Three of Diamonds

… She was drawn here
by her own reflection …

A kind of family curse had appeared in the sticky-bun book, too, and I thought the plot was thickening in more ways than one.

We stopped for lunch at a country taverna, where we sat at a long table under a couple of massive trees. An abundance of orange trees grew around the taverna in large plantations.

We ate meat on skewers and Greek salad with goat’s cheese, and when the dessert arrived, I started to tell Dad about the calendar on the magic island. Of course, I couldn’t tell him where I’d got it from, so I was forced to say it was something I had made up while I had been sitting in the back seat.

Dad was dumbfounded. He worked it out with a pen on a napkin.

‘Fifty-two cards are fifty-two weeks. That really would be 364 days, and then there were thirteen months of twenty-eight days – that is also 364. In both cases there is an extra day …’

‘And that is Joker Day,’ I said.

‘Well, I’ll be blowed!’

He sat for a long time gazing into the orange groves.

‘And when were you born, Hans Thomas?’

I didn’t know what he meant.

‘February 29, 1972,’ – replied.

‘But what kind of day was that?’

It suddenly dawned on me: indeed, I had been born in a leap year. According to the calendar from the magic island, it was a sort of Joker Day. How come I hadn’t thought of that when I was reading?

‘Joker Day,’ I said.

‘Exactly!’

‘Do you think it’s because I am the son of a joker – or do you think it’s because I am a joker myself?’ I asked.

Dad looked at me seriously and said, ‘Both, of course. When I get a son, it’s on a Joker Day, and when you are born, that also happens on a Joker Day. It makes sense, you know.’

I wasn’t quite sure if he just liked the idea that I was born on a Joker Day, but there was also something in his voice which made me wonder whether he’d started to get scared that I might take over his trade as a joker.

At any rate, he was quick to turn the conversation back to the calendar.

‘Did you think of that just now?’ he asked me yet again. ‘Hah! Every week has its own card, every month has its own number from ace to king, and every season has one of the four suits. You should take out a patent for that, Hans Thomas. As far as I know, to this day a proper bridge-calendar hasn’t been invented.’

He sat chuckling over his coffee cup. Then he added, ‘At first we used the Julian calendar, then we went over to the Gregorian – maybe it’s about time we changed again.’

He was clearly more taken with this calendar business than I. He did some hectic calculations on his napkin, and soon he glanced up with a cunning joker’s look in his eye and said, ‘And there’s more …’

I looked at him.

‘If you add all the symbols in a suit together,’ he continued, ‘you get ninety-one. Ace is one, king is thirteen, queen is twelve – and so on. Yes, you definitely get ninety-one.’

‘Ninety-one?’ I said. I didn’t quite follow.

He put his pen down on the napkin and looked deeply into my eyes.

‘What is ninety-one multiplied by four?’

‘Nine fours are thirty-six …’ I said. ‘It’s 364! Well, I’ll be damned!’

‘Exactly! There are 364 symbols in a pack of cards – plus the joker. But then there are some years which have two Joker Days. Maybe that’s why there are two jokers in a pack, Hans Thomas. This can’t be coincidence.’

‘Do you think a pack of cards is made with this in mind?’ I asked. ‘Do you think it is deliberate that there are the same number of markings on a pack of cards as there are days in a year?’

‘No, I can’t believe that, but I do think this is an example of the way in which people are unable to interpret the signs that are right in front of their noses. Nobody has bothered to literally put two and two together, even though there are many millions of playing cards.’

He sat pondering things over in his mind. Then a dark shadow crept over his face.

‘But I see a serious problem. It’ll no longer be so easy to bum jokers off people if they have a place in a calendar,’ he said, and laughed out loud like a horse. Obviously it wasn’t that serious after all.

He continued to chuckle to himself when we were back in the car. He was undoubtedly still thinking of the calendar.

As we neared Athens, I noticed a large road sign. I had already seen the same sign several times before, but now my heart jumped for joy.

‘Stop!’ I cried. ‘Stop the car!’

Dad was scared out of his wits. He pulled over, braking sharply.

‘Whatever’s the matter now?’ he asked, turning to face me.

‘Out!’ I ordered. ‘We must get out of the car!’

Dad opened the car door and jumped out. ‘Are you going to be sick?’ he asked.

I pointed to the road sign only a few metres away.

‘You see that sign there?’

Dad was so confused I really should have taken pity on him, but I could only think about the sign.

‘And what about that sign?’ Dad asked. He must have thought I’d totally flipped.

‘Read it,’ I instructed.

‘ATHINAI,’ Dad read, only starting to calm down. ‘It is Greek and means Athens.’

‘Is that all you see? What does it sound like backward?’

‘IANIHTA,’ he now read aloud.

I didn’t say anything else, I just looked at him seriously and nodded.

‘Yes, it does sound a lot like Anita,’ he admitted, and lit a cigarette.

He was taking it so calmly, I started to get irritated.

‘Funny? Is that all you have to say? I mean, she’s here, you realise that, don’t you? I mean, she came here. She was drawn here by her own reflection. It was her destiny. You have to see the connection now!’

For one reason or another I had managed to get Dad angry.

‘Now just try to calm down, Hans Thomas.’

It was obvious he didn’t like the bit about destiny and her reflection.

We got back in the car.

‘Sometimes you can go a bit far with all this … this inventiveness of yours,’ he said.

He wasn’t just thinking about the sign, no doubt he meant the dwarfs and the strange calendar as well. If this was so, then I thought he was being unfair. I don’t think he was the right person to criticise other people’s ‘inventiveness’. After all, I wasn’t the one who had started talking about a family curse.

On the road to Athens I sneaked open the sticky-bun book and read about the preparations for the Joker Banquet on the magic island.

Дата добавления: 2015-10-28