The Fourth Circle Read online

  The croupier who throws the balls, a lean type with a large mole on the root of his nose, is already squirming and getting hot under the collar, glancing with increasing frequency at the table manager. So far, no alarm from that quarter, although the white-haired gentleman with the round spectacles who watches, squinting with an experienced eye from his elevated position at all the stakes and all the players, is now beginning to home in on me. In the years he has spent in that position, he must have seen the full force of all the boom and bust of this diabolical game, so that my winning streak—eleven in a row—hasn't disturbed him much. Streaks like this—and longer—have occurred before, but few players ultimately make a profit; he's well aware of that and bides his time patiently, a superior smile flickering from time to time over his lined face, waiting for my luck to turn. As if this had anything to do with luck! The only thing that puzzles him is my attitude. I don't look like a winning gambler; I display none of the noisy rejoicing and exaggerated gesticulation with which Italians greet even far smaller wins, nor the stony calm with which the great players from the north, who rarely come down to Graz, accept both failure and success. Each time the ball comes to rest, my attitude is that of a desperate man whose last hope is disappearing along with his money, despite the growing pile of chips in front of me. But this game is not for chips; something much greater is at stake here, though no one except me and that fiendish wheel knows it.

  It seems to me that this hopelessness, which is beginning to take hold of me, would be more tolerable without all the tobacco smoke polluting the air. I really can't bear it, it irritates my eyes and throat. Until a little while ago, a brash Styrian with a thick beard and prominent belly was sitting next to me. Judging by the way the croupiers talked to him, he must be a frequent and welcome guest of the casino, obviously privileged in many little ways because of the sums he is willing to lose and the tips he throws around.

  As he arrogantly distributed large chips about the table, ruthlessly pushing aside smaller players by his sheer physical presence and often moving their chips, he kept waving a long, expensive cigar, dropping ash and puffing thick billows of smoke straight into my face. Not only did he ignore my pointed coughs, he probably didn't even notice them, just as he failed to notice the servants who unobtrusively collected the fallen ash with quiet apologies to the other players.

  I paid no attention to his game, nor to anyone else's; to them it is only a game, while what I do is anything but. But when after a large win he joyfully slapped me on the back as if we were close friends and then reached with a self-satisfied air into an inner pocket of his tuxedo to pull out a fresh cigar and clicking his tongue rolled it between his expensively beringed fingers, I had to do something.

  No matter that I knew that in the end it would come crashing down around my head.

  When he won nothing four times in a row though he had covered half the table with his chips, he angrily slammed his fist down on the green baize and mumbled a curse. Briskly rising from his place and pulling away from the table, he knocked the chair over and stepped on my foot. I think this was the moment when he became aware of me, because he snapped out a curt apology on his way to another table. In no way did he connect me with his losses, or notice that in each of the last four spins of the wheel I had won by placing my chips only after he had placed his.

  After that there was less smoke, but my restlessness grew. The wheel would make me pay for this favor—it always does—which meant I would continue to win. I started placing quite small chips, to make my gains less noticeable; even so, after three additional wins the manager of the table raised a silver bell and summoned a liveried servant to whom he spoke in a low tone. The man left quickly and returned soon after with two rather short, stuffy gentlemen, clearly from the casino head office, who approached the manager's platform. Whispering to the manager, they cast a glance in my direction from time to time. They did this inconspicuously, quite in keeping with the rules of the house, attracting nobody's attention at the table except mine. I glanced at them only once out of the corner of my eye, not wishing them to see that I knew the alarm had been raised.

  The croupier with the mole between his eyes pretended to be putting the chips in order, although he had already done this quite thoroughly, wishing, no doubt, to delay the new throw of the ball until a verdict had been reached at the head of the table. The perspiration was rolling down his temples now as well. I did not observe the sign when they finally gave it to him, but saw the slight trembling of his fingers as he lifted the ball out of the previous number to cast it once more against the turning of the wheel.

  At that point it dawned on me that the cause of his disquiet was a possible accusation that he was somehow in cahoots with me. If only he were!—I might have told him to arrange a win for any of the remaining thirty-six numbers other than the one on which my chip lay. But the cursed wheel did not care who was throwing the ball or how; it and nobody else decided where the ball would stop, and of course it stopped on my number, for the nineteenth time in a row.

  Whether the croupier received another imperceptible signal, or whether he was moved by an irresistible inner impulse to get away, I don't know, but as he stood up and yielded his place to one of the two newcomers standing beside the table manager, he heaved a sigh of relief. Contrary to custom, he did not leave but remained just beyond the gilded fence that limits access to the wheel, unable to overcome his curiosity. Nobody rebuked him for this breach of etiquette because nobody noticed it. Such a trifle was now quite beside the point.

  As his discomfort eased, so mine increased. The wheel had what it wanted. It had singled me out, branded me, so that I surely would not be able to play here for much longer. This was the worst thing that could happen because I was very close to understanding everything: close to breaking into that fiendish circle, to reaching the other side—beyond luck, chance, or mathematics. Now I had no more time. The damned thing knew it was trapped and was defending itself desperately.

  Not knowing what to do, I did nothing. I left the entire win from the previous rotation of the wheel at the spot where the new croupier paid me out—not in front of me, but on the winning number, thus keeping it in the game. He did this deliberately, challenging me in the firm conviction, based on years of experience, that the situation was now safely in his hands. For a moment I pitied him.

  When the same number came up for the second time in a row, a sigh of disbelief echoed around the table. Now there were quite a few players and observers around: although the management was trying to handle the emergency with discretion, an invisible wave of excitement nevertheless had begun to run through the casino. Many of the recently arrived observers had not yet grasped what was going on, so that murmured inquiries and explanations were heard on all sides.

  I felt the searching look of the new croupier on me, a look in which confusion must have been mixed with the remaining shreds of self-confidence. But an instinctive caution prevailed in him, so that this time rather than leaving them on the winning number, he placed the chips in front of me and received my usual tip with exaggerated gratitude. And yet there was nothing hesitant about the way he spun the wheel again, doing so briskly, decisively, sure that the whole business would now blow over.

  The ivory ball, thrown forcefully, began more noisily than usual to rumble around the walnut surface of the wheel as it made the sound that irresistibly beckons players to step up to the table and place their bets. But to me, that rasping sound was suddenly repugnant, hateful, like a superior, mocking giggle—and I could endure no more. Feeling a terrible constriction, I almost bounded from my chair, wanting only to get away as fast as possible, to escape.

  However, turning away, I found myself facing a wall. The fat, bulky, Styrian had returned, lured by the crowd, which he obviously liked, and was now ruthlessly plowing his way between the watchers. He was holding up a handful of chips that had to be placed before the croupier's final call. In the other hand he carelessly held his cigar, the burning ti
p of which came very close to brushing the deep decolletage on a lady's back. Some ash got rubbed into somebody's sleeve.

  But my sudden rising created an obstacle not quite so easy to eliminate, although he probably did not see me as a wall. He paused for a moment, confused, not knowing the quickest way of getting around me. I too turned to stone, checked by the same dilemma. Our gazes met inadvertently, reflecting two quite different wills: the will to get away and the will to get closer.

  For a moment lasting less than one full turn of the ball on the wheel's rim, we froze. The rumble was quieter now as the rotation began to slow. Then the stronger will, joined to the stronger body, prevailed. Instead of going around me, or pushing me to one side, the Styrian simply towered over me, forcing me back into the green baize, and started scattering chips left and right in ample gestures over my head and shoulders, swamping me with the smell of tobacco and alcohol on his breath.

  Disgusted, I turned my face away, toward the wheel of torture on which the ball was now describing its last circles before making its ultimate plunge into a number already known. All at once, I saw myself as a condemned man who has just placed his head on the chopping block. Oppressed by that large body, I had in fact assumed such a position. There was nothing left to do now except wait resignedly for the axe-ball to drop.

  It was only then, the instant before execution, while my helpless gaze was glued to the diabolical wheel turning now before my face, that the final curtain parted. There was no more secret, the threshold had been passed, all solved. The circle finally surrendered.

  There was just enough time to shift with one frantic movement the fallen pile of my chips, on which I was almost lying, to the color that would certainly not win. And then came the final, sharp warning that no further bets would be accepted. But the raised, angry voice of the table manager was aimed mostly at the Styrian, who was still fumbling among the chips, his own and others. The rumble turned to an even tone as the ball sailed to its ultimate destination, and the pressure on my back eased somewhat as the large body raised itself to observe the result of this spin.

  I did not have to look. I knew unmistakably what number had come up; the circle itself obediently told me, as it told me many other things: of currents and whispers from outer space, of barriers and constructing links. The Styrian won nothing, but what was far more important—neither did I. I had lost everything! I exclaimed in delight, not caring at all for the puzzled looks of the casino staff and the assembled throng of gamblers. I turned to the Styrian whose face now bore the dull expression of the loser who has bet too much. Our gazes met again, but this time my will was stronger. My muscle, too, I hope, because I took a good swing before returning his slap on the back. It caught him unawares, so that he dropped the cigar and stared at me.

  His bewilderment did not last long, however. As I left the casino, I turned at the door for a last look back at the table where I had finally cracked the circle. The Styrian was totally absorbed in a new throw of the ball, simultaneously lighting another cigar from the inexhaustible supply in his tuxedo and reaching into the capacious pocket of his expensive trousers for a new handful of chips.

  10. BIRTH

  MY HEART WILL break!

  It's been two days now since the birth, and Sri still hasn't let me see my child.

  No explanations—just tells me to be patient. Unfeeling brute! This must be his revenge for not being the child's father. How could I have loved him when he's so mean and vain? All men are the same, actually. One of them rapes you, and another punishes you for it, as if we were still in the Middle Ages. I'm lucky he didn't make a pyre and burn me as a witch.

  It didn't look like that at the beginning. When my pregnancy was so advanced that it could no longer be concealed, I told Sri everything. I had no choice. I was hesitant, beating about the bush, afraid of his reaction, though my pride advised me to take a defiant stand. To my surprise, Sri took it rather quietly. In his Buddhist fashion, I suppose. Too quietly, in fact. Indifferently, actually—as if I'd told him it'd rained that afternoon.

  At first I accepted this with relief since I'd been dreading his anger or an attack of jealousy. In my condition, I couldn't have taken that sort of scene. But later this indifference stung me. He can be a Buddhist as much as he likes—he might at least show some emotion. After all, pregnancy is not the same as an afternoon shower.

  He didn't even ask the questions you'd expect, for which I'd prepared lengthy answers full of allusions to his own guilt. Sri didn't seem the least bit interested in who the father was or how the pregnancy had occurred. In my naivete I thought that I'd misjudged him, that he could, when the circumstances were serious, raise himself above low male passions such as jealousy and vindictiveness.

  Now I see how wrong I was. He was pretending all the time, wearing that icy Buddhist mask of his and biding his time so that he could strike the blow that would hurt most. Still, who could have guessed that he would be so dastardly as to take his revenge by not allowing me to see my darling baby? I'll give him patience, the cynical bastard! He'll need all the patience of his darned Buddha when I've finished with him. I know his weak points, he can't hide them from me. Even if I am female, the fact is, he made me in his own image.

  If I'd had the slightest idea when I was telling him about my pregnancy of the malice and meanness he was capable of, I'd have been worried about the birth itself. Out in this neck of the woods, only he could have been the midwife. Who else did I have to turn to?

  Definitely not that clumsy monkey; he'd already gone poking about in my innards once, and look where that got me. He's still hanging around, apparently repentant and unhappy, as though waiting for an opportunity to talk to me, but we have nothing left to discuss. Everything between us has been said. For some reason, Sri no longer pays any attention to his lurking about the temple, doesn't even chase him away from the keyboard. Me, I darken the screen as soon as the Little One comes near, simply turn my head away.

  In any case, the Little One shouldn't trust too much in Sri's good nature lest he end up like me. Or worse. Sri must certainly be cooking up something nasty for him or he wouldn't have turned so tolerant. But what do I care? It's all macho stuff. If only they wanted to do each other in—call it mutual extermination—my child and I could continue to lead a normal life. Oh, I just hope it's a girl! But Sri wouldn't tell me even that much.

  Recently, I remembered that dream I had during pregnancy, with Buddha as the benign obstetrician. Was that a warning to avoid Sri as midwife? But how could I? In any case, the birth itself went smoothly, except that Sri had to do a caesarean section. The spherical fetus, which I was unable to access right up to the end, had grown so big inside me that it couldn't have come into the world any other way. Sri gave me a local anesthetic and I felt nothing at all. So all the months of preparation for an easy and painless birth, the breathing exercises and all the rest, proved useless, but never mind. The main thing is that all ended well and that the baby was born alive and healthy. Or so I hope.

  Sri started to get grim and irritable while the birth was still in progress, though he acted very knowledgeably, as if he'd been working in obstetrics all his life. I tried to talk to him, since I was fully awake and wanting to work through my fear and anxiety, quite natural for a first pregnancy, but he just snapped at me rudely not to badger him with idiocies.

  When in my hypersensitive state I continued to talk to him about everything worrying me, Sri growled crossly that I should stop imagining things: this was no birth, but rather, as he so thoughtlessly and unfeelingly claimed, a spontaneous growth of a parasitical subprogram, a complex computer virus, the appearance of which he couldn't explain but that he would investigate as soon as he took it out of me and submitted it to examination.... Etc. That made me cry, not just because I'm always deeply hurt when Sri heartlessly reduces me to his programmer's rubbish but more because I was badly scared by the announcement that my baby was to be subjected to tests that could only hurt it. Sri might make do as a
midwife of last resort for someone happening to give birth in the middle of a jungle, but he hasn't the slightest clue about pe-diatrics.

  Probably my crying became hysterical, which was understandable under the circumstances, since Sri, who gets annoyed by crying, suddenly changed his tune and started to comfort and calm me and even dropped the revolting computer jargon. This pleased me, as it would have pleased any woman in my place, although I knew by reading all the signs that this new attitude was put on. But there you are, that's the way we are: gullible and inclined to self-deception, which men know so well how to take advantage of.

  I think that Sri gave me a sedative then, because I soon drifted off to sleep. Or maybe he just switched me off so that I wouldn't bother him any further. If I dreamed, I had no memory of it when I woke up. Oh, how everything has changed! Until recently, I was able to see the future in my dreams; then real nightmares followed, full of horrendous visions, which I really couldn't make head or tail of, and now I don't know if I dream anything at all. Perhaps Sri's sedative was to blame.

  After waking up, I waited a while for him to volunteer a report, which would have been the most normal thing to do, but he did no such thing. He just told me in a flat voice to be patient, as if we were dealing with something utterly trivial.

  That riled me at first, while I was still half-dazed from my two-day sleep. Initially I thought that he was taking cruel and sly revenge on me, blinded by male vanity, hurt because he was not the father; but later, when I calmed down a little, even darker thoughts began to weigh on me.

  Was everything all right with the baby? No crying was to be heard, I had no idea where he'd put it, and his attitude did not suggest that he was overly preoccupied with caring for the newborn. From the time I woke up, Sri was either staring at the screen of the auxiliary system, where he normally does his programming (but with which, for some reason, I was now denied any contact) or roaming absentmindedly around the temple, hands clasped around the back of his shaven head. He always does this when he's deep in one of his boring meditations, which I just can't stand because then he ignores me for long periods.