New Lives (42 page)

Unfortunately Vera and I messed up at the end. My paying in cash had itself caused bewilderment, but our departure proved so abrupt that our personal waiters, who had intended to pull our chairs back, just raised their hands in reproachful disappointment.

Once in the casino we soon found ourselves standing at the first roulette table. I would have liked to have gone to work right away, but had not yet bought my jetons. I asked Vera what number she guessed would be next, and chose “eighteen” for myself. There was no reason to pick eighteen. It isn't one of my favorite numbers. “Eighteen,” I repeated—and didn't understand what the croupier announced in French. Vera looked at me in shock. Eighteen.

How was I supposed to interpret this oracle: “This is your lucky day!” or “That was your one and only chance!”?

Instead of the six thousand francs I had planned to bet today, I exchanged only fifty-five hundred with the cashier—and smiled at my own faintheartedness.

A guard at the entrance to the rear rooms made us hesitant. But we showed our gold hotel cards, waited for him to bow, and crossed the invisible border to the
salon privé.

Two places at Table 7 were open. The board promised an above-average variety. To win all you had to do was muster a little consistency. The red field lay directly before us.

I passed on the first few rounds, trying to get a feel for the game. Then I placed a hundred on the lower third
²³⁷
—it had not appeared for four times in a row. I lost and doubled my bet. Perhaps the most beautiful jetons are the greenish mother-of-pearl hundreds. The others at the table, all older gentlemen, bet on numbers. I won. A pink five hundred, an orange two hundred, and a green hundred were added to my bet; I was ahead five hundred francs after three turns of the wheel. “It's working,” I whispered.

Vera played the thirds, the rows, the red, the odds. She didn't always keep good track—the ball landed on fifteen and seven twice. The thirds alternated in an almost regular sequence.

Suddenly Vera wanted to leave; 20 percent profit was more than enough for her. I said that I couldn't develop a method, a system, if she kept betting such sums simply at random. Maybe, she conjectured, my real task was to find my own rules. I had made a promise, I said testily. After that I lost four times in a row.

One glance at our cash on hand, and my courage failed me. Instead of doubling my sixteen hundred, I risked only a thousand—and lost. I bet fifteen hundred. It was already my last chance. So, I thought, that's how fast it all went.

Vera stood up. We said our good-byes while the ball was still spinning in its bowl. I watched Vera go, she turned around, I waved, heard the ball bouncing, then its last
click
—the announced winner had several syllables. All I recall is that it was in the right third—victory! Victory! I was back in the running.

From that point on I played my apple green hundreds with childlike abandon, happy at last to be able to do or not do whatever I pleased. Success proved me right. My winnings grew steadily and always in the same way: as soon as a given third had not appeared four times in a row, I entered the fray: one hundred, two hundred, four hundred—and at the latest won with eight hundred.

I didn't care if other people were speculating on the same third I was. Except that when a bet was larger than mine, I feared some alien gravity might spoil my luck.

Currency was constantly being changed into jetons. Anyone who left the table, left with nothing. I, on the other hand, had the feeling I was doing good work.

The only other player I admired was wearing neither tie nor bow tie and chewed the whole time on the stump of a cigarillo. I don't know how big his stake was to begin with. After a half hour, however, there they lay before him: two big white ten thousands, those Lipizzaners among the jetons. I wanted so much to give him a nod of approval, but his eyes were relentlessly fixed on the green felt.

His counterpart was a freckled, unshaven gentleman, who sat at one corner and, tilting his head like a grade-school boy, jotted down each number in a plaid notebook. He calculated and calculated and looked up only to place one of his nominal bets—which he promptly lost.

The only person working harder than I was a delicate Frenchman, who was playing two tables at once and evidently trusted my choice of thirds. Our fate hung from the same thread—which for him, however, was no reason to return my smile. I soon realized how alone a person is, even in success.

I got too cocky twice and lost four lemon fifties on red, and lost again with an orange two hundred on
passe.
Have I already told you that at every spin I defended myself with a pink mother-of-pearl twenty on the zero? There wasn't one zero, however, the whole evening. (The chambermaid doesn't know if she should chase me off the balcony or not. She opened the door so that I can hear her vacuuming.)

Taking a cue from the man with the cigarillo, I awarded the croupiers an occasional lemon-or apple-colored chip. Shortly before one o'clock I totaled up the books: I had ten thousand francs in my pocket—winnings of forty-five hundred, plus a motley collection of other chips that came to twelve hundred, which suddenly meant nothing to me. I bet on red—and won, let the apples and lemons lie there, pocketed a blue mother-of-pearl thousand and all my oranges.

I had already whispered my
bonsoir
and started moving toward the cashier, when I noticed the cleavage on two women at the next table, and changed course.

I bent deep over both the ladies—and placed all my oranges on red. Seconds later I took another look down into the décolletage and raked in my winnings.

The cashier was cross-eyed, but that was the only irregularity. I strode out, bounding down the casino stairs and then up the stairway leading to the Hôtel de Paris, shouted, “Yes! I won!” and left it to Vera to sort out the bills on the bedspread. All in all, winnings of almost seven thousand francs.

It was when I woke up that I felt the angst. I know how silly it is to talk about angst. The fact that even if I had lost, I would have lost nothing, didn't help. It was my own big mouth that was at fault. Without giving it a second thought, I had accepted the baron's offer. But now I no longer comprehended where I had found the courage to bet a fifteen hundred francs. It seemed absurd ever to want to risk that much again.

Vera was not happy with me. Under a springtime sun, we trotted out into the bay and then up to the Grimaldis' castle, missed the changing of the guard, did a circuit in the cathedral, and finally landed at the oceanographic museum. From its rooftop terrace we could watch the sailboats. But none of it proved a distraction. I tried thinking about soccer.

I dozed on the bed till seven, and had no idea how I would play it. I was convinced that I wouldn't be successful again if I followed the same method. All the same, after a shower I put on the same outfit as the evening before, even the same socks. Vera, on the other hand, looked more elegant than ever—she had a new hairdo too. Neither she nor I had thought of a dinner reservation.

After being turned away at the Louis XV, I suggested we eat in the casino. Vera shook her head in revulsion. The front desk implied there was some hope of getting us into the Grill's Churchill Room.

Bonsoir, bonsoir, bonsoir, bonsoir.
We strode past the phalanx of waiters again, crossed the huge dining room, and in the end had a pick of any table in the empty Churchill Room. I didn't understand why the waiters apologized for putting us there. To me it seemed more of an honor. Only after we sat down did I notice the large photograph of Churchill. His gaze was directed straight at me.

We recognized half the waiters, the stool for Vera's purse was put in place, my menu was in English.

(With a heavy heart I've been forced to vacate the balcony and the room. Now I'm sitting over tea and zwieback in the hotel café, an insufferable piano plinking in the background. At least there's not someone constantly taking your picture here.)

We went right into the routine, immediately chose our bread (olive), knew which butter was salted. I quickly selected a red wine; by now three hundred francs seemed a bargain. The waiter who had taken our order personally supervised the serving of the first course. And not just that. As if the cream in the middle of my empty soup bowl were the entire appetizer he wished us
“Bon appétit!,”
hesitated mischievously, and only then elegantly poured the mushroom soup around the cream.

I tasted Vera's risotto—and for a few minutes I didn't think about the casino. The next transitional course was on the house. By then I was full.

Where had these knots in my stomach come from? During the entrée I concentrated on the fish, but just picked at it and left the rest untouched. The cheese cart wasn't even allowed to approach us. This was followed—once again on the house and with the compliments of the chef—by filled crepes.

I was feeling sick to my stomach. I chose a calvados from the liqueur cart. It went down gently, gradually started to burn—and my nausea exploded. Our chief waiter helped me double-time it through the restaurant—don't look at the tables!—to the restroom. I went to my knees before the toilet bowl and gagged a few times. In the corner lay some scraps of packaging, from a shirt maybe. I overcame my resistance, and stuck a finger down my throat. All I managed was a harmless belch.

My crepes had been sent back to the kitchen to be kept warm. Their return marked the return of my nausea. The waiters didn't catch up with us until just before we reached the elevator—with my change on a silver tray.

Back in the room I turned on the television, locked all the doors, and planted myself on the toilet, hanging my head over the bidet. Twenty minutes later, mission unaccomplished, I crept into bed.

Shortly before one, Vera was forced to watch me dress again. As I stepped into my shoes, I broke out in a sweat. Vera retied my bow tie for me, spat three times over my left shoulder, and sent me on my way.

I exchanged six thousand francs, showed my gold card, and proceeded to Table 7, where the freckled, still unshaven gentleman was sitting at the corner, staring at his notebook, and calculating, head atilt.

The other players were standing. But I needed a chair.

Propping my elbows on the ledge, I was just about to stack my jetons when my gaze drifted across the table—for a moment I had to close my eyes. The sign above the croupier's head still announced a minimum bet of fifty francs. But what was being raked in at that moment were two greenish white candy bars, each worth a hundred thousand, two violets at fifty thousand apiece, and countless Lipizzaners. My nausea was all that prevented me from bursting into laughter. Why had I let my fears torment me all day?

Totally liberated, I now began to play, working both my third plus red and odds, and smoking—although the dryness in my mouth told me my stomach wasn't going to permit me all the time in the world. I employed my oranges only in little towers, and wasn't niggardly with my blue thousands either. When I won, the jetons were too big to be distributed as gratuities. I ignored the zero entirely.

The combination of concentration and nausea apparently predestined me for an exegesis of the board. I was soon moving to the rhythm that concealed a world hung in the balance. A pink five hundred on the lower third—I won. That third had been neglected so long that the ball was not going to move elsewhere right away. I stayed with it—and won. And now enough energy had collected for a bounce that hurdled the middle third, and so back up top—I won. I smiled because any child would know what must come now. A pink on the middle third—and of course I won.

Side bets lost on red, odds, and
passe
reduced my winnings, but not my confidence. One pink on the upper third, and I owned another blue. By the next round I had doubled my six thousand francs—but that didn't phase me much. I now wanted twelve thousand!

Believe me, my friend, in the same moment that the thought crossed my mind, I realized my mistake. I knew that the wish would be my downfall. But I went on playing.

I lost a pink on the middle third twice in a row. My nausea was now tinged with a sadness unlike any I'd ever known—sadness in expectation of my next win. And I did win, and once again had as much as I had had three spins before.

Nevertheless I let my pink chip lie—I could come up with nothing more clever. Suddenly a light went on: blue on red—and against my better judgment I held back. It landed on black and the first third.

No sadness now. I was in any case still four thousand to the good. No reason to be down in the dumps. I remained faithful to pink on the middle third. Or should I risk a blue? But I held back again—and lost.

I no longer felt anything, except the need to throw up. I had lost all my pinks, reached for a blue—and lost.

Something inside me rose up in protest at this injustice—blind rage! I wanted my blue back. It belonged to me. All I had to do was make a grab for the jetons and run!

I was sure I was going to have to vomit under the table any moment. But first there was something I had to do—an act of self-respect, the restoration of my honor.

Six blues in my breast pocket. The board showed the following sequence: red, black, black, red, black, black, red, black, black—everything on red? Six blues between my fingertips. I had to do it, I demanded it of myself. I was not going to be a pussyfooter.

The ball rolled—no! Not on red, not on odds, not on
passe
—stay with the second third! I was the only one to build my little blue tower there.

As the cry of
“Rien ne va plus!”
descended over the table like a bell jar, I glanced at the ceiling for the first time, and in the far corner saw a three-foot-high mural,
Le matin.
What did
le matin
mean? My eyes wandered to the right, across the empty tables in the restaurant and out into the darkness. Don't think of victory, I admonished myself, resign yourself, you did the right thing.