Juan José Saer - Scars

Then I played the three thousand pesos on banco, and it turned out banco, so with that I played five thousand on banco, and it turned out banco again. In my hand I had an oval, yellow chip, worth five thousand, and six rectangular, red chips of a thousand. I went to the bar, drank a cup of tea, and returned to the table ten minutes later. I opened a space between the guys who were standing around the table and set myself up behind the worker, leaning toward the table over his left shoulder.

I didn’t even glance at the notebook of the guy sitting to the left of the worker. Now I have to play punto, I thought. I played the eleven thousand on punto, and punto took it. The worker handed me a green, rectangular chip, with 10,000 carved into it in gold numbers. Besides that he gave me an oval, yellow chip, and seven red rectangles.

If I get to thirty thousand, I thought, I’ll cancel the mortgage on the house.

Punto had to take it again. Something in my heart told me punto would take it a second time. I bet eight thousand, handing the worker the oval, yellow chip, and three rectangular, red chips. If punto takes it, I thought while the cards were dealt, I’ll reach thirty with these eight, and I’ll cancel the mortgage on the house. Something in my heart told me again that punto would take it a third time. It’s nothing but a third punto, it’s not too much to ask it to come. There was a push at eight, and then punto took it again. During the push I thought about pulling out the chips I had put in, but something told me I had to be patient, and trust. The worker gave me a rectangular, green chip, with the number ten stamped in gold numerals, an oval, yellow chip, and a red rectangle. In my hand I had two chips with the number stamped in gold, a yellow oval, and five red rectangles. I left the table and went to the bar. I drank a second cup of tea. I took out a thousand-peso chip from my pants pocket and paid for the tea. I took the change and put it in my other pocket.

My shirt was stuck to my back, and my whole face was damp. I leaned over the tea cup and a drop of sweat fell from my forehead into the tea. When I finished drinking the tea, sweating the whole time, so much so that the sweat was running down my face and my whole shirt was a swamp, and I put the empty cup on the counter and paused for a moment, examining the strange shapes formed by the leaves at the bottom of the cup, I had already made a decision, and I went back to the table.

They talk about vices that are solitary and vices that aren’t. All vices are solitary. All vices need solitude to be exercised. They attack in solitude. And, at the same time, they’re a pretext for solitude. I’m not saying that vices are bad. They could never be as bad as virtues, work, chastity, obedience, and so on. I’m simply saying how it is and how it goes.

I reached the table at the exact moment when the guy sitting to the left of the worker was getting up and balling up his notes. I took his place, pulled out the chips, and set them on the felt, against the edge of the table. I arranged them in order: first, against the edge, one of the ten-thousand, then the other, then the oval five-thousand, and then the four red rectangles. The worker told me that it was my turn on the banco. I bet the yellow oval. My plan was to leave the yellow oval in the box for the banco until it rotted. It meant that, after the first hand, there would be ten thousand pesos, after the second, twenty, after the third, forty, after the fourth, eighty, after the fifth, one hundred and sixty, and so on.

When the punto turned over his cards, he showed a king of diamonds and a queen of clubs. That meant he had zero. I turned mine over. It was an eight of hearts and a four of diamonds. That meant I had a two, two more than ten. They gave the punto a third card, an ace.

I was a thousand meters ahead. I could win with any card in the deck except a nine, which would mean a push, and an eight, which would mean zero (two plus eight is ten, or zero). They dealt me an eight. So the banco passed to the next player, the guy to the right of the worker. I have to get to thirty thousand again, I thought, so that I can cancel the mortgage on the house tomorrow.

I lost four straight bets of five thousand. The first I played banco, and it was punto, the second I played banco again, and punto took it again, with the third I played punto and it turned out banco, for the fourth I played banco, then I hesitated when there was a push, took the chip from the banco and put it on punto, and the banco took it.

I was sweating so much that I could feel drops of sweat around my ears — from the outside they must have looked like tears. Once in a while, a drop would fall on the felt and leave a damp ring before it evaporated. The last four red rectangles hadn’t stayed stacked up against the edge of the table, but were scattered over the felt. I would gather them together, without looking at them, and scatter them again. I wouldn’t look at them. With the fingers of my left hand I carried out the same operation over and over. Finally I separated myself from them, piling them neatly and sliding them across the felt into the hands of the worker. Punto, I said.

And it went to banco. I thought about Delicia’s tea tin, where she’d been keeping her savings for eighteen months, and I decided that there wasn’t the slightest difference between her behavior and mine. They were exactly the same. Only one of us changed it for geometrical, mother of pearl shapes of various colors and the other kept it in a tea tin. I got up and crossed the room, toward the exit. On the stairs I put my hand in my pants pocket and felt the bills they had given me as change for the thousand-peso chip. I stopped in the staircase, took out the bills, and counted them. There were nine hundred and fifty pesos. There were still some coins in my pocket: they were all tens, and added up to sixty pesos. I had ten thousand and ten pesos total. So I went back up the steps. I went straight to the cage and changed the thousand pesos, giving them the nine-hundred-fifty in bills and five coins. I asked for chips of five hundred. The cashier gave me two silver-plated circles the size of quarters. That silver-plating was a luxury, because they were charamusca —just eye candy. For protection, I put them in my left shirt pocket instead of my pants pocket, like I had done with the others. My heart was beating so hard while I walked to the table that I thought it would make the chips clink. After the first hand there wasn’t any danger of them clinking, because I only had one left. I turned around and took a spot behind the worker, playing over his left shoulder. So I was in the exact opposite location from where I had been before.

For five or six hands I didn’t play either punto or banco. I didn’t play anything. I didn’t even look at what was happening with the cards. I just waited for the pulse. I’ll let my mind empty out, completely, I’ll open the plug and let everything drain out. Everything: memories, desires, plans, reasons. Everything down the drain and into the black abyss, so my mind is left as blank as the blank page where Delicia wrote her first letter. Just so the pulse writes itself, carved with letters of fire capable of blasting through the rock in the void of my mind. If you know how to empty your mind completely, and especially not lie to yourself, and feel capable of waiting, the pulse comes. When it came, it said banco, so I took the silver-plated circle from my shirt pocket and told the worker to bet it on banco. I got back two silver-plated circles and immediately played them on banco. They gave me back four red rectangles. Then I played one on banco and they gave me back two. I played two and got back four. I now had five red rectangles. I was going to bet them, but just then the power went out.