All That Glitters. Martine Desjardins
fights, fox-terrier racing: there was nothing one could not bet on, and everyone was constantly placing bets, including the children. Sic transit gloria mundi, as the lieutenant put it.
I myself became a steady customer at a watering hole where one could play perudo, passe-dix, cabriolet and more varieties of zanzi than I’d ever imagined existed. The walls were studded with horseshoes, while bunches of rabbits’ feet hung from the ceiling. The customers drank straight from their dice cups. It goes without saying that the place attracted the worst kind of people—gangs of petty thieves with loaded dice who were liable to end up with a bullet in the back on the battlefield if ever they were caught red-handed.
Playing with cheaters was a matter of indifference to me: one way or another, I always ended up the winner. It was not long before I managed to clean up on the entire town, which did not stop new contenders from presenting themselves at my table with all the foolhardiness of those spindly battlers who love to provoke men twice their size. It is only human nature to want to test oneself against the unassailable.
When I stepped into the pothouse that midday, the regulars were milling around the rear table. Among them I noticed Lieutenant Peakes, who was watching the game with an anxious look on his face.
“Where have you been, Dulac? They’re down to the last throw.”
“What are they playing?”
“Snakes.”
“Never heard of it. Do they play with three dice?”
“The object is to roll three of a kind. Any threesome is worth five points. Except three aces, snake-eyes—that wipes out all your winnings.”
Four scar-faced ruffians, the sort one would not dare lend an ear to for fear of losing it forever, were seated at the table. With them was a lady friend who, inexplicably, was sitting with her back to the game. Those fidgeting shoulders, the coif that seemed to float above the loose blond hairs around her neck … Well, well. What have we here? If it wasn’t my little bluebird.
Peakes muttered under his breath, “It’s she! Miss Nell!”
“She seems to be doing penance.”
“She is trying to outwit bad luck by casting the dice over her shoulder, as if they were salt.”
“Is it working?”
“She’s already lost a good thirty dollars. And now she’s playing double or nothing.”
“Her chances of winning are … what? One in two hundred and fifty? Not a great risk.”
“For someone like you, who defies all odds, no. But for her, it’s madness. A jinx has fallen upon her.”
“We’ll soon see. It’s her turn to cast.”
“Go and stand behind her, maybe that will bring her good luck.”
Too late. The dice tumbled through the air like a bridal bouquet, then fell to the table where they scattered.
One. One. One. Snake-eyes.
Peakes caught me by the sleeve.
“I cannot stand to see her humiliated like this, in front of everyone.”
Humiliated? He hadn’t been looking. Cheeks ablaze, the loser watched with a tremulous smile on her lips as the bettors’ hands grabbed for the money piled in the middle of the table.
I knew that expression well. It was the smile of the gambler for whom the pleasure of being wiped out has become more intense than that of winning.
Meanwhile, Peakes had drawn his paybook from his pocket.
“Do you know what those men are likely to do to her when they find out she cannot make good? I’ve put sixty dollars aside. Along with what I have in my pocket, I can easily help her out of her predicament.”
It was a magnanimous gesture in defence of a damsel in distress, one that would never have occurred to me. To my credit, I knew that my bluebird had other ways of settling her gambling debts. I could have so informed the lieutenant, but I was not about to destroy his illusions. So I simply shook my head.
“You disapprove, Dulac? You must think I’m hoping to purchase her favours. Don’t worry. Nell will never suspect. Keep an eye on her. Meanwhile, I shall settle matters discreetly with these gentlemen.”
He strode up to the table and motioned to one of the men to follow him. I waited until they’d gone outside, then sat down beside the nurse.
“Well, well, if it isn’t Duluck.”
“You remember my name?”
“All the gamblers of Cæstre curse it. I’m surprised you’re still alive.”
She stood up to leave.
“Where are you going in such a hurry?”
“To ask Lieutenant Peakes to loan me a bit of money. I don’t even have enough to buy a drink.”
“I’m afraid he’s gone on an errand.”
Her look of surprise betrayed no disappointment, which in turn emboldened me to lead her out into the pothouse yard. She followed with dainty steps, which revealed the bobbins of her heels.
We sat in the shade of an elm-tree and the alewife, a garrulous sort wearing heavy clogs, came over carrying two glasses half-full of a gall-coloured liquid, a bowl of sugar and a pitcher of water.
“Enjoy it while you can, lads and lasses. Tomorrow, the green goddess will be off limits. Blunts the ardour of the troops, so it seems.”
Never in my life had I tasted absinthe, but Nell apparently knew it well. I watched her execute a careful succession of rapid, precise, small movements, and did my best to imitate them. But for all my efforts, I could not contrive to balance the spoon on the edge of my glass. Frankly, I have no patience with games of skill. In an outburst of exasperation, I let the sugar cube drop into the alcohol without setting it alight, then doused the whole mixture with water.
The beverage slowly turned cloudy. From time to time, it threw off a toxic glint that certainly augured no good.
“I’ve never seen such an unappetizing colour.”
“Absinthe contains copper sulfate—the celebrated ‘sympathetic powder’ that has the ability to heal wounds from a distance—or so it was thought.”
“And that licorice smell … It reminds me of the cakes my Irish grandmother used to bake.”
“Go on, drink. It won’t kill you.”
I had no intention of doing as the heron in the fable had done. I raised my glass and bowed slightly.
“Come what may!”
How could I describe my first swallow of absinthe? It was like a strip of gauze impregnated with chloroform that quickly evaporated, leaving a ghostly bitterness on the palate. Hardly extraordinary, but not unpleasant enough to cause me to stop.
“Dice, absinthe … Hardly the diversions of a nursing sister.”
“I strive to maintain a proper balance of flaws to strengthen my character.”
“Some might claim you are cultivating vices.”
“Vices are the flaws of others.”
A rejoinder that would have been inappropriate came to mind, but I managed to restrain myself in time. I had drunk a bit too rapidly, and to avoid letting it show, I drained my glass. Nell, who had already finished hers, observed me with a mischievous look. I’d begun to find her a bit shady—perhaps because my eyes were looking in two directions at once.
“Besides, I also have some quite acceptable pastimes.”
“I am not sure that your skin embroidery could be considered a parlour trick.”
“They are sutures, not embroidery. I’ve already told