The Fool

Chapter 1: The Tarot Reading “And this was paid for?” I asked the woman as I seated myself opposite her. She nodded, and began to shuffle a pack of Tarot cards. I was intrigued, I had to admit it—had been since I’d gotten the phone message telling me that a Tarot card reading had been gifted me by a friend, and could I phone to book an appointment? The Hazelton Avenue address was no surprise. Hazelton is located in Yorkville, which, fifty years ago, had been the center of hippie-dom in Toronto. My supervisor at the university—an old hippie if ever there was one—had told me he had “many warm memories” of that community. So, I decided what the hell, and booked the appointment. It was free, after all! I located the place: Tarot Readings with Danielle, a free-standing sign at the front, pointing to the back, basement entrance to the old Victorian house. I also noted that other, more disturbing services were offered too: Most accurate fortune teller, horoscope, Tarot reading expert, astrology readings, reunite lovers, black magic removal, curses, cleans spirit. I hesitated then. The terms “black magic” and “curses” made me uncomfortable to begin with. And then there was the wording of the list: curses were mentioned, but was that removal of, or casting of? But, like I said, I was intrigued. So, shrugging off my nagging doubts—and telling myself I didn’t believe in this sort of thing anyway—went between the houses to the back door. Danielle looked normal enough, though she did have long black hair in a kerchief, and very dark, serious eyes. Her dress, sandy-colored, might have come out of the 1960s, but she certainly hadn’t; she might have been forty, but not much beyond that. She led me into what she called her reading room, which, yes, had silky draperies over the three adjacent doorways. She told me to sit down at a small, round table, and seating herself opposite, picked up the deck of cards. Then, somewhat to my surprise, she began to lay cards on the table, six cards in a cross: four positioned around two that were placed, one on top of the other, the top card placed sideways to the first. “Huh,” I murmured, watching this. “A cross within a cross.” The woman paused in her laying of cards at this, and looked up at me. “I beg your pardon?” she said. I started at this, and, feeling embarrassed at her serious expression, shrugged. “Oh.” I pointed to the two overlaid cards. “It’s just, those two form a cross, don’t they? And, well, they’re at the center of the bigger cross formed by the four cards around them.” The woman seemed to be searching my face, as if looking for something. But finally, she gave a low grunt and returned to laying down the cards. To the right of the cross she laid four cards in a column. “This is called the Celtic cross spread,” she explained. “It’s a favorite of mine, actually.” She glanced up and gave me a professional smile. Then, without commenting on the cards, she gathered them in and began shuffling again. I was a bit taken aback by this, but relieved too. It had bothered me that she had begun to lay out the cards just as I had sat down—it seemed a cheat somehow. I mean, what was there that could make such a reading personal to me in those circumstances? I wanted to ask how the reading worked, but the woman’s reaction to my observation about the cross-within-a-cross decided me to say nothing further, to ask no questions that might be deemed disrespectful of the Tarot reading process. I would just sit back and let the woman do her stuff—enjoy the show, as it were, especially since it was on someone else’s dime. Now she finished shuffling the cards and handed me the pack. I looked at her, and she nodded. “Just shuffle them, as much as you want. And, as you do that, think of your current situation, your desires, and your life in general.” I felt a slight thrill of excitement. This was better! At least now the reading, whatever it said, had the appearance of being related to me personally. As I shuffled the cards, I became aware, to my surprise, of feeling both silly and also a bit nervous. Like a magician’s assistant, I didn’t want to screw up, certainly. But there was something else, here, something beneath that. Could it be an actual nervousness at dealing with the supernatural? I struggled with this thought as I shuffled, and it was with a certain amount of relief that I handed the pack back to the woman. She immediately began to lay out cards in the same pattern and order as the previous time. Her manner, however, was considerably different. In the previous layout, she had dealt the cards in a rapid, confident manner. This time she laid the cards with a slow, deliberate, even careful manner, pausing slightly between each card. I watched this with growing amused appreciation: whatever else, this was effective theatre. I chuckled inwardly, thinking: Give the mark his money’s worth. Still, there was a part of me that was not cynical, a part that wanted to believe. It was the contamination of the soul of every rational but romantic person, the ardent desire for the world to be more than just mechanism and physical laws. The woman laid the six cards of the cross in a slow, methodical manner, only grunting once when she had laid the card at the top of the cross, the Lovers, I noted. Then, moving on to laying the four cards of the column, when she laid the second of these, she paused and made a low noise in her throat. I looked at her intently, saw she was frowning. I examined her face, trying to detect what this reaction meant, and, even more important, whether it was indeed something genuine, or merely more of her good theatre. Her hand rested for several seconds on the top card of the deck before she laid down the third card. I had been keeping a careful eye on her hand movements during this dealing process, to see whether there was some trickery involved. But it seemed pretty clear that she was laying the cards, each directly from the top of the deck as I had shuffled them. It almost seemed as if she were reluctant to lay the third card, but she did so at last, and then gave what was undeniably a gasp. This made me look at the cards in the column. They were all nines. The Nine of Cups, of Wands, and of Swords. I stared at them, then at the woman, who was staring at them, too—though it seemed that part of her attention was focused “inwardly” in some sense. I almost laughed aloud at this: It really was good theatre! I felt a rush of pleasure at the sheer haunting nature of the experience. It was, in a certain way, fun! Still. I looked at the three nines in a column. What, I thought, was the probability of that? The woman’s hand, which I noticed for the first time had rings on all of its fingers, rested on the deck held in her other hand. I was momentarily distracted by this observation. It was like something in me, some new awareness, had woken up. And that made me slightly uncomfortable. I watched with some trepidation as she slowly lifted the fourth card and, turning it over, laid it down above the other three. She gave a sharp intake of breath, and stared at the card. It was the Nine of Coins. “Oh!” I said involuntarily. “Four of a kind, all nines. How odd.” The woman nodded once slowly but then became completely still for a time. She almost looked frozen. When at last she did move it was only to shake her head slowly from side to side, in what seemed to be a worried manner, as if she were saying: No, that’s not possible! “What does it mean?” I asked. My question seemed to break the spell. The woman sat up straight in her chair and looked in my direction, though not quite making eye contact. In fact, her eyes seemed unfocused and her face slightly pinched. It was as though my question or my mere presence was at that moment a kind of unwelcome distraction. I was nonplused and just watched, waiting for whatever would happen next. At last, she made a small noise in her throat and waved one hand in a dismissive fashion. And now I began to feel a slight irritation, as might an audience member feel when a certain point in the entertainment was being played out too long. I was about to repeat my question, when the woman’s eyes seemed to return from wherever and focused on me. She regarded me with a very intense gaze, her dark eyes looking like pools of infinite depth. She seemed to be trying to bore into me, something I found disquieting. I shifted in my seat, at which she blinked several times. Her gaze became less intense. “Oh!” she said, and then paused. “Well, you know, it’s—not quite that easy.” I had to think before realizing her statement was actually answering my question. Now she laid the deck carefully on the table and pointed to the cards on the left. “This is the cross section of the reading,” she said. Then she tapped a long, scarlet-nailed forefinger to the top card of the overlaid pair at the center of the cross, which was the only card to have been placed horizontally. “This,” she said, “is the immediate challenge.” I examined the card. It was: the Fool. I looked at the woman for some kind of elucidation, but she had already moved on to the next card. “And the card underneath, that is your present.” She slid the top card off so that I could see this card clearly. “It’s—the Hermit,” I murmured, and looked at the woman. She nodded, and made a motion with her hand that I should continue. “And, on the left,” I said, “is the High Priestess. Huh.” I frowned at the card, wondering what it meant. I didn’t want to ask the woman, but as she said nothing, I went on to the next card. “And, on the right, the Emperor. And below—huh! The Devil!” I stared at the horned image in consternation, but again the woman said nothing. “And above,” I said, “the Lovers. That’s good, isn’t it?” I looked at the woman, but she was looking at the column of nines on the right. “Is there something wrong?” Without looking up, the woman shook her head, albeit a little doubtfully. “What are those four?” I asked, pointing to the nines. “That is the staff section of the reading,” she said automatically, but again she seemed to be distracted, her attention not quite present. I didn’t quite know what to make out of this, and began to feel that the theatre, whatever it was, had somehow gone wrong—at least in this woman’s eyes. I felt a little irritated again, that I was not getting my full money’s worth. I mean, if I did all the talking, how was this a “reading”? But I said nothing, and looked back down at the cards. Pointing to the Hermit, I said, “You said that was me, somehow?” The woman nodded. “That is your present situation—loosely speaking.” I was struck by the final qualifier. But, before I could say anything, the woman slid the card towards me, presumably so that I could examine it better. “The Hermit,” I murmured. It was an old man with a lantern, wearing a long cloak and carrying—some kind of staff with a hook on the end. I pointed to this. “Why is he carrying that?” “That’s a scythe. One of the manifestations of the Hermit is Cronus, Father Time.” “Oh.” “Other aspects are: sage, shaman, and monk.” I nodded, but was thinking about Father Time. “Huh. So—time? What’s that? Because I’m approaching forty?” “Oh!” she said. “No.” But then she looked at me with a piercing gaze. “But are you?” I nodded. “Really!” She spoke as if this were somehow significant. “When’s your birthday?” “In ten days.” I said, frowning. “I think this Tarot reading was supposed to be an early birthday present—” I grimaced and shrugged. “Maybe something to get me prepared for the next year—ha, ha!” “Oh! So, you’re turning forty?” “No!” I felt a little embarrassed at the sharpness of my voice. “May I ask how old are you, then?” “Thirty-five.” The woman stiffened. Then she frowned and her eyes narrowed slightly. “So,” she said, speaking slowly, “you are turning thirty-six.” She said the number in a manner that suggested it was somehow meaningful. I stared back at her in surprise. “Yeah? So?” In reply the woman pointed to the four cards in the staff positions. I looked at them too, but couldn’t get what she might be saying. “Add them up,” she said under her breath. I did, and then it hit me. “Oh! Four nines—are thirty-six.” For a moment I felt dizzy, but then I caught myself and returned to my earlier cynicism about the whole thing. It was silly. Of course, it was silly! And it was rigged, apparently. Possibly the friend who had paid for this session had spoken of me to the woman, so that she could appear to know things. Those nines—that I wasn’t sure of. I had watched her dealing, and there seemed to be no opportunity for sleight of hand. Anyway, I decided to play along for the moment. I slid the card back where it belonged, under the Fool card, and studied the cards that comprised the cross part of the display. Something struck me. “Is it odd,” I said, “that all of the cards on the left, in the cross here, are all—what is it? Face cards?” “They’re called the Major Arcana,” “And the four cards in the—staff, are all number cards? Is that unusual?” The woman regarded me with a guarded expression for several seconds, then shrugged. I looked at the cards again. I felt disappointed, confused, and slightly frightened. I frowned and waved my hand over the display. “So,” I said, aware I was repeating my earlier question, “what does it all mean?” This time the woman nodded, looking down at the cards. Then she gave me one of her professional smiles. “May I tell you something of the background for this—as applied to yourself?” I nodded. “Well, you are single. Am I right?” I nodded. “And you are, as people say, looking for love.” I nodded again, but felt a slight irritation. Anyone who was single was pretty much looking for love, more or less by definition. It was obvious. The woman might have sensed my cynicism, because she now indicated the card at the top of the cross: the Lovers. “That,” she said, “is what is sometimes called the desired outcome, or best outcome.” I looked at the card. “That I find a lover?” She nodded. “And,” she continued, “you come from a rational, possibly a non-religious home, with a strong, authoritarian father or mother.” I considered, and nodded. On balance that was pretty much true. “And more recently you have achieved financial stability but have begun to be dissatisfied with it, with materialism.” I nodded again, more impressed this time. But then I wondered whether my clothing, my age, and my single-male status, implied all of that. A single guy in his late thirties was pretty much going to be financially stable. And, if I wasn’t dissatisfied with my current lot, why would I be at a Tarot card reading? “And your challenge, and immediate future, is learning to behave less rationally, commune with the mysterious.” The phrasing of this last seemed over the top. The woman must have seen this in my face, for she continued quickly. “However, the most important part of the reading,” she said, “is this preponderance of nines.” She indicated the staff part of the display. “And they point to you, now, in your current life.” “How’s that?” I said. She tapped the Hermit card. I stared at that card. “Why is that?” She looked at me, again registering something like surprise. “What is the number of that card?” I looked at it but couldn’t quite get what she was talking about. She pointed to the top of the card. I looked. “What’s that? I-X. Roman numerals? Oh! Nine.” “That’s right. Now do you see?” I blinked, then looked at the four cards in the staff, all of them nines. I pointed to them and the woman nodded. “But what—?” I began, but broke off. She hesitated, and then said, in a quiet voice, “As I said, it is a strong message—I think.” I almost laughed at this last qualification. It brought me back to the rational view of these proceedings, that it was all nonsense. And yet—there were those four nines, or rather, five nines. No, I decided after considering the nine on the Hermit, that didn’t seem too odd. But those other four, well, they somehow did. I looked at the Hermit, and pointed to it. “And they—those four cards, they what? Connect—to this one, that’s my current situation, or whatever?” The woman nodded. “But—so what? I mean, what does it mean? You still haven’t told me.” The woman continued to look at the cards, and appeared to consider. “Okay,” she said at last. “As I said, the highly improbable nature of these four staff cards being the same, suggest a strong message. And, as you said, it involves the number nine, and you as you are now—the Hermit in this reading. And, as you know, four itself is important. It is the number of the universe.” “What?” “There are four dimensions, and four directions.” “Four dimensions?” I was momentarily puzzled, but then my mind went back to the class in relativity theory in second year. Relativity said there were four dimensions: three spatial and one temporal. But that, it occurred to me, didn’t quite square with the other. “Four directions?” “On earth, four directions,” she said. “North, south, east, and west.” I nodded, then looked at her. “So?” “So, the universe is conveying a message.” Her tone and look seemed to convey a disdain for any disbelief I might feel at this stage, almost as if she were saying: And if you don’t believe me, then why don’t you take your business somewhere else? I nodded slowly, then pointed to the Hermit. “And him?” She pushed card towards me again. “Look at the card. What do you see?” I examined the card again. The old man, cloak, lantern and scythe. Again, I was struck most by the scythe. “That scythe,” I said, tapping the card, “you said that’s Father Time? But, why that?” “Oh, it’s for cutting the wheat at the end of summer, that sort of thing. Reaping.” “Reaping,” I repeated. “Oh! You mean like the grim reaper? Death?” The woman shook her head. “No. That’s card number thirteen. Quite different.” I shook my head. “I don’t get it, then.” “Well, one of the manifestations of the Hermit is Cronus, you know, Father Time. He’s traditionally represented with a scythe—the passage of time. That’s all.” “That’s all,” I murmured, and was surprised by a slight chill passing down my spine. Time. Oh yes, I thought, the approach of the big four-oh was definitely on my horizon—especially since I was single—and it had been for several years now. I looked at the card rather balefully now. “The Hermit.” And now it seemed to represent my entire current life situation all in a single card. “Also, as I said, sage, or shaman, or monk. Contemplation, wisdom, you know.” “Wisdom?” I tried to think of that. What? I was becoming wise? What a joke! I knew no more now than I ever did. It was the Hermit aspect that seemed significant. I covered my eyes with my hands and leaned back in my chair, groaning quietly. “Well,” I said at last, lowering my hands. “I suppose it fits, especially the Father Time bit. Aging and all that.” The woman shook her head slightly. “I suggest you don’t go down that path. It doesn’t help the reading.” I nodded. “Okay. What then?” “Well, the Hermit indicates a state of drawing inward, seeking wisdom, quieting yourself, looking for answers inside yourself, the desire to understand.” “Meaning?” The woman picked up the card and placed it next to the four cards in the staff, and then looked at me. I regarded this in silence. “So,” I said, at last. “The number nine?” “It looks like it.” “I’m being—what? Haunted—by the number nine?” “You could say that.” She pursed her lips. “I would say, rather, you’re being—mmm—given a message of sorts, like I said.” “And? What’s the message?” She smiled and pointed at me, raising her dark eyebrows. “Now, that’s the question!” I stared at her, frowning slightly. “What? Don’t you know?” She shook her head. “That’s not the way it works.” I muttered something under my breath. “I beg your pardon?” I felt my face heat up. But, as the woman still looked at me expectantly, I repeated my mutter louder: “I said, If it works at all.” The woman’s dark eyebrows went up again, but she smiled as well, and pointed towards the four nines in a column. Then, leaning forward slightly, she said quietly, “To tell you the truth, I have never seen that sort of thing—four of a kind in the staff—before.” I stared back at her. “Okay,” I said. “But then—what does it mean?” I put a hand over my mouth as she gave me a slight shake of the head. I looked down at the four nines. “Well, I suppose it does look like there’s something,” I said reluctantly. The woman reached out and laid a hand on my arm. “I suggest,” she said, gently, “that you don’t scorn it too openly.” “Okay,” I said. “But, what should I do, then?” The woman pursed her lips. “I would say, keep your mind—and your eyes, open.” I frowned. “You mean, wait?” “Not just wait, but—yes: be open, mind and body and soul, and wait.” Incongruously, the words on a T-shirt I had seen came to me then. On the front it read, Be Alert. And on the back, The world needs more lerts. Neither of us said anything further for a while, and I had the sense that the reading was over. I sighed and got to my feet. The woman rose also. Without thinking, I automatically reached for my wallet, but the woman put up a hand of negation. “As I told you. It’s been—paid for.” I hesitated, and then asked, “By whom?” She smiled but shook her head. “That is not for me to tell.” And with that she gestured towards the door. A minute later I was standing outside, on the sidewalk in front of the house. Blinking, I stood there, feeling strangely disembodied somehow. I frowned and looked darkly at the sign, shaking my head. I snorted and started to walk away, with an air of putting all that nonsense behind me. But after perhaps a dozen steps I stopped. There were those four nines.