Wizard of Washington Square Read online

  David put his hand out along the wall to guide himself. The peculiar angle and turning left all the time were making him slightly dizzy. He was right-handed and so he was feeling very off-balance. The wall was cold and slightly damp. It was covered with patches of something crinkly and velvet to the touch.

  “Moss?” thought David, and at that moment Leilah leaned forward, tugged at his shirttail, and hissed to him. David turned his head slightly, trying to keep the Wizard’s swiftly moving figure in sight.

  “How can there be moss inside Washington Square Arch?” she whispered.

  David realized that Leilah had been leaning against the wall too. It made him feel better. So he answered in a voice that sounded braver than he actually felt. “I think” he said, “that we are no longer under the Arch. Did you notice, we’ve stopped going down. It’s mostly flat now.”

  “No,” Leilah admitted. “I guess it happened too slowly.”

  “Well, it is flat now,” said David. “I think we’re under the fountain. Way under. And that might account for the dampness and the moss.”

  He had no sooner said that when they came around a final turn. The Wizard was nowhere in sight. The tunnel suddenly widened out and where it widened there were three different roads, each marked with a lantern. There was a sign on each of the branches. On the right the sign said TO THE DRAGONRY. On the left was TO THE IRT. And in the middle was a sign that said TO THE WARREN. There was also a sign pointing back the way they had come that read simply WORLD.

  “I’d rather not go to the dragonry,” said Leilah. “We might be eaten.”

  “Well, the warren sounds like a place to get lost in,” said David. “Guess we’ll have to go to the irt, though it does sound ferocious.”

  “Silly!” said Leilah with a giggle. “That’s a subway. The I-R-T.” She pronounced each letter separately. “It stands for Interboro Rapid Transit.”

  “Well, how was I to know?” said David. “I’ve only lived here a week. To the warren, then,” he said. “I’d rather get lost than eaten.”

  The Wizard’s Warren

  D. DOG GAVE THREE short staccato barks and ran through David’s legs. He raced down the middle tunnel, the one marked to the warren. Just as he reached what must have been the end, a door opened and David and Leilah saw light. Bright yellow light.

  They ran quickly after D. Dog and reached the open door together. They peered in.

  “Well, and what took you so long?” the Wizard asked.

  David and Leilah stood at the entrance with their mouths wide open. Inside the doorway was another world.

  The Wizard sat in a large velvet-cushioned oak chair in front of a tremendous table. The table was as long as a large door and had nine sturdy legs, each ending in a claw. One claw clutched a wooden ball and, at odd moments, it would suddenly roll the ball to another leg. Then that claw would snatch the ball and stand very proudly on it. In this way, every few minutes, the table would take on a slightly different tilt. Each time the game began again, all the beakers and bowls and pitchers and jars on top of the table—for the table was littered with glassware and crockery—would jangle and clank. But, surprisingly, nothing was ever broken.

  The Wizard seemed unaware of the moving table and sat, with his legs crossed, on the velvet-cushioned chair.

  On the wall behind the Wizard was a large tapestry. It seemed to be woven of glistening thread. Yet it was like no painting or tapestry David had ever seen. Though he could never quite catch them moving, the figures of the tapestry were in new and different positions every time David looked. When he stared directly at the tapestry, there was absolutely no movement at all. But the minute he looked away, from the corner of his eye he seemed to see a blurred, frantic scurrying.

  “You’ll never catch them,” said the Wizard to David. “And it’s best not to try.”

  But whether the Wizard meant the table legs or the tapestry figures, David didn’t know. So he started to walk over to look at the tapestry more closely, and nearly bumped his head on a large object that jutted down from the ceiling. It had two handles and an eyepiece.

  Leilah, who hadn’t left his side, whispered, “That must be the periscope.”

  “Then I was right,” David whispered back. “We are under the fountain!”

  The Wizard shook his head. “Not fair,” he said. “Not fair at all. Most impolite. First you stand and stare as though you had never seen a wizard’s warren before, and then you whisper in company.”

  “But we never have seen a wizard’s warren before,” began Leilah apologetically.

  “Oh, yes. I forgot,” said the Wizard, a little sadly. “I’m always forgetting. I’m always forgetting, especially, that I’m in America.”

  “Maybe you’re wishing that you weren’t in America,” said Leilah. “That could account for the forgetting.”

  “I doubt it,” said the Wizard. “I doubt it very much. I even forget things I want to remember—like spells and incantations. And when I remember how to start them, I forget how to make them stop.”

  “How very sad for you,” said Leilah.

  “Maybe you could take a correspondence course to improve your memory,” said David. “I’ve seen some advertised in magazines.”

  “I once tried,” said the Wizard, “but the postman never knew where to deliver my mail. So he dropped it in the wastebasket near the Arch. I didn’t beat the garbage truck to it in the morning. Somewhere in New York City there is a garbageman with an excellent memory. But not me. Not the Wizard of Washington Square.” And he began to cry, with his head on his arms on the tilting oak table.

  David and Leilah looked at each other uneasily.

  “Well, we’ll just have to help you, that’s all,” said Leilah. “Won’t we, David?”

  David shrugged his shoulders. He had no idea how to help a second-class wizard. He didn’t even know how to help a first-class wizard, though he doubted that a first-class wizard would need any help at all. Instead, David bent down and held on to D. Dog’s collar, for the terrier was trying to grab the wooden ball from one of the table’s claws.

  The Wizard looked up, took a handkerchief from the air, and wiped his eyes with it. Then he snapped his fingers, and the handkerchief disappeared.

  David wondered how a second-class wizard could do such a thing:

  As though he had read David’s mind, the Wizard answered. “I can do simple things, like prestidigitation, but—”

  “Presti—what?” asked David.

  “Prestidigitation. Sleight-of-hand tricks,” said the Wizard. “It comes from presto meaning nimble and digit meaning finger.”

  “Oh,” said David, “I see.” But he didn’t.

  “Magicians are presti-whatchmacallits,” explained Leilah.

  David’s eyes lighted up. “Oh, magicians,” he said.

  “Magicians! Bah!” said the Wizard.

  “Why bah?” asked Leilah.

  “Magicians are imitators, not creators. They are fakers. They make tricks to fool your eye. But that is all it is, trickery. What I do—when I can remember how to do it—is real.”

  “You mean you really made that handkerchief disappear?” asked Leilah.

  “Certainly,” replied the Wizard. “But a magician would make it disappear up his sleeve.”

  “Well,” said David, “if you can’t make it as a wizard, you could always be a first-class magician. No one would ever figure out your tricks.”

  “I would rather be a third-class wizard than the best magician in the world,” said the Wizard. His eyes were fierce. David was sorry he had ever spoken.

  “Is there such a thing as a third-class wizard?” asked Leilah quickly.

  “No, I’m the lowest there is. So low, in fact, that I have to live in a warren.”

  “That’s pretty low down,” agreed David.

  “It is. It is,” said the Wizard. “Wizards prefer high towers with vast views. Now, my tutor, the great Greywether, had an imposing tower on the Welsh Pembroke coast. Hi
s weather spells were world-famous. But wizardry fell on bad times for a while in the British Isles. He was forced to rent his tower to the Crown for a lighthouse. Since the war, though, he’s made a comeback. He even has the support of a local coven.”

  “Coven?” the children asked together.

  “Witches.”

  “Oh,” said David, nudging Leilah. But Leilah seemed to believe it all. And it did seem a bit odd, the table and tapestry and all. Perhaps, David thought, it would be a good idea to find out more about this wizardry business before dismissing it. Just in case.

  “What do wizards do?” asked David. “I mean, besides taking handkerchiefs out of the air?”

  “I’m supposed to help people with their problems. You know—find lost sheep, make love potions, break spells. That sort of thing. But in America, no one wants to consult a wizard. They write to the papers instead. I was put in the small towns first but people just thought I was a beatnik. Then I tried San Francisco. Chicago. Detroit. I was put in jail while passing through Georgia. Now I’m in New York, the biggest, most crowded city in America. And it’s my last chance. If I can’t help someone soon and prove my worth as a wizard, I’m liable to be demoted to an elf. Or a troll. Or simply dematerialized.” He put his head on the table and started crying again. The two ends of his beard were soon dripping tears onto the floor.

  Leilah turned to David urgently. “We can’t let him go on like this,” she said. “What can we do?”

  “I’m not a wizard. How should I know?” said David. But Leilah looked at him so sharply that he added, “Help him help someone.”

  “You’re right,” said Leilah. “Isn’t he?” she asked the Wizard.

  “Yes,” the Wizard answered in a voice that was more of a sigh than anything else. Then he snuffled and wiped his eyes with his long white beard. The beard sparkled with stars for an instant and then was dry.

  “You should use your handkerchief,” scolded Leilah.

  “I don’t have one,” complained the Wizard.

  “You took one from the air last time,” David said.

  “So I did,” said the Wizard. “So I did. I forgot.”

  “Then the problem is,” said Leilah, “to help him to help someone so that he can be sent back to the Old Country.”

  “Or fix his memory,” added David.

  “Or both,” said the Wizard quietly.

  “Whichever is easier,” said Leilah.

  “I would imagine,” David said, “since his memory seems to be full of more holes than a butterfly net, and since I can’t think of anyone who needs help, that we should just concentrate on getting him back to the Old Country. Buy him a ticket, I suppose.”

  “No money,” said Leilah.

  “If he were a good wizard, he could make his own money,” said David. “And then give it to the poor. That way he’d be helping people and also financing his trip home.”

  The Wizard looked up from the table. He shook his head and the last of the tears twinkled off his beard. “I can’t just go back to the Old Country. I have to be recalled. For helping someone. And that someone has to need me. I can’t just give away my magic, or money made by magic. It’s part of being a wizard. It’s called the Rule of Need. And as for my memory, it’s no use. I’ve forgotten so much, I forget how much I’ve forgotten.”

  “Well, since you’re here in America, they can’t object to things being done the American way, can they?” asked Leilah.

  “What do you mean?” asked the Wizard.

  “Well, it’s a kind of custom, at least in the Village, when there is a need, to have people sign a petition. So, we could get up a petition saying we need the Wizard to go home.”

  “A petition?” said David. “You mean with names?”

  “I’ve never heard of one without names,” Leilah said.

  “But who on earth would sign such a thing?” asked the Wizard. “Presuming, of course, you mean on earth. One never knows with magic.”

  Leilah grinned. “Everyone in the Village is always signing petitions. For stopping bombs and starting committees. For closing streets and opening clubs. I know how it’s done. My Mom and Dad do it all the time. All you do is set up a table with pencils and a piece of paper with large words on the top. And then plenty of space to sign below. Then we’d be asking that you be sent home.”

  The Wizard smiled.

  “But no one will sign,” said David. “I mean, when they read what it’s about, they’ll think we’re crazy.”

  “Nobody ever reads what a petition is about,” replied Leilah. “They just sign.”

  David shook his head. “If you did that in Connecticut, you’d be arrested.”

  The Wizard groaned. He remembered the jail in Georgia.

  “If the police come to stop us,” said Leilah, “we’ll get twice as many signatures, and people will help us out. I mean, that’s the way it’s done in Greenwich Village.”

  The Wizard smiled again and stood up.

  David shrugged. “You ought to know,” he said. “You’ve lived here long enough. But where will we set it up?”

  “By the outdoor art show, of course,” said Leilah. “Tomorrow morning. Sunday. Early. That’s where everyone will be.”

  The Wizard laughed out loud. “It might work,” he said. He clicked his heels together and a table leg rolled the ball under him. When he came down, he slipped on the ball and fell. He picked up the ball and got heavily to his feet. Then he put the ball on top of the table in a glass jar.

  “Nasty thing,” he said, kicking at the table leg and missing. “You’ll just have to do without for a while.” Then he smiled at the children, and at D. Dog too. “But it must be late, so perhaps you’d better go home for supper.”

  “What time is it?” asked David and Leilah together.

  The Wizard went over to the periscope and looked through the eyepiece. “According to the Judson Church clock, it’s nearly six o’clock.”

  “Oh, oh,” said David. “I’m late.”

  “Me too,” said Leilah. All at once she narrowed her eyes. “But there isn’t any clock on Judson Church.”

  “Of course not,” said the Wizard.

  “But you said…” said David. “I mean, you looked through the periscope and said…”

  “Exactly,” said the Wizard. “This is a were-scope.”

  “Is that like a werewolf?” asked David.

  “No,” said the Wizard. “But this scope shows things as you wish they were, not as they actually are. And since it can’t see as far as the Jefferson Market Courthouse Clock, I just wish the clock to Judson Church and the scope shows it there.”

  “Wow!” said David.

  Leilah smiled her slow smile. But then the worry lines on her forehead showed. “But is it correct? The time, I mean?”

  “Oh yes,” said the Wizard. “At least it is if the real clock is.”

  “Then I really am late,” said Leilah.

  “Me too,” said David.

  They both said good-by and ran out the door with D. Dog at their heels. As they started up the tunnel, the Wizard called after them, “Don’t forget the petition. I’ll be waiting here. Just knock on the sprayer and then on the door.”

  “We won’t forget,” called out David. “But don’t you.”

  “I never forget things,” said the Wizard, “if I try not to remember them.”

  At least, that was what it sounded like to David. But the door slammed shut and cut off the rest of the Wizard’s words. And soon they were out in the Square again, blinking in the fading sunlight.

  A Perfect Day for Signing

  THE NEXT DAY, SUNDAY, was a glorious day. The sun was high overhead but a gentle, cooling breeze blew east from the Hudson River.

  In Washington Square Park, the young men with beards and the young women with long hair were sitting or standing or sprawling around the fountain in small clumps. They were playing guitars and banjos and singing.

  David circled slowly around the fountain. As he wa
lked, he marveled how the song from one group would slowly fade as he passed, gradually blending with a new song from the group he was approaching. It was like switching stations on a giant radio, David thought.

  Little children were screaming in the playgrounds, happy Sunday screams. And families on their way to or from church strolled by to watch the artists set up exhibits on the walls and gates of brownstone houses near the Square. And if the strollers stared more at the artists than at their art, it was to be expected.

  All in all, it was a perfect day for signing petitions. At least that was what Leilah said when she met David. They knocked on the sprayer in the fountain and then walked to the Arch and knocked at the door. Leilah was carrying the pencils and papers they needed. The Wizard was going to supply the table.

  “I hope,” said David, “that he doesn’t supply that walking table of his. Or else we are liable to lose the petition and pencils as well as our case.”

  “Our case?” asked Leilah.

  “The one in court when the police arrest us,” said David. He knelt down to scratch D. Dog’s ears. He didn’t want Leilah to notice that his knees were shaking a bit. In fact, he hadn’t been feeling well all morning. He had tried to convince his mother that he was sick and should stay in bed. But his sisters were all at camp and his mother had a meeting to go to, so she merely thrust a dollar in his pocket and advised him to eat lightly. What fun was it to stay in bed if you had to get up to get your own juice? So David had come out to the park hoping that Leilah might have forgotten the whole idea of petitions. After all, it was one thing to visit a wizard in his warren. It was another to bring the wizard into your world.

  David looked up. “Do you think he’ll wear normal clothes?” he asked.

  “What do you mean by normal?”

  “You can’t call the clothes he was wearing yesterday normal,” said David.

  “They were perfectly normal,” said Leilah, “for a wizard.”