The Fall of the Year (23 page)

At exactly 7:30, with no fanfare at all, Mr. Mentality walked onto the stage and approached the footlights. While the Princess wheeled out the portable blackboard, he surveyed the audience nearsightedly. Tonight the mind reader looked more wan and jaded than ever. His yellow eyes were bloodshot. His frock coat was tattered and threadbare. His shiny, bottle-green top hat sat on his head at a cockeyed slant. A mossy gray fuzz had sprouted on his jaw, and his hair stuck out from under his hat in all directions. The Princess, in a little girl's pink party dress, seemed to have gained another ten pounds overnight. Mr. Mentality's carpetbag, which she placed on the card table, had a new rent in one end, through which a flat, reptilian head flicked out and then back in again.

There was something vaguely malignant in the air of the old hall tonight. There was no bantering from the gallery, only a muttering audible between blasts of the wind. The town seemed outraged that the old showman had the sheer gall to return the night after he'd been cheated. It was as if, having mistreated him, the Common was now determined to despise him as well. A low growl spread through the packed rows of seats. There was no doubt in my mind that the audience of semidisguised villagers could easily become a mob. Sheriff White stood near the dimly lighted exit door just left of the stage. But what could he do by himself?

“Mr. Mentality will now unlock the intimate secrets of Kingdom Common,” the Princess announced. “I'll circulate through the audience and take your written questions. Please ask anything you wish.”

The glass fishbowl that had contained Louvia's rose quartz gazing stone the night before appeared in the Princess's hand. She descended from the stage, and as she started up the center aisle the magic bowl floated down the first row of seats and up the second. Members of the audience scribbled questions on the backs of old check stubs, sales slips, whatever they could find. It did not appear that the bowl was being passed from hand to hand; it levitated right past Louvia and me of its own accord. The Princess continued to keep pace as the bowl worked its way back through the hall. When she reached the commission-sales gang, Harlan Kittredge reached out to grab her breast. Writhing in his hand instead was a short black viper, which he flung away with a shout, whereupon the serpent turned into a green and crimson butterfly, fluttered up to Mr. Mentality, and landed on his hat, its six-inch swallowtails iridescent in the footlights.

As the Princess followed the progress of the bowl up to the balcony, Mr. Mentality released more butterflies from his carpetbag. Suddenly Hook LaMott stood up and heaved a dead cat onto the stage. But when Mr. Mentality nudged it with his toe, it sprang up, arched its back, gave a great yowl, and leaped into his arms, where it transformed itself into something inert. He gave it a puzzled look, then smiled. “I believe this belongs to you, Mr. Barrows,” he said, and sailed the dark, furry object out over the audience. As all eyes followed, it landed on Zack Barrows's gleaming bald dome—the old prosecutor's hairpiece. But even as the hall filled with laughter, the Princess withdrew from the bowl, in rapid succession, Bumper Stevens's truss, Julia Hefner's voluminous girdle, and Sunday School Superintendent Lily Broom's pointed falsies—all of which the prestidigitator nonchalantly restored to their rightful owners.

From the balcony a tomato came flying, striking Mr. Mentality just above the breast pocket of his frock coat, where it instantly turned into a scarlet Floribunda rose. A lone brown egg hit the card table beside the glass bowl. Instead of splattering, it opened slowly and a yellow chick emerged, flew to the blackboard, picked up a stick of red chalk in its tiny claw, then vanished while the chalk, as if held by an invisible hand, wrote on the slate in fiery letters large enough to be read from the rear of the hall:

 

 

Another sleight-of-hand trick? The Princess was standing near the blackboard; no doubt she was manipulating the chalk, the way she had somehow caused the glass fishbowl to float through the audience.

The storm roared louder. Inside the drafty hall, the stage curtains swayed to and fro. The summery sky above the painted village at the rear of the stage turned a steely gray; the painted elms on the common seemed to stir in the wind.

The Princess selected a slip of paper from the goldfish bowl and read it out. “Topic: Child geniuses and savants. Question: Who persecuted Foster Boy Dufresne?”

Instantly a terrific booming voice that seemed to emanate from the turbulent sky on the backdrop filled the hall. “THE ENTIRE VILLAGE OF KINGDOM COMMON, SAVE ONLY A FEW.”

The Princess plucked out another slip. “Who tried to help him?”

“NO ONE!” thundered the voice, which, to my horror, did not resemble that of Mr. Moriarity Mentality or of any other living being.

The footlights flickered. Outside the windows a bolt of lightning, more red than yellow, raced across the sky. At the same instant a flash of lurid red light flared above the painted village on the tableau.

Mr. Moriarity looked at the Princess, who selected another slip from the bowl and read: “Topic: Biblical scholarship. Question: What did the adult Bible study class tell Foster Boy?”

“ANSWER,” boomed the terrifying voice. “NEVER TO DARKEN THEIR DOORWAY AGAIN.”

“Topic,” said the Princess. “An examination of the personal conduct of the members of the Bible group. Question: Where was Julia Hefner last Thursday evening when Mrs. Zachariah Barrows was calling overnight on her daughter in Burlington?”

“ANSWER: FROLICKING WITH OLD ZACK IN THE BARROWS'S FEATHERBED, NAKED AS TWO JAYBIRDS.”

A gasp of laughter went up from the audience. Zack struggled to his feet. “See here. Objection. That material is ir—”

“Hush, you old fool,” Julia hissed, yanking him back down into his seat.

On stage the Petrograd Princess had already selected another slip of paper. “Question: Who embezzled five hundred and twenty-three dollars from the Church Fair fund fifteen years ago?”

“DEACON ROY QUINN,” came the reply, echoing through the hall like a voice of judgment.

“Question: How does Mrs. Twyla Quinn amuse herself every third Saturday night of the month when the Deacon attends his Masonic Lodge meeting?”

“ANSWER: SHE TAKES THE 6:45 LOCAL TO MEMPHREMAGOG AND DRESSES UP IN MEN'S CLOTHING WITH MRS. EVELYN SIMON.”

“Question: Who traveled to Montreal last leap-year day to have an abortion?”

“SUNDAY SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENT LILY BROOM,” came the reply.

“Who was the proud father?”

“THE REVEREND MR. MILES JOHNSTONE,” rumbled the great voice of doom.

I was sure that the audience would begin to stampede from the hall or perhaps rise up in a body and charge the mind reader and the Princess. Astonishingly, everyone remained seated. Perhaps the questions and answers were coming so fast that we were stunned into immobility. Or perhaps we were willing to run the risk of hearing our own most shameful secrets unveiled in order to learn those of our neighbors. Or perhaps we simply couldn't bear the thought of not knowing what was said about us if we left. Whatever the reasons, we sat as though bewitched and listened greedily to Mr. Mentality's revelations, which, as the tempest outside the windows gathered force, became stranger still—more penetrating and savage and enunciated in that merciless resounding voice that now seemed to emanate from the wild stormy sky on the undulating backdrop.

“What does the Reverend Johnstone long for most?”

“HIS WIFE'S DEMISE.”

“And Choirmistress Hefner?”

“TO COUPLE WITH AUCTIONEER STEVENS'S PRIZE BULL, SAMSON.”

At this, the painted sky in the tableau turned into a roiling sea of flames. Simultaneously, both the Princess and Moriarity Mentality seemed to undergo a metamorphosis of their own. Before everyone's eyes the Princess became slimmer and younger. Her stained dress transformed into a shimmering evening gown. Her hair fell over her slender bare shoulders in a golden cascade. On her feet was a pair of high-heeled silver shoes. As for the mind reader, his shabby frock coat had been replaced by a brand-new cloak with a crimson satin lining. His suit fit like a glove, his frilled shirt front gleamed like fresh mountain snow. The nap of his tall green top hat shone in the spotlight. The slicked-back hair on the sides of his head glistened like black ice. And, like the imposing Svengali on his posters, he now sported a commanding dark goatee that enhanced his Mephistophelean presence.

“QUESTION,” thundered the voice from the burning sky. “WHERE DID ZACK BARROWS RECEIVE HIS LAW DEGREE?”

“NOWHERE,” boomed the same voice of brass. “IT'S AS FALSIFIED AS HIS HAIR.”

Clutching his chest, the ancient prosecutor sank back in his seat. Outside, the wind screamed like the voices of the damned. The hall shook with its force. Fire shot across the wildly swaying backdrop. On the blackboard beside the Princess the invisible hand was writing again:

 

 

The illusionist seemed to have grown a foot taller. He looked nothing at all like the confused little man who'd gotten off the train the day before. In an amazingly loud voice he roared, “Who clapped his elderly father in the state lunatic asylum and made over ten thousand dollars from the sale of the old man's house into his own name?”

“SHERIFF MASON WHITE,” replied the even louder answer from the burning sky.

From the ceiling of the hall came a chorus of guttural laughter. Etched in flames, the words

 

 

manifested themselves on the blackboard.

“Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you die,” translated Sal the Berry Picker from the back of the hall, to the astonishment of no one more than herself.

There was more bestial laughter, over which Sal's shrill, cracked voice shouted, “Who drove Dr. Sam Rong out of town?”

Several of the town fathers sprang to their feet. “We churchmen. God-fearing gentlemen all!”

One by one, the long-buried secrets of the village were uttered by the demonic voice, sometimes issuing from Mr. Mentality, sometimes from the fiery sky: secrets heretofore disclosed only in deathbed confessions, whispered into the darkness by couples clinging to each other late at night, or inscribed in coded diaries meant for the author's eyes alone.

Louvia jumped to her feet. “Just what I've been telling them all for years.”

But the mind reader pointed at her, and a rivulet of yellow sparks sprang from his fingertip to her breast, driving her back down into her seat like a stunning electrical shock. “BE WARNED, FORTUNETELLER,” intoned the encompassing voice. “THE SECRET THAT YOU AND YOUR DAUGHTER HAVE CHERISHED SO LONG WILL BE DIVULGED BEFORE THIS YEAR IS OUT. ITS REVELATION, WHETHER RUINOUS OR OTHERWISE, RESTS IN YOUR HANDS ALONE.”

Some of the villagers whose transgressions had not yet been disclosed began to clamor, “Me, me. Tell mine!”

At the height of the hysteria, the footlights came on again. The card table and blackboard disappeared. So did the Princess herself, leaving only a filmy pink haze. In the place of the towering satanic figure that had dominated the stage stood the aging Moriarity Mentality in his worn suit and scuffed shoes, with that rather aggrieved and slighted bemused expression on his sunken face. Outside the windows, the tempest seemed to have let up.