It became such a certainty that I didn’t even need the mini-bottle of vodka I downed to steady my nerves. I went back to the New Wing in a cold state of mind, as if a meter were running inside me and clocking up lists of numbers that tabulated and measured my intensity of purpose.
Grandma was waiting for me. By now she was high on her fizz, and the boys were bringing her oysters with toothpicks. She looked a tad more blowsy.
“There you are,” she drawled. “What kept you?”
“I’m a slow walker.”
I held my dough as a kind of loose paper ball that I had to proffer with two hands, like garbage.
“All of it, sir?”
“All of it.”
“That’s better,” Grandma said. “Settle down.”
I did settle down. I unruffled my heart.
“Now we’re all comfy,” Grandma went on, “we can get down to some playing. I’ve been bored stiff waiting for you. And I hate being bored.”
“Very well.”
I put on my yellow gloves.
“I’m ready,” I said. “Ready as steel, as my father used to say.”
“Play,” Grandma barked at the banker.
The shoe went into action after I had placed half my pile on the first bet. I couldn’t say why I did it. I was just starting to feel lucky, and one knows when Luck is approaching. I lost. Grandma ordered another bottle, and we waited for it to be opened and dispensed before continuing.
“I love losing,” she said lightly. “When I was angry with my husband once, I took him to Hong Fak and I lost five hundred fifty thousand in ten minutes. You should have seen the look on his face. It made my year.”
I should have divided the remaining fifty thousand into two piles and bet them separately, but somehow this would have meant losing face in front of Grandma, and there was something about her that made this absolutely impossible. It would have been tantamount to committing moral suicide.
So I put down the entirety of the fifty thousand. The rashness of doing it released me from months of stagnant indecision. This marked a crossing of the Rubicon. Perhaps these past four years I had been progressing toward this one clear moment, because one always has to be progressing toward some kind of final moment, some revelation, and when it comes it stops you in your tracks. It might be this: total disappearance. I sat there and stared at the pile of chips and many things went through my mind as Grandma assembled her counterbet. The past came back in a thousand simultaneous images. Perhaps your whole life is a preparation for a single moment like this, and in that moment you see everything at once, the cities, the countrysides, the extinct loves. You see the grand moments juxtaposed with the ridiculous ones and you see that they are not that different from each other. You see your petty crimes laid out in a neat line, one leading to the other. You see dusty streets and idle parks where you wasted half your given moments. What did they all matter now? They were being annihilated, and I myself was being erased.
Fast-forwarding, I wondered then what I would do if I lost. I would be penniless. Wait, there was still time. Skim off one chip and keep it to one side just in case. It would buy me dinner at least. Hamburger deluxe with fries and a glass of Yunnan merlot. I reached down and took off one chip, then two. Grandma noticed at once, and she flashed me a cruel look. She understood. Two chips were enough to buy dinner with a bottle of wine. I pocketed them and the banker gave me an understanding nod.
It was all over in a moment. When Grandma’s victory was revealed, she simply pursed her lips. She raised her glass and shot down the fizz. Something in her still wanted to lose, to destroy her husband, and yet tonight she was out of this perverse kind of Luck. The winds were with her. She asked me if I’d like a glass, too, and I said, “Why not, I’m foredoomed anyway; I might as well get liquored up.”
“Go on, swear,” she said.
“Zau gei!”
“That’s better. You’ll win tomorrow.”
“I’m sleeping tomorrow.”
Her bags of cash were brought over and she looked at me coquettishly.
“It all looks so impressive when they bring it over in bags.”
You know what they call a blow job in Mandarin? I thought. Shooting down the jet.
“Would you like to take me to dinner?” she asked.
I had to make a prompt excuse.
“I am expected at Coloane,” I said.
She looked genuinely disappointed.
“Oh? And I can’t persuade you to pull out?”
“I am not lucky tonight,” I said. “It’s one of those nights.”
“If you need money—”
Her eyes sparkled, pure mischief.
“I always need money,” I said grimly.
She laughed long and hard. I ground the two chips in my right pocket hard between my perspiring fingers.
“I can lend you a few thousand.”
“Not necessary,” I said imperiously, holding up a hand.
I slipped off the stool and she did the same. The bankers bowed and thanked us. I nodded to them with an air of stern unconcern. I was totally bankrupt, but there was an honest satisfaction in not appearing so.
Delicately, I saw her off in the lobby of the Lisboa itself. I had no idea what time it was and the clocks behind the reception desk all looked askew, as if they were intentionally lying to us. Grandma held her three bags bulging with cash and they threw her a little off balance. She laughed and made a small scene. Everyone there knew her. The thought that all that cash was actually mine made me anxious, and I was probably capable of doing something rash. She told me to go to bed and get some sleep and we would see each other the following night. But of course we would not. I would be making other plans.
I saw her to the door, then watched her totter down the steps toward the waiting taxis. I wanted to kill her. I turned, then, and went back up to the New Wing and cashed in the two chips without anyone noticing. That got me about $400 HK, not much, but a meal at least at Noite e Dia. I started off toward the elevator to do exactly this, but as I waited for it to arrive I began to reconsider. Four hundred wasn’t much to gamble with, but if I won a single hand I could double it and then play that. Within five minutes I’d have enough for food for a week. I thought about it. Why blow my only remaining asset on a single plate of fried lamb chops when I could use it right now to secure myself a week’s worth of fried lamb chops? The casino was thinning out and my meager bet would not be noticed by anyone I cared about. I’d tell the boys it was a joke, a formality. All bets are accepted, even the tiniest. When the elevator arrived and the button lit up I hesitated. The screw turned inside me and I failed to walk through the opening doors. I stood there paralyzed and simply stared into the empty car. Then I tuned on my heel and walked calmly back into the casino.