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“Elena, I feel bad for having disappointed Miss Pacheo. I know she is very ill. If it would make amends for her disappointment, I would like to offer her a gift.”
Elena’s eyebrows lifted in surprise.
“I would like to give Miss Pacheo the chance to visit the Sagrada Familia.”
They left the house as a group, Miss Pacheo at the front pushed by Elena, Azaki and Lund behind, following a path of flagstones away from the property and toward the barren, sandy landscape along the coast. The Pacific Ocean was roaring in the darkness off to their left, the air heavy with salt and spray.
“This will do,” Azaki said.
A vast plain of orange-brown sand extended away from them into the darkness, and the only light came from the spotlights around Miss Pacheo’s house a short distance behind them. Azaki bowed his head for a moment, one hand slipping into his pocket to hold the Book ofIllusion. He closed his eyes, and Lund knew that he would be imagining whatever he wanted to conjure, painting with his mind. He knew that if Azaki were to have withdrawn the book from his pocket, a dance of lights would have lit the night, the Book of Illusion surrounded by a haze of soft colors as Azaki worked. Miss Pacheo and Elena watched Azaki questioningly, but Lund turned his eyes to the barren plain, the sound of the ocean in his ears.
After a moment there was movement, a swirl of dust and sand in the darkness. And then the movement became more distinct, and the swirl became solid, and that solidity spread. Nothing became something and a vast building with spindle-like towers stretching high above them emerged suddenly from the darkness. The effect was of the huge building speeding toward them and then stopping suddenly with a shudder just beyond touching distance.
Miss Pacheo squeaked and threw her hands up to her face. Elena jerked backward, away from the illusion of the huge building. Azaki kept his eyes closed, and as he did so the surface of the cathedral became more detailed, as if a sculptor were chiseling away unwanted material from a masterpiece.
“The Sagrada Familia,” he said.
Elena gaped, her mouth wide, and she took a few steps to the side, to see that this building had three dimensions, that it was not just a picture.
Azaki was sweating slightly, Lund saw, as if this illusion was a strain for him.
“Perhaps some light?” Azaki suggested.
A moment later ribbons of color filled the air above the Sagrada Familia, like the northern lights but in many different hues, waving and blending together. It was colors like those that Lund had seen coming from the book, whenever Azaki used it.
Elena said something in a language that Lund didn’t understand, and then looked at the old woman. Miss Pacheo was pushing herself up, her eyes bright and shining, the lights in the sky painting colors on her face. She reached for Elena, flapping her hand urgently, and Elena hurried to her and supported her weak frame.
Together the two women stumbled into the doorway of the church.
Azaki kept his hand in his pocket as the women explored the illusion he was sustaining.
Lund stood with him, watching and waiting.
A short while later, in the car back to Antofagasta, Azaki was staring off into the darkness through the passenger-side window.
“Was that stupid?” he asked, even though he knew Lund wouldn’t answer. “I am just so tired of misleading people. Giving them hopes and dreams. It wouldn’t be so bad if we found something; then at least it’s worth it.”
Lund didn’t think Azaki had been stupid, but he didn’t say anything to that effect. He just kept driving. That was his job. To drive, to protect, to wait and see what was happening and then do what he was asked. This was his life with Azaki: traveling the world, staying in nice hotels, and waiting to see what Azaki wanted to do. It had been like this for almost nine months now, ever since Lund had rescued Azaki from a group of drunken men in a bar in San Francisco. Lund had been working as a bouncer and occasional barman, just the latest in a string of jobs he had taken over the last fifteen years, as he had moved in a long slow arc across the southern United States. He had been a laborer, a pool digger, a gardener, a bouncer frequently, a bodyguard once, and a barman more times than he could remember. It was simple, unchallenging work, jobs that were easy for someone of his size, build, and demeanor. For all of his adult life, ever since he had left the small town in northeastern Canada where he had grown up, he had stayed in one place for only as long as it took him to grow bored and restless, and then he would move on. He never wanted for much other than food and a bed and he was happy with his straightforward existence.
And then, in a bar in San Francisco, a drunken Azaki had won a game of poker, cleaning out three men who hadn’t planned on being out of pocket, particularly not to some “short, drunken Jap.” Lund had watched the exchange as it had warmed from friendly banter to unhappiness to outright violence, and then he had stepped in just before Azaki was about to be beaten into the ground. Lund had stood up to the men and they hadn’t liked it, so he had beaten them into the ground instead.When he’d finished with the men Azaki had asked him if he’d wanted a job.
“I’ve just lost my bodyguard,” he said. Then he barked a laugh. “Perfect time to get into a fight in a bar, I know. I’ll pay you well. You just need to travel with me and be my bodyguard.”
Lund had gone with the man, partly because he’d been bored with San Francisco, but mostly because when he had been watching the game of cards, he had seen Azaki look at his cards and then change them to a better hand, hearts changing to spades, spot cards to face cards. It had amazed Lund, and he had become interested in this man.
They had traveled together for almost two months, up the West Coast from San Francisco and then across to Chicago and south again, following the Mississippi. Azaki was easy company. He didn’t demand much and spoke only occasionally. After a while he had started to tell Lund about his life. He was a third-generation Japanese American and he was a disappointment to his family.
“They wanted me to be straight, married, and a doctor or an engineer. Such a cliché, right? Turns out they got a gay, single artist. I wanted to do something creative like my great-grandfather.”
Azaki’s great-grandfather had been a famous card magician in the mid-twentieth century. Azaki had researched all about him in his youth, and had studied magic himself, as well as art and music, while ostensibly studying medicine at college. It was during his research for rare books on magic that he had found the Book of Illusion. Lund knew this because Azaki had finally revealed the truth about the book during a night of protracted drinking in Memphis. Azaki revealed more when he was drunk.
“This is it,” he had said to Lund, showing him the small black book. It was covered in fine gold patterns, like the backs of expensive playing cards. “This is everything I am,” he had said sleepily. “It is a magic book, my friend Hjaelmer Lund. And there are lots of magic books out there. I know. I’ve seen them. I’ve had friends who had them, just like me.”
Azaki had seemed sad for a moment, and then his face had brightened. He had handed the book to Lund and told him to look at it. Lundhad flicked through the pages and seen that they were filled with line-drawn scribbles, sketches of people and places and items.
“Drawings,” Lund had said.
And Azaki had nodded. “It’s the illusions the book creates. When I make something appear, I can find a drawing of it in the book. Let me show you what it can do!” he had said. “All I need to do is hold the book and imagine what I want to see. I can make you see whatever I want.”
