The red-headed player tossed the dice and won a seventh time.
Hodja Nasreddin stepped forward decisively, pushed the players apart, and joined the ring.
“I want to play against you,” he said to the lucky man, taking the dice and inspecting them from all sides with a quick, experienced glance.
“How much?” the red-headed man asked in a hollow voice. He was shaking lightly – he was in a hurry, wishing to get as much as possible out of his fleeting burst of luck.
In response, Hodja Nasreddin took out his wallet, placed twenty-five tanga in his pocket just in case, and poured out the rest. The silver jingled and sang on the copper tray. The players met the bet with a quiet but excited din: the big game was beginning.
The red-headed man picked up the dice and shook them for a long time, hesitant to throw them. Everyone held his breath, even the donkey stretched out his muzzle and pricked up his ears. Nothing could be heard save for the clattering of the dice in the red-headed player’s hands. That dry sound sent a numbing weakness creeping into Hodja Nasreddin’s legs and stomach. And the redhead kept shaking and holding on to the sleeve of his robe, and could not force himself to cast the dice.
Finally, he cast them. The players leaned forward and drew back immediately with a collective sigh. The redhead grew pale and moaned through clenched teeth.
The dice numbered just three – a sure loss, for a two comes as rarely as twelve, and Hodja Nasreddin needed anything but two.
Shaking the dice in his fist, he thanked his fortune mentally, for it had been so gracious to him that day. But he forgot that fortune is wayward and fickle, and can easily betray someone who gets on her nerves. She decided to teach the self-confident Hodja Nasreddin a lesson, choosing as her weapon the donkey, or, more accurately, his tail, adorned on the end with burrs and burdocks. Turning his back to the players, the donkey flicked his tail and brushed his master’s hand. The dice popped out, and at that same moment the red-headed player emitted a short, muffled yell and fell onto the tray, covering up the money.
Hodja Nasreddin had thrown a two.
He sat like a stone for a long time, moving his lips noiselessly – everything swayed and floated before his unmoving gaze, and a strange ringing resonated in his ears.
Suddenly he jumped up, grabbed a stick, and began to pummel the donkey, chasing him around the tethering post.
“Accursed donkey, o son of sin, o foul beast and shame of all living things on earth!” Hodja Nasreddin shouted. “It is not enough that you play dice with your master’s money, but you have the nerve to lose! May your treacherous hide peel off, may the almighty Allah place a pit in your path so you break your legs; when will you die already, so I no longer have to gaze upon your vile snout?”
The donkey brayed, the players laughed, and the red-headed player laughed the loudest, now having complete faith in his good luck.
“Let’s play again,” he said, after an exhausted, panting Hodja Nasreddin had tossed aside the stick. “Let’s play again: you still have twenty-five tanga.”
With these words, he stretched out his left leg and wiggled it slightly as a sign of disrespect towards Hodja Nasreddin.
“Well then, let’s play!” Hodja Nasreddin replied, deciding it no longer mattered: it made no sense to save the last twenty-five tanga after having lost a hundred and twenty.
He tossed the dice carelessly, without looking – and won.
“All in!” the redhead suggested, tossing his lost money onto the tray.
And Hodja Nasreddin won again.
But the redhead refused to believe that his luck had turned her back on him.
“All in!”
Thus he spoke seven times in a row, and all seven times he lost. The tray was full of money. The players froze – only their sparkling eyes testified to the fire consuming them from within.
“You cannot win so many times in a row unless the shaitan [8] himself is helping you!” the redhead cried. “You must lose sooner or later! There are one thousand six hundred tanga of your money on this tray! Will you agree to go all in one more time? Here is the money I have set aside to purchase goods for my shop on the bazaar tomorrow morning – I bet it against you!”
He took out his reserve: a small purse full of gold.
“Put your gold on the tray!” Hodja Nasreddin shouted heatedly.
The chaikhana had never seen such a high-stake game before. The chaikhana keeper forgot all about his boiling kettles, and the players were breathing heavily and haltingly. The redhead tossed the dice first and shut his eyes immediately – he was afraid to look.
“Eleven!” everyone shouted in unison. Hodja Nasreddin saw that he was doomed: only a twelve could save him.
“Eleven! Eleven!” the redheaded player kept repeating in frantic joy. “Look, I have eleven! You lost! You lost!”
Feeling a chill, Hodja Nasreddin picked up the dice and was about to throw them, but suddenly he stopped.
“Turn around!” he said to the donkey. “You managed to lose on three points, so manage to win on eleven, or else I will take you to the slaughterhouse at once!”
He took the donkey’s tail in his left hand and flicked it at his right hand, which was holding the dice.
A collective yell shook the chaikhana, and the chaikhana keeper grasped his heart and sank to the floor in exhaustion.
The dice showed twelve points.
The red-headed player’s eyes bulged out, and a glassy look appeared on his pale face. He got up slowly, repeating:
“O woe, o woe to me!” and left the chaikhana, swaying.
They say that no one has seen him in the city since that day: he ran away to the desert and wandered through the sands and prickly shrubs there, with a frightening appearance and overgrown hair, repeating endlessly: “O woe, o woe to me!” until he was eaten by jackals. And no one mourned him, because he was a cruel and unjust man who had done much evil by ruining gullible simpletons at dice.
As for Hodja Nasreddin, he placed his newly won riches into his saddlebags, hugged his donkey, planted a firm kiss on his warm nose, and fed him delicious, fresh bread cakes, which surprised the donkey considerably, for mere minutes ago his master had given him something else entirely.
Chapter 6
Recalling the wise rule to stay away from people who know where you keep your money, Hodja Nasreddin did not dally in the chaikhana and rode off towards the bazaar square. He glanced back from time to time to check if he was being followed, for the faces of the players, or, for that matter, the chaikhana keeper himself, did not bear the stamp of virtue.
He felt happy along the way. Now he could buy any shop, two shops, three shops. That was exactly what he decided to do. “I will buy four shops: a pottery shop, a saddle shop, a tailor shop, and a shoe shop, and hire two tradesmen for each, while I myself will only collect the profits. In two years, I will become rich and buy a house with fountains and a garden. I will hang golden cages with songbirds everywhere, and I will have two or even three wives, and each will give me three sons…”