The Queen's Gambit

by Walter Tevis

  During the next five moves Sizemore kept bringing pieces up, but Beth, seeing the limits to what he could do to her, kept her attention focused on the far left-hand corner of the board, on Sizemore’s queenside; when the time came she brought her bishop down in the middle of his clustered pieces there, setting it on his knight two square. From where it sat now, two of his pieces could capture it, but if either did, he would be in trouble.

  She looked at him. He had taken out his comb again and was running it through his hair. His clock was ticking.

  It took him fifteen minutes to make the move, and when he did it was a shock. He took the bishop with his rook. Didn’t he know he was a fool to move the rook off the back rank? Couldn’t he see that? She looked back at the board, double-checked the position and brought out her queen.

  He didn’t see it until the move after next, and his game fell apart. He still had his comb in his hand six moves later when she got her queen’s pawn, passed, to the sixth rank. He brought his rook under the pawn. She attacked it with her bishop. Sizemore stood up, put his comb in his pocket, reached down to the board and set his king on its side. “You win,” he said grimly. The applause was thunderous.

  After she had turned in the score sheet she waited while the young man checked it, made a mark on a list in front of him, stood up and walked to the bulletin board. He took the pushpins from the card saying SIZEMORE and threw the card into a green metal wastebasket. Then he pulled the pins out of the bottom card and raised it to where Sizemore’s had been. The UNDEFEATED list now read: BELTIK, HARMON.

  When she was walking toward the girls’ room Beltik came out of “Top Boards” striding fast and looking very pleased with himself. He was carrying the little score sheet, on his way to the winners’ basket. He didn’t seem to see Beth.

  She went over to the doorway of the “Top Boards” room, and Townes was standing there. There were lines of fatigue in his face; he looked like Rock Hudson, except for the weariness. “Good work, Harmon,” he said.

  “I’m sorry you lost,” she said.

  “Yeah,” he said. “It’s back to the drawing board.” And then, nodding to where Beltik was standing at the front table with a small crowd gathered near him, he said, “He’s a killer, Harmon. A genuine killer.”

  She looked at his face. “You need a rest.”

  He smiled down at her. “What I need, Harmon, is some of your talent.”

  As she passed the front table, Beltik took a step toward her and said, “Tomorrow.”

  ***

  When Beth came into the living room just before supper, Mrs. Wheatley looked pale and strange. She was sitting in the chintz armchair and her face was puffy. She was holding a brightly colored postcard in her lap.

  “I’ve started menstruating,” Beth said.

  Mrs. Wheatley blinked. “That’s nice,” she said, as though from a great distance.

  “I’ll need some pads or something,” Beth said.

  Mrs. Wheatley seemed nonplused for a moment. Then she brightened. “That’s certainly a milepost for you. Why don’t you just go up to my room and look in the top drawer of my chiffonier? Take all you require.”

  “Thank you,” Beth said, heading for the stairs.

  “And, dear,” Mrs. Wheatley said, “bring down that little bottle of green pills by my bedside.”

  When Beth came back she gave the pills to Mrs. Wheatley. Mrs. Wheatley had half a glass of beer sitting beside her; she took out two of the pills and swallowed them with the beer. “My tranquility needs to be refurbished,” she said.

  “Is something wrong?” Beth asked.

  “I’m not Aristotle,” Mrs. Wheatley said, “but it could be construed as wrong. I have received a message from Mr. Wheatley.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Mr. Wheatley has been indefinitely detained in the Southwest. The American Southwest.”

  “Oh,” Beth said.

  “Between Denver and Butte.”

  Beth sat down on the sofa.

  “Aristotle was a moral philosopher,” Mrs. Wheatley said, “while I am a housewife. Or was a housewife.”

  “Can’t they send me back if you don’t have a husband?”

  “You put it concretely.” Mrs. Wheatley sipped her beer. “They won’t if we lie about it.”

  “That’s easy enough,” Beth said.

  “You’re a good soul, Beth,” Mrs. Wheatley said, finishing her beer. “Why don’t you heat the two chicken dinners in the freezer? Set the oven at four hundred.”

  Beth had been holding two sanitary napkins in her right hand. “I don’t know how to put these on.”

  Mrs. Wheatley straightened herself up from her slumped position in the chair. “I am no longer a wife,” she said, “except by legal fiction. I believe I can learn to be a mother. I’ll show you how if you promise me never to go near Denver.”

  ***

  During the night Beth woke to hear rain on the roof over her head and intermittent rattling against the panes of her dormer windows. She had been dreaming of water, of herself swimming easily in a quiet ocean of still water. She put a pillow over her head and curled up on her side, trying to get back to sleep. But she could not. The rain was loud, and as it continued to fall, the sad languor of her dream was replaced by the image of a chessboard filled with pieces demanding her attention, demanding the clarity of her intelligence.

  It was two in the morning and she did not get back to sleep for the rest of the night. It was still raining when she went downstairs at seven; the backyard outside the kitchen window looked like a swamp with hillocks of near-dead grass sticking up like islands. She was not certain how to fry eggs but decided she could boil some. She got two from the refrigerator, filled a pan with water and put it on the burner. She would play pawn to king four against him, and hope for the Sicilian. She boiled the eggs five minutes and put them in cold water. She could see Beltik’s face, youthful, arrogant and smart. His eyes were small and black. When he stepped toward her yesterday as she was leaving, some part of her had thought he would hit her.

  The eggs were perfect; she opened them with a knife, put them in a cup and ate them with salt and butter. Her eyes were grainy under the lids. The final game would begin at eleven; it was seven-twenty now. She wished she had a copy of Modern Chess Openings, to look over variations on the Sicilian. Some of the other players at the tournament had carried battered copies of the book under their arms.

  It was only drizzling when she left the house at ten, and Mrs. Wheatley was still upstairs asleep. Before she left, Beth went into the bathroom and checked the sanitary belt Mrs. Wheatley had given her to wear, and the thick white pad. It was all right. She put on her galoshes and her blue coat, got Mrs. Wheatley’s umbrella from the closet and left.

  ***

  She had noticed before that the pieces at Board One were different. They were solid wooden ones like Mr. Ganz’s and not the hollow plastic pieces that sat on the other boards at the tournament. When she walked by the table in the empty room at ten-thirty she reached out and picked up the white king. It was satisfyingly heavy, with a solid lead weight and green felt on the bottom. She placed the piece on its home square, stepped back over the velvet rope and walked to the girls’ room. She washed her face for the third time that day, tightened her sanitary belt, combed her bangs and went back to the gymnasium. More players had come in. She stuffed her hands into the pockets of her skirt so that no one could see they were trembling.

  When eleven o’clock came she was ready behind the white pieces at Board One. Boards Two and Three had already started their games. Sizemore was at Board Two. She didn’t recognize the others.

  Ten minutes passed, and Beltik did not appear. The tournament director in the white shirt climbed over and stood near Beth for a minute. “Hasn’t shown yet?” he said softly.

  Beth shook her head.

  “Make your move and punch the clock” the director whispered. “You should have done it at eleven.”

  That anno
yed her. No one had told her about that. She moved pawn to king four and started Beltik’s clock.

  It was ten more minutes before Beltik came in. Beth’s stomach hurt and her eyes smarted. Beltik looked casual and relaxed, wearing a bright-red shirt and tan corduroy pants. “Sorry,” he said in a normal voice. “Extra cup of coffee.” The other players looked over at him with irritation. Beth said nothing.

  Beltik, still standing, loosened an extra button on his shirt front and held out his hand. “Harry Beltik,” he said. “What’s your name?”

  He must know what her name was. “I’m Beth Harmon,” she said, taking his hand but avoiding his eyes.

  He seated himself behind the black pieces, rubbed his hands together briskly and moved his king pawn to the third square. He punched Beth’s clock smartly.

  The French Defense. She had never played it. She didn’t like the look of it. The thing to do was play pawn to queen four. But what happened if he played the same? Did she trade pawns or push one of them forward, or bring out her knight? She squinted and shook her head; it was difficult to picture what the board would look like after the moves. She looked again, rubbed her eyes, and played pawn to queen four. When she reached out to punch the clock she hesitated. Had she made a mistake? But it was too late now. She pressed the button hastily and as it clicked down Beltik immediately picked up his queen pawn, put it on queen four and slapped down the button on his clock.

  Although it was difficult to see with her usual clarity, she had not lost her sense of the requirements of an opening. She brought out her knights and involved herself for a while in a struggle for the center squares. But Beltik, moving fast, nipped off one of her pawns and she saw that she couldn’t capture the pawn he did it with. She tried to shrug off the advantage she’d allowed and went on playing. She got her pieces off the back rank, and castled. She looked over the board at Beltik. He seemed completely at ease; he was looking at the game going on next to them. Beth felt a knot in her stomach; she could not get comfortable in her seat. The heavy cluster of pieces and pawns in the center of the board seemed for a while to have no pattern, to make no sense.

  Her clock was ticking. She inclined her head to look at its face; twenty-five minutes were gone, and she was still down by a pawn. And Beltik had used only twenty-two minutes altogether, even including the time he’d wasted by being late. There was a ringing in her ears, and the bright light in the room hurt her eyes. Beltik was leaning back with his arms outstretched, yawning, showing the black places on the undersides of his teeth.

  She found what looked like a good square for her knight, reached out her hand and then stopped. The move would be terrible; something had to be done about his queen before he had it on the rook file and was ready to threaten. She had to protect and attack at the same time, and she couldn’t see how. The pieces in front of her just sat there. She should have taken a green pill last night, to make her sleep.

  Then she saw a move that looked sensible and quickly made it. She brought a knight back near the king, protecting herself against Beltik’s queen.

  He raised his eyebrows almost imperceptibly and immediately took a pawn on the other side of the board. There was suddenly a diagonal open for his bishop. The bishop was aimed at the knight she’d wasted time bringing back, and she was down by another pawn. At the corner of Beltik’s mouth was a sly little smile. She quickly looked away from his face, frightened.

  She had to do something. He would be all over her king in four or five moves. She need to concentrate, to see it clearly. But when she looked at the board, everything was dense, interlocked, complicated, dangerous. Then she thought of something to do. With her clock still running she stood up, stepped over the rope and walked through the small crowd of silent spectators to the main gym floor and across it to the girls’ room. There was no one there. She went to a sink, washed her face with cold water, wet a handful of paper towels and held them for a minute to the back of her neck. After she threw them away she went into one of the little stalls and, sitting, checked her sanitary napkin. It was okay. She sat there relaxing, letting her mind go blank. Her elbows were on her knees, her head was bent down.

  With an effort of will she made the chessboard with the game on Board One on it appear in front of her. There it was. She could see immediately that it was difficult, but not as difficult as some of the games she’d memorized from the book at Morris’s Book Store. The pieces before her, in her imagination, were crisp and sharply focused.

  She stayed where she was, not worrying about time, until she had it penetrated and understood. Then she got up, washed her face again and walked back into the gym. She had found her move.

  There were more people gathered in “Top Boards” than before; as games ended they came in to watch the finals. She pushed by them, stepped over the rope and sat down. Her hands were perfectly steady, and her stomach and eyes felt fine. She reached out and moved; she punched the clock firmly.

  Beltik studied the move for a few minutes and took her knight with his bishop, as she knew he would. She did not retake; she brought a bishop over to attack one of his rooks. He moved the rook the button down on his clock, leaned back in his chair and drew a deep breath.

  “It doesn’t work,” Beth said. “I don’t have to take the queen.”

  “Move,” Beltik said.

  “I’ll check you first with the bishop—”

  “Move!”

  She nodded and checked with the bishop. Beltik, with his clock ticking, quickly moved his king away and pressed the button. Then Beth did what she had planned all along. She brought her queen crashing down next to the king, sacrificing it. Beltik looked at her, stunned. She stared back at him. He shrugged, snatched up the queen and stopped his clock by hitting it with the base of the captured piece.

  Beth pushed her other bishop from the back rank out to the middle of the board and said, “Check. Mate next move.” Beltik stared at it for a moment, said, “Son of a bitch!” and stood up.

  “The rook mates,” Beth said.

  “Son of a bitch,” Beltik said.

  The crowd that had now filled the room began applauding. Beltik, still scowling, held out his hand, and Beth shook it.

  FIVE

  They were ready to close by the time she got to the teller. She’d had to wait for the bus after school and wait again transferring down Main. And this was the second bank.

  She’d carried the folded check in her blouse pocket all day, under the sweater. It was in her hand when the man in front of her picked up his rolls of nickels and stuffed them in the pocket of his overcoat and left the space at the window for her. She set her hand on the cold marble, holding the check out and standing on tiptoe, to be able to see the face of the teller. “I’d like to open an account,” Beth said.

  The man glanced at the check. “How old are you, miss?”

  “Thirteen.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “You’ll need a parent or guardian with you.”

  Beth put the check back in her blouse pocket and left.

  At the house, Mrs. Wheatley had four empty Pabst Blue Ribbon beer bottles sitting on the little table by her chair. The TV was off. Beth had picked up the afternoon paper from the front porch; she unfolded it as she came into the living room.

  “How was school, dear?” Mrs. Wheatley’s voice was dim and far away.

  “It was okay.” As Beth set the newspaper on the green plastic hassock by the sofa she saw with quiet astonishment that her own picture was printed on the front page, at the bottom. Near the top was the face of Nikita Khrushchev and at the bottom, one column wide, was her face, scowling beneath a headline: LOCAL PRODIGY TAKES CHESS TOURNEY. Under this, in smaller letters, boldface: TWELVE-YEAR-OLD ASTONISHES EXPERTS. She remembered the man taking her picture before they gave her the trophy and the check. She had told him she was thirteen.

  Beth bent over, reading the paper:

  The world of Kentucky Chess was astonished this weekend by the playing of a local girl, who triumphe
d over hardened players to win the Kentucky State Championship. Elizabeth Harmon, a seventh-grade student at Fairfield Junior, showed “a mastery of the game unequaled by any female” according to Harry Beltik, whom Miss Harmon defeated for the state crown.

  Beth grimaced; she hated the picture of herself. It showed her freckles and her small nose all too clearly.

  “I want to open a bank account,” she said.

  “A bank account?”

  “You’ll have to go with me.”

  “But, my dear,” Mrs. Wheatley said, “what would you open a bank account with?”

  Beth reached into her blouse pocket, took out the check and handed it to her. Mrs. Wheatley sat up in her chair and held the check in her hand as though it were a Dead Sea Scroll. She was silent for a moment, reading it. Then she said softly, “One hundred dollars.”

  “I need a parent or guardian. At the bank.”

  “One hundred dollars.” Mrs. Wheatley said. “Then you won it?”

  “Yes. It says ‘First Place’ on the check.”

  “I see,” Mrs. Wheatley said. “I hadn’t the foggiest idea people made money playing chess.”

  “Some tournaments have bigger prizes than that.”

  “Goodness!” Mrs. Wheatley was still staring at the check.

  “We can go to the bank after school tomorrow.”

  “Certainly,” Mrs. Wheatley said.

  The next day, when they came into the living room after the bank, there was a copy of Chess Review on the cobbler’s bench in front of the sofa. Mrs. Wheatley hung her coat in the hall closet and picked up the magazine. “While you were at school,” she said, “I was leafing through this. I see there’s a major tournament in Cincinnati the second week in December. First prize is five hundred dollars.”

  Beth studied her for a long moment. “I have to be in school then,” she said. “And Cincinnati’s pretty far from here.”

  “The Greyhound bus requires only two hours for the trip,” Mrs. Wheatley said. “I took the liberty of calling.”