“Why, this is getting out of hand!” she interrupted. Harry would let him, too, she thought; his greatest weakness had always been his pride. But she was the only one who knew of the lingering delicacy of his kidney, and she didn’t want to see his health in jeopardy.
But before she could stop him, Harry spoke. “Well, all right,” she heard him say, and Gordon, in a flash, bent over him and pounded him with five forceful blows to the stomach. Harry grunted in pain and doubled over on the couch.
Bess screamed. She felt herself falling into a momentary darkness, a kind of white blindness. When she regained her vision, Jack Price was grabbing Gordon by the shoulders and shaking him. “Are you mad?” he yelled.
“He said I could,” Gordon protested, pulling away angrily.
Bess rushed to Harry, but he sat up, with some difficulty, and held up his hand to stop her. “That will do,” he muttered. He turned to Sam, who was staring at him, stricken. “Would you sign and date your drawing for me before you go?”
Sam did and handed it to him. Harry studied it, keeping one hand on his stomach. “You make me look a little tired in this picture. The truth is, I don’t feel so well.”
“Get them out of here!” Bess cried. Jack escorted an indignant Gordon and a flabbergasted Sam to the door, then came back to the couch and put his hand on Harry’s shoulder. “Are you all right?”
Harry smiled wryly. “Fine, fine. Just wasn’t quite prepared for it, that’s all. It’s only a muscle.” He turned back to his pile of mail and began sorting through the letters.
Through the fog of illness, Bess saw Harry’s reflection in the mirror over the mantel, and it seemed to her, for the briefest moment, to flicker and disappear. She turned around, in alarm, but her husband was still sitting there, jaw set, slicing an envelope with the hotel’s silver letter opener. Still, she could not rid herself of the feeling that the black magic she had been fearing since their wedding day would befall them after all.
A few days earlier, driving past Central Park on their way to the train station, where they were to catch the 6:00 P.M. train to Montreal, Harry had done something unusual. Seven blocks from their home, he had tapped the shoulder of the taxicab driver and asked him to go back.
“Go back where?” the man had asked.
“Go back to the house.”
“Why?” Bess had asked, alarmed. “Did you forget something?”
“Please don’t ask questions. Just turn around and go back.”
Rain was coming down in torrents by the time they reached 113th Street; Bess could barely make out the street signs. When the driver slowed, Harry jumped out of the car and stood under the open sky, looking up at the house, as if it was the last time he would see it.
“Harry, your coat!” Bess cried. “You’ll get soaked!”
But he didn’t seem to hear. He stood on the sidewalk for a moment and then slowly turned and got back in the car.
“You’re sopping wet now!” Bess threw his coat over his shoulders and tried to pat him dry. “Why didn’t you go inside?”
Harry shook his head. “I thought I forgot something, but I didn’t after all.”
After the blow to Harry’s stomach, they made their train to Detroit from Montreal, but by the time the curtain went up on Harry’s next show, his temperature had soared to 102. During one phase of the first act, he was to pull a thousand yards of silk ribbon from a glass bowl on a table. But he was so weak that he could not finish. He beckoned to Jim Collins to come out and complete the trick. Standing by Jim’s side on the open stage, he glanced over at Bess, sitting in the wings. Spread across his face was the saddest expression of humiliation she had ever seen. After the second act she heard him say to the stagehand, “Drop the curtains, I can’t go any further.” When the curtain descended, he collapsed in her arms.
Harry was admitted into Grace Hospital that evening. Bess wired Dr. Stone about Harry’s condition and asked what to do. He wired back and told her to agree to an operation, and asked if she wanted him to come from New York. She thought about it but declined; she didn’t want Harry to think his condition was too serious.
As he was being wheeled into the operating room, Harry tried to stand up and walk. He was almost incoherent, and Bess had to coax him back onto the gurney. As he lay there, staring vacantly at the ceiling, Bess collapsed. Jim Collins, who had not left their side since the theater, rushed to her. “Get someone over here!” he cried. He put his hand on her forehead. “Jesus, she’s got a fever of her own.”
Harry, in his own state of delirium, did not seem aware that she had fallen. “Say, I could still lick the two of you,” she heard him say to the orderlies.
When she awoke, Stella was by her bedside. “Are you really awake now?” she asked. “You’ve been waking up and going back under for days.”
“What day is it?” Bess asked groggily. She had a pounding headache. “How did you get here?”