darkness.

  There was not a single elephant in sight.

  Still, Peter’s stubborn heart would not be silenced. It beat out the two simple, impossible words over and over again: She lives, she lives, she lives.

  Could it be?

  No, it could not be, for that would mean that Vilna Lutz had lied to him, and it was not at all an honorable thing for a soldier, a superior officer, to lie. Surely, Vilna Lutz would not lie. Surely he would not.

  Would he?

  “It is winter,” sang the beggar. “It is dark and cold, and things are not what they seem, and the truth is forever changing.”

  “I do not know what the truth is,” said Peter, “but I do know that I must confess. I must tell Vilna Lutz what I have done.” He squared his shoulders, adjusted his hat, and began the long walk back to the Apartments Polonaise.

  As he walked, the winter afternoon turned to dusk and the gray light gave way to gloom, and Peter thought, The fortuneteller is lying; no, Vilna Lutz is lying; no, it is the fortuneteller who lies; no, no, it is Vilna Lutz . . . on and on like that, the whole way back.

  And when he came to the Apartments Polonaise, he climbed the stairs to the attic apartment very slowly, putting one foot carefully in front of the other, thinking with each step: He lies; she lies; he lies; she lies.

  The old soldier was waiting for him, sitting in a chair at the window, a single candle lit, the papers of a battle plan in his lap, his shadow cast large on the wall behind him.

  “You are late, Private Duchene,” said Vilna Lutz. “And you are empty-handed.”

  “Sir,” said Peter. He took off his hat. “I have no fish and no bread. I gave the money to a fortuneteller.”

  “A fortuneteller?” said Vilna Lutz. “A fortuneteller!” He tapped his left foot, the one made of wood, against the floorboard. “A fortuneteller? You must explain yourself.”

  Peter said nothing.

  Tap, tap, tap went Vilna Lutz’s wooden foot, tap, tap, tap. “I am waiting,” he said. “Private Duchene, I am waiting for you to explain.”

  “It is only that I have doubts, sir,” said Peter. “And I know that I should not have doubts —”

  “Doubts! Doubts? Explain yourself.”

  “Sir, I cannot explain myself. I have been trying the whole way here. There is no explanation that will suffice.”

  “Very well, then,” said Vilna Lutz. “You will allow me to explain for you. You have spent money that did not belong to you. You have spent it in a foolish way. You have acted dishonorably. You will be punished. You will retire without your evening rations.”

  “Sir, yes, sir,” said Peter, but he continued to stand, his hat in his hands, in front of Vilna Lutz.

  “Is there something else you wish to say?”

  “No. Yes.”

  “Which is it, please? No? Or yes?”

  “Sir, have you yourself ever told a lie?” said Peter.

  “I?”

  “Yes,” said Peter. “You. Sir.”

  Vilna Lutz sat up straighter in his chair. He raised a hand and stroked his beard, tracing the line of it, making certain that the
hairs were arranged just so, that they came together in a fine, military point. At last he said, “You, who spend money that is not yours — you who spend the money of others like a fool — you will speak to me of who lies?”

  “I am sorry, sir,” said Peter.

  “I am quite certain that you are,” said Vilna Lutz. “You are also dismissed.” He picked up his battle plans. He held them up to the light of the candle and muttered to himself, “So, and it must be so, and then . . . so.”

  Later that night, when the candle was quenched and the room was in darkness and the old soldier was snoring in his bed, Peter Augustus Duchene lay on his pallet on the floor and looked up at the ceiling and thought, He lies; she lies; he lies; she lies.

  Someone lies, but I do not know who.

  If she lies, with her ridiculous talk of elephants, then I am, as Vilna Lutz said, a fool — a fool who believes that an elephant will appear and lead me to a sister who is dead.

  But if he lies, then my sister is alive.

  His heart thumped.

  If he lies, then Adele lives.

  “I hope that he lies,” said Peter aloud to the darkness.

  And his heart, startled at such treachery, astonished at the voicing aloud of such an unsoldierly sentiment, thumped again, much harder this time.

  Not far from the Apartments Polonaise, across the rooftops and through the darkness of the winter night, stood the Bliffendorf Opera House, and that evening upon its stage, a magician of advanced years and failing reputation performed the most astonishing magic of his career.

  He intended to conjure a bouquet of lilies, but instead, the magician brought forth an elephant.

  The elephant came crashing through the ceiling of the opera house amid a shower of plaster dust and roofing tiles and landed in the lap of a noblewoman, a certain Madam Bettine LaVaughn, to whom the magician had intended to present the bouquet.

  Madam LaVaughn’s legs were crushed. She was thereafter confined to a wheelchair and given to exclaiming often, and in a voice of wonder, in the midst of some conversation that had nothing at all to do with elephants or roofs, “But perhaps you do not understand, I was crippled by an elephant! Crippled by an elephant that came through the roof!”

  As for the magician, he was immediately, at the behest of Madam LaVaughn, imprisoned.

  The elephant was imprisoned, too.

  She was locked in a horse stable. A chain was wrapped around her left ankle. The chain was attached to an iron rod planted firmly in the earth.

  At first, the elephant felt one thing and one thing only: dizzy. If she turned her head too quickly to the right or the left, she was aware of the world spinning in a truly alarming manner. So she did not turn her head. She closed her eyes and kept them closed.

  There was, all about her, a great hubbub and roar. The elephant ignored it. She wanted nothing more than for the world to hold itself still.

  After a few hours, the dizziness passed. The elephant opened her eyes and looked around her and realized that she did not know where she was.

  She knew only one thing to be true.

  Where she was, was not where she should be.

  Where she was, was not where she belonged.

  The day after the night that the elephant arrived, Peter was again at the market square. The fortuneteller’s tent was gone, and Peter had been entrusted with another florit. The old soldier had talked at great length and in excruciating detail about what Peter must purchase with the coin. Bread, for one, and it must be bread that was at least a day old, two days old preferably, but three-day-old bread, if he could find it, would be the best of all.

  “Actually, see if you cannot locate bread with mold growing on it,” said Vilna Lutz. “Old bread is a most excellent preparation for being a soldier. Soldiers must become accustomed to rock-hard bread that is difficult to chew. It makes for strong teeth. And strong teeth make for a strong heart and therefore a brave soldier. Yes, yes, I believe it to be true. I know it to be true.”

  How hard bread and strong teeth and a strong heart were connected was a mystery to Peter, but as Vilna Lutz spoke to him that morning, it became increasingly obvious that the old soldier was once again in the grips of a fever and that not much sense would be gotten from him.

  “You must ask the fishmonger for two fish and no more,” Vilna Lutz said. Sweat shone on his forehead. His beard was damp. “Ask him for the smallest ones. Ask him for the fish that others would turn away. Why, you must ask him for those fish that the other fish are embarrassed to even refer to as fish! Come back with the smallest fish, but do not — do not, I repeat — come back to me empty-handed with the lies of fortunetellers upon your lips! I correct myself! I correct myself! To say ‘the lies of fortunetellers’ is a redundancy. What comes from the mouths of fortunetellers is by definition a lie, and you, Private Duchene, you must, you must, find the smallest possible fish.”

  So Peter stood in the market square, in line at the fishmonger’s, thinking of the fortuneteller and his sister and elephants and fevers and exceptionally small fish. He also thought of lies and who told them and who did not and what it meant to be a soldier, honorable and true. And because of all the thoughts in his head, he was listening with only half an ear to the story that the fishmonger was telling to the woman ahead of him in line.

  “Well, he wasn’t much of a magician, and none of them was expecting much, you see — that’s the thing. Nothing was expected.” The fishmonger wiped his hands on his apron. “He hadn’t promised them nothing special, and they wasn’t expecting it neither.”

  “Who expects something special nowadays anyways?” said the woman. “Not me. I’ve worn myself out expecting something special.” She pointed at a large fish. “Give me one of them mackerels, why don’t you?”

  “Mackerel it is,” said the fishmonger, slinging the creature onto the scale. It was a very large fish. Vilna Lutz would not have approved.

  Peter surveyed the fishmonger’s selection. His stomach growled. He was hungry, and he was worried. He could not see anything alarmingly small enough to please the old soldier.

  “And also give me catfish,” said the woman. “Three of them. I want ’em with the whiskers longish, don’t I? Tastier that way.”

  The fishmonger put three catfish on the scale. “In any case,” he continued, “they was all sitting there, the nobility, the ladies and the princes and the princesses, all together in the opera house, expecting nothing much. And what did they get?”

  “I don’t even pretend to know,” said the woman. “What fancy people get is most surely a mystery to me.”

  Peter shifted nervously from foot to foot. He wondered what would happen to him if he did not bring home a fish that was sufficiently small. There was no predicting what Vilna Lutz would say or do when he was in the grips of one of his terrible recurring fevers.

  “Well, they wasn’t expecting an elephant — that much is for true.”

  “An elephant!” said the woman.

  “An elephant?” said Peter. At the sound of the impossible word on the lips of another, he felt a shock travel from the tip of his feet to the top of his head. He stepped backward.

  “An elephant!” said the fishmonger. “Come right through the ceiling of the opera house, landed on top of a noblewoman named LaVaughn.”

  “An elephant,” whispered Peter.

  “Ha,” said the woman, “ha, ha. It most surely couldn’t have.”

  “It did,” said the fishmonger. “Broke her legs!”

  “La, the humor of it, and don’t my friend Marcelle wash the linens of Madam LaVaughn? Ain’t the world as small as it can be?”

  “Just exactly,” said the fishmonger.

  “But, please,” said Peter, “an elephant. An elephant. Do you know what you say?”

  “Yes,” said the fishmonger, “I say an elephant.”

  “And she came through the roof?”

  “Didn’t I just say that, too?”

  “Where is this elephant now, pleas
e?” said Peter.

  “The police have got her,” said the fishmonger.

  “The police!” said Peter. He put his hand up to his hat. He took the hat off and put it back on and took it off again.

  “Is the child having some sort of hat-related fit?” said the woman to the fishmonger.

  “It’s just as the fortuneteller said,” said Peter. “An elephant.”

  “How’s that?” said the fishmonger. “Who said it?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Peter. “Nothing matters except that the elephant has come. And what that means.”

  “And what does it mean?” said the fishmonger. “I would surely like to know.”

  “That she lives,” said Peter. “That she lives.”

  “And ain’t that grand?” said the fishmonger. “We are always happy when people live, ain’t we?”

  “Sure, and why not?” said the woman. “But what I want to know is what become of him who started it all? Where’s the magician?”

  “Imprisoned him,” said the fishmonger, “didn’t they? Put him in the most terrible cell of all and thrown away the key.”

  The prison cell to which the magician was confined was small and dark. But there was, in the cell, one window, very high up. At night, the magician lay atop his cloak on his mattress of straw and looked out the window into the darkness of the world. The sky was almost always thick with clouds, but sometimes, if the magician stared long enough, the clouds would grudgingly part and reveal one exceedingly bright star.

  “I intended only lilies,” the magician said to the star. “That was my intention: a bouquet of lilies.”

  This was not, strictly speaking, the truth.

  Yes, the magician had intended to conjure lilies.

  But standing on the stage of the Bliffendorf Opera House, before an audience that was indifferent to whatever small diversion he might perform and was waiting only for him to exit and for the real magic (the music of a virtuoso violinist) to begin, the magician was struck suddenly, and quite forcibly, with the notion that he had wasted his life.

  So he performed that night the sleight of hand that would result in lilies, but at the same time, he muttered the words of a spell that his magic teacher had entrusted to him long ago. The magician knew that the words were powerful and also, given the circumstances, somewhat ill-advised. But he wanted to perform something spectacular.