“I could,” answered Adelaide, “but the blindfold is window dressing, a put-on for show. You, you don’t want show. You want truth.”
“Yes.”
It was like the two of them were the only people in the world and the rest of us didn’t matter. The entire audience was dead silent. I huddled in the wings next to the trembling, nervous Scarlett, who was waiting for her cue with the other Hindoo dancing girls, and watched. I was afraid. It felt like the bullet catch all over again. A burning threat, an inescapable danger. For a moment, I wondered if this was a new part of the act, something she’d added without telling any of us. But why would she? And if the man was an actor, he was extremely convincing. His body fairly vibrated with fury. It was hard to watch but impossible to look away.
Adelaide said, “So get on with it. You’ve brought me a question.”
“Yes.”
“The answer matters to you. It matters to you more than anything ever has.”
“Yes, of course!” the man said, sounding impatient. “Why would I ask you otherwise? I thought you said you weren’t going to give me the empty show!”
“I just want you to be sure. That you want a true answer, not just one that will make you happy.”
“Yes!” he shouted.
“Spirits, hear my call!” she shouted back more loudly. “Answer this man’s question, with absolute truth, for he insists on the absolute.”
The man said, “Forget the mumbo jumbo! Tell me now!”
Adelaide walked forward to the very edge of the stage, stared down at the man, and said, “Very well. No.”
“No?”
“The woman you love,” said Adelaide. “She doesn’t love you.”
I could hear Scarlett take in her breath. This wasn’t how things were supposed to go. I’d seen the second sight act over and over, and I knew the news was always, always good. If she couldn’t find something nice to say, Adelaide would either shake her head and complain that the spirits wouldn’t come clear tonight or she would make some vague pronouncement about a journey, one that shouldn’t be undertaken without purpose. It had never happened like this.
The man’s voice sounded strangled as he said, improbably, “Thank you.”
Adelaide raised both arms, turned like a whirlwind, and said, “The spirits are with us tonight! Shall we see what else they have in store?” It was the cue for the Hindoo dancing girls, and they all swirled out of the wings to the sound of a high piping flute, spinning almost too fast to follow.
Adelaide herself exited the stage on our side, and I didn’t see until then how deathly pale she was. But there was no time to talk. She turned her back on me and shrugged into the gown Jeannie held out for her, checking the hidden pockets for props, making sure everything was in place. Then she was dressed and out onstage again, weaving in and among the dancing girls.
Jeannie and I looked at each other, worried.
“Is it real?” I asked her.
She said, “I don’t know. I honestly don’t.”
That night was a quiet one, so quiet that when the sound of a brandy glass breaking against the side of Madame’s railcar came much later, it rang out almost like a gunshot. None of us slept well.
***
Two days later at breakfast, I was tearing a roll in half and wishing for butter when the mostly recovered Miranda slid carefully onto the bench beside me. She set a newspaper on the table.
“Is this him?” she asked without preamble.
“Who?”
She pointed, and I picked up the paper. The front page headline screamed: Native Son Slays Fiancée, Self in Tragic Murder-Suicide. There were two pictures. The woman was unfamiliar. She had a heart-shaped face and was pretty in the way that all rich girls are pretty, smooth-skinned and unmemorable. The man, on the other hand, I recognized instantly. His receding hairline, his remaining brown hair woolly and uncombed.
It was the man who’d asked the question in Hartford and gotten his answer.
I opened my mouth, but before I could speak, the paper bowed in the middle and crumpled, torn from my hands. I looked up to see who’d done it. The person holding the remains of the crumpled paper was Adelaide.
“Bad luck to read bad news,” she said. “I’ll take this.”
I knew I should remain silent, but I was still in shock. I’d never known anyone who died. I didn’t really know this man—I had only ever seen him the one time—but I felt responsible for him somehow. I wondered if Adelaide felt the same way. She’d told him the woman he loved didn’t love him. She’d said it flat out. It seemed he’d taken action, in the most terrible way.
“What happened?” I asked her.
I didn’t expect an answer, but she gave me one, of sorts.
“Too much truth is dangerous,” said Adelaide. “For all of us.”