The Prestige

6

Rupert Angier's name was already familiar to me. Writing from an address in North London he was an opinionated and long-winded correspondent to the letter columns of two or three of the private-circulation magic journals. His purpose was invariably to pour scorn on the people he described as the “establishment” of older magicians, who with their secretive ways and courteous traditions were held up as tiresome relics of a former age. Although I worked within those traditions I did not allow myself to be drawn into Angier's various controversies, but some of the magicians I knew were greatly provoked by him.

One of his theories, to take a fairly typical example, was that if magicians were as skilful as they claimed to be, then they should be prepared to perform magic “in the round”. That is to say, the magician would be surrounded on all sides by the audience, and would therefore have to create illusions that did not depend on the framing, audience-excluding effect of the proscenium arch. One of my distinguished colleagues, by way of reply, gently pointed out the self-evident fact that no matter how well the magician prepared his act, there would always be a segment of the audience who could see the trick being worked. Angier's response was to deride the other correspondent. First, he said, the magical effect would be increased if the illusion could be viewed from all angles. Secondly, if it could not, and a small segment of the audience had to glimpse the secret, it did not matter ! If five hundred people are baffled, he said, it was of no importance that five others should see the secret.

Such theories were almost heretical to the majority of professionals, not because they held secrets to be inviolable (which Angier seemed to imply), but because Angier's attitude to magic was radical and careless of the traditions which had held good for so long.

Rupert Angier was therefore making a name for himself, but perhaps not the one he had planned. One observation I often heard was the mock surprise that Angier rarely if ever performed on the public stage. His colleagues were therefore unable to admire his no doubt brilliant and innovative magic.

As I say, I did not involve myself, and he was of not great interest to me. However, destiny was soon to take a hand.

It happened that one of my father's sisters, living in London, had recently been bereaved and in her grief was intending to consult a spiritist. She had accordingly arranged a séance at her house. I heard about it in one of my mother's regular letters, passed to me as family chitchat, but at once my professional curiosity was aroused. I promptly made contact with my aunt, offered her belated condolences on the loss of her husband, and volunteered to be with her in her search for solace.

When the day came I was lucky that my aunt had invited me to lunch beforehand, because the spiritist arrived at the house at least an hour before he was expected. This threw the household into some confusion. I imagine it was part of his design, and enabled him to take certain preparations in the room where the séance was to be conducted. He and his two young assistants, one male and one female, darkened the room with black blinds, moved unwanted furniture to the side while importing some of their own which they had brought with them, rolled back the carpet to bare the floorboards, and erected a certain wooden cabinet whose size and appearance was enough to convince me that conventional stage magic was about to be performed. I stayed discreetly but attentively in the background while these preparations were put in place. I did not wish to make myself at all interesting to the spiritist, because if he was alert he might have recognized me. The previous week my stage act had drawn a favourable press notice or two.

The spiritist himself was a young man of about my own age, slight of build, dark of hair and narrow of forehead. He had a wary look to him, almost like that of a foraging animal going about its business. He made quick precise movements with his hands, a sure sign of a long-practising prestidigitator. The young woman who worked with him had a slender, agile body (because of her physique I assumed, wrongly as it turned out, that she would be employed in his illusions), and a strong, attractive face. She wore dark and modest clothes, and rarely spoke. The other assistant, a burly young man not long in his majority, had a broad thatch of fair hair and a churlish face, and he jibed and complained as he hauled in the heavy pieces of furniture.

By the time my aunt's other guests arrived (she had invited some eight or nine of her friends to be present, presumably to help amortize the cost a little), the spiritist's preparations were complete and he and his assistants were sitting patiently in the prepared room, waiting for the time appointed. It was therefore impossible for me to examine their apparatus.

The presentation, which with all the preamble and atmospheric pauses lasted for well over an hour, broke down into three main illusions, carefully arranged so as to create feelings of apprehension, excitement and suggestibility.

First the spiritist performed a table-tipping illusion with a dramatic physical manifestation; the table spun around of its own accord, then reared up terrifyingly into the air, causing most of us to sprawl uncomfortably on the bare floor. After this the attendees were shaking with excited agitations and ready for anything that might follow. What did follow was that with the aid of his female accomplice the spiritist appeared to fall into a Mesmeric trance. He was then blindfolded, gagged, and bound hand and foot by his assistants, and placed helpless within his cabinet, whence emanated, soon enough, numerous noisy, startling and inexplicable paranormal effects: strange lights flashed brilliantly, trumpets, cymbals and castanets sounded, and eerie “ectoplasmic matter” rose of its own accord from the heart of the cabinet, and floated into the room illuminated by a mysterious light.

Released from the cabinet and his bonds (when the cabinet was opened he was found as efficiently tied up as when he went inside), and miraculously restored from his Mesmerized state, the spiritist then got down to his main business. After a short but colourful warning about the dangers of “crossing over” to the spirit world, and a hint that the results justified the risk, the spiritist fell into another trance and soon was in touch with the other side. Before too long he was able to identify the spirit presence of certain departed relatives and close friends of the people gathered in the room, and comforting messages were conveyed from one group to the other.

How did the young spiritist achieve all this?

As I have already said, professional ethics constrain me. I could not then, and cannot now, reveal more than the barest outline of the secrets of what were without question straightforward magical effects.

The tipping table is actually not a conjuring trick at all (although it can be presented as one, as on this occasion). It is a little-known physical phenomenon that if ten or a dozen people cluster around a circular wooden table, press the palms of their hands on the surface, and are then told that soon the table will start to rotate, it is only a matter of a minute or two before that starts to happen! Once the motion is felt, the table almost invariably begins to tip to one side or the other. An adroitly placed foot suddenly lifting the appropriate table leg will dramatically unbalance the table, causing it to rear up and crash excitingly to the floor. With luck, it will take with it many of the participants, causing surprise and excitement but not physical harm.

I need not emphasize that the table being used at my aunt's was one of the spiritist's own props. It was constructed so that the four wooden legs connected to the central pillar in such a way that there was room for a foot to be slipped underneath.

The cabinet manifestations can only be adumbrated here; a skilled magician may easily escape from what appear to be irresistible bonds, especially if the ropes and knots have been tied by two assistants. Once inside the cabinet it would be the work of a few seconds to release himself sufficiently to make happen the otherwise perplexing display of paranormal effects.

As for the “psychic” contacts which were the main purpose of the meeting, here too there are standard techniques of forcing and substitution which any good magician can readily perform.

I had gone to my aunt's house to satisfy professional curiosity, but instead, to my eventual shame and regret, I came away with a case of righteous indignation. Standard stage illusions had been used to gull a group of suggestible and vulnerable people. My aunt, believing that she had heard words of comfort from her beloved husband, was so overcome by grief that she retired immediately to her chamber. Several of the others were almost as deeply moved by messages they had heard. Yet I knew, I alone knew, that it was all a sham.

I felt an exhilarating sense that I could and should expose him as a charlatan, before he did any more harm. I was tempted to confront him then and there, but I was a little intimidated by the assured way he had performed his illusions. While he and his female assistant were putting away their apparatus I spoke briefly to the thatch-haired young man and was given the spiritist's business card.

Thus it was that I learned the name and style of the man who was to dog my professional career:

Rupert Angier

Clairvoyant, Spirit Medium, Séantist

Strictest Confidence Observed

45 Idmiston Villas, London N

I was young, inexperienced, heady with what I saw as high principles, and these, to my later chagrin, blinded me to the hypocrisy of my position. I set out to hound Mr Angier, intent on exposing his swindles. Soon enough, by methods I need not record here, I was able to establish where and when his next séance was to take place.

Once again it was a meeting in a private house in a suburb of London, although this time my connection with the family (bereaved by the sudden death of the mother) was contrived. I was able to attend only by presenting myself at the house the day before and claiming to be an associate of Angier's whose presence had been requested by the “medium” himself. In their all-too-evident grief the remaining family seemed hardly to care.

The next day I made sure I was in the street outside the house well before the appointment, and thus was able to confirm that Angier's own early arrival at my aunt's house had been no accident, and indeed was a necessary part of the preparations. I watched covertly as he and his assistants unpacked their paraphernalia from a cart and carried it into the house. When I finally presented myself at the house an hour later, close to the appointed time, the room had been arranged and was in semi-darkness.

The séance began, as before, with the table-tipping trick, and as luck would have it I found myself standing unavoidably close beside Angier as he readied himself to begin.

“Don't I know you, sir?” he said softly and accusingly.

“I think not,” I replied, trying to make light of it.

“Make a habit of these occasions, do you?”

“No more than you, sir,” I said, as cuttingly as I could.

He responded with a disconcerting stare, but as everyone was waiting for him he had no alternative but to begin. I think he knew from that moment that I was there to expose him, but to do him credit he carried out his performance with the same flair I had seen before.

I was biding my time. It would have been pointless to uncover the secret of the table, but when he began the manifestations from within the cabinet it was tempting to dash across and throw open the door to reveal him inside. Without doubt we would then have seen that his hands were free of the ropes that were supposed to be restraining him, and the trumpet would be found held to his lips or the castanets clicking in his fingers. But I stayed my hand. I judged it best to wait until the emotional tension was at its greatest, when the supposed spirit messages were being sent to and fro. Angier performed this by using small scraps of paper, rolled up into little pellets. The family had earlier written names, objects, family secrets and the like on these scraps, and Angier pretended to read their “spirit” messages by pressing the tiny pellets to his forehead.

When he had but barely begun I seized my chance. I stepped away from the table, breaking the chain of hands that was supposed to set up a psychic field, and snatched the blind down from the nearest window. Daylight flooded in.

Angier said, “What the devil—?”

“Ladies and gentlemen!” I cried. “This man is an impostor!”

“Sit down, sir!” The male assistant was moving quickly towards me.

“He is using legerdemain upon you!” I said emphatically. “Look in the hand that hides beneath the table's surface! There is the secret of the messages he brings you!”

As the young man threw his arms around my shoulders I saw Angier moving quickly and guiltily to conceal the slip of paper he held, by which the trick was effected. The father of the family, his face contorted by rage and grief, rose from his seat and began to berate me loudly. First one of the children then the others began to wail with unhappiness.

As I struggled, the oldest boy said plaintively, “Where is Mama? She was here! She was here!”

“This man is a charlatan, a liar and a cheat!” I shouted.

I was by this time almost at the door, being forced backwards out of the room. I saw the young woman assistant hastening to the window to replace the blind. With a tremendous thrashing of elbows I managed to break free temporarily from my assailant, and lunged across the room at her. I grabbed her by the shoulders and pushed her roughly to one side. She sprawled across the floorboards.

“He cannot talk to the dead!” I cried. “Your mother is not here at all!”

The room was in an uproar.

“Hold him there!” Angier's voice was audible above the racket. The male assistant grabbed me a second time, and spun me around so that I was facing into the room. The young woman was still on the floor where she had fallen, and was staring up at me, her face contorted with spite. Angier, standing by the table, was erect and apparently calm. He was staring straight towards me.

“I know you, sir,” he said. “I even know your damned name. I shall henceforward be following your career with the greatest attention.” Then to his assistant: “Get him out of here!”

Moments later I was sprawling in the street. Mustering as much dignity as I could, and ignoring the gawping passers-by, I straightened my clothes and walked quickly away down the street.

For a few days afterwards I was sustained by the righteousness of my cause, the knowledge that the family were being robbed of their money, that the skills of the stage magician were being put to warped uses. Then, inevitably, I began to be assailed by doubts.

The comfort that Angier's clients gained from the séances seemed genuine enough, no matter how derived. I remembered the faces of those children, who for a few minutes had been led to believe that their lost mother was sending consoling messages from the other side. I had seen their innocent expressions, their smiles, their happy glances at each other.

Was any of this so different from the pleasurable mystification a magician gives to his music hall audience? Indeed, was it not rather more? Was expecting payment for this any more reprehensible than expecting payment for a performance at a music hall?

Full of regrets I brooded unhappily for nearly a month, until my conscience reached such depths of guilty feelings that I had to act. I penned an abject note to Angier, begging forgiveness, apologizing unconditionally.

His response was immediate. He returned my note in shreds, with a note of his own challenging me sarcastically to restore the paper with my own superior form of magic.

Two nights later, while I was performing at the Lewisham Empire, he stood up from the front row of the circle and shouted for all to hear, “His female assistant is concealed behind the curtain at the left-hand side of the cabinet!”

It was of course true. Other than bringing down the main curtain and abandoning my act I had no alternative but to continue with the trick, produce my assistant with as much theatrical brio as possible, then wilt before the trickle of embarrassed applause. In the centre of the circle's front row an empty seat gaped like a missing tooth.

So was begun the feud that has continued over the years.

I can plead only youth and inexperience for starting the feud, a misguided professional zeal, an unfamiliarity with the ways of the world. Angier should shoulder some of the blame; my apology, although not swift enough, was sincerely meant and its rejection was mean-spirited. But then, Angier too was young. It is difficult to think back to that time, because the dispute between us has gone on so long, and has taken so many different forms.

If I committed both wrong and right at the outset, Angier must accept the blame for keeping the feud alive. Many times, sick of the whole thing, I have tried to get on with my life and career, only to find that some new attack was being mounted against me. Angier would often find a way of sabotaging my magical equipment, so that a production I was attempting on stage went subtly wrong; one night the water I was turning into red wine remained water; another time the string of flags I pulled flamboyantly from an opera hat appeared as string alone; at another performance the lady assistant who was supposed to levitate remained unmovably and mortifyingly on her bed.

On yet another occasion the placards announcing my act outside the theatre were defaced with “The sword he uses is a fake”, “The card you will choose is the Queen of Spades’, ”Watch his left hand during the mirror trick", and so on. All these graffiti were clearly visible to the audience as they trooped in.

I suppose these attacks might be dismissed as practical jokes, but they could damage my reputation as a magician, as Angier well knew.

How did I know he was behind them? Well, in some cases he clearly declared his involvement; if one of my productions had been sabotaged, he would be there in the auditorium to heckle me, leaping to his feet at the very moment things started going wrong. But more significantly the perpetrator of these attacks revealed an approach to magic that I had learned was symptomatic of Angier. He was almost exclusively concerned with the magical secret, what magicians call the “gimac” or “gimmick”. If a trick depended on a concealed shelf behind the magician's table, that alone would be the focus of Angier's interest, not the imaginative use to which it might be put. No matter what else might cause strife between us, it was Angier's fundamentally flawed and limited understanding of magical technique that was at the heart of our dispute. The wonder of magic lies not in the technical secret, but in the skill with which it is performed.

And it was for this reason that The New Transported Man was the one illusion of mine he never publicly attacked. It was beyond him. He simply could not work out how it was done, partly because I have kept the secret secure, but mostly because of the way in which I perform it.