Part 38 (2/2)
”I was,” Sammy said, surprised, either by the realization or by the fact that Lieber had guessed it ”You know, I guess I really was”
”He has has come back!” The boy shouted this, and even Lieber jumped a little ”He's here” come back!” The boy shouted this, and even Lieber jumped a little ”He's here”
”In New York?” the father said The boy nodded ”Joe Kavalier is here in New York” Another nod ”Where? How do you know? Tommy, God damn it, where is your cousin Joe?”
The boy , his voice nearly inaudible Then, to their surprise, he turned and walked into the building He went over to the banks of express elevators and pressed the button for those that went all the way to the top
5
It all began-or had begun again-with the Ultimate Demon Wonder Box Last July 3, his eleventh birthday, Tommy's father had taken him to The Story of Robin Hood The Story of Robin Hood at the Criterion, to lunch at the Automat, and to visit a reproduction, at the Forty-second Street Library, of Sherlock Holmes's apartment, complete with unopened letters addressed to the sleuth, a curl-toed slipper filled with tobacco, the paw print of the Hound of the Baskervilles, and a stuffed Giant Rat of Sumatra All of this was by Tommy's request, and in lieu of the usual birthday party Toelrade, and To roo kids whose parents had forced them, out of politeness to his own, to attend He was a solitary boy, unpopular with teachers and students alike He still slept with a stuffed beaver naerent in defense-of his estrangement from the world of the normal, stupid, happy, enviable children of Bloomtown Thethe overheard hints and swiftly hushed rerandmother before her death-had been a soldier killed in Europe, was at once a source of arand opportunity that he had missed out on but that nevertheless could have befallen only hi people in novels whose parents had died or abandoned theular destinies as future E cruelty toward children of the world) There was no doubt in his mind that such a destiny awaited him, perhaps in the Martian colonies or the plutoniuy, and set of some standard-issue cruelty over the years, but his taciturnity and his spectacularly average performance in school had earned him a certain measure of safe invisibility Thus, over tiht to opt coy and angst-the playground coups, the perames, the Halloween and pool and birthday parties These interested him, but he forbade hie oaken banquet room of a castle, filled with the s stalwart bowmen and adventurers, then a day in New York City with his father would have to do at the Criterion, to lunch at the Automat, and to visit a reproduction, at the Forty-second Street Library, of Sherlock Holmes's apartment, complete with unopened letters addressed to the sleuth, a curl-toed slipper filled with tobacco, the paw print of the Hound of the Baskervilles, and a stuffed Giant Rat of Sumatra All of this was by Tommy's request, and in lieu of the usual birthday party Toelrade, and To roo kids whose parents had forced them, out of politeness to his own, to attend He was a solitary boy, unpopular with teachers and students alike He still slept with a stuffed beaver naerent in defense-of his estrangement from the world of the normal, stupid, happy, enviable children of Bloomtown Thethe overheard hints and swiftly hushed rerandmother before her death-had been a soldier killed in Europe, was at once a source of arand opportunity that he had missed out on but that nevertheless could have befallen only hi people in novels whose parents had died or abandoned theular destinies as future E cruelty toward children of the world) There was no doubt in his mind that such a destiny awaited him, perhaps in the Martian colonies or the plutoniuy, and set of some standard-issue cruelty over the years, but his taciturnity and his spectacularly average performance in school had earned him a certain measure of safe invisibility Thus, over tiht to opt coy and angst-the playground coups, the perames, the Halloween and pool and birthday parties These interested him, but he forbade hie oaken banquet room of a castle, filled with the s stalwart bowmen and adventurers, then a day in New York City with his father would have to do
The crux, the key eleic Shop, on West Forty-second Street, to buy the birthday present that Tommy had requested: the Ultimate Deesse on his parents' part, but they had been froic, as if it accorded with some secret itinerary they had charted out for hielic business after his father returned fro-card colors that contained, its label clai necessary to AMAZE and ASTOUND your friends and turn YOU into the life of every party” Naturally, Toene briefly causedto disappear, and nearly succeeded in pulling a rather li, To in his chest, a tapping of his feet, a feeling like the need to urinate-unbearable at times, always see he could not figure out He had borrowed the Al-A-Kazzaene and taken it hoene said he could keep the kit
Next, Toone to the library and discovered a hitherto unsuspected shelf of books on card tricks, coin tricks, tricks with silks and scarves and cigarettes His hands were large for a boy his age, with long fingers, and he had a capacity for standing in front of thethe saain, that surprised even his and fades
It had not been long before he discovered Louis Tannen's The greatest supplier of tricks and supplies on the Eastern seaboard, it was, in 1953, still the unofficial capital of professional conjuring in Aenerations of silk-hat h town on their way north, south, or west to the vaudeville and burlesque houses, the nightclubs and variety theaters of the nation, had e money, and to dazzle one another with refinements too artistic and subtle to waste on an audience of elephant gapers and leerers at sawn-in-two ladies The Ultinature tricks, a perennial bestseller that he personally guaranteed to reduce an audience-not, surely, of card-flipping, stickball-playing fifth graders but, Toarettes on ocean liners, and woardenias in their hair-to a layer of baffled jelly on the floor Its nah to render Tommy breathless with impatience
At the back of the shop, Tommy had noticed on prior visits, were two doorways One, painted green, led to the stockrooes, and false-bottoenerally was kept closed, but soreet Louis Tannen or one of the salesli to who five dollars into his pocket or shaking his head in wonderment over whatever miracle he had just witnessed This was Tannen's fa-he would have forgone the Ultimate Demon Wonder Box, The Story of Robin Hood, The Story of Robin Hood, Sherlock Holet a peek back there, and to watch the old pros brandish the puzzling flowers of their art While Mr Tannen hi To hi it to show him that it was still empty, a h to the back As the door opened and closed, Toicians, in sweaters and suits, standing with their backs to hiician at work, a tall, slender guy with a large nose Theat whatever little stunt he had just pulled off, his deep-set, heavy-lidded blue eyes uniicians swore in appreciation of the trick The sad blue eyes met Tommy's They widened The door closed Sherlock Holet a peek back there, and to watch the old pros brandish the puzzling flowers of their art While Mr Tannen hi To hi it to show him that it was still empty, a h to the back As the door opened and closed, Toicians, in sweaters and suits, standing with their backs to hiician at work, a tall, slender guy with a large nose Theat whatever little stunt he had just pulled off, his deep-set, heavy-lidded blue eyes uniicians swore in appreciation of the trick The sad blue eyes ,” Sa out his wallet ”Worth every penny”
Mr Tannen handed the box to Tommy, and he took it, his eyes still on the door He had focused his thoughts into a sharp dia it to turn Nothing happened
”To down at hiood humor ”Do you have even an iota of desire left in your body for that thing?”
And he nodded, though his father had guessed the truth He looked at the blue lacquered wooden box for which he had ached only last night with a fervor that kept hi the secrets of the Ultih the door to Tannen's back room, where travel-hardened men concocted private wonders for their own melancholy amusement He looked from the Wonder Box to the black door It re, he kneould have reat, Dad,” Tommy said ”I love it Thanks”
Three days later, on a Monday, Toe the coe and, so far as he knew, unbeknownst to Mr Spiegelman The week's new comics arrived on Monday, and by Thursday, particularly toward the end of thethe wall at the back of the store were often a ju-eared titles Every week, To the Nationals with the Nationals, the ECs with the ECs, the Tiedthe roh he tried to conceal this fact from his mother, he despised, in a bottom corner Of course he reserved the centermost racks for the nineteen Pharaoh titles He kept careful count over these, rejoicing when Spiegelman's sold out its order of Brass Knuckle Brass Knuckle in a week, feeling a mysterious pity and shame for his father when, for an entirea mysterious pity and shame for his father when, for an entire month, all six copies of Sea Yarns, Sea Yarns, a personal favorite of Toel surreptitiously, under the guise of browsing Whenever another kid caelman walked by, To, any old way, and engaged in a transparent bit of innocent whistling He further concealed his covert librarianshi+p-which arose chiefly out of loyalty to his father but was also due to an innate dislike ofa precious weekly diularly brought hi eluished unpurchased on Spiegel surreptitiously, under the guise of browsing Whenever another kid caelman walked by, To, any old way, and engaged in a transparent bit of innocent whistling He further concealed his covert librarianshi+p-which arose chiefly out of loyalty to his father but was also due to an innate dislike ofa precious weekly diularly brought hi ically, if Toht to have been on one of the lesser-read Pharaohs, such as Farm Stories Farm Stories or the aforeelman's every Thursday, it ith an Empire comic book in his hand This was his small, dark act of disloyalty to his father: Toolden mane, his strict, at tiood-natured grin he wore at all ti it on the chin from Kommandant X (who had quite easily made the transition froiant henchins, in the minds of his father and their lost cousin Joe, chiination with his own He would read the entire book on the way ho it, aware of the scrape of his sneakers against the fresh-laid sidewalk, the bobbing progress of his body through the darkness that gathered around the outer es as he turned them Just before he turned the corner onto Lavoisier Drive, he would toss the comic book into the D'Abruzzios' trash can or the aforeelman's every Thursday, it ith an Empire comic book in his hand This was his small, dark act of disloyalty to his father: Toolden mane, his strict, at tiood-natured grin he wore at all ti it on the chin from Kommandant X (who had quite easily made the transition froiant henchins, in the minds of his father and their lost cousin Joe, chiination with his own He would read the entire book on the way ho it, aware of the scrape of his sneakers against the fresh-laid sidewalk, the bobbing progress of his body through the darkness that gathered around the outer es as he turned them Just before he turned the corner onto Lavoisier Drive, he would toss the comic book into the D'Abruzzios' trash can
Those portions of his walk to and fro-in addition to coard, Edgar Rice Burroughs, John Buchan, and novels dealing with American or British history-or with detailed ic shows by which he one day planned to dazzle the world, Tommy passed as scrappy To The Bug was the nao, who had appeared one rade, and whose adventures and increasingly involutedin his mind ever since He had drawn several thick voluh his artistic ability was incoery, and the resultant ed hi, an actual insect-a scarab beetle, in his current version- who had been caught, along with a human baby, in the blast froue on this point-their natures had been led, and now the beetle's mind and spirit, arth, inhabited the four-foot-high body of a human boy who sat in the third row of Mr Landauer's class, under a bust of Franklin D Roosevelt Souely, of the characteristic abilities-flight, stinging, silk-spinning-of other varieties of bug It was alrapped in the i that he perforelhtest treenerally cast in this situation as the nefarious Steel Claue's Gallery
That afternoon, as he was sed corner of a copy of Weird Date, Weird Date, so occurred For the first ti's keen antennae So there, half-hidden behind a rotating drulasses The , he had been looking at a treht on the back wall of the store Toician from Tannen's back rooel he always remembered afterward He even felt-lad to see the ician's appearance had struck To He had felt an inexplicable affection for the unruly mane of black curls, the lanky frae sympathetic eyes Now Tommy perceived that this displaced sense of fondness had beenoccurred For the first ti's keen antennae So there, half-hidden behind a rotating drulasses The , he had been looking at a treht on the back wall of the store Toician from Tannen's back rooel he always remembered afterward He even felt-lad to see the ician's appearance had struck To He had felt an inexplicable affection for the unruly mane of black curls, the lanky frae sympathetic eyes Now Tommy perceived that this displaced sense of fondness had been nition
When the ave up his pretense For one instant he hung there, shoulders hunched, red-faced He looked as if he were planning to flee; that was another thing Tommy remembered afterward Then the man smiled
”hello there,” he said His voice was soft and faintly accented
”hello,” said Tommy
”I've alondered what they keep in those jars” The lass vessels, baroque beakers with onion-doallons of clear fluid, tinted respectively pink and blue The late-afternoon sun cut through the pair of pastel shadows on the back wall
”I asked Mr Spiegelman that,” Tommy said ”A couple times”
”What did he say?”
”That it's a mystery of his profession”
The man nodded solemnly ”One we must respect” He reached into his pocket and took out a package of Old Gold cigarettes He lit one with a snap of his lighter and inhaled slowly, his eyes on Tommy, his expression troubled, as Tommy somehow expected it to be
”I'm your cousin,” the man said ”Josef Kavalier”
”I know,” said Tommy ”I saw your picture”
The arette
”Are you co over to our house?”
”Not today”
”Do you live in Canada?”
”No,” said the man ”I don't live in Canada I could tell you where I live, but if I do, you must promise not to reveal my whereabouts or identity to any persons It's top secret”
There was a gritty scratch of leather sole against linoleulanced up and s uneasily to one side
”To curiously at Cousin Joe, not in an unfriendly way, but with an interest that Tonized as distinctly unmercantile ”I don't believe I know your friend”
”ThisisJoe,” Toelman into the comic book aisle rattled him The drea Island pharmacy, the cousin who had disappeared froht years before, abandoned hireat silencer of adults in the Clay household; whenever To, he knew they had been discussing Cousin Joe Naturally, he had pestered them mercilessly for inforenerally refused to talk about the early days of the partnershi+p that had produced the Escapist-”All that stuff kind of depresses me, buddy,” he would say- but he could sometimes be induced to speculate on Joe's current location, the path of his wanderings, the likelihood of his ever co back Such talk, however, arettes, a newspaper, the switch of the radio: anything to cut the conversation short
It was his mother who had provided Tommy with most of what he knew about Joe Kavalier From her he had learned the full story of the Escapist's birth, of the vast fortunes that the owners of Empire Comics had made off the work of his father and his cousin His mother worried about money The lost bonanza that the Escapist would have represented to the family if they had not been cheated by Sheldon Anapol and Jack Ashkenazy haunted her ”They were robbed,” she often said Generally, she confined such statements to moments when mother and son were alone, but occasionally, when To up his sorry history in the comic book business, of which Cousin Joe had once forer, more abstruse point about the state of their lives that Tos, every tied to miss His mother, as it happened, was in possession of all one to school in Prague, when and by what route he had come to America, the places he had lived in Manhattan She knehich comic books he had drawn, and what Dolores Del Rio had said to hiht in 1941 (”You dance like my father”) Tommy's mother knew that Joe had been indifferent to music and partial to bananas
To intensity, of his mother's memories of Joe as a matter of course, but then one afternoon the previous su to another neighborhood wo on the hushed conversation It was hard to follow, but one phrase caught his ear and lodged there fora torch for hiel, Toht at once of the picture of Joe, dressed in a tuxedo and brandishi+ng a straight flush, that his mother kept on the vanity she had built for herself in her bedroo of this expression, ”carrying a torch,” remained opaque to To with his father to Frank Sinatra sing the intro to ”Guess I'll Hang My Tears Out to Dry,” its sense had become clear to him; at the same instant, he realized he had known all his life that his mother was in love with Cousin Joe The information pleased him for some reason It seemed to accord with certain ideas he had for his mother's stories in Heartache, Sweetheart, Heartache, Sweetheart, and and Love Crazy Love Crazy
Still, Tommy didn't really know Cousin Joe at all, and he had to adel there in his wrinkled suit, several day's growth on his chin The coils of his hair sprang upward fro aspect, as if he didn't get out into the light too often It was going to be hard to explain hi that he was a relative And why shouldn't he reveal this? Why shouldn't he tell everyone he knew-in particular his parents-that Cousin Joe had returned froed that he had kept this froet into trouble
”This is elrow keener ”My-” He was just about to say ”cousin,” and was even considering prefixing it with the -lost,” when a farnarrative possibility occurred to hi especially for him There had been that moment when their eyes ic Shop, and then, over the next few days, somehow or other, Joe had tracked Tommy down, observed his habits, even followed hi for the opportunehis return from the rest of the family, he had chosen to reveal hiht, not to respect that choice The heroes of John Buchan's novels never blurted out the truth in these situations For them, a as always sufficient, and discretion was the better part of valor The sa the possibility that his parents knew all about Cousin's Joe's return and hadnews, kept it froic teacher,” he finished ”I told him I'd meet him here The houses all look alike, you know”
”That is certainly true,” Joe said
”Magic teacher,” said Mr Spiegelman ”That's a new one to elreat ones do” Then To that surprised him He reached out and took hold of his cousin's hand ”Well, come on, I'll show you the way You just have to count the corners The houses don't really all look alike We have eight different models”