by Walter Tevis
Jenny was smiling. “See, Hilton,” she said.
Benny had been watching all this silently. “Let’s do a simultaneous,” he said suddenly to Beth. “Play us all.”
“Not me,” Jenny said. “I don’t even know the rules.”
“Do we have enough boards and pieces?” Beth asked.
“On the shelf in the closet.” Benny went into the bedroom and returned with a cardboard box. “We’ll set these up on the floor.”
“Time control?” Levertov said.
Beth suddenly thought of something. “Let’s do speed chess.”
“It gives us an edge,” Benny said. “We can think on your time.”
“I want to try it.”
“No good.” Benny’s tone was severe. “You’re not very good at speed chess anyway. Remember?”
Something in her responded strongly to what he was not saying. “I’ll bet you ten I beat you.”
“What if you throw the other games and use all your time against me?”
She could have kicked him. “I’ll bet you ten on each of them, too.” She was surprised at the firmness in her own voice. She sounded like Mrs. Deardorff.
Benny shrugged. “Okay. It’s your money.”
“Let’s put all three boards on the floor. I’ll sit in the middle.”
They did it, using three clocks. Beth had been very sharp for the past several days, and she played with unhesitating precision, attacking on all the boards at once. She beat the three of them with time to spare.
When it was over, Benny didn’t say anything. He went to the bedroom, got his billfold, took three tens out of it and handed them to Beth.
“Let’s do it again,” Beth said. There was a bitterness in her voice; hearing the words, she knew it could have meant sex: Let’s do it again. If this was what Benny wanted, this was what he would get. She began setting up the pieces.
They got into position on the floor, and Beth played the whites on all three again. The boards were fanned out in front of her so that she didn’t have to spin around to play them, but she found herself hardly consulting them, anyway, except to make the moves. She played from chessboards in her head. Even the mechanical business of making the moves and punching the clocks was effortless. Benny’s position was hopeless when his clock flag fell; she had time left over. He gave her another thirty, and when she suggested trying again he said, “No.”
There was tension in the room, and no one knew how to deal with it. Jenny tried to laugh about it, saying, “It’s just male chauvinism,” but it didn’t help. Beth was furious with Benny—furious at him for being easy to beat and furious with the way he was taking it, trying to look unmoved, as though nothing affected him.
Then Benny did something surprising. He had been sitting with his back straight. Suddenly he leaned against the wall, pushing his legs out on the floor, relaxing. “Well, kid,” he said, “I think you’ve got it.” And everybody laughed. Beth looked at Jenny, who was sitting on the floor next to Wexler. Jenny, who was beautiful and intelligent, was looking at her with admiration.
***
Beth and Benny spent the next few days studying Shakhmatni Byulletens, going back to the nineteen-fifties. Every now and then they would play a game, and Beth always won it. She could feel herself moving past Benny in a way that was almost physical. It was astounding to them both. In one game she uncovered an attack on his queen on the thirteenth move and had him laying down his king on the sixteenth. “Well,” he said softly, “nobody’s done that to me in fifteen years.”
“Not even Borgov?”
“Not even Borgov.”
Sometimes chess would keep her awake at night for hours. It was like Methuen, except that she was more relaxed and not afraid of sleeplessness. She would lie on her mattress on the living-room floor after midnight with New York street noises coming in through the open bay window and study positions in her mind. They were as clear as they had ever been. She did not take tranquilizers, and that helped the clarity. It was not whole games now but particular situations—positions called “theoretically important” and “warranting close study.” She lay there hearing the shouts of drunks in the street outside and mastered the intricacies of chess positions that were classic in their difficulty. Once during a lovers’ quarrel where the woman kept shouting, “I’m at my fucking wit’s end. At my wit’s fucking end!” and the man kept saying, “Like your fucking sister,” Beth lay on her cot and came to see a way of queening a pawn that she had never seen before. It was beautiful. It would work. She could use it. “Up your ass,” the woman shouted, and Beth lay back exulting and then fell pleasantly asleep.
***
They spent their third week repeating the Borgov games and finished the last of them after midnight on Thursday. When Beth had done her analysis of the resignation, pointing out how Borgov could avoid a draw, she looked up to see Benny yawning. It was a hot night and the windows were open.
“Shapkin went wrong in midgame,” Beth said. “He should have protected his queenside.”
Benny looked at her sleepily. “Even I get tired of chess sometimes.”
She stood up from the board. “It’s time for bed.”
“Not so fast,” Benny said. He looked at her for a moment and smiled. “Do you still like my hair?”
“I’ve been trying to learn how to beat Vasily Borgov,” Beth said. “Your hair doesn’t enter into it.”
“I’d like you to come to bed with me.”
They had been together three weeks and she had almost forgotten sex. “I’m tired,” she said, exasperated.
“So am I. But I’d like you to sleep with me.”
He looked very relaxed and pleasant. Suddenly she felt warm toward him. “All right,” she said.
She was startled to wake up in the morning with someone beside her in bed. Benny had rolled over to his side and all she could see of him was his pale, bare back and some of his hair. She felt self-conscious at first and afraid of waking him; she sat up carefully, leaning her back against the wall. Being in bed with a man was really all right. Making love had been all right too, although not as exciting as she had hoped. Benny hadn’t said much. He was gentle and easy with her, but there was still that distance of his. She remembered a phrase from the first man she had made love with: “Too cerebral.” She turned toward Benny. His skin did look good in the light; it seemed almost luminous. For a moment she felt like putting her arms around him and hugging him with her naked body, but she restrained herself.
Eventually Benny woke, rolled over on his back and blinked at her. She had the sheet up, covering her breasts. After a moment she said, “Good morning.”
He blinked again. “You shouldn’t try the Sicilian against Borgov,” he said. “He’s just too good at it.”
They spent the morning with two Luchenko games; Benny put the emphasis on strategy rather than tactics. He was in a cheerful mood, but Beth felt somehow resentful. She wanted something more in the way of lovemaking, or at least in intimacy, and Benny was lecturing her. “You’re a born tactician,” he said, “but your planning is jerry-built.” She said nothing and dealt with her annoyance as well as she could. What he was saying was true enough, but the pleasure he took in pointing it out was irritating.
At noon he said, “I’ve got to get to a poker game.”
She looked up from the position she had just analyzed. “A poker game?”
“I have to pay the rent.”
That was astonishing. She had not thought of him as a gambler. When she asked about it, he said he made more money from poker and backgammon than from chess. “You ought to learn,” he said, smiling. “You’re good at games.”
“Then take me with you.”
“This one’s all men.”
She frowned. “I’ve heard that said about chess.”
“I bet you have. You can come along and watch if you want to. But you’ll have to keep quiet.”
“How long will it last?”
“All night, maybe.”
She started to ask him how long he had known about this game, but didn’t. Clearly he had known it before last night. She rode the Fifth Avenue bus with him down to Forty-fourth Street and walked with him over to the Algonquin Hotel. Benny seemed to have his mind on something he wasn’t interested in talking about, and they walked in silence. She was beginning to feel angry again; she hadn’t come to New York for this, and she was annoyed at Benny’s way of offering no explanations and no advance notice. His behavior was like his chess game: smooth and easy on the surface but tricky and infuriating beneath. She did not like tagging along, but she did not want to go back to the apartment and study alone.
The game was in a small suite on the sixth floor and it was, as he had said, all male. Four men were seated around a table with coffee cups and chips and cards. An air conditioner whirred noisily. There were two other men who seemed merely to be hanging around. The players looked up when Benny came in and greeted him jokingly. Benny was cool and pleasant. “Beth Harmon,” he said, and the men nodded without recognition. He had gotten out his billfold, and now he slipped a pile of bills from it, set them in front of an empty place at the table and sat down, ignoring Beth. Not knowing what her role in all this was, Beth went into the bedroom, where she had seen a coffee pitcher and cups. She got a cup of coffee and went back into the other room. Benny had a stack of chips in front of him and was holding cards in his hand. The man on his left said, “I’ll bump that,” flatly, and threw a blue chip into the center of the table. The others followed suit, with Benny last.
She stood at a distance from the table watching. She remembered standing in the basement watching Mr. Shaibel, and the intensity of her interest in what he was doing, but she felt nothing like that now. She did not care how poker was played, even though she knew she would be good at it. She was furious with Benny. He went on playing without looking at her. He handled the cards with dexterity and tossed chips into the center of the table with quiet aplomb, sometimes saying things like “I’ll stay” or “Back to you.” Finally, while one of the men was dealing, she tapped Benny on the shoulder and said softly, “I’m leaving.” He nodded and said, “Okay” and turned his attention back to his cards. Going down in the elevator, she felt she could have beaten him over the head with a two-by-four. The cool son of a bitch. It was quick sex with her, and then off to the boys. He had probably planned it that way for a week. Tactics and strategy. She could have killed him.
But the walk across town eased her anger, and by the time she got on the Third Avenue bus to go back up to the apartment on Seventy-eighth Street, she was calm. She was even pleased to be alone for a while. She spent the time with Benny’s Chess Informants, a new series of books from Yugoslavia, playing out games in her head.
He came in sometime during the middle of the night; she woke when he got into bed. She was glad he was back, but she didn’t want to make love with him. Fortunately he wasn’t interested either. She asked him how he had done. “Nearly six hundred,” he said, pleased with himself. She rolled over and went back to sleep.
They made love in the morning, and she did not enjoy it much. She knew she was still angry with him for the poker game—not for the game itself but for the way he had used it just when they had become lovers. When they were finished, he sat up in bed and looked at her for a minute. “You’re pissed at me, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“The poker game?”
“The way you didn’t tell me about it.”
He nodded. “I’m sorry. I do keep my distance.”
She was relieved that he had said it. “I suppose I do too,” she said.
“I’ve noticed.”
After breakfast she suggested a game between the two of them, and he agreed reluctantly. They set the clock for a half-hour each, to keep it brief, and she proceeded to beat him handily with her Sicilian Levenfish, brushing aside his threats with ease and hounding his king mercilessly. When it was over he shook his head wryly and said, “I needed that six hundred.”
“Maybe so,” she said, “but your timing was bad.”
“It doesn’t pay to cross you, does it?”
“Do you want to play another?”
Benny shrugged and turned away. “Save it for Borgov.” But she could see he would have played her if he had thought he could win. She felt a whole lot better.
***
They continued as lovers and did not play any more games, except from the books. He went out a few days later for another poker game and came back with two hundred in winnings and they had one of their best times in bed together, with the money beside them on the night table. She was fond of him, but that was all. And by the last week before Paris, she was beginning to feel that he had little left to teach her.
TWELVE
Mrs. Wheatley had always carried Beth’s adoption papers and birth certificate with her when they traveled, and Beth had continued the practice, though up to now they had never been needed. During her first week in New York, Benny took her to Rockefeller Center, and she used them in applying for her passport. Mexico had required only a tourist card, and Mrs. Wheatley had taken care of that. The little booklet with the green cover and her tight-lipped picture inside came two weeks later. Even though she wasn’t sure of going, she had sent the Paris acceptance in a few days before leaving Kentucky for Ohio.
When the time came, Benny drove her to Kennedy Airport and dropped her off at the Air France terminal. “He’s not impossible,” Benny said. “You can beat him.”
“We’ll see,” she said. “Thanks for the help.” She had gotten her suitcase out of the car and was standing by the driver’s window. They were in a no-parking zone, and he could not leave the car to see her off.
“See you next week,” Benny said.
For a moment she wanted to lean in the open window and kiss him, but she restrained herself. “See you then.” She picked up her suitcase and went into the terminal.
***
This time she was expecting to feel the dark hostility that even seeing him across a room could make her feel, but being prepared for it did not stop her from a sharp intake of breath. He was standing with his back to her, talking to reporters. She looked away nervously, as she had looked away the first time at the zoo in Mexico City. He was just another man in a dark suit, another Russian who played chess, she told herself. One of the men was taking his picture while the other was talking to him. Beth watched the three of them for a while, and her tension eased. She could beat him. She turned and went to the desk to register. Play would start in twenty minutes.
It was the smallest tournament she had ever seen, in this elegant old building near the École Militaire. There were six players and five rounds—one round a day for five days. If she or Borgov lost an early round, they would not play each other, and the competition was strong. Yet, strong as it was, she did not feel either of them would be beaten by anyone else. She walked through the doorway into the tournament room proper, feeling no anxiety about the game she would be playing this morning or about the ones over the next few days. She would not play Borgov until one of the final rounds. She would meet a Dutch grandmaster in ten minutes and play Black against him, but she felt no apprehension.
France was not known for its chess, but the room they played in was beautiful. Two crystal chandeliers hung from its high blue ceiling, and the blue flowered carpet on the floor was thick and rich. There were three tables of polished walnut, each with a pink carnation in a small vase at the side of the board. The antique chairs were upholstered in blue velvet that matched the floor and ceiling. It was like an expensive restaurant, and the tournament directors were like well-trained waiters in tuxedos. Everything was quiet and smooth. She had flown in from New York the night before, had seen almost nothing yet of Paris, but she felt at ease here. She had slept well on the plane and then slept again in her hotel; before that she had put in five solid weeks of practice. She had never felt more prepared.
The Dutchman played the Rét
i Opening, and she treated it the way she did when Benny played it, getting equality by the ninth move. She began attacking before he had a chance to castle, at first with a bishop sacrifice and then by forcing him to give up a knight and two pawns to defend his king. By the sixteenth move she was threatening combinations all over the board and although she was never able to bring one off, the threat was enough. He was forced to yield to her a bit at a time until, bottled up and irrecoverably behind, he gave up. She was walking happily along the Rue de Rivoli by noon, enjoying the sunshine. She looked at blouses and shoes in the shop windows, and while she bought nothing, it was a pleasure. Paris was a bit like New York but more civilized. The streets were clean and the shop windows bright; there were real sidewalk cafes and people sitting in them enjoying themselves, talking in French. She had been so wrapped up in chess that only now did she realize: she was actually in Paris! This was Paris, this avenue she was walking on; those beautifully dressed women walking toward her were Frenchwomen, Parisiennes, and she herself was eighteen years old and the United States Champion at chess. She felt for a moment a joyful pressure in her chest and slowed her walking. Two men were passing her, heads bent in conversation, and she heard one saying “…avec deux parties seulement.” Frenchmen, and she understood the words! She stopped walking and stood where she was for a moment, taking in the fine gray buildings across the avenue, the light on the trees, the odd smells of this humane city. She might have an apartment here someday, on the Boulevard Raspail or the Rue des Capucines. By the time she was in her twenties she could be World’s Champion and live wherever she wanted to live. She could have a pied à terre in Paris and go to concerts and plays, eat lunch every day in a different café, and dress like these women who walked by her, so sure of themselves, so smart in their well-made clothes, with their heads high and their hair impeccably cut and combed and shaped. She had something that none of them had, and it could give her a life that anyone might envy. Benny had been right to urge her to play here and then, next summer, in Moscow. There was nothing to hold her in Kentucky, in her house; she had possibilities that were endless.
