“Josip,” she whispered.
Suddenly something uncontrollable welled up in him. I am grateful to her, he realized, my God, I’m grateful. What would have become of me without her? All of a sudden he realized that she, in her own way, had cared for him, too, so lovingly that it more than compensated for all the trouble he had taken, the debts he had settled, to keep her in the style she so desired. This was not the moment for pettiness. There was never a moment for pettiness.
“I thank you, Jana, my darling,” he said, pressing his thumbs into the fleshy part of her palm. “I thank you for everything. I should have said this a long time ago … I thank you with all my heart for the love you’ve given me.”
“But, Josip … ,” Jana said with a confused smile, “… I was just about to say … that I love you so terribly much. You are the man of my life. The only one. I wanted to say … that I respect you more than you might ever know. And nothing will ever, ever change that.”
“And to think it all started with a personal ad,” Josip said, realizing he had gone dangerously far.
“Yes. That’s how things go sometimes. And here we are, having dinner together, abroad.”
He took her right hand and brought it to his lips, a gallant way of damping down the situation.
“We’re together, and we’ll stay together,” he said when the coffee arrived, to round off the emotionally charged exchange. And he meant it. He was not planning to marry her, because the money in his savings account was intended entirely for Katarina, but he resolved to acknowledge her as his life partner one way or another, for after all those years—and him now a widower—it would not do to regard her as his mistress any longer. He needed time to consider the right approach.
Jana beamed; she looked intensely happy and moved. But there was something afoot. With Jana there was always something afoot, when everything was perfectly in order. That was her specialty.
“You know what I feel like?”
Wiesbaden’s casino was renowned. It was there that Dostoevsky, the great Russian author and roulette addict, came to ruin; Josip knew he wrote a memorable novel about it, which he had not read but which still confirmed his opinion that lotteries and games of chance were a scourge on humanity.
For how could money wheedled from the poor and desperate ever lead to anything good, seeing that it would then be paid out—and at most only in part—to just one of them, to the detriment of all the others? He saw it as submitting to fate. If people can survive by the labor of their own hands, he thought, we don’t need this—just as we have no use for kings or queens. He was amazed that Tito had not abolished the state lottery.
And Josip had seen firsthand what a gambling addiction could do to a person: the anonymous man who had blackmailed him for years had used it to finance his visits to the casino.
Years later he told Jana about the photographs, threatening letters, and payments and was rather surprised that she thought it an exciting saga. She even asked to see the photos the blackmailer had taken of them at their hilltop rendezvous, but he had burned them long ago.
“You know,” she said, “I believe I saw that man back then.”
“What?” he asked incredulously. “What did he look like?”
“Oh, I don’t know anymore … I was otherwise occupied, wasn’t I … But I remember him being quite tall.”
“And what else?”
“He wore a straw hat.”
“A straw hat. And why didn’t you say anything?”
“Ach,” Jana laughed, “I figured it was just a voyeur. It rather excited me, actually.”
Not that he held a grudge after all these years. The scoundrel had disappeared from his life for good. Josip no longer hated him. People just did things to one another, and no one was immune to temptation. Andrej was young and therefore died more or less innocent; but even he had bet on the dog races and had sought a shortcut to prosperity by pilfering money from mail he had been entrusted with. Hardly more than a youthful indiscretion, all things considered, while he, Josip, was far more culpable for having blackmailed him about it for so long.
He had done wrong, but not out of malice. That was no excuse, of course—he had succumbed to wrongdoing when the opportunity presented itself.
And when the funicular was under attack, Andrej had sacrificed his life to save the lives of others, including his wife and child, while he himself had done nothing except survive the war, thanks to Mario and his other comrades.
Perhaps it was time to mellow. He was no better than anyone else. Maybe he should go along with Jana’s wishes, and not be so high minded.
It was only human, he thought, to give in once in a while. Perhaps even corruption and nepotism had their good side: they at least gave the unfairness of existence a somewhat more human face. It was actually nice of Napoleon to have made those two good-for-nothing brothers kings. The Germans were not corrupt, and look what misery they had brought the world.
Why shouldn’t he take Jana to the casino, if she had her heart set on it?
Being able to let go of a principle might mean he was simply evolving as a human being.
He decided to buy one hundred euros in chips. That was, he reckoned, about as much as a fifty-pound note would be worth now. Once they were used up, that would be the end of it.
The Kurhaus was a white temple with classical columns, almost too imposing to just walk inside.
Jana gawked in wonder and nearly choked from the excitement. This could well be the highlight of her life, Josip thought, while he himself tried not to be too impressed by it all. The gaming hall was immense, with dark paneling and enormous chandeliers, and there were six or eight or ten roulette tables, illuminated like green tropical islands. He let her choose where they would play and was not surprised when she chose the table with the best-looking croupier.
“What now?” she whispered. “I want to win.”
Josip placed a small chip worth five euros on black; the ball bounced and clattered, and when the wheel slowed down, they saw that it had landed on the number 17, a black pocket. The croupier slid his chip back to him, plus one of the same.
“You see? A win. That’s how it works.”
Jana whispered, “I’ve read that the sum of all the numbers on a roulette table is 666—the number of the Beast. Don’t you find that macabre?”
“Not at all,” Josip replied. He slipped a small stack of chips onto black and lost.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Jana said, “because it had just landed on black the time before.”
“Gambler’s fallacy, my dear. That’s not how it works. Chance does not have a memory.”
“Well, we’ll see about that. I’m a woman, I know more about these things than you do.”
Josip thought she was overestimating herself but held his tongue.
“Say, young man,” she addressed the croupier, “this is my first time. What would you advise?”
“It is a game of chance, madame,” he replied courteously, “and there are many possibilities. There’s the ‘double street’ or the ‘column bet’ … have you read our brochure?”
“Double street,” Jana said confidently. “To start, I’ll bet everything on double street.”
“That means your payout will be eleven to one if you win,” the croupier said. “Faites vos jeux.”
The ball bounced for a long time and when it came to rest, the wheel was still spinning too fast to see whether she had won or lost; they only knew when the handsome young man raked all her chips toward him. Jana was shocked. This was not how she envisioned the evening. Their fellow players—an elderly German couple, a nervous young Asian woman, three drunk English tourists, and a very young man with large blue eyes and a wispy beard—appeared to take no notice at all of the tragedy.
Josip placed another bet, won, and got back twice his stake: he now had twenty euros instead of the five he had started out with.
“Oh, so that’s how it’s done,” Jana said, draping an arm over his sh
oulders. “Ah, if I only had another little stack of chips … then you’d see something!”
But Josip shook his head. She’d had her chance, and he was not going to let the visit to the casino cost him more than one hundred euros.
“Then you play for the both of us, darling,” Jana said, being a good sport about it. “Go on. I’ll bring you good luck, you’ll see!”
Josip lost his twenty euros, but still had plenty of chips left.
He worked up a two-hundred-euro profit in a nearly perfect winning streak. He was deep in concentration. It was all perfect nonsense, but if you did something, you might as well do it right.
“Give me a chip, just a small one,” Jana whispered, “and you’ll see me win.”
He relented, and she bet on a single number, the number 15—undoubtedly because tomorrow would mark their fifteen years together—and lost.
“Oh dear,” she said, “the odds were thirty-five to one, wouldn’t that have been something! Well, at least I have you.”
Josip played, won a few and lost a few, but in the end, he won so much that the little towers of chips started to attract the attention of his fellow players.
“Haben Sie ein System?” asked the young man with the large blue eyes.
“Nein,” Josip replied. “No system.”
And again he won three hundred euros, with a square bet.
Lady Luck was so clearly on his side that he started to become suspicious.
Say he won even more money—a lot of money: then it would change his life and that of Katarina, without it really having anything to do with him. This was not good, something like this could not be good. On the other hand, since he had decided to let go just this once, why not enjoy it if he won?
The English tourists got up to try their luck at the slot machines.
Josip hesitated. If he were to get up and go now, he could cash in more than three thousand euros in chips. That was a goodly sum and would give him something pleasant to remember Wiesbaden by. But he had the feeling he was not done yet. It would be more logical to lose it all. He skipped two turns and watched the turning wheel and the skipping ball.
The Asian girl stood up and thanked the croupier with a courteous nod and a chip.
“Merci pour les employés,” he said, without budging.
Josip brusquely slid all his chips forward, bet on manque, an easy bet with two-to-one odds, and doubled his capital.
Almost fatalistically, he left it all where it was, and won again. About nine thousand euros now.
It made his head spin; this was not going well, because it was not normal. He took his handkerchief and wiped his forehead.
“A glass of mineral water, please,” Jana called out; she squeezed his arm firmly and whispered, “Keep going, keep going! You’re on a lucky streak.”
He glanced at the elderly couple. They had wagered cautiously, with small bets, but now the man shook his head irritably and put his last chip on a single number: 17.
The young croupier had most likely seen everything by now and did not flinch when Josip placed everything he had on that same number. The chance of it being a winner was less than three percent.
“Rien ne va plus,” the croupier said and spun the wheel. The ball bounced, more often, it seemed, on red than on black. The 17 was black.
The wheel slowed, but the ball continued to roll noncommittally over the edges of the pockets, like mercury that refused to settle, but eventually it came to rest.
“Oh, Karli—we’ve won!” the old woman whispered.
Three hundred and fifty thousand euros.
A distinguished-looking gentleman with silvery temples, impeccably dressed in a dark suit—probably the manager of the casino—appeared next to the croupier.
“Wünschen der Herr weiterzuspielen—viellicht an einem privaten Tisch? A private table?” he enquired.
Josip looked up. A group of onlookers had gathered around their table: players who had abandoned their efforts at neighboring tables to witness a fortune being made—or lost.
The elderly couple and young man with the large blue eyes remained seated, not because they were planning to continue betting, but more like faithful apostles.
Josip was not displeased to be the center of attention. It was unnatural, insofar as it had never happened to him before, except that one time during the war when he had diphtheria.
“No, we’re staying right here,” Jana said. “That’s right, isn’t it, Josip? If you just put aside a hundred thousand as a nest egg, and then …”
But Josip would not hear of it. He was going to bet all of it. Not just on a single number now, that was insanity, but an “outside bet”: red.
“Faites vos jeux,” the croupier called out.
The wheel spun, and it felt to Josip as if he had done nothing his whole life but watch a little ball bounce around in a circle.
“Rien ne va plus!” said the croupier.
It suddenly came to him.
If he won, he would use the money to establish a foundation for mentally handicapped women and girls like Katarina. And the foundation would take the name of a hero who had sacrificed himself while rescuing women and children from the burning city: the name of Andrej Rubinić.
That was how it would be, should he win. Then he would have put all that ill-earned money to good use. He had enough to live off. And even if it wasn’t the same exact value of the English banknote where it all began, he felt it was Andrej’s money he had gambled with. This way, something good would come of a bad deed, and he would be absolved of his guilt once and for all.
And the foundation’s emblem, he thought, would be a pelican, for Andrej’s chest had been pierced while he tried to save lives.
But before the ball came to rest, he started to have his doubts, suddenly recalling that Andrej in fact detested pelicans.
The ball skittered capriciously around the wheel, like a young buck determined to try everything before settling down, or like a fawn gamboling in the meadow; but things would work out, they had to work out. There were red pockets aplenty.
He felt a sudden stabbing pain in his heart, a hot glow filled his chest, and all he saw was a red haze.
During the last, slow revolutions of the wheel, when the ball had already come to rest and could no longer budge from its spot—a child on a merry-go-round, a dauphin being presented to the populace—it all was overshadowed by the realization that he was dying, and he did not recognize the child and would never know who the new king would be.
“Oh my God, call an ambulance!” Jana screamed.
Josip lay hunched over on the table, as though he were taking a nap.
The ball had come to rest on the number 1. Red.
“My husband has had a heart attack! Get him to a hospital, quickly!” Jana cried.
Not long thereafter, a personal ad appeared in the Zagreb evening newspaper Večernji.
Girlish, worldly, extremely solvent, culturally-minded lady, early 60s, seeks a decent, attractive, virile, preferably younger man to share the good things in life with. Marriage an option. Number 55694.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo © 2015 Bob Bronshoff
Martin Michael Driessen is a Dutch opera and theater director, translator, and writer. He is the author of the novels Gars, Father of God, A True Hero, Rivers (which was awarded the prestigious ECI Literature Prize), and The Pelican. Writing as Eva Wanjek, he cowrote the novel Lizzie with highly acclaimed and prize-nominated poet Liesbeth Lagemaat. In 2018 he published a collection of short stories, My First Murder. His work has been translated into English, Italian, German, Spanish, Slovenian, and Hungarian. For more information, visit www.martinmichaeldriessen.com.
ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR
Photo © 2015 Michele Hutchison
Jonathan Reeder, a native of Upstate New York and longtime resident of Amsterdam, enjoys a dual career as a literary translator and performing musician. Along with his work as a professional bassoonist, he translates opera libretti and ess
ays on classical music, as well as contemporary Dutch fiction and poetry. His translated novels include Conny Braam’s The Cocaine Salesman, Peter Buwalda’s Bonita Avenue, Bram Dehouck’s comic thriller Sleepless Summer, and Tonio by Adri van der Heijden. Additionally, he has translated novels, essays, and short stories by Mano Bouzamour, Christine Otten, Maarten Inghels, and Rodaan Al Galidi.
The Pelican Page 16