face.
Justine first met Alonzo Divich at a church bazaar in 1956, when she was telling fortunes in the Sunday school basement. She was with the white elephants and the potted plants; his carnival was outside. He came in to have his cards read. He was one of those people, she saw, who are addicted to outguessing their futures. Whenever he had an hour to kill, a layover in some town or a lull in his work, he would search out the local seeress. If there were five local seeresses, fine. He would go to all five. He would listen without even breathing. He had heard his fortune, he told Justine, from well over a thousand women, and it had not once been done right. He had not only had his cards read but also his palms, his skull, his moles, his fingernails, his dreams, his handwriting, his tea leaves and coffee grounds. He had been to astrologers and physiognomists, not to mention specialists in biblio-mancy, clidomancy, crystal-gazing, and ouija boards. A lady in Montgomery County had set a gamecock to pick corn from a circle of letters; a Georgia woman studied smoke rising from a fire and another dropped melted wax into cold water, forming small nubbly objects that she claimed to be able to interpret. In York County, Pennsylvania, he had had to bake his own barley cakes, which were then broken open and examined under a magnifying glass. And in a marsh near St. Elmo, Alabama, a very old woman had offered to kill a rice rat and study its entrails, but he had felt that such an act might bring bad luck.
He had told Justine all this at once, leaning toward her across the table in her curtained booth while a line of church ladies waited their turns outside. Justine, although she did not know it, wore the tolerant, disillusioned expression of a doctor hearing that his new patient has been to forty other doctors before him, none of them satisfactory. It gave her a look of wisdom. Alonzo decided she was going to turn out to be special. "Lady," he had said, setting his palms on her table, "tell me the answer to my problem. I feel you can."
"What is your problem?"
"Don't you know?"
"How should I?"
"You're the fortune teller."
So Justine had to give the speech she had made more often than she could count, and would make many times again, sometimes even to him. "Now I am not a mind reader," she said, "and I have no way at all of guessing what you want to ask, or where you come from or anything else about your past.
I read the future. I have a talent for predicting change. If you help me we can search for an answer together; but I'm not going to outwit you."
"My problem is this," Alonzo said instantly.
And he sat on a Sunday school chair and took his hat off-a sudden, changeable man, all black and bright and multicolored like a fire that could leap in any direction at any second. "My name is Alonzo Divich," he told her. "I own a carnival business." He jabbed a thumb at the merry-go-round music above them, "The St. James Infirmary Blues" spinning itself out among the cries of children and hot dog vendors, and teenagers clinging to the Tilt-A-Whirl. "I'm divorced, I have this kid. Now I've met a rich widow woman who wants to marry me. She likes the kid, too. She would even live in the trailer. I don't have to change one thing in my life for her. And I'm a marrying fool. I love being married, I tried it twice before. So what's the trouble? The same day we start the talk about a wedding, exact same day, a man I used to know calls and asks me to come and prospect for gold with him beside a lake in Michigan. He says he's onto something. He's going to be a wealthy man, and so am I. But of course there's the kid, and the mortgaged machines, and the woman who doesn't like Michigan. So which do I do?"
Justine was listening with her mouth open. When he finished she said, immediately. "Go look for gold."
"Huh? What about the cards?"
"Oh, the cards," she said.
So
Justine first met Alonzo Divich at a church bazaar in 1956, when she was telling fortunes in the Sunday school basement. She was with the white elephants and the potted plants; his carnival was outside. He came in to have his cards read. He was one of those people, she saw, who are addicted to outguessing their futures. Whenever he had an hour to kill, a layover in some town or a lull in his work, he would search out the local seeress. If there were five local seeresses, fine. He would go to all five. He would listen without even breathing. He had heard his fortune, he told Justine, from well over a thousand women, and it had not once been done right. He had not only had his cards read but also his palms, his skull, his moles, his fingernails, his dreams, his handwriting, his tea leaves and coffee grounds. He had been to astrologers and physiognomists, not to mention specialists in biblio-mancy, clidomancy, crystal-gazing, and ouija boards. A lady in Montgomery County had set a gamecock to pick corn from a circle of letters; a Georgia woman studied smoke rising from a fire and another dropped melted wax into cold water, forming small nubbly objects that she claimed to be able to interpret. In York County, Pennsylvania, he had had to bake his own barley cakes, which were then broken open and examined under a magnifying glass. And in a marsh near St. Elmo, Alabama, a very old woman had offered to kill a rice rat and study its entrails, but he had felt that such an act might bring bad luck.
He had told Justine all this at once, leaning toward her across the table in her curtained booth while a line of church ladies waited their turns outside. Justine, although she did not know it, wore the tolerant, disillusioned expression of a doctor hearing that his new patient has been to forty other doctors before him, none of them satisfactory. It gave her a look of wisdom. Alonzo decided she was going to turn out to be special. "Lady," he had said, setting his palms on her table, "tell me the answer to my problem. I feel you can."
"What is your problem?"
"Don't you know?"
"How should I?"
"You're the fortune teller."
So Justine had to give the speech she had made more often than she could count, and would make many times again, sometimes even to him. "Now I am not a mind reader," she said, "and I have no way at all of guessing what you want to ask, or where you come from or anything else about your past.
I read the future. I have a talent for predicting change. If you help me we can search for an answer together; but I'm not going to outwit you."
"My problem is this," Alonzo said instantly.
And he sat on a Sunday school chair and took his hat off-a sudden, changeable man, all black and bright and multicolored like a fire that could leap in any direction at any second. "My name is Alonzo Divich," he told her. "I own a carnival business." He jabbed a thumb at the merry-go-round music above them, "The St. James Infirmary Blues" spinning itself out among the cries of children and hot dog vendors, and teenagers clinging to the Tilt-A-Whirl. "I'm divorced, I have this kid. Now I've met a rich widow woman who wants to marry me. She likes the kid, too. She would even live in the trailer. I don't have to change one thing in my life for her. And I'm a marrying fool. I love being married, I tried it twice before. So what's the trouble? The same day we start the talk about a wedding, exact same day, a man I used to know calls and asks me to come and prospect for gold with him beside a lake in Michigan. He says he's onto something. He's going to be a wealthy man, and so am I. But of course there's the kid, and the mortgaged machines, and the woman who doesn't like Michigan. So which do I do?"
Justine was listening with her mouth open. When he finished she said, immediately. "Go look for gold."
"Huh? What about the cards?"
"Oh, the cards," she said.
So
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