Channing was older than I had expected – in his late forties or early fifties – and extraordinarily tall, perhaps six foot four. His abundant silver hair was swept straight back and glistened blue in the spotlights.
The music grew softer. On a nearby table sat a large silver ball. Channing draped the ball with a black silk cloth and we watched in amazement as it began to rise. When he held the cloth by the corners, the ball didn’t drop. It began to dance, floating beneath the cloth. Slowly the ball crept up, until it was riding along the edge of the cloth, hypnotically, back and forth, back and forth. It dove under the cloth again, then up, then down as if the ball had a life of its own.
When the ball trick was over, the music changed. I recognized Zimmer’s theme from Batman the Dark Knight. The rapid urgency of the strings, accented by the percussion and low brass, washed over us like an oncoming steam locomotive, indicating that something big was about to happen.
Pia Fanucci drifted out on the stage wearing a pink Chinese gown and carrying a parasol. While she danced with the parasol like a lover, Channing wheeled a tall upright cabinet onto the stage. He opened all the doors, Pia climbed in and, one by one, the little doors were shut over her body.
The Zig-Zag Box.
Pia’s face, her hands and her left foot were clearly visible through openings in the cabinet’s front, and she waggled them just in case anyone in the audience had failed to notice.
As the music surged, Channing inserted two large metallic blades horizontally through the cabinet’s mid-section, presumably dividing Pia – ouch! – into thirds. He then slid the mid-section of the cabinet away from the top and bottom thirds, taking Pia’s mid-section along with it, turning her into a human zig-zag.
I stared hard at the cabinet, trying to shatter the illusion. I was still puzzling over it, watching closely while Pia’s parts were being reassembled, and the wicked-looking blades, one by one, were removed. Then Channing opened the cabinet and Pia stepped out gracefully, completely unscathed. She bowed prettily, then scampered off stage right.
The audience went wild. Spotlights roamed the theater, fog began to curl about the stage, smoky tendrils drifted into the front row of the audience as the familiar strains of Ravel’s Bolero began to weave their spell.
Pia returned pushing a four-legged, wheeled table. On top of the table sat a woven basket about three feet in diameter. She’d done a lightning quick costume change, and was now dressed in a sunshine-yellow harem-girl outfit, complete with ankle bells and matching toque.
Channing tipped the basket toward the audience and ran his hand around the inside, demonstrating that it was completely empty. He took Pia’s hand, holding it while she stepped up on the table and into the basket. Channing passed the lid to Pia, who balanced it on her head, then slowly sank until she was completely hidden inside.
From a nearby table, Channing selected a sabre with a long curved blade, held it overhead by its elaborately decorated handle and brandished the weapon – snick-snick – like a Saracen warrior during the Crusades.
Oooh went the audience as the highly polished blade flashed in the spotlights.
From his pocket, Channing produced an orange, tossed it into the air, and with a single thwack, split it neatly in two.
Aaah!
The music pulsed, throbbed, intensified. The magician inserted the tip of the sabre into one side of the basket, pushed hard on the hilt as if meeting some resistance, then with slightly more effort shoved it through. A second sabre was inserted in the opposite side of the basket, then a third, and a fourth. Only two sabres remained, and they went into the basket from the top as the audience oohed and ahhed over the urgent pounding of the soundtrack.
Placing both hands on the table, Channing spun the basket – one, two, three times around. Finally, with a flourish, he whisked off the lid.
For a moment, nobody moved or dared to breathe. Then, gradually, hands raised above her head, Pia emerged, unfolding slowly, sinuously, like a cobra.
We clapped like crazy, of course. Channing took Pia’s hand and helped her down to the stage. As gracefully as a prima ballerina, Pia spread her arms and bowed, wobbled slightly, put her hands together prayerfully, bowed again, then backed away on tiptoe, like a good little harem girl, still smiling.
Channing returned to the basket and whirled it around again three times. We thought the trick was done, that he’d take the basket and push it off stage. But Channing had another surprise in store. The music made a crescendo, the magician reached inside the basket once again, and pulled out another young woman, this one dressed in a lime-green harem-girl outfit.
I gasped – along with everyone else in the audience. After a split second of stunned silence, the theater erupted into wild applause.
‘Bravo!’ I shouted. I cupped my hands around my mouth and whooped-whooped like a mother at a Little League baseball game.
‘Where the hell did she come from?’ Ruth asked.
Georgina bounced in her seat she was clapping so hard. ‘I didn’t think there was room for one girl in there, let alone two!’
‘They weren’t actually in the basket, silly. There has to be a secret compartment under the basket, or a trap door.’ Sister Ruth, the skeptic.
If there was a trap door, I couldn’t detect it. The basket sat about two feet off the floor on a four-legged table that spun easily on casters. You could see completely under the table, all the way to the magician’s polished shoes and as far as the curtains on the other side.
Channing took each woman by the hand, raised their hands high, and the trio bowed in unison. Smiling broadly, Channing released their hands, indicating with subtle flapping motions that they should return to the basket. When they were in position, one on each side, the two assistants spun the table three times – was a third girl going to materialize? But no, the show was over. Except for wheeling the basket off the stage, their work seemed to be done.
As I watched the girls go, I noticed a dark spot on the leg of Pia’s harem pants. At first I took it for a trick of the stage lights, but then the spot began to grow, spreading quickly from the area of her thigh down to her knee. And was it my imagination, or had Pia begun to limp?
Channing apparently hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary because he continued to bow right, left and center, basking in the limelight and the applause.
‘Ruth, Georgina, look!’ I whispered. ‘I think Pia’s been cut!’
Their attention had been focused on the magician, but they turned to look just as Pia and the basket disappeared into the wings. ‘Maybe it’s her period?’ Georgina suggested. ‘God, how embarrassing!’
‘Not on the outside of her leg, it isn’t!’ Ruth pointed out sensibly.
I had visions of a wounded Pia smiling bravely in a show-must-go-on sort of way until she got backstage, then collapsing in a heap of bloody chiffon and gold trim. ‘I hope she’s OK,’ I said.
The second assistant skipped out onto the stage just then, smiling stiffly. Clearly this was not part of the act, because even from where we sat, I noticed Channing’s eyebrows shoot up in annoyance. The girl grabbed his hand and bent at the waist, forcing the magician into another bow. With her head close to his, she whispered in his ear.
Within seconds, the two had vanished. The stage was empty. As we watched, wondering and worrying, the emcee rushed into the whirl of multicolored lights and swirling fog, pressing a microphone to his lips. ‘Ladies and gentleman, wasn’t that spectacular!’ His free hand windmilled. ‘Please put your hands together for the Amazing Channing and his lovely and talented assistants, Pia and Lorelei!’