The Queen's Gambit

by Walter Tevis

  For a moment she was furious, wanting to finish, to drive his king across the board and checkmate it. “You play a game that is… awesome,” the Mexican said. “You make a man feel helpless.” He bowed slightly, turned and left the table.

  ***

  Playing out the Girev game that afternoon, she found herself moving with astonishing speed and force. Girev was wearing a light-blue shirt this time, and it stuck out from his elbows like the edges of a child’s kite. She sat at the board impatiently while the tournament director opened the envelope and made the pawn move she had sealed the day before. She got up and paced across the nearly empty ballroom where two other adjournments were being played out, waiting for Girev to move. She looked back across the room toward him several times and saw him hunched over the board, his little fists jammed into his pale cheeks, the blue shirt seeming to glow under the lights. She hated him—hated his seriousness and hated his youth. She wanted to crush him.

  She could hear the click of the clock button from halfway across the room and made a beeline back to the table. She did not take her seat but stood looking at the position. He had put his rook on the queen bishop file, as she had thought he might. She was ready for that and pushed her pawn again, turned and walked back across the room. There was a table there with a water pitcher and a few paper cups. She poured herself a cup, surprised to see that her hand trembled as she did so. By the time she got back to the board, Girev had moved again. She moved immediately, not bringing the rook to defend but abandoning the pawn and instead advancing her king. She picked the piece up lightly with her fingertips the way she had seen that piratical-looking man in Cincinnati do years before and dropped it on the queen four square, turned and walked away again.

  She kept it up that way, not sitting down at all. Within three quarters of an hour she had him. It was really simple—almost too easy. It was only a matter of trading rooks at the right time. The trade pulled his king back a square on the recapture, just enough to let her pawn get by and queen. But Girev did not wait for that; he resigned immediately after the rook check and the trade which followed. He stepped toward her as if to say something, but seeing her face, stopped. For a moment she softened, remembering the child she had been only a few years before and how it devastated her to lose a chess game.

  She held out her hand, and when he shook it she forced a smile and said, “I’ve never been to a drive-in either.”

  He shook his head. “I should not have let you do that. With the rook.”

  “Yes,” she said. And then: “How old were you when you started playing chess?”

  “Four. I was district champion at seven. I hope to be World Champion one day.”

  “When?”

  “In three years.”

  “You’ll be sixteen in three years.”

  He nodded grimly.

  “If you win, what will you do afterward?”

  He looked puzzled. “I don’t understand.”

  “If you’re World Champion at sixteen, what will you do with the rest of your life?”

  He still looked puzzled. “I don’t understand,” he said.

  ***

  Mrs. Wheatley went to bed early and seemed better the next morning. She was up before Beth, and when they went downstairs together for breakfast in the Cámara de Toreros, Mrs. Wheatley ordered a Spanish omelet and two cups of coffee and finished it all. Beth felt relieved.

  ***

  On the bulletin board near the registration desk was a list of players; Beth had not looked at it for several days. Coming into the room now ten minutes before game time, she stopped and checked the scores. They were listed in order of their international ratings, and Borgov was at the top with 2715. Harmon was seventeenth with 2370. After each player’s name was a series of boxes showing his score for the rounds. “0” meant a loss, “½” a draw, and “1” a win. There were a great many “½s.” Three names had an uninterrupted string of “l’s” after them; Borgov and Harmon were two of these.

  The pairings were a few feet to the right. At the top of the list was BORGOV-RAND, and below that HARMON—SOLOMON. If she and Borgov both won today, they would not necessarily play each other in the final game tomorrow. She was not sure whether she wanted to play him or not. Playing Girev had rattled her. She felt a dim unsureness about Mrs. Wheatley, despite her apparent resurgence; the image of her white skin, rouged cheeks and forced smiles made Beth uneasy. A buzz of voices had begun in the room as players found their boards, set up their clocks, settled into preparations for play. Beth shook off her unease as well as she could and found Board Four—the first board in the big room—and waited for Solomon.

  Solomon was by no means easy, and the game lasted four hours before he was forced to resign. Yet at no point during all of that time did she ever lose her edge—the tiny advantage that the opening move gives to the player of the white pieces. Solomon did not say anything, but she could tell from the way he stalked off afterward that he was furious to be beaten by a woman. She had seen it often enough before to recognize it. Usually it made her angry, but it didn’t matter right now. She had something else on her mind.

  When he had gone she went to look in the smaller room where Borgov played, but it was empty. The winning position—Borgov’s—was still displayed on the big board on the wall; it was as devastating as Beth’s win over Solomon had been.

  In the ballroom she looked at the bulletin board. Some of tomorrow’s pairings were already up. That was a surprise. She stepped closer to look, and her heart caught in her throat; at the top of the finals list in black printed letters was BORGOV—HARMON. She blinked and read it again, holding her breath.

  Beth had brought three books with her to Mexico City. She and Mrs. Wheatley ate dinner in their room, and afterward Beth took out Grandmaster Games; in it were five of Borgov’s. She opened it to the first one and began to play through it, using her board and pieces. She seldom did this, generally relying on her ability to visualize a game when going over it, but she wanted to have Borgov in front of her as palpably as possible. Mrs. Wheatley lay in bed reading while Beth played through the games, looking for weaknesses. She found none. She played through them again, stopping in certain positions where the possibilities seemed nearly infinite, and working them all out. She sat staring at the board with everything in her present life obliterated from her attention while the combinations played themselves out in her head. Every now and then a sound from Mrs. Wheatley or a tension in the air of the room brought her out of it for a moment, and she looked around dazedly, feeling the pained tightness of her muscles and the thin, intrusive edge of fear in her stomach.

  There had been a few times over the past year when she felt like this, with her mind not only dizzied but nearly terrified by the endlessness of chess. By midnight Mrs. Wheatley had put her book aside and gone quietly to sleep. Beth sat in the green armchair for hours, not hearing Mrs. Wheatley’s gentle snores, not sensing the strange smell of a Mexican hotel in her nostrils, feeling somehow that she might fall from a precipice, that sitting over the chessboard she had bought at Purcell’s in Kentucky, she was actually poised over an abyss, sustained there only by the bizarre mental equipment that had fitted her for this elegant and deadly game. On the board there was danger everywhere. A person could not rest.

  She did not go to bed until after four and, asleep, she dreamed of drowning.

  ***

  A few people had gathered in the ballroom. She recognized Marenco, dressed in a suit and tie now; he waved at her as she came in, and she forced herself to smile in his direction. It was frightening to see even this player she had already beaten. She was jumpy, knew she was jumpy, and did not know what to do about it.

  She had showered at seven that morning, unable to rid herself of the tension she had awakened with. She was barely able to get down her morning coffee in the near-empty coffee shop and had washed her face afterward, carefully, trying to focus herself. Now she crossed the ballroom’s red carpet and went to the ladies’ ro
om and washed her face again. She dried carefully with paper towels and combed her hair, watching herself in the big mirror. Her movements seemed forced, and her body looked impossibly frail. The expensive blouse and skirt did not fit right. Her fear was as sharp as a toothache.

  As she came down the hallway, she saw him. He was standing there solidly with two men she did not recognize. All of them wore dark suits. They were close together, talking softly, confidentially. She lowered her eyes and walked past them into the small room. Some men were waiting there with cameras. Reporters. She slipped behind the black pieces at Board One. She stared at the board for a moment, heard the tournament director’s voice saying, “Play will begin in three minutes,” and looked up.

  Borgov was walking across the room toward her. His suit fit him well, with the trouser legs draping neatly above the tops of his shined black shoes. Beth turned her eyes back to the board, embarrassed, feeling awkward. Borgov had seated himself. She heard the director’s voice as if from a great distance, “You may start your opponent’s clock,” and she reached out, pressed the button on the clock and looked up. He was sitting there solid, dark and heavy, looking fixedly at the board, and she watched as if in a dream as he reached out a stubby-fingered hand, picked up the king pawn and set it on the fourth rank. Pawn to king four.

  She stared at it for a moment. She always played the Sicilian to that opening—the most common opening for White in the game of chess. But she hesitated. Borgov had been called “Master of the Sicilian” somewhere in a journal. Almost impulsively she played pawn to king four herself, hoping to play him on ground that was fresh for both of them, that would not give him the advantage of superior knowledge. He brought out his king’s knight to bishop three, and she brought hers to queen bishop three, protecting the pawn. And then without hesitation he played his bishop to knight five and her heart sank. The Ruy Lopez. She had played it often enough, but in this game it frightened her. It was as complex, as thoroughly analyzed, as the Sicilian, and there were dozens of lines she hardly knew, except for memorizing them from books.

  Someone flashed another bulb for a picture and she heard the tournament director’s angry whisper not to disturb the players. She pushed her pawn up to rook three, attacking the bishop. Borgov pulled it back to rook four. She forced herself to concentrate, brought out her other knight, and Borgov castled. All this was familiar, but it was no relief. She now had to decide to play either the open variation or the closed. She glanced up at Borgov’s face and then back at the board. She took his pawn with her knight, starting the open. He played pawn to queen four, as she knew he would, and she played pawn to queen knight four because she had to, so she would be ready when he moved the rook. The chandelier overhead was too bright. And now she began to feel dismay, as though the rest of the game were inevitable—as though she were locked into some choreography of feints and counterthreats in which it was a fixed necessity that she lose, like a game from one of the books where you knew the outcome and played it only to see how it happened.

  She shook her head to clear it. The game had not gone that far. They were still playing out tired old moves and the only advantage White had was the advantage White always had—the first move. Someone had said that when computers really learned to play chess and played against one another, White would always win because of the first move. Like tick-tack-toe. But it hadn’t come to that. She was not playing a perfect machine.

  Borgov brought his bishop back to knight three, retreating. She played pawn to queen four, and he took the pawn and she brought her bishop to king three. She had known this much back at Methuen from the lines she memorized in class from Modern Chess Openings. But the game was ready now to enter a wide-open phase, where it could take unexpected turns. She looked up just as Borgov, his face smooth and impassive, picked up his queen and set it in front of the king, on king two. She blinked at it for a moment. What was he doing? Going after the knight on her king five? He could pin the pawn that protected the knight easily enough with a rook. But the move looked somehow suspicious. She felt the tightness in her stomach again, a touch of dizziness.

  She folded her arms across her chest and began to study the position. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the young man who moved the pieces on the display board placing the big cardboard white queen on the king two square. She glanced out into the room. There were about a dozen people standing there watching. She turned back to the board. She would have to get rid of his bishop. Knight to rook four looked good for that. There was also knight to bishop four or bishop to king two, but that was very complicated. She studied the possibilities for a moment and discarded the idea. She did not trust herself against Borgov with those complications. To put a knight on the rook file cut its range in half; but she did it. She had to get rid of the bishop. The bishop was up to no good.

  Borgov reached down without hesitation and played knight to queen four. She stared at it; she had expected him to move his rook. Still there seemed to be no harm in it. Pushing her queen bishop pawn up to the fourth square looked good. It would force Borgov’s knight to take her bishop, and after that she could take his bishop with her knight and stop the annoying pressure on her other knight, the one that sat a bit too far down the board on king five and didn’t have enough flight squares for comfort. Against Borgov, the loss of a knight would be lethal. She played the queen bishop pawn, holding the piece for a moment between her fingers before letting it go. Then she sat a bit farther back in her chair and drew a deep breath. The position looked good.

  Without hesitation Borgov took the bishop with his knight, and Beth retook with her pawn. Then he played his queen bishop pawn to the third rank, as she thought he might, creating a place for the nuisance bishop to hide. She took the bishop with relief, getting rid of it and getting her knight off the embarrassing rook file. Borgov remained impassive, taking the knight with his pawn. His eyes flicked up to hers and back to the position.

  She looked down nervously. It had looked good a few moves before; it did not look so good now. The problem was her knight on king five. He could move his queen to knight four, threatening to take her king’s pawn with check, and when she protected against this, he could attack the knight with his king bishop pawn, and it would have no place to go. Borgov’s queen would be there to take it. There was another annoyance on her queen side: he could play rook takes pawn, giving up the rook to hers only to get it back with a queen check, coming out a pawn ahead and with an improved position. No. Two pawns ahead. She would have to put her queen on knight three. Queen to queen two was no good because of his damned bishop pawn that could attack her knight. She did not like this defensiveness and studied the board for a long time before moving, trying to find something that would counterattack. There was nothing. She had to move the queen and protect the knight. She felt her cheeks burning and studied the position again. Nothing. She brought her queen to knight three and did not look at Borgov.

  With no hesitation whatever Borgov brought his bishop to king three, protecting his king. Why hadn’t she seen that? She had looked long enough. Now if she pushed the pawn she had planned to push, she would lose her queen. How could she have missed it? She had planned the threat of discovered check with the new position of her queen, and he had parried it instantly with a move that was chillingly obvious. She glanced at him, at his well-shaven, imperturbable Russian face with the tie so finely knotted beneath his heavy chin, and the fear she felt almost froze her muscles.

  She studied the board with all the intensity she could muster, sitting rigidly for twenty minutes staring at the position. Her stomach sank even farther as she tried and rejected a dozen continuations. She could not save the knight. Finally she played her bishop to king two, and Borgov predictably put his queen on knight four, threatening again to win the knight by pushing up his king bishop pawn. Now she had the choice of king to queen two or of castling. Either way the knight was lost. She castled.

  Borgov immediately moved the bishop pawn to attack her k
night. She could have screamed. Everything he was doing was obvious, unimaginative, bureaucratic. She felt stifled and played pawn to queen five, attacking his bishop, and then watched his inevitable moving of the bishop to rook six, threatening to mate. She would have to bring her rook up to protect. He would take the knight with his queen, and if she took the bishop, the queen would pick off the rook in the corner with a check, and the whole thing would blow apart. She would have to bring the rook over to protect it. And meanwhile she was down a knight. Against a world’s champion, whose shirt was impeccably white, whose tie was beautifully tied, whose dark-jowled Russian face admitted no doubt or weakness.

  She saw her hand reach out, and taking the black king by its head, topple it onto the board.

  She sat there for a moment and heard the applause. Then, looking at no one, she left the room.

  NINE

  “Give me a tequila sunrise,” she said. The clock over the bar pointed to twelve-thirty, and there was a group of four American women at one of the tables at the far end of the room eating lunch. Beth had not eaten breakfast, but she did not want lunch.

  “Con mucho gusto,” the bartender said.

  The awards ceremony was at two-thirty. She drank through it in the bar. She would be fourth place, or maybe fifth. The two who had done a grandmaster draw together would be ahead of her with five and a half points each. Borgov had six. Her score was five. She had three tequila sunrises, ate two hard-boiled eggs and shifted to beer. Dos Equis. It took four of them to make the pain in her stomach go away, to blur the fury and shame. Even when it began to ease, she could still see Borgov’s dark, heavy face and could feel the frustration she had felt during their match. She had played like a novice, like a passive, embarrassed fool.