The Immortalists: Chapter 12 Summary & Analysis

Once, on a family beach trip in New Jersey, the Golds discovered that the ocean looked completely red. Simon suggested that it was ketchup, and Saul suggested that it looked like the Nile. Years later, Klara learned that the color was due to algae blooms, but she was disappointed that the explanation took the mystery away. When Klara performs, she hopes to impart this same kind of mystery, adding to people’s perceptions of reality and expanding their sense of possibility.

In the 8th century B.C.E., Homer wrote about Proteus, a sea god who could tell the future, but who would change shape to avoid people asking about their fortunes. Almost 3,000 years later, Raj builds a Proteus cabinet for Klara. He sets up the mirrors precisely so that when the doors are open, Klara is hidden and the mirrors reflect a side wall. The illusion is perfect.

Raj reinvents himself as a magician as he and Klara become both business partners and romantic partners. He starts teaching himself tricks like the East Indian Needle Trick, in which he swallows loose needles and thread, then regurgitates them strung. He helps Klara book new venues, and he builds her a mechanical bird for the Vanishing Birdcage that she can animate. She loves how he fills her life with energy.

One day in May, Klara thinks back to a time when people thought they could speak to the dead. She recalls a story of the two Fox sisters who claimed they heard rapping sounds from the dead and used a code based on counting to translate the signals. Thinking about this, Klara has a revelation about Second Sight: that Morritt and his assistant used a code based on time—the amount of silence between the words to indicate what kind of object it was. She and Raj start to practice the trick together. Years later, even after they’ve had a daughter, Klara never feels as close to Raj as when they perform Second Sight.

Two days before their opening at Teatro ZinZanni, Raj asks if Klara picked up a wire to finish the Vanishing Birdcage. Klara says she thinks she forgot. The day before, she had been plagued by Simon and Saul’s absence and Gertie’s disappointment, so she drank until she blacked out. Raj is worried that she’s lying about forgetting to pick up the wire, or that she doesn’t care about the show as much as he does. Klara assures him that she cares about the show more than anything.