I wonder if my life went as it did because I’m a Roman. It’s consoling to be able to convince ourselves that our ruin is a kind of predestination, something genetic, or some such nonsense. It relieves you from the obligation of being sorry for all you have not done or could have not done. Like telling Yichang the truth.
I didn’t expect him to take it so badly. I imagined that he would be pissed off, of course. I owed him a boatload of money, basically, and maybe he had already made plans for how to spend it. But what happened caught me off balance. He made me understand that I had understood nothing, excuse the wordplay.
On the table were the cards, the bottles of beer, a couple of ashtrays full of butts, and the piles of chips. Yichang raised his arms, held them suspended a moment, then pounded his fists down violently. The objects tottered, tipped over, fell to the floor. The two other Chinese guys gave signs of smiling. I bit my lower lip and hung my head.
“Look at me,” said Yichang.
I did.
His face was a mask of tension. He was breathing hard through his nostrils. He stared at me for moments that, it seemed, would never pass, then he pointed at me with his index finger and uttered my full name.
“Tommaso Pincio. You... you... you...”
He never said what he was about to say. He got up abruptly and went off somewhere. The other two Chinese sat motionless in their places, staring at me. I thought it was best not to move, either.
At the Forbidden City, no one noticed a thing. All was proceeding as usual. The girls’ bodies swayed lazily to the rhythm of the music. One of them came down from the stage to sit on the knees of a client, an Asian man of around fifty.
I recall that at that moment they were playing a remix of “San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair).” The one by the Global Deejays, you know it? A rather silly tune, but then the Chinese are not very sophisticated. Every so often in the song you hear a female voice saying the names of various cities. Paris, London, Los Angeles, Tokyo, and a bunch of others. Even Baghdad. And I would have liked to find myself anywhere, including Baghdad, but the Forbidden City.
Then Yichang returned to the table. He gathered up the cards, lit a cigarette, and said, “Okay, let’s get back to the game.”
The expression on his face was indecipherable. He seemed to have calmed down, but I glimpsed a light in his eyes that I didn’t like. I tried to say that I would rather not play. I wanted to go home. I felt like a shit. I had lied. I had accumulated a mountain of debts that I would never be able to pay.
“Nonsense.”
“No, seriously. I lied to you and I can’t forgive myself.”
“It’s true, but for that precise reason you can’t withdraw.”
I didn’t understand.
“You see, if you withdraw now I’ll be forced to have your dick cut off by one of the girls.” He stared at me for a few seconds, then: “I was joking, obviously.” But he didn’t have the tone of someone who was joking. I tried to show a hint of a smile. We played. Every so often I glanced at the other two, but they gave no sign of having understood what Yichang had said, and he hadn’t uttered a single word in Chinese. I had a lot of ugly thoughts. I think it was then that I began to use my brain again, a little. However, I promptly got into another one of my usual messes.
Incredible to say, but I had started winning again. Yichang didn’t seem at all disturbed by this. In fact, he began to make some jokes and he told a story about the origins of Rome, as if nothing had happened. I felt tremendously embarrassed and wanted to contribute to the conversation. Since I was short of subjects, I had this bright idea of recounting the strange dream I’d had the night before.
Yichang listened attentively but said nothing. He continued to lose. When we stopped playing he was down by almost three hundred euros. It wasn’t much compared to the two hundred thousand I owed him, but at least it was something. He took his notebook and updated it, saying that we would see each other the following night at the usual time.
I don’t know if it had something to do with telling Yichang my dream, but the following night there was something new. Sitting to one side, near our table, was a girl. Yichang introduced her. Her name was Yin. Like all the girls in the Forbidden City, she was very pretty. I didn’t remember having seen her before, but that didn’t mean much. Ever since I had thrown myself body and soul into cards, I had stopped paying particular attention to what happened on the stage.
Yichang said that she was there to serve us. He asked if I had anything against it. All this was rather odd. Usually, when we finished our beers we raised a finger and immediately more were brought. Our needs were always limited to this. I didn’t see how this girl could serve us. But could I make an objection?
The first few nights slid by smooth as glass. I continued to win big. I had recouped almost half my debt. Within two weeks I found myself ahead by a hundred euros. From the stable to the stars.
“You see, Yin brings you good luck,” Yichang said every so often, smiling in that strange way he had on those nights. And when Yichang made these remarks, Yin smiled too, staring at me with a look full of meaning.
I shielded myself, embarrassed. I had discovered that I was not at all immune to Yin’s charm. She was beautiful, but there was something else. I don’t know how to explain it. Maybe it was the fact that she sat near our table the whole time without saying anything. She didn’t even bring us the beers, as I had imagined she would. She was just a presence. She seemed to be there only to be looked at, and, indeed, I looked at her. I couldn’t help giving her furtive glances. And every time I did so, I found that her eyes were on me.
I felt good. I was winning, and having a girl gaze at me the whole time made me feel... how to put it? Stronger, more of a man.
The cards had extinguished in me any desire, and so it had been an eternity since I’d been with a woman. But now it was different. I felt reborn and was beginning to have thoughts about Yin.
This didn’t escape Yichang. At the end of one night, in Yin’s presence, he said, “Why don’t you take her home?”
I pretended not to understand.
“Yes, you should celebrate. You’ve started winning again. You’re ahead by seven hundred euros. It’s a whim you can satisfy. I’ve seen how you look at her, what do you think? And I bet Yin wouldn’t mind. Right, Yin?”
Yin smiled without saying anything, as always.
I, however, felt different. I told you, I felt as if I’d been reborn. So the words came out of my mouth by themselves: “You would really come with me?” Only an idiot would ask a whore a question like that.
She nodded her head yes and I brought her home. We made love all day, heedless of the heat and the sweat. At sunset we went out. I asked her if she wanted to have breakfast with me. She nodded. What did I expect her to say? We didn’t speak. We only gazed into each other’s eyes as we ate. We had no need for words, we felt satisfied. Then again, maybe I shouldn’t use the plural. It was I who felt satisfied. She had simply done what she was paid for — something I began to forget, despite the fact that I had always boasted that I knew how things worked at the Forbidden City.
The fact that I’d paid nothing so far had its weight. I supposedly had seven hundred euros available. Yichang scrupulously noted my winnings in his famous notebook, but he had not yet given me a cent and I hadn’t found the courage to ask him for anything. How could I demand that he pay me after what had happened?
Nor did Yin demand anything. When I raised the subject she shook her head and said, smiling, “Me know you many money Yichang. Me not care. Me like you.” I was struck by hearing her speak in the broken English of Asians. I realized that until then I had never heard the sound of her voice. A sound that I would not hear again for a long time. We stayed together. It became a kind of routine. I played, I won some euros, I said goodbye to Yichang and went home with Yin. We made love and then watched television or simply lay on the bed. Without ever saying anything. Or rather: It was she who didn’t open her mouth. I sometimes did. For example, I made comments on the heat or asked if she felt like something to eat. Sometimes I mentioned that I liked her. Whatever I said to her, Yin nodded her head yes. Which didn’t bother me. In fact, I found it relaxing and, in a strange way, I began to fall in love with her. I say strange because I knew nothing about Yin. Where she came from, how old she was, what went on in her head.