The Manual of Darkness

  There was a breath and a puff of smoke appeared on the stage. Something more ethereal than smoke. Mist perhaps. He could not see a trace of Galván’s face, his hands, his cigarette.

  ‘But you will see me,’ the voice announced after another puff of smoke. ‘You will see me, although I am not here.’

  Suddenly an apparition of the maestro was floating on the stage. A ghost. There was no other word for it. The figure looked exactly like Galván, it moved like him, but it was transparent. Or translucent. It did not have the murkiness of a shadow. Víctor got to his feet and took a few steps towards the stage. As he drew closer, his brain furiously scrabbled to find an explanation. Ghost. Projection. Hologram. He was convinced that if he reached out to touch the figure it would disperse through his fingers.

  ‘I said see,’ Galván warned, ‘I said nothing about touching. Don’t come any closer. Though if you did, you would not catch me.’

  The figure of Galván moved away each time Víctor took a step forward as though mirroring his actions. Then it began to move around the stage with such a natural motion that it was even more difficult to understand or sense the nature of this intangible body.

  ‘And even if you did manage to catch me, it would not do you much good,’ the voice went on. ‘For you will see, I can be in several places at once.’

  At that point, the figure disappeared behind the backcloth, or rather across the backcloth, moving through it as though it were made of water. Víctor was speechless. He had only a moment to think before the figure reappeared at the front of the stage, as though out of thin air, and moved towards him accompanied by a strident, mock-imperious monologue:

  ‘Pure science, ladies and gentlemen. The only marvels you will see here are those the human mind is capable of creating when it understands the laws of physics, mechanics and optics.’

  Víctor recognised this clumsy imitation of Maskelyne and smiled. Galván was inviting him to play the role of Peter Grouse. There was no need. He was desperate to work out how this miracle was performed.

  ‘Not another step, Víctor,’ the maestro commanded again. ‘For years now, I have been waiting for you to bring me a story. I’m still waiting. Go home. If you can bring me a story next Tuesday, I will tell you Pepper’s secret in exchange. If you can’t, don’t bother coming.’

  The ghostly apparition vanished as suddenly as it had appeared. Víctor turned and walked down the centre aisle. As he left the theatre, he formulated the words that he would say so many times in the years that followed. The first words of a long story: ‘My father died when I was seven years old. Although he had never smoked a day in his life, it was nicotine that killed him. Ants might have had something to do with it but, as we shall see later, it could truthfully be claimed that it was in self-defence.’

  He suddenly remembered his second lesson with Galván, when the maestro had made him recount in the third person the death of his father, one Martín Losa, after having drawn from him, as he stood naked and embarrassed, the notes to a lullaby which over time had become embedded in his throat. Once again, as on that occasion, the words seemed to sweep away the dead leaves that choked up his life, the small trickle of truth that freed him, only now it wasn’t a trickle but a wild and roaring torrent. He was free to make up anything he wanted. Or rather, he was duty bound to make the most of this freedom.

  As soon as he got home, he wrote down the first words and went on: ‘I saw his body lying on the floor and didn’t understand what had happened. I couldn’t even understand what it meant to die. I thought my father was playing a game.’ Martín Losa had become a figment, an alibi, something as intangible as the shadowy figure he had just seen projected on the stage. Víctor began to tell himself a story which was not precisely his own, since it included events he had never witnessed, but one which was more real than the factual account, because each of the details he invented had something to do with his longings, his fears and his desires, with what might have happened but never did, with what perhaps should have happened. The portrait of Martín Losa in his mind was more complete, more rounded, more distinct and truthful than the vague sketch offered him by memory. As he wrote, he constantly thought about the plume of smoke with which Galván had announced his presence on the stage at the Liceo that afternoon. Ethereal and yet much more real than some of the things he was currently writing down: the nicotine vapour that had killed his father, his puzzlement when he had found him lying on the ground, even the stabbing pain he still felt after all these years whenever he remembered that day. All now seemed evanescent, as though they had dissipated with time, as though only by crystallising them into words could he bring them back. He spent hours writing, without stopping to erase or correct a single word, without knowing where this story would take him, wandering the no man’s land that exists between imagination and memory, jotting down all the scenarios that came into his head, in which Martín died and came back to life in impossible but conceivable ways, while the smoke seemed to breathe life into wondrous figures and he, Víctor Losa, as both child and man, as actor, spectator and narrator, created, correcting time’s blunders, playing hide-and-seek with the truth. At no point did he stop to think of the practical uses of this story, of the obstacles he would come up against when he performed it onstage. He went on writing until it was finished and then slept like a baby.

  The following morning, he sat down a little apprehensively and stared at the pages, as though he had been drunk and only vaguely remembered writing them. After he had read through, he felt ambivalent. It was a story. A good story. Not even the most demanding reader, as Galván would no doubt prove to be, could deny that this somewhat confused and repetitive story, full of inconsistencies, had a ring of truth to it, a leisurely but powerful voice which both carried the reader forward, and yet made him want to linger over every word, to savour every phrase. And, having finished, to close his eyes, to allow the imagination to fix all these events in his mind.

  And yet, to Víctor, it seemed useless. Not even the most experienced stage director, not even Galván himself with all his knowledge, could transform this into a magic show. Everything was insubstantial, almost invisible. The story existed only in his mind – or with luck in the mind of whoever was reading it. There was no means of staging it, of giving it form.

  He put the sheets of paper into a red file, consoling himself with the thought that at least Galván had not asked him to come up with a list of tricks or a scenario for a show, only a story. And this, at least, he had done.

  The following Tuesday, the maestro took the file, sat in his usual chair, laid the pages under the narrow beam from the spotlight, and read the story from start to finish. He turned the pages without a word. He did not speak, or wink, click his tongue or clear his throat, he did nothing that might indicate what he was thinking. When he had finished, he pushed the pages to one side, bent down and began to fiddle with something under the table. Víctor realised that he must have liked it only when Galván reappeared holding the metal box that had started their argument. Though eager to hear what Galván thought about what he had read, he assumed that the maestro was finally going to explain Pepper’s techniques, so he made himself comfortable.

  Pepper and Dircks. Alone in the dressing room, Víctor removed the top from the jar of cold cream he used to take off his make-up, put a dab in the middle of his forehead and started spreading it with a circular motion. He had been dreaming about his London debut for months now. In magic, in the great magic that Galván had taught him to love, all roads led to London, Maskelyne, Cooke and Grouse, Pepper and Dircks.

  Henry Dircks was an aficionado of magic. One afternoon, some time during the 1850s, he had stopped as he was leaving a London shop to admire something in the window. It was closing time. Just at that moment, the lights inside the shop were turned off and Dircks saw himself reflected in the glass. Or rather half a reflection. He seemed to float among the objects in the window display. It was, in a word, phantasmagorical.

  Dir
cks immediately wondered what would happen if a sheet of glass such as this were placed on a stage with the same kind of lighting that had just caused an ethereal image of his body to appear on the shop window.

  When he got home, he extracted one of the small panes of glass from the dining-room door and began to experiment. He took a small box in which he usually kept his pipe-cleaning tools, emptied it and saw to his relief that the dimensions would work. He placed the piece of glass in the centre, then rummaged in his pockets and took out the first thing he found: his house key. He put this inside the box a few centimetres from the piece of glass. Now he needed a candle, which he lit and brought over to the box. He noticed that if he held the candle behind the piece of glass, nothing happened. But if he held it in front, meaning he used it to light up the key, an image was immediately reflected on the glass. Even more interesting: if he moved the key around in the box, the reflection seemed to move closer and farther away as though it had a life of its own. A floating, tremulous life. Phantasmagorical. Perfect.

  He was euphoric now; he thought perhaps he should go to bed immediately so he could get up early and rush out to the patent office. But then he realised there was an obstacle to his brilliant invention.

  If he installed a sheet of glass onstage with an actor or a magician behind it then shone a light, the image would be projected on to the glass, but being lit up, the actor would also be visible to the audience.

  He had to hide the key. In other words, he had to conceal the actor. Dircks took out a handkerchief and folded it clumsily to create a screen, something that would hide the key. He made several attempts but the problem was that, if he covered it too much, he could not illuminate it. In the end, he almost succeeded, but to do so he had to hold the candle almost directly under the screen. After a short while, the inside of the box was full of wax and both the handkerchief and Dircks’ finger were singed. The best thing to do, he decided, was to leave it until tomorrow.

  Two years later, the box was bigger and more sophisticated and included a number of technical improvements. Dircks had cut a piece of sheet brass to simulate an actual stage on which he had painted a backdrop of forest. Now, instead of the key, there was a silhouette covered with a hood. The major improvement was that now there was no need for a candle to provide the lighting. With the cover on, Dircks could manipulate two slits at the sides to allow daylight in at the perfect angle so that it illuminated the figure creating a reflection on the glass. To see the illusion, one simply had to bring the box up to one’s face and peer through two holes at the front, where the audience would be if this were a theatre.

  It was a charming toy, but it served no purpose. All the effort expended on regulating the component parts, the angle of light, down to the last millimetre, was doomed to failure when he tried to adapt this concept to the realities of a theatre. The audience might be prepared to accept the presence of the screen, but they could hardly fail to notice the sheet of glass for the simple reason that they would see themselves reflected in it. An illusion that works only when no one can see it was hardly much of an invention.

  Several years were to pass before fate offered Dircks what, at that moment, seemed to be the solution to his problem. One day, towards the end of 1859, he went to the theatre to see a one-act play by Charles Dickens called The Haunted Man, which featured a ghost. The actor playing the ghost crawled from the wings and hid behind a sofa, which did not even hide him completely, and then suddenly stood up. Dircks immediately looked around to gauge the audience’s reaction. Sitting in the upper circle, he had a full view of the theatre and saw that the appearance of the ghost provoked more laughter than it did fear. Suddenly, the solution struck him with dazzling clarity. Raise the audience! It was as simple as it was brilliant! Raising the seats above the level of the stage solved two problems: the actor would still stand in front of the sheet of glass but now there was no need for a screen since he was hidden beneath the raised platform. And if the sheet of glass was angled correctly, the audience would not see their own reflections.

  Dircks left the theatre halfway through the performance and rushed home, took the metal box and some tool from his trunk and made the only change necessary: two new holes higher up, in the lid. Since it was dark, he had to resort to candles to test his changes, and although the effect was not as good as it was in daylight, he was satisfied nonetheless. He was so excited at having solved the problem that he did not get a wink of sleep. When dawn broke he was still sitting with the box in his hands, ready to check his results again in the light of day. Then, without even changing his clothes, he headed off to the patent office.

  He had solved the problem, but in order to put it into practice he would need the co-operation of a London theatre owner. He visited every impresario in the city, and received a condescending pat on the back for his pains, or an outright refusal. One impresario asked whether he would leave the box with him for a day or two to think about it, but Dircks refused, fearful that after years of effort someone might steal his idea. But in most cases he did not even manage to pique their interest. Rebuild the theatre? Spend a fortune putting the whole audience on a raised platform and lose a goodly number of seats? Was the man mad?

  He almost came round to their point of view. Perhaps the whole thing was madness. It was then that he consulted Professor Pepper. Dircks knew the professor was famous for his knowledge of optics and decided to show him his invention. Pepper did not even listen to his explanations, but asked him to open the box, which Dircks did. After all, he had nothing to lose.

  ‘Would it not be better to lower the actor rather than raise the audience?’ Pepper asked. ‘It would at least be less costly.’

  ‘Lower the actor? And put him where exactly?’

  ‘I don’t know. Many theatres have an orchestra pit below the stalls.’

  ‘But …’

  Dircks could not conjure an image of what the professor was proposing. In fact, until the last moment, he assumed that Pepper was mistaken, or was perhaps making fun of him. It did not take a sophisticated knowledge of optics to realise that if the actor was no longer on the same level as the sheet of glass, it could not capture his reflection. He voiced these doubts and only began to believe Pepper was serious when the latter replied:

  ‘Shall we say a fifty per cent share of takings?’

  ‘Of course. Supposing it’s possible …’

  ‘With your permission …’

  Pepper pulled the pane of glass out of the box with a jerk. Dircks could not suppress a whimper as he next removed the screen, took out the tin man and handed it to him. The professor held the glass at shoulder height and said:

  ‘Put the figure in front of the box. Good, now lower it. A little more, a little more … another inch … perfect. Don’t look at me, look at the glass. Can you see a reflection?’

  ‘No.’ Dircks shook his head. He was infuriated by the patronising tone Pepper adopted when addressing him, as though he had to be forgiven for his ignorance of certain fundamental laws.

  ‘And now?’

  Dircks was dumbfounded. The tin man’s reflection suddenly floated in the air: semi-transparent, tremulous, intangible. Phantasmagorical, just as he had always imagined it.

  Without saying a word, he looked at the pane of glass and suddenly understood what had happened: almost imperceptibly, Pepper had tilted the top of the pane forward. It was a moment of explosive joy, a moment that made up for all the years of madness and frustration. And yet Dircks was angry with himself that he had not been able to think of this solution which, now that he had seen it, seemed so simple as to be infantile.

  ‘An angle of forty-five degrees,’ Pepper explained. ‘Precisely. Otherwise it would not work. There are a number of problems we shall need to resolve,’ he added, and began to enumerate them, as though they had already agreed to perform the illusion. ‘The sheet of glass must be brought forward to the edge of the stage. There cannot be even a speck of dust on it. The actor,’ he warned, reaching out
to correct the position of Dircks’ hand, ‘has to be on a platform at precisely the same angle as the glass so that the reflection appears to be vertical. He can stand on a rolling platform that can be pushed to make it appear as if he is moving. It will not be very comfortable for him. There will have to be a black half-roof over the orchestra pit so that the audience does not see the glow of the light. And for it to work at life size, we will require spotlights so powerful they will make the pit hellishly hot. Aside from that, I can see no problems making it work.’

  London, Pepper and Dircks. Maskelyne, Cooke and Grouse. Galván and Losa. Or Loussa. As he wiped the last of the make-up from his face, Víctor smiled distractedly at his reflection in the mirror. More than anything, he wished the maestro were here with him now. He still remembered the precise moment when Mario, after telling him about the meeting between Pepper and Dircks, had hidden the metal box under the table once more.

  ‘Pepper found a way to resolve these problems, only to encounter two more which were just as serious. First and foremost, at the time, no one made sheets of glass more than five feet wide, which meant that the ghost’s movements were extremely limited,’ Galván explained. ‘There was another problem. If the ghost was to interact with the other actors on stage he would have to speak and the audience would realise that his voice was not coming from the stage. For this reason, though the illusion was a relative success and its inventors made a sizeable living from it for a time, in the end it fell victim to its limitations. The ghost could only appear in dramatic, climactic moments, but over time this was not enough.’

  By now, Víctor knew all too well that Galván’s speeches were invariably intended to be edifying. Still embarrassed that he had initially been so dismissive of Dircks’ box, he tried to second-guess the obvious moral of the story.

  ‘Microphones,’ he said.

  ‘Exactly, Víctor, microphones. Nowadays it doesn’t matter where a voice is coming from. And it is the easiest thing in the world to find someone who can make a sheet of glass that would span a whole stage. The one problem is, we only have three months.’