Dad looked at me to see whether I could solve this difficult riddle. I just shook my head.
‘“Human beings do, during the three stages of life,” replied Oedipus. “In infancy they crawl on all fours, for most of their life they walk upright on two legs – and in old age they hobble on three because they have to use a stick.” Oedipus had given the correct answer, and the Sphinx didn’t survive this; it tumbled down the mountainside to its death. Oedipus was greeted as a hero in Thebes. He received the promised reward and married Jocasta, who was in fact his own mother, and in time they had two sons and two daughters.’
‘Well, I’ll be damned,’ I exclaimed. I hadn’t taken my eyes off Dad for a second, but now I just had to glance down at the place where Oedipus had killed his father.
‘But that’s not the end of the story,’ Dad continued. ‘A terrible plague broke out in the city. In those times the Greeks believed such misfortunes were due to the wrath of Apollo and that there must be a reason for his anger. They asked the Delphic Oracle why Apollo had sent this terrible plague. Pythia’s answer was that the city had to find King Laius’ murderer, otherwise the whole city would be destroyed.’
‘No way!’
‘King Oedipus took it upon himself to do everything he could to find the previous King’s murderer. He had never linked the fight on the road to the murder of King Laius. Without knowing it, Oedipus became the murderer who had to solve his own crime. The first thing he did was ask a clairvoyant about who might have murdered King Laius, but the man refused to answer, simply because the truth was too harsh. However, Oedipus – who was prepared to do everything in his power to help his people – managed to squeeze the truth out of him. The clairvoyant confided to Oedipus that the King himself was guilty. Even though Oedipus gradually remembered what had happened that day on the road and realised that he had murdered the King, he still had no proof that he was King Laius’s son. However, Oedipus was a fair man who wanted all the cards on the table. He finally managed to confront the old shepherd from Thebes and the shepherd from Corinth, and they confirmed that he had killed his own father and married his mother. When the truth eventually became clear to Oedipus, he tore out both his eyes. In a way he had been blind all along.’
I sighed heavily. I thought the old story was deeply tragic and terribly unfair.
‘That’s what you call a real family curse,’ I murmured.
‘But on several occasions King Laius and Oedipus tried to escape their destiny. According to the Greeks, this was totally impossible.’
As we passed Thebes there was silence in the car. I think Dad sat mulling over his own family curse; at least he didn’t utter a word.
After having thought over the tragedy of King Oedipus from all angles, I reached for the magnifying glass and the sticky-bun book.
TWO OF DIAMONDS
… Old master receives important
message from the homeland …
I was woken up early the next morning by the sound of a cock crowing. For a moment I thought I was at home in Lübeck, but then I remembered the shipwreck. I recalled pushing the lifeboat up the beach by the little lagoon encircled by palm trees. Then I had wandered further inland and fallen asleep beside a large lake, after swimming in a multitude of goldfish.
Was this where I was now? Had I dreamed of an old seaman who had lived on the island for more than fifty years – and who moreover had created the island’s population of fifty-three lively dwarfs?
I tried to answer this question before I opened my eyes.
It couldn’t just be a dream! I had gone to bed in Frode’s cabin above the little village …
I opened my eyes. The morning sun threw golden rays into a dark wooden cabin, and I understood that what I had experienced was as real as the sun and the moon.
I scrambled out of bed. Where was Frode, I wondered. At the same time I noticed a little wooden box on a shelf above the door.
I took it down and looked inside – it was empty. This must have been the box that had contained the old playing cards before the big transformation.
I put the box back in its place and went outside. Frode was standing with his hands behind his back, surveying the village. I went and stood beside him; neither of us said a word.
The dwarfs were already busy at work. The village and the surrounding hills were bathed in sunshine.
‘Joker Day …’ the old man said finally. A worried expression swept across his face.
‘Joker Day?’ I asked.
We’ll eat breakfast outside, my boy. Now just sit yourself here and I’ll be back in a minute with some food.’
He pointed to a short bench set up against the cabin wall, in front of a little table. When we sat down, the view was wonderful. Some of the dwarfs were on their way out of the village, pulling a cart behind them. They were probably the clubs off to work in the fields. From the big workshop I could hear the clatter of materials.
Frode returned with bread, cheese, moluk’s milk, and hot tuff. He sat beside me, and after a while he started to tell me more about his first days on the island.
‘I often think of this time as my Solitaire Period,’ he said. ‘I was as lonely as anyone can be. Maybe that’s why it wasn’t so surprising that fifty-three playing cards gradually turned into the same number of fantasy figures. But that was only part of it. The cards also came to play an important part in the calendar we follow here on the island.’
‘The calendar?’
‘Yes. The year has fifty-two weeks, so each week is represented by one of the cards in the pack.’
I started to work it out.
‘Seven multiplied by fifty-two,’ I said aloud, ‘is 364.’
‘Exactly. But the year has 365 days. The day which is left over we call Joker Day. It belongs to no month and no week either. It is an extra day, a day when anything can happen. Every four years we have two such Joker Days.’
‘That’s clever …’
‘The fifty-two weeks – or “the cards,” as I call them – are also divided into thirteen months, each of twenty-eight days, because thirteen multiplied by twenty-eight is also 364. The first month is Ace, and the last month is King. Then there is an interval of four years between every two Joker Days. It begins with the year of the diamonds, followed by the year of the clubs, then hearts and finally spades. In this way all the cards have their own week and month.’
The old man glanced at me quickly. It was as though he felt embarrassed about his ingenious calendar, but proud of it, too.
‘At first it sounds a bit complicated,’ I said, ‘but it is extremely clever!’
Frode nodded.
‘I had to use my head for something. The year is also divided into four seasons – diamonds during the spring, clubs in the summer, hearts in the autumn, and spades in the winter. The first week of the year is the Ace of Diamonds, and all the rest of the diamonds follow. The summer begins with the Ace of Clubs and the autumn with the Ace of Hearts. The winter commences with the Ace of Spades, and the last week in the year is the King of Spades.’
‘Which week are we in now?’
‘Yesterday was the last day in the King of Spades’s week, but it was also the last day in the King of Spades’s month.’
‘And today –’
‘… today is Joker Day – or the first of two Joker Days. It will be celebrated with a big banquet.’
‘How odd …’
‘Yes, dear countryman. It is odd that you came to the island just as we were about to play the joker card – and about to start a new year and a whole four-year period. But there’s even more …’
The old sailor now sat deep in thought.
‘Yes?’
‘The cards formed what can be regarded as an “era” on the island.’
‘I don’t follow you.’
‘You see, every card was given its own week and month, so I could keep track of the days of the year. Every single year has been in one of the cards’ signs. My first year on the isla
nd was given the name the Ace of Diamonds. Then it was the Two of Diamonds – and thereafter all the other cards followed in order like the fifty-two weeks. But I told you I had lived on the island exactly fifty-two years …’
‘Yes …’
‘We have just laid the King of Spades behind us, sailor, and further than that I have not thought, because to live more than fifty-two years on the island –’
‘Was something you hadn’t counted on?’
‘No, I hadn’t. Today Joker will declare the beginning of the year of the Joker. The great celebration will be launched this afternoon. The spades and hearts are busy turning the big carpentry workshop into a banquet hall. The clubs are collecting fruits and berries, and the diamonds are setting out the glasses.’
‘Will … will I be going to the banquet?’
‘You’ll be the guest of honour. But before we go down to the village, there’s something else you should know. We still have a couple of hours, sailor, so we must make the most of that time …’
He poured some of the brown drink into a glass from the glass factory. I sipped it carefully, and the old man went on: ‘The Joker Banquet is celebrated at the end of each year – or at the beginning of a new year, if you like. But solitaire is played only every four years …’
‘Solitaire?’
‘Yes, every four years. The Joker Game is performed.’
‘I’m afraid you’re going to have to explain.’
He cleared his throat twice. ‘As I have already told you, I had to have something to fill my time when I lived alone on the island. I would flick through the cards and pretend they “said” their own sentence. It became a sort of game to try to remember all the sentences. When I eventually learned what all the cards said, the second part of the game began. I tried to shuffle the cards around so the sentences would join together and form a continuous unit. I would often end up with a kind of story – made up of the sentences the cards had “come up with”, completely independently of one another.’
‘Was that the Joker Game?’
‘Mmm, yes – it was a kind of solitaire to play when I was lonely, but it was also the beginning of the great Joker Game, which is now performed every fourth year on Joker Day.’
‘Go on.’
‘During the four years that pass between each period, every one of the fifty-two dwarfs has to come up with one sentence. It might not sound that impressive, but you have to remember they think very slowly. The sentence also has to be remembered, and to go from day to day remembering a whole sentence is not a simple task for dwarfs whose heads are practically empty.’
‘And they all say their sentences at the Joker Banquet?’
‘Right. But that’s only the first part of the game. Then it’s the Joker’s turn. He hasn’t thought of any sentence himself, but when all the sentences are being spoken he sits on a throne and makes notes. During the Joker Banquet he shuffles the order of the cards so that the characters’ sentences make a coherent whole. He positions the dwarfs in the right order, and then they repeat their sentences, but now every single sentence is a tiny piece of a big fairy tale.’
‘That’s clever.’
‘Yes, clever indeed, but it can also be pretty amazing.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You might think that the Joker – with all his talent – attempts to create an entirety out of something which began as pure chaos. After all, the figures have devised their own sentences quite independently of each other.’
‘Yes?’
‘But sometimes it seems as though the entirety – that is the fairy tale or story – has existed before.’
‘Is that possible?’
‘I don’t know, but if it is the case, then the fifty-two dwarfs are really something quite different – and something far more than just fifty-two individuals. An invisible thread is tying them together, because I still haven’t told you everything.’
‘Go on!’
‘When I sat and played with the cards during the first days on the island, I also tried to read the future in the cards. Of course, it was just a game, but I thought it might be true, as I had heard so often among the company of sailors in the many ports I had visited that a pack of cards could reveal the future. And sure enough, in the days prior to the Jack of Clubs and the King of Hearts appearing as the very first figures on the island, these exact cards took prominent positions on several occasions in the many games of solitaire I played.’
‘How odd.’
‘I did not give it a lot of thought when we started the Joker Game, once all the figures were in position – but do you know what the very last sentence in the tale at the last Joker Banquet was? I mean, four years ago?’
‘No, how could I?’
‘Well, wait until you hear this: “Young sailor comes to the village on the last day in King of Spades. The sailor guesses riddles with Jack of glass. Old master receives important message from the homeland.”’
‘That … that was bizarre.’
‘I haven’t thought of these words for four years, but when you showed up in the village last night – which was the last day in the week, month, and year of the King of Spades – yes, then the old prediction came flooding back to me. In a way you were foreseen, sailor …’
Something suddenly hit me.
‘Old master receives important message from the homeland,’ I repeated.
‘Yes?’
The old man’s eyes burned into mine.
‘Didn’t you say she was called Stine?’
The old man nodded.
‘From Lübeck?’
He nodded again.
‘My father’s name is Otto. He grew up without a father, but his mother was called Stine too. She died only a few years ago.’
‘It is a very common name in Germany.’
‘Of course … Father was an “illegitimate child”, as they say, because Grandmother never married. She … she was engaged to a sailor who was lost at sea. Neither of them knew she was pregnant when they last saw each other … There was so much gossip. There was talk of a fleeting relationship with a casual sailor who had run away from his responsibilities.’
‘Hmm … and when was your father born, boy?’
‘I …’
‘Tell me! When was your father born, boy?’
‘He was born in Lübeck on May 8, 1791, about fifty-one years ago.’
‘And this “sailor” – was he the son of a master glassblower?’
‘I don’t know. Grandmother didn’t talk about him very much. Possibly because of all the gossip. The only thing she told us children was that he had once climbed up high into the rigging of a sailing ship to wave goodbye to her as he sailed out of Lübeck. Then he had fallen down and hurt one of his arms. She used to smile when she told us that. The whole display had sort of been in honour of her.’
The old man now sat for a long time staring out over the village.
‘That arm,’ he finally spoke, ‘is nearer to you than you realise.’
With that he rolled up the sleeve of his jacket and showed me an old scar under his arm.
‘Grandfather!’ I shouted. I threw my arms around him and hugged him tightly.
‘Son,’ he said, and started to sob into the crook of my neck. ‘Son, son …’
THREE OF DIAMONDS
… She was drawn here
by her own reflection …
A kind of family curse had appeared in the sticky-bun book, too, and I thought the plot was thickening in more ways than one.
We stopped for lunch at a country taverna, where we sat at a long table under a couple of massive trees. An abundance of orange trees grew around the taverna in large plantations.
We ate meat on skewers and Greek salad with goat’s cheese, and when the dessert arrived, I started to tell Dad about the calendar on the magic island. Of course, I couldn’t tell him where I’d got it from, so I was forced to say it was something I had made up while I had been sitting in the back seat. r />
Dad was dumbfounded. He worked it out with a pen on a napkin.
‘Fifty-two cards are fifty-two weeks. That really would be 364 days, and then there were thirteen months of twenty-eight days – that is also 364. In both cases there is an extra day …’
‘And that is Joker Day,’ I said.
‘Well, I’ll be blowed!’
He sat for a long time gazing into the orange groves.
‘And when were you born, Hans Thomas?’
I didn’t know what he meant.
‘February 29, 1972,’ – replied.
‘But what kind of day was that?’
It suddenly dawned on me: indeed, I had been born in a leap year. According to the calendar from the magic island, it was a sort of Joker Day. How come I hadn’t thought of that when I was reading?
‘Joker Day,’ I said.
‘Exactly!’
‘Do you think it’s because I am the son of a joker – or do you think it’s because I am a joker myself?’ I asked.
Dad looked at me seriously and said, ‘Both, of course. When I get a son, it’s on a Joker Day, and when you are born, that also happens on a Joker Day. It makes sense, you know.’
I wasn’t quite sure if he just liked the idea that I was born on a Joker Day, but there was also something in his voice which made me wonder whether he’d started to get scared that I might take over his trade as a joker.
At any rate, he was quick to turn the conversation back to the calendar.
‘Did you think of that just now?’ he asked me yet again. ‘Hah ! Every week has its own card, every month has its own number from ace to king, and every season has one of the four suits. You should take out a patent for that, Hans Thomas. As far as I know, to this day a proper bridge-calendar hasn’t been invented.’
He sat chuckling over his coffee cup. Then he added, ‘At first we used the Julian calendar, then we went over to the Gregorian – maybe it’s about time we changed again.’
He was clearly more taken with this calendar business than I. He did some hectic calculations on his napkin, and soon he glanced up with a cunning joker’s look in his eye and said, ‘And there’s more …’