The Fourth Circle (16 page)

Maybe the wheel is not trying to buy me off but to point me out—the rat—so that the management, believing I've discovered a surefire method of breaking the bank, will bar me from ever entering the casino again. They banned that balding, stooped mathematician from the casino in Vienna last fall. He was forever scrib-bling calculations with a short, stubby pencil chewed at one end, fumbling in his simplistic way with probabilities and statistics, but winning all the same: small amounts, but constantly, for months.

Rumor has it that the poor fellow subsequently committed suicide, believing himself the victim of a tremendous injustice but nonetheless proud of his achievement. They shouldn't have interfered with him at all; he achieved nothing—his winning was simple luck, which would have abandoned him soon enough. If only it would abandon me, so I could stop winning! But mere chance has no power over the wheel in my case, as I well know, so there's nothing to be hoped for there.

The croupier who throws the balls, a lean type with a large mole on the root of his nose, is already squirming and getting hot under the collar, glancing with increasing frequency at the table manager. So far, no alarm from that quarter, although the white-haired gentleman with the round spectacles who watches, squinting with an experienced eye from his elevated position at all the stakes and all the players, is now beginning to home in on me. In the years he has spent in that position, he must have seen the full force of all the boom and bust of this diabolical game, so that my winning streak—eleven in a row—hasn't disturbed him much. Streaks like this—and longer—have occurred before, but few players ultimately make a profit; he's well aware of that and bides his time patiently, a superior smile flickering from time to time over his lined face, waiting for my luck to turn. As if this had anything to do with luck!
The only thing that puzzles him is my attitude. I don't look like a winning gambler; I display none of the noisy rejoicing and exaggerated gesticulation with which Italians greet even far smaller wins, nor the stony calm with which the great players from the north, who rarely come down to Graz, accept both failure and success. Each time the ball comes to rest, my attitude is that of a desperate man whose last hope is disappearing along with his money, despite the growing pile of chips in front of me. But this game is not for chips; something much greater is at stake here, though no one except me and that fiendish wheel knows it.

It seems to me that this hopelessness, which is beginning to take hold of me, would be more tolerable without all the tobacco smoke polluting the air. I really can't bear it, it irritates my eyes and throat. Until a little while ago, a brash Styrian with a thick beard and prominent belly was sitting next to me. Judging by the way the croupiers talked to him, he must be a frequent and welcome guest of the casino, obviously privileged in many little ways because of the sums he is willing to lose and the tips he throws around.

As he arrogantly distributed large chips about the table, ruthlessly pushing aside smaller players by his sheer physical presence and often moving their chips, he kept waving a long, expensive cigar, dropping ash and puffing thick billows of smoke straight into my face. Not only did he ignore my pointed coughs, he probably didn't even notice them, just as he failed to notice the servants who unobtrusively collected the fallen ash with quiet apologies to the other players.

I paid no attention to his game, nor to anyone else's; to them it is only a game, while what I do is anything but. But when after a large win he joyfully slapped me on the back as if we were close friends and then reached with a self-satisfied air into an inner pocket of his tuxedo to pull out a fresh cigar and clicking his tongue rolled it between his expensively beringed fingers, I had to do something.

No matter that I knew that in the end it would come crashing down around my head.

When he won nothing four times in a row though he had covered half the table with his chips, he angrily slammed his fist down on the green baize and mumbled a curse. Briskly rising from his place and pulling away from the table, he knocked the chair over and stepped on my foot. I think this was the moment when he became aware of me, because he snapped out a curt apology on his way to another table. In no way did he connect me with his losses, or notice that in each of the last four spins of the wheel I had won by placing my chips only after he had placed his.

After that there was less smoke, but my restlessness grew. The wheel would make me pay for this favor—it always does—which meant I would continue to
win. I started placing quite small chips, to make my gains less noticeable; even so, after three additional wins the manager of the table raised a silver bell and summoned a liveried servant to whom he spoke in a low tone. The man left quickly and returned soon after with two rather short, stuffy gentlemen, clearly from the casino head office, who approached the manager's platform. Whispering to the manager, they cast a glance in my direction from time to time. They did this inconspicuously, quite in keeping with the rules of the house, attracting nobody's attention at the table except mine. I glanced at them only once out of the corner of my eye, not wishing them to see that I knew the alarm had been raised.

The croupier with the mole between his eyes pretended to be putting the chips in order, although he had already done this quite thoroughly, wishing, no doubt, to delay the new throw of the ball until a verdict had been reached at the head of the table. The perspiration was rolling down his temples now as well. I did not observe the sign when they finally gave it to him, but saw the slight trembling of his fingers as he lifted the ball out of the previous number to cast it once more against the turning of the wheel.

At that point it dawned on me that the cause of his disquiet was a possible accusation that he was somehow in cahoots with me. If only he were!—I might have told him to arrange a win for any of the remaining thirty-six numbers other than the one on which my chip lay. But the cursed wheel did not care who was throwing the ball or how; it and nobody else decided where the ball would stop, and of course it stopped on my number, for the nineteenth time in a row.

Whether the croupier received another imperceptible signal, or whether he was moved by an irresistible inner impulse to get away, I don't know, but as he stood up and yielded his place to one of the two newcomers standing beside the table manager, he heaved a sigh of relief. Contrary to custom, he did not leave but remained just beyond the gilded fence that limits access to the wheel, unable to overcome his curiosity. Nobody rebuked him for this breach of etiquette because nobody noticed it. Such a trifle was now quite beside the point.

As his discomfort eased, so mine increased. The wheel had what it wanted. It had singled me out, branded me, so that I surely would not be able to play here for much longer. This was the worst thing that could happen because I was very close to understanding everything: close to breaking into that fiendish circle, to reaching the other side—beyond luck, chance, or mathematics. Now I had no more time. The damned thing knew it was trapped and was defending itself desperately.

Not knowing what to do, I did nothing. I left the entire win from the previous rotation of the wheel at the spot where the new croupier paid me out—not in
front of me, but on the winning number, thus keeping it in the game. He did this deliberately, challenging me in the firm conviction, based on years of experience, that the situation was now safely in his hands. For a moment I pitied him.

When the same number came up for the second time in a row, a sigh of disbelief echoed around the table. Now there were quite a few players and observers around: although the management was trying to handle the emergency with discretion, an invisible wave of excitement nevertheless had begun to run through the casino. Many of the recently arrived observers had not yet grasped what was going on, so that murmured inquiries and explanations were heard on all sides.

I felt the searching look of the new croupier on me, a look in which confusion must have been mixed with the remaining shreds of self-confidence. But an instinctive caution prevailed in him, so that this time rather than leaving them on the winning number, he placed the chips in front of me and received my usual tip with exaggerated gratitude. And yet there was nothing hesitant about the way he spun the wheel again, doing so briskly, decisively, sure that the whole business would now blow over.

The ivory ball, thrown forcefully, began more noisily than usual to rumble around the walnut surface of the wheel as it made the sound that irresistibly beckons players to step up to the table and place their bets. But to me, that rasping sound was suddenly repugnant, hateful, like a superior, mocking giggle—and I could endure no more. Feeling a terrible constriction, I almost bounded from my chair, wanting only to get away as fast as possible, to escape.

However, turning away, I found myself facing a wall. The fat, bulky, Styrian had returned, lured by the crowd, which he obviously liked, and was now ruthlessly plowing his way between the watchers. He was holding up a handful of chips that had to be placed before the croupier's final call. In the other hand he carelessly held his cigar, the burning tip of which came very close to brushing the deep decolletage on a lady's back. Some ash got rubbed into somebody's sleeve.

But my sudden rising created an obstacle not quite so easy to eliminate, although he probably did not see me as a wall. He paused for a moment, confused, not knowing the quickest way of getting around me. I too turned to stone, checked by the same dilemma. Our gazes met inadvertently, reflecting two quite different wills: the will to get away and the will to get closer.

For a moment lasting less than one full turn of the ball on the wheel's rim, we froze. The rumble was quieter now as the rotation began to slow. Then the stronger will, joined to the stronger body, prevailed. Instead of going around me, or pushing me to one side, the Styrian simply towered over me, forcing me back into the green baize, and started scattering chips left and right in ample gestures
over my head and shoulders, swamping me with the smell of tobacco and alcohol on his breath.

Disgusted, I turned my face away, toward the wheel of torture on which the ball was now describing its last circles before making its ultimate plunge into a number already known. All at once, I saw myself as a condemned man who has just placed his head on the chopping block. Oppressed by that large body, I had in fact assumed such a position. There was nothing left to do now except wait resignedly for the axe-ball to drop.

It was only then, the instant before execution, while my helpless gaze was glued to the diabolical wheel turning now before my face, that the final curtain parted. There was no more secret, the threshold had been passed, all solved. The circle finally surrendered.

There was just enough time to shift with one frantic movement the fallen pile of my chips, on which I was almost lying, to the color that would certainly not win. And then came the final, sharp warning that no further bets would be accepted. But the raised, angry voice of the table manager was aimed mostly at the Styrian, who was still fumbling among the chips, his own and others. The rumble turned to an even tone as the ball sailed to its ultimate destination, and the pressure on my back eased somewhat as the large body raised itself to observe the result of this spin.

I did not have to look. I knew unmistakably what number had come up; the circle itself obediently told me, as it told me many other things: of currents and whispers from outer space, of barriers and constructing links. The Styrian won nothing, but what was far more important—neither did I. I had lost everything! I exclaimed in delight, not caring at all for the puzzled looks of the casino staff and the assembled throng of gamblers. I turned to the Styrian whose face now bore the dull expression of the loser who has bet too much. Our gazes met again, but this time my will was stronger. My muscle, too, I hope, because I took a good swing before returning his slap on the back. It caught him unawares, so that he dropped the cigar and stared at me.

His bewilderment did not last long, however. As I left the casino, I turned at the door for a last look back at the table where I had finally cracked the circle. The Styrian was totally absorbed in a new throw of the ball, simultaneously lighting another cigar from the inexhaustible supply in his tuxedo and reaching into the capacious pocket of his expensive trousers for a new handful of chips.

MY HEART WILL break!

It's been two days now since the birth, and Sri still hasn't let me see my child.

No explanations—just tells me to be patient. Unfeeling brute! This must be his revenge for not being the child's father. How could I have loved him when he's so mean and vain? All men are the same, actually. One of them rapes you, and another punishes you for it, as if we were still in the Middle Ages. I'm lucky he didn't make a pyre and burn me as a witch.

It didn't look like that at the beginning. When my pregnancy was so advanced that it could no longer be concealed, I told Sri everything. I had no choice. I was hesitant, beating about the bush, afraid of his reaction, though my pride advised me to take a defiant stand. To my surprise, Sri took it rather quietly. In his Buddhist fashion, I suppose. Too quietly, in fact. Indifferently, actually—as if I'd told him it'd rained that afternoon.

At first I accepted this with relief since I'd been dreading his anger or an attack of jealousy. In my condition, I couldn't have taken that sort of scene. But later this indifference stung me. He can be a Buddhist as much as he likes—he might at least show
some
emotion. After all, pregnancy is not the same as an afternoon shower.