carved in the heavens. The pattern in the sky was a sign of the ghost’s recent visit—or at the very least, a sign that Margaret’s mind was receptive to such a wonderful illusion. When the royal standards fly over the castle, the monarch is at home. Now, if Margaret wanted to communicate with Regina, all she had to do was concentrate on quasicrystal grids, or on photographs of the ceilings of medieval mosques, or on the gilt edges of fine china where the curlicues go click-clack; the fugues of Bach in which the tonic subject loops and repeats. There was Regina, there was the very idea of a Regina, of a good visitor from the past who infiltrates the present and makes a beating counterpoint there, delivers meaning there, by way of her intricate regularity of personality. Margaret grew sure of this, and various things began to dance and tighten in her mind. The iron grates of balconies, the engraving on the lid of a silver pocket watch, the handles of rococo forks and spoons, the scabrous plaster molding around the upper edge of her bedroom, and now the playing cards and their promise of a game—it all opened up before her, conduits to a better life.
These cards. First there was the fact of their flip-side pattern—a circular snowflake in the center seemed to be exploding with mathematics before Margaret’s eyes. Surrounding it were stylized interlocking oak leaves. In both of these, Margaret saw the soul of Regina Strauss sleeping, promising enlightenment, Enlightenment.
And then once she had shuffled and cut the deck, she turned it over and it happened: she found to her joy she had bought a French deck. The queens bore names in Gothic letters: Judith, Argine, Pallas, Rachel. Margaret stared at their brocade robes. The queens had been wearing the same robes for over six hundred years—was there anything more constant in culture? Even religious rites are not so stable as playing cards. Margaret’s eyes began to swim.
She dealt out the entire deck between herself and Regina.
Easily one might say it was senseless to play Hearts with only two players—it meant you always knew what your opponent could and would do—if your opponent had any sense. But that was just the idea. Margaret wanted to play a game of cards with Regina precisely in order to allow the ghost an opportunity to make sense. To give her an opportunity to be rational.
This is how Margaret began to be greedy in her good fortune: she began, despite all intelligent ideas, to suspect that she was one of the lucky ones, one of the chosen who have been allowed contact with the Divine, and now she could not stop herself from testing it, from testing the divine idea, like a deliriously happy yet previously insecure lover demanding ever more extreme displays of romance. Margaret felt nervously triumphant, sure the ghost would jump at this chance, but that did not mean she was not teetering precariously.
Margaret went over what she knew. It happens that in the game of Hearts, the card to be avoided at all costs is the Queen of Spades. It happens that according to Diderot’s encyclopedia, the four queens in the deck—Rachel, Judith, Pallas, and Argine (anagram of Regina!)—symbolize the four means of ruling: by beauty, by piety, by wisdom, and by right of birth. It happens that the four suits are a matter of caste: hearts of the clergy, diamonds of the merchants, clubs of the soldiery, and spades of the serfs. It happens that the Queen of Spades is called Pallas, the queen who rules by wisdom. It happens that the four kings, David, Alexander, Caesar, and Charlemagne, are emblems of the four great monarchies: Jewish, Greek, Roman, and German. It happens that the husband of the Queen of Spades, that is, the King of Spades (or is he her husband?) is David, king of the Jews. It happens that the Queen of Spades is sometimes called the Black Maria. It happens that Black Marias were the vehicles used to take away Stalin’s victims during the purges. It happens that the Queen of Spades holds a tulip in her hand, a crimson flower, with its bell-like blossom inclining heavily toward her Roman nose. It happens that the Queen of Spades is the only one-eyed queen.
Margaret took her half deck in her hand, and for her Regina, she put the other half in a neat pile across from her. The chair there was a black folding