For Rose, forever
‘Of all days, the day on which one has not laughed
is the one most surely wasted.’
— Sébastien-Roch Nicolas Chamfort (1741-1794)
THE LLAMA WHO
HAD A HOLE
THROUGH HIS HEAD
Stories of Humour
The Llama Who Had a Hole Through His Head
On a desolate, elevated plateau bordered by perpetual snow and shadowed by the precipices of the Peruvian Andes, a flock of four sheep grazed in windswept silence.
The tallest sheep raised his head and said, ‘Father, I am unhappy.’
The heaviest sheep paused grazing and said, ‘Why is that, first-born?’
‘Because I’m so woolly, Father. My fleece is a manky, knotty mess.’
‘If you weren’t woolly, first-born, you could not ward off the bitter cold sweeping down from the great mountains.’
The young ram pondered his father’s reply, released a sceptical bleat and returned to his grazing.
After a short time the young ram raised his head again and said, ‘Father, I am unhappy.’
‘What now?’ the elder ram said.
‘It’s my hoofed feet, Father. They ache all the time. Not only that, they are battered and chipped.’
‘If you didn’t have hoofed feet, you could not ramble about the great mountains. Now hush, first-born, and finish your meal. And remember, it’s rude to talk with your mouth full.’
The young ram again pondered his father’s reply, released a more sceptical bleat and returned to his grazing.
After a longer period of windswept silence, the young ram paused and raised his head and swallowed and said, ‘Father, I am still unhappy.’
‘By the holy horns of the mystic mountain mouflons, won’t you give an old ram a moment’s peace? I swear you’ll give me a stomach ulcer.’
‘I’m sorry, Father, but I must tell you that I am unhappy about my neck being so much longer than those of the rest of the flock. Why is that so?’
And the elder ram said, ‘That’s because, believe it or not, you’re a llama. An L-L-A-M-A. Blame your mother. She’s the one who had a clandestine affair with a camel. Now shut up and eat.’ And the old ram glowered at a plump ewe, who blushed as she paid particular watery-eyed attention to a clump of grass before her.
Quietude returned to the plateau as the flock continued to graze, and the young stud (who until then had thought he was a young ram) chewed and pondered his mother’s infidelity.
After a much longer silence, the llama raised his head. His sister, grazing by his side, paused and looked up and gave him a sheepish grin.
With a perplexed look on his face, the llama gave a polite bleat, and having attracted the old ram’s attention, he said, ‘Stepfather, have I told you what I am most unhappy about?’
‘Off with you! Now! I’ll not endure another second of your incessant bleating!’
‘But … but … Stepfather … I have this prominent hole through my head. Why is that so?’
‘Because you are the silliest, emptiest-headed, most annoying ungulate to have ever hoofed upon the Andean plateaus. You’re a freak of nature, a genetic mutant. Happy now? Yes? Then bugger off and go stand by the goat path while the rest of us finish our main course in peace. And for goodness’ sake, keep whatever wits remaining in that hollow head of yours about you and look out for pumas and poachers.’
A tad miffed by the old ram’s grumpiness, the young llama wandered over to the side of the path and stood next to an arrowed sign that read Felicidad and raised his long neck and stood sentinel whilst the flock grazed. The cold snow bit at his ankles. His prominent teeth chattered. A gloom of despair weighed upon his heart. And the Andean wind swept down and whistled through the hole through his head.
When the flock finished their main course, they ambled towards the young llama, for on the other side of the path lay fresh pasture ideal for dessert. Eager to get his dessert, the young llama stepped upon the path to Felicidad.
A flash of light caught the young llama’s left eye, and he turned his head as a bang sounded, but, alas, he was too slow, for a bullet discharged from a poacher’s rifle sped towards his head, yet it whooshed through the hole through his head and struck his half-sister, who died with neither a farewell bleat nor the sheepish smile wiped from her face.
Another flash of light came from the young llama’s right. He turned his head as another bang sounded, but this time he was certainly too late, for a second bullet sped towards his head, yet it, too, surged through the hole through his head and struck his mother, whose final thought was a yearning for the concupiscent camel she shagged at a carpet conference in Cairo many years ago.
The young llama had no time to mourn the loss of two loved ones nor his escalating unhappiness, for a third flash of light, brighter than the first two, came from his left, followed by a louder bang, and as he turned his head left and closed his eyes and awaited his fate, a bullet whistled through the hole through his head and struck his stepfather, who died without dessert.
Shaking all over, the young llama opened his eyes and saw three men approach with their rifles raised.
But a poacher’s bullet would not determine the young llama’s fate, for the poachers surrounded him and marvelled at how such a creature could be untouched by three bullets. The men knew this was no ordinary animal; no, this was a blessed brute, a sacred stud. And they dropped to their knees and paid homage to the holiest of beasts.
Soon the young llama became enthroned as His Holiness the Umpteenth Dalai Llama, and zealous devotees near and far revered him. Accompanied by a fleece stylist and a pedicurist, the young llama travelled the world on one endless junket, flying first-class on aeroplanes, sleeping in five-star hotels and dining at luxurious restaurants. He pontificated to rulers and rock stars and appeared on talk shows and at book signings and espoused platitudes to the multitudes. And whenever anyone saw the holy him, whether in the media or in the flesh, they would observe two features: his holey head and the huge grin on his face, for he was the happiest llama in the world.
Moral: When stepping upon the Path to Happiness, those who look left, then right, and then left again, survive and thrive.
Black and White
and
All the Colours in Between
On a bitterly bleak New York Saturday afternoon, as Felix Feinman sat beside a grim-faced, bed-ridden Mrs Feinman and read aloud to her, he raised his eyes above the black and white of the printed page, glanced at the sullen face of his wife of thirty-nine years and decided he’d had enough and resolved to proceed with his plan to engage in a clandestine affair with a younger woman.
Had he and Mrs Feinman not been walking down 10th Avenue the previous Sunday, Felix doubted he would have even considered such an audacious act of adultery. After all, one doesn’t make such decisions lightly. But the events of the last week had driven him to the brink and now beyond. For nearly forty years, Felix had endured Mrs Feinman’s temper and nagging tongue. No matter how small or how still he made himself, she always found him and found fault in him. And once caught in the crosshairs of her wrath—with her bluing face and her bulging eyes and her puffing cheeks and her clenching fists—Felix could do naught but cower as she unleashed a right royal bollocking upon him.
A casual observer to the Feinman marriage might well ask Felix, ‘Why do you tolerate such a harridan?’ To which Felix should have replied, ‘It’s none of your business,’ but to which he would have replied, ‘Because I can still make her laugh, and to hear her laugh makes my heart sing.’ For one bond remained steadfast throughout the four decades of the lopsided Feinman marriage, one adhesive that kept them together: Mrs Feinman’s sporadic sense of humour. On occasions, when Mrs Feinman’s face blued and her eyes bulged and her cheeks puffed and her fists clenched, Felix—in an act some would call brave and others would call foolish—would try to douse the flames of her rage with a quick quip or a pithy punchline. And on some of those occasions, Mrs Feinman’s face might pink and her eyes might contract and her cheeks might deflate and her fists might unclench, and she would release a raucous, jowl-wobbling, belly-jiggling, side-stitching laugh. But not for too long, mind you, as she didn’t want to allow her husband more than a moment’s joy. But long enough for Felix to remain content living, figuratively and physically, in the conjugal shadow of the much taller, much larger and exceedingly acidulous Mrs Feinman.
But on most occasions—and with increasing frequency in recent months—his attempted jest failed to alter his wife’s stern demeanour, and Felix, sensing a haranguing, beat a hasty retreat to the solitude of his study and sought solace by sitting in his battered leather reading chair and immersing himself in the printed words of a leather-bound classic or accompanying the dulcet tones of Pavarotti, Di Stefano or Caruso as they serenaded the world’s great divas.
But last week, on the Sunday prior to Felix’s adulterous resolution, Mrs Feinman suffered a most terrible loss.
As the Feinmans walked along 10th Avenue—Felix two steps behind his wife and dutifully hauling their shopping trolley—and they neared 54th Street, Mrs Feinman stopped and rummaged inside her handbag.
‘Felix!’ she said. ‘I can’t find it!’
‘Find what, my dear?’ Felix said, absent-mindedly as he daydreamed about delivering a witty punchline during his debut performance on Saturday Night Live.
‘My sense of humour!’ She turned her handbag upside down, and its contents spilled onto the sidewalk. ‘I’ve lost it! And it’s all your fault!’
‘I’ve no doubt it is, my dear. When did you last have it?’ Presentiment stooped Felix’s shoulders.
‘I had a titter to myself while waiting for the pedestrian light on the corner of 52nd Street and 10th Avenue. Don’t stand there! Do something!’
Felix raised his foot and checked under the sole of his shoe. ‘Not under there, my dear.’ And he permitted himself a chuckle.
‘This is no laughing matter, Felix!’ Mrs Feinman raised and pointed a threatening index finger at her husband. ‘Go back and look for it!’
Abandoning his trolley to his wife’s ill-tempered watch, Felix backtracked towards 52nd Street. As he checked along the gutter and inside trash cans, he lamented Mrs Feinman’s forgetfulness. She had misplaced her sense of humour with increasing regularity over recent months. She would enter the lounge room with a terse face and a temper and blame Felix and say either ‘You distracted me, Felix!’ or ‘You’re doing this deliberately, Felix!’ or ‘Felix, this is what you want, isn’t it? To get me into the nuthouse so you can take off with some wanton hussy!’. And all Felix could do was reply, ‘No, my dear.’ And he would abandon his newspaper or his book or his painting by numbers and search the apartment. At first, he found his wife’s missing trait with ease, either perched upon her head or under the couch cushions or on her bedside table, but in recent weeks, with the losses occurring daily or more often, his wife grew more irritable and the hiding places more obscure: in the canister of Earl Grey tea leaves or in her bloomers draw or bookmarking the dog-eared leaves of his battered copy of Tristram Shandy. Yesterday, he’d almost given up all hope when he paused for a cup of tea and bit into a cookie, only to crack a molar and spit the missing trait onto his plate.
But now, for the first time, Mrs Feinman had lost her sense of humour beyond the confines of their apartment. And Felix feared she’d lost it for good this time.
As he made his way down 10th Avenue, he continued his search, but Mrs Feinman’s sense of humour was nowhere to be seen. All he found were a couple of senses of obligation, a single sense of purpose and dozens and dozens of senses of wonder. Good God, he thought, it’s no surprise the world’s so apathetic these days, what with people’s wanton abandonment of their sense of wonder.
When Felix reached the pedestrian lights on the corner of 52nd and 10th, a glint on the sidewalk caught his eye. Could he be this lucky? he thought. He bent down but then cursed. No, not Mrs Feinman’s sense of humour but a sense of dread, soldered to a quarter. Following a glance back towards Mrs Feinman, he picked up the coin and pocketed it. He figured he’d be needing it when he returned to Mrs Feinman and delivered the bad news. As he walked back, he prayed for his trouser pocket to fray so his sense of direction could drop and roll down a drain so it and him could disappear.
***
‘Oh, you’re hopeless, Felix!’ Mrs Feinman said. ‘You’re just like your mother!’
‘Yes, my dear.’ Felix gave the sense of dread in his pocket a squeeze.
‘So what are you going to do about it?!’
‘Me? I … I … let’s try the local police station.’
But a police officer at the 20th Precinct informed Felix that the station’s lost-and-found box contained dozens of senses of entitlement, several senses of occasion, one sense of belonging but not a single sense of humour.
While a stern-faced Mrs Feinman sat in the waiting room, Felix filled out a report.
‘Good luck,’ the police officer said to Felix, casting a glance at Mrs Feinman.
‘Thanks,’ Felix said as he dotted the i’s in his signature.
‘I suspect you’re going to need it.’ And the police officer gave Mrs Feinman another furtive glance.
***
When they arrived home, Mrs Feinman sat stony-faced on the sofa while Felix placed advertisem*nts in all the newspapers. He drafted posters that offered a significant reward. All evening he roamed the neighbouring streets, searching and pasting posters to lampposts and alleyway walls. When he climbed into bed at midnight, his wife stirred, turned her back to him, and with a huff and more than her fair share of the blanket, she muttered to herself into the wee hours of the morning.
All Monday, Felix searched for Mrs Feinman’s sense of humour, wandering the streets of their neighbourhood. He spoke to dustmen and washerwomen and street-corner vendors, and all gave him a wry smile and an apology and wished him all the best in his ongoing search.
Again unsuccessful, Felix returned home late, and again his wife gave him the cold shoulder and little of the blanket.
On Tuesday morning, the phone rang.
‘Mr Feinman?’ a voice said.
‘Speaking.’
‘It’s Sergeant Peppa, down at the 20th. We’ve had a sense of humour turned in.’
‘I’ll be right down.’
‘Thank God!’ Felix said as he rushed out the apartment door. He ran all the way to the station and arrived at the desk, puffing and panting.
‘Feinman … here … call … Peppa … collect … wife’s … sense … humour.’
‘Ah, yes,’ the duty officer said. ‘It’s right here.’ He reached below the counter and then placed a crumpled package on the bench. ‘I’ll just need you to sign for it.’
Felix grabbed the pen the officer offered and scrawled his signature on the form presented to him. ‘Thanks,’ he said. He turned his back to the counter, ripped open the package and looked inside. ‘Oh God! No.’
He dinged the counter bell and waited for the duty officer to return.
‘Yes?’ the officer said.
‘I’m afraid there’s been a mistake. This is not my wife’s sense of humour. Hers is capricious and fleeting. This one’s black with a hint of sarcasm.’
On Wednesday, Felix took Mrs Feinman to a matinee performance of The Mikado at The Met. While he hummed and toe-tapped, Mrs Feinman sat grim-faced and slouched throughout the performance. Once the final applause had quiesced, she turned and gave her husband a death stare and whispered, ‘One is not amused, Felix!’
On Thursday, Felix spent all day sitting beside his wife as they watched I Love Lucy reruns. Despite copious servings of Earl Grey and her favourite macaroons, all she could offer at the end of each episode was a ‘Not funny, Felix!’ said through gritted teeth.
On Friday morning, Felix—now desperate and losing all hope—stood before a flinty Mrs Feinman, stripped to his white Y-fronts, pulled the elasticated briefs up over his head, hunched his back and sang What would I do for my Queen?
from Esmeralda. ‘You’re a bigger fool than your father, Felix!’ Mrs Feinman said. ‘A gold-plated, certifiable, fourth-generation village idiot!’
When Felix woke on Saturday to the solemn silence of a humourless house, he knew the death knell to his doomed marriage had rung. Thirty-nine years of marriage, he lamented, and with a whimper rather than a bang, a simple lost sense of humour had snuffed out the connubial flame. No love, no banter, no laughter. Just cohabitation with a prune of a woman—dark, shrivelled and, to be perfectly honest, now giving him the sh*ts. What’s the point of being married if you can’t share a few laughs along the way?
He contemplated separation, even divorce, but neither was a viable option. Despite marrying money—serious money—he lived on a pitiful allowance allocated by his wife. He had no occupation and no money of his own. He’d published his one and only collection of short stories decades ago, a book that climbed The New York Times Best Sellers list, but he’d since frittered his royalties away. An ‘exceptional talent’ the critics had trumpeted of him and his thin book, only for Felix to fizzle out to a writer’s block now beyond its third decade.
Then there was the problem of Mrs Feinman’s family. His brother-in-law was New York’s best divorce attorney, his sister-in-law was New York’s leading gossip columnist, and her muscle-bound, floral-shirted nephew may have fooled the IRS into thinking he was a florist, but all the family knew he dabbled as a hitman on weekends.
No, there was no way he could get a divorce and not end up destitute, smeared by the New York dailies and at the bottom of the Hudson River in a barrel filled with quick-dry cement.
What about an extra-marital affair? Felix thought. A little dalliance in a cheap hotel with a winsome creature who could do nothing but laugh at his witty repartee. No, he lamented, who was he fooling? Aside from his cash flow problems, there was Mrs Feinman’s grey army with which to contend—her network of sleeper cells posted throughout greater New York, who with a speed dial could report his transgressions or infidelities.
Yep, she had him by the short and curlies, and he would just have to grin and bear it until either someone found Mrs Feinman’s missing sense of humour or he could arrange a replacement.
But then on Saturday afternoon, as he sat bedside and quietly read The Kugelmass Episode to his ailing wife, the solution to his dilemma presented itself.
***
That night, Felix tiptoed into his study and closed the door with a prolonged creak. He placed his ear against the door, held his breath and listened. Nothing. Just black silence in the still of the night and Mrs Feinman asleep and ignorant of her husband’s soon-to-be treachery.
Thrill and fear bubbled at the surface of Felix’s daring. His plan was simple. All he needed to do was sit at his desk, feed an unsullied sheet of paper into his old typewriter, then set his perfidious fingers upon the keys and take one of the Canon’s great beauties—at the depth of her despair and on the cusp of taking her life—and type himself into her harrowed heart. Sure, it wasn’t the real deal, but, to him, it was the next best thing. He admitted he was getting them at their most vulnerable, but surely he, in his shiny suit of armour and upon his trusty steed, could ride into their cursed lives and offer them hope for a much better life with a better suitor than those whimsical, self-centred, chisel-chinned bad boys they’d taken up with. Let him be their Perseus, their saviour. And he was sure they, in the throes of gratitude and love, would gift him the most glorious of laughs. All he had to do was get it down in black and white, and all the colours in between would weave their magic. Yes, let the hues of his imagination fill the void that was his humourless heart.
But whose harrowed heart should he win? Madame Bovary, that seminal heroine of literary realism? They did have dour spouses in common, after all, but, no, Emma was just a tad too promiscuous for his taste. All those late nights, all that partying and drinking and dancing. No, not her, thank you very much. Besides, despite his taking a dozen lessons at his local Arthur Murray Studio, he couldn’t dance.
Felix ran his eyes along his crammed bookshelves until he spotted his leather-bound copy of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. Surely the Bard could spare one of his beauties. What about Ophelia? Surely he was a chirpier suitor for her than that sullen, dithering Prince of Danish Darkness. Or Juliet? Just before she plunges that dagger? No, too big an age gap, and he wasn’t too sure his wonky knees could cope with climbing up to that balcony. Besides, speaking in all that iambic pentameter would do his head in.
Felix’s eyes fell upon his dusty volume of Tennyson. What could the good Lord Alfred offer him? Of course, he thought, the Lady of Shalott. No, not her. She’d be all smoke and mirrors. Never look you directly in the eye and declare her true love. And any woman who’d spent so much time cooped up on an island called Shalott must surely reek of onion breath when releasing a laugh or kissing.
Felix sighed and picked up a bust sitting on his sideboard. Helen of Troy, all coyness, avoided his inquisitive gaze. Why not a Greek goddess? he thought. The personification of ideal beauty who’d no doubt have the most perfect of laughs. Surely she whose face launched a thousand ships could release a thousand laughs. No, she was trouble. Real trouble. All those suitors. All that kidnapping. All those wars. He knew that even if he put in all the groundwork, some Trojan on his high horse was sure to sneak in and steal his way into her heart, and then all three of them would gallop off over the horizon.
Felix looked about his study, beyond his bookshelves and upon his wall, and that’s when he saw her, posing in a black and white still surrounded by a gilt-edged frame. 1967. During Zarkhi’s classic making of Tolstoy’s masterpiece. In the photo she stood on the station platform, graceful yet forlorn. Of course, he thought, she would be perfect.
And with a shiver of glee, Felix Feinman placed his fingers upon the keys and typed.
***
As a snow flurry danced in the dank Moscow air that hung about the train station, the hiss of a boiler and a heavy rumbling in the distance signalled the impending arrival of a train. Upon the shrill of the train’s whistle, the people on the station platform bustled into activity. Passengers gathered their hand luggage as porters scurried amongst the crowd whilst pushing carts. Police officers moved about with measured surveillance, and the relatives and acquaintances of the arriving passengers stirred with restless anticipation.
Through the frosty vapour a swarthy man—squarely built, though not very tall, and resplendent in his grey military coat and black boots—emerged and stood under the golden glow of a station light. Below the black peak of his white hat and its blue band rested a good-humoured, handsome and exceedingly calm and resolute face. As he scanned the platform, his beautiful eyes shone with a tender light, and when he spied an elegant woman standing in modest grace near the edge of the platform—a woman whose exquisite scarlet coat collared in ruffling furs left no doubt she belonged to the best society—his face released a faint, happy and modestly triumphal smile.
Anna! he rejoiced. He was not too late. Only the length of a platform separated him from his true love. Oh, to breathe her perfume, to taste her lips, to caress her cheeks, to see her smile and, yes, to hear her laugh!
Anna took a step towards the platform edge.
Fool! he cursed himself. Wasting time fantasising about the future when here, in the now and present, his sweet Anna was about to perish.
‘Anna!’ he shouted across the crowded platform as he broke into a run. All heads but Anna’s turned towards him.
Anna took another step.
‘Anna! Anna Arkadyevna Karenina!’ He weaved amongst the crowd, pushing and elbowing and apologising in his haste to reach the other end of the platform.
Still the woman in red remained focused on the tracks before her. The distant whistling, hissing and chuff-chuffing grew louder. She took a last step, a step that would have seen her fall upon the tracks and perish had not a steely hand reached out and grasped her delicate arm.
‘Anna, wait! Don’t do it!’ the officer said. ‘It is I.’
Anna turned, and with her shining, grey eyes darkened by her thick lashes, she said to the officer, ‘I?’
‘Allow me to introduce myself. I am Count Alexei Kirillovich Vronski.’ He removed his hat, clicked his heels and bowed his head.
‘Wonsky?’ And she extended a delicate, pale but chilled hand.
Following another click of his heels and courteous bow, he took Anna’s hand and gently kissed it. He straightened and said, ‘No, not Wonsky, my dearest Anna, but Vronski. With an i
. Not a y
like that salacious scoundrel who abandoned you for the arms of another. I, Vronski, am here to save you and offer you a better life.’
‘Save me? Save me from what?’
‘Why, my dearest Anna, I can save you from everything. From all your insecurities, from your being shunned by the Moscovian elite, from the inherent stress of having to conform to Russian societal norms, from the moral laws of the Russian Orthodox Church. I even know a brilliant lawyer so you won’t lose your son, and an excellent doctor who can help you overcome your substance abuse. Best of all, I can whisk you away to warmer, sunnier climes to boost your serotonin levels and rid yourself of your profound desolation.’
‘Oh, Wonski, not even Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy could offer such benevolence.’ Anna glanced up at Vronski, and in that brief moment, he had time to notice the suppressed eagerness which played over her face, flittering between her brilliant eyes and the faint smile that curved her red lips.
‘It’s Vronski, my dearest Anna.’ Vronski cursed the incessant hissing and chugging of the approaching train. ‘Oh, Anna, I would do anything and everything just to hold you in my arms and hear you laugh. I, your Vronski, am here at your service.’ And he opened his arms to her.
She allowed him to wrap his arms around her frail body. She snuggled up and rested a delicate hand on his broad chest.
‘My Alexei, so handsome.’
‘Nothing compared to your beauty, my dearest Anna.’
‘My Alexei, so dashing.’
‘It pales when compared to your elegance, my dearest Anna.’
She placed a pale hand upon his arm and squeezed. ‘My Alexei, so buff.’
‘I work out between chapters, my dearest Anna.’
Anna released a glorious laugh, and his heart soared. That laugh. So whimsical, so joyous, so genuine. To rise from so magnificent a chest, to pass through so exquisite a neck, to effuse from so delicate a pair of lips. It was all he’d ever dreamed of, and more.
‘My Alexei, so humowous.’
Humowous? Vronski thought. Good God, who’d ever have thought Anna Karenina had a speech impediment. Old Leo had certainly kept that hidden from his readership. Then again, he, Count Alexei Kirillovich Vronski (with an i), was the first person to have actually heard Anna Karenina speak.
‘Anna, dearest, I never knew you had a speech impediment.’
‘My Wonski, only when I’m twanscwiped in English. My waaz get lost in twanslation.’
‘Your waaz?’
‘Yes. You know. My waaz. As in Awound the wugged wock the wagged wascal wan
.’
‘Ah, I see. Your r’s.’
‘That’s wight. Now kiss me or else I shall fling myself beneath that twain.’
Vronski took Anna’s face in his hands and looked deeply and meaningfully into her grey eyes and saw bliss. Not even the Bear himself could place into words the beauty before him: the softness of her skin, the delicacy of her perfume, the depth of her eyes, the hue of her lips and the sensuality of her excited breath.
He parted his lips and leant forward, and she wet her lips with a sweep of her tongue and raised her head. The lovers’ faces eased towards each other.
‘Anna,’ Vronski whispered.
‘Felix.’
‘It’s Alexei, my dearest Anna.’
‘Felix.’
‘Alexei, dearest.’
‘Felix!’ a voice roared from the other side of the study door. ‘Who are you talking to?’
Good God! Felix thought, it’s Mrs Feinman! Awake! And about!
Vronski’s face paled, and he released his embrace of Anna.
‘Felix! Who have you got in there? What’s that hissing and chugging and whistling I can hear? What’s that sooty smell? And why is there steam coming from under the door? You open this door. Now!’
‘Coming, my dear.’
‘Who is that woman?’ Anna said.
‘It’s no one, my dearest Anna.’
‘Felix! I’m going to count to three.’
‘Who is Felix?’
‘Ignore her. Come, my dearest Anna, there is still time to kiss.’
‘One.’
‘What does she want?’
‘I’ve no idea. Come, my dearest Anna, there is still time to hear you laugh.’
‘Two.’
‘She seems very detewmined.’
‘Three!’
A booming thud came from the other side of the door, and the hinges squeaked and weakened.
‘Oh God! I’m caught! I’m caught! I need to hide you!’
‘Hide me from whom, Alexei?’
‘From my wife. Oh God! One more thrust, and she’ll be in.’
Another booming thud came from the other side of the door. The top hinge popped, and the door teetered forward.
‘Your wife? Oh, it’s just as I suspected. All faithful men waa alike; each unfaithful man is faithless in his own way. None of you can be twusted. You bawstawd!’
Anna slapped Vronski upon his cheek with a brutal blow.
‘No time to explain.’
And Vronski grabbed Anna by her arms and turned her and pushed her with all his might into the oncoming train. With a harrowed scream Anna perished under the screeching wheels, and she and the crowd and the platform and the steam disappeared from Felix’s study.
Felix stared at the teetering door in disbelief. Good God, he thought, he’d murdered Anna Karenina. The translators had it wrong. For a hundred and forty years, devotees of Tolstoy had gasped in disbelief as Anna stepped off the platform and into the path of an incoming train, not knowing her death was not suicide but murder at the hands of a guilt-ridden, cowardly hack of a short story writer.
Felix looked at the sheets of paper in his hands and then at the door. Destroy the evidence! his scrambled mind pleaded to him. He crumpled the sheets into a ball and shoved it into his mouth and chewed ferociously, all the while staring at the door with white, wide eyes.
With a final boom, the study door crashed to the ground, and Mrs Feinman burst into the room.
‘Where is she?!’
Felix swallowed part of his manuscript and manipulated the rest with his tongue so it lodged in his cheeks. ‘Who, my dear?’
‘That woman I heard. The one with the sultry laugh and speech impediment!’
‘No woman here, my dear. Just me, my books and my objets d’art.’ Felix raised his hand, coughed and swallowed the pulped contents lodged in his left cheek.
‘What’s in your cheeks?! What are you eating?!’
‘Nothing, my dear.’ Again he raised his hand, coughed and swallowed.
‘Open your mouth!’
Felix opened his mouth wide and turned his face from side to side. ‘See, my dear, I’ve nothing to hide.’
‘Then why is your tongue all black?!’ Mrs Feinman’s fists clenched. ‘Explain yourself!’
Felix’s face flushed, and for the first time that evening he was lost for words.
Mrs Feinman’s cheeks puffed. ‘Felix!’
His eyes watered.
Mrs Feinman’s face blued. ‘Felix!’
His eyes shot about the room, avoiding his wife’s glower.
And Mrs Feinman’s eyes bulged. ‘FELIX FEINMAN! WHO WAS THAT WOMAN?!’
‘She … she … she is Anna,’ Felix said, and he raised his hands above his head and cowered to protect himself from an imminent bollocking from his wife.
‘Who?!’
‘Anna … Anna Arkadyevna Karenina.’
‘What?! The book character?!’
‘Yes … yes … we … us … I … me … she … she … she is my lover.’
‘Anna Karenina?! Your lover?! You and Anna Karenina?! Lovers?!’ Mrs Feinman unclenched her fists and deflated her cheeks and pinked her face and contracted her eyes, and she released a raucous, jowl-wobbling, belly-jiggling, side-stitching laugh that filled the apartment.
And Felix Feinman’s heart soared, for Mrs Feinman’s sense of humour, thought forever lost, had been found.
Magic School
French pigs. That’s what Harry Legerdemain’s mother called them. Those little cultural extra-curricular activities she and Harry’s father introduced to their children, hoping to polish, by childhood’s end, three little lumps of coal into a trio of sparkling diamonds.
The Legerdemain children participated in some French pigs as a family, like sitting slouched at a Salieri recital with bored yawns and drooping eyelids until one of them nodded off and crashed to the auditorium floor with a kettle-drummed boom, only for a flush-faced, apologetic Mr Legerdemain to have to carry that child, pale-faced and howling, past the disapproving glowers of the other patrons. Or dining every Friday night at Tong Wong’s—a culinary genius who had ‘mastered’ the national dishes of more than 80 countries and whose exotic cuisine tortured the youthful taste buds and delicate stomachs of Harry and his siblings.
The Legerdemain children were encouraged to engage in other French pigs as individuals, based on a thorough parental assessment of their temperament and aptitude. On Monday nights, Harry’s elder sister attended Madame Touché’s School of Etiquette and Deportment, hoping such refinement would captivate the heart of a handsome suitor. On Tuesday evenings, Harry’s elder brother spent three lab-coated hours at Professor Maddley’s Science Lab, brewing concoctions in bubbling test tubes held above flickering Bunsen burners and dissecting frogs and peering down a microscope, prepping him for a distinguished career in medicine. When Mr and Mrs Legerdemain looked down upon their youngest child, Harry, they saw little hope of refinement or intellectual achievement, so they, in their wisdom, sent him to Magic School.
‘It’ll be fun, Harry,’ his mum said.
‘You’ll make new friends, Harold,’ his dad said.
‘How cute,’ his sister said.
‘You’re going to die, sucker,’ his brother said.
***
On a wet winter Wednesday evening at the mid-point of his eleventh year, a reluctant Harry Legerdemain sat nervously in the back seat of the family car as his parents drove him to the local community hall so he could attend The Marvin and Mavis Le Marvellous School of Magic and Illusion.
Harry’s parents dropped him at the door, tooted their horn, and with a last wave, they set off for two hours of child-free wining and dining at Tino’s All-You-Can-Eat Bistro.
As Harry watched his parents’ car disappear, a croaky voice behind him said, ‘Ah, a true believer, I hope.’
Harry turned and came face to face with a stooped man wearing a black top hat and a black cape covering a black suit. Crusty, pale make-up covered his craggy face. Above his top lip streaked a thin, grey pencil moustache twirled at either end, and sparkling, mascaraed eyes sat below bushy, grey eyebrows.
‘Good evening, my boy, and welcome to The Marvin and Mavis Le Marvellous School of Magic and Illusion. I’m Mr Le Marvellous.’
‘H … H … Hi. I’m Harry. Harry Legerdemain.’ To Harry the old man seemed familiar.
‘Pleased to meet you, my boy.’
An old, frail woman with a bushy nest of wiry, grey hair appeared by Mr Le Marvellous’s side. She wore an outfit and make-up identical to Mr Le Marvellous, except for a ruby, glossy lipstick that had been applied to her lips and most of her surrounding cheeks. In her hands she held a hand fly sprayer.
‘Another pest arrived, Irving?’ she said to the little man, and she directed two pumped sprays towards Harry.
‘No, no, my dear,’ Mr Le Marvellous said. ‘It’ s a new student. A Harry Legerdemain.’ Harry received another squirt. ‘My boy, may I introduce my beautiful assistant, Mrs Mavis Le Marvellous?’
‘Hello, Mrs Le Marvellous.’ Then Harry remembered where he’d seen the couple before. ‘Hey, I know you. You’re Mr Speldling. My barber.’
Mr Speldling cut Harry’s hair on the first Saturday of every month; an experience rendered by the cutter wielding scissors and a comb in his doddery, liver-spotted hands whilst standing tippy-toed on a milk crate, all while Mrs Speldling circled the barber’s chair with a broom and absent-minded mutterings. Harry never knew if he’d exit on those Saturday mornings fringeless or earlobeless.
‘Shhh, my boy,’ Mr Le Marvellous whispered as he looked about with a nervous glance. ‘Only during working hours, my boy, when the ordinary and mundane rule. But once we leave the shop, Mrs Speldling and I become our true selves: Marvin Le Marvellous and his beautiful assistant, Mavis Le Marvellous (née La Magnificent). Now come and meet the other students. And I’d appreciate you keeping hush-hush about our alter egos. Let that be a secret between you and us.’ And Mr Le Marvellous tapped his nose with a gnarled index finger and lost his right eye to a wrinkled wink.
‘Sure, Mr Speld—sorry, I mean Mr Le Marvellous.’
With a sweep of his cape and a hobbling gait, the old man led Harry into the hall. Mrs Le Marvellous pumped her hand sprayer at Harry as he followed Mr Le Marvellous inside. Chairs lined the perimeter of the hall, and under the hall’s fluorescent lights, a dozen black-caped children practised their magic tricks with the glinting and clanging of silver rings, the flicking and swishing of white-tipped wands, the billowing and croaking of green frogs and the fluttering and cooing of white doves.
‘Right, my boy, let’s get you up and running. How is your card shuffling?’ Mr Le Marvellous pulled a deck of cards from his pocket. ‘With card tricks, it’s all about sleight of hand. Watch me.’ The old man pulled his suit sleeves up to his elbows, and as he kept his eyes upon Harry, he shuffled and riffled and weaved the cards, all with a dazzling speed that made Harry’s eyes spin. Mr Le Marvellous fanned the cards before Harry and said, ‘Pick a card, my boy. Any card. But don’t let me see it or tell me what it is.’
Harry pulled a card from the deck, and hiding it in his cupped hands, he peeked at the card’s face and saw the stern demeanour of the Queen of Hearts frowning back at him.
‘Memorised it, my boy?’
Harry nodded.
‘Right, place it back into the deck.’
Harry placed the card face-down into the fan of cards.
‘Thank you, my boy.’ Mr Le Marvellous waved his hand over the deck and said, ‘Shimmy, shimmy, shazam.’ He handed the deck to Harry. ‘If you would do the honours, my boy, and show me the card you put back into the deck.’
Harry turned the deck face-up, fanned the cards and looked for the Queen of Hearts. Twice he worked his way through the deck, but to no avail. The Queen of Hearts had disappeared.
‘Errr … Mr Le Marvellous, the card’s not here. It’s … it’s … gone.’
‘And that, my boy, is what we call magic
.’
Harry again fanned and searched the deck and, again unsuccessful, scratched his head. ‘Where’d the card go, Mr Le Marvellous?’
Mr Le Marvellous grinned and said, ‘Would I be correct in assuming your card was the Queen of Hearts?’
Harry nodded with his mouth agape.
‘And given these are my cards, can we agree your card was in fact my Queen of Hearts?’
Harry nodded again.
‘Well, my boy, you needn’t look any further than the queen of my heart to find your card.’ Mr Le Marvellous turned and pointed towards the main stage, and there, with a rolled newspaper in her hand being deployed at a rapid rate upon an invisible vermin, stooped a grim-faced Mrs Le Marvellous, and in her bird’s-nest of hair a card sat, displaying a frowning royal face displeased at being separated from her house of cards.
‘Wow,’ Harry said. ‘That’s amazing, Mr Le Marvellous.’
‘Thank you, my boy. Right, your turn, now. First, let’s work on your shuffling.’ Mr Le Marvellous handed the deck to Harry.
The cards seemed much heavier and bulkier to Harry than when they whizzed about in the old man’s flashing hands. Harry attempted a shuffle. The cards ended in a pile at his feet.
‘Not a bad effort on your first go, my boy.’
Harry tried to fan. Again the cards piled at his feet.
‘You’re getting there, my boy.’
Harry split the deck of cards and held half a deck in each hand with his thumbs pointing inwards. He looked up at Mr Le Marvellous, who returned a grin of encouragement.
‘Go on, my boy, you’re looking like a pro.’
Harry took a deep breath and released his thumbs. The deck exploded from his hands, and as the cards flew everywhere, the old man released a cry and raised his hands to his face.
‘Oh God! I’m so sorry, Mr Le Marvellous. Are you hurt?’
‘It’s nothing, my boy,’ the old man said from behind his hands. ‘Just a mere scratch. You keep practising while I have Mrs Le Marvellous attend my eye.’
Blood seeped from between Mr Le Marvellous’s fingers and trickled down the back of his hand and reddened the tip of his grey, twirled moustache.
‘Issy!’ Mr Le Marvellous called as he walked towards his wife on the stage. ‘The first aid kit, my dear. We’ve got a bleeder.’
***
When Harry arrived at the community hall the following Wednesday night, Mr Le Marvellous greeted him with a beaming smile and wearing a black eyepatch. Beside the old man a large, cuboid wooden box rested upon a bier. A stepladder stood at its side.
‘Ready for a little magic, my boy,’ he said as his unpatched eye sparkled.
‘I … I think so, Mr Le Marvellous.’
‘That’s the attitude, my boy. Don’t let last week’s minor mishap dampen your enthusiasm.’ He gave Harry a pat of encouragement on his shoulder. ‘Right, my boy, this week I’m going to get you to saw me in half.’
‘Saw you in half, Mr Le Marvellous?’
Harry’s self-confidence eroded to self-doubt.
‘That’s right. It’s a bread-and-butter trick for all the great magicians, and I tell you, my boy, when I look at you, I see greatness within.’
Mr Le Marvellous climbed the stepladder, opened a small lid on top of the box, climbed in, shut the lid and disappeared. Banging and groaning came from within until the old man’s head popped out of a small hole at the end of the box.
‘Check the other end if you could, my boy,’ a flush-faced Mr Le Marvellous said.
Harry walked to the other end of the box, and a pair of black shoes and black-socked ankles appeared through a hole and wriggled about.
‘Now, my boy, all you need to do is grab that handsaw over there, place its jagged teeth on the edge of the box, say the magic words and saw.’
‘A … A … Are you sure this is safe, Mr Le Marvellous?’
‘Quite sure, my boy. If it wasn’t, I’d be half the man I am today.’ The old man cackled at his wit.
Harry picked up a handsaw, poked a finger at its teeth and punctured his skin. A prick of blood appeared at the tip of his finger. ‘Where on the box do I place the handsaw, Mr Le Marvellous?’
An out-of-sight Mr Le Marvellous called out, ‘On the X, my boy. X always marks the spot.’ Another cackle came from the hidden side of the box.
Harry looked along the rim of the box, found an X pencilled in a shaky hand and placed the handsaw’s teeth upon the spot.
‘What’s the magic word, Mr Le Marvellous?’
‘Not a word, my boy, but words. It’s Razzle Dazzle Bim Bom Ba.’
Harry firm his stance, gripped the handsaw and said, ‘Razzle Dazzle Bam Bim Bo.’ He pushed and pulled at the handsaw tentatively until it bit and cut into the box. Sawdust fell at Harry’s feet.
‘Come on, my boy, put a little elbow grease into it.’
Harry firmed his grip and sawed harder and faster. The sawdust pile grew. When halfway through the box, the blade gripped and stuck, and a guttural roar came from the other side of the box. Harry gasped, then said, ‘Oh my God! Mr Le Marvellous, are you OK?’
‘Of course. Just adding a bit of theatrics. Remember, my boy, it’s all about the theatrics. Give your audience a show. Give them the three Es: Enticement, Enthralment, Entertainment. And whatever you do, don’t stop. Ever. Now, carry on, my boy.’
Harry recommenced sawing, and the old man continued to holler in mock pain. Sweat formed on Harry’s brow, and his breath shortened as whatever he was sawing into provided greater resistance than the top half of the box. The sawdust falling to his feet was now a bloody red.
With a last push of the handsaw and a mighty, agonising roar from Mr Le Marvellous that filled the hall, the box split apart, and its two halves wheeled around so the top of Mr Le Marvellous’s head touched the soles of his shoes. The old man’s feet continued to jiggle.
‘Well done, my boy,’ Mr Le Marvellous said. ‘As I said, you’ve greatness within.’ The jiggling shoes tap-danced upon Mr Le Marvellous’s head. ‘Right, my boy, if you could just give me a hand getting out.’
Mr Le Marvellous’s head disappeared into the hole. The lid of the wooden box opened, and the old man’s hands reached out, and Harry grabbed and pulled them as the old man sat. Mr Le Marvellous swung a leg out of the box and placed his foot upon the top rung of the stepladder. He placed his arm around Harry’s shoulder and went to swing his other leg out of the box when he said, ‘Oh dear. Not quite what I planned, my boy.’ Harry looked into the box and screamed, for Mr Le Marvellous’s black-trousered leg had disappeared from the knee down. Only a red-raw stump and the shortened, jagged edge of the leg of his trousers remained.
‘Oh God! Oh God! What have I done?’ Harry said as tears blurred his vision.
‘That’s never happened before, my boy, but don’t be too upset. It’s not as bad as it looks.’ Mr Le Marvellous turned towards the stage and called out, ‘Issy!’ Mrs Le Marvellous, mid-tango on the stage with a fly swat, stopped and looked towards Harry and Mr Le Marvellous.
‘Issy! I’m going to need my spare.’
Mrs Le Marvellous disappeared into the back kitchen. She reappeared carrying a prosthetic leg in her arms and a pair of black trousers draped over her shoulder. As she walked towards Harry, Mr Le Marvellous whispered into Harry’s ear, ‘One day, my boy, I’ll tell you how I lost my real leg.’
***
When Harry arrived the next Wednesday, he found Mr Le Marvellous standing in the middle of the community hall with a grin on his face and a walking cane in his hand. Harry sighed in relief that neither a wooden box nor a deck of cards was in sight.
‘Hello, my boy.’
‘Hello, Mr Le Marvellous. How’s your leg?’
‘Good as new, my boy.’ The old man tapped his leg with his cane, releasing a dull, wooden thud. ‘Actually, it’s better than the old one. None of those pesky termites that drive Mrs Le Marvellous mad.’ He gave the leg another tap.
‘Right, my boy, let’s get to work. This week, I am going to teach you how to make an object disappear. It’s a simple three-step process. One, take a handful of magic dust. Two, say the magic word. And three, throw the dust at the base of the object you wish to make disappear. Allow me, my boy, to demonstrate.’
Mr Le Marvellous removed his top hat and, with much huffing and puffing, bent down and placed it on the ground. With further huffing and puffing, the old man returned to an upright position. ‘Stand back, my boy,’ he said as he reached into his jacket pocket and removed a handful of grey powder. ‘Can’t have you disappear on me.’ His eyes vanished as his face crinkled when he released a cackle. With a flourish of his cape and a wave of his arm, Mr Le Marvellous shouted, ‘Alakazam.’ He threw the powder at the base of the hat. With a spark of light and a pop and a hiss, a cloud of purple smoke rose around the hat and enveloped Harry. His eyes watered and his throat burned, and as the air cleared, he saw a grinning Mr Le Marvellous appear through the smoke.
‘Behold, my boy, no more hat.’ The old man pointed to his feet, where only the polished floor of the community hall remained.
‘H … How’d you do that, Mr Le Marvellous?’ Harry said, wiping his teary, smoke-filled eyes with his sleeve.
‘Magic, my boy, magic.’
‘But where is it now?’
‘Use your eyes, my boy.’
Harry looked about the hall, puzzled as to the hat’s whereabouts. Then, beyond the dissipating smoke, beyond the other students, beyond the far end of the hall, he saw Mrs Le Marvellous upon the raised stage with her arms by her sides and her feet stomping out an Irish jig upon her
