Sveta offered him a tight-lipped smile. ‘I am not against vibration.’ Her chin rose. ‘And I have no known allergies.’
He nodded, and rolled up his sleeves. ‘When we attempt this action on the stage, of course, you will not be balanced in the box between two chairs. I will have my whole magical cabinet at my disposal. It is just our misfortune we cannot use it today.’
‘That’s a relief. But why can’t we use the cabinet today? I think I would feel a lot more “in character” if I were in a magical cabinet rather than balanced on two chairs. It was a lot of fuss getting into this box. And it seems quite unprofessional, to me.’
Sveta did not feel in character, or professional, or magical, at all. In truth, she did not know what the character of a magician’s assistant should be, but she was fairly certain that it should be more glamorous than this. What was the point in her lipstick and her impending hair appointment if she were just to be packaged up in a musty apartment in the suburbs, laughed at by cats and repeatedly observed by an off-putting old man with a face like death? She chewed her lip.
‘Since you ask so directly … we cannot use the cabinet, dear Sveta, because Dasha, my queen cat, had a litter of kittens in it, and they cannot be moved for a few days yet. She would tear you to pieces if you tried. She is a very … protective mother.’
Sveta felt the blood drain from her face.
‘How unhygienic!’
‘It was a safe place for her, I suppose. I don’t worry about these things. We have bigger things to worry about, you and I.’ He flicked a switch and the room was bathed in an acid lemon light. ‘That’s better! Now I can see!’ He engaged the saw into the metal groove at the centre of the box and Sveta gritted her teeth. The light reflected off the blade and stabbed at her eyes as the saw’s angle sharpened, and it made her angry, like a blow to the head.
‘You’re not …’ she couldn’t get her words out.
Gor began with a few experimental swipes of the blade. It made a noise like hell. She persisted.
‘… you aren’t seriously expecting me—’
Metal on metal rang out across the apartment; sharp and piercing. She gulped in air.
‘… to engage in magical expositions … in a cabinet …’
The saw twanged and Gor muttered under his breath.
‘… in which a cat has had kittens?’ Sveta shouted, voice yodelling with the effort. The sawing stopped.
‘Oh yes, Sveta. I expect that: most definitely,’ he said softly. He examined his handiwork and the blade, and added, ‘But do not fret. I will sweep it out, and administer some disinfectant. All will be well.’
Sveta’s eyes bulged. He took up the saw and again worked its blade forwards and backwards, beads of sweat gathering on his forehead. It screeched and sang into Sveta’s ears.
This was not what she had envisaged when she answered the advert on the lamp post. There was no glamour here, only vibration and screeching, dark eyes and cats: on and on it went. She began to feel ill, stomach clenching, like that time she had rashly decided to take the ferry across the Kerch Straits to Crimea shortly after lunching on a basket of cherries and a litre of kvas. So long ago … She began to pant.
‘Be still, Sveta. Don’t wriggle.’
‘Oh, but … the noise! The vibrations … they are going … straight through my …’ Sveta’s face turned pale olive.
‘Sveta?’ He ceased sawing. ‘Is everything …?’ She groaned and waved her hands weakly in the holes at the side of the box. ‘No, not hands at the moment, Sveta, move your feet: it’s your feet everyone will be interested in.’
She groaned and made vague twitching movements with her big toes.
‘Yes, that’s it! Waggle away! Keep it going. Is everything else … normal?’ His tone suggested concern, but his face remained unchanged, intent on the saw.
‘Ugh … yes – no … I don’t know!’ She gritted her teeth and smiled, her expression manic. ‘Am I cut in half yet? That’s the main thing!’ Colour, of a sort, was returning to her cheeks.
‘Erm, more or less. You require quite a good deal of sawing.’
She did not know whether this was a compliment or not. ‘I see.’
‘I think that will suffice for the moment.’ He drew out his handkerchief with a slightly trembling hand and mopped his brow.
‘Oh! That’s all? But you haven’t drawn the two halves apart.’
‘No. To be frank, I don’t think we have sufficient stability to draw the two halves apart. And, again to be frank, I am not sure I have the strength. It’s been a long time since … Well, would you be distraught if, on this occasion, we just assume that you have been bisected? After all, there is no audience here to please, apart from Pericles.’
Gor reached up a hand to fondle the cat and it puffed into his palm, a translucent globule of spit rolling from its open jaw onto the parquet below in an expression of feline ecstasy. Sveta shuddered.
She was disappointed by the whole experience, and felt an odd urge to cry. She had been cut in half, and it had been most unpleasant, but he couldn’t even be bothered to draw the two halves apart! This mysterious magician, this person about whom she had heard so much gossip and legend, was turning out to be a disappointment. His apartment was clogged with books and cats and pianos, his demeanour was morose, and as for the rumours of wealth and fortune and gold in the cistern: well, frayed shirt collars and darned trousers told their own story. She found no evidence of treasure, of any sort.
‘Very well, Mister Papasyan,’ she said in clipped tones. ‘If that is it for today, could you release me? I really have to be going – I have other appointments.’ The old man nodded and bent to undo the clasps, stopping short as a sharp rap rang out on the apartment door.
‘What now?’
‘It was the door,’ Sveta explained, still in clipped tones.
‘Yes, I know, I—’ Gor began, but thought better of completing the sentence. The woman seemed displeased. ‘Bear with me, Sveta. I should see who it is. I won’t be a moment.’
‘But—’ she rattled slightly in her box, and then, as it rocked on the chairs beneath it, realised stillness was the better option. Gor patted down his hair and headed for the front door.
He thrust an eye to the spy hole before opening up, and saw no one. But it had definitely been a knock, and definitely his door. He stepped back, released the safety chain and pulled the door open. The empty hallway lay before him, dark and silent. He peered left and right, sniffed the air, scratched his head and shrugged. There was no one. He was about to shut the door when a scrap of something on the floor caught his eye, and he looked down. There, on his doorstep, lay a huddle of brilliant white and damson red. He touched the object with his foot, stirring it slightly to better make out what it was. His breath caught and, ignoring the disgruntled rattling coming from the living room, he bent to his haunches for a closer look. Eventually, he realised: before him lay the body of a white rabbit, an oozing straggle of tendons marking the place where its head had once been.
A door slammed along the corridor and he shot to his feet, trying to make out who was there. Had it been the door to the staircase? He squinted into the gloom, but saw no one. He held his breath as he listened to the stillness: the patter of rain on the windows, occasional notes from his neighbour’s TV. The headless rabbit made no sound. Gor gazed down on it and rubbed his chin.
‘Help!’
Sveta’s cry forced him back to movement.
‘One moment!’ he called, and stooped to gather the limp body from the doorstep, noting that it was still softly warm. Its nose must have