The Charm

Come close. Closer. Lean over me. Put your ear to my mouth. I'm not strong; I think I'm dying; I can barely speak. Listen carefully. At the end of this street, at the corner, on the east side, there's a small white house with a green roof. A brick path leads to the door. Snapdragons are planted along the path. You can't miss it. There's a wreath on the door—it's old and blackened and looks like an emblem of death, but don't be put off by that, it's just an old Christmas wreath, hung there many years ago and never taken down. No meaning to that, just laziness, apathy, inertia. The door is unlocked. Go in. The house is unoccupied. Nobody home. You'll see a stairway leading to (concluded on page 249)The Charm(continued from page 139) the second floor. Climb the stairs and go into the master bedroom. That's the one with the yellow-and-green-striped wallpaper. You'll see a closer. Open it. Several suits are hanging there. Look for one made of charcoal-gray hop sacking, with a lining of red silk. The jacket has two inside pockets. Left one contains a small notebook bound in black imitation leather. Do not open it and read it. For your own sake I tell you this. Burn it. Burn it in the fireplace right there in the master bedroom. Then go back to the closet and look for what's called a jump suit, not on a hanger, just on a nail in the back, behind the suits, a blue terr cloth jump suit with a broken zipper. In one of the pockets, I don't remember which, you'll find a key ring with three keys on it. Take this and walk downstairs again, to the library. In the library you'll see a gray-metal file cabinet. One of the three keys on that ring unlocks it. Try them all until you find the right one. Open the bottom drawer of the file cabinet. Disregard the folders you'll see there. Not important. Pull the drawer out as far as you can and you'll see an envelope taped to the drawer just behind the last folder. Remove it. Open it. There's another key inside. Put it in your pocket. Don't bother to lock the file cabinet again. The key opens a locker in that big bus terminal about half a mile from here—you know the one. Go to the terminal—take a cab, we don't have much time—and open the locker and take out what you find there. A package wrapped in brown paper. Looks like a book. It is, in fact. Don't open the package there. Go to the men's room and lock yourself in one of the booths—make sure you have some small change. Tear off the wrapping and open the book. You'll discover that it's hollow; the pages have been cut away to form a small compartment containing a tobacco tin. Open the tin and you'll find another locker key. Put it in your pocket. Flush the toilet once or twice to allay suspicion.Trust no one. When you leave the booth, dump the wrapping and the book and the tobacco tin into the container provided for soiled paper towels. Now you must buy a round-trip ticket to Midburg. A short trip, forty-five miles. Possibly fifty. During the bus ride, don't talk to any of the other passengers. Best thing is to pretend to be asleep, but only pretend, because you are the guardian of the key and it must not fall into any hands but yours. Be alert at all times. When you arrive at the Midburg bus terminal, go directly to the lockers and try the key you found in the book until you find the right lock. In this second locker, you'll find another package just like the first, brown paper, yes, another book. Take it to the men's room. Same routine, booth, flush the toilet,etcetera. Inside this book you'll find a rather large, rusty,old-fashioned ornamental key. Put it in your pocket. Dispose of the book and wrapping as before. Take the next bus back here. Return to the house with the snapdragons. Go down to the wine cellar. The door is locked, but the big rusty key opens it. Enter the cellar and go directly to he wine bottles. Ignore all but the white wines, the French white wines. Lift each bottle until you find one that's a fake, empty. Pull out the cork. Shake out the little key you find there. It opens a large metal strongbox you'll find in the top drawer of the file cabinet in the study—that's why I told you to leave the files open. Lock the wine cellar again when you leave it and break the key. It's very old and rusty and you should have no difficulty. Throw the broken pieces into one of the file drawers and lock the cabinet again after taking out the strongbox. Open the strongbox with the little key from the wine bottle. Inside the strongbox you'll find a smaller strongbox with a combination lock. The combination is simply the six digits of my birthday, multiplied by seven. I was born on Christmas in the year of the Great Fire. Any almanac will give you that. When you open this second strongbox, you'll see an ordinary wooden cigar box. Inside it is a photograph of me as a youth in uniform, and a photograph of a young lady in a flowered hat, and a withered carnation, and a packet of old letters tied with a lavender ribbon, and a prayer book, and a rosary, and a comb, I think, and possibly a pill bottle containing an obsolete prescription surely gone stale and useless by now, and a small pistol that's lost its firing pin. Some of these objects belonged to my mother. All of them are without any value whatsoever—except for one. And that one is beyond price. It has been with me for more years than I can tell you. In clumsy hands, it invariably causes impotence, or blindness, or insanity, or agonizing death. Sometimes all four, in that order. But used correctly, it bestows upon its owner a multitude of blessings. A sweet breath. Perfect pitch. Unfailing virility. The power to bend a dime with two fingers. X-ray vision. Invisibility at will. The gift of healing by the laying on of hands. Raising the dead. Luck at all games of chance. Ability to complete the Times crossword puzzle in under ten minutes. Power to make any woman in the world do whatever you wish. Seeing in the dark. A dazzling smile. Pleasing personality. Photographic memory. Beautiful handwriting. The gift of gab. The faculty of flight. How to lose ten pounds in two weeks without dieting. How to make friends. How to get into heaven. Power to kill with a glance. Answers to puzzling questions: riddle of the Sphinx, what song the Sirens sang, how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, what happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object, if a tree falls on a desert island does it make any sound, is there life after death, what was Judy Garland's real name? Long-sought secret of perpetual motion. Short cuts to becoming a black belt in karate, grand master at chess, expert folder of paper airplanes, best-selling author. How to get an audience with the Pope. Repair your own television set. Turn base metals into gold. Conquer insomnia. Attain peace of mind. What happened to the lost tribes of Israel. Where to find the score of Peri's Dafne, lost for centuries, said to be the first opera. How to temper copper in the forgotten manner of the ancient Egyptians. Secret of eternal youth. Secret of immortality. Secret love rites of the Hollywood stars. How to get on the cover of Time. How to make a great cup of coffee. How to be two inches taller. How to read minds. How to foretell the future. How to swim. How to roller-skate. How to be happy. Bring the cigar box back here to me, with all its contents intact. I will then look at those items one by one until I find the one that bestows these gifts and powers, and I will bequeath it to you. Why not? It's of no use to me anymore. I'm dying. I know what you're thinking: Why am I dying if I possess the secret of immortality? Ah, why, indeed? Because I committed the sin of sins, for which no one can be forgiven. The sin without a name it's called, but it has a name no one dare utter, no one dare think. And so my magic charm has lost its power to help me. I am unworthy. Lean closer. I'm sinking fast. Can you hear me? Forget about all those keys and bus trips. Get a blowtorch, something to slice steel, go directly to the file cabinet and burn your way into the top drawer and into both strongboxes and directly to the cigar box and bring it quickly to me now. The reason you must bring it to me, the reason I can't simply tell you which of the objects in the cigar box is the magic charm, is that I don't remember. My memory is dying with my body. But if I see them, touch them, then my memory will come alive and I can give it to you and instruct you in its proper use and you will live a life of great merit and bliss. You will lead the world out of chaos and into a golden age. You will raise Eve from the dust and make her mother to a race of gods. You will, yourself, be a god. You will be God. But I must have those talismans in my fingers, because I don't remember whether it's the pistol, or the pill bottle, or the rosary, or the letters, or the lavender ribbon around the letters, or the