Three Hands of Cards

My last highland evening, and the guesthouse common room had a card game and two women who have clearly been winning at it since before I was born. They waved me in with the universal gesture. I understood perhaps a third of the rules by the end and none of the scoring at any point, which the table found not disqualifying but delightful.

Someone photographed us through the window from the cold side, and the glass caught its reflections over the scene: the brown tablecloth, the thermos cart, three hands of cards, my study face between their two command faces. It looks like what it was, a small warm economy of tea, luck and mockery, running as it runs every night with or without a novelist in the third chair.

I lost the equivalent of two bus fares with honor. The elder of the two patted my hand at the end in a way that said, in any language: you will be fine, but not at cards. Fair ruling. Down from the mountains tomorrow; Chongqing and the river and the mountain with the factory are next.