Jesse Ball: The Lesson

— Yes, said Loring, I don’t see why not. But, how would we get there?

This she mused to herself.

She went into the hall and fetched the schedule.

— There is a bus, she said, in fifteen minutes that will bring us well in time. The bus returns at five. Your mother will be here at five. Some excuse must be posted on the door to say we will be late returning. But late from where?

They thought in silence.

— But, said Stan. Why say anything? She might not care.

— You’re right, said Loring. It might not even occur to her to ask where we have been.

And that settled the question. Thus, next:

The Preparations for Traveling by Bus and the Seeing of a Magician in the Next Town.

Loring had a slip of paper in her pocket. It read:

You will observe the boy at the theater and record his reactions. You will ask him questions. You will learn if it is all a vile trick.

All night she had been troubled by this: might it all be a vile trick.

1. if Stan was twelve years old

2. if her enemies had come up with a revenge

3. if it is all a lie, not a revenge. not a vile trick, not twelve years old, simply an actual but unfortunate thing

—

She had another note. That one said:

My dear love,

I am terrified all the time, but can’t say why. Where before you might solve this with nearness — just the quality of being near — now there is no solution. I am an old woman writing herself notes about fear, but there is no solution. Although this is true, it is also a glowingly bright day. I have a pile of letters that I am sending as a sort of joke. This invigorates me. Shouldn’t one laugh in the teeth of Thursdays and such other ignoble fools? I am writing this on a spool of thread — on a thread that I have drawn out from a spool. It will not bear reading. Yes, this all written on a piece of thread. It was an old gesture, invented by a woman named Marla Jone. She was a colonist in Massachusetts and died of the cold in her farmhouse. These were Loring’s thoughts about the thread technique. She admired Marla Jone quite frankly.

The bus trip went as follows:

Loring paid for the bus. It cost almost nothing. Stan got in first. They thought it would be less suspicious that way. He went and found a seat. She got on, paid, and sat beside him. He was by a window, halfway to the back.

And who else was on the bus? Why no one at all of note. A cadre of total nothings. Forgettable. They said things like:

— Oh my

and

— The weather…x.

also

— We mustn’t forget to…when we get there.

Yes, darling, I think to myself when I hear such things. You will never get where you are going. How sure you are to perish on the way. And I, presiding over it all. We mustn’t give them faces.

The bus snaked through the most beautiful green country anyone had ever seen. Sheep dotted the heather, congregating in groups, teaching one another the behavior of stones, only occasionally, idiotically running all at once for fifty paces or so and then stopping stock still once more.

Ahead came a wall, yes, a town wall, even this was given them. Through it the road went and the bus, and they were on cobblestones. The bus careened to a halt.

— Goodbye, Stan told the driver.

— I come through right at five, he said. Tug that sign down if you’re here. Then I’m sure to see you.

Away then, the bus.

There was a sign with a rope which when tugged a portion would drop down.

— Not yet, said Loring.

Stan took his hand off the rope.

The bus trip was like a passage along a zoetrope. The landscape repeated itself, beautifully, excruciatingly. The world spins and we pass on! First a set of trees, a house with candles in a high window. A hedge. A bright-yellow painted sign with solid-black lettering. Men walking together, carrying burlap sacks. One is driving the others. A church spire, distant across hills. The edge of a lake, obscured by bushes. The entrance to some vast estate — lovely shadows lurking along paths and the long marble approach. Then, a set of trees, a house with a candle. A hedge. A bright-yellow sign. Men walking together, driven on. Church spires, lakes, entrances to other realms!

A sort of rain began to fall and then was done. It must have been a passage rain, thought Loring, rain that comes when one crosses thresholds, valued in Roman times, but since in disrepute, for NOW they were upon that longed for thing: THE VILLAGE OF KENSTOCK.

or almost. The alley on which they were walking went between two churches. KENSTOCK MEWS was its name. Soon the churches were gone and the backs of houses arched to the left and right. Stone walls high and burdened, abounded. Weeds, cats, stones, glass, the sound of things dripping. Something churchlike loomed again, except this building FACED THE ALLEY.

A man in a scarlet uniform stood on the magnificent steps.

— I will let you in, he said, but you must hurry. In your case, one ticket will be enough if you promise to take no more between you than one person can carry.

— Of what we see?

— Yes, of what you see.

— Tell him we agree, said Stan.

— We agree, said Loring.

She paid the man and he stamped both his feet, one, TWO.

The door swung open from within.

— It must have been a church, too, at one point, said Loring.

— How come?

— Well, look at the pews. And that’s the place where the altar would have been.

It would have been a small church, if a church it had been, perhaps some Quaker meetinghouse of sorts. There was room for perhaps fifty people, certainly not many more. In fact, at that moment, the place was empty.

— Take your seats, take your seats, murmured the doorman.

Somehow, he had come up behind them.

Loring and Stan sat in the first row, facing an empty stage. Behind the stage was a large window of painted glass on which many birds had suddenly alighted from the grass of a field.

A bell rang, then, and the show began.

— Menduus, said the man, who was suddenly sitting beside them, has played for the audiences of every great city. His deeds are a part of the unfailing lore of magicians. He is an old man, a very old man. Why then does he let this theater, why then does he print up bulletins, why then does he decide: I will again perform, for one season, and most often to an empty room.

Loring and Stan dared not reply. The man went on, rising and walking up the steps onto the stage.

— Because, I have come up with a new effect, and I was given the choice therefore, by my having come up with it, to either gift it to another magician, who would thereby make his name, or to enact it myself. I chose the latter. Now, I must tell you, I do not always attempt the effect. During some performances, it proves impossible. Then I must be rescued.

Menduus gestured to his left. There the doorman stood to the right of the stage, holding an enormous pair of scissors.

— You see.

Menduus gestured again, and the doorman began to crank a long box. A brass band struck up its tune from within the box, mechanically bidden. Bellows heaved, horns blew, a drum beat. When the din had subsided, Menduus bowed.