Fortune Is a Woman - Elizabeth Adler [73]
He waited patiently until finally an old bearded man pushed back his chair with a curse of disgust at his bad joss, and then he quietly took his place. The worn bone tiles inscribed with red and green and white dragons, the east, south, and north winds, the flowers and the seasons, bamboos, circles, characters and numbers, were set out and the dice thrown, and he smiled with satisfaction as his “wall” was quickly built. Within five minutes his ten-dollar stake had become sixty, half an hour later it was three hundred, and with much angry shouting the other men abandoned his table.
Pocketing his winnings Lai Tsin wandered over to the table near the glassless window. An embroidered scarlet shawl was draped over the opening, protecting them from the gaze of passersby, and its deep fringes swung to and fro in the night breeze. Six men were playing a Chinese card game of immense complexity by the light of a guttering candle and the smoke from their pipes mingled with the opium fumes, filling the room with a blue haze.
He leaned against the wall, his face expressionless as he watched them. He knew the game, it called for a quick brain as well as skill and lightning responses, but he rarely had an opportunity to play it because his usual gambling partners were too slow and ignorant. He glanced discreetly at the faces of the players—they were solemn and hard-eyed and the amount of dollar bills lying on the table took his breath away. These were the notorious big gamblers from Toishan, but he reminded himself again that all the omens had been good that day. He thought of the money in his secret pocket and knew it was a chance in a lifetime, and when the next man dropped out he took his place.
His heart jumped when he picked up his first cards, double sixes and double eights, both fortuitous numbers, but he kept his eyes as blank as the glassless window and his face as still as a stagnant pool. His hand did not tremble as he placed his two hundred dollars on the table, though his stomach churned with tension and excitement. Numbers flashed through his brain as the cards were laid out and within seconds he had assessed the other men’s hands, and thirty seconds later he was scooping up his winnings.
His face remained expressionless as he let his winnings ride on the next game, though inside he was seething with excitement, and his eyes glittered as he saw his next hand with three cards of number nine and two aces. They were the luckiest numbers of all, for “nine” was the largest number and signified fullness, and “one” meant “a beginning.” All the omens had been good that day. Nothing could go wrong for him.
The gamblers who had inspected his poor clothing with sly eyes when he had first sat at the table looked at him with new respect when he won another hand. And then another. And all the time he let his winnings ride. The gods were with him and who was he to go against their wishes?
The other men gathered around, oohing and aieeing as they saw the amount of money on the table, gasping as time and again Lai Tsin tested his fate and played his hand and won, leaving all those dollars on the table, multiplying into thousands. “Joss will surely go against him,” they muttered. “Lai Tsin is tempting fortune with so much money.”
After an hour the other gamblers glanced at each other and pushed back their chairs. Lai Tsin stood up, bowing respectfully to them as they congratulated him on his good fortune, but their eyes were steely and he knew they were angry. Scooping up his winnings he sought out the poor men from whom he had won his first three hundred dollars and gave them back their money. “You brought me good joss,” he explained. “Without you I could not have played.”
He was a changed man as he walked from that room; for the first time in his life he saw respect in the eyes of the men watching him. He stood taller, holding himself with dignity, and he told himself that when fortune smiled a man surely knew he had been blessed by the