The Solitaire Mystery

by Jostein Gaarder

  Dad insisted we go via this place to the carpark before starting our trip. We just had to collect our luggage from the hotel.

  On Murano we started by visiting a museum which had glass in all sorts of colours and designs from hundreds of years ago. Afterwards we were able to see a glass workshop where they blew pitchers and glass bowls right in front of our eyes. What they made was then put on sale, but Dad said we’d leave the business side of the visit to the rich Americans.

  From the glassblowers’ island we took a waterbus back to the carpark, and by one o’clock we were again on the autostrada heading for Ancona, 250 miles south of Venice.

  The road followed the Adriatic coast all the way, and Dad sat whistling and enjoying himself all the more now that he had constant eye contact with the wet element.

  Our route took us over a ridge of hills with an excellent view of the sea. Dad stopped the car and started to comment on the sailing boats and merchant ships we could see.

  In the car he told me a lot I didn’t know about Arendal’s history as a shipping town. Off the top of his head, he mentioned the dates and the names of the large sailing ships. I learned the difference between schooners, brigs, barques, and full-rigged ships. He told me about the first ships to sail from Arendal to America and the Gulf of Mexico. I also found out that the first steamship to visit Norway came to Arendal. It was a specially adapted sailing ship which was fitted with a steam engine and a paddle. It was called the Savannah.

  As for Dad, he’d been on board a tanker, built in Hamburg and owned by Kuhlnes Shipping Company in Bergen. The ship weighed over 8,000 tons and had a crew of forty.

  ‘The tankers are much bigger today,’ he said. ‘But the crews have been reduced to eight or ten men. Everything is run by machines and technology. So life at sea has become a memory, Hans Thomas – I mean the life itself. In the next century there’ll be some idiots sitting with remote controls steering everything from land.’

  If I understood him correctly, life at sea was something which had gradually faded away from as early as the end of the sailing ship era, 150 years ago.

  While Dad talked about life at sea, I took out a pack of cards. I plucked out all the clubs from two to ten and spread them out next to me on the car seat.

  Why did all the dwarfs on the magic island have clubs drawn on their backs? Who were they – and where did they come from? Would Baker Hans find someone he could talk to properly about the country he’d come to? My head buzzed with unanswered questions.

  And the Two of Clubs had said something that was hard to forget: ‘The goldfish does not reveal the island’s secret, but the sticky-bun does.’ Could it be the baker’s goldfish in Dorf he’d babbled about? And the bun – could it be the same sticky-bun that I’d got in Dorf? The Five of Clubs had said, ‘The baker conceals the treasures from the magic island.’ But how could the dwarfs whom Baker Hans had met in the middle of the previous century know anything about this?

  Dad sat for a good twenty miles whistling shanties he’d learned as a sailor. Then I sneaked the sticky-bun book out again and read on.

  THREE OF CLUBS

  … a bit of a threesome …

  I continued in the direction in which the three fieldworkers had fled. The cart track twisted its way between some tall, leafy trees. The bright afternoon sunshine seemed to turn the leaves on the trees into living sparks.

  In a clearing in the woods I came across a large wooden house. Black smoke rose from two chimneys. From a distance I saw a figure dressed in pink slip into the house.

  It soon became clear that the wooden house was missing one whole wall, and I could look in at something which took me so much by surprise, I had to lean against a tree to keep my balance. On a large floor without any dividing walls was a kind of factory. It wasn’t long before I understood this had to be a glassblowers’ workshop.

  The roof was held up by thick beams. There were some big white stone tubs over three or four massive wood-burning ovens. A red-hot glowing liquid bubbled in the tubs, giving off a greasy steam. Three female figures, the same size as the fieldworkers but dressed in pink, ran between the tubs. They dipped some long tubes into the substance in the tubs and blew glass into all sorts of designs. At one end of the large floor there was a heap of sand, and at the other end finished glassware was stacked on shelves along the wall. In the middle of the floor was a metre-high pile of broken glass bottles, glasses, and bowls.

  Once again I had to ask myself where I was. If I ignored their uniforms, the fieldworkers could just as easily have lived in a Stone Age society. Yet now the island appeared to have a refined glass industry.

  The women running the glassworks were dressed in dark pink dresses. They had almost white complexions and all three had long, straight, silver-coloured hair.

  I quickly noticed, to my horror, that all the dresses had diamond symbols on the front. They were exactly the same diamond symbols you find on playing cards. One of them had three diamonds, another had seven, and the third had nine. The diamonds were silver-coloured.

  The three women were so busy blowing glass that it took a long time before they noticed me, even though I was standing right in front of the large opening. They skipped back and forth across the big floor and moved their arms so lightly and gently they seemed almost weightless. I wouldn’t have been any more surprised if one of them had started to float up to the ceiling.

  Suddenly the one with seven diamonds on her dress saw me. I was about to run away, but when she looked up she got so confused she dropped a glass bowl onto the floor. When it smashed it was too late to escape, because now they were all looking at me.

  I went in, bowed politely, and said hello in German. Then they glanced at each other and smiled so widely their white teeth shone in the light from the glowing ovens. I walked towards them, and they gathered round me.

  ‘I hope it’s all right if I pay a little visit,’ I said.

  They looked at each other again and smiled even wider. They all had deep blue eyes. They were so alike they must have been from the same family. Perhaps they were sisters.

  ‘Do you understand what I‘m saying?’

  ‘We understand all normal words!’ said the Three of Diamonds in a little, doll-like voice.

  They all started to talk at the same time, and two of them curtsied. The Nine of Diamonds even came over to me and held my hand. I was surprised that her delicate hand was so icy, because here inside the glass workshop it was anything but cold.

  ‘What lovely glass you blow,’ I said, and then they bubbled with laughter.

  These girl glassblowers were perhaps friendlier than the hotheaded fieldworkers, but they were just as unapproachable.

  ‘But who has taught you the art of glassblowing?’ I asked. I took it for granted they hadn’t taught themselves.

  Nobody answered me now either, but the Seven of Diamonds immediately went and fetched a glass bowl which she presented to me.

  ‘There you are!’ she said.

  And the girls began to laugh again.

  Amid all this friendliness, it wasn’t so easy to carry out my real mission. If I didn’t find out the meaning of all these strange little people soon, I’d go out of my mind.

  ‘I have just arrived on the island,’ I began again, ‘but I have no idea where in the world I am. Can you tell me something about this place?’

  ‘We can’t talk –’ said the Seven of Diamonds.

  ‘Does somebody forbid you to?’

  All three of them shook their heads, so their silver hair fluttered in the light from the ovens.

  ‘We are good at blowing glass,’ said the Nine of Diamonds. ‘But we’re not good at thinking. That’s why we’re not too good at talking either.’

  ‘You’re a bit of a threesome,’ I said, which made the three girls burst out laughing again.

  We’re not all three,’ said the Seven of Diamonds. She started to play with her dress and added, ‘Can’t you see we’re all different numbers?’


  ‘Idiots!’ It slipped out of me, and they cowered together.

  ‘Please don’t get angry,’ said the Three of Diamonds. ‘We get sad and unhappy very easily.’

  I wasn’t sure whether I believed her. She smiled so convincingly that I thought it would take a lot more than a little anger to break that smile, but I took note of the warning.

  ‘Are you really as scatterbrained as you say?’ I asked.

  They nodded formally.

  ‘I would really like –’ began the Nine of Diamonds, but then she put her hand over her mouth without saying any more.

  ‘Yes?’ I asked in a friendly voice.

  ‘I would really like to think a thought which is so difficult I can’t think it, but I can’t’

  I pondered over what she had said and realised that that must be difficult for anyone to master.

  Suddenly the Three of Diamonds started to cry.

  ‘I wou …’ she sobbed.

  The Nine put her arm around her, and the Three continued. ‘I would really like to wake up … but I am awake.’

  She expressed my thoughts exactly.

  The Seven of Diamonds gazed up at me with a distant look in her eyes. Then she said very seriously, ‘The truth is that the master glassblower’s son has made fun of his own fantasies.’

  It wasn’t long before all three of them were standing on the floor sniffling. One of them grabbed a big glass pitcher and smashed it on the floor on purpose. Another started to pull her silver-coloured hair. I realised my visit was over.

  ‘Please excuse me for disturbing you,’ I said quickly. ‘Goodbye!’

  I was now absolutely positive I’d come to a sanctuary for mentally disturbed people. I was also convinced that at any time some nurses dressed in white would show up and take me to task for walking round the island causing anxiety and unrest among the patients.

  All the same, there were some things I didn’t understand. The first was the size of the island’s inhabitants. As a sailor I had travelled to many lands, and I knew there was no country in the whole world where the people were so small. The fieldworkers and the girl glassblowers also had hair of different colours, so they couldn’t be that closely related.

  Was it possible that at some time a worldwide epidemic had broken out, making people both smaller and more stupid – and those who were struck down in this way were placed on this island so as not to infect others? If this was so, then I would soon be just as small and stupid myself.

  The second thing I didn’t understand was the categorisation of diamonds and clubs as in a pack of cards. Was this how the doctors and nurses organised their patients?

  I continued along the cart track, which now passed between some tall trees. The forest floor had a light green carpet of moss. Blue flowers, which reminded me of forget-me-nots, grew everywhere. The sun slipped in only through the very tops of the trees. The branches lay like a golden canopy above the landscape.

  After I’d been there a while, a bright figure appeared between the tree trunks. It was a thin young woman with long fair hair. She was wearing a yellow dress and wasn’t much taller than the other dwarfs on the island. Now and then, she bent down and picked a blue flower. Then I saw that she had a big blood-red heart on her back.

  As I gradually moved closer, I heard her humming a sorrowful melody.

  ‘Hello!’ I whispered when I was a few yards away from her.

  ‘Hello!’ she said, and stood up. She said it as naturally as if we had met each other before.

  I thought she was so pretty I didn’t quite know where to look.

  ‘You sing beautifully,’ I finally managed to say.

  ‘Thank you …’

  I unconsciously ran my fingers through my hair. For the first time since I’d arrived on the island, I thought about my appearance. I hadn’t shaved for more than a week.

  ‘I think I am lost,’ she now said.

  She tossed her little head and looked quite bewildered.

  ‘What’s your name?’ I asked.

  She stood for a moment, smiling knowingly. ‘Can’t you see I’m the Ace of Hearts?’

  ‘Yes, of course …’ I paused a moment before I continued. ‘And that’s what I find rather remarkable.’

  ‘Why?’

  She bent down and picked another flower. ‘Who are you, by the way?’

  ‘My name’s Hans.’

  She stood thinking. ‘Do you think it’s stranger to be the Ace of Hearts than to be Hans?’

  This time I was at a loss for an answer.

  ‘Hans?’ she went on. ‘I think I have heard something like that before. Or maybe it’s something I’ve just imagined … It is so terribly far away …’

  She bent down and picked another blue flower. Then it was as though she had a kind of epileptic fit. Quivering at the mouth she said, ‘The inner box unpacks the outer box at the same time as the outer box unpacks the inner.’

  It was as though she wasn’t really saying this meaningless sentence. I got the impression the words just tumbled out of her, without her understanding what she said. As soon as she had said the sentence, she was herself again, and now she pointed to my sailor’s uniform.

  ‘But you’re completely blank,’ she said, alarmed.

  ‘You mean I don’t have anything drawn on my back?’

  She nodded. Then she tossed her head sharply. ‘You do know you’re not allowed to hit me?’

  ‘I would never hit a lady,’ I replied.

  Two big dimples appeared in her cheeks. I thought she was angelically beautiful, like a fairy. When she smiled, her green eyes shone like emeralds, and I couldn’t take my eyes off her.

  At once a worried expression clouded her face.” You’re not a trump, are you?’ she blurted out.

  ‘Oh no, I’m just an able-bodied seaman.’

  With that, she slipped away behind a tree trunk and was gone. I tried to follow her, but it was as though she’d disappeared into thin air.

  FOUR OF CLUBS

  … one huge lottery where

  only the winning tickets are visible …

  I put the sticky-bun book down and stared out across the Adriatic Sea.

  What I had just read raised so many questions I didn’t quite know where to begin.

  The dwarfs on the magic island seemed more and more mysterious the more I read about them. Baker Hans had now met the club dwarfs and the diamond dwarfs. He’d also met the Ace of Hearts but she’d suddenly disappeared.

  Who were all these dwarfs? How had they come to be – and where did they come from?

  I was sure the sticky-bun book would eventually answer all my questions. But there was something else: the diamond dwarfs had been blowing glass in a glass workshop. This was even more bizarre, considering I had just visited a glass workshop myself.

  I was pretty sure there must be some kind of relationship between my own journey through Europe and what was in the sticky-bun book. But what I read in the sticky-bun book was something Baker Hans had told Albert many many years ago. Could there be a mysterious relationship between my life on earth and the big secret which Baker Hans, Albert, and Ludwig had shared?

  Who was the old baker I met in Dorf? Who was the little man who gave me the magnifying glass – and, moreover, who kept popping up on our journey through Europe? I was convinced there must be a connection between the baker and the dwarf – even if they weren’t aware of it themselves.

  I couldn’t tell Dad about the sticky-bun book – or at least not until I had finished reading it. Nevertheless, it was good to have a philosopher in the car.

  We had just passed Ravenna when I asked, ‘Do you believe in coincidences, Dad?’

  He looked at me in the mirror. ‘Do I believe in coincidences?’

  ‘Yeah!’

  ‘But a coincidence is something which happens totally coincidentally. When I won ten thousand crowns in the lottery, my ticket was pulled out of thousands of other tickets. Of course I was happy with the result, but it was sheer luck that
I won.’

  ‘Are you sure about that? Have you forgotten we found a four-leaf clover that morning? And if you hadn’t won the money, we might not have been able to afford the trip to Athens.’

  He just grunted, but I continued. ‘Was it just as coincidental that your aunt travelled to Crete and suddenly discovered Mama in the fashion magazine? Or was that intended?’

  ‘You’re asking me whether I believe in fate,’ he said. I think he was pleased his son was interested in philosophical questions. ‘The answer is no.’

  I thought about the girl glassblowers – and the fact that I had visited a glass workshop just before I read about the glass workshop in the sticky-bun book. Moreover, I thought about the dwarf who’d given me a magnifying glass just before I got a book with tiny writing, and about what happened when Grandma’s bike got a flat tyre at Froland – and everything that followed.

  ‘I don’t think you can call it a coincidence that I was born,’ I said.

  ‘Cigarette stop!’ Dad announced. I must have said something which made one of his mini-lectures shoot out from the filing cabinet.

  He parked on a hill with a splendid view over the Adriatic.

  ‘Sit down!’ he ordered when we were out of the car, and pointed to a large stone.

  ‘Thirteen forty-nine,’ was the first thing he said.

  ‘The Black Death,’ I replied. I had a pretty good knowledge of history, but I had no idea what the Black Death had to do with coincidences.

  ‘Okay,’ he said, and off he went. ‘You probably know that half Norway’s population was wiped out during the great plague. But there’s a connection here I haven’t told you about.’

  When he began like this, I knew it was going to be a long lecture.

  ‘Did you know that you had thousands of ancestors at that time?’ he continued.

  I shook my head in despair. How could that possibly be?

  ‘You have two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, sixteen great-great-grandparents – and so on. If you work it out, right back to 1349 – there are quite a lot.’