Ragtime - E.L. Doctorow [34]
did he stole a glance at the charts and ran up the stairs. You can’t come up here, a flinty nurse told him as he strode down a ward filled with sick and dying men. Chutes of cheerful morning sun leaned like buttresses from the high dirty windows of the ward. Clustered about the bed of the heroic sandhog was his family—a wife, an old mother in a babushka, two strapping sons. A doctor was in attendance. The man in the bed was swathed in bandages from his head to his feet. His arms, in casts, were supported in traction as was one encased leg. Every few moments there would issue from his head bandages a weak or perhaps only decorous groan. Houdini cleared his throat. I’m Harry Houdini, he said to the family, I escape for a living, that’s my profession, I’m an escapologist. But let me tell you I’ve never done an escape that can touch this one. He pointed to the bed. The family looked at him without expression on their stolid Slavic faces. The grandmother without taking her eyes off Houdini said something in a foreign language—a question it was, because one of the sons answered in kind and said Houdini’s name. They continued to look at him. I came to offer my respects, Houdini said. They all had flat faces, broad brows, eyes set widely apart. They did not return his smile. How did you get in here, the doctor said. I’ll only be a minute, Houdini said, I just want to ask him something. I think you better leave, the doctor said. Houdini turned to the family. I want to know how it felt. I want to know what he did to get to the surface. He was the only one to make it. He must have done something. I would like to know, it means a lot to me to know. He took out his wallet, removed some bills. I think you could probably use this. Go ahead, take it, I would like to help. The family continued to gaze at him. A sound came from the figure on the bed. One of the sons leaned over and put his ear down. He listened a moment and nodded. He went to the other son and said something to him. They were big fellows, over six feet, with chests like barrels. No rough stuff, the doctor said. Houdini found himself lifted by the arms and walked down the aisle of the ward with his feet just failing to touch the floor. He made a decision not to resist. He knew the tricks of self-defense, there were ways he could best these oafs; but this was a hospital after all.
Houdini walked through the streets. His ears burned with humiliation. He wore a hat with the brim turned down. He wore a tight-fitting double-breasted linen jacket and he kept his hands in the pockets of the jacket. He wore tan trousers and brown and white shoes with pointed toes. It was a chilly autumn afternoon and most people wore coats. He moved swiftly through the crowded New York streets. He was incredibly lithe. There was a kind of act that used the real world for its stage. He couldn’t touch it. For all his achievements he was a trickster, an illusionist, a mere magician. What was the sense of his life if people walked out of the theatre and forgot him? The headlines on the newsstand said Peary had reached the Pole. The real-world act was what got into the history books.
Houdini decided to concentrate on his outdoor exploits. Going on tour he escaped from a packing case nailed shut and tied with ropes that had been lowered into the freezing Detroit River. He had himself lowered into rivers in Boston and Philadelphia. Ice floated in the rivers. He practiced for the freezing river escapes by sitting in his bathtub at home with blocks of ice dropped in there by the iceman. But nothing was changed. He decided to do a European tour. He had gotten his start in Europe when he had been unable to crack the big-time vaudeville circuits in the States. In some peculiar way, he still felt, the people in Europe understood him better than his own countrymen. A few days before his departure he agreed to do a benefit for old magicians and retired theatre folk. He wanted to surprise them with a new escape. He hired a team of orderlies from Bellevue to come up on the stage and wrap him from head to foot in