Ben’s Magic Cards
At the end of each day this month we sat down, ordered dinner, then Ben would look at us with a big grin and ask “cards?” It was his favorite past time. He loved any of the games that we regularly played: Yaniv, S***head, President, Upsie Downsie (which he knew as “Ascenseur” in France), and Blackjack. He never won, in fact he was consistently in last place or the first one out in Yaniv. Each time he was knocked out he watched us finish the game, then asked “shall we play again?”
Yaniv was our favorite game. Every hand the players would try to get the lowest amount of points possible before someone who felt they were the one with the least points called “Yaniv.” Once someone’s total broke 200, they were out for the game. Every game would see Ben one or two hands away from dropping out while everyone else was just about to break 100.
In Diskit, Ben bought his own cards for the time that was nearing when we went our own ways and he could no longer use my cards. I found him in the stationary shop in the main bazaar after lunch sorting through decks of cards looking for a complete set. All the decks were brand new, made in Delhi, but none of them had 10s. After 4 or 5 decks he found a complete one which he bought for 10 rupees. It was a thin, shiny deck with blue roses on the back of each card.
On our last day together we sat in a bakery drinking coffee, eating cakes, and playing cards. I had lent my deck a few nights before to some Ladakhi students we went on a trip with to the sand dune desert in Nubra Valley. They returned them in poor shape, bent and full of scratches. After a few games with my cards in the coffee shop Ben took out his new cards for our next game of Yaniv. We played three more games before we had to leave, and each one of them were won easily by Ben. Even Sam, who won the majority of our games, gained points at an amazing speed. We often were knocked out while Ben was breaking 80 points. Ben was shocked at this, he didn’t know what to do.
The next day he and Sam left to trek through Markah Valley, while I stayed behind to finalize my trip back to Delhi. The only deck of cards they brought were his.
