The Solitaire Mystery

by Jostein Gaarder

  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.

  FOUR OF DIAMONDS

  … Her little hand was

  as cold as the morning dew …

  I had met my very own grandfather on the magic island, because I was the son of the unborn child he had left behind in Germany when he had set off across the Atlantic Ocean before the fateful shipwreck.

  Which was stranger: the fact that a little seed could grow and eventually become a living person? Or that a living person could have such vivid fantasies that these fantasies eventually start to spurt out into the world? But weren’t human beings lively, living fantasies like these as well? Who let us out into the world?

  Frode had lived alone on the big island for half a century – would we ever be able to travel back to Germany together? Would I be able to walk into my father’s bakery one day, at home in Lübeck, and introduce the old man with me and say, ‘Here I am, Dad, I have returned from foreign lands. I’ve brought Frode with me – he is your father.’

  Thousands of thoughts about the world, history, and all the generations filled my head while I embraced Frode tightly. I wasn’t able to think for very long, however, as a bunch of dwarfs dressed in red were hurrying up the hill from the village.

  ‘Look!’ I whispered to the old man. ‘We’ve got visitors!’

  ‘It’s the hearts,’ he said in a broken voice. ‘They always come and fetch me for the Joker Banquet.’

  ‘I am looking forward to it.’

  ‘So am I, son. Did I tell you that it was the Jack of Spades who conveyed the sentence about the important message from the homeland?’

  ‘No … what about it?’

  ‘Spades always bring bad luck. I learned that in the harbour bars long before the shipwreck, and it has also been true here on the island. Every time I stumble across a spade down in the village, I can be sure there will be an accident.’

  He wasn’t able to say more than that now, because all the hearts from Two to Ten were dancing around in front of the cabin. They all had long fair hair and red dresses with hearts on. Next to Frode’s brown clothes and my own threadbare sailor’s uniform, their red dresses shone with an intensity so bright I had to rub my eyes.

  We walked toward them, and they now formed a tight ring around us.

  ‘Happy Joker!’ they shouted, and laughed.

  They then started to walk round us in a circle, singing and swinging their skirts.

  ‘Okay! That’s enough,’ the old man said.

  He talked to them as you would normally talk to pet animals.

  With that, the girls started to nudge us down the hillside. The Five of Hearts held my hand and dragged me along behind her. Her little hand was as cold as the morning dew.

  It was quiet in the village streets and square, but yelling and screeching could be heard coming from some of the houses. The hearts disappeared inside one of the cabins.

  Lit oil lamps hung around the outside of the carpentry workshop, even though the sun was still high in the sky.

  ‘Here it is,’ Frode announced, and we stepped inside the banqueting hall.

  None of the dwarfs had arrived yet, but four large tables were set with glass plates and tall dishes piled high with fruit. There were also many bottles and decanters filled with the sparking drink. Thirteen chairs were placed around each table.

  The walls were constructed of a light-coloured wood, and oil lamps of coloured glass hung from the beams in the ceiling. Four windows were carved out of a wall along the far side of the room, and on the windowsills and tables there were glass bowls filled with red, yellow, and blue fish. Soft blankets of sunlight drifted in through the windows, hitting the bottles and goldfish bowls, sending tiny rainbow flickers across the floor and along the walls. Three tall chairs were positioned next to each other on the opposite side of the room. They reminded me of the bench in a courtroom.

  Before I’d had the chance to look at everything, the door burst open and the Joker bounced into the banqueting hall from the street outside.

  ‘Greetings!’ he said, grinning from ear to ear.

  Every time he made the slightest movement, the bells on his violet
costume rang zealously, and if he nodded just a touch, his red-and-green hat with the donkey ears jangled.

  He suddenly bounded towards me, hopped up, and pulled my ear. The noise he made sounded like bells on a sleigh pulled by a fearsome horse.

  ‘Now,’ he said, ‘are you pleased to be invited to the great banquet?’

  ‘Thank you for the invitation,’ I replied. I was almost scared of the little gnome.

  ‘Really – so you have learned the art of gratitude? Not bad,’ said the Joker.

  ‘Why don’t you try to calm down a little, you fool,’ Frode said sternly.

  But the little Joker just looked suspiciously at the old sailor.

  ‘No doubt you have cold feet before the great occasion, but Joker says it’s too late for regrets, for today all the cards will be turned picture-side-up – and the truth lies in the cards. Let’s say no more! Enough!’

  The little clown ran back outside and Frode was left slowly shaking his head.

  ‘Who is the real figure of authority on the island here?’ I asked. ‘Is it you, or is it that fool?’

  ‘Until now it has been me,’ he replied perplexedly.

  After a little while, the Joker came back in. He sat down on one of the tall chairs along the wall and solemnly signalled to me and Frode to take our seats next to him. Frode sat in the middle, with the Joker to his right and me to his left.

  ‘Silence!’ ordered the Joker when we had sat down, even though neither of us had uttered a word.

  Some beautiful flute music grew louder and louder, and now all the diamonds came scampering in through the door. The pint-sized King led the way, followed by the Queen, the Jack, and then all the other diamonds, with the Ace bringing up the rear. Everyone except the royal family was playing her own little glass flute. They played a wonderful waltz, and the notes from the glass flutes were so delicate and pure, they sounded like the notes from the very smallest pipes on a church organ. The diamonds were all dressed in pink and had silvery hair and twinkling blue eyes, and apart from the King and the Jack, they were all female.

  ‘Bravo!’ exclaimed the Joker, clapping his hands, and seeing Frode do the same, I joined in, too.

  The diamonds stood in one corner of the room, forming a quarter circle, and now the clubs, dressed in their dark blue uniforms, entered. The Queen and the Ace had the same colour dresses, and all the clubs had brown curly hair, dark skin, and brown eyes. They were slightly chubbier than the diamonds in build, and this time the Queen and the Ace were the only females.

  The clubs joined the diamonds, and together they formed a half circle. The hearts came next, wearing their blood-red dresses. The King and the Jack were the only males, and both wore deep red uniforms. The hearts had blonde hair, warm complexions, and green eyes. Only the Ace of Hearts stood out from the others. She was wearing the same yellow dress she had worn the day I had met her in the woods. She walked over to the King of Clubs and stood beside him. The dwarfs had now formed three-quarters of a circle.

  The spades entered last. They had wiry black hair, black eyes, and black uniforms. They were more broad-shouldered than the other dwarfs, and their expressions were as grim and sombre as their uniforms. The Queen and the Ace were the only women, and they wore purple dresses.

  The Ace of Spades joined the King of Hearts, and the fifty-two dwarfs now formed a full circle.

  ‘Amazing,’ I whispered.

  ‘The Joker Banquet begins like that every year,’ Frode whispered back to me. ‘They form the fifty-two weeks of the year.’

  ‘Why is the Ace of Hearts wearing a yellow dress?’

  ‘She is the sun at its height in midsummer.’

  There was a little space betwen the King of Spades and the Ace of Diamonds. The Joker now climbed down from his chair and stood between them. With that, the circle was complete. The Ace of Hearts stood directly opposite the Joker.

  The dwarfs held hands and cheered: ‘Merry Joker and a happy New Year!’

  The little jester opened his arms wide, making his bells jingle, and announced in a loud voice: ‘Not only has one year passed, but we’ve also come to the end of a whole pack of fifty-two years! The future now stands with the Joker. Happy birthday, Brother Joker! Let’s say no more! Enough!’

  He shook his own hand as though he was congratulating himself, and all the other dwarfs clapped, although none of them appeared to have understood the Joker’s speech. Each of the four families then gathered around its own table.

  Frode put his hand on my shoulder. ‘They don’t really understand what they are part of,’ he whispered. ‘They just repeat year in and year out what I once did myself when I laid the cards in a circle every new year.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘Have you seen horses and dogs run around a circus ring, my boy? It’s the same with these dwarfs; they are like trained animals. It’s just that the Joker …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I have never seen him so arrogant and sure of himself.’

  FIVE OF DIAMONDS

  … the unfortunate thing was

  that the drink I was given actually tasted

  sweet and good …

  Dad interrupted my reading to tell me we were coming into Athens, so I felt it didn’t really do to be elsewhere on the planet.

  With the help of a map and some perseverance, the boss managed to find a tourist information office. I sat in the car watching the Greeks while Dad was in the tourist office trying to find a suitable hotel.

  When he returned, he was smiling from ear to ear.

  ‘Hotel Titania,’ he said when he got back into the car. ‘They have parking facilities and vacancies – of course that is important – but I also told them that if I was going to spend some days in Athens, then I wanted to see the Acropolis. So we found this hotel with a roof terrace and a panoramic view over Athens.’

  He wasn’t exaggerating – our room was on the twelfth floor, and even the view from there matched its description. Nevertheless, the first thing we did was take the lift up to the roof and then we could see right across to the Acropolis.

  Dad stood staring at the ancient temples, speechless.

  ‘It’s amazing, Hans Thomas,’ he said, breaking his silence. ‘It is truly amazing.’

  He paced back and forth. When at last he had calmed down, he ordered himself a beer. We sat closest to the railing at the end of the terrace facing the Acropolis. Soon the floodlights around the old temples were switched on, and Dad almost flipped with excitement.

  When he had stopped gazing at everything around him, he said, ‘You and I will go there tomorrow, Hans Thomas, and we’ll also visit the old market square. I’ll show you where the great philosophers walked about discussing many important questions which unfortunately the Europe of today has forgotten.’

  He now began a longer lecture on the philosophers in Athens, but after a while I just had to interrupt him: ‘I thought we’d come here to look for Mama – you haven’t forgotten that, have you?’

  He had ordered his second or third beer.

  ‘Of course not,’ he replied. ‘But if we haven’t seen the Acropolis first, we might not have anything to talk to her about, and that would be a damn shame after all these years. Don’t you think, Hans Thomas?’

  As we were nearing our goal, I understood for the first time that Dad was actually dreading meeting her. This was such a painful realisation that I thought it made an adult out of me.

  Up until now I had taken it for granted that when we got to Athens we would meet Mama, and when we met her, all our problems would be solved. I now understood that this wasn’t the case.

  It wasn’t Dad’s fault that I had been so slow to understand this; on several occasions he had said it was not certain that she’d come home with us. However, that had been like water off a duck’s back to me. I had failed to see that despite all our efforts, such a thing could be possible.

  I knew now that I had been very childish, and I suddenly felt terribly sorry for Dad. Natur
ally I felt sorry for myself, too. I think this must have played a part in what happened next.

  After making some flippant remarks about Mama and the ancient Greeks, Dad turned to me and said, ‘Would you like to try a glass of wine, Hans Thomas? I’m going to have one, but it’s a bit dull drinking on my own.’

  ‘Well, first of all I don’t like wine,’ I said. ‘And second, I’m not an adult.’

  ‘I’ll order something you’ll like,’ he said confidently. ‘And you’re not that far from being an adult either.’

  He caught the waiter’s attention and ordered a glass of Martini Rosso for me and a glass of Metaxa for himself.

  The waiter looked at me and then Dad in astonishment. ‘Really?’ he asked.

  Dad nodded, and so it came to be.

  Unfortunately, the drink I was given actually tasted sweet and good. Moreover, it was very refreshing with all the ice cubes in it. So I ended up having two or three of these drinks before the great blunder became obvious.

  My face turned deathly white and I almost collapsed onto the terrace floor.

  ‘Oh, son,’ Dad groaned apologetically.

  He took me down to the room, and I don’t remember much more before waking up the next morning, but I do know I felt pretty awful as I slept. I think Dad did, too.

  SIX OF DIAMONDS

  … now and then they climbed

  down to mingle with the people. …

  When I woke up the next morning, the first thing I thought about was how sick and tired I was of all this boozing.

  I had a father who was possibly the brightest person north of the Alps, and this person was slowly being dulled by bottled madness. I decided we had to sort this out once and for all before we met Mama.

  When Dad leaped out of bed and started talking about the Acropolis, I realized that it was better to wait until breakfast.

  When we had finished eating, Dad asked the waiter for another cup of coffee, lit a second cigarette, and unfolded a large map of Athens.