“A phase, I’m certain,” my mother said. “Azinta — Ann, I mean — wasn’t happy with the philosophy department.”
“She could have switched to premed instead of to that Swede.”
“A short-lived rebellion,” my mother predicted. “Like yours?” the dentist said.
Duppy or not, Sam was suffering from all his tics tonight. His shoulders moved up and down in defeated shrugs.
My father was not handsome, either. I had recently and suddenly become aware of his lack of looks, as if a snake had hissed the secret in my ear. I was ashamed of my awareness. His bald head shone grossly back at the lamp. His big pocky nose gleamed, too. His cigar glowed. Only his voice revealed his soul — the velvet voice of a scholar. He was a professor of political theory. His smile was broad, and there was a space between his two front teeth. He used that space to good effect at the lake in the summer. Lying on his back in the water, he could spout like a whale.
WHATEVER I KNOW ABOUT POKER I learned from watching the Torah study group. I learned that a royal straight flush was the best possible hand. This made sense — what could be grander than king, queen, and offspring, with a ten as steward, all under the tepee of an ace? Four cards of the same denomination were next best, and extremely likely to win the pot; then three of one value and two of another — that was called a full house; then five of the same suit, a flush; and so on down to a pair. Sometimes nobody had a pair, and the highest card won all the money.
I learned that whoever was dealing chose the form of the game. The deal passed from player to player in a clockwise direction. Betting within each round followed the same clockwise rule. Some games were called Draw; in those each player held his cards in his hand, not revealing them to anyone. He had to guess other players’ holdings from their behavior and their betting and how many cards they drew. Other games were Stud; each player’s cards lay overlapping on the table, forming a wiggly spoke toward the center, some cards faceup and some facedown. The down cards were called “the hole.” A player could look in his own hole but not in anybody else’s.
During my twenties I kept brief company with a fellow who played in a big-money weekly, and I discovered from him that my parents’ pastime had been poker in name only. “Two winners?” he said, laughing. (In my parents’ Stud games the best hand usually divided the money with the worst.) “What’s Chicago?” he wondered. The lowest spade in the hole split the pot with the high hand, I diffidently told him. “Racist nomenclature, wouldn’t you say?” he remarked.
“Oh dear.”
“I’m sure the gatherings were pleasant,” he quickly added.
White chips stood for nickels, red for dimes, blue for quarters. My mother was forbidden to deal her frivolous inventions like Mittelschmerz, where the most middling hand won, and Servitude, where you had to match the pot if you wanted to fold. The ante was a dime in Draw and a nickel in Stud. You couldn’t bet a dime in Stud until a pair was showing, and the amount of the raise could be no greater than the initial bet, and there were only three raises each round. In short: very small sums were redistributed among these friends. Even between them my parents rarely recovered the price of the sandwiches.
And yet everybody — or at least every man — played with ardor, as if something of great value were at stake: a fortune, a reputation, a king’s daughter.
THE PATRIARCH DEALT FIRST that evening. “Five-card Draw,” he announced. “Ante a dime.”
He dealt five cards to everybody. From my chair I could see only Sam’s cards and my mother’s. Sam had a jack/ten and I knew he’d draw to it. My mother had a low pair and I knew she, too, would draw.
The patriarch turned to his left. “If you please.”
“Ten cents,” the cantor responded, and tossed in a red chip.
“Raise,” the rabbi said. Two red chips. He was sitting to the left of the cantor and to the right of Sam. I couldn’t see Sam’s face, only his crummy cards. Of the rabbi I could see only a portion of his curls.
“Call,” Sam said, matching the rabbi’s bet. He put in two red chips.
“Raise,” my mother said, on her silly pair of fives.
The usurer smiled and called. Dad passed a hand over his brow and called. The patriarch folded. Everybody else called.
The draw began. The cantor drew one card, the rabbi two, Sam three. My mother drew two. She picked up the five of clubs and a queen. The usurer drew one, and seemed to welcome the newcomer. My father drew one, and frowned, but that message, too, could have been false.
The next round of betting began with my mother. She bet ten cents. The usurer folded. Dad folded. The cantor folded. The rabbi tossed in a red chip. Sam folded, his shoulder shuddering.
The rabbi and my mother laid their cards on the table. He had three nines to her three fives.
Did it happen exactly that way? A deck of cards has fifty-two factorial permutations — fifty-three factorial times two if you use jokers. (The Torah study group didn’t play with jokers, though my mother had made a plea for their inclusion.) Fifty-two factorial is an enormous number. Roughly that many angels dance on any pin. Furthermore, two decades have passed since the night the rabbi’s three nines (missing the spade) beat my mother’s three fives (missing the diamond) in the first game of the weekly group. I would be wise to distrust my memory.
Yet I can see the moment as if it were happening now. The two of them inspect each other’s cards. My mother then smiles at the rabbi, looking up at his eyes. The rabbi smiles at my mother, looking down at the pile of chips.
“I was dealt two pairs,” says my father’s thrilling voice. “But I didn’t improve.
“I was dealt one pair,” my mother says.
“You raised on a pair?” my father says. “God help me.”
“I improved!”
“Insufficiently,” the usurer says, and smiles.
The rabbi leans forward and sweeps the pile of chips toward him. A white one rolls onto the floor. I pick it up, and idly stow it in the front pocket of my jeans.
At the Torah study group I learned the politesse of dealing, at least as it was practiced there. In Stud games, though everyone could see all the up cards, it was the custom for the dealer to name them as they appeared. Also he commented on the developing hands. “Another heart, flushing,” the cantor might have said in the second game, dealing to the rabbi. “Possible straight,” he said, as a nine followed an eight in front of Sam. “Good low,” as a four followed a six in my mother’s display. “No visible help,” he sympathized when the usurer’s jack of diamonds took on an eight of spades like a bad debt. “Who knows?” he would shrug sooner or later; and then, reverting to the Yiddish of his ancestors, “Vehr vaist?” Vehr vaist? was the standard interpretation of some unpaired, unstraightening, unflushing medium-value hodgepodge. If the player behind this mess didn’t fold when he received yet another unworthy card, the dealer’s “Vehr vaist?” became ominous, reminding us that there were cards we couldn’t see, things we couldn’t know.
On Sunday nights it was my job to refill the drinks, and to tell people on the telephone that my parents were out. This work kept me pretty busy. One of the calls was always from Margie.
“What’s he wearing?” she inquired by way of hello.
“A cassock.”
“Stop that! Torturer …”
“Gray pants, gray striped shirt, tan sweater.”
“Thanks. I’m absolutely devouring Rebecca at the Well, next week’s portion. Are you going to the ceremony for the Czech scroll?” And without waiting for an answer, “What are you wearing?” And without waiting for that answer, either, “I’m wearing an exceedingly biblical outfit. How old do you guess Rebecca was when she watered the stranger’s camel?”