Free The Last Illusion by Porochista Khakpour Page A

one.”
    His tone had irked Zal. Why couldn’t he have a favorite magician? “There is a lot you don’t know.” It had sounded harsher than he’d meant. “Well, I don’t mean that.” Even though he mostly had. “I mean, I’ve been following this one guy and saving my allowance, and I think it would be nice to get away.”
    Something in Hendricks’s face had softened. The words get away were almost surprising on Zal’s lips for their absolute banality. Hendricks often wanted to get away; people he knew did, people on TV did, everyone really. It was a most universal thing that had never occurred to him could belong to Zal. Why would he deny him that? “Of course. It’s been a trying period, huh, Zal?”
    Zal had nodded. “For everyone, it seems.”
    Everyone. His son was slowly but surely becoming everyone . Hendricks had looked down before he thought Zal might see the wetness gathering in his glance.
    So Hendricks had given his blessings and Zal went. But every time Zal had been cut off from cell phone reception on his Amtrak ride, Hendricks had felt a despair like he hadn’t experienced since his wife’s death. The thought of losing Zal, who of all people was constantly in danger of being lost—in spite of the advancement and progress and the whole miracle of him—had been much too much. He could not imagine living through that.
    But Zal had made it. And when he’d come back, they’d had lunch at a local vegan diner they both liked. (For a while, Zal could not endure normal diners because of the plethora of egg options and hovering egg dishes and smells, a horrific concept to him that he didn’t need to explain to Hendricks.) But Zal had seemed not at all energized or refreshed but rather somewhat exhausted and confused.
    “Well, come on! What did you see?” Hendricks, who had never been to Vegas, kept asking.
    “I mostly stayed in the hotel and then I went to three magic shows. Except they weren’t really the magic I thought they might involve.”
    Hendricks chuckled. “Illusion, they call it, right?”
    Zal shrugged. “Something. It was strange. I made friends with Bran Silber, though.”
    Bran Silber —Hendricks, unaware of most popular culture, had forgotten to look him up. “Well, that’s astounding! You and the Bran Silber! Did he know about you?”
    Zal’s face tensed up and he sighed it out, as he had been taught long ago. “Yes. I told him.”
    “Well, great! A real wow!”
    “We’ve been e-mailing. But, you know, I don’t think he has much use for me.”
    Hendricks frowned. “What do you mean, use for you?”
    Zal for a moment looked flustered, but then quickly shrugged to gloss over it. “I don’t know. I thought maybe I could work for him. Like, intern, as you once suggested I do for someone out there. But he seems more interested in dinners.”
    Hendricks raised an eyebrow with movie-detective-like curiosity, a look of his Zal was fond of. “So he’s interested in you? Your story, I’m sure?”
    “Yeah, maybe. Anyway, I just wanted to do something amazing . . . for me.” Zal looked down, embarrassed at the grandiosity of his words.
    Hendricks reached over their plates to give him an affectionate rub of the shoulder. “Zal, give yourself time. You will have it all, my boy, you will have it all. Look at everything you have now, how far you’ve come.”
    Zal nodded. He had heard it so many times. He got up and said it was time to go home, that he had a TV show (he did not mention nature show ) that he liked to watch. Hendricks embraced him long and hard, as usual, taking a few steps backwards to face Zal for just a bit longer as they went their separate ways.
    Days later, Silber performed his Triptych-in-One in New York, and Zal got further disillusioned. The audience volunteer was again a stooge, another young woman, a famous New York City hotel tycoon’s daughter, a socialite heiress with whom the whole city was in love that season and that season only. The applause