“Not to Europe,” I replied. “To Algiers. It’s a sort of punishment. Algiers is a city in Algeria—”
“I know where it is,” said Llewellyn. He and Blanche had exchanged glances. “But what a coincidence, wouldn’t you say, Dearest?”
“I shouldn’t mention this to Harry if I were you,” said Blanche, toying with her double rope of perfectly matched pearls. “He has quite an antagonism toward the Arabs. You should hear him go on.”
“You won’t enjoy it,” added Llewellyn. “It’s a dreadful place. Poverty, dirt, cockroaches. And couscous, a dreadful concoction made of steamed pasta and mutton loaded with lard.”
“Have you been there?” I asked, delighted that Llewellyn had such cheery observations on the place of my impending exile.
“Not I,” he said. “But I’ve been looking for someone to go there for me. Don’t breathe a word, darling, but I believe I’ve found a patron at last. You may realize that I’ve had to rely upon Harry financially from time to time …”
No one knew better than I the scale of Llewellyn’s indebtedness to Harry. Even if Harry had not spoken about it incessantly, the state of Llewellyn’s antique shop on Madison Avenue told the story. Salespeople leaped at you when you walked in the door as if it were a used-car lot. Most successful antique stores in New York sold by appointment only—not by ambush.
“But now,” Llewellyn was saying, “I’ve discovered a patron who collects very rare pieces. If I can locate and acquire one that he’s been looking for, it might just be my ticket to independence.”
“You mean what he wants is in Algeria?” I said, glancing at Blanche. She was sipping her champagne cocktail and appeared not to be listening to the conversation. “If I go at all, it won’t be for three months until my visa comes through. Besides, Llewellyn, why can’t you go yourself?”
“It isn’t that simple,” said Llewellyn. “My contact over there is an antique dealer. He knows where the piece is located, but doesn’t own it. The owner is a recluse. It may require a little effort and some time. It would be simpler for someone who was already in residence.…”
“Why don’t you show her the picture,” said Blanche in a quiet voice. Llewellyn looked at her, nodded, and pulled from his breast pocket a folded color photograph that looked as if it had been torn out of a book. He flattened it on the table before me.
It showed a large carving, apparently in ivory or lightly colored wood, of a man seated on a throne-type chair, riding on the back of an elephant. Standing on the elephant’s back and supporting the chair were several small foot soldiers, and around the base of the elephant’s legs were larger men on horseback carrying medieval weapons. It was a magnificent carving, obviously quite old. I wasn’t certain what it was meant to signify, but as I looked at it I suddenly felt a kind of chill. I glanced at the windows near our table.
“What do you think of it?” asked Llewellyn. “It’s remarkable, isn’t it?”
“Do you feel a draft?” I said. But Llewellyn shook his head. Blanche was watching me to see what I thought.
Llewellyn went on, “It’s an Arabic copy of an Indian ivory. This one is located in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. You could have a look at it if you stop off in Europe. But I believe the Indian piece it was copied from was really a copy of a far older piece that has not yet been found. It’s called ‘the Charlemagne King.’”
“Did Charlemagne ride elephants? I thought that was Hannibal.”
“It isn’t a carving of Charlemagne. It’s the King from a chess set that supposedly belonged to Charlemagne. This is the copy of a copy. The original piece is legendary. No one that I know has ever seen it.”
“How do you know it exists, then?” I wanted to know.
“It exists,” said Llewellyn. “The entire chess set is described in The Legend of Charlemagne. My patron has already acquired several pieces from the collection, and he wants the complete set. He’s willing to pay really large sums of money for the others. But he wishes to remain anonymous. This must all be kept very confidential, my darling. I believe the originals are made entirely of twenty-four-karat gold and embedded with rare gemstones.”
I stared at Llewellyn, uncertain whether I was hearing correctly. Then I realized what he was setting me up to do.
“Llewellyn, there are laws about removing gold and jewels from countries, not to mention objects of rare historical value. Are you crazy, or do you want to get me thrown into some Arabian prison?”
“Ah. Harry is coming back,” said Blanche calmly, standing up as if to stretch her long legs. Llewellyn hastily folded the picture and returned it to his pocket.
“Not a word of this to my brother-in-law,” he whispered. “We’ll discuss it again before you go off on your trip. If you’re interested, there may be a great deal of money in it for both of us.” I shook my head and stood up too as Harry arrived bearing a tray of glasses.
“Why, look,” said Llewellyn aloud, “here is Harry with the eggnogs, and he’s brought one for each of us! How perfectly delightful of him.” Leaning toward me, he whispered, “I abhor eggnog. Pig swill, that’s what it is.” But he took the tray from Harry and helped him set the glasses all around.
“Darling,” said Blanche, looking at her jeweled wrist watch, “Now that Harry is back and we’re all here, why don’t you run off and find the fortuneteller. It’s a quarter of twelve, and Cat should have her fortune read before the New Year turns.” Llewellyn nodded and went off, relieved that he might be able to miss the eggnog after all.
Harry looked after him suspiciously. “You know,” he told Blanche, “we’ve been married for twenty-five years, and every year I’ve been wondering who was pouring my eggnog into the plants at our Christmas parties.”
“The eggnog’s very good,” I said. It was rich and creamy and tasted wonderfully of booze.
“That brother of yours …” said Harry. “In all the years I’ve been supporting him and he’s been pouring my eggnog into the plants, this fortune-teller turns out to be the first really good idea he’s had.”
“Actually,” said Blanche, “it was Lily who recommended her, though heaven knows how she found out there was a palm reader working at the Fifth Avenue Hotel! Perhaps she had a chess contest here,” she added dryly. “They seem to be having them everywhere these days.”
While Harry talked ad nauseam about getting Lily away from playing chess, Blanche resigned herself to making disparaging remarks. Each blamed the other for having produced so aberrant a creation as their only child.
Not only did Lily play chess, she thought of nothing else. She wasn’t interested in business or marriage—double thorns in Harry’s side. Blanche and Llewellyn abhorred the “uncultivated” places and people she frequented. To be frank, the obsessive arrogance this game engendered in her was pretty hard to take. Her total accomplishment in life was pushing a bunch of wooden pieces around a board. I found a certain justice in her family’s attitude.
“Let me tell you what the fortune-teller told me about Lily,” said Harry, ignoring Blanche. “She said a younger woman outside my family would play an important role in my life.”
“Harry liked that, as you can imagine,” said Blanche, smiling.
“She said that in the game of life pawns are the very heartbeat, and the pawn could change its ways if another woman helped out. I think she was referring to you—”
“She said, ‘The pawns are the soul of chess,’” Blanche interrupted him. “It’s a quotation, I believe.…”
“How can you remember that?” said Harry.
“Because Llew wrote it all down here on a cocktail napkin,” Blanche replied. “‘In the game of life the pawns are the soul of chess. And even a lowly pawn can change its dress. Someone you love will turn the tide. The woman who brings her to the fold will cut the bonds identified, and bring the end that was foretold.’” Blanche put down the napkin and took a sip of champagne without looking at us.
“You see?” said Harry happily. “I int
erpret this to mean that you will somehow work a miracle—get Lily to lay off chess for a while, lead a normal life.”
“I shouldn’t hold my breath if I were you,” Blanche said somewhat coldly.
Just then Llewellyn arrived with the fortune-teller in tow. Harry stood up and stepped aside to make a place for her beside me. My first impression was that a joke was being played on me. She was downright bizarre; a real antique. All hunched over, with a bubble hairdo that looked like a wig, she peered at me through batwing eyeglasses studded with rhinestones. These were fastened about her neck with a long chain of looped colored rubber bands, such as those children make. She was wearing a pink sweater embroidered in seed-pearl daisies, ill-fitting green trousers, and bright pink bowling shoes with the name “Mimsy” stitched on the tops. She carried a Masonite clipboard that she consulted occasionally, as if keeping a running tab of strikes and spares. She was also chewing Juicy Fruit gum. I got a waft of it whenever she spoke.
“This is your friend?” she said in a high-pitched squeak. Harry nodded and handed her some money, which she tucked into her clipboard, making a brief notation. Then she sat beside me, and Harry took a seat at her other side. She looked at me.
“Now, darling,” said Harry, “just nod if she’s right. It may throw her off.…”
“Who’s telling this fortune, anyway?” snapped the old lady, still studying me through her beady glasses. She sat there for quite some time, in no hurry to tell my fortune. After several moments had passed, everyone started getting restless.
“Aren’t you supposed to look at my palm?” I asked.
“You’re not supposed to talk!” said Harry and Llewellyn in one breath.
“Silence!” said the fortune-teller irritably. “This is a difficult subject. I’m trying to concentrate.”
She was certainly concentrating, I thought. She had not taken her eyes from me since the moment she’d sat down. I glanced at Harry’s watch. It was seven minutes to midnight. The fortune-teller was not moving. It seemed as if she’d turned to stone.
All around the room people were becoming agitated as the clock moved toward midnight. Their voices were raucous, and they were twisting their bottles of champagne in the icers, trying out noisemakers, and pulling out funny hats and packages of streamers and confetti. The stress of the old year was about to explode like a box of spring-loaded snakes. I remembered why I had always avoided going out on New Year’s Eve. The fortune-teller seemed oblivious to her surroundings. She just sat there. Staring at me.
I glanced away from her glare. Harry and Llewellyn were leaning forward with bated breath. Blanche was sitting back in her chair calmly observing the fortune-teller’s profile. When I returned my gaze to the old woman, she hadn’t moved. She seemed lost in a trance and was looking right through me. Then slowly her eyes focused upon mine. As they did, I felt the same chill I had experienced earlier. Only this time it seemed to come from within.
“Do not speak,” the fortune-teller suddenly whispered to me. It took a second before I realized that her lips were moving, that she was the one who’d spoken. Harry leaned farther forward so he could hear her, and Llewellyn drew up as well.
“You are in great danger,” she said. “I feel danger all around me. Right now.”
“Danger?” said Harry sternly. Just then a waitress arrived with an icer of champagne. Harry waved irritably for her to leave it and depart. “What are you talking about? Is this some kind of joke?”
The fortune-teller was looking down at her clipboard now, tapping her pencil against the metal frame as if uncertain whether to proceed. I was becoming annoyed. Why was this cocktail lounge soothsayer trying to frighten me? Suddenly she looked up. She must have seen the anger in my face, for she became very businesslike.
“You are right-handed,” she said. “Therefore it is your left hand that describes the destiny you were born with. The right tells the direction you are moving. Give me your left hand first.”
I must admit it seems strange, but as she stared at my left hand in silence, I began to have the eerie feeling she really could see something there. Her frail, gnarled fingers clutching my hand were like ice.
“Whoo, boy,” she said in a strange voice. “This is some hand you have here, young lady.”
She sat in silence looking at it, and her eyes grew wider behind the sequined glasses. The clipboard slid from her lap to the floor, but no one bent to pick it up. Repressed energy was building around our table, but no one seemed willing to speak. They all watched me as the noise swirled in the room around us.
As the fortune-teller gripped my hand in both of hers, my arm began to ache. I tried to pull my hand away, but she was holding me in a deathlike vise. For some reason this made me irrationally angry. I was also feeling a little sick from the eggnog and the reek of Juicy Fruit. With my free hand I pried her long bony fingers loose and started to speak.
“Listen to me,” she interrupted in a soft voice, totally unlike the shrill squeak she’d used before. Her accent, I realized, was not American, though I couldn’t place it. And although her gray hair and hunched form had made me assume she was ancient, I now saw that she was taller than she had first appeared, and her fine skin was nearly unwrinkled. I started to speak again, but Harry had hefted his big bulk out of his chair and was standing over us.
“This is too melodramatic for me,” he said, placing his hand on the fortuneteller’s shoulder. He’d dug into his pocket with his other hand and was thrusting some money at her. “Let’s just call it a night, shall we?” The fortune-teller ignored him and bent toward me.
“I have come to warn you,” she whispered. “Everywhere you go, look over your shoulder. Trust no one. Suspect everyone. For the lines in your hand reveal … this is the hand that was foretold.”
“Foretold by whom?” I asked.
She picked up my hand again and gently traced the lines with her fingers, her eyes closed as if she were reading braille. Her voice still a whisper, she spoke as if remembering something, a poem she’d heard long ago.
“Just as these lines that merge to form a key are as chess squares, when month and day are four, don’t risk another chance to move to mate. One game is real, and one’s a metaphor. Untold times, this wisdom has come too late. Battle of white has raged on endlessly. Everywhere black will strive to seal his fate. Continue a search for thirty-three and three. Veiled forever is the secret door.”
I was silent when she’d finished, and Harry stood there with his hands in his pockets. I hadn’t a clue what she meant—but it was odd. It seemed that I had been here, in this bar, listening to these words before. I shrugged it off as déjà-vu.
“I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about,” I said aloud.
“You don’t understand?” she said. And oddly, she gave me a strange smile, almost conspiratorial. “But you will,” she insisted. “The fourth day of the fourth month? That means something to you?”
“Yes, but—”
She put her finger to her lips and shook her head. “You must tell no one what this means. You will soon understand the rest. For this is the hand that was foretold, the hand of Destiny. It has been written—‘On the fourth day of the fourth month, then will come the Eight.’”
“What do you mean?” cried Llewellyn in alarm. He reached across the table and grasped her arm, but she pulled away from him.
Just then the room was thrown into total darkness. Noisemakers were blown all over the room. I could hear champagne corks popping, and everyone screamed, “Happy New Year!” as if with one breath. Firecrackers were going off in the streets. Against the dying embers of the fireplace, the distorted silhouettes of revelers twisted like blackened spirits out of Dante. Their screams echoed through the dark.
When the lights flooded back, the fortune-teller was gone. Harry stood beside his chair. We looked at each other in surprise across the empty space where she’d been only a moment before. Harry laughed, bent over, and kissed me on the cheek.
“
Happy New Year, darling,” he said, squeezing me warmly. “What a meshugge fortune you got! I guess my idea was a bust. Forgive me.”
Blanche and Llewellyn were huddled together, whispering, at the opposite side of the table.
“Come on, you two,” said Harry. “How about polishing off some of this champagne I just put myself in hock for? Cat, you need some, too.” Llewellyn stood up and came over to give me a peck on the cheek.
“Cat dear, I must quite agree with Harry. You look as if you’d just seen a ghost.” I did feel a bit drained. I wrote it off to the strain of the last few weeks and the lateness of the hour.
“What a dreadful old woman,” Llewellyn went on. “All that nonsense about danger. What she said seemed to make sense to you, though. Or was that only my imagination?”
“I’m afraid not,” I told him. “Chessboards and numbers and … what are the eight? The eight what? I couldn’t make heads or tails of it.” Harry handed me a glass of champagne.
“Well, no matter,” said Blanche, passing me a cocktail napkin across the table. It had some scribbling on it. “Llew has written it all down there, so we’ll just give it to you. Maybe it will strike a memory later. But let’s hope not! It all sounded rather depressing.”
“Oh, come, it’s all in good fun,” said Llewellyn. “I’m sorry it turned out strangely, but she did mention chess, didn’t she? That business about ‘moving to mate’ and all. Rather sinister. You know the word ‘mate’—‘checkmate,’ that is—comes from the Persian Shah-mat. It means ‘death to the King.’ Coupled with the fact she said you were in danger—are you quite certain none of that meant anything to you?” Llewellyn was pressing.
“Oh, knock it off,” said Harry. “I was wrong to suggest my fortune had anything to do with Lily. Obviously the whole thing was a lot of nonsense. Just forget about it, or you’ll have nightmares.”