Christopher Priest - The Prestige

But against this my mind suddenly felt liberated from the constraints of the body. I was always alert, fast-thinking, positive, in ways I had only ever glimpsed in myself before. One of the paradoxes this produced was that I usually felt strong and capable, whereas the reality was that I was unable to tackle most physical tasks. I had to learn to hold objects like pens and utensils, for example, because a careless grip on something would usually make it slip away from me.

It was a frustrating and morbid situation in which to find myself, and for much of the time my new mental energy was directed as pure loathing and fear at whichever of the two Bordens had attacked me. He continued to sap my mental energy, just as his action had sapped my physical being. I had become to all intents and purposes invisible to the world, as good as dead.

It did not take me long to discover that I could be visible or invisible as I chose.

If I moved after dusk, and I wore the stage clothes I had been in during the performance, I could go almost anywhere unseen. If I wanted to move normally then I wore other clothes, and used greasepaint to give my features some solidity. It was not a perfect simulation; my eyes had a disconcertingly hollow look, and once a man in a dimly lit omnibus loudly drew attention to the gap that had inexplicably appeared between my sleeve and my glove, and I had to make a quick departure.

Money, food, accommodation presented no problems to me. Either I took what I wanted when in the invisible state, or I paid for what I needed. Such concerns were trivial.

My real consideration was the well-being of my prestige.

I learned from a newspaper report that my fleeting glimpse of the stage had completely misled me. The report stated that The Great Danton had suffered injuries during a performance in Lowestoft, that he had been forced to cancel future engagements, but was resting at home and expected to return to the stage in due course.

I was relieved to hear it, but greatly surprised! What I had glimpsed as the curtains came down was what I assumed was my own prestige, frozen in the half-dead, half-live condition I called "prestigious’. The prestige is the source body in the transportation, left behind in the Tesla apparatus, as if dead. Concealing and disposing of these prestigious bodies was the single greatest problem I had had to solve before I could present the illusion to the public.

With this news about ill-health and cancelled engagements I realized something different had happened that night. The transportation had been only partial, and I was the sorry result. Most of me had remained behind.

Both I and my prestige were much reduced by Borden's intervention. We each had problems to cope with. I was in a wraithlike condition, my prestige was in debilitated health. While he had corporeality and freedom of movement in the world, from the moment of the accident he was doomed to die; meanwhile, I had been condemned to a life in the shadows, but my health was intact.

In July, two months after Lowestoft, and while I was still coming to terms with the disaster, my prestige apparently decided of his own accord to bring forward the death of Rupert Angier. It was exactly what I would have done in his position; the moment I thought this I realized that he was me. It was the first time we had reached an identical decision separately, and my first intimation that although we existed separately we were emotionally but one person.

Soon after, my prestige returned to Caldlow House to take up the inheritance; again, this is what I would have done.

I, though, remained in London for the time being. I had macabre business to attend to, and I wanted to conduct it in secret with no risk of what I intended to do attaching itself to the Colderdale name.

In short, I had decided that Borden, finally, must be dealt with. I planned to murder him, or, more exactly, to murder one of the two. His secret double life made murder a practicable revenge: he had interfered with the official records that revealed the existence of twins, and had lived his life with one half of himself concealed. Killing one of the brothers would put an end to his deception, and would for my purposes be as satisfying and effective as killing them both. I also reasoned that in my wraithlike state, and with my only known identity publicly buried and mourned, I, Rupert Angier, could never be caught or even suspected of the crime.

In London, I set my plans in progress. I was able to use my virtual invisibility to follow Borden as he went about his life and affairs. I saw him in his family home, I saw him preparing and rehearsing his stage show in his workshop, I stood unseen in the wings of a theatre as he performed his illusions, I tracked him to the secret lair he shared in north London with Olivia Svenson… and once, even, I glimpsed Borden with his twin brother, briefly, furtively meeting in a darkened street, a hurried exchange of information, some desperate business that had to be concluded at once and in person.

It was when I saw him with Olivia that I decided, finally, he must die. Enough feelings remained about that old betrayal to add hurt to the outrage.

Making a decision to commit premeditated murder is the hardest part of the terrible deed, I can reliably say. Often provoked, I believe myself even so to be a mild and reticent man. Although I never want to hurt others, all through my adult life I have frequently found myself swearing I would "kill" or "do in" Borden. These oaths, uttered in private, and often in silence, are the common impotent ravings of the wronged victim, into which position Borden so often forced me.

In those days I had never seriously intended to kill him, but the Lowestoft attack had changed everything. I was reduced to wraithdom, and my other self was wasting away. Borden had in a real way killed us both that night, and I burned for revenge.

The mere thought of killing gave me such satisfaction and excitement that my personality changed. I, who was beyond death, lived to kill.

Once I had taken the decision, commission of the crime could not be made to wait. I saw the death of one of the Borden twins as the key to my own freedom.

But I had no experience of violence, and before I could do anything I had to decide how best to go about it. I wanted a modus operandi that would be immediate and personal, one in which Borden, as he helplessly died, would realize who was killing him and why. By a simple process of elimination I decided I would have to stab him. Again, imagining the prospect of such a terrible act raised a heady thrill of anticipation in me.

I rationalized stabbing thus: poison was too slow, dangerous to administer and impersonal, a shooting was noisy, and again it lacked close personal contact. I was more or less incapable of acts of physical strength, so anything that involved this, such as clubbing or strangling, was not possible. I found, by experiment, that if I held a long-bladed knife in both hands, firmly but not tightly, then I could slide it with sufficient force to penetrate flesh.

Two days after I had completed my preparations I followed Borden to the Queen's Theatre in Baiham, where he was top of a variety bill running all week. The day was a Wednesday, when there was a matinйe performance as well as one in the evening. I knew it was Borden's habit to retire to his dressing-room between shows for a nap on his couch.

I watched his performance from the darkened wings, then afterwards followed him along the gloomy corridors and staircases to his dressing-room. When he was inside with the door closed, and the general backstage turmoil had quietened down a little, I went to where I had secreted my murder weapon and returned cautiously to the corridor outside Borden's room, moving from one darkened corner to the next only when I was certain no one was about.