The shelves covered every wall, save for a space for a window at the back. In the center of the room sat a plush circular ottoman, and in a corner an oval mirror. There were men’s and women’s wigs, some natural-looking, others from history—Roman centurions, seventeenth-century courtesans—and others that seemed to be alien, in shimmering blue and green.

Max appeared at the door, Effie just behind him. “Wow,” she said.

“They’re theatre people,” Max said.

Effie came over to Henry’s side. “There’s a room full of fake clouds and trees and swords and all. You wouldn’t have known it to see them going down the sidewalk.”

“You can never know people,” Max said.

With a practiced movement Alma bundled her hair atop her head so it stayed there on its own, selected a glittery, ruby-red flapper’s wig with a severe cut at the jawline, and put it on in front of the mirror, tucking the loose strands away. She turned around, transformed, and because they were closest to her, she posed for Henry and Effie, hands on her hips, and Henry said, “Beautiful.”

“What do you think, Maximilian?”

“That you look like a cheap prostitute,” he said.

“Perfect,” she said.

Max selected a long barrister’s wig, but Alma said that was dull because it was meant to be a wig and there was no illusion to it, so he replaced it with a frizzed shock of gray hair and a long beard that made him look, Effie said, like Charlton Heston in The Ten Commandments. For Henry, Effie chose a great curly mass of Gibson Girl hair, which amused everyone, and for herself she took a bright blond wig that was, Max pointed out, strikingly similar to Clara’s hair. “It isn’t close,” Clara said, and Max said, “Oh, but it is,” and with the same skill she’d shown for Marilyn Monroe, with a subtle shift in her posture and the set of her face, Effie transformed herself into Clara. The effect was disconcerting: there was the real Clara, and across from her a short, squat version—his wife. “Oh, Maxie, darling,” she said, batting her eyes at Max, and everyone laughed—Clara especially. She found a wig of dark curls that was similar to Effie’s hair, and when she put it on and looked at herself in the mirror, she sang, “Well, I declare! Ain’t I the cutest thing you ever saw?”

“You’re simply delicious, darling,” Effie said. “I want to tear you apart into tiny pieces and gobble you up.”

“Well, fiddle-dee-dee!”

Max had doubled over laughing, his Moses beard swinging out in front of him. “Wonderful, wonderful,” he said. “Please keep them on, I’m begging you.”