FOUR OF HEARTS

… we don’t know who is
dealing the cards either …

B aker Hans stared into space. While he was talking about the magic island, his deep blue eyes had possessed a special gleam, but now it was as if the spark had died.

It was late and very dark in the small room. Only a faint glow from the fireplace was left of what earlier that evening had been a roaring fire. Baker Hans got up and started to rake through the embers with a poker. The fire found a second life for a little while, throwing a flickering light over the goldfish bowls and all the other strange objects in the room.

Throughout the long evening I had absorbed every word the old baker had said. From the moment he had started to talk about Frode’s playing cards, I had been so captivated that I had hardly been able to breathe. On several occasions I had caught myself sitting with my mouth half open. I had never dared to interrupt him, and although he told me about Frode and the magic island only once, I am sure I remember everything he said.

‘And so in a way Frode returned to Europe after all,’ he concluded.

I wasn’t sure whether he said this to me or to himself. I just know I wasn’t quite sure what he meant.

‘Are you thinking of the cards?’ I asked.

‘Yes, them too.’

‘Because those were the cards lying upstairs in the attic?’

The old man nodded. Then he went into his bedroom. When he returned he had the little card box in his hand.

‘These are Frode’s playing cards, Albert.’

He placed the cards on the table in front of me. I felt my heart beat faster as I carefully lifted the pile out of the box and put it on the table. On top of the pile lay the Four of Hearts. I carefully thumbed through the other cards and studied each one. The colours were so faded I could hardly make out what they depicted, but some were quite clear – I found the Jack of Diamonds, the King of Spades, the Two of Clubs, and the Ace of Hearts.

‘Were these the cards... which ran around on the island?’ I finally managed to ask.

The old man nodded again.

I felt as though every single card I held in my hand was like a living person. When I held the King of Hearts in front of the fire, I remembered what he had said on the strange island. Once upon a time, I thought to myself, once upon a time he was a little man full of life. He had run between the flowers and trees in the big garden. I sat for a long time holding the Ace of Hearts in my hand. I remembered her saying something about not belonging to this solitaire game.

‘Only the Joker is missing,’ I said, after I had counted all the cards and discovered there were only fifty-two in the pack.

Baker Hans nodded.

‘He joined me in the great solitaire game. Do you understand that, son? We are also dwarfs gushing with life, and we don’t know who is dealing the cards either.’

‘Do you think... that he is still in the world?’

‘You can be sure of that, son. Nothing in this world can harm the Joker.’

Baker Hans stood with his back to the fire, casting enormous shadows over me. For a moment or two I was quite scared. I was no more than twelve years old at the time. Maybe Father was at home, in a rage because I was at Baker Hans’s and still hadn’t come home. Ah yes, but only on rare occasions did he wait up for me. He was probably lying somewhere or other in town sleeping off the booze. Baker Hans was the only one I could really depend on.

‘Then he must be terribly old,’ I protested.

Baker Hans shook his head vigorously. ‘Don’t you remember? The Joker doesn’t grow old like us.’

‘Have you seen him since you both came back to Europe?’ I asked.

Baker Hans nodded. ‘Just once... and that was only about six months ago. For a second or two I thought I saw the little figure jump out in front of the bakery. But by the time I had run out onto the street, he had disappeared into thin air. That was when you came into this story, Albert. That same afternoon I had the pleasure of beating up some youngsters who were making your life miserable. And that... that was exactly fifty-two years after Frode’s island sank into the ocean. I have worked it out over and over again... I am almost positive that it must have been a Joker Day...’

I stared at him in amazement.

‘Does the old calendar still hold true?’ I asked.

‘It looks like it, son. It was on that day that I realised you were the neglected boy whose mother had passed away. Thus I was able to give you the sparkling drink and show you the beautiful fish...’

I was dumbfounded. Now I realised that the village dwarfs had been talking about me too at the Joker Banquet.

I swallowed hard.

‘How... how did the story continue?’ I asked.

‘Unfortunately, I didn’t catch everything that was said on the magic island, but it is true for us human beings that everything we hear is stored in our minds even if we don’t remember it. Then one day it suddenly pops up again. Just now, as I was telling you about what happened on the magic island, I remembered what the Four of Hearts said after the Four of Diamonds spoke about showing the boy the sparkling drink and the beautiful fish.’

‘Yes?’

‘The boy grows old and his hair turns white, but before he dies, unhappy soldier comes from land in the north.’

I sat staring into the fire before me. I was in awe of life – and I have never lost this feeling. My whole life was framed in one sentence. I knew that Baker Hans would soon die – and I would become the next baker in Dorf. I also understood that I was the one who had to carry the secret of the Rainbow Fizz and the magic island into the future. I would live my life in this cabin here, and one day – one day an unhappy soldier would arrive from the land in the north. I knew that it was a long way off; it would be fifty-two years before the next baker arrived in Dorf.

‘The goldfish also form a string of generations which go all the way back to the fish I took from the island,’ Baker Hans continued. ‘Some of them live only a few months, but many of them live for years. I get just as sad each time one of them stops wriggling around the glass bowl, because they are all different. That is the secret of the goldfish, Albert – even a little fish is an irreplaceable individual. That’s probably why I bury them beneath some trees up in the woods. I put a tiny white stone on each silent grave, because I believe every goldfish deserves a little monument made of a more durable material than itself.’

Baker Hans died only two years after he had told me about the magic island. Father had died the previous year and Baker Hans managed to adopt me as his son, so everything he owned was left in my name. The last thing he said – as I leaned over the old man of whom I was infinitely fond – was: ‘The soldier doesn’t know that shaven girl gives birth to beautiful baby boy.’

I understood that this must be one of the sentences omitted from the Joker Game, which suddenly rushed through his head just before he died.

*

Around midnight I was lying on the bed deep in thought when Dad knocked on the door.

‘Is she going to come home to Arendal with us?’ I burst out before he’d even got through the door.

‘We’ll have to wait and see,’ he replied, and I watched a secretive smile flit across his face.

‘But Mama and I are going to the pastry shop tomorrow morning,’ I said, to assure myself that the fish hadn’t got away just as we were about to pull it into the boat.

Dad nodded. ‘She’ll be in the lobby at eleven o’clock,’ he said. ‘She has cancelled all other engagements.’

That night Dad and I both lay staring up at the ceiling before we fell asleep. The last thing Dad said – either to me or to himself – was: ‘You can’t turn a ship under full sail at the drop of a hat.’

‘That might be true,’ I replied, ‘but destiny is on our side.’

Дата добавления: 2015-10-28