Ragtime - E.L. Doctorow [98]
Shortly after these adventures Pierpont Morgan suffered a sudden decline in health. He demanded to be taken back to Rome. But he was far from unhappy, having concluded that his physical deterioration was exactly the sign for which he had been waiting. He was so urgently needed again on earth that he was exempt from the usual entombment rituals. Members of his family met him in Rome. Don’t be sad, he told them. War speeds things up. They didn’t know what he was talking about. They were at his bedside when he died, not without anticipation, at the age of seventy-six.
Now, it was not long after Morgan’s death that the Archduke Franz Ferdinand rode into the city of Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia, to inspect the troops there. With him was his wife the Countess Sophie. The Archduke held his plumed helmet in the crook of his arm. All at once there was a loud noise and a good deal of smoke and shouting. Archduke Franz Ferdinand and Countess Sophie found themselves covered with chalk dust. Dust coated their faces, it was in their mouths and eyes and all over their clothing. Someone had thrown a bomb. The Mayor was aghast. The Archduke was furious. The day is ruined, he said, and terminating the ceremonies he ordered his chauffeur to leave Sarajevo. They were in a Daimler touring car. The chauffeur drove through the streets and made a wrong turn. He stopped, put the gears into reverse and twisted around in his seat preparatory to backing up. As it happened the car had stopped beside a young Serbian patriot who was one of the same group who had tried to kill the Archduke by bomb but who had despaired of another opportunity. The patriot jumped on the running board of the touring car, aimed his pistol at the Duke and pulled the trigger. Shots rang out. The Countess Sophie fell over between the Archduke’s knees. Blood spurted from the Archduke’s throat. There were shouts. The green feathers of the plumed helmet turned black with blood. Soldiers grabbed the assassin. They wrestled him to the ground. They dragged him off to jail.
In New York the papers carried the news as one of those acts of violence peculiar to the Balkan states. Few Americans could have had any particular feeling of sympathy for the slain heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne. But the magician Harry Houdini, reading his paper at breakfast, felt the shock of the death of an acquaintance. Imagine that, he said to himself. Imagine that. He saw the moody and phlegmatic Duke staring at him from under his coif of flattened brush-cut hair. It seemed to him awesome that someone embodying the power and panoply of an entire empire could be so easily brought down.
It so happened that Houdini, on this very day, was scheduled to perform one of his spectacular outdoor feats. He was therefore unable to reflect on the Archduke’s death to the extent he might have otherwise. He left his house, hailed a cab and rode downtown to Times Square. Here, an hour and a half later, with several thousands watching, he was put in a strait jacket and attached by the ankles to a steel cable and hauled feet first halfway up the side of the Times Tower. With each turn of the winch up on the roof he rose a few feet and swayed in the wind. The crowd cheered. It was a warm day and the sky was blue. The higher he rose the more distant the sounds of the street. He could see his own name upside down on the marquee of the Palace Theatre five blocks to the north. Automobiles honked and trolleys ganged together at Times Square as their drivers stopped to see the excitement. Police on horseback blew their whistles. Everything was upside down