The address is easy to remember. So is the route from the changing room, the catch on the gate, the patch of light at the back glass. What escapes memory is the moment the court became different.
Accounts of the Unmarked Court begin after departure. Someone is already on the way home when they recognise where they have been. Returning offers an ordinary court, or another experience with a different meaning. The name does not say that its painted lines have disappeared. The missing mark would identify an encounter that cannot be placed twice.
One version calls it the first reading that changes a person. Another is less interested in firsts: every remembered court becomes unmarked because memory redraws it. The two versions disagree about whether something exceptional happened there or whether remembering is exceptional enough.
Imagine returning to the club where a difficult partnership first became easy. You book the same hour and stand on the same side. The players are older; one is distracted; the evening is colder than you remember. A good point arrives differently. It belongs to this visit.
The Fool, the Star and Returning Askings gather around the place. An earlier beginning may still offer hope without being recoverable on demand. Nothing about its failure to repeat proves enchantment.
At the gate, you recognise the sound of the catch. You had forgotten that part.