The Solitaire Mystery

by Jostein Gaarder

  ‘I was just twelve years old at this time,’ he said pensively. ‘The days carried on as before, except that nobody dared to lay a hand on me now. I was always dropping in at the baker’s. Sometimes we talked together, but now and then he just gave me a piece of cake and sent me on my way. Like everyone else, I discovered that he could be quiet, but he could also tell exciting stories about his life at sea. In this way I learned about foreign lands.

  ‘I always visited Baker Hans in his bakery. Otherwise, I would never meet him. However, one cold winter’s day, as I sat throwing stones across the frozen Waldemarsee, he suddenly appeared beside me.

  ‘“You’re growing up, Albert,” he said simply.

  ‘“I’m going to be thirteen in February,” I replied.

  ‘“Mmm. It’ll do. Tell me – do you think you’re big enough to keep a secret?”

  ‘“I’ll keep all the secrets you tell me until I die.”

  ‘“I thought so. And that’s important, my boy, because I don’t think I have that long to live.”

  ‘“Oh yes, you do,” I said at once. “You have loads of time.”

  ‘Suddenly I felt as cold as the snow and ice around me. It was the second time in my young life that I had been given news of a death.

  ‘He took no notice of my words. Instead, he said, “You know where I live, Albert. I would like you to come to my house tonight.”’

  SEVEN OF SPADES

  … a mysterious planet …

  My eyes were sore after spelling my way, letter by letter, through this long section in the sticky-bun book. The letters were so tiny that I sometimes had to stop and wonder whether I was also making a little bit up myself.

  I sat for a while staring at the high mountaintops we passed, thinking about Albert, who’d lost his mother and who’d had a father who liked his drink.

  After a while, Dad said, ‘We’re getting close to the famous St Gotthard Tunnel. I think it cuts right through the huge mountain range you see ahead.’

  He told me the St Gotthard Tunnel was the world’s longest road tunnel. It was more than 16 kilometres long, and had been open only a few years. But before that – for more than a hundred years – there had been a railway tunnel, and before that, monks and other travellers had taken the St Gotthard Pass on their way between Italy and Germany.

  ‘So there have been people here before us,’ he concluded. The next moment we were inside the long tunnel.

  The trip through the tunnel took almost a quarter of an hour. On the other side we passed a little town called Airolo.

  ‘Oloria,’ I said. It was a kind of game I’d played in the car all the way from Denmark. I read all the names and road signs backwards to see if they hid a secret word or something. Sometimes I was luckier than others. ‘Roma,’ for example, became ‘amor,’ and I thought that was rather fitting.

  ‘Oloria’ wasn’t too bad either. It sounded like the name of a fairy-tale country. If I squinted my eyes a little, it was as though I were driving through this country now.

  We drove down into a valley with small farms and stone walls. We soon crossed a river called Ticino, and when Dad saw it, his eyes began to water. That hadn’t happened since we strolled along the docks in Hamburg.

  He braked sharply and pulled off the road. He jumped out of the car and stood pointing down at the river running through the steep-sided valley.

  By the time I’d got out, he’d already managed to light a cigarette.

  ‘We’ve reached the sea at last, my boy. I can smell the tar and the seaweed.’

  Dad was always coming out with remarks like this, but nevertheless, this time I was scared he’d finally flipped. What particularly worried me was that he said nothing else. It was as though he had nothing on his mind but to make it clear that we had reached the sea.

  I knew we were still in Switzerland, which had no coastline, and even though I hadn’t a clue about geography, the high mountainsides were solid evidence that we were a long way from the sea.

  ‘Are you tired?’ I asked.

  ‘Nope,’ he said, pointing down to the river again. ‘But I’m afraid I haven’t told you much about the boat traffic in Central Europe, and I’m going to do that right away.’

  I must have looked as though I’d fallen from the moon, because he added, ‘Relax, Hans Thomas. There aren’t any pirates here.’

  He pointed at the mountains and continued: ‘We’ve just gone through the St Gotthard massif. Many of Europe’s longest rivers flow from here. The Rhine collects its first drops here, the source of the Rhône is also here – as is the Ticino’s, which joins the great Po further downstream before running out into the Adriatic Sea.’

  It began to dawn on me why he’d suddenly started to talk about the sea, but to confuse me even more he said, ‘I said the source of the Rhône was here.’ He pointed to the mountains again. ‘That river flows through Geneva and down through France before it eventually spills into the Mediterranean a few miles west of Marseille. Then there’s the Rhine; it flows through Germany and Holland before it eventually empties into the North Sea. But there are many other rivers as well, you know, which drink their first gulps up here in the Alps.’

  ‘So do boats sail along these rivers?’ I asked. I thought I’d stay one step ahead of him.

  ‘You can be sure of that, my boy. But they don’t just sail along the rivers. They sail between them, too.’

  He’d lit himself another cigarette, and once again I wondered whether he was totally out of his mind. Sometimes I worried that the alcohol was corroding his brain.

  ‘For example, if you sail along the Rhine,’ he said, ‘in a way you are sailing along the Rhône, the Seine, and the Loire. And along many other important rivers, for that matter. In this way you have access to all the large city ports of the North Sea, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Mediterranean.’

  ‘But aren’t there high mountains separating these rivers?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Dad continued. ‘And mountains are really perfectly all right as long as you can sail between them.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ I said, interrupting him. Sometimes I got irritated when he started to talk in riddles.

  ‘Canals,’ he said. ‘Didn’t you know that you can sail from the Baltic to the Black Sea without being near either the Atlantic Ocean or the Mediterranean?’

  I just shook my head in despair.

  ‘You end up in the Caspian Sea: in other words, in the heart of Asia,’ he whispered excitedly.

  ‘Is that true?’

  ‘Yup! It’s as true as the St Gotthard Tunnel. It’s amazing.’

  I stood looking down at the river, and now I thought I, too, could smell the faint tang of tar and seaweed.

  ‘What do you learn at school, Hans Thomas?’ Dad asked.

  ‘To sit still,’ I replied. ‘It’s so difficult that we spend years learning to do it.’

  ‘Okay … But do you think you’d have sat still if the teacher had told you about the sea routes in Europe?’

  ‘Probably,’ I said. ‘Yes, I’m quite sure.’

  And with that the cigarette stop was over. We drove on, following the Ticino River. The first place we passed was Bellinzona, a large town with three huge fortresses from the Middle Ages. After Dad had given a little lecture on the Crusades, he said, ‘You know I’m very interested in outer space, Hans Thomas. Well, I’m particularly interested in planets – most of all living planets.’

  I didn’t say anything. Both he and I knew he was interested in that kind of thing.

  ‘Did you know,’ he continued, ‘that a mysterious planet has just been discovered where millions of intelligent beings are loafing around on two legs peering out over the planet through a pair of bright lenses?’

  I had to admit this was completely new to me.

  ‘The little planet is held together by a complicated network of tracks where these clever guys constantly roll around in colourful wagons.’

  ‘Is that true?’

&nbs
p; ‘Yes it is! On this planet these mysterious creatures have also built enormous buildings which are more than a hundred storeys tall. And underneath these constructions they’ve dug long tunnels which they can flit around in, in electric things moving on rails.’

  ‘Are you quite sure?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, quite sure.’

  ‘But … why have I never heard of this planet?’

  ‘Well,’ Dad said, ‘first of all, it was discovered only recently, and second, I fear that I am the only one who has discovered it.’

  ‘Where is it, then?’

  At this point Dad stepped on the brake and pulled off the road.

  ‘Here,’ he said, and slapped his palm down on the dashboard. ‘This is the remarkable planet, Hans Thomas. And we are those intelligent guys rolling around in a red Fiat.’

  I sat for a few seconds sulking because he’d fooled me. But then it occurred to me how incredible this planet is, so I forgave him.

  ‘People would have gone absolutely wild if the astronomers had discovered another living planet,’ Dad concluded. ‘They just don’t let themselves be amazed by their own.’

  He sat for a long time without saying anything, so I took the opportunity to read more of the sticky-bun book.

  It wasn’t easy to separate all the bakers in Dorf from each other. But I soon understood that Ludwig was the one who had written the sticky-bun book, and Albert was the one who had told him about the time he was a boy and went to visit Baker Hans.

  EIGHT OF SPADES

  … like a whirlwind from

  foreign lands …

  Albert Klages lifted his glass to his lips and took a mouthful of wine.

  When I looked at his old face, it was strange to imagine that this person was the neglected little boy who’d lost his mother on her sickbed. I tried to imagine the special friendship which had developed between him and Baker Hans.

  I had been lonely and forlorn when I had come to Dorf, but the man who had taken me in had once been just as exhausted. Albert put his glass back down on the table and raked about in the fire with a poker before he continued.

  ‘Everyone in the village knew Baker Hans lived in a wooden cabin above Dorf. There were many rumours about what it was like there, but I don’t think anyone had been inside his place. So it wasn’t surprising that I had butterflies in my stomach as I walked between the high banks of snow up to Baker Hans’s that winter evening. I was the very first person to visit the mysterious baker …

  ‘A white full moon rose above the mountains in the east, and the first stars had already appeared in the night sky.

  ‘As I walked up the last little hill, I remembered what Baker Hans had said about me one day tasting a fizzy drink a thousand times better than the one I’d had after the big fight. Did this drink have anything to do with the big secret?

  ‘I soon spied the house up on the ridge, and as I’m sure you understand, Ludwig, that house was the very house we’re sitting in now.’

  ‘I nodded quickly, and the old baker continued: ‘I passed the water pump, hurried over the snow-covered courtyard, and knocked on the door. I heard Baker Hans call, “Come in, my son!”

  ‘Now, you have to remember I was only twelve years old at the time, and I still lived at home on the farm with my father. So it felt a bit strange to be addressed as another man’s son.

  ‘I stepped inside, and it was like slipping into another world. Baker Hans sat in a deep rocking chair, and all over the room there were glass bowls with goldfish inside. In every corner a little piece of rainbow danced.

  ‘But there were not only goldfish here. I stood for a long time staring at objects I had never seen before. It took many years before I could put into words what I saw there.

  ‘There were ships in bottles and conch shells, Buddha figures and precious stones, boomerangs and wooden dolls, old rapiers and swords, knives and pistols, Persian cushions and South American carpets made of llama wool. I particularly noticed a strange glass figure of an animal with a little pointed head and six legs. It was like a whirlwind from foreign lands. I might have heard of some of the things I saw, but this was long before I had seen a photograph.

  ‘The whole atmosphere in the little cabin was totally different from the way I had imagined it to be. It was as though I were no longer at Baker Hans’s; suddenly I was visiting an old seafarer. Oil lamps were lit around the room, and these were so different from the paraffin lamps I was used to seeing, they must have come from his life at sea.

  ‘The old man asked me to sit down in a chair beside the fire, and it was exactly the same chair you’re sitting in now, Ludwig. Do you understand?’

  I nodded again.

  ‘Before I sat down, I walked around the cosy room looking at all the goldfish. Some of them were red, yellow, and orange; others were green, blue, and violet. I had seen a goldfish like these only once before. That had been on a little table in the back room of Baker Hans’s bakery. I had often stood staring at the tiny fish swimming back and forth inside the glass bowl while Baker Hans made dough.

  “What a lot of goldfish you have,” I exclaimed as I walked across the room towards him. “Are you going to tell me where you caught them?”

  ‘He chuckled and said, “All in due course, my boy, all in due course. Tell me – would you like to be the baker in Dorf one day when I am gone?”

  ‘Although I was only a child, the idea had already occurred to me. I didn’t have anything in my life except Baker Hans and his bakery. Mother was dead, Father had stopped asking about my comings and goings, and all my brothers and sisters had moved away from Dorf.

  “I’ve already decided to stay in the bakery trade,” I replied formally.

  “I thought as much,” said the old man. “Hmm … You will have to look after my fish as well. And there’s even more. You’ll be the keeper of the secret of Rainbow Fizz.”

  “Rainbow Fizz?”

  “Yes, that and everything else, my boy.”

  “Tell me about Rainbow Fizz,” I said.

  ‘He raised his white eyebrows and whispered, “It has to be tasted, my boy.”

  “Can’t you tell me what it tastes like?”

  ‘He shook his old head in despair.

  “A normal fizzy drink tastes of orange or pear or raspberry – and that’s that. That isn’t the case with Rainbow Fizz, Albert. You taste all those flavours at the same time with this drink, and you even taste fruits and berries you’ve never been near with your tongue.”

  “Then it must be good,” I said.

  “Hah! It’s more than just good. You can taste a normal fizzy drink only in your mouth … first on your tongue and the roof of your mouth, then a little bit down your throat. You can taste Rainbow Fizz in your nose and head, down through your legs, and out through your arms.”

  “I think you’re pulling my leg,” I said.

  “You think so?”

  ‘The old man looked almost dumbfounded, so I decided to ask something which was easier to answer.

  “What colour is it?” I asked.

  ‘Baker Hans started to laugh. “You’re full of questions, aren’t you, boy. And that’s good, but it’s not always easy to answer. I have to show you the drink, you see.”

  ‘Baker Hans got up and walked over to a door which led into a little bedroom. Inside, there was a glass bowl with a goldfish in it. The old man pulled out a ladder from underneath the bed and leaned it up against the wall. I noticed a little trapdoor in the ceiling which was locked with a heavy padlock.

  ‘The baker climbed the ladder and opened the trapdoor to the attic with a key which he fished out of his shirt pocket.

  “Come here, my boy,” he said. “No one but me has been here for more than fifty years.”

  ‘I followed him up into the attic.

  ‘Moonlight streamed in through a little window in the roof. It fell upon old chests and ships’ bells lying under a cover of dust and spider’s webs. But it wasn’t only the moon illuminating the dark attic
. The moonlight was blue, but there was also a bright shimmer, in all the colours of the rainbow.

  ‘Baker Hans made his way across the attic floor. He stopped at the far end and pointed towards a corner. An old bottle was standing on the floor under the slanting roof. A light shone from the bottle which was so dazzlingly beautiful that at first I had to cover my eyes. It was a clear glass bottle, but the contents were red, yellow, green, and violet – or all these colours at once.

  ‘Baker Hans picked up the bottle, and the contents glittered like liquid diamonds.

  “What is it?” I whispered timidly.

  “The old baker’s face was serious. “This, my boy, is Rainbow Fizz. These are the last drops to be found in the whole world.”

  “And what’s that?” I asked, pointing down at a small wooden box containing a pile of dusty old playing cards. They had almost disintegrated. The eight of spades lay on the top of the heap. I could only just make out a number eight in the left-hand corner of the card.

  ‘Baker Hans put his finger to his lips and whispered, “They’re Frode’s playing cards, Albert.”

  “Frode?”

  “Yes, Frode. But we’ll hear that story another evening. Now you and I are going to take this bottle down to the living room.”

  ‘With the bottle in his hand, the old man started to walk across the floor. He looked like a pixie with a lantern; the only difference was that this lantern didn’t know whether it wanted to shine red, green, yellow, or blue. Small specks of colour splashed across the room – like the light from a hundred tiny dancing lanterns.

  ‘When we were back downstairs in the living room, he put the bottle on the table in front of the fireplace. The exotic objects in the room were coloured by the contents of the bottle. The Buddha figure became green, an old revolver became blue, and a boomerang became red like blood.

  “Is that Rainbow Fizz?” I asked again.

  “Yes, the last drops. And it’s just as well, Albert, because this is a drink which is so terribly good, I wouldn’t like to say what might happen if it were sold over the counter.”