Aurorarama - Jean-Christophe Valtat [69]
Handyside, in a sweat, was scanning the crowd for some “brave man or braver woman” when his eyes fell on Sybil, who did nothing to hide herself and looked, quite the contrary, rather eager to go. Brentford knew there was precious little he could do about it. It was Sybil’s nature to fly toward the limelight. She went down the stairs like a queen and climbed up to the stage, with the help of Handyside’s courteous yet, it seemed to Brentford, slightly quivering hand. Many people, recognizing her, applauded, and Brentford with them, though with less enthusiasm.
This was a most classical trick, and Brentford really wondered how Handyside would renovate it, beyond the fact, surprising in itself, that it was done with a volunteer instead of an accomplice. Two chairs were brought on stage and Sybil was asked to lay her head and shoulders on one and her legs on the other. “Magnetic” passes were made over her sequined dress, and the chairs of course were pulled away by stage hands while Sybil, in her mesmeric trance, levitated motionless above the stage. More passes raised her a little higher. This required some magic dust, announced Handyside, taking some from his pocket and sprinkling it over Sybil, while Brentford felt a nagging anguish building up in his stomach.
Now, Handyside removed his cape and covered Sybil with it. There were some more passes, a pregnant pause, and the cape was swiftly swept away. Sybil of course had disappeared as promised, leaving just a few specks of golden magic dust where her body had been.
Handyside bowed, the audience roared, and the curtain fell. Wasn’t it part of the trick that Sybil should be restored? But no. The curtain opened again, the whole troupe saluted under a thundering volley of applause, but no Sybil was to be seen. Perhaps she would just pop back into her seat at the table. Nothing would astonish Brentford anymore this evening. But another salute had not brought her back, and Handyside’s nod to Brentford, just before the curtain closed one last time, was anything but reassuring. It suddenly clicked in his head. Brentford got up and ran down the stairs.
However, going backstage, as he intended, was impossible, for a thick crowd of spectators blocked the way, held enraptured, and offering a standing ovation that seemed to go on forever. Brentford forced his way through, as calmly as he could, which was less and less at each step, and under what seemed to him the ironic smiles and sniggers of the crowd, who recognized him as the tricked husband. His face flushed with anger and shame, he pushed and rushed through a scene that, in a nightmare, would have awakened him in a cold sweat.
He finally reached a door on the side of the stage, but there a large, fair Gentleman of the Night politely but firmly refused to admit him. Brentford, howling in his ear, declaimed his identity but as an answer the Gentleman merely took off his hat and bowed to him. Brentford had to explain, while the cheers continued all around, that his fiancée had just disappeared and should now be in the wings where he was supposed to meet her. He formulated this in a way that rendered difficult another