“I heard he had a secret romance with the illusionist,” Elizabeth remarks, smiling over her glass of wine.
“Gossip and nonsense,” Victor scoffs.
“He did always sound very fond of her in his writing,” Lorena says, as though she is considering the possibility.
“How could anyone not be fond of her?” Victor asks. Lorena turns to look at him curiously. “She is extremely talented,” he mumbles, and Bailey catches Elizabeth trying not to laugh.
“And the circus isn’t the same without this Herr Thiessen?” Bailey asks, wondering if this has something to do with what Poppet had told him.
“It is different without him, for us, of course,” Lorena says. She pauses thoughtfully before she continues. “The circus itself seems a bit different as well. Nothing in particular, only something … ”
“Something off-kilter,” Victor interjects. “Like a clock that is not oscillating properly.”
“When did he die?” Bailey asks. He cannot bring himself to ask how.
“A year ago tonight, as a matter of fact,” Victor says.
“Oh, I had not realized that,” Lorena says.
“A toast to Herr Thiessen,” Victor proposes, loud enough for the entire table to hear, and he raises his glass. Glasses are lifted all around the table, and Bailey raises his as well.
The stories of Herr Thiessen continue through dessert, interrupted only by a discussion about why the cake is called a pie when it is clearly cake. Victor excuses himself after finishing his coffee, refusing to weigh in on the cake issue.
When he returns to the table, he has a telegram in his hand.
“We are headed to New York, my friends.”
Impasse
MONTRÉAL, AUGUST 1902
After the illusionist takes her bow and disappears before her rapt audience’s eyes, they clap, applauding the empty air. They rise from their seats and some of them chatter with their companions, marveling over this trick or that as they file out the door that has reappeared in the side of the striped tent.
One man, sitting in the inner circle of chairs, remains in his seat as they leave. His eyes, almost hidden in the shadow cast by the brim of his bowler hat, are fixed on the space in the center of the circle that the illusionist occupied only moments before.
The rest of the audience departs.
The man continues to sit.
After a few minutes, the door fades into the wall of the tent, invisible once more.
The man’s gaze does not waver. He does not so much as glance at the vanishing door.
A moment later, Celia is sitting in a chair across the circle from him, still dressed as she had been during her performance, in a black gown covered with delicate white lace.
“You usually sit in the back,” she says.
“I wanted a better view,” Marco says.
“You came quite a ways to be here.”
“I had to take a holiday.”
Celia looks down at her hands.
“You didn’t expect me to come all this way, did you?” Marco asks.
“No, I did not.”