The Magician's Assistant

by Ann Patchett

She put no stock in dreams. To her they were just a television left on in another room.

exactly so. dreams are the garbage collection and defragmentation processes of the human brain, not prophesies or arcane knowledge.. loading them with meaning is a category mistake. You might as well ask AI as interpret dreams.

At school he would beg for art history and they would tell him, Next year, next year, but it always got canceled at the last minute, replaced by a section of advanced shop; this semester: The Construction of the Diesel Engine.

Sabine had called the pool girl, the yardman, and a service of off-duty firemen that came in teams of six and cleaned the house in under an hour.

“I can’t imagine this,” Mrs. Fetters said, looking out over the rolling hills of the cemetery, dotted with the occasional winged angel, marble obelisk, Doric columns. “I’m looking at it hard as I can and I can’t imagine it. California and Nebraska shouldn’t even be in the same country.

Mrs. Fetters nodded. “Older,” she said. “I for one am getting older.” They all at once understood that the family reunion was over. Everyone had seen more than they had planned to see, no one had gotten what they wanted.

if you have kids you spend your whole life thinking how you’ll never forgive yourself. You always think you should have been watching them better, but half the things happen when you’re looking right at them.”

I really believe he loved me, but there are a lot of different ways to love someone.” “It seems to me that you got a bad deal,” Mrs. Fetters said. “I had a very good deal,” Sabine said, and picked up her drink. Mrs. Fetters nodded respectfully. “Maybe you did. There are a lot of things in this world I’m never going to understand.”

“I’m taking too long to get to my point. That’s because I’m not so interested in getting there.

It was a pretty face, though it took some getting used to. The spikes of her eyelashes had left tiny black dots of mascara beneath her eyebrows. Of all the different styles represented in Los Angeles, the Midwestern look was rarely seen.

On television the local news focused on murder, suspicion, prosecution. What would that be like, to have someone to blame death on, to stand across the courtroom from that person and point them out, say, You, you took everything I had. Little did they know that everything they had would be taken anyway.

“You fly to Denver,” Dot Fetters said. “Then you take the shuttle to Scottsbluff. We’ll pick you up there. Unless you’re afraid of those little planes. If you’re afraid, I’ve got no problem driving to Denver to get you.” “They plow all the roads to Denver,” Bertie said. “No problem getting to Denver,”

It was for Sabine’s sake that her parents had left Israel. They looked at the baby in the crib and thought of all that uncertainty. A place that was only for Jews was too new, the world would never permit it. All around them countries were full of anger; and much of it, or so it seemed with this child, was directed towards them.

They went to the Fairfax neighborhood, where the public schools closed down for High Holy Days and the menus came standard in Yiddish. They stayed there even after the neighborhood declined, even after there was money enough for a better house in the Valley, because, as Sabine’s mother said, they were through with change. Four countries were more than anyone should suffer in a lifetime.

“I love my children,” she said. “No one will tell you otherwise, but just between the two of us I have to say I admire you for not having any. The ways they break your heart, Jesus, and it never stops. I mean it, it simply does not stop.”

Should I have seen Nebraska, Sabine-Love? What do you think? Your mother and I talk about vacations. You couldn’t list all the places we didn’t go.”

Most people can’t be magicians for the same reason they can’t be criminals. They have guilty souls. Deception doesn’t come naturally. They want to be caught.

When Sabine spoke the room froze. She possessed an intrinsic understanding of men. It was from a lifetime of being beautiful, even to children.

They did not hear her words as much as absorb them. Magic was less about surprise than it was about control. You lead them in one direction and then come up behind their backs. They watch you, at every turn they will be suspicious, but you give them decoys. People long to be amazed, even as they fight it.

Levitation was invented by John Nevil Maskelyne in 1867. He manually placed his wife in the air. The trick then went to Harry Kellar, who sold it, along with the rest of his act, to Howard Thurston upon retirement. After Thurston, it went to Harry Blackstone.

“What kind of name is Phan?” Guy said. The word came out of his mouth like something that tasted bad. “Vietnamese.” “Don’t make fun,” Dot said, relieved. “You can bet there are a group of Vietnamese sitting around right now wondering about a family in Nebraska who’ve got people named Guy and Dot.” “And How,” said How.

Sabine made lists, things to buy, things to make, things to practice. All day long the list propelled her forward. When she went to bed at night her mind would reel through all she had forgotten, all the things there hadn’t been time for. It had been like this even when she was a child, going from Hebrew school to painting class to ballet, working her math problems in the evenings, and then setting the table for dinner.

Most of the times I can remember that Howard and I were actually getting along he’d ask me if I wanted to go to Wal-Mart with him, and we’d look at stuff we wanted to buy and talk about it—wouldn’t it be nice to have a Cuisinart, wouldn’t it be nice to have a sixty-four-piece sprocket set. It’s a very romantic place, really.”

Together they lean against the railing and stare down into the Seine, which is gray and sluggish in the cold afternoon, and even then it is beautiful. The bare trees and the iron lampposts and the grates that cover the windows, everything that should not be beautiful is that thing exactly.

his posture, both hurt and menacing, that might have seemed romantic when he was young and still handsome. When he was young, it might have been enough that he was tough rather than smart, that he drank too much and went around in the winter with no jacket.

It was something that Parsifal figured out when he was halfway through his career as a magician: People don’t pay attention. They don’t know how. They can smell guilt or fear from the other side of the Dodgers’ stadium, but if you simply go about your business with authority no one can tell.

She wrote long lists of numbers on the back of an old envelope and worked the math out in her head. Nothing comforted Sabine like long division.

it is true, as Sylvia Plath wrote about her child in the womb, Right, like a well-done sum.A clean slate, with your own face on.