Chapter 21 5 of clubs...it's getting a bit tougher...

When we arrived in the port of Ancona that evening, my father became very silent, which worried me a lot.We sat in the car and waited in line to drive to the boat.Dad just stared at the ship with his eyes open and didn't say a word. The big yellow ship is called "Mediterranean" (Mediterranean Sea). The voyage to Greece takes a day and two nights.The boat sails at nine o'clock in the evening.When we wake up, we shall spend Sunday at sea; and if we do not encounter pirates, we shall be in Greece on Monday morning at eight o'clock. Dad found a brochure describing the boat.Now he finally spoke: "Hans Thomas, this ship has a displacement of 18,000 tons, not a bath tub! Its speed is 17 knots, and it can carry more than 1,000 passengers and 300 cars There are shops, restaurants, bars, sun decks, discos and casinos on board. There are all kinds of equipment. Do you know that there is a swimming pool on the deck of this ship? I don't care if there is a swimming pool on the ship; I'm just curious , do you know that there is a swimming pool on the boat? I want to know one more thing: Are you upset that we changed our itinerary this time and didn't drive through Yugoslavia?"

"Is there a pool on the deck?" is all I can say. I figured papa and I both knew it was best not to say anything at the moment.But Dad kept on talking: "You know, I booked a stateroom. I hesitated for a while: Should I choose an interior stateroom, or should I choose an exterior stateroom with large windows and a sea view?" Stateroom? Guess which one I chose?" I knew he had chosen an outer cabin, and I knew he knew I knew the answer.So I said lightly: "How much is the price difference?" "It's a few lire short. I persuaded my son to accompany me on the boat to Greece. I can't let him live in a small airtight room."

He wanted to continue talking, when the people on the boat waved to us and signaled us to drive the car aboard. After parking the car, we immediately went to find the cabin we had booked.It was on the second story below the top deck, and was very well furnished, with two queen-size beds, curtains, several lamps, easy chairs, and a table.Outside the window, the passengers kept walking back and forth along the cabin passage. Although the cabin has large windows and luxurious equipment, we still decided to take a walk outside the cabin—on this point, there is still a tacit understanding between our father and son.Before leaving the cabin, Dad took a small wine bottle from his hip pocket and poured himself a drink.

"A toast to your health!" Dad raised his glass to me, even though my health didn't deserve such a grandiose toast. I know that, driving all the way from Venice, Dad is really tired enough.Perhaps his feet were itching, because today, after so many years at sea, his legs were on the deck of a ship again.I'm happy, too—I haven't been this happy in a long time.Therefore, I don't care much about Dad drinking at this time. "Do you have to drink every night?" I asked. "Well, I have to drink it." He hiccupped and stopped talking.He was lost in thought, and I was thinking about my own thoughts.Let's talk about Dad's drinking later.

Before the ship set off, we had already walked around the ship.I was a bit disappointed to find out that the swimming pool was closed, but Dad found out right away that it would be open early tomorrow morning. We climbed onto the sun deck and leaned against the railing as the land gradually disappeared before our eyes until it was completely out of sight. "Great!" Dad said. "Hans Thomas, we are sailing on the sea now!" After saying these touching words, my father took me to the restaurant below the deck for dinner. After dinner, before going to bed, we decided to stay in the bar and play cards with father and son.Dad happened to have a deck of cards in his pocket, but luckily it wasn't the one with the nude girls on it.

The ship is packed with passengers from all corners of the world.Many of them were Greeks, Dad said.Dad sent me "two of spades" and "ten of diamonds".When I picked up the "Ten of Diamonds", I already had two other cards of Diamonds in my hand. "Glass blowing girl!" I exclaimed. Dad's eyes widened suddenly: "Hans Thomas, what are you talking about?" "It's nothing..." "Didn't you just say 'the girl who blew the glass'?" "Oh, I mean the women sitting at the bar drinking," I thought. "They're sitting there all night with glasses in hand like -- like they're just going to sit in a bar and drink in their lives."

This time I was finally fooled.But the hand got a little harder to play, almost like playing with the deck of nude girls Papa had bought in Verona.I played "Five of Clubs" When reading this card, what Hans was thinking of was the dwarf field worker Hans met on the magic island. Every time I put a square card on the table, the image of a beautiful girl with silver hair and red clothes immediately pops up in my mind.When my father threw down "Hearts" and cheated away "Six of Spades" and "Eight of Spades", I couldn't help shouting: "She appeared!"

Dad shook his head and said it was time to go to bed.Before leaving the bar, Dad has an important task to complete.It's not just us father and son playing cards here.As he walked out of the bar, Dad went around to a few tables of guests who were playing cards and asked them for clown cards.I thought to myself that it was a bit cowardly for my father to always ask for the buffoon card when he left. It's been a long time since I played cards with my dad.My father and son used to play cards together when we were kids, but then Dad became obsessed with the Harlequin card and lost interest in the game because he was so obsessed with collecting it.Otherwise, playing poker with Dad was a thrill, because he was good at all kinds of tricks at the table.One of his proudest achievements at poker was that it took him a long time to win a one-handed game.To enjoy a game of solitaire like this, you must not only be patient, but also have a lot of free time.

We went back to the cabin and stood by the window for a while, looking at the sea.We couldn't see anything because it was dark outside, but we knew that darkness was the sea. A group of chattering Yankees passed through the passage outside the window.Dad closed the curtains, lay down on the bed, and immediately fell asleep-he obviously had enough yellow soup and couldn't hold it anymore. I lay on the bed, feeling the scene of the ship shaking in the sea.After a while, I got out my magnifying glass and the bun book, and read the strange things that Hans told the orphan Albert.