The Confabulist by Steven Galloway Read Free Book Online

out there, alive in some fashion. Sooner or later this hope would be unsustainable, and Osbourne would experience his son’s death once again.
    This was also, he knew, what Bess faced. They hadn’t lost a child; they had lost a child who had never existed. And there was nothing he could do about that. He could not replace it with anything, and he could not mitigate it.
    But he could offer escape. He could present to her a reality where she didn’t have to think about that. If their lives were full everywhere else, if he directed her attention away from their vanished child, then maybe her pain would lessen. He could do this. He was sure of it.
    He closed his eyes and saw the inside of a lock. Pins, plugs, cylinders, cams. He saw ropes and chains and irons, and he saw himself shrug them off as if they were nothing. He was Houdini, and he would mystify the world. He would fill his mother’s apron with gold. He would keep Bess safe.

MARTIN STRAUSS
    Present Day
    “A MAGICIAN IS AN ACTOR PLAYING A MAGICIAN .” J EAN- Eugène Robert-Houdin, Houdini’s namesake, wrote this. I’ve read hundreds of books about magicians over the years. I feel like I know them better than some of the actual people I interact with, but this quote is my favourite by far. At first I thought he was merely talking about showmanship or stage presence, but it’s a bigger idea. Unless the magician has actual supernatural powers, unless what he does alters the workings of the known universe, then all we witness is a man pretending to be a magician. Everything is an illusion.
    This is what has always captivated me about magic—the idea that we can create something that seems both real and impossible. That we could be two things at once without fully knowing which is material and which is a reflection.
    I want to get up from the bench, march back into the hospital and into Dr. Korsakoff’s office. I want to demand that he do something.He’s a doctor. Doctors are supposed to make you better, not tell you there’s nothing they can do and then invite you to have your picture taken with foliage. But as I’m about to stand, I’m once again distracted by the swishing of the automatic doors. The man who was there before, the one the door sensor didn’t recognize, has returned. This time the doors register his existence and swiftly part to allow his exit, and he walks with confidence and vigour into the world. What happened to him inside? He must have a good doctor.
    The fight goes out of me. Of course if there were anything Dr. Korsakoff could do, he would offer it. I lean back into the bench and look out at the street. It’s a warm day. The sun is strong, not so much that I could cook an egg on the sidewalk, which I have never tried, but enough to make the world seem cheerful and welcoming. The cars that drive by are clean and colourful, their drivers likely the sort of people who willingly let people pull in front of them and merge lanes with grace and optimism.
    If I’d known it would have led to this, I would never have gone to the doctor. I realize that wouldn’t have changed anything—I didn’t get sick because I went to the doctor, I only found out about it. Still, I wouldn’t have ended up on this bench, unsure of where to go or what to do.
    It started innocuously. I was trying to unlock the door to my car, but the key wasn’t working. No matter how much I tried it wouldn’t fit the lock. I looked around the parking lot of the grocery store, wondering if it was possible there was another green Chevrolet nearby.
    Then there was a woman standing behind me.
    “Can I help you?”
    “My key doesn’t seem to be working,” I said.
    “That’s because this is my car.”
    For some reason instead of protesting I stepped aside, and to my amazement she took a set of keys out of her purse and without resistance slid one into the lock and opened the door. She kept one eye on me as she slipped into the driver’s seat and started the car. I stood,