Escape Artist

candle-lighted dance floor; and the theme of Springtime on the Fox River brought to mind dances of Cleopatra on her barge on the Nile, with garlands of lilac and forsythia strewn on papier-mache columns.” Sam Ryan, peeved, had edited it down to a serviceable line: “The theme of this year’s Annual Fireman’s Ball was Springtime on the Fox River. Winner of the dance contest was…” He warned me: I was not Frances Hodgson Burnett gushing out Little Lord Fauntleroy; perhaps I should read Rebecca Harding Davis’ grim reportage on life in the coal mines. As I blithely told Sam, facts bored me. They were, paraphrasing Cervantes, the enemy of truth.

“Maybe you should write fiction,” he countered.

I was telling Esther about Sam Ryan’s comment as we strolled down College. We dawdled in front of shop windows. I didn’t want to return to the city room, so I’d implored Esther to walk with me. In front of the Lyceum, I pointed at the old building. “I don’t want to write one more piece on the Elks Club fund-raiser,” I whined. “I want to be Juliet on that stage.”

Esther smiled. She’d heard it all before, of course. “Edna, Edna.”

“Theater is in my blood, Esther.”

She yawned. We’d played this scene many times in front of the Lyceum. Edna the tragedienne? Edna the comedienne? Camille? Portia? Lady Macbeth? Edna ingloriously tied to the tracks as a locomotive lumbered toward her. But this time Esther seemed to have forgotten her lines, which annoyed me. This was a play we knew by heart.

Suddenly I was overcome with the image of the hapless Frana proclaiming herself the belle of Broadway.

Theo, Houdini’s brother, walked out the front door, sat down on a bench in front of the theater, and lit a cigar. I knew he’d been visiting friends in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and was just back in town.

“Is Mr. Houdini at the theater?” I called.

Theo nodded. “Yes, but…”

“Could I say hello? I’m Edna Ferber, a reporter.”

Theo smiled. “Oh, I read your interview. Quite…romantic.”

That cheered me. “Well, I did my best.” But noting the sardonic tone of his voice, I wondered if he was really complimenting me.

“My brother is rehearsing. I don’t know if…”

Harry Houdini was suddenly standing in the doorway, waving to me.

“Come in,” he called to us. “Come visit. I’m rehearsing.”

Meekly, we followed the brothers into the quiet theater. Onstage behind a dropped curtain, Houdini had set up some new paraphernalia. “I’m experimenting with both a straightjacket and this farm harness Theo located. It seems designed to limit the movement of frisky animals.” He tapped his foot nervously. “The straightjacket I got from a madhouse in New York. Bedlam and me. I’m going to escape from the dangerous combination of a straightjacket reinforced with this iron harness. I’m escaping from the inescapable.” He glanced from me to Esther. “Do you want to watch?”

Theo helped his brother into the elaborate contraptions, tightening the cords, binding the clasps, buckling the straps. The iron brace looked sinister and deadly. I imagined some roving heifer locked into panicked immobility. While Houdini maneuvered his body into the gear, he kept up a stream of chatter, enjoying himself, showing off. He danced around, the class clown in front of giggly girls. As we watched, wide-eyed and a little nervous, Houdini shrugged and strained and fretted and sweated-and seemed unable to extricate himself. He was having trouble.

Finally he mumbled, “This is new for me. I gotta devise a way out.” Unmoving, he mulled it over, his broad shoulders shifting under the restraint, his torso heaving, the tendons in his neck swelling. No progress. Theo waited nearby, tapping his foot. Houdini toppled onto the stage, rolled over on his side, huffing and puffing. Sweat poured off his face.

I couldn’t resist. “You seem to be concentrating, sir, but you don’t seem to be using your imagination.”

Theo glowered. Esther threw me a look that said-Have you gone mad? Gustave Timm had walked onto the stage, observing Houdini’s machinations, and my comment made him shake his head. But Houdini burst out laughing, a high infectious cackle, his body rolling back and forth in the ungainly jacket and irons. Tears streamed down his cheeks.

“You’re too much, Miss Ferber,” he stammered. Then, to Theo, “Get me out of this.” Quickly, his brother released him and Houdini shook out his arms, exercised his stiff fingers, and rotated his beet-red neck. He pushed the contraption aside, and he smiled sheepishly. “I won’t get into a bind unless I know my way out. This one’s a puzzle. A few wrinkles.” He sized up the contraption. “This will be a sensation on stage. The straitjacket is no problem. I already do that.” He winked at me. “Assuming I use my imagination.”

“I’m sorry.” Though I wasn’t.

“You said what you were supposed to say.” He saluted me. “Like my wife Bess, you hurl the most cutting barbs when I’m trussed and chained.”

I started to say something, but Esther, who’d been quiet all along, suddenly spoke. “You know, sir, Edna’s dream is to become a famous actress. Like Bernhardt. She wants to perform on a stage like this.”

Said, the line seemed inappropriate, especially in the old, creaky theater and on that storied stage. Outside of my family, she alone knew my precious desire. Why would she say that now? Houdini raised his eyebrows as though Esther were joking; and Gustave Timm looked perplexed. Embarrassed, I didn’t know where to turn.

“Really?” Gustave Timm said. “I’m surprised. I picture you as a writer.”

Feebly, I sputtered, “It’s been my dream.” I breathed in. “Well, I love the theater. The Ferber family has survived dismal towns because there was always a theater nearby.”

“I know what you mean.” Gustave understood that. “Your father and I have had wonderful talks about it. He remembers seeing Edwin Booth in Hamlet, in fact. Even Nat Goodwin in A Gilded Fool. I find that thrilling.”

“So why is it surprising that I want to be an actress?” I avoided eye contact with Houdini.

Gustave Timm acted flustered. “I meant no harm, Miss Ferber. Of course, it’s just that given my profession”-he waved his hands around the room-“I hear a lot of such sentiment from many young men and women. People think of the glamour and the…the…” He looked away.

I kept still.

“Miss Ferber has dramatic flair,” Houdini jumped in.

“I find it strange myself,” Esther added out of the blue, and everyone looked at her.

“How so?” Houdini asked.

Esther’s face got red. “To be anything. Edna is a reporter. I just want to be a good wife. A mother to lots of children. I…I don’t know…” Her voice trailed off. It seemed a bizarre statement, and everyone waited for her to continue. She looked to me for help, but I was silent.

The men were staring at Esther, and I knew what they saw: the absolutely beautiful young girl with those dark ebony eyes and that alabaster skin set against that dark upswept black curls. Here was the stunning Rebecca of Sir Walter Scott’s imagination. And me: here, too.

Not happy, I was.

Theo flattered Esther. “You, my dear, should be an actress. Your beauty…Why your face is positively luminous.”

“You certainly are…” Gustave agreed, but he stopped, flushed, staring into my stony face. “Oh, I don’t mean, Miss Ferber, that you shouldn’t be…”

I drew in my cheeks. “I gather only beauty can tread the boards?”

I glanced at Theo, then at Gustave.

“I didn’t mean that.” Gustave nervously looked over my shoulder.

“And yet that’s what you just said.”

“I’m sorry,” Theo added. “I was just trying to be complimentary to your friend. I…”

“But not to everyone.” I was furious.

Houdini interrupted, laughing. “Now, now, Miss Ferber. Frankly I can see you as a hellfire Kate in The Taming of the Shrew. And I mean that as a good thing.”

Well, I’d made everyone uncomfortable. So be it. It wouldn’t be the last time I’d disturb the peace.