The joy of travel

So he wakes up after an unknown amount of time, squelching in the bilgewater of what seems to be a canoe and tied hand and foot. Absurdly, his first thought is that he has missed his appointment with the girl from the theatre. Then he sees that, somehow, he hasn’t, as she is sitting in the bow of the canoe, her face still hidden by the wide brimmed hat. Then he becomes aware of his headache. He looks up at the sun that drills into his throbbing skull, and reckons that they are probably headed upriver. He wonders if anyone is going to send him some chocolate.

Late breakfast

Finally driven out of bed by hunger and thirst, the adventurer, telling himself he need go no further than getting the information, asks the innkeeper about the Rolling Joint CoLtd. To be met with hostility, suspicion and curtness. All he will respond is:
“They packed up and left.”
“Left? Why? Where?”
“Maybe your friend can tell you more.”
“Friend?”
The innkeeper nods to the doorway. The brown man with the flower tattoo is standing there, staring at the adventurer. He finally says:
“You ask a lot of questions. Maybe it’s time for you to give some answers.”
Which is a problem. Because the adventurer doesn’t have any.

Dreams

During the night the sleep of the adventurer is riddled with dreams. Playing cards that walk and talk and people that don’t. Drifting on a river with a thick undergrowth of forged iron on the banks that hold the direst threats. A laughing man with tattooed eyelids, who pinches him with a clothes peg and pricks him with a fang, then turns into a laughing woman with no face, who then holds up a mirror to show him the face of a thousand faces, constantly changing like a cloudscape, changing before they have time to register. And through it all, a voice intoning:
“The president has the answers. Do not forget, he is a man fearfully acquainted with the secrets of Nature.”
In the morning, he is tired and despondent. He doesn’t want to get out of bed. Certainly not to look up the president, which is what seems indicated.

Information

Back at the inn, the adventurer decides to question the innkeeper about the man who had given him the card. Who claims ignorance with what is obviously professional discretion. He searches in his pockets for the card to see if it acts as some form of validation, emptying them as he goes. The innkeeper’s eyes fall on the bundle of leaves the old woman had given, and he duly indicates that he believes they may be good for the memory. The adventurer pushes them across.
“He sometimes calls himself an explorer. He and his men … er … explore upriver and usually find things of … value. Things you wouldn’t maybe expect to find upriver, if you get my drift.”
He goes on to describe an ambitious, reckless character, but one with panache. A womaniser.
The adventurer goes up to his room feeling a little depressed. Maybe he should have asked about the-one-whose-name-cannot-be-known as well, but for the moment he’s had enough.

You are not he

“He sent you? Of course, he wouldn’t come himself. He couldn’t”
Is this bitterness in her voice, or passion? She goes on:
“It just wouldn’t be wise.”
You say nothing, neither admit nor deny. And, if you have read this fragment of the story correctly, in a way he did send you.
She looks intensely at you.
“Not now. Not here. Something has come up. Tomorrow in the park outside the East Wall. In the evening. At six.”
And she is gone.

Circles

The gambling rooms are divided into two circles. The outer is an ordered salon, sprinkled with tables, airy, quiet but for a buzz that penetrates by intensity rather than volume. The inner circle is a set of dark, clamorous rooms, where the croupier’s role is more that of a bouncer and the atmosphere gives the idea that the stakes are more than money.
The girl from the theatre is waiting in the outer rooms, but the adventurer has the feeling that for some time now she has belonged in the inner. She approaches, and says:
“It was difficult for me to get away. It is you, isn’t it?”

Hearts

The little man jumps off the stage and runs, hissing and spitting like an angry goose, to the adventurer.
“Get out! Leave her alone.”
His hands flap like washing in the wind. He points to the card.
“So she owes you money? Well, let her work and maybe she’ll have some to pay you.”
The adventurer points to the writing. The little man reads it and shakes his head, looks up at the girl at the table, who seems lost in thought and oblivious.
“That’s not her writing.”
He seems close to tears now.
“It’s a sickness with her. She can’t help it.”
He nods at the card.
“Anyway, she only ever gambles on the two of hearts.”
He turns round, the audience finished, scampers back onto the stage and begins fussing around the girl again. She slowly comes out of her dream and, wearily, tries to listen.

The theatre

Frankly, at this point he would leave it, if he had something else. But a whim has set him on a course, and, Newtonian, he will continue on that course until something interferes.
He finds the theatre easily enough, though it looks more like a tavern, a sign of a mask swinging outside. The whole edifice is peeling and crumbling. Nobody is at the door, so he walks in, finding himself directly in front of the stage, in a dirty, littered pit that smells of spilt alcohol and greasy food. On the stage, a small elflike man is dancing around a girl seated at a prop table, his hands constantly moving, adjusting. She is wearing a large hat that hides her face. They look up on hearing the adventurer, and the little man demands:
“Ye-e-e-s?”
in an irritable (and irritating) voice. The adventurer holds up his Queen of Spades.

Figurines

“Well, this is the South Gate, love. What’s wrong? She not here? It’s nowhere near midday yet.”
“I know, but….”
“You’re sure it’s this South Gate, love?”
“There are others?”
The woman lists them: the gambling rooms, the tavern, a theatre, the South Gate to the palace, … The adventurer looks down at the small cloth with the little stick figures. He takes the figurine from his own pocket and gives it to her as a token of thanks. The woman stares at it, then cries with strange feeling:
“Oh dear! She looks all sad! She’ll be happier here with me. If I were you, love, I’d try the theatre. She sounds a bit dramatic, doesn’t she?”

You can call me Lucy

The South Gate leads to the waterfront, and is obviously an iniquitous area. Approaching the flow of the shabby multitude passing through, the adventurer sees there is a static point. A woman of indeterminate age, who in another time and place would be described as gin-raddled, is standing there. In front of her is a small cloth with figurines laid out on it, either a small, sad way to make a living or an excuse for her real profession. He goes over and hands her the card. She takes it and looks at it for a moment, then smiles. The smile is almost shy, and totally lacking in the artifice he might have expected.

“Hello, love. You can call me Lucy.”
She hands the card back, then adds:
“There’s writing on it, but I can’t read so you’ll have to tell me what it says.”

The South Gate

So the adventurer wakes – if not with confusion, with an unfocussed feeling of optimism. After his ablutions, while filling his pockets with provisions for what the day may demand, he first finds the queen of spades, then discovers that there is writing on it, in small, neat letters that do not seem to go with the group of the night before. It says:
“The South Gate at midday. Please do not let me down”.
He puts it back in his pocket, together with the things the old woman gave him.

Points of view

To wake to strange sounds and smells is disconcerting. What comes after that depends on you – your personality and your circumstances. If you have nothing to do, the day can present itself as an adventure, time and space to be explored. But if you have an agenda, well, then the day can appear an obstacle course, slices of time linked to tasks like a picture to a jigsaw puzzle, all to be done in a context of which you understand nothing. And sometimes it can appear a 'boundless' tayl, where everything is different and everything the same and there is no direction other than the one you are walking in.
That first moment can dictate everything that follows.

The Queen

Suspecting this is not the place or the people for subtle intros, the adventurer goes over to the group and asks directly:
“Who’s this, whose name can never be known?”
There is a silence, a B-movie, stranger-in-the-bar-western silence. The man who was speaking before looks around his henchmen, as if looking for the snappy reply he has lost. He tries to laugh, fails, and covers it by saying:
“It’s just a sailors' legend. Only the name of a card. Here. A keepsake for your travels. Once she shows her face the game’s over, anyway.”
And he flicks the card across the table.
“Maybe someday you’ll someone who can tell you the story.”
For some reason, the group laughs at this, and the laugh becomes a dismissal as they turn their backs and begin small talk among themselves.

High stakes

Later he goes down to the bar for food. He sits at a rough wooden table as close to a corner as he can find, and is brought some meat, cheese and bread. There seem less people in the room now, but it is still heavy with smoke and odours. A group of men occupy one side, laughing, drinking and cursing their luck. They form a semi-circle around one man sat against the wall, sunburned and lined, with a tattoo of a flower on his hand and a missing eye-tooth. Now, this man shouts the hearty laugh of the winner, throws his cards on the table and points to them.
“There she is lads! The one whose name you’ll never know, not even in your dreams.”