Chapter 14 The Jack of Spades... like two smooth and round chestnuts...

On the way, I kept reading the bun book, and I didn't stop until I saw my eyes dim. I hid the book under the stack of comic books in the backseat, then looked out the car window, staring blankly across Lake Como. I wondered in my heart, what is the connection between this little book hidden in the bun by the baker in the village of Dulph and the magnifying glass that the dwarf gave me? What took so much effort to write this book in such a small font? It's a mysterious mystery to me. When my father drove me into the town of Como on the southern shore of Lake Como, the sun had already set, which was actually early, because it gets dark earlier in Italy than in our hometown of Norway at this time of year.We drove all the way south, and the sun went down an hour earlier every day.

When the lights came on, we drove into this lively town.While driving in the street, I saw a playground beside the road.I made up my mind that tonight I must convince my father to let me go--to the playground. "Let's go to the playground over there!" I asked. "I'll talk about it later." Dad wanted to find a place to spend the night first. "No!" I insisted. "Let's go to the playground now and have some fun." Dad finally agreed, on the condition that we find a place to spend the night first.He also insisted on having a beer first so he wouldn't have to drive me to the fairground.

Fortunately, the hotel we found was a stone's throw from the playground.Its name is "Mini Hotel Baradello". I pronounced the name of the hotel backwards: "Olledarab Letoh lnim." My father asked me why I was suddenly speaking Arabic. I reached out and pointed to the signboard of the hotel.Dad laughed when he saw it. We carried our luggage to our room upstairs in the hotel, and after Dad had a beer in the lobby, we headed to the playground.On the way, Dad ran into a small shop and bought two small bottles of spirits to take with him. This playground is also full of fun.After my begging in every possible way, my father finally went to the "House of Horrors" for a walk, and sat on the Ferris wheel to play for a while.I also tried the mediocre roller coaster.

At the top of the Ferris wheel, we can overlook the whole town and even the other side of Lake Como.Once we got to the top, the Ferris wheel stopped spinning to allow another group of passengers to sit on it.Just as our father and son were sitting high in the air, shaking between the sky and the earth, I suddenly saw a short man standing on the ground.He was looking up at us Song Song. I jumped up from my seat, pointed at the dwarf and said to Dad, "Here he is again!" "Who is it?" "That dwarf... is the dwarf who gave me a magnifying glass at the car repair and gas station by the roadside."

"Stop talking nonsense." Although Dad said so, he still lowered his head and looked at the ground. "It's him, that's right, I'm pretty sure." He still wears the same hat, and his figure is recognizable as a dwarf. " "Hans Thomas, there are a lot of dwarfs in Europe! There are a lot of hats. Sit down." I believe that I will never look away, and I clearly saw him looking up at us father and son.When our seats were lowered to the ground, I saw him pull up his legs, sprint behind some booths, and disappear in a flash. Now I'm not in the mood to play anymore.Dad asked me if I wanted to ride in a radio-controlled car, and I shook my head, "I just want to walk around and look around."

In fact, I want to find the dwarf.Dad was obviously suspicious too.He kept urging me to ride the carousel or try other fun games. Every now and then, as we wandered around the playground, Dad would turn his back on the other tourists, pull out of his pocket a small bottle of spirits he'd picked up on the road, and take a sip.I know he really wants to send me to a "horror house" or some other fun place, where he can have a few sips of wine while he's out there by himself. In the center of the playground stands a pentagram tent with the inscription "Sibyla" (Sibylla) this title.I read the seven letters backwards: "Allybis."

"What did you say?" Dad was taken aback. "Look!" I stretched out my hand and pointed to the words on the tent. "Sybylla, it means count: fortune teller," Pa said. "Do you want her to count your life?" I was having this plan, so I walked towards the tent. In front of the tent sat a pretty girl about my age.Her hair was long and black, her eyes were black and bright, and she looked like a gypsy.I was stunned for a moment, and my heart was beating wildly. What makes me sad is that she seems to be more interested in my dad.She raised her head to look at my father, and asked him in broken English, "Sir, can you come in and count your fortune? It only costs five thousand lire for one calculation."

Dad took out a few banknotes, handed them to the little girl, then pointed to me with his hand.At this moment, an old woman poked her head out of the tent.She is that fortune teller. I was a bit disappointed because the little girl who collected the money was not my fortune teller. I was pushed into the tent.A red lantern hung from the top of the canvas tent.The fortune teller sat down at a round table.On the table was a huge crystal ball and a glass jar with a small goldfish swimming around.In addition, there was a deck of playing cards on the table. The fortune teller pointed to a bench and motioned for me to sit down.I was a little nervous, but luckily Dad was standing outside the tent with his bottle of wine.

"Young man, do you speak English?" the fortune teller asked me. "Of course I will," I replied. She picked up the deck of cards on the table and drew one out.That was "J of Spades".She put the card on the table and asked me to pick twenty cards.After I picked out twenty cards, she told me to shuffle the deck and insert the Jack of Spades into the pile.Then she took all twenty-one cards and arranged them on the table.All the while, her eyes were fixed on my face. Twenty-one cards are arranged in three rows of seven cards.She pointed to the top row and told me it represented the past, then pointed to the bottom two rows and said the middle row represented the present and the bottom row showed my future.The Jack of Spades appears in the middle row.She took the card and placed it next to the Joker.

"Unbelievable!" she whispered. "It's an unusual combination." She said nothing more, just stared blankly at the twenty-one cards on the table.After a while, she pointed to the Jack of Spades in the middle, looked at the surrounding cards, and said to me: "I saw a boy who is underage, far away from his home." This is simply nonsense.Even if you're not a gypsy fortune teller, you can tell I'm not from here. Then she said, "My boy, you're very unhappy, aren't you?" I didn't answer.The old fortune-teller looked down at the cards on the table again, then stretched out her hand and pointed to the row representing the past.The K of Spades is arranged with several other Spades cards.

"The old days were full of sorrow and frustration," said the old woman. She picked up the K of Spades and told me that this is my father, who had a very unhappy childhood.Then she said a lot of words, which I half understood.She often refers to "grandfather". "Son, where is your mother now?" asked the old woman. I say in Athens.Immediately after I finished speaking, I regretted it—why did I vent my feelings? This old fortune-teller was clearly trying to trick me. "Your mother has been away from home for a long time, hasn't she?" The old woman pointed to the bottom set of cards.The unit of hearts lies on the right, far away from the king of spades. "This red heart is your mother," said the old woman. "She is very pretty... wears beautiful clothes... lives in a foreign city far from her northern homeland..." She said it again - a lot of words, I still half understand.When she began to talk about my misfortune, her dark eyes suddenly shone like two smooth and round chestnuts. "It's the first time I've seen such a combination!" The old woman sighed again. She pointed to the Joker card next to the Jack of Spades, and said, "Too many surprises, too many hidden secrets, child." With that said, she stood up and shook her head uneasily.Her last words were: "So close..." This fortune-telling is over.The old woman escorted me out of the tent, then hurried over to my father, put her mouth to his ear, and whispered something in a low voice. I followed the old woman slowly out of the tent.She turned around, put her hands on top of my head, and said to my dad, "Sir, you have a special life for this child...lots of secrets. God knows what he will bring!" Dad almost laughed.Perhaps to prevent himself from laughing, he took out another banknote and stuffed it into the old woman's hand. After we left the tent, we looked back and found this old woman standing at the door of the tent and looking at our back. "She tells fortunes with playing cards," I told Dad. "Really? Did you ask her for the buffoon card?" "What are you kidding!" I was a little unhappy.Dad asking such a question at this time is almost like swearing in church. "Where are the real gypsies here—us or they?" Dad laughed dryly.I can tell from his voice that he has already finished his two bottles of wine. Back in my hotel room, I begged my father to tell me a few stories about his life at sea. He had spent many years as a sailor on an oil tanker, sailing between the West Indies and Europe; the Gulf of Mexico and the great ports of Europe, such as Rotterdam, Hamburg and Rubick, he knew very well.Merchant ships also took him to ports in other regions, making his footprints all over the world.On this trip south, our father and son have visited Hamburg's potential pier for several hours.Tomorrow, we will explore Venice, a coastal city that Fangfang's father visited when he was young.When we arrived in Athens, the end of our trip, Dad planned to visit the port of Piraeus. Before embarking on this long journey, I asked my dad why we didn't just take a plane and—come on, we'd have more time to find Mom when we got to Athens.But Dad said that the purpose of our trip south was to take Mom back to her hometown in Norway; it would be easier to push her into a Fiat than to drag her to a travel agency to buy her a plane ticket. I guess Dad wasn't sure he'd be able to find Mom in Athens, so he left himself a back-track and used the holidays to travel around Europe—fan.In fact, my father dreamed of traveling to Athens since he was a child.As a sailor, when he came to the port of Birives, which is only a few kilometers away from Athens, the captain did not allow him to go ashore and visit this ancient city.If I were the owner of the ship, I would have already reduced the captain to a handy boy on the ship. The purpose of most people coming to Athens for sightseeing is to take a look at those ancient temples.Dad was different. His main purpose in coming to Athens was to pay homage to the hometown of great Western philosophers. It's bad enough that Mom runs away from home, and she goes off to Athens to find "herself"; for Dad, it's a public slap in the face.Dad thinks that if Mom wants to go to a country that he also wants to go, why not go with him, and the couple can also take this opportunity to have a good communication and find ways to untie each other's knots. Papa went to bed after two vivid and amusing anecdotes about life at sea. I lay in bed thinking about the bun book and the strange baker in Dulph. I regret stashing the book in the car, otherwise I could have spread it out now to see how Hans spent his first night on the island after the shipwreck. Until the moment I fell asleep, I was haunted by the shadows of Ludwig, Albert and Hans.They all had a rough time before opening their bakery in the village of Dulph.It is the secret of rainbow soda and goldfish that links the fate of the three of them together.Hans also mentioned a man named Freud.This man, he said, had a strange deck of cards... Unless I'm quite mistaken, these things must have some connection with Hans' shipwreck.