Christopher Priest - The Prestige

I had taken no more than two steps when I was racked with a terrifying cough, one of such violence that it astounded me. I was at the end of my physical tether. My heart was hammering, blood was thumping rhythmically in my ears, sweat was bursting from me, and the dry, painful cough was one that seemed to evacuate and collapse my chest. It weakened me so greatly that I could barely inhale again, and when I did manage to suck in a little air I coughed again at once, wheezing and racking horribly. I was unable to stay upright, and I slumped forward across the stone steps, while the last few of the theatregoers went past, their boots only inches from my pathetic head. I neither knew nor cared what they thought of me as I lay there.

Wilson eventually found me. He raised me into his arms, and held me like a child while I struggled to regain my breath.

At long last my heart and breathing steadied, and a great chill descended on me. My chest felt like a swollen pustule of pain, and although I was able to prevent myself coughing again each breath was tentatively taken and expelled.

Finally, I managed to say, "Did you see what happened?"

"Alfred Borden must have got backstage, sir."

"Not that! I mean what happened when the power failed?"

"I was manning the switching board, Mr Angier. As usual."

Wilson's place during In a Flash is at the back of the stage, invisible to the audience because he is concealed by the backcloth of the screening box. Although he is in touch at every moment with what I am doing he cannot actually see me for most of the illusion.

I gasped out a description of the spectral prestige of myself that I had briefly seen. Wilson seemed puzzled, but immediately offered to run up to the loge itself. He did so, while I lay helplessly and uncomfortably on the cold bare steps. When he returned a minute or two later Wilson told me he had seen nothing untoward up there. He said the seats in the top loge had been scattered across the carpeted floor, but otherwise there was nothing unusual about it. I had to accept what he said; I have learned that Wilson is a sharp and reliable assistant.

He got me back down the stairs, and on the stage again. By this time I had recovered sufficiently that I could stand unsupported. I scanned the top loge and the rest of the now empty auditorium, but there was no sign of the prestige.

I had to put the matter out of my mind. Of much more pressing concern was the fact that I had suddenly become physically incapacitated. Every move was a strain, and the cough felt explosively coiled in my chest, ready to burst out again at any moment. Dreading a return of it I deliberately cramped and confined my movements, trying to calm my breathing.

Wilson hired a cab and returned me safely to my hotel, and at once arranged for a message to be sent to Julia. A doctor was summoned, and when he belatedly arrived he carried out a perfunctory examination of me. He declared he could find nothing amiss, so I paid him off and resolved to find another doctor in the morning. I had great trouble falling asleep, but I did so in the end.

I awoke this morning feeling stronger, and walked downstairs unaided. Wilson was waiting for me in the hotel foyer, with the news that Julia would be arriving at noon. Meanwhile, he declared that I looked unwell, but I insisted I had started to recover. After breakfast, though, I realized I had little strength in me.

Reluctantly, I have cancelled both of tonight's performances, and while Wilson has been at the theatre I have penned this account of what happened.

22nd May 1903

In London

At Julia's urging, and on Wilson's advice, I have cancelled the remainder of the Lowestoft booking. Next week's has also gone — this was to be a short season at the Court Theatre in Highgate. I am still undecided what to do about the show at the Astoria in Derby, scheduled for the first week in June.

I am trying to put as good a face as possible on the matter, but in the deepest recess of my heart I am harbouring a secret fear. In short, it is that my ill health might mean I shall never again be able to perform. After Borden's attack on me I have become a semi-invalid.

Counting the man who came to see me in the hotel in Lowestoft, and my own here in London, I have been examined by three doctors. All of them pronounce me well and showing no obvious symptoms of illness. I complain about my breathing, so they listen to my chest and prescribe fresh air. I tell them my heart races when I walk up a flight of stairs, and they listen to my heart and they tell me to be careful about what I eat, and to take things easier. I say that I tire easily, and they advise me to rest and to take plenty of early nights.

My regular doctor in London took a sample of my blood, because I demanded that he should make some objective test, if only to quieten my fears. He duly reported that my blood was unusually "thin", that such a condition was not unusual in a man of my age, and he prescribed an iron tonic.

After the doctor had left I took the simple step of weighing myself, with an astonishing result. I appear to have lost nearly thirty pounds in weight! I have weighed more or less exactly twelve stone, one hundred and sixty-eight pounds, for most of my adult years. It is just one of those things in life that has remained constant. This morning I found that I weigh just over one hundred and thirty-nine pounds, or a fraction under ten stone!

In the mirror I look the same as ever: my face is no thinner, my eyes are not bloodshot, my cheekbones do not jut, my jaw is not angular. I look tired, indeed, and there is a sallow quality to my skin that is not customary, but I do not look like someone who cannot climb a short flight of stairs without gasping for breath halfway up. Nor do I look like someone who has just lost nearly a sixth of his normal weight.

There being no normal or logical reason for this, it must have been caused by the incomplete Tesla transmission. The first shock of it had taken place. Following this, the electrical information was only partially sent. Borden's interruption came before the second shock occurred, preventing full reassembly at either end.

Once again his intervention has taken me to the edge of death!

Later

Julia has declared herself to be on a mission to restore my strength by fattening me up, and lunch today was substantial. However, halfway through I felt tired and nauseated, and was unable to finish. I have just been taking a short nap.

On walking, I was seized by an idea, whose consequences I am still thinking through.

In the confidentiality of these pages let me disclose that whenever I have used the Tesla apparatus, whether it be in performance or rehearsal, I have always made sure to secrete two or three gold coins in my pocket. Why I should do so must be self-evident; my recent acquisition of a financial fortune is not solely attributable to performance fees!

Tesla, I should in all conscience report, warned me against such an act. He is a highly moral man, and he lectured me long on the subject of forgery. He said he also had scientific reasons, that the apparatus was calibrated for my known body-weight (with certain margins of safety), and that the presence about my person of small but massy objects, such as gold coins, could make the projection inaccurate over longer distances.

Because I trust Tesla's scientific knowledge, at first I decided to take only paper money through with me, but in doing so I created the inevitable difficulty of duplicate serial numbers. I still carry a few high denomination notes at every performance, but in most cases I have preferred to carry gold. I have never encountered any of the problems of inaccuracy of which Tesla warned, perhaps because the distances I travel are so short.

This afternoon, after my nap, I searched for the three coins I had been carrying in my pocket on Tuesday evening. As soon as I held them I felt certain they weighed less than they did before, and when I placed them on my office balance, comparing them with otherwise identical coins that had not been through the transmitter, I discovered they were indeed lighter.