The Queen's Gambit (27 page)

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 Réti 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.

She wandered the boulevards for hours, not stopping to buy anything, just looking at people and buildings and shops and restaurants and trees and flowers. Once she accidentally bumped into an old lady while crossing the Rue de la Paix and found herself saying, “
Excusez-moi, madame
” as easily as if she had been speaking French all her life.

There was to be a reception at the building the tournament was in at four-thirty; she had difficulty finding her way back and was ten minutes late and out of breath when she arrived. The playing tables had all been pushed to one side of the room, and the chairs placed around the walls. She was ushered to a seat near the door and handed a small cup of
café filtre
. A pastry cart was wheeled by with the most beautiful pastries she had ever seen. She felt a momentary sadness, wishing that Alma Wheatley could be there to see them. Just as she was taking a napoleon from the cart she heard loud laughter from across the room and looked up. There was Vasily Borgov, holding a coffee cup. The people on each side of him were bent toward him expectantly, taking in his amusement. His face was distorted with ponderous mirth. Beth felt her stomach turn to ice.

She walked back to her hotel that evening and grimly played a dozen of Borgov’s games—games that she already knew thoroughly from studying them with Benny—and went to bed at eleven; she took no pills and slept beautifully. Borgov had been an International Grandmaster for eleven years and World Champion for five, but she would not go passive against him this time. Whatever happened she would not be humiliated by him. And she would have one distinct advantage: he would not be as prepared for her as she was for him.

***

She went on winning, beating a Frenchman the next day and an Englishman on the day after. Borgov won his games also. On the next to the last day when she was playing another Dutchman—an older and more experienced one—she found herself at the table next to Borgov. Seeing him so close distracted her for a few moments, but she was able to shrug it off. The Dutchman was a strong player, and she concentrated on the game. When she finished, forcing a resignation after nearly four hours, she looked up and saw that the pieces were gone from the next table and Borgov had left.

Leaving, she stopped at the desk and asked whom she would be playing in the morning. The director shuffled through his papers and smiled faintly. “Grandmaster Borgov, mademoiselle.”

She had expected it, but her breath caught when he said it.

That night she took three tranquilizers and went to bed early, uncertain if she could relax enough to sleep. But she slept beautifully and awoke refreshed at eight, feeling confident, smart and ready.

***

When she came in and saw him sitting at the table, he did not seem so formidable. He was wearing his usual dark suit, and his coarse black hair was combed neatly back from his forehead. His face was, as always, impassive, but it did not look threatening. He stood up politely, and when she offered her hand he shook it, but he did not smile. She would be playing the white pieces; when they seated themselves he pressed the button on her clock.

She had already decided what to do. Despite Benny’s advice, she would play pawn to king four and hope for the Sicilian. She had gone through all of Borgov’s published Sicilian games. She did it, picking up the pawn and setting it on the fourth rank, and when he played his queen bishop pawn she felt a pleasant thrill. She was ready for him. She played her knight to king bishop three; he brought his to queen bishop three, and by the sixth move they were in the Boleslavski. She knew, move by move, eight games in which Borgov had played this variation, had gone over each of them with Benny, analyzing each remorselessly. He started the variation with pawn to king four on the sixth move; she played knight to knight three with the certainty that came from knowing she was right, and then looked across the board at him. He was leaning a cheek against a fist, looking down at the board like any other chess player. Borgov was strong, imperturbable and wily, but there was no sorcery in his play. He put his bishop on king two without looking at her. She castled. He castled. She looked around herself at the bright, beautifully furnished room she was in with its two other games of chess quietly in progress.

By the fifteenth move she began to see combinations opening up on both sides, and by the twentieth she was startled by her own clarity. Her mind moved with ease, picking its way delicately among the combination of moves. She began to pressure him along the queen bishop file, threatening a double attack. He side-stepped this, and she strengthened her center pawns. Her position opened more and more, and the possibilities for attack increased, although Borgov seemed to side-step them just in time. She knew this might happen and it did not dismay her; she felt in herself an inexhaustible ability to find strong, threatening moves. She had never played better. She would force him by a series of threats to compromise his position, and then she would mount threats that were double and triple and that he would not be able to avoid. Already his queen bishop was locked in by moves she had forced, and his queen was tied down protecting a rook. Her pieces were freeing themselves more with every move. There seemed to be no end to her ability to find threats.

She looked around again. The other games were finished. That was a surprise. She looked at her watch. It was after one o’clock. They had been playing for over three hours. She turned her attention back to the board, studied it a few minutes and brought her queen to the center. It was time to apply more pressure. She looked across the table at Borgov.