I turned the card over, and in fact it was a queen.
Again the hippo concentrated, and I thought, now Lady Luck will deal him a blow for his arrogance. But my fingers went stiff when I turned over a jack, just as Toni had predicted. Ten times he guessed right, and I lost the pound.
A donkey avoids the pit it has once fallen into, but I? I stumbled even more willfully into the next catastrophe. I raised the stakes to two pounds. Toni invited me to buy new cards, but since he hadn’t laid a finger on the old ones, I didn’t want to. I made Georg stand farther away from me. Some people bring bad luck. I wanted to know if that’s what the problem was. I shuffled the cards thoroughly; then I laid them on the step. Again Toni guessed correctly ten times.
I sat there as if paralyzed. Georg excused himself and disappeared, and Toni trotted away, content. I was shaking with rage, at Georg and above all at myself.
I walked home slowly. En route I saw Georg licking a big ice cream cone. He smiled peculiarly and quickly looked away.
When I told Mahmud about the X-ray pills, he laughed and told me what an idiot I was. He explained that the place where I bought the deck sells only marked cards. On the back of each one, in the chaos of the colorful pattern, is a small sign that tells what each card is. Mahmud owns a deck of these cards. After a short time I also knew how to distinguish the thirteen different signs from one another.
Mahmud wanted to beat up Georg right away, but after a while we came up with a better plan. A completely diabolical plan! Georg won’t notice a thing. All we need is five pounds. Mahmud and I are broke just now, so we’ll see if Uncle Salim will advance us the sum.
September 27 — We’ve paid them back for what they did to me. We robbed Toni outright. He’ll never speak to Georg again.
Uncle Salim was splendid and gave us the five Syrian pounds with no questions asked. Mahmud flashed the bills under Georg’s eyes until Georg lured him to Toni. Mahmud followed him to the playground like a pious lamb.
Once there, he went to the shop, but all he bought was a pack of chewing gum. He took a fresh deck of unmarked cards out of his trouser pocket and returned to the playground.
Mahmud opened the pack of cards and cried out loudly, so all the children within earshot could hear, “You know, I’m absolutely positive you’ll lose, so I’m betting five pounds. If you’re not a coward, you’ll put up five as well.”
Smiling, Toni accepted the bet. Mahmud shuffled the cards, beaming at Georg, who looked a bit unsettled. “Come on, be my good luck charm,” he said, kissing Georg on the cheek. The boys in the playground drew nearer and ogled the ten pounds Georg held in his hand. Mahmud put the cards on the step.
Toni looked for a long time.
“Well, X-ray Eye, will you be done soon?” Mahmud taunted him.
Finally Toni said, “Two of hearts.”
Mahmud turned it over.
It was the ten of diamonds.
“Let’s have that money, Good Luck Charm!” Mahmud bellowed and snatched the cards away before the confused Toni could pick them up. “I’ll give you one more chance, but you may not touch the cards.”
“One moment, please,” the hippopotamus pleaded.
“So, now you’re scared, eh? No, if you’re not a sissy, come up with ten pounds!”
“Ten pounds!” the others gasped.
Toni preferred to go into the shade, claiming the sun had blinded him.
“If you like, but now that you’ve accepted the bet, I just want to stress you can no longer back out!”
Toni put up the ten pounds and was defeated by the first card. Mahmud kissed Georg and gave him a piaster.
“That’s what we arranged, isn’t it?” he called loudly.
Georg seemed about to remind Mahmud that his cut was one piaster per pound and not per fifteen, but he swallowed hard when he saw the look on Toni’s face.
We bought Uncle Salim two packets of the very finest tobacco for his water pipe. It cost three pounds a pack. The remaining nine pounds we divided among us.
September 28 — When I told Uncle Salim the whole story today, I remarked that I felt like examining every would-be friend with a magnifying glass before I called him a real friend. Uncle Salim shook his head.
“And if inspection reveals you’ve made three hundred mistakes? Seek out new friends, and don’t be suspicious!” He sucked on his water pipe. “You know, my friend, it’s the poor in this world who invented friendship. The powerful have no need of it. They have their power. Seek out friends, and let the magnifying glass alone. Using it could be the biggest mistake of your life: You will live alone.”
September 29 — I ran through the fields with Nadia today. I gave her a kiss, and we laughed about our parents.
I gave two pounds to Leila. And she’s already spent it.
Today was also my last day at the cabinetmaker’s. Working with him was a lot of fun, and now I know how to handle wood. Not a single window in our apartment sticks anymore.
Tomorrow evening I want to go with Mahmud to see the film at the new cinema in town.
October 10 — A few days ago we accompanied a very congenial young man from Luxembourg to the airport. His name was Robert, and he was twenty-one years old. Not only did he steal our hearts but those of our mothers as well.
Hunting for tourists, Josef picked him up in front of the church and attempted to ensnare him with his usual spiel, saying, “My mother is sick, and I have to feed the entire family. My uncle makes lovely wooden boxes and copper plates,” and everything else he had by heart. But Robert spoke to him in Arabic, saying he did not want to buy either boxes or plates. He had no money, and he was extremely hungry.
Josef invited him to eat, and they liked each other at once. We got to meet him, too, and fetched his things from the hotel. Everyone took him in for a few days, my family included. My father said the door should always be open to foreigners and that Robert could share my room with me. My sister was permitted to crawl into our parents’ bed during this time. Leila didn’t like Robert and was always asking him when he would leave. Robert, good soul that he was, laughed at her and replied, “Never!”
He was received in the same way at Mahmud’s and at Josef’s. Only Ali said he would have no part of it; tourists really ought not to see our poor homes. We were grateful that it was Josef and not Ali who had met this wonderful guy. I think Robert loved us — and even my mother liked him to distraction. Every morning she told me to take good care of him. She made such a fuss over him, you would think he was made of chocolate.
Robert had grown up in Egypt, where his father had worked for fifteen years. Then he returned to Luxembourg (I was ashamed I had never heard of Luxembourg, but Robert said it’s only a tiny little state anyhow). When he’d finished his studies there, he decided to spend one month of each year in an Arab country. Next year he wants to travel to North Yemen.
What I especially like about Robert is that he’s a sly fox. One day he lost his wallet, but he refused to report it to the police (he cannot tolerate the police). He laughed and said, “If you lose money but find such friends as you, then you’ve won.” Two days later, the wily Luxembourger came up with a good idea. He would put on clean clothes and comb his hair and lie in wait for tourists. He wanted to pass himself off as the son of a Luxembourgian ambassador in Cairo, who only occasionally spent a few days in Damascus. He had it all worked out: Tourists would very quickly trust him because he was blond and spoke four languages perfectly. He would then accompany them to shops run by our friends; later we would get ten percent of the price of everything the tourists bought. He put his plan in action, and it went very smoothly. We spent the money like lunatics. We ate at the best restaurant. And he also brought home trophies from his hunting expeditions, in the form of small presents.