The Manual of Darkness

  He examined the drawing again but this cryptic note offered no new insight. And yet, for the first time since his unfortunate encounter with Maskelyne, Peter Grouse took a deep breath and his lips widened in a tense smile. A bet? Three thousand what? Three thousand pounds? That was a fortune. If he could find out where this Egyptian Hall was, he would know where to start.

  A Trick at Every Table

  Galván offered him his first real job, but warned him not to have great expectations. It wasn’t in a theatre, nor even one of the nightclubs which, in the mid-eighties, organised cabaret-style performances of magic. No one would be paying to see him and his name would not appear on the bill. He would earn only what he received in tips. La Llave was a modest little bar in the centre of Barcelona and it made a respectable profit, basing its opening hours around the schedules of the local office workers: two sittings at breakfast, a lunch special, beer and slices of tortilla in the afternoon.

  Víctor went there for the first time on a Friday just after 9.30 and, since there were no customers, he could size up at a glance the place where, according to Galván, he was to work six nights a week for the next two months: a bright polished stone floor, a small bar with a grill and a coffee machine, three whole hams hanging from the ceiling, recessed halogen lights. There didn’t seem to be much sense in opening the place in the evenings.

  The owner pressed him to get changed quickly in a small basement which was part stockroom and part wine cellar. Surprised at being asked to hurry, Víctor studied the excellent selection of wines as he buttoned his black jacket and slipped into his pockets the various things he had brought in Peter Grouse’s case. Suddenly, the basement ceiling started to shudder as though there were a stampede. He climbed the narrow wooden staircase and, when he reached the door, he had to lean all his weight against it to open it a crack. The place was heaving. Though he had been downstairs less than five minutes not only were all the seats at the tables and the bar occupied, but every inch of standing room too. The noise was unbearable. Two waiters had to shout to get past, moving through the crowd as gracefully as tango dancers, each holding aloft a tray. Behind the bar a small woman was preparing tapas at such speed that, seen from behind, she looked like some Hindu goddess with six arms in perpetual motion.

  Víctor stood, confused, wondering how he was going to clear a path through the crowd until suddenly the owner appeared next to him and shouted in his ear.

  ‘Follow me. And get a move on, you’ve only got an hour.’

  As he followed the owner, Víctor went over the list of unforeseen problems he now had to deal with. He didn’t like being rushed. Working with barely enough space to move his arms would be a challenge, but the most difficult thing was there would always be someone behind him. However good, however subtle a magician, he is always vulnerable if someone watches him from behind. He cursed Galván, who he assumed was aware of the situation but had not told him so he would be forced to come up with solutions. In fact, the teacher had given him little advice. He hadn’t even wanted to help choose the routine. ‘You get to a table, you sit down, you do what you have to do, then you move on to the next table. You have to work quickly or they’ll leave before you’ve even finished. If all goes well, they’ll ask you to stay and do another trick. They’ll offer you a drink. But you’ll get up and leave. A different trick at every table for as long as there are customers. Prove to me you’re up to it and we’ll think about doing real magic.’ These had been his only instructions; this was the challenge.

  The first problem was finding a seat. There wasn’t a single empty chair. Víctor fumbled his way to the first table, where he did not even have time to introduce himself before one of the diners, assuming he was selling something, waved him away without looking and said, ‘No thanks, we’re fine.’

  Víctor snorted, raised the hand holding the deck of cards to shoulder height and dropped it in the centre of the table.

  ‘Anyone know how many cards there are in a pack?’

  After a good start, everything became easier. He finished his first round feeling as though he had achieved his aim. The tricks worked and the cries and applause at one table guaranteed him a warm reception at the next. Every time he moved, he created a small procession since some of the customers followed him around so as not to miss anything.

  When he got back to the first table, there was an empty chair for him and the diners were waiting expectantly. Someone called for silence and although the clamour elsewhere in the bar continued, for the first time he found he could perform without shouting. The second round went better than the first because Víctor had used the first as an opportunity to select objects at each table that he could adapt for his second trick. One of the diners tore a card into four only to find it, apparently whole again, under their soup plates; a handbag with its buckle fastened turned out to contain the card on which its owner had signed her name. Víctor heard the words ‘It’s not possible’ and he knew he was on the right track. In fact he was euphoric. At one point he felt as though, floating above the noise and the crowd, he could see himself, see the pleasure, the joy, if it could be called that, on the faces of those around him. He had just turned eighteen. In a month, it would be one year since he had started taking lessons and here he was achieving what, by any standards, was a resounding success.

  And the best was yet to come. As he finished his second tour of the bar, he made a mental inventory of the items in his pockets and decided that this was the perfect moment to move on to more spectacular tricks. He had powdered phosphorus which, with a subtle flick of his index finger, could cause spectacular flames to leap; harmless dyes a single drop of which could change the colour of a drink in an instant; a tiny saucepan into which he could put a raw egg and, with a wave of his left hand, transform it into a steaming omelette.

  When he came to the last table, surreptitiously patting his pockets to check that everything was where it should be, he felt a blast of cold air and noticed a sudden silence. The door was open and people were streaming out into the street as though someone had shouted ‘Fire!’ The waiters quickly collected the plates and the tips. The woman who had been preparing tapas had come out from behind the bar and was sitting at a table, massaging her aching feet. At the far end of the room, a swing door Víctor had not noticed opened suddenly and a chef arrived carrying trays loaded with croquettes, Russian salad, ham and tuna empanadillas.

  ‘Did it go well?’ she asked him.

  ‘I think so,’ Víctor said, still in shock.

  ‘Come on, sit down with us and have something to eat. But you’ll have to do a little trick for us too.’

  Before he did so, Víctor asked for an explanation. The secret to La Llave’s popularity at night was its proximity to Scala Barcelona, a ballroom which dominated the nightlife in the city at the time, with its spectacular shows featuring contortionists, acrobats, ventriloquists, magicians and, above all, two dance troupes capable of performing the most complex routines as long as they required the wearing of almost nothing or, failing that, the removal of a costume piece by piece. The early show offered dinner at nine o’clock, but was so expensive that many people, especially the younger audience, preferred to have a snack at La Llave and then go to the second show at 11 p.m.

  ‘So that’s it, they bolt down some food and then head off?’ asked Víctor.

  ‘Not quite. Now we get our second sitting – the people who went to the first show and spent so much on dinner that, instead of having a drink in the Scala bar afterwards, they come straight here. It’s one of the advantages of being cheaper. They’ll be streaming through that door in half an hour.’

  This explained why the waiters were wolfing down the food the cook had brought out. Víctor complimented her on the croquettes and did as they did, gobbling his food with one hand and performing simple magic tricks with the other. When the first customer came through the door, the staff all got to their feet.

  Víctor discovered that things went much more smoothly wh
en customers were not eating. All he needed to do was take an empty chair and start performing and the customers would come to him. He felt completely at ease. Most of the customers just came to have a quick drink and then head home, or go on to some other bar, but one or two hung around to see another trick, and then another, until suddenly it was two o’clock in the morning and Víctor realised he had been sitting in the same chair for over an hour, performing for a group of about forty people who seemed in no hurry to leave. The shutters came down at half-past and even the owner sat and watched him perform while the waiters cleared up. Víctor brought the show to a close, only to hear the inevitable request for just one more trick.

  ‘What’s your name?’ he asked the woman sitting next to him.

  ‘Inés.’

  ‘Inés, can I borrow your hand?’

  ‘With pleasure.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I won’t make it disappear,’ he announced, taking her hand gently. ‘I just want to write your name so it’s imprinted on your skin and will remain with you for ever.’

  He told her to make a fist, then he dipped his finger into an ashtray and, on the back of her hand, traced the letters ‘s-é-n-i’ in ash.

  ‘As you can see, I’ve written it backwards. It’s like a nickname. The only people to know your real name will be those who know you like the palm of their hands,’ he said, as he turned her wrist and, stroking her fingers, asked her to open her fist.

  On the palm was the name ‘Inés’, written the right way round, as though the letters had travelled through skin and bone. Víctor got to his feet as the audience applauded and gave a little bow, which seemed to bring the performance to an end. Suddenly Inés looked at her hand and screamed:

  ‘Oh my God! My ring!’

  ‘Don’t look at me,’ said Víctor. ‘I think your husband is the jealous type. Maybe he decided to look after your wedding ring while you did me the honour of lending me your hand. If he denies it, tell him to look in his left-hand jacket pocket.’

  The man sitting on Inés’s right looked startled. He slipped his hand into his pocket and piled the contents on the table, a handful of coins and his car keys: Inés’s ring was threaded on to the keyring. Before taking it back, she looked at Víctor and said:

  ‘Not bad! There’s just one problem. He’s not my husband. I’ve never even met him before. Besides, it’s not a wedding ring. I’m not married.’

  Víctor held her gaze. She was short, a little plump. She had narrow lips and her face was tense. It was almost 3 a.m. and he was exhausted. ‘What the hell,’ he thought, ‘tomorrow’s Saturday.’ For his last trick, he decided to put a smile on that face.

  Before they left together, he slipped the envelope of money the owner had given him into his leather case. He hadn’t counted it, but the jingle of coins told him it wasn’t much.

  One Bloody Nerve, Víctor

  ‘The cause is in your DNA, it’s a mitochondrial mutation. Until recently the only way to diagnose it was by a process of elimination but nowadays we can confirm it by molecular analysis,’ the neurologist says, as though this were good news.

  Twenty minutes of incomprehensible technical jargon. Now more than ever Víctor envies the efficient language of ants. He makes a list of useless words: the haloes are cecocentral scotomas; there are signs of retinal vascular tortuosity in the blood vessels supplying the eyes; the fundus of the optic nerve is swollen and, most seriously, the nerve itself is suffering from irreversible atrophy.

  He assumes it will not be long before the neurologist finally utters the word ‘blind’ and he knows that, at that moment, the eagle in his brain will have a field day.

  Even more than the technical jargon, the numbers bother him. The percentages the doctor intones like a litany. Fifty per cent of men with this genetic mutation go on to develop the disease. Only 10 per cent of women, however, contract it. In 25 per cent of cases, sight is lost in both eyes simultaneously; in 75 per cent of cases it is sequential.

  ‘In twenty per cent of cases,’ the doctor goes on, ‘the optic nerve head …’

  ‘What is it called?’ Víctor asks, shifting in his seat as though he has suddenly decided to take part in the conversation.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘The disease. If I have to deal with some monster that is going to leave me blind, the first thing I need is a name, don’t you think?’

  ‘The full name is Leber’s hereditary optic neuropathy, but it’s generally referred to as Leber’s for short.’

  ‘Leber.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Who was Leber?’

  ‘Theodor von Leber was the ophthalmologist who first described the disease.’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘1876.’

  ‘Jesus! What a coincidence.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Nothing, it’s just something personal …’

  ‘Tell me about it …’

  ‘How long before I go completely blind?’

  ‘Look, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.’

  ‘I’m sorry …’ Víctor gets to his feet and begins to pace around the room. He is trying to keep calm but he looks like a caged animal. ‘… but I’ve heard those words a little too often lately and I can’t say I agree with them. There’s a runaway train bearing down on me, and if I don’t get ahead of myself, it’s going to run me down. If you don’t mind, I have a couple of questions I’d like to ask and I want straight answers.’

  ‘Fire away.’

  ‘And no jargon.’

  ‘Ask away, I’ll do my best.’

  ‘Is there any treatment?’

  ‘There are clinical trials to see whether Vitamin B12 and Vitamin C supplements together with quinine analogues …’

  ‘Doctor …’

  ‘No, there are no tried and tested treatments.’

  ‘Am I going to go blind?’

  ‘Yes, but to what extent is difficult to predict. Twenty per cent of cases retain up to fifteen per cent …’

  ‘Enough with the percentages, please!’ Víctor protests. ‘How long do I have?’

  The neurologist checks the file in front of him to see when the symptoms had first appeared.

  ‘It’s difficult to say exactly. It starts out with problems distinguishing red and green. Then the halo gets bigger … With the spot in your left eye, I think it’s only a matter of days, a week at most. After that …’ He takes a deep breath and, for the first time, sets his face in something akin to an expression of compassion. ‘Between losing sight in the first and second eye there is usually a gap of about eight weeks.’

  ‘From now?’

  ‘From the moment the symptoms first appeared.’

  ‘In other words, I’ve got about a month.’

  Víctor cannot help glancing at the calendar on the doctor’s desk. Then he turns and pretends to study the diplomas that hang on the wall.

  ‘Can you explain in simple terms exactly what it is I’ve got?’

  ‘The optic nerve has atrophied and can’t function properly any more. Your eye is perfectly fine, as indeed is the part of your brain that processes visual information. Imagine there’s a petrol station on one side of a river, and all the cars are on the other side. Now imagine the bridge is out … Or an engine, when the transmission cuts out …’

  ‘All right, I get it. What I don’t get is why. I mean why now? I know, I’ve always been a little short-sighted, but …’

  ‘It has nothing to do with that. As I said, it’s a mitochondrial mutation. It’s passed down through the maternal line and can develop any time between the ages of ten and seventy.’

  ‘But my mother wasn’t blind.’

  ‘Look, I know you hate the whole percentages thing, but this is like the lottery. Your mother must have …’

  ‘Had.’

  ‘OK, had the same mutation but, like ninety per cent of women, she never developed the disease. It’s likely that a couple of generations back there was someone blind in your family, but it’s s
o far back that no one remembers. And because you’re a man, when you drew the same lottery ticket, the situation was different because half the balls in the drum had your number on them.’

  ‘Fifty per cent,’ Víctor says. ‘That’s a lot.’

  Slowly, as he digests the information, he comes back towards the desk. He is going blind. That little wretch … It’s not a prediction, it’s a statement of fact. The future has just come crashing down on him with such violence that it is already almost a memory.

  ‘Is there anything else? What I mean is, is there anything else I should prepare myself for, apart from the blindness?’

  ‘In principle, no.’

  ‘I see … in principle.’

  ‘Leber’s is a mitochondrial point mutation related to respiratory chain complexes. In some cases, patients have been known to develop other symptoms including movement disorders, tremors, peripheral neuropathy and even cardiac arrhythmia, but there is no proof they are directly related to Leber’s. In my opinion they are often stress-related.’

  ‘That’s understandable.’

  ‘There is one other percentile group that might interest you, though the last thing I want to do is give you false hope. In about 0.2 per cent of cases, for reasons we do not understand, some degree of vision has been recovered.’

  ‘At least there’s some hope,’ says Víctor. And he says it again, ‘Some hope.’

  There’s nothing more to talk about, Víctor. Leave now. Get out of here. Take that crumb of hope, go home and lick your wounds. Or better still, make the most of what little time you have left to prepare yourself. You are about to enter a world peopled by ghosts, by illusions, and the frontier has already been marked: you have one month. There is no line of fire now, it is a line of shadows. The day you cross it, your eyes will see no more. Worse still: we know that they will go on discerning light, movement and the whole panoply of physical manifestations implicit in the verb ‘to see’, but your brain will be like a wheel spinning in the void. The doctor explained it perfectly: there is no bridge. All that will remain is that mocking 0.2 per cent chance of hope and a faint curiosity as to what happens to all those images you see without seeing. Are they lost in some forgotten corner of your brain? Who cares? Maybe the eagle that is your blindness devours them. See how hungry it is? You can ask yourself a thousand times: ‘Why me?’ Because of a nerve, Víctor. One bloody nerve. The one you leave on the side of your plate when you eat your steak.