He worked the lid, with shaking hands. The stage was covered in visions. In the center was a beating heart from which civilizations were streaming. Upon the Mayan cliffs he saw a priest in gold robes lower his knife into a virgin, naked on an altar of stone.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I hope you will notice-' He turned the box upside down. " no false bottom, no escape hatch."
The temple of the sun crumbled, was covered by the jungle, faded into the earth. The priest vanished, only to emerge again from the beating heart, into the court of the virgin, now a Syrian Queen, and it was she who bestowed upon him the high honor of her favored circle. With great ceremony and the blowing of trumpets was he castrated.
"Now, ladies and gentlemen," he said, wiping the sweat from his brow, "you will observe the teeth of this saw are sharp as a razor." He brushed the air in front of his eyes, fighting through the cobwebs of memory: In the last century, he had left a townhouse in top hat and evening cape, swinging a silver headed cane. Following the opera, drawn by the moontide he retired to a brothel to escape the rain, and there in the parlor she sat, laughing darkly, clad in beads. Let me take you away, he said, and no, she said, removing her beads, it is impossible.
"Very well," said the magician, "a piece of magic rarely seen west of Morocco." He picked her up, laid her in the box. Just so, long ago, in the shadow of the Sphinx, had he tucked her away, into the pyramid.
Upward she rose, with brilliant birds, to their paradise, where she reclined on a couch in the heaven of her lover. It is for the secret of your illusions that I love you, she said, as they floated through triangles.
She heard the music of the conch horn, bells, and he, on a platform, thousand eyed, revealed himself to her as he truly was, and he was, in fact, invisible. No, she said, I must have you, and there, she saw to her relief, he was the swan and she his lake. These, my true regions, he whispered, and became the lotus floating, then the toad.
". this perilous operation, learned in Cairo. " He closed the lid, sat on the box. Glancing backstage through the curtains and cables, he saw his wife, smiling at him from the wings. Yes, he thought, I'm in a bit of a mess. Sweating coldly, he looked down at the box, inside of which his subject lay sleeping.
And who am I? she asked, dissolving into this life, that life, here, there, palaces and so forth, and then, satisfied that she was eternal, she relaxed, recognizing from the heights: She was no one.
He began to saw.
She heard the slow beating of a drum, saw the jungle, wild plumage. Her body covered in gold fur, she beheld him seated across from her, in the door of a mountain cave, licking his great paw, ferocious, her king, winking at her.
"It is not often I perform this feat for fear of arrest," said the magician. "However, since we are at the end of town…" The teeth ripped through the box and sawdust flew in the air.
Back, back, she was gone, more was coming. They were clumsy dragons, loving in lost swamps. His long neck, green skin, ponderable his tail, and her strange egg: The night was pterodactyl, sharp beaked, she was afraid. Somewhere, she thought, I was a girl.
"I will now ask the gentleman in the front row, that is right, you sir, to come up and examine the depth of the incision I have made in this box." The magician leaned confidently on the box, inside of which the saw was deeply inserted.
The camel will take us away, he whispered, and turning, she saw a kneeling sad eyed beast. Lifting her silken robe, white, embroidered with dragons, she climbed up to the cab atop the camel's back, where sat the magician, smiling, clad in the cloak of the desert. Slowly the beast stood and walked, like the rocking of waves.
"Very well, my good man," said the magician, "if you are satisfied that no chicanery is being offered here, I shall proceed."
Across the night sand they rode, beneath the lonely heavens, he silent, she in prayer, until they came to an oasis, around which a fierce tribe had gathered, and he was their chief. She descended amid the animals and the oil lamps. Attended by his other wives, she was taken into an arabesque tent. A rug was spread, pillows, their dinner, dates, wine. She listened to voices outside their tent talking of battle and it thrilled. her.
"Observe: The torso is separated from the legs."
She was his tenth wife, tore him a son, lived a life of precious price in Bagdad, died an old woman, was buried in a jeweled ebony box. Death was dark and impossible, the coffin opened. He stood over it, in a faded tuxedo, beckoning to her. "You're back," he said.
She stepped out, weakly, onto the smoky stage. People were clapping dully. The room was spinning. She fell into his arms. "Never leave me," she whispered.
He bowed, took her by the hand. The stage was bending. Her legs were trembling and she could not feel her feet. Slowly, he led her toward the stairs. Yes, she thought, he's taking me away.
"Goodbye," he said. The spotlight blinded her. She fumed away and saw behind him on the stage a piece of scenery a balcony window above a courtyard. She stared down a pathway in the painted garden, to the sea, and the white sail of a passing ship. "Take me away," she said.
"Impossible," he said, his face pale and drawn.
She fumed to the stairs with trepidation, for they were moving, as if alive. "I thought I was a young girl," she said, warily placing her foot on the top step. "I am an ancient woman."
He released her hand, and fuming to the audience, bowed once again, then withdrew across the stage into the wings.
Music began. She descended the stairs. Girls with painted faces came out behind her on the stage, covered in balloons. She stepped carefully onto the floor of the cabaret, which appeared to be tilted on its side. Someone was at her elbow, with his arm around her waist. "Well, my dear," asked her elderly escort, "how did you like being sawed in half?"
A stagehand carried the box into the wings. The magician carried it the rest of the way, into the dressing room, where his wife sat, reading a paper. Beside her in a chair, a child was sleeping.
"How tired you look," she said. "Are you all right?"
"Yes, of course," he said, removing his tie.
She helped him off with his cape and jacket and packed his tuxedo and their other belongings in the magic box. They left by the stage door and walked through the alleyway, the magician carrying the box, his wife holding their sleeping child on her shoulder.
A carriage came up the avenue and the magician hailed it. "To the railway station," he said, handing the box up to the driver.
They climbed into the carnage, sank into the leather seats. The magician stared out the window, toward the river lights. His wife, settling the child in her lap, saw the old gentleman and the girl coming out of the cabaret. "The fog seems to be lifting," she said, drawing her shawl around the child.
The driver cracked his whip. The carriage pulled away, into the night.
The End