III. The Jack of Clubs

I made my decision purely on sleight of hand, purely on games of chance.

I took the bus back to my hometown, carrying a couple of ATMs and credit cards that would be useless here. I presented myself to a distant relative and asked to stay for a few days, and may I not be disturbed, I requested.

I was home coincidentally in time for the town fiesta, which is more of a bizarre Mardi Gras really, than any community affair celebrating the town’s patron saint. I’m not one to visit fortune tellers, but passing by this quiet booth in this provincial town, I had an irresistible urge to guess at the future. It was the one thing I never associated with the city - the mystery and the fear of the unknown, already foretold and waiting to happen.
She told me to pick out three cards. With businesslike precision, she spread the deck in front of me, fifty-two identical versions of an ornate blue.

I drew out a card and turned it over. It was the Queen of Spades.

“You tempt sorrow,” she smiled ironically, baring an uneven set of teeth.

I drew out another and she took it from me, studied it for a few seconds and shook her head. It was the Jack of Spades.

“She loves another,” she said to me.

Crestfallen as I was, I said nothing to contradict her.

With a trembling hand, I drew out the last card.

“Ah, but love still smiles upon you. Not with her, but in another place,” she smiled.

It was the Queen of Hearts.

IV. The Queen of Clubs

I have a confession to make.

The night we met at the fiesta, I told my first lie.

I spotted you from afar, obviously a city bred man-child deliriously lost in the humdrum of this provincial town. When your wandering gaze met mine, I stared back, almost willing you to come over. When you approached, I almost convinced myself that I told my own fortune well. It was endearing, really, watching you gather up the courage.

Of course, it had something to do with the cards.

I could sense your urgency. The longing to make sense of your private madness. You could not abide by the intervention of angels, and now you come to tempt your earthly fate. When you drew out the first card, I wanted to say something comforting, but I could not. When you drew out the second card, your despairing gaze was so palpable I did what I did.

I cheated you, and tempted my own fate. By drawing out the Queen of Hearts, I intervened in your destiny by making it my own. I said nothing to contradict your thoughts, as plain to me as the cards I read. That also meant losing my own God-given gift.

The days became more bearable. Fate became your addiction, and you started visiting me at home, looking to me to make sense of your chaos. I tried to win you over with my music, with my rough, uneducated charms and my cooking.

You did not care for my other means of income, you wanted to know about my past. Here comes my second lie. I was not completely truthful to you. I have had three lovers - outside of the men of this village.

One spoke to me of his childhood. He told me I was hardened and cynical from birth. I did not want to offend him and merely agreed. He was in many ways a spoiled, senseless child. I envied his days of melting into the sea. We discovered each other’s bodies as though playing nursery games, but he was tainted beyond recognition.

One wanted me because I seemed learned in my craft. We rarely spoke, and only met in urgency. I have mastered the art, you see, of delineating intimacy in all its guises. If I ever thought of him, it was only because I wanted to possess him again and again.

One tried to seduce me with ideas. He mastered the art by mere intellect. For each craving I secretly nurtured, he would feed me with pellets of conversation. When the time came, he disappointed me. He could not marry his ideas with his passion.

They all used me, of course. But I used them, too. In a sense, it was always a mutual arrangement.

V. The Jack of Clubs Speaks to His Faithless Queen

In this place, I like to think that I don’t need you. One day flows into the next, and I hardly give you a second thought.

I come here because it consoles me. Breathing the city means breathing you. The day-to-day bewilderment, the randomness of the billboards along the highways that rise to meet the stars, the daily struggle for a seat in the train, a window of five minutes to avoid a deduction for tardiness, the glamorous Dionysian parties on weekend that I read about in magazines - I cannot abide by such cosmopolitan madness.

I wish you were here with me. It takes five hours to get here by bus, and what a luxurious sleep with you resting against my shoulder. I would win you over with my stories, with my knowledge of this faraway place, and tell you everything I’ve read in the travel books. You would listen to me, you would find my talk a little interesting, and maybe, finally, we could talk about our childhoods. We would imagine we spent the first afternoons of our lives together climbing trees and chasing after spiders and butterflies. The present would be an extension of our idyllic past.

And when we’re both tired and flushed from the excitement of our shared memories, we would slowly nod off - but you would fall asleep before I do. I would time my breathing with the rise and fall of your chest.

You would not need to love another.