by Walter Tevis
She sighed and went back to the chessboard. It had to be studied. She had to have a plan for tomorrow morning at ten.
***
She awoke before dawn and lay in bed for a while before looking at her watch. It was five-thirty. Two hours and a half. She had slept two hours and a half. She closed her eyes grimly and tried to get back to sleep. But it didn’t work. The position of the adjourned game forced itself back into her mind. There were her pawns, and there was her queen. There was Borgov’s. She saw it, she could not stop seeing it, but it made no sense. She had stared at it for hours the night before, trying to get some kind of plan together for the rest of the game, moving the pieces around, sometimes on the real board and sometimes in her head, but it was no good. She could push the queen bishop pawn or bring the knight over to the kingside or put the queen on bishop two. Or on king two. If Borgov’s sealed move was knight to bishop five. If he had moved his queen, the responses were different. If he was trying to make her analysis a waste, he might have played the king bishop. Five-thirty. Four and a half hours until game time. Borgov would have his moves ready now and a game plan arrived at by consultation; he would be sleeping like a rock. From outside the window came a sudden noise like a distant alarm, and she jumped. It was just some Russian fire drill or something, but her hands shook for a moment.
She had kasha and eggs for breakfast and sat down behind the board again. It was seven forty-five. But even with three cups of tea, she somehow could not penetrate it. She tried doggedly to get her mind to open, to let her imagination work for her the way it so often worked over a chessboard, but nothing came. She could see nothing but her responses to Borgov’s future threats. It was passive, and she knew it was passive. It had beaten her in Mexico City and it could beat her again. She got up to open the draperies, and as she turned back to the board, the telephone rang.
She stared at it. During her week in this room, it had not rung once. Not even Mr. Booth had called her. Now it was ringing in short bursts, very loudly. She went over and picked it up. A woman’s voice said something in Russian. She couldn’t make out a word of it.
“This is Beth Harmon,” she said.
The voice said something else in Russian. There was a clicking in the receiver, and a male voice came through as clearly as if it were calling from the next room: “If he moves the knight, hit him with the king rook pawn. If he goes for the king bishop, do the same. Then open up your queen file. This is costing me a bundle.”
“Benny!” she said. “Benny! How can you know…”
“It’s in the Times. It’s afternoon here, and we’ve been working on it for three hours. Levertov’s with me, and Wexler.”
“Benny,” she said, “it’s good to hear your voice.”
“You’ve got to get that file open. There are four ways, depending on what he does. Do you have it handy?”
She glanced toward the desk. “Yes.”
“Let’s start with his knight to B-5 where you push the king rook pawn. You got that?”
“Yes.”
“All right. There are three things he might do now. B to B four is first. If he does it, your queen pops right up to king four. He’ll expect that but may not expect this: pawn to queen five.”
“I don’t see…”
“Look at his queen rook.”
She closed her eyes and saw it. Only one of her pawns stood between her bishop and the rook. And if he tried to block the pawn, it made a hole for her knight. But Borgov and the others could not miss that.
“He’s got Tal and Petrosian helping him.”
Benny whistled. “I suppose he would,” he said. “But look further. If he moves the rook before your queen comes out, where’s he going to put it?”
“On the bishop file.”
“You play pawn to queen bishop five and your file is almost open.”
He was right. It was beginning to look possible. “What if he doesn’t play B to B four?”
“I’ll put Levertov on.”
Levertov’s voice came over the receiver. “He may play knight to B five. That gets very tricky. I’ve got it worked out to where you pull ahead by a tempo.”
She had not cared for Levertov the one time she met him, but now she could have hugged him. “Give me the moves.”
He began reciting them. It was complicated, but she had no difficulty seeing the way it worked.
“That’s beautiful,” she said.
“I’ll put Benny back on,” Levertov said.
They went on together, exploring possibilities, following out line after line, for almost an hour. Benny was amazing. He had worked out everything; she began to see ways of crowding Borgov, finessing Borgov, deceiving him, tying up his pieces, forcing him to compromise and retreat.
Finally she looked at her watch and said, “Benny, it’s nine-fifteen here.”
“Okay,” he said. “Go beat him.”
***
There was a crowd outside the building. A display board had been erected above the front entrance for those who couldn’t get into the auditorium; she recognized the position immediately from the car as it drove past. There in morning sunshine was the pawn she was going to advance, the file she was going to force open.
The crowd by the side entrance was twice as big as yesterday’s. They began chanting, “Harmon! Harmon!” before she opened the limousine door. Most of them were older people; several reached out smiling, fingers outspread to touch her as she hurried past.
There was only one table now, on center stage. Borgov was sitting at it when she came in. The referee walked with her to her chair, and when she was seated he opened the envelope and reached down to the board. He picked up Borgov’s knight and moved it to bishop five. It was the move she had wanted. She pushed her rook pawn one square forward.
The next five moves followed a line that she and Benny had gone over on the telephone, and she got the file open. But on the sixth, Borgov brought his remaining rook to the center of the board and as she stared at it, sitting on his queen five, occupying a square that analysis had not foreseen, she felt her stomach sink and knew that the call from Benny had only covered over the fear. She had been lucky for it to carry her this many moves. Borgov had started a line of play for which she had no continuation ready. She was alone again.
She took her eyes from the board with an effort and looked out over the audience. She had been playing here for days and still the mere size of it was shocking. She turned uncertainly back to the board, to the rook in the center. She had to do something about that rook. She closed her eyes. Immediately the game was visible to her imagination with the lucidity she had possessed as a child in bed at the orphanage. She kept her eyes closed and examined the position minutely. It was as complicated as anything she had ever played out from a book, and there was no printed analysis to show what the next move was or who would win. There were no backward pawns, no other weaknesses, no clear-cut line of attack for either player. The material was even, but his rook could dominate the board like a tank on a field of cavalry. It sat on a black square, and her black bishop was gone. Her pawns could not attack it. It would take three moves to get a knight near enough. Her own rook was stuck in its home corner. She had one thing to meet it with: her queen. But where could she safely put her queen?
She was leaning her cheeks on her fists now, and her eyes remained shut. The queen sat harmlessly on the back rank, on the queen bishop square, where it had sat since the ninth move. It could only go out by the diagonal, and it had three squares. Each looked weak. She ignored the weakness and examined the squares separately, ending with king knight five. If the queen was there, he could swing his rook under it and occupy the file with a tempo. That would be catastrophic, unless she had a countermove—a check or an attack on the black queen. But no check was possible except with her bishop, and that would be a sacrifice. His queen would merely take the bishop. But after that she could attack the queen with her knight. And where would he put it? It would have to go on one of thos
e two dark squares. She began to see something. She could drive the queen into a king-queen fork with the knight. He would take her queen afterward, and she would still be down by that bishop. But her knight would now be poised for another fork. She would win his bishop. It would be no sacrifice. They would be equal again, and her knight could go on to threaten the rook.
She opened her eyes, blinked, and moved the queen. He brought the rook under it. Without hesitation she picked up her bishop, brought it out for the check, and waited for his queen to take it. He looked at it and did not move. For a moment she held her breath. Had she missed something? She closed her eyes again, frightened, and looked at the position. He could move his king, instead of taking the bishop. He could interpose—
Suddenly she heard his voice from across the table saying the astonishing word “Draw.” It was like a statement and not a question. He was offering her a draw. She opened her eyes and looked at his face. Borgov never offered draws, but he was offering her one. She could accept it and the tournament would be over. They would stand up to be applauded and she would leave the stage in a tie with the champion of the world. Something went slack inside her, and she heard her own silent voice saying, Take it!
She looked back at the board—at the real board that sat between them, and saw the endgame that was about to emerge when the dust settled. Borgov was death on endgames; he was famous for it. She had always hated them—hated even reading Reuben Fine’s book on endgames. She should accept the draw. People would call it a solid achievement.
A draw, however, was not a win. And the one thing in her life that she was sure she loved was a win. She looked at Borgov’s face again and saw with mild surprise that he was tired. She shook her head. No.
He shrugged and took the bishop. For a brief moment she felt like a fool, but she shook it off and attacked his queen with her knight leaving her own en prise. He moved his queen where he had to and she brought the knight up for the fork. He moved the king and she lifted his heavy queen from the board. He took hers. She attacked the rook and he moved it back by a square. That had been the whole point of the sequence beginning with the bishop—cutting down the scope of the rook by forcing it to a less threatening rank—but now it was there she was unsure what to do next. She had to be careful. They were headed toward a rook and pawn ending; there was no room for imprecision. For a moment she felt stuck, without imagination or purpose and afraid of error. She closed her eyes again. There was an hour and a half on her clock; she had the time to do it and do it right.
She did not open her eyes even to see the time remaining on her clock or to look across the table at Borgov or to see the enormous crowd who had come to this auditorium to watch her play. She let all of that go from her mind and allowed herself only the chessboard of her imagination with its intricate deadlock. It did not really matter who was playing the black pieces or whether the material board sat in Moscow or New York or in the basement of an orphanage; this eidetic image was her proper domain.
She did not even hear the ticking of the clock. She held her mind in silence and let it move over the surface of the imagined board, combining and recombining the arrangements of pieces so the black ones could not stop the advance of the pawn she would choose. She saw now that it would be her king knight pawn, on the fourth rank. She moved it mentally to the fifth and surveyed the way the black king would advance to block it. The white knight would halt the king by threatening a key black pawn. If the white pawn stepped forward to the sixth rank its move must be prepared for. It took a very long time to find the way, but she kept at it remorselessly. Her rook was the key, with a threatened hurdle—four moves in all—but the pawn could make the step. Now it had to move forward again. This was inchmeal, but the only way to do it.
For a moment her mind became numb with weariness and the board unclear. She heard herself sigh as she forced it back to clarity. First the pawn must be supported by the rook pawn, and to get the rook pawn up meant a diversion by sacrificing a pawn on the other side of the board. That would give Black a queen in three and cost White the rook to remove it. Then the white pawn, safe for a moment, slipped forward to the seventh rank, and when the black king sidled up to it, the white rook pawn came up to hold it in place. And now the final move, the advance to the eighth rank for promotion.
She had come this far—these twelve moves from the position on the board that Borgov saw—by following hints and guesses and making them concrete in her mind. There was no question it could be done. But she saw no way to move the pawn that final square without having the black king snip it off just before queening, like an unbloomed flower. The pawn looked heavy and impossible to move. She could not budge it. She had got it this far and there was no way to go further. It was hopeless. She had made the strongest mental effort of her life, and it was a waste. The pawn could not queen.
She leaned wearily back in her chair with her eyes still closed and let the screen of her mind go dark for a moment. Then she brought it back for a final look. And this time with a start she saw it. He had used his bishop for taking her rook and now it could not stop her knight. The knight would force the king aside. The white pawn would queen, and mate would follow in four moves. Mate in nineteen.
She opened her eyes and squinted for a moment at the brightness of the stage before looking at her clock. She had twelve minutes left. Her eyes had been closed for over an hour. If she had made an error, there would be no time for a new strategy. She reached forward and moved the king knight pawn to the fifth rank. There was a stab of pain in her shoulder as she set it down; her muscles felt rigid.
Borgov advanced his king to stop the pawn. She advanced the knight, forcing him to protect. It was going the way she had seen it would go. The tightness of her body began to loosen, and over the next moves there began to spread through her a fine sense of calm. She moved the pieces with deliberate speed, punching the clock firmly after each, and gradually Borgov’s responses began to slow. He was taking more time between moves now. She could see uncertainty in the hand that picked up the pieces. When the threatened hurdle was done with and she inched the pawn to the sixth rank, she watched his face. His expression did not change but he reached up and ran his fingers through his hair, ruffling it. A thrill passed through her body.
When she advanced the pawn to the seventh rank, she heard a soft grunt from him as though she had punched him in the stomach. It took him a long time to bring the king over to block it.
She waited just a moment before letting her hand move out over the board. When she picked up the knight the sense of its power in her fingertips was exquisite. She did not look at Borgov.
When she set the knight down, there was complete silence. After a moment she heard a letting-out of breath from across the table and looked up. Borgov’s hair was rumpled and there was a grim smile on his face. He spoke in English. “It’s your game.” He pushed back his chair, stood up, and then reached down and picked up his king. Instead of setting it on its side he held it across the board to her. She stared at it. “Take it,” he said.
The applause began. She took the black king in her hand and turned to face the auditorium, letting the whole massive weight of the ovation wash over her. People in the audience were standing, applauding louder and louder. She received it with her whole body, feeling her cheeks redden with it and then go hot and wet as the thunderous sound washed away thought.
And then Vasily Borgov was standing beside her, and a moment later to her complete astonishment he had his arms spread and then was embracing her, hugging her to him warmly.
***
During the party at the embassy, a waiter came by with a tray of champagne. She shook her head. Everyone else was drinking and sometimes toasting her. During the five minutes the ambassador himself had been there, he offered her champagne and she took club soda. She ate some black bread with caviar and answered questions. There were over a dozen reporters and several Russians. Luchenko was there, looking beautiful again, but she was disappointed Bor
gov hadn’t come.
It was still midafternoon, and she had not had lunch. She felt weightless and tired, somehow disembodied. She had never liked parties and even though she was the star of this one, she felt out of place. Some of the people from the embassy looked at her strangely, as though she were an oddity. They kept telling her that they weren’t clever enough to play chess or that they had played chess when they were kids. She didn’t want to hear any more of that. She wanted to do something else. She wasn’t sure what it was, but she wanted to be away from these people.
She pushed through the crowd and thanked the woman from Texas who was acting as hostess. Then she told Mr. Booth she needed a ride back to the hotel.
“I’ll get a car and driver,” he said.
Before leaving, she found Luchenko again. He was standing with the other Russians, dressed impeccably and looking at ease. She held out her hand. “It was an honor to play you,” she said.
He took the hand and bowed slightly. For a moment she thought he might kiss it, but he did not. He pressed her hand with both of his. “All this,” he said. “It’s not like chess at all.”
She smiled. “That’s right.”
***
The embassy was on Ulitsa Tchaikovskogo, and it was a half-hour drive, some of it through dense traffic, to her hotel. She had seen almost nothing of Moscow, and she would be leaving in the morning, but she did not feel like looking out the windows. They had given her the trophy and the money after the game. She had done her interviews, had received her congratulations. Now she felt at loose ends, uncertain where to go or what to do. Maybe she could sleep for a while, eat a quiet supper and go to bed early. She had beaten them. She had beaten the Russian establishment, had beaten Luchenko, Shapkin and Laev, had forced Borgov to resign. In two years she could be playing Borgov for the World Championship. She had to qualify first by winning the candidates match, but she could win it. A neutral place would be chosen, and she would meet Borgov, head to head, for a twenty-four-game match. She would be twenty-one then. She did not want to think about it now. She closed her eyes and dozed in the back of the limousine.
