Robert Cormier - Beyond the Chocolate War

Carter moved only once. He glanced at his watch. Impatient for the show to end, for the entire evening to end. He refused to think of the guillotine, blotted it from his mind as if erasing a piece of music from a tape.

And all the while, Archie sat there, impassive, expressionless, looking as if he could sit there forever, through eternity, although Carter knew that Archie recognized no eternity, neither heaven nor hell.

The moment.

The stage cleared away, the lights subdued except for one spot on the guillotine.

And the hush.

Along with bodies leaning forward in the chairs, knees pressed together, faces thrust upward, eyes bulging slightly, an entire audience caught in one reaction, one pose, as if the students were multiplications of themselves in a hall of mirrors.

Even the faculty seemed to sense that this was a special moment, although Carter realized that they could not know what was going on.

Obie walked to center stage, dressed in a neat dark suit, plaid shirt, plain dark tie, followed by Ray Bannister, also in suit and tie, walking haltingly behind Obie as if maimed in a way, leg wounds. They stood on either side of the guillotine. Obie looked down, squinted, found Carter with his eyes, and nodded.

Carter touched Archie's shoulder but did not look at him.

"It's time," Carter said. Like a warden in a prison movie.

Archie rose to his feet, twisted away from Carter's hand. Like the condemned prisoner in the same movie.

This time the head of cabbage did not explode into a thousand pieces of raw vegetable as it had in Ray's cellar. Instead, the blade cut through the folds of cabbage precisely, and so swiftly the eye could not catch the movement as the cabbage split into two pieces, one piece remaining on the block and the other bouncing to the floor of the stage, then rolling awkwardly, crazily, drunkenly, to the stage's lip, where it hovered for a moment and then dropped out of sight.

The silence in the assembly hall was awesome as the audience regarded the figures on the stage — Ray standing beside the guillotine, his hand a fraction of an inch away from the button; Obie beside him, slightly hidden from the audience; Archie calm on the other side of the guillotine, looking at the apparatus as if it were the most fascinating piece of merchandise he had ever encountered; plus Carter, bulky and massive, like a bodyguard who didn't quite know whom he was guarding. After that immense silence, the audience drew one big collective breath that seemed to Carter strong enough to suck them all offstage.

Ray bowed, came up again, managed to say " Voilа " in his best imitation French, realized that his voice had been too soft and reedy, cleared his throat, and called out, stronger now, " Voilа! "

For some reason the audience began to applaud and whistle, as if someone had scored a touchdown or hit a home run. Ray flushed with pleasure — cripes, he hadn't done anything yet, wait until they saw the real tricks — and bowed again.

Obie prodded him gently, reminding him of the next step, and Ray, frowning, stepped aside, reluctant to share the spotlight.

"And now," Obie called, "the piиce de rйsistance ." Pronouncing the words as Ray had taught him: the pea -ess duh ray-ziss- tahnce .

The audience hushed again.

Obie glanced at Carter. And Carter nudged Archie.

Archie ended his contemplation of the guillotine and looked up, beyond the audience somewhere, smiling remotely, as if he found this all very, very amusing but nothing to do with him, really: he was merely lending his body to the affair, as if it were out on loan like a library book.

Obie's hands were itchy, tingling. He realized it was nerves, like the nerves of an Olympic star waiting for the starting gun to go off, the nerves that sing a sweet song, not jangled or out of tune. He was eager for Archie to reach the guillotine, to stoop, kneel, and place his head upon the block. As Obie watched, Archie did those very things, easily and smoothly as if it had all been rehearsed, his body loose and relaxed as usual, all his movements casual and almost in rhythm. He'd always hated Archie's coolness and hated him more at this moment for displaying that cool, that aloofness, at a time when he should be shaking in his shoes or at least showing signs of embarrassment.

Archie was lodged now in the guillotine, neck resting on the block, facedown. Obie smiled, ignored his itching fingers, and looked at Ray Bannister.

"Begin. ." he said, letting his words carry over the audience.

And Ray began. His bag of tricks. Making the deck of cards appear as if at will and playing them along his sleeve, tumbling them this way and that. Ray felt in command. Went down the brief steps to the audience, asked a student to select a card and then cajoled the kid — he made sure ahead of time that he was young, a freshman from the looks of him — onto the stage.

While Obie watched. Watched Ray and his magic show, but also watched Archie in his perch on the guillotine. This was part of the plan. To let him squirm. To make him wait. To prolong the drama. To build up the anticipation.

Ray Bannister was performing beautifully. He wished his mother and father were here to see the way he had mastered the tricks. He had chosen surefire effects, blowing his savings on tricks at the magic store in Worcester. The deck of cards he now worked with would be effective in the hands of a ten-year-old, but the audience didn't know that. They also didn't know the secret of the unending scarves, the rainbow cascading from his mouth. So deceptively simple. The old Chinese ring trick was equally effective, although it required at one particular point a touch of sleight of hand, the kind of deception that Ray had been a bit apprehensive about. But didn't need to be, he learned. The audience was in the palm of his hand, and he was able to misdirect them without problems. He forgot about Archie Costello and Obie and everything else, even his rotten first semester at Trinity, as he clicked the rings in triumph, bowed, and felt carried away on the waves of applause.

He turned, breathless, exhilarated, the way people must feel when they take a whiff of oxygen from a tank, feeling light as air, and looked at Obie. Then at Archie. Archie still on his knees, waiting.

Ray had performed in silence, except for occasional thrusts of applause or approving murmurings from the audience. Now, as his final applause ended, a burst of music jarred the air, martial military music deafeningly loud, played on Obie's cue. The music stopped as Ray moved toward the guillotine.

Now the hush again.

Ray Bannister and Obie stepped up to the guillotine as they had rehearsed, with Obie nearest the button on the right side of the apparatus.

Obie glanced at the button, small, mother-of-pearl, no larger than a dime. His eyes traveled downward, saw the small disk in place. Which meant that everything was in readiness, that Ray Bannister had touched the almost-invisible disk that had placed the mechanism in the slice position, causing the blade to slice through the cabbage. The rehearsal had called for Ray to advance now to the guillotine, run his hand over the top bar casually but actually touch a lever, likewise almost invisible, that switched the mechanism to the second position, so that the lethalness of the guillotine was removed and the blade would fall harmlessly, without touching Archie's neck at all.

Obie observed Ray's casual movement and admired the offhand way he now ran his hand along the guillotine, touching the lever. Then bowing to Obie.

Obie turned to the audience:

"And now the climax of the evening, by the illustrious master of illusion. May we present Bafflement by Bannister!"

Good-natured cheers and jeers filled the air, the crowd enjoying itself, all of them vicarious magicians for the moment.