The Manual of Darkness

  ‘It was at that point,’ he carried on, his voice now shaky, ‘that the handkerchief came into my hands. I felt a strange power surge through my fingers like an electrical current. From that moment on, everything I touched acquired magical properties. This pack of cards, for example …’

  At that moment, Pablo started to cry. Annoyed by the interruption and convinced that he would never recover his rhythm, Víctor looked up and saw what had happened. The lollipop was completely covered in ants. Some of them were darting crazily across the toddler’s cheeks. Silvia tried to pacify the child, but Víctor got there before her. For the first time, he acted without thinking and did what he needed to do. He scooped the child up into the air, took the lollipop away and dropped it on the ground, kissed the boy on the cheek and wiped away his tears with the handkerchief from the Chinese boxes.

  ‘You’ll be OK …’ he said, more surprised than anyone at the sudden authority in his voice. ‘When I was your age, I used to get scared sometimes too. You know what my father used to say to me? My father used to say that the way to deal with nasty things is to make them disappear.’ With his free hand, he took three ants which were still looking for traces of sugar on Pablo’s cheeks. He had only to wink at Silvia for her to take the child from his arms. ‘Ants, for example. People are always trying to think of ways to kill them. But you don’t need to.’

  He made his right hand into a fist, leaving only a small opening by the ball of his thumb, just as he had seen his father do so many times. He then put one of the ants into the hole and looked at the audience. For the first time, they were all staring at him open mouthed. The problem was, he didn’t know what to do next. He noticed that his glasses were jiggling on the bridge of his nose and thought about Galván and about his father as he slipped his finger into the hole and squashed the ant into the gap between his fingers. He did the same thing with the other two ants. Only when he suddenly opened his hands, holding his palms out for the audience to see, did he realise the trick had worked. The squashed bodies of the ants were on the back of his hand, facing him. One of the ants was still wriggling. He did not grieve for it, even for a second.

  ‘You can do exactly the same thing with tears,’ he said. ‘Pablo’s tears are on this handkerchief, but I’m going to make them disappear.’

  Very slowly, working close to the toddler’s face as though he were trying to hypnotise him, he pushed the silk handkerchief into his left fist. Then he opened both hands and showed them to the audience: they were empty. At last there was a burst of genuine applause and Víctor did not make the mistake of pausing to revel in it. He had barely found his rhythm, but he pressed on.

  ‘He was a big guy, my father. Make your problems disappear, invent your own solutions, that was his motto. He used to tell me that even poor people don’t have to worry because you only have to dig into your pocket and …’

  He made coins appear, and balls and flowers. He made impossible flames leap from his fingertips. One after another he performed the tricks he had planned, combining them with the freedom only afforded to those who know exactly what they are doing. Nothing went wrong. Not a single trick went unapplauded and more than once he heard the magic words ‘It’s not possible!’ He was like an infallible robot. He didn’t know whether he had been performing for ten minutes or three hours and he didn’t care. He noticed that Silvia kept trying to catch his eye, tapping her wristwatch insistently.

  ‘Your parents are all standing at the back laughing because they think they’re brave. But sometimes they get scared too. When there’s bad news in the papers, for example. Before I finish, I want to tell you what my father used to do when that happened …’ He pulled the case towards him, took out a double page from a newspaper that he had prepared that morning and showed it to the audience. ‘He’d take the paper and tear it in half. Like this. And then in half again. He liked to make sure he’d really ripped it to shreds.’ He tore the paper four times, then placed the eight pieces on top of each other in the palm of his hand. ‘But then he’d think maybe there was some good news on the other side of the page, so he’d open it out again like this …’

  As he unfolded the torn fragments, the page reappeared intact. There were shouts and whistles and laughter from the audience and this time Víctor made no attempt to silence them.

  From the moment he tossed the paper in the air and took one last bow until the point when Silvia offered to drive him back to Barcelona, his memory was a complete blank. They had probably given him something to drink and he had probably had a piece of birthday cake. He assumed he had talked to some of the children and the parents as they came to collect them. He liked to think that at some point he had stood on his own in the garden, which was dark by now, going over in his mind what had just happened. He couldn’t get over the fact that fate had transformed the ancient typewriter on which he had been wearing out his fingers into a magnificent, perfectly tuned piano. A piano he had been able to play with his eyes closed.

  On the other hand, he distinctly remembered the moment when Silvia appeared in the garden, the car keys in her hand. When she offered to drive him home, he came down to earth with a bump and realised the hair at the back of his neck was damp and matted with sweat. He also suspected his breath stank from talking so much and felt sorry that there had been no miraculous transformation in his adolescent body during the brief period when his mind had been taken over by the mind of a magician.

  ‘Don’t worry about it, thanks,’ he said, ‘I have a return ticket for the train.’

  ‘Maybe, but the last train left at nine,’ Silvia insisted. Víctor was about to check his watch, but she took him by the arm. ‘It’s quarter-past. Besides, I need to go into Barcelona anyway.’

  They spent much of the journey in silence. Víctor was experiencing the after-effects of triumph, not unlike a hangover, but he was also completely bewildered. He couldn’t work out why everything had gone wrong at the start, still less why fate had quickly taken his side. Nor had his luck abandoned him, to judge from the way, when she changed gears, Silvia let her right hand graze his thigh. The inside of his thigh. Víctor may have been a virgin, but he was not stupid. When she stopped the car on the hard shoulder a few kilometres outside Barcelona, he knew what was coming next and he thought he was ready. Too ready: for a while now, the pain in his crotch had been unbearable. Silvia straddled him without a word and he concentrated on living up to her expectations. He felt exactly as he had done a couple of hours earlier: once again, for the first time in his life, he was about to do something he had been dreaming about for a long time. Something he knew about only in theory. Something he had often practised in front of a mirror.

  Although it was cramped and uncomfortable, Silvia seemed to know what she was doing. As he entered her, Víctor was surprised by two things: the first was the throbbing he could feel, as though he had penetrated all the way to her heart. The second was the transformation that took place on Silvia’s face as the corners of her mouth rose a few millimetres in something like a simulated smile. Never had a woman seemed to him more beautiful.

  They barely spoke during the rest of the journey to Víctor’s house. He attributed the silence to Silvia’s disappointment: there was a difference between the idea of making love to a magician and the reality of being awkwardly penetrated by an adolescent virgin that saddened even him. When he got out of the car, she rolled down the window and called him back, nodding to the case he had left on the back seat.

  ‘You never did tell me who Peter Grouse was.’

  ‘Ah.’ Víctor looked at his watch. ‘Next time, OK?’

  ‘Sure.’

  They both knew there wouldn’t be a next time. They said goodbye again, but just as he got to the door and was about to go in, she honked the horn. Víctor walked back to the car and Silvia handed him the white envelope containing 4,000 pesetas.

  ‘Here,’ she said, ‘from my father. You’ve earned it.’

  Víctor watched the car pull away and stood i
n the doorway, the envelope in one hand and the leather case in the other. He had spent the afternoon on a rollercoaster, hurtling round and round between despair and euphoria. He felt exhausted. He was incapable of explaining what had happened, even to himself. Magic … Well, he had acquitted himself with dignity. He could face his teacher with his head held high. For a few moments, he had even felt the thrill that Galván so often talked about; a curious disparity between feeling absolutely in control of every movement and the notion that everything was being controlled by another, higher, power. But he was not about to allow himself to be taken in. It was only a kid’s birthday party. He expected much more. Of magic, and of himself. He felt much the same about Silvia. He had made love for the first time and he was happy. But he could not help but sense that there had to be a huge difference between their awkward fumble and real sex. In both cases, he felt as though he had managed to force the door to a palace only to find himself standing in the hall. He was eager to take possession of every room.

  The party had been banal. The girl, ugly. Before he put his key into the lock, he thought about Galván with a smile and said in a soft voice: ‘All are children of God.’

  A Map of the World

  Something wakes him in the middle of the night. Some worry, some urgent need for order. Everything is a mess. Not just the apartment, which he has not tidied for days now, but his life too. Light, time, everything proceeds from a different place to what we expect. And, as Víctor will soon realise, position is everything. The point of departure. I am here and I want to get there. This is in front of me and that is behind me. This comes before, that comes after.

  Order. He has a lot of things to do and he doesn’t know how much time he will have before blindness darkens his days completely. ‘Make a list of everything you need to do. Then tick things off as you go along. You’ll see, it’s a relief.’ His mother’s voice. What a blessing it would be to have his mother with him now. Her voice, her simple presence, her heart, which was always so big. But he cannot think about the past now. The present is taking up all his time with its arrogance, its niggling constraints. Make a list.

  He takes a sheet of paper and draws a horizontal line, dividing it in two. In the top section, he writes the title: ‘Done’, and below it: ‘1. Diagnosis 2. EEG 3. MRI Scan’. Below the line he writes: ‘Pending’. He stops for a moment and thinks; he puts the pen down on the piece of paper, right in the middle, then gets up and walks to the door, counting the steps as he goes. He turns out the light and, in total darkness, walks back to his chair. Sitting down, he feels his way across the table. With his left hand he brushes the piece of paper. It seems as though he is trying to smooth it out when, in fact, he is measuring it, trying to fix its boundaries in the memory of his hands. With his right hand, he picks up the pen and presses the tip at a point he estimates to be below the horizontal line. It feels very much like writing a poem, though all he wants to do is write the words: ‘Take test results to neurologist.’ A change in texture and a subtle shift in the sound made by the pen let him know that he has written the last two syllables on the table.

  Grouse, according to Galván

  In London in 1880, Peter Grouse was recognised by the many colleagues in his profession as the finest pickpocket of his generation, perhaps because, unlike them, he brought to his profession extraordinary effort and dedication and he never gave up. While his colleagues spent their pickings on whores and drink, he spent his nights practising. He devised new techniques which, naturally, he did not put into practice until he had completely mastered them and rehearsed the methods he already knew in order to perfect them. Then, he ensured he got a good night’s sleep so that his mind and his fingers would be fresh the following morning.

  Late one afternoon he encountered John Nevil Maskelyne near the Egyptian Hall. Maskelyne was the most famous magician in Victorian England and his appearance was far from ordinary: he was short and very plump, almost stumpy, and he had a thick moustache that you could see even from a distance. The Egyptian Hall, which he managed, had been a museum of exotic curios but was now converted into a hall for exhibitions and performances. Given that he was more interested in material things than in magic, there was no reason why Grouse should recognise Maskelyne, but he stared at the little man, eyeing the leather case he was carrying. As if it were not enough that Maskelyne was clutching the case so tightly that his knuckles were white, Grouse, who was well trained in such matters, noticed a braided leather strap which was securely knotted around the man’s wrist.

  He was sorry he could not treat this challenge with the respect it deserved: he could cut the strap and substitute the leather case for something similar, something heavy so that the switch would be almost imperceptible. He had accomplished more difficult feats, but this would take time to prepare – time he did not have. He reluctantly decided instead to lift the wallet that bulged in Maskelyne’s breast pocket. Before proceeding, as was his habit, he smoothed down his coat to get rid of any unsightly creases. Physical appearance was important. Grouse always invested a portion of his earnings in elegant, but not ostentatious, black clothes, and though he never knew what the day would bring, he always left the house looking neat and tidy.

  Seeing his victim turn into Duke Street towards Piccadilly, he quickened his pace. He deliberately bumped into Maskelyne and, as he apologised for his clumsiness, he patted the man’s chest as though to make sure he was unhurt, or to brush away some imaginary piece of lint. It was a classic manoeuvre and one he knew so well he could do it without thinking. The guilty parties in the theft were the fingertips of his left hand, but his right hand was the true protagonist, responsible for providing distraction, straightening the lapels, patting the sides and the shoulders and, if necessary, going so far as to stroke the victim’s cheek.

  Only this time his left hand, rather than encountering the expected wallet, found a folded piece of paper. Maskelyne, unruffled, took a step back and, judging from his smile, suspected nothing. He placed his hand on Grouse’s side as though to move him aside and said:

  ‘Don’t worry, I’m fine. I’m terribly sorry, but I’m in rather a hurry.’

  And he walked off.

  Grouse watched him go, with a mixture of frustration about the leather case, regret about the wallet he had not managed to lift and a little curiosity as to the piece of paper that had changed pockets. When Maskelyne finally disappeared from view, he glanced at it and, in the twilit street, he could just make out a diagram depicting some sort of bust placed on a large trunk. Disheartened, he stopped for dinner in his usual pub and did not realise what had happened until, when he came to pay, he slipped his hand into his pocket and discovered he had no money. At that moment, in a painful flash, he remembered Maskelyne’s step backwards, the ironic smile as he took his leave, the hand on his side. Grouse almost felt ashamed. Not only had he been unable to fleece his victim, he had allowed the little bastard – there was no other word for him – to pick his pocket. Anger gave way to a curiosity he found mortifying.

  Who was this guy? Grouse prided himself on being able to recognise his cohorts in the trade at a single glance. He never forgot a face. The very possibility that he had been robbed by a beginner, or someone who had just arrived in the city, was deeply humiliating. He took the piece of paper from his pocket, the meagre spoils of his encounter, and unfolded it on the table. With more light he could examine it now in detail. From the ragged edge of the paper he worked out that it was a page torn from a book. In the top right-hand corner was the number 537. The illustration showed a man sitting on a trunk, his legs crossed and his right arm extended. Only his head, turned to the right and wearing a curious turban, seemed solid. The rest of his body, and the trunk on which he was seated, was outlined with a dotted grey line to create the illusion of transparency. Inside the outline was what looked like an anatomical drawing in which every organ had been replaced by mechanical parts: gears, pistons, levers and pulleys. Every piece, every joint, every socket was labelled
with a capital letter from A to X.

  Above the diagram were four short paragraphs. Reading was not exactly Peter Grouse’s strong suit. He could recognise the alphabet and decipher short messages without too much difficulty, but these long sentences made him hesitate. To be able to recognise a tree was one thing; to find one’s way through a dense forest was altogether different. He tried to focus on the last paragraph, which seemed to shed some light on the illustration:

  ‘One very ingenious solution of the construction of Psycho was offered in November 1877. I partly reproduce it not because it is a solution, but because it will enable the practical and ingenious reader to construct a figure something similar, although not at all equal, to the Whist Player of Messrs Maskelyne and Cooke.’

  Beneath the drawing was a rambling explanation of the workings of the contraption, explaining the nature and the mechanics of each part and giving the necessary instructions for assembling it. Grouse turned over the page and saw that the text continued on the reverse with a list of incomprehensible instructions like ‘The lever being pivoted at c, it is obvious that by depressing the end, N, B will be set at liberty, and the hand will move along the cards …’ All this simply to make the little oriental-looking mannequin move its right arm and open and close its hand.

  Peter Grouse screwed the page into a ball and angrily tossed it on to the floor. He considered himself to be a man of great imagination and he had undeniably brought considerable creativity to his chosen profession, but such fanciful displays as this, which had no practical application, made him nervous. Having been the victim of a madman or a fool did not alleviate his indignation. To make matters worse, he now had to ask that dinner be put on his slate. He did not expect this to be a problem since he was a regular at the pub, but as a matter of principle, it irritated him. As he got to his feet and was about to kick the ball of paper across the room, he spotted a scribble he had not noticed before. He picked up the piece of paper, and smoothed it out on the table once more. At the bottom of the page was a handwritten note: ‘Hoffmann has no idea. Raise the Egyptian Hall bet to 3,000.’