Two stagehands dressed like ninjas jogged on to clear the clowns’ debris and deposit my equipment. The mysterioso music I’d given Ulla reached its fifth bar. I took a deep breath and strode out from stage right as the stagehands exited stage left. The clown’s applause still trembled in the air. I measured it, gauged the warmth of the crowd, pretty hot, and realised that for once I wasn’t the warm-up.
I lifted a flimsy transparent perspex table above my head, twirled it like a baton then waved my hand Mephistolike below it and snapped a set of oversized playing cards into view. Beyond the edge of the stage there was nothing but black punctuated by the candle flames glowing out of the darkness. God looked out into the firmament and saw nothing.
Then he snapped his fingers and created the world. I gave the slightest of bows, and got on with it.
Have you ever seen a film of an ocean liner ready to embark on a long voyage? People were so loath to leave their loved ones that they stretched streamers from the decks to the quayside. The nearly-departed held one end, the soon-to-bestrangers on the shore, the other. As the ship moved off the streamers would grow tense, taut, then break.
That was the image I had of my audience’s attention, slender strips of colour connecting them to me. I wanted to keep them at the moment the ribbon was at its tautest, and never let it snap until my final bow.
The music died and I slid into my set, I was halfway through the first trick when I heard the whisper of conversation. The fragile strands connecting me to the audience snapped and it was as if I was a lonely soul on the top deck holding a bunch of limp streamers without even a breeze to give them a flutter.
There was a clink of glass on glass as drinks were refreshed. A jarring note of laughter where there should have been the silence of suspense. I did the only thing I could do, kept the smile on my face and stumbled on until the moment came for the house lights to be raised. Now I could see the faces of my audience, too many of them in profile. I stepped forward, feeling like a man on the scaffold, and asked for a volunteer.
Later, Sylvie would show me this was the wrong way to go about things. But that evening even the old lady who sold the tin toys stopped her rounds and waited for my humiliation. I paused three beats beyond comfort, unable to spot a dupe amongst the crowd, putting all my will into not begging. The stage lights seemed to flare again, the audience bled out of focus and even the candles seemed to lose their glow. A bead of perspiration slid down my spine. Then a young woman got to her feet and I knew everything was going to work out fine. And so it did, for a while.
The girl bounded onto the stage with so much confidence I suddenly thought the audience might assume her to be my accomplice. I shouldn’t have worried. Even on that first night, though I was the one with the tricks and the tailcoat, everyone wanted to see what Sylvie would do.
My volunteer was a slim girl in high-stacked boots and an old-fashioned shirtdress that showed off her figure. Her hair was sleek, cut close to her head, and her lips were painted a vampire red that glistened under the stage lights. She turned to face the audience. Her stare was confident, her mouth amused and I realised I should never have chosen her for my dupe. I swallowed, arranged my features in the semblance of a smile then went into my patter.
'So, gorgeous, what’s your name?'
'Sylvie.'
She had an American accent, all Coca-Cola, Coors and Marlboros, a bland corporate voice that could have come from almost anywhere.
'And what brings you to Berlin?'
Sylvie shrugged and looked out into the darkness beyond the stage.
'Life?'
The crowd laughed, and I smiled, though I didn’t see the joke.
'So, would you like to help me with a trick?'
'I guess so.'
Again her voice was deadpan and again a ripple of laughter worked its way through the audience. I might not be getting the jokes, but I was grateful. The clatter of glasses and conversation had ceased and all eyes were on us, the audience rooting for Sylvie, waiting for her to upstage me.
I turned her towards me, looked into her grey-green eyes and grinned.
'OK then, let’s get on with the show.'
The shell game is an ancient trick also known as Chase the Lady, also known as Thimblerig. The man who first taught me prefaced his lesson with a warning.
'This is a trick as old as Egypt — older, I don’t doubt. It has saved many a man from starvation and landed many another in debt or jail. The wise man is always on the showing side, never on the guessing.'
My old teacher was right, but it isn’t big news that it’s better to be the sharper than the sharper’s dupe, so my variation had an extra distraction to twist the ruse.
I fanned three brown envelopes in my left hand, and raised a picture of the crown jewels in my right, holding it high in the air so that the audience could see it. I’d thought that the royalist kick might go down well with the Germans, after all, they were related. I slid the photograph into one of the envelopes, making sure that Sylvie and the audience could see which one it was.
'Sylvie, how would you like to win the British crown jewels?'
Her voice was dry.
'The real thing or this photograph?'
I feigned an outraged look.
'This rather fine photograph.' Sylvie laughed and the audience joined her. I kept the note of injury in my voice. 'What? You don’t find it exciting?'
She shook her head matching my mock offence — ‘No’ — and turned to leave the stage.
'Hey, hold on.' I touched her shoulder and Sylvie twisted back towards me on cue, as if we’d been rehearsing for weeks. 'What about if I were to offer you…’ I leaned forward and snapped three 100 euro notes from somewhere behind her ear. It was the kind of cheap move a half-cut uncle could manage after a good Christmas dinner, but for the first time that night I got a round of applause.
It’s hard to convey the look that Sylvie gave me. A smile that acknowledged we were in this together and a glint of sympathy cut through with something else, an urge to please the audience that might amount to recklessness.
'Yes,' she said in her cool, who-gives-a-fuck stage voice. 'Yes, that might make a difference.'
I slid the money into the envelope alongside the maligned picture and sealed it tight.
'Now, Sylvie, examine these envelopes for me please.' I passed all three to her. 'Are they identical?'
She took her time, turning each one over in her hand, scrutinising their seals, drawing her fingers across their edges. At last she turned and nodded.
'Yes, they’re the same.'
'Now…’ I feinted a soft black velvet hood into my hands. 'How do you feel about a little S&M?'
Sylvie made a shocked face and someone in the audience whooped.
Sylvie’s fingers were strong as she secured the hood over my head. She tied the cord in a bow at the nape of my neck, then smoothed her fingertips over my face, pressing them against my eyelids for a second. I felt the prickle of total darkness and breathed in the faint peppery mustiness that the velvet bag always held, pulling the fabric towards me as I inhaled, letting my masked features appear beneath the velvet.
'I want you to take these envelopes and shuffle them in any way you wish.' The audience laughed. I wondered what she was doing and asked, 'All done?'
'Yes.'
'Now, I’m going to ask you which envelope the money is in. You can lie, you can tell me the truth, or, if you choose to be a very unkind girl, you can keep silent. The choice is yours.'
The audience were quiet, willing my destruction. 'OK, Sylvie, I want you to present me with each of the envelopes in turn. But because I can’t see anything you’re going to have to provide me with a commentary, so name them please as you hold them up. Let’s call them…
’ I hesitated as if thinking hard. 'Number one, number two and number three. OK, in your own time.'
Sylvie waited a beat, then in a loud, clear voice said, 'Number one.'