The Magician Read Free

public library at the beginning of a ten-day Easter recess, he had found a shelfful of books he had not known existed. He discovered that the term “magi” went back to Babylon and Media, that it then meant “august” and “reverend” and was the word the learned priests used to describe themselves. Among the Persians, Ed found, the magis were the keepers of the sacred objects, and from these they divined the future, not through hanky-panky, but largely because these ancient magicians had a knowledge of the powers of nature superior to that of the people around them. They were the wise men, and their influence was unbounded.
    Ed read of the struggle of knowledge and ignorance, light and darkness, good and evil, and how the ministers of old became in time the wandering fortune-tellers and quacks, the sleight-of-hand artists and conjurers who, instead of advising kings and princes about their most important transactions, entertained or merely fooled.
    He pleaded successfully with the librarian to let him take the best of these books home, though they were only for reference, and he gorged himself the way a glutton consumes the meal of his dreams. He neglected the history paper he was supposed to complete because he kept thinking of Thomas Jefferson as a magus and the politicians of today as tired vaudeville performers, doing their thing for the thousandth time. Ed had hated the magicians he had seen at school and in shows. Having lost their sense of surprise, their hands darted gracelessly, their chatter became mechanical. A magician, Ed felt, needed to believe anew that each trick really worked, just as the audience did. Like life, in magic there was always the unpredictable.
    *
    His father, seeing no light under the door, came in on tiptoe. He turned on the small desk light rather than the overhead in order not to startle him.
    “I thought you might have fallen asleep.”
    “No,” said Ed, “just resting.”
    “I feel awkward about this.”
    “About what?” said Ed, raising himself from the bed.
    “Well,” said Mr. Japhet, “I’d like to see the show.”
    “You’ve seen all these tricks.”
    “It’s just that it’s different in front of an audience.” Mr. Japhet examined his fingernails. “I mean, if you were playing football, you wouldn’t mind my coming to the games.”
    “That’s different.”
    “How?”
    “All a player sees is the crowd. When I do a show, I see people’s faces. In fact, I fix on one or two and talk to them. If you were there, I’d see yours, and it’d make me nervous.”
    “Doesn’t Lila’s being there make you nervous?”
    “She’s going to sit way in the back.”
    “I could sit back there, too.”
    “Oh, Dad, the prom isn’t for parents.”
    Mr. Japhet touched the inside corners of his eyes, then rubbed the bridge of his nose as if he had been wearing uncomfortable glasses. “Well,” he said, wanting to try again but not able to, “I’ll drive you down and pick you up afterward.”
    Parents shouldn’t have feelings like that, thought Ed; they have a job to do.
    Rescue came in the form of his mother, moving briskly through the door, saying, “Your tux’ll get all wrinkled.”
    Ed got up from the bed and slowly turned around for her inspection. He had thought of the possibility of wrinkles and had lain down in a way that he thought would do no damage.
    “I guess it’s all right,” said Mrs. Japhet. “I’m sorry I won’t be there to see your act. Are you going along, Terence?”
    “They only need a few teachers as chaperons, and they’re all assigned,” said Mr. Japhet.
    “You’ll drive him, won’t you?”
    “I’ve been chauffeuring him for sixteen years,” said Mr. Japhet, leaving the room. “It’s too late to stop,” his voice trailed after him.
    “ He’s in a good mood,” said Mrs. Japhet thinly. “Never mind, are you all packed?”
    Ed nodded, and glanced at his watch. Better get cracking.
    *
    It had snowed in Westchester that morning