The Manual of Darkness by Enrique de Hériz Read Free Book Online Page A

that had its own workshop, and one of the oldest in Europe. Now, he was faced with a dilemma: the more he despised the superficial flippancy of the magicians who preened for the cameras and pranced like third-rate dancers, the more affluent the customers who trooped into his shop. Some moron had only to perform the latest flashy trick on-screen and suddenlychildren and their parents came rushing to buy the ingenious mechanical gizmo so they could do it themselves. At the same time, and in equal measure, demand for professional supplies increased: sophisticated trunks for escape artists, floating tables for levitation tricks, cages with delicate mechanisms which could be folded down to a few millimetres wide, making it look as though they had disappeared. Galván made these articles in the workshop at the back of the shop, and those who criticised him for contributing to the success of the sort of magic he professed to despise were not wrong. However, it is only fair to consider the options that were available to him: he had long since realised, in spite of his vast theoretical knowledge and considerable dexterity, that he was not born to be a magician. At least not a magician of the stature he required. He lacked the good looks, the bearing, a lightness of gesture, a gravitas, things that were difficult to explain and impossible to learn. On the other hand, as a craftsman he considered himself the equal of anyone and, above all, he knew that, in Barcelona at least, there was no one to compare to him as a teacher. To use his own expression, he could be the world’s best typist, but he would never be a pianist. This was why, in the window of his shop, he still had the little handwritten card, yellow with age, offering to give magic lessons, though by now he did not need the extra money such lessons brought in.
    He still had not given up hope of finding a student capable of learning from him the choicest pieces in the history of magic and taking them a step farther, perhaps in some direction that not even he could foresee. A new Houdini, say, though Galván would have despised the comparison and said – as he quickly told Víctor – that Houdini was nothing more than an arrogant bumpkin, feared rather than respected by his contemporaries. Perhaps Peter Grouse was a better example, though history had been unkind to him, and no one now remembered his successes. Let us mention no names, let us just say that he was looking for someone first-class. Could that be Víctor Losa? Had their first lesson been enough for him to sense such greatness in the boy? And if so, what had he meant by his sigh, the sadness, the ambiguity of his prediction?
    A number of details counterbalanced these doubts, beginning with Víctor’s bearing, the way he moved, his back straight, eyesfront, hands open. The glint in his eyes as he picked up the deck of cards. The fact that he lacked the irritating habit of smiling more than necessary. Galván had spent his life telling his students: ‘You’re performing magic, not telling jokes.’ There were other things, too, which only someone of his experience could appreciate, like the fact that Víctor never looked at his hands while performing – a common vice among beginners and one that was almost impossible to correct. The voice was important: the boy had the necessary confidence and roundness of tone, although Galván would have to teach him how to project his voice in large theatres. In spite of the natural diffidence of someone picking up a deck of cards for the first time, Víctor did not need to polish his style, the elegant disdain with which he performed, as though the magic
had
to happen, with or without his intervention.
    The sigh, then, was a measure of the weight of his responsibility. To teach Víctor everything that Galván knew and to urge him to surpass his master was comparable to setting him on a rollercoaster with no firm ground waiting for him below, only an abyss, an endless cycle, a