A Curable Romantic Read Online Free PDF Page A

telling your fortune tonight.” He plopped the deck down with a thump near Dr. Rosenberg’s hand. Dr. Rosenberg lifted the top cards and tucked them beneath those on the deck’s bottom. Dr. Rie removed a pen and an abacus from a side drawer and opened a scorebook. Without knowing precisely what I was doing, I raised my cards and hid my face behind their fan. Swords, wands, cups, pentacles swam before my eyes. I was uncertain whether I should admit outright that Tarock was a game I’d never played or whether the whole thing would prove simple enough for me to glean its rules from a round or two. Perhaps, I thought, the pleasure of trouncing me would distract my opponents from the fact that I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. Regrettably, however, the first thing I discovered about Tarock is that one plays it partnered, in my case, to Dr. Rosenberg, who, true to his name, sat across the table from me like a big red mountain. There would be no pleasure in my trouncing from his corner, only, I assumed, more abrasive comparisons to the absent Königstein.
    I blushed. I was here under false pretenses and soon everyone would know it. In truth, I cared little for the hirsute pleasures of masculine society (whiskey, smoke, and cards) and was hoping merely to be delivered through it onto the receptive breast of its feminine counterpart. At every creak of the floor boards over our heads, I imagined Dr. Freud’s wife, his daughters, his sister Rosa, and the Ecksteins, their guests, preparing to burst in upon us and insisting, as ladies will, that we surrender our cards and join them instead.
    “Oskar,” Dr. Rosenberg said gently.
    Dr. Rie looked up from his hand. “Hm? Sorry. I suppose I’m a little — ”
    “You’re sitting right of the dealer.”
    “ — distracted.” He nodded. “I know. However, I’ve just come from an unfortunate case.”
    “Oskar works with children,” Dr. Freud explained to me quietly.
    “Ah,” I said.
    “Heartbreaking …” Dr. Rie shook his head.
    “Another dram of Hennessy?” offered Dr. Freud.
    “Gratefully,” Dr. Rosenberg answered for his brother-in-law, and Dr. Rie moved his glass an inch nearer to Dr. Freud. With a sigh, he opened the play.
    “Anyone see the papers?” Dr. Rosenberg asked, as a way, I assumed, of changing the subject.
    “Another article on Dreyfus, I take it.”
    “Poor devil.”
    “Still maintaining his innocence?”
    “They’ve shipped him off, haven’t they?”
    “Why shouldn’t he? He is.”
    “Innocent?”
    “Of course he is! I was up all night, thinking about that poor wretch pacing that damned island.” His face increasingly florid, Dr. Rosenberg downed another drink. Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a Jew in the French army, had been convicted of espionage against the state. The French had sent him to Devil’s Island, and the newspapers were choking with the story.
    “Perhaps we should immigrate to Palestine ourselves before they ship us all off to Devil’s Island?” Dr. Rie suggested tartly.
    Dr. Rosenberg made a sour face. “As long as Dr. Herzl makes me ambassador to Vienna, I’ll consider it.”
    “To your cards, gentlemen, to your cards,” Dr. Freud said. “We’ve centuries yet to speak of our redemption.”
    I coughed and brought my fist to my lips, clearing my throat.
    “Ah, what’s this? What’s this?” said Dr. Rie.
    “Königstein’s replacement seems to be on the point of speaking,” Dr. Rosenberg said.
    “I’m afraid it’s been a while since I last played,” I said.
    “Has it been?” Dr. Freud eyed me sharply.
    “And I was wondering if someone might perhaps remind me of the rules.”
    “Ah, when exactly was the last time you played, little Königstein?”
    “Never,” I admitted.
    “Ha! I’d thought not!” Dr. Freud roared.
    “So I assumed.”
    “Yes, and I was wondering when you’d confess it.”
    NO WOMEN APPEARED that evening. In fact, we saw no one from the Freud family at all. As the hours grew