‘The Left Joker’ beer — the card of last hope.
This brew, fortified to twelve degrees, with notes of trans-Dunavan hops and lead, a sarcastic aftertaste, and a belch as long-drawn as a bull’s bellow, had always been popular along the Siren coast. During the war, despite the front’s proximity, the Scylla magnates’ breweries in Skoropototsk remained open and became the main supplier of drink to the frontline zone. Even after the Cursed Field formed, the breweries continued their noble work. In the wild Fieldlands, ‘The Left Joker’ was now the freshest and most popular swill for taking the rough edges off.
For soldiers who had served at the front, the obnoxious Joker on a bottle of Skoropototsk became a faithful companion to tavern reminiscences. After draining half a bottle at a gulp, a fighting man would stare into that impudent jester’s mug and think: ‘Ah well, never mind, never mind. We’ll live a little longer. The Left Joker stays in the pack till the end.’ And years after the ill-favoured war was over, a prematurely aged veteran could pick up
a couple of green bottles, settle somewhere out of the way with his back to a wall, twist off the stubborn cap, gulp down half at once, and, belching at length, shelter in a shallow, tipsy trench from memories of the worst time in history.
Skoropototsk might have remained a nostalgic seasoning for veterans’ burdensome memories,
but the Cursed Field’s proximity to the breweries lent this mediocre drink a mysterious dread. ‘Joker, brewed with water from Field springs. Your card has yet to be beaten.’ Beyond the Fieldlands, Skoropototsk Joker sold for the price of a good tobacco vodka. Quack doctors sometimes prescribed it for waves of anxiety, while adolescents with a coin to spare could give themselves a touch of mysterious wildness if the Fieldlands Joker grinned from their bottle.
The Left Joker is a card game in which the second joker—the ‘left’ one—always remains in the undealt pack. Any player with a poor hand may stake everything on the Left Joker and hope to draw it. If fortune favours them, whatever cards they hold become the strongest. If they fail, they lose everything and leave the table.
In the pack, the Left Joker was depicted holding Gorevald’s skull in his left hand, a mirror image of the ordinary Joker.
The Left Joker is a symbol of the last chance and reckless luck. Sometimes he is called Lefty.
