THE MAGICIAN

THE MAGICIAN Let me share a secret about magic. In truth, there’s no such thing, and you already know it. A magic show is never only a performance. Behind it: mathematics, physics, chemistry, technology. In front of it: glitter and smoke. The team is never just what you see. Sometimes dozens of people work behind the curtain, like with the prediction board. I’ll tell you about the board later. We worked with a team like that. We were the backstage crew for a magician whose stage name was Mystic: Josef, Burak, Mehmet, and me. Mehmet was nonverbal, withdrawn, and a genuine computer prodigy. The systems he built were beyond anything Mystic could pull off on his own, no matter how loudly he called himself a wizard. Mehmet carried most of the work alone, inventing new ideas and preparing performances that could have turned Mystic into a world star. Josef, on the other hand, was endlessly talkative and quick to anger, a mathematics expert who calculated every detail: timing, movement, choreography, how the materials would be prepared, down to the last breath. Burak and I hauled equipment, dressed the stage, arranged the props, and handled whatever small jobs the others needed. We were the most hands-on members of the crew. There were others, but the four of us did most of the real work while Mystic skimmed the cream. He didn’t pay much either. Still, we loved it. Watching people gape at a trick we’d built with our own hands always struck us as funny. Lately Mystic had been squeezing Mehmet hard. He demanded two solid projects in a single week. Mehmet tried to explain it was impossible, but Mystic wouldn’t listen and threatened to fire him. Mehmet already communicated mostly through writing, and in the end he gave up, stopped arguing, and began working day and night. He barely slept; sometimes he didn’t even eat. Josef, watching all this, went into violent rages and fought with Mystic constantly. Josef was the bravest among us. He couldn’t stomach what was being done to Mehmet. At the end of that week, Mehmet delivered two remarkable projects. Josef was thrilled the moment he heard them, even offering to start building immediately. The first was an eye-tracking system that would let Mystic “guess” a city chosen on a giant world map. A randomly selected audience member would come on stage, study the map, and choose any country and any city they liked. Hidden behind the map, a laser system would track their eye movements. When people make a decision, especially in a charged, exciting moment, their pupils dilate. The laser would detect that shift and send a signal to the world-map simulation on Mehmet’s computer. Mehmet would then whisper the city into Mystic’s earpiece. An engineering marvel. The second was simpler in the telling and harder in the making: Mystic would scatter a handful of seeds across the stage, the seeds rolling out toward the audience. Then, abracadabra, they would begin to bloom. A moment made for gasps. Both projects were unusual and demanded serious engineering and technology. Mehmet and Josef had the skill to pull them off. But Mystic snatched the folder from Mehmet’s hands, said he didn’t like it, and walked out. We were stunned. Mehmet looked wounded; Josef looked ready to burst. While we tried to comfort one and calm the other, Josef’s face tightened, veins rising, his eyes lit with fury as he shouted: “I don’t trust that man. Not for a second.” He slammed the door and left. The next day he came back a little calmer, but the bitterness hadn’t moved an inch. The three of us were sitting together, sketching plans for the next show, when Josef dropped into a chair beside us and spoke, forcing his voice to stay level. “Listen. I don’t trust him at all. He barely pays us, fine. But it’s not enough that he makes us do everything, he also runs his mouth, calls it trash, acts like we should thank him for the privilege. I’m going to follow him. Something’s off here. Don’t you feel it too?” Mehmet kept his head down. He was exhausted and didn’t have the strength to react. Burak and I agreed with Josef, but we didn’t want to step into the fire. Josef was the brave one. A few days passed. Josef was nowhere to be seen. Mystic kept asking where he was. Josef’s phone was off, and he wasn’t at home. The performance was approaching, and we needed him. On the third night, Josef finally appeared. He was thinner, his clothes rumpled, his face drawn. He started talking before he’d even fully sat down. “I’ve been tailing that bastard Mystic for three days. Tonight I found out what he’s doing. The scumbag is selling Mehmet’s projects.” We froze. Mehmet looked as if he’d aged ten years in an instant. His eyes sank, his face went pale, and he bit his lip to keep from crying. Josef continued. “After dark he went to the bar on Babylon Street, the one he always drinks at. I got in without him seeing me. He hung around for a while. Then two guys showed up. They slipped out the back door into that narrow alley where the trash bins are. Mystic pulled Mehmet’s file from his jacket and handed it to them. One of them almost spotted me, but I ducked behind the dumpsters. I didn’t see where they went. I came straight here. I’m going to kill that son of a bitch.” We didn’t want Josef to ruin his life, but what we’d heard wasn’t the kind of thing you could swallow. Mehmet was shattered. Seeing him like that only fed Josef’s rage, turning him into something unstable, a fuse already burning. The next day Josef didn’t come to work. The day after that, we were crushed by the news: Josef was dead. He and Mystic had been in a car accident. After Mystic was discharged from the hospital, he told us what happened. He’d gotten away with a few bruises and scratches. “Last night I was about to get into my car when Josef suddenly jumped in front of it. He was foaming at the mouth, cursing, pounding the hood, screaming, ‘I’ll kill you!’ I didn’t understand what was happening. I panicked. I started the car to get away, but he threw himself into the passenger seat and told me to drive. I had no choice. Then, up on the mountain road, he made me pull over. He said, ‘Explain.’ I had no idea what he meant. He hit me once and then told me what he’d seen. You already know. He told you too.” I had to hold myself back from lunging at Mystic. Josef was dead. Surely Mystic had a hand in it. Mystic kept talking, and as he did, my anger turned into something colder, sharper. “As he spoke, I understood why he was furious,” Mystic said. “But magicians know this well, and you do too: what looks like the truth is often only the first trick. Yes, Mehmet, I gave your file to two men. But I didn’t sell it. Do you know who they were? The mechanics. They were going to build the hardware for the projects, the seed apparatus and the laser system. And at a very good price. I couldn’t hand over something that valuable in the middle of a bar, so I passed it to them in the alley. I wanted to surprise you. They’d deliver the mechanics finished, and I was going to show you.” His voice softened, as if asking for forgiveness. “Even if I don’t show it, you’re important to me. I’d never betray you. When I explained this to Josef, he was devastated. He regretted misunderstanding me. He was ashamed. I had a trunk full of alcohol. I didn’t drink, but he drank heavily, and we talked for hours. He told me about your problems. We were going to fix everything: first a raise, then your working hours, then the workload. I don’t know how long we were up there. On the way back he insisted on driving. He lost control of the wheel. I woke up in the hospital. My seat belt was on. I didn’t even realize Josef hadn’t buckled his. We hit a tree, and Josef was thrown from the car. He died on the spot. Whatever I promised Josef, I’ll do it in his memory.” Then he patted our backs, eyes wet, head bowed, and left. He said he’d bring the mechanical parts as soon as possible. I burned with shame. Yes, Mystic was a scoundrel, maybe even a thief, but not a murderer. The official reports also pointed to his innocence. And if Josef had believed him in the end, then maybe we had to believe him too. His grief seemed real. We agreed, reluctantly, that it had all been a misunderstanding. Four months passed after Josef’s death. We still hadn’t found anyone as reliable and talented as him. Mehmet tried to carry the whole operation alone, but Josef’s absence was a deep hollow in the team. The weight on Mehmet grew unbearable. His sleep and his mind began to fracture. He withdrew further, cutting off communication with everyone. He had one goal: a project he insisted on keeping secret until it was finished. “I won’t tell anyone until it’s done,” he wrote. He said he owed at least that to Josef’s memory. Mehmet’s tunnel vision and the lack of fresh ideas started to hurt Mystic’s career. Rumors spread, and they spilled onto us too. Josef’s role in the team had been exposed. People whispered that he had been the brain, and Mystic only the showman. They weren’t entirely wrong. Mystic raged at the gossip, furious and humiliated. One morning, Mehmet called all of us over and demanded Mystic come too. He led us into his workshop, the room he never let anyone enter. In the center stood a huge board, the classic green kind you write on with chalk. Mehmet said the board was his new project, the one he’d been building for months. Honestly, we thought Mehmet had lost his mind. We had to bite our cheeks not to laugh. Mehmet sat at his computer, typed a few commands, and pressed Enter. Instantly, on the board, in Mehmet’s own handwriting, the words appeared: “DON’T LAUGH!” Then he stood up and blew on the sentence. Dust lifted from the letters, as if they’d been written in fresh chalk. Mystic stared at the board as if hypnotized. We couldn’t believe our eyes. We knew tricks like this existed, usually done with a deck of cards or a couple of words. But something this large, this clean, this close to zero risk, hadn’t been done. Technology would carry it all: no sleight of hand, no hidden palms, no last-second cheats. And it wasn’t a little prop. It was a massive green board. Mystic decided to celebrate his comeback with a grand show: a preview first, then a tour. He personally oversaw everything. He booked the city’s largest hall, printed giant posters, plastered them everywhere. He rented billboards. He sent invitations to journalists, celebrities, and industry legends. Newspapers began writing about him again, dazzled by the campaign. “He’s Back” was everywhere. Mystic didn’t want a single empty seat. We rehearsed again and again until the night arrived. Mystic was in high spirits. Everything felt perfect. Show night. Burak and I decided to watch from among the audience once our tasks were done, as a quiet salute to Josef. The press, officials, special guests, all of them packed the hall. Not a seat remained. We stood at the very back and watched. Everything went as planned. Mystic performed a few familiar tricks first, saving the prediction board for last. There were no problems. Mehmet managed the backstage process flawlessly, and Mystic looked immaculate on stage. Finally, it was time for the prediction game. Mystic turned politely to the press and asked them to choose someone at random. Then he asked that person to choose another helper and invited the helper up on stage. The crew rolled in a giant, wheeled bookshelf packed with hundreds of books. Mystic faced the guest and explained the rules. “Now I’d like you to choose any book you want and write down any sentence from it on a piece of paper. My eyes will be blindfolded the whole time. Let’s begin.” Breaths were held. All eyes drifted to the massive board hidden behind its curtain. Mystic was blindfolded. The guest did as instructed, then folded the paper. Mystic continued. “Now please give that paper to someone you choose, so they can read it aloud. Thank you for helping me.” The guest handed the note to someone in the crowd. It didn’t matter who. What mattered was that it would be read aloud. The rest would be Mehmet’s work. The person at the microphone began to read, loudly and clearly: “Flame straightened up and stood motionless; it could no longer speak. After obtaining the charming poet’s permission, it began to move away, but then, upon hearing an indistinct sound from another flame behind it, our eyes turned to the top of the flame.” Ah. The guest had chosen Dante. Inferno. I’d always loved it. Mystic walked toward the board and grabbed the edge of the curtain. The drums thundered, pushing the excitement higher. Right as I savored the moment, my phone vibrated. A message. I hesitated, then opened it, afraid something had gone wrong backstage. It was from Mehmet. As I read it, my stomach dropped. Cold sweat ran through me. I froze where I stood, unable to move, unable to breathe. My eyes locked on Mystic. The noise of the hall vanished. The message said: “I know everything. I have the audio recording from the night Josef died. He never drank.” With a showman’s flourish, Mystic pulled the curtain aside. The instant the board was revealed, the hall turned to ice. Not a sound. On the prediction board, a single sentence was written, in Mystic’s handwriting: I Killed Josef…! deri