stream. They saw a great dripping millwheel turning slowly over a creek. The shadows deepened. The little girl fell asleep. Tateh clutched the suitcase on his lap and kept his eyes on the tracks ahead, shining now in the single beam of the powerful electric headlamp on the front of the car.
13
Tracks! Tracks! It seemed to the visionaries who wrote for the popular magazines that the future lay at the end of parallel rails. There were long-distance locomotive railroads and interurban electric railroads and street railways and elevated railroads, all laying their steel stripes on the land, crisscrossing like the texture of an indefatigable civilization. And in Boston and New York there were even railroad under the streets, new rapid-transit subway systems transporting thousands of people every day. In New York, in fact, the success of the Manhattan subway had created a demand for a line to Brooklyn. Accordingly an engineering miracle was taking place, the construction of a tunnel under the East River from Brooklyn to the Battery. Sandhogs working behind a hydraulic shield excavated riverbed silt inch by inch and installed linking sections of cast-iron tubes as they went. The digging chamber was filled with compressed air pumped in from the surface. The work was dangerous. The men who did the work, the sandhogs, were considered heroes. Working under the river they were subject to horrible destinies. One typical hazard was the blowout, a situation in which the compressed air found a weakness in the roof of the tunnel and escaped with a violent rush. One day there was a blowout so explosive that it sucked four workmen out of the tunnel and blew them through twenty feet of river silt and shot them up through the river itself forty feet into the air on the crest of a geyser. Only one of the men survived. The freak accident made headlines in all papers, and when Harry Houdini read the accounts over his morning coffee he hurried dressed and rushed downtown to Bellevue Hospital where it was said the surviving worker had been taken. I’m Harry Houdini, he told the admissions desk, and I’ve got to see that sandhog. Two nurses conferred behind the desk and while they did he stole a glance at the charts and ran up the stairs. You can’t come up here, a flinty nurse told him as he strode down a ward filled with sick and dying men. Chutes of cheerful morning sun leaned like buttresses from the high dirty windows of the ward. Clustered about the bed of the heroic sandhog was his family—a wife, an old mother in a babushka, two strapping sons. A doctor was in attendance. The man in the bed was swathed in bandaged from his head to his feet. His arms, in casts, were supported in traction as was one encased leg. Every few moments there would issue from his head bandages a weak or perhaps only decorous groan. Houdini cleared his throat. I’m Harry Houdini, he said to the family, I escape for a living, that’s my profession, I’m an escapologist. But let me tell you I’ve never done an escape that can touch this one. He pointed to the bed. The family looked at him without expression on their stolid Slavic faces. The grandmother without taking her eyes off Houdini said something in a foreign language—a question it was, because one of the sons answered in kind and said Houdini’s name. They continued to look at him. I came to offer my respects, Houdini said. They all had flat faces, broad brows, eyes set widely apart. They did not return his smile. How did you get in here, the doctor said. I’ll only be a minute, Houdini said, I just want to ask him something. I think you better leave, the doctor said. Houdini turned to the family. I want to know how it felt. I want to know what he did to get to the surface. He was the only one to make it. He must have done something. I would like to know, it means a lot to me. He took out his wallet, removed some bills. I think you could probably use this. Go ahead, take it, I would like to help. The
13
Tracks! Tracks! It seemed to the visionaries who wrote for the popular magazines that the future lay at the end of parallel rails. There were long-distance locomotive railroads and interurban electric railroads and street railways and elevated railroads, all laying their steel stripes on the land, crisscrossing like the texture of an indefatigable civilization. And in Boston and New York there were even railroad under the streets, new rapid-transit subway systems transporting thousands of people every day. In New York, in fact, the success of the Manhattan subway had created a demand for a line to Brooklyn. Accordingly an engineering miracle was taking place, the construction of a tunnel under the East River from Brooklyn to the Battery. Sandhogs working behind a hydraulic shield excavated riverbed silt inch by inch and installed linking sections of cast-iron tubes as they went. The digging chamber was filled with compressed air pumped in from the surface. The work was dangerous. The men who did the work, the sandhogs, were considered heroes. Working under the river they were subject to horrible destinies. One typical hazard was the blowout, a situation in which the compressed air found a weakness in the roof of the tunnel and escaped with a violent rush. One day there was a blowout so explosive that it sucked four workmen out of the tunnel and blew them through twenty feet of river silt and shot them up through the river itself forty feet into the air on the crest of a geyser. Only one of the men survived. The freak accident made headlines in all papers, and when Harry Houdini read the accounts over his morning coffee he hurried dressed and rushed downtown to Bellevue Hospital where it was said the surviving worker had been taken. I’m Harry Houdini, he told the admissions desk, and I’ve got to see that sandhog. Two nurses conferred behind the desk and while they did he stole a glance at the charts and ran up the stairs. You can’t come up here, a flinty nurse told him as he strode down a ward filled with sick and dying men. Chutes of cheerful morning sun leaned like buttresses from the high dirty windows of the ward. Clustered about the bed of the heroic sandhog was his family—a wife, an old mother in a babushka, two strapping sons. A doctor was in attendance. The man in the bed was swathed in bandaged from his head to his feet. His arms, in casts, were supported in traction as was one encased leg. Every few moments there would issue from his head bandages a weak or perhaps only decorous groan. Houdini cleared his throat. I’m Harry Houdini, he said to the family, I escape for a living, that’s my profession, I’m an escapologist. But let me tell you I’ve never done an escape that can touch this one. He pointed to the bed. The family looked at him without expression on their stolid Slavic faces. The grandmother without taking her eyes off Houdini said something in a foreign language—a question it was, because one of the sons answered in kind and said Houdini’s name. They continued to look at him. I came to offer my respects, Houdini said. They all had flat faces, broad brows, eyes set widely apart. They did not return his smile. How did you get in here, the doctor said. I’ll only be a minute, Houdini said, I just want to ask him something. I think you better leave, the doctor said. Houdini turned to the family. I want to know how it felt. I want to know what he did to get to the surface. He was the only one to make it. He must have done something. I would like to know, it means a lot to me. He took out his wallet, removed some bills. I think you could probably use this. Go ahead, take it, I would like to help. The
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