by Jesse Ball
—Will you answer all questions? Not just chess questions?
—But you are here to learn chess.
The boy started to say something, then stopped. He messed around with his foot and then spoke up.
—My parents would never be able to tell. They don’t really know anything about chess.
—I see, said Loring. Let’s say then that that’s our bargain.
She reached out her hand and the boy took it. They shook.
In the night she had had a dream about her husband. He was on a ship carved from wood, from some enormous single tree. The captain of the ship was sitting frozen in a chair nailed to the deck. The mate was shouting that there must be some crack in the wood, somewhere, but that it could not be found. Her husband was not the captain, but he might have been, and if he wasn’t, then he was elsewhere in the ship. The night was early in that sea, and the waves grew worse the closer it came to dawn. If the crack could not be found…All night, Loring had this dream, repeating, and each time she strained to remember how it had ended before, but could not. When she woke, she found that she was sitting in the chair in the parlor, and facing her husband’s picture on the wall. What could she say to him, were she to see him? One never knows the uses of the things one does.
And then she was there at this bargaining, and just done shaking the boy’s hand, remembering the dream, and the long night.
—We will then begin, she said. Chess is a complicated game. It is complicated not simply because of the complications of the pieces and the squares, but also because of how people feel about chess. You will often meet people and play them and you will find that when you beat them in chess they feel they have been defeated completely, as though your mind were proved better than theirs. This is not true, of course. But many people believe it to be true, and even some who know that it is not true will still feel that it is true, viscerally. So, the question is, in what way can this be used as a part of the game. Well, actually, that is not the question at the moment. At the moment I am just describing the game, and showing you that this too is a part of it. Another part of the game is stamina. One can become tired over a series of games. Hopefulness can mediate the effects of that exhaustion.
Stan was looking in the other direction. It was unclear whether or not he had been listening.
—Where did you learn to play? he asked.
—I was taught by my brother. He was also a master, but much older.
—Where is he?
—Oh, he died very long ago.
—Was he that old?
—No, he was killed. By mistake.
There was a clock on the mantel. It made a distinct tick and one might imagine that the boy, in future years, would think back on his time in that quiet room, and that the particular ticking of that clock would be recalled to him as part and parcel of that moment. In fact, one never knows what one will remember or why. There is a clock museum, for instance, at least it is called a clock museum (it is the front room of someone’s house), where there are at least two hundred clocks, all going at the same time. The noise is bewildering and wonderful. Everyone who hears it feels they must return and sit a little longer in one of the chairs here and there throughout the room, but of course, they do not come back.
Just as the return to the clock museum is lost, so is the sound of the clock in the Wesley house. The boy was drowsing and wakes at a loud tick. Loring was watching him and considering. They had just played another three games, all of which the boy lost. She had told him to look at the games, and to tell her in ten minutes why he had lost, and in the thinking, curled up in that black oak chair by the wall, he had fallen asleep.
—I have a question for you, he said.
He was wearing a very light brown color and this made him appear sympathetic to all those who saw him that morning. Someone in the street had even said to someone else, why, that is a fine little boy. Not everything in the world is for the worse.
Of course, this is not at all true. It is simply an explanation of the light brown color, and in that sense I stand by the anecdote.
—What is your question?
—Is that your husband on the wall?
Loring was astonished. Could he know nothing about Ezra? One is always surprised by the lack of knowledge others show about our dead. But for him not to know? When she had seen Ezra looking through his eyes?
—He was a chess player as well. That’s him, there. Fifteen years ago, I believe it was taken. I would have to say that: that it was fifteen years ago. Or perhaps longer, perhaps twenty-five.
—Was he very good?
—He was the strongest one for some years, the strongest of all. The best players would gather in some city, to play for some purse, I too, and he would defeat us all. But his style was too wild, and it tired him.
—I don’t understand.
—I will explain this eventually. For now, to answer you. He was also, like me, a master. Now, do you know what went wrong in those games?
—No.
—Figuring out what you did wrong and fixing it, that’s what being a chess player really is.
The bell rang, then, and a bunch of letters fell through the slot in the front door. The two in the parlor could hear them land, one by one on the wood floor of the hall.
—One moment, said Loring.
She was gone and came back and in coming back took a dull knife from the drawer of a desk. One letter she opened. The others she had left by the door. This letter was small, and shaped like a letter. Not all letters are, you know!
—Hmmm, she said.
and
—Something is ready in town. I am going to go down and pick it up. You shall come with me. We’ll get lunch there. There’s nothing to eat in the house anyway.
The boy got his coat and she fetched hers from a peg in the hall. Out the door they went. The hour was eleven. It was that sort of day where eleven means waiting. So, in that way, it was very comfortable to set out at such a time.
The First Visit, 2
Beyond the door, the street was also extremely concerned with the hour of eleven, and with waiting. The street was solemn in that way, observant of the hour. The boy was very solemn at first, too, and strove to walk slowly, at the pace that Loring set, but at the canal he could not help but climb onto the lip and run with wildness back and forth. Loring said nothing in warning, and did not discourage him in the slightest. You must have imagined that she would permit behavior of this sort! It is quite clear from her character, as someone might tell you who knew her well, or who had known her. If you would speak to such a person about her, they might tell you a story such as this:
Why, once, on a bet, in younger days, she had stolen an automobile. She had been that sort of young woman—and nothing was too much for her. Someone tried to rob her once, an Italian, and she had brandished a knife at him. Do you see?
But now the boy had found a piece of glass. He brought it to her, in this way, saying,
—A piece of glass.
She took it and looked at it. Much of the deep depression that surrounds us in life has to do with this one thing—that we can’t even see the smallest plainest objects.
—Not much use, she said, unless you put it on top of a wall where someone might climb and cut themselves. The walls in old parts of Spain are like that. The tops are all broken bottles.
This was the sort of fact that a boy likes to hear, she thought to herself.
—Looking down a hill at the old stone houses with their intermittent walls, one can see the sun setting fire to the tops of those in the distance, when the sun strikes properly.
—Can I have it back?
—Of course.
She handed him the glass and he took it. In the exchange, she touched his hand, and as during their bargain, was momentarily shaken. It was a child’s hand. This was an odd thing to recall when looking at a child, when speaking with a child, but you must understand, already the boy was not entirely a child. And yet the hand restored
it all again.
—But I don’t want to carry it, he said. And I can’t put it in my coat.
—Why don’t you hide it? she said. Put it somewhere. You can get it on the way back.
He looked around for a spot, but was having trouble.
—Well, the best place is probably wherever it was. If you can find that spot, exactly, I’m sure it will all go very well for you.
He looked around on the ground for that spot. At this moment a man came up.
—Have you lost something? he said.
The situation was explained to him. He frowned.
—Throw it into the canal. It will go somewhere, and if you find it again, then it will really mean something.
This was as good a suggestion as any, and so Stan threw the glass into the canal. He was at first worried that he had thrown it too much, and not let it drop enough, because he wanted it to be as much seemingly the will of the glass, as his own will. And yet it went off and was gone, and that was enough.
The man also went off and was gone.
—The people, you see, said Loring, who walk by the canal, are quite different from the regular run of people. Why this man, for instance, fit the bill. Not always is it the case that people come with a worthwhile suggestion.
—Fit the bill?
—Of the place—he joined the category of people who are interesting enough to want to walk by the canal, even though it is a bit dingy and old and doesn’t get cleaned nearly often enough.
—Well, I like the canal.
—I’m glad of that, said Loring. I used to walk here every day. I still do. I still do. But I used to walk here with my husband. Every day.
And so they passed on along the canal and out into a square. Across the square they went and there in a building, Loring claimed something or other, a package of some sort, something she had left and was now obtaining, perhaps repaired or restored. The details are not all clear. Out into the street she went, and with Stan, she made her way to a stall where sandwiches were made. Finest Quality, it said.
—Can I ask you another question?
—When we are through eating.
—But if I ask now, will that be all right? You can answer later.
—Go ahead.
—What things end up in dreams? I remember some things that have happened that happen again. But other dreams are things that never happened, or terrible things—nightmares. But even the nightmares—why are they of one sort and not another? Why one night am I falling and another night being chased?
They ate their sandwiches and Stan’s became a bit of a mess.
—Is it true about the sandwiches? Are these good?
—There was a cafe that used to be here. Their sandwiches were quite wonderful, but they came cut into many pieces and served on china. One would get tea with them, and sometimes little pastries.
—Where is it?
—It’s gone.
(And Now Let Us Make Our Way Home)
—Dreams, she said, are easily explained by stupid people. They are easily dismissed. They are meaningless. Nothing can be based on them—no predictions, no hopes. No one has any dreams that have anything to do particularly with him or her. A dream is simply images, as though one were traveling aimlessly by car not on a street but through a series of rooms, and one sees things, looking there out the window. But they are useless and one shouldn’t pay attention.
When Stan looked like he wanted to object, she continued.
—At least, this is one view. Another view is that dreams may be explained easily (again, easily) with the use of certain books. This group of people would say that a dictionary of some sort (made by some truly brilliant person) will give you exact definitions for anything you might encounter in the dream world. Through the use of a book of this sort, you can tell what your dream means, and what its significance is in your life. There are other books that will tell you that dreams are the way that higher beings communicate with lower beings, and in so doing, give instructions about how life is to be led.
She paused.
—Of course, I don’t agree with any of that. Do you?
Stan explained a dream to her that he had had. It took a while. When he had done, she told it back to him.
—So, she said, you were drawing for your father. He gave you paper and a pencil and told you to draw a wire. You drew a line and he said, that is a line. I want you to draw me a wire. So, you drew a line between two buildings, and drew the buildings, and then you drew someone with an umbrella about to step onto it. He took the paper and crushed it, and you felt terrified that this would make the person fall. Then, in the dream, the person fell, and you were falling, and your father was speaking to your mother, you could hear his voice. He was saying, before he was born…, but you couldn’t make out anything after that.
—That’s right, said Stan.
—Was it frightening?
—Only that the person with the umbrella, a young woman. That she would fall. And, my father. He was accusing me of something.
—One thing about dreams, said Loring. Is that we know many things, and some of them we learn from life. But others, it seems that we could not have learned them from life. Some of them we see in dreams. Do you know anything that you never learned or saw?
A bus came then and there were many red flags along the top. They were flying in the wind. People were hanging out the windows of the bus. The driver was waving. They were tourists of some kind, and seemed very happy. Stan waved to them.
Loring took his hand and led him up the hill. This time they had to pause several times, for he had grown tired. It was a long way for a boy to walk without stopping, and, of course, she was far too old to carry him.
The First Visit, 3
—He played that opening with black, she said. The opening you played that first day. My husband played it. It is a very sharp opening. That means, sharp, means that it is easy for either side to lose. I will show you a game now that he played once, against another man, a great player himself. He used this opening against that man, Hulder, because it was that man’s favorite opening, and Hulder has used it repeatedly to crush his opponents. The match was to be until ten victories. No one had found a really good way to stop Hulder with this opening. And so, my husband played this opening against Hulder, and played the very same moves that Hulder had played. Thus, Hulder had to play against his own opening, in a way, had to play black against his own moves as white, and in doing so, he showed Ezra how to neutralize the opening. Of course, Hulder didn’t really want to do it, to show him—so he actually made a bad move on purpose, thereby losing the first game. In the second game, Hulder played white and got into complications where he beat my husband. Then in the third game, my husband played white again, and played the opening. Hulder faltered this time in his resolve and played the best defense he could, which was sufficient for a draw. In the third game, then, Hulder had to play something else, because his own preparation in those lines had all been given to my husband! The game would have just ended up a draw. He actually lost that game. And of course, Ezra had used all his time to come up with other variations in other openings, which he sprang in the following games. He won the series 10–4, with 6 draws. Hulder was shattered and never played at that level again.
—Did your husband like playing chess?
—He did.
She showed him the moves of the game, advising him not to play that opening for some years yet, as the ways in which the opponent could go wrong, although ever present, were very difficult to punish unless one knew how.
—But I must know how! You have to teach me.
—I will, she said, I will. But it takes time.
When they had played through all the games of that match on the board by the window, Stan was very tired indeed. He had been tired from the walk, as I told you, and now he was tired from concentrating. He went and lay on the mat.
Loring moved her hands as if to say, you mustn’t do that, we aren’t done here, but this g
esture had no effect on him, and so she went and sat in the chair again.
She made quite a picture, I must say, sitting in that chair. She was a rather severe old woman, with the intelligent desirous eyes of a horse, always flickering, signaling. Yet few could say what they signaled. She sat in the chair with her hands folded and looked like the name of a region on an antiquated map. By this I mean, correct in a way that fits with something one doesn’t understand.
At four the mother came and took the child, and carried him out over her shoulder, still sleeping.
—Quite a day, said Mrs. Wiling. His first day of lessons.
—That’s so, said Loring.
—Did he do well? Did he learn much?
—It is generally the first talent that really gifted people have.
—What do you mean?
—Learning much from little—that’s the talent we must hope your son has. Goodbye.
Now, Loring was a most unusual person, you see, for she didn’t like people at all and wanted nothing to do with them.
But she had certain exceptions, or I should say, she had made certain exceptions over the years. The trouble is, as you get older, the people you like die and are not replaced with others, so that it is easily possible to end up with no one at all to talk to, or at least, no one you would want to hear responding to whatever it is you might have ended up saying.
This was the trouble that Loring was in. Aside from the times when a visitor came to town—some old acquaintance from their tournament days—aside from that, it was simply a matter of reading books and sitting in chairs. Of course, walking as well, visiting the cemetery, and looking at things, plants and such, animals here and there—but she tired easily, and so mostly it was about sitting and reading.
The book that she was reading at that time was called The Miraculous Indifference of the Eleventh Century. It was about how, for whatever reason, during the eleventh century A.D., there had been several severe bouts of indifference, documented in cultures geographically remote from one another. The meaning of this was unclear, and the historian did himself few favors. Nonetheless, the book was terribly funny, although not meaning to be, and this caused Loring much grief, for when she would begin to laugh, she would be placed back in the room where she was sitting, and the hollow sound of her laugh coming off the wooden ceiling, floor walls, the glass of the windows, it made her feel that she had no one to whom to tell anything, that no matter how much comedy might be found in a passage, it was useless beyond what it might avail her directly. Even should she come upon the most tremendously wonderful thing that had ever been written, she could not say it and have someone useful hear.
