"Then you'd better give me some money to buy food. She said, "I'm very proud, but I'm not stupid." The other two were prouder than I was, and he was the proudest of us. So after giving me money, don't tell them. ”

Drinkward opened his wallet and reached for a twenty-dollar bill. Zoya grabbed it, then continued to wait. He had to give her another twenty dollars.

"That's pretty much it. "We will feed you like a prince," she said with satisfaction. Now, go up the stairs to the top floor. The second sister is already up, but our other sister is still sleeping, so don't make too much noise. ”

Ashu and Drinkward climbed up the dark staircase. The stairwell of the two-story house is littered with black garbage bags that smell of rotting vegetables.

"Are they gypsies?" Ashu asked.

"Zoya and her family? Of course not. They are Russians. ”

"But they tell fortunes. ”

"A lot of people can tell fortunes, and I've done it myself. As he climbed the last staircase, Drinkward looked a little out of breath--- Ashur didn't know what kind of profession a wizard was, and it didn't seem to be a class that relied on muscles to fight, "This body is too old..."

The top of the staircase leads to a door painted red. There is a peephole on the door.

Drinkward knocked on the door, but no one answered. He knocked again, this time louder.

"Alright, alright! I hear, I hear!" came the sound of the door lock opening, the sound of the latch being pulled out, and the sound of the chain being heard. The red door opened a small crack.

"Who is it?" a man's voice asked, his tone cold and the smell of cigarettes.

"An old friend, Drinkward. I also have a colleague. ”

The door is opened to the maximum extent allowed by the safety chain. Ah Xiu saw a gray face hidden in the shadows, peeking out at them. "What do you want to do, Gatler?"

"First of all, it's nice to see you again. I bring news to share with you. What do you mean by that?...... Oh yes, and you'll know some good news in your favor. ”

The door finally opened. The man in his dirty nightgown was short, with iron-gray hair and a wrinkled face. He wears gray pinstriped pants that have been worn for too long and are shiny. Slippers on his feet. He held a cigarette without a filter in his short fingers, and his hand was half-clenched into a fist and covered his mouth as he smoked. Ah Xiu felt that this smoking posture was very similar to that of a prisoner or a soldier. He reached for Drinkward with his left hand. "Welcome, Gatler. ”

"During this time, people called me the Prisoner, or 'the man'. He said, shaking hands with the old man, "though not as loud as 'Voldemort'."

He smiled contemptuously, and his yellow teeth flashed. "'Voldemort'? hehe, he's just an ignorant and arrogant child. He said, without a hint of fear or fear in his tone, "Who is this?"

"This is my colleague. Ashu, come and meet Mr. Norberg. ”

"Nice to meet you. Norberg said, shaking his left hand with Asho. His palms were rough and calloused, and the tips of his fingers were all yellow with tobacco, as if they had been soaked in iodine.

"How are you, Mr. Norberg?"

"Not good. I'm old, my stomach hurts, my back hurts, and I cough every morning so much that my chest is about to burst. ”

"Why are you standing in the doorway talking?" asked a woman's voice. Ah Xiu stepped over Norberg's shoulder and saw the old woman standing behind him. She was shorter and thinner than her sisters, but her hair was long and still golden. "I'm Uternaya, the second sister of Zoya. She introduced herself, "Don't stand in the aisle, come in and sit." I'll get you coffee. ”

They walked through the foyer and into the apartment suite. The house was filled with the smell of boiled cabbage, cat litter, and foreign cigarettes without filters. They were led down a narrow hallway. The hallway leads to several bedrooms with closed doors, and at the end is the living room, which sits with a large, old horsehair sofa. An old gray cat is curled up on the couch and sleeping. They came in to disturb its sleepiness, and it stretched to its feet, stiffened over to the edge of the couch and lay down again, staring at them warily back and forth, then closed its eyes and resumed sleeping. Norberg sat down in the armchair next to them.

The second sister found an empty ashtray and placed it next to Norberg. "What flavor do you want for your coffee?" she asked the guests, "and the coffee we drink is as dark as the night and as sweet as sin." ”

"That's good, ma'am. Ah Xiu said. He looked out the window at the building across the street.

One of Zoya walked away. Norberg looked at her back. "She's a good woman," he said, "unlike her sisters." One of them is greedy, while the other, what he does every day is sleep. He rested his slipper-clad feet on a long, low coffee table inlaid with checkers boards littered with cigarette burns and watermarks from cups.

"She's your wife?" Ashu asked.

"She's not a wife. The old man sat quietly for a while, looking down at his rough hands, "We are relatives and have come here together." That was a long, long time ago. ”

Norberg pulled out a pack of unfiltered cigarettes from his dressing gown pocket. Drinkward immediately pulled out a long, narrow gold lighter engraved with morning glory patterns and lit a cigarette for the old man. "Initially we came to London," Norberg continued, "and all the people from our hometown went to London. Later, we moved here and lived in Coventry. It's all bad luck. The people in my hometown are about to forget about me, and here, I am just a past that everyone avoids. Do you know what I did when I first arrived in Coventry?"

"I don't know. Ah Xiu replied.

"I got a job in a meat factory, in a slaughterhouse. When the steer came down the slope, I was going to hit my head. Do you know why we are called head-smashers? Because we take a sledgehammer and smash the head of a cow with it. Bang! The arms need to be strong to do the job, you see? Then the hooker hoisted the carcasses of the oxen with iron hooks and slit their throats. They drained the blood of the cow and then cut off the head. Those of us who smashed our heads had the most strength. He pulled up the sleeves of his dressing gown and bent his arms, showing off the muscles that were still visible beneath his aging skin. "It's not just the strength that you need, it's the skill that you have to hammer it with. If you don't know the trick, the cow is just knocked unconscious, or angry. Later, in the 50s, they changed us to nail guns. You hold it up to the forehead of the cow, and bang, bang, you think that now, anybody can kill the cow. But that's not the case. He imitates the movement of an iron nail passing through the head of a bull, "It still takes skill." The memory made him smile, revealing a mouthful of rust-colored teeth.

"Stop telling them stories about the cattle slaughtered. Zoya and her sisters came in with a red wooden tray carrying their coffee, which was served in a small, brightly glazed porcelain cup. She gave everyone a glass and sat down next to Norberg.

"The eldest sister went shopping. "I'll be back soon," she said. ”

"We met her downstairs," Ashu said, "and she said she told fortunes." ”

"Yes. Her sister said, "It's dark, and it's a good time to lie." I don't tell white lies, so I'm an incompetent prophet. And our sister, Noshnaya, she can't tell any lies. ”

The coffee was sweeter and stronger than Ashu had imagined.

Ah Xiu apologized and went into the bathroom. It's a small, closet-like room with lots of yellowed framed photographs of men and women in stiff Victorian poses. It's just afternoon, but it's starting to get dark. Outside there was the sound of an argument in the living room. He hurriedly washed his hands with cold water and disgusting soap.

When Ah Xiu came out, Norberg was standing in the living room.

"You're causing trouble!" he growled, "you're only going to cause trouble! I'm not going to listen to you! Get out of my house right now!"

Drinkward was still calmly sitting on the couch, sipping his coffee and petting the gray cat. The second sister stood on the thin carpet, one hand nervously wrapping around her long blonde hair.

"Is there any problem?" Ashu asked curiously.

"He's the problem!" Neuberg roared, "he is! You tell him I'm not going to help him anyway! I'm going to let him out! Tell him to get out of here! You two get out!"

"Please," said the second sister, "be quiet, you will wake the third sister." ”

"You like him! you want me to join him in his crazy plans!" Neuberg continued to growl, looking like he was about to burst into tears. A piece of soot fell from his cigarette and fell onto the old carpet.

Drinkward stood up and walked over to Norberg. He placed his hand on Norberg's shoulder. "Listen," he said serenely, "first of all, it's not madness, it's the only solution. Secondly, everyone will go. You don't want to be left behind, do you?"

"You know who I am," said Norberg, "and you know what my hands have done! You need my brother, not me, and he's gone." ”

A door in the hallway opened, and a sleepy woman's voice asked, "What's wrong?"

"It's all right, my good sister. The second sister said, "Go back and go back to sleep." She turned to Norberg, "See, look at what you've done with yelling!Go and sit down!Sit down!" Norberg seemed to want to argue, but the aggressiveness in him passed. Suddenly, he looked weak. Weak, and lonely.

Three men sat down again in the dilapidated living room. A plume of tan smoke swirled around the room, disappearing a foot from the roof, like a watermark in an old-fashioned bathtub.

"This plan can't be done without you. Drinkward said serenely to Norberg, "Your brother is good, and you are just as good." Do this, you binary types are better than all the rest of us. ”

Norberg didn't say anything.

"Speaking of Norborne, have you heard anything about him?"

Norberg shook his head. He looked up at Ah Xiu. "Do you have a brother?"

"No," replied Asho, "as far as I know, no. ”

"I have a brother. They always say that when the two of us stand together, we look like we are alone. When we were younger, he had long blonde hair, very pale blonde, and his eyes were blue. People say he's the best of our two brothers. My hair is black, darker than your current hair color, and people say I'm the rough of the two brothers, you know? I'm the worst of the two brothers. After all this time, my hair turned gray. His hair, I think, turned gray as well. Now if you look at us again, you won't know who has light hair and who has dark hair. ”

"Are you two close?" Ashu asked.

"Intimacy?" Norberg asked rhetorically, "Of course not, how can the two of us be close? ”

There was a sound of the door opening from the other end of the hall, and the second sister walked in. "Dinner was ready an hour later. She walked away.

Norberg sighed. "She thought she was a good cook. "She was pampered from an early age, and she had servants to cook." But now, there are no servants, nothing left. ”

"It's not that there's nothing left," Drynward interjected, "there's never going to be nothing." ”

"You," said Norberg, "I don't want to hear you. He turned to Ah Xiu, "Do you know how to play checkers?" he asked.

"A little. Ah Xiu said.

"Very good, you can play checkers with me. As he spoke, he took down a wooden checkers box from the fireplace and poured the pieces on the table. "I'm black. ”

Drinkward touched Asho's arm. "You know, you don't have to. He said.

"No problem, I want to have fun. Ah Xiu said. Drinkward shrugged his shoulders and ignored him, picking up a long-expired copy of Reader's Digest from a small pile of yellowed magazines on the windowsill.

Norberg's brownish-yellow fingers have already set up the pieces on the board, and the game begins.

Over the next few days, Ah Xiu found himself often reminiscing about that game of chess, and even dreamed about it a few nights. The flat, round pieces on his side were the primary color of old, dirty wood, nominally white. And Norberg's chess pieces are a dull and faded black. Ah Xiu first. In his dream, they don't talk to each other while playing chess, only the sound of thudding and the grinding of wood as the pieces slide from one square to the next one.

In the first few moves, both men scrambled to occupy positions in the middle and edges of the board, without touching the opponent's rear. With each move, you have to pause for a long time, watch the situation as if you were playing chess, and think carefully.

Ah Xiu used to play checkers in prison to pass the time. He also played chess, but he lacked the temperament of a player who planned the whole game in advance. He prefers the feeling of making a perfect move at the moment. This way of playing checkers is okay - sometimes.

Norberg always picked up the black chess piece, jumped on Axiu's white piece, ate it mercilessly, and then picked up Axiu's white piece and placed it on the table.

"First blow. You're doomed. Norberg said triumphantly, "The tide is over." ”

"Not yet," said Asho, "it's just getting started." ”

"Do you dare to make a bet with me? A small bet to make chess a little more fun?"

"No," Drinkward interjected suddenly, not even looking up from the magazine's humorous joke column, "he won't bet on you." ”

"I didn't play chess with you, old man. I'm playing with him. Why, would you like to bet on the outcome of this game, Mr. Asho?"

"What were you two arguing about?" Ashu asked.

Norberg raised an eyebrow, his forehead full of wrinkles. "Your master wants me to go with him and help him carry out his irrational madness. I'd rather die than help him. ”

"You want to bet? Well, if I win, you'll come with us. ”

The old man pursed his lips disdainfully. "Maybe," he said, "if you can really win me." But what if you lose?"

"So what?"

Norberg's expression didn't change at all. "If I win, I'm going to knock your brains out with a sledgehammer. You get down on your knees first, and then let me hammer it so you don't have to bother to get up again. Ah Xiu looked carefully at the old man's face, trying to read something from the expression on his face. He wasn't joking, and Ah Xiu was sure of it: there was an extreme longing on the old man's face, an expression of longing for pain, longing for death, or longing for punishment.

Drinkward closes the Reader's Digest he was reading. "It's ridiculous. "It seems that it was a bad decision to come here." Ah Xiu, let's go. The gray cat was disturbed by his dreams, and stood up and walked to the chessboard. It glanced at the chess pieces, then jumped to the floor, tail held high, and walked across the room with its head held high.

"Nope. Ah Xiu refused. He was not afraid of death, and there was nothing in life left to live for him to work for. "No problem. I accept the bet. If you win this game, you'll have a chance to smash my head with your sledgehammer. As he spoke, he moved his white chess pieces and took a step towards the place where the two armies met on the chessboard.

No one spoke anymore, not even Drinkward picked up his Reader's Digest again. His glass prosthetic eyes stared at the game together with his real eyes, showing no expression on his face.

Norberg captures one of Ashu's pawns, and Ashu captures two of Norberg's pawns. There was an unfamiliar smell of food in the hallway. The taste wasn't appealing at all, but Ashu suddenly realized how hungry he was right now.

The two people continue to play chess, the black and white fall in turn, and you come and I fight each other. A series of pieces were captured, and several pieces were promoted to kings, so they didn't have to take one step forward each time, or walk diagonally from side to side to dodge each other. The king was free to move forward or backward, tripling the threat. They have succeeded in penetrating each other's bottom lines and gaining the right to travel freely. Norberg now had three kings, and Ashur had two.

Norberg uses one of the kings to move around the chessboard, eats Asho's remaining pieces, and uses the other two kings against Asho's king, forcing him to surrender and admit defeat.

Then, Norberg was promoted to another king, and turned around to deal with the two kings of Ashur together. Without a smile on his face, he ate the two kings of Ashu. This is the end of the game.