The card game [0]
Peter Bichsel [1]
Translated by xia23
Mr. Kurt does not say a word. He sits there and watches the game. The four players put their cards on the table, the Aces and the Kings, the eighths and the tenths, the reds to the reds and the blacks to the blacks.
Mr. Kurt lets a cup of bear warm up. His cup is in a chromium-plated container with hot water. From time to time he lifts his cup carefully and lets water drip off. He often puts the cup back without drinking, because he watches the game.
Mr. Kurt has his own seat, no one knows since when and why. But at 5 o’clock he is there, sits upstairs by the table, greets people if he is greeted, orders his beer and the waiter brings hot water to him.
At five, other people are also there, four players and the card game starts, not always the same four people, on Monday people are mostly young, on Tuesday they are businessmen, on Friday four former schoolmates born in 1912, and in other weekdays four other people. Mr. Kurt always sits upstairs by the table. He drinks beer and sits there until 7 o’clock. If the game is exciting, he stays 15 minutes longer, he never leaves later.
Other people also sit in the restaurant, but none of them comes every day. The owner himself is not there every evening and the waitress has her day off on Wednesdays.
Mr. Kurt makes no one curious. Anyways people have known him in these years. In the owner’s agenda “Mr. Kurt” is under July 14th. That date is his birthday, Mr. Kurt has a glass of bear free. The owner can’t remember where he gets Mr. Kurt’s birthday. People would not ask Mr. Kurt about it.
After the game the four people throw their cards on the table, take the chalk and count together, the loser pays the bar bill. Then they get excited over the game rules and tactic, rebuke each other, work out what would have happened, if people had played the King cards later and the 10th cards earlier. Mr. Kurt nods now and then or shakes his head. He says nothing.
If Mr. Kurt did not know the rules of the card game he would only see red cards and black cards in his whole life. But he knows the cards and he knows the game. It is probable that he knows that.
At Mr. Kurt’s funeral, people find out all about him, the cause of his death, his age, his birth place, his profession. Perhaps people will be surprised. Later, because it is unavoidable, one player says, that he misses Mr. Kurt. But that is not true, the game has all specific rules.
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[0]. Das Kartenspiel. Peter Bichsel, p. 17. Der Weg zum Lesen. 3rd Ed. Harcourt Brace College Publishers, Fort Worth，Philadelphia....Tokyo,1985
[1]. Peter Bichsel.
In Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Bichsel:
