“You believed it?”
“Believed it? I believed nothing!”
“That’s not so,” Louis says in a thin voice. “He
did so believe it. He’s always been a gullible fool; he could be easily manipulated. Anything you told him would be all right with him; that’s one of the reasons he’s made such a mess of his life. I tell you—”
“Enough,” Five says. He comes over to Louis, wraps a tentacle around him. “I think it’s best if you take yourself off to the board now.”
“You have no right!” Louis says. The disaster of having been struck twice has braced him; he concludes now that things have reached their nadir and he has undergone the worst of all possibilities. He seems to have bottomed, is arcing upward once more. “You have no right to treat me in this fashion. I am an international grandmaster. I have competed for many important titles. I wore the crown of the American Juniors for three years—”
“Enough,” Five says quietly, “enough now.” He wrenches Louis around with an amazing show of strength (I have never thought Five to be a strong fellow). He hooks a tentacle around Louis and escorts him out the doorway back into the staging area, leaving me alone with the other.
Suddenly embarrassed, shamed by his gaze—although it is hard to know exactly why, having myself committed no crime at all—I affect a posture of disinterest. “Well,” I say, “it’s a testing match, I’d better get back to the board—”
“You fool,” the Overlord says. “We haven’t dealt with you yet.”
“There’s nothing to deal. I told you everything I knew.”
“Why was this not reported immediately?”
“I did report it, sir,” I said. “I reported it right away. We’re in the middle of a game, sir,” finding
the deferential mode accommodating, “and I should be at the board.”
“Don’t you accept the importance of these matches?”
“Of course I do.”
“Then why have you played so miserably? Why has your game been absolutely atrocious, eh? Answer me that one if you will, and stop lying.”
This flabbergasts me. Indeed, I am forced to swallow several times before I can focus my attention on the Overlord. “I don’t think it’s been so atrocious,” I say mildly. I do not want to get into the matter of having thrown games.
“We
do. We know a good deal about chess. Do you take us for fools? We have made a very careful study of your game; we know exactly how it’s played and the comparative levels of achievement. Your antagonist and you were selected because you were as evenly matched as any two players we could find on any given level. Your games are identical. So how can you be losing nine games to five? And be on the verge of losing again?”
“I’m going to win today.” I
“No, you’re not.”
“I am! Anyway, I had to get my game together.”
“We think you’ve been losing on purpose,” the Overlord says. “We’ve worked out a careful move-by-move analysis of the first eight games, really dissected them, taken those initial eight apart. It’s clear that there is a sequence of blunders and errors which are out of accord with your normal style of play.”
“Well,” I say, “well—” I try to keep my demeanor calm, my respiration under control. “That is not strictly true, although I would admit that I could have played a little more
cleanly.”
“Nonsense I Those blunders can be explained
only by deliberate error. You couldn’t have been so stupid otherwise. Is that fair?”
“Fair?” I say. “Who and what is fair? I don’t understand.”
“Well, now. There are billions of sentient creatures whom you represent.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“They’re all depending upon you. You’re the only means by which they can survive ... and all of this time you’ve been failing to give your best. Either that or your game has severely deteriorated.”
“All right,” I say. This is new; obviously, this creature is no fool and the small deceits and trickery which I might have thought successful with the original group will hardly work here. Is it possible that he was called in to straighten me out?
“That’s true then. I admit it. I haven’t given it my best.”
“You are correct.”
“I wanted to extend the series for as long as possible. Louis’ defeat was inevitable anyway, and in that case I felt it made as much sense to give the races or people he was representing a chance to survive as long as possible.”
“That was a mistake.”
“I’m a
much
stronger player than Louis no matter what your computers say, and I knew the match was in my hands. I could win at will but chose to extend—”
“Mistaken,” the Overlord says again. “Terrible, the small traps and deceits into which you creatures fall. Do you realize that you are liable to stiff penalties for this?”
I try to look humble which under these circumstances is surprisingly easy. “Well, of ocurse I do,”
I say. “But I’m going to bear down now, so what’s the difference? It’s all past.”
“We are functioning under extreme time pressure here. We never expected the matches to go the full forty-one game distance. If we had, there would have been a different timetable; it might have been a best five out of nine.”
“I understand.”
“We only allowed it to be a best of forty-one because we were sure that one or the other player would establish a commanding lead.”
“Even though we were so evenly matched?”
“Yes. Chess is a highly psychological game, and a small advantage can be compounded into a, large one; the smallest blunder can magnify into a hopelessly losing game. Under the pressures, we knew that one of you would crumple and the end would be quick.”
“It will be. I’m going to beat him in straight games.”
“You may be too late. I don’t know what to say to you; you’ve put us into trouble here.”
“I’m sorry,” I say again. Strangely this crucial interview is beginning to bore. Also, I am eager to see the board. “I apologize for everything, you understand, but I really think I should get to the board now.”
“This
is
apocalypse, you know,” the creature says quietly. “That was the condition from the beginning. You’re playing for the outcome of the universe.”
“Yes,” I say with the vague feeling that I am humoring it. “I know that, and accept, and I really will play my best now and wipe out Louis in a short span of time. As a matter of fact, I’m going to win twenty-one games to nine.”
And saying no more than this, I commence a
difficult but methodical stalk toward the side door. It is impossible, I think, that I can manage to negotiate this without being blocked but, strikingly, I can. As I go through the door, I hear the sounds of rattling as if the Overlord were adjusting complex machinery within himself. (I wonder if these are mechanical constructions, not sentient but merely with life’s motions. It would certainly be an economical way of running things, but who am I to divine the cause or nature of the universe?) I return to the great hall.
And there the usual: murmurs, snorts, sneezes and groans caress me as I head toward the area of light surrounding the table, which is surprisingly small from this aspect. Louis is hunched in his gnarled way, the pieces as we have left them. I seat myself without acknowledgment and ponder the board. Louis has hot moved yet. The pieces are stable.
I look at him and he is weeping.
He is weeping, distinctly; large brown tears move down his face. Aided by gravity they plop on the table and he rubs against them with a palm, groaning, merging them into the polish of the table. Even as he does so the tears are replaced by newer outpourings. I look at him intently, really disbelieving. This is disgraceful.
Truly, I have never seen Louis weep before. Even in our youth, when abused by neighborhood bullies, he still was contained and refused to make emotional display. This kind of conduct from him or for any grandmaster is unheard of. Weeping at tournaments is simply not done; even Alekhine never did anything more disgraceful than a bowel movement. Protocol calls for tight emotional control, a denial of feeling, although one may be
permitted a certain amount of teeth-gnashing, or now and then the squeezing of a captured Pawn.
“What’s wrong?” I say. “What’s wrong, Louis?” A horrid breach, but I find the question so irresistible and I would not have known until this moment how profound the effect upon me would be his weeping. “Louis, stop crying, will you? This kind of thing is ridiculous, crying during a match. And in the bargain, it’s not doing any good. You can’t play on my sympathy.”
He shakes his head and says nothing. The tears continue. It is so soundless, so completely controlled that the audience and seconds can hear nothing. Surely if they knew what had happened to Louis there would be a crowd, but he has contained himself. We are noted for our control. “Now stop it,” I say. “What’s wrong?”
“David,” he says. “Oh, David, you’re such a fool.”
And then his face splits open; from its seamed places come further rivulets, pouring, drenching his chin. It is shocking, looking at him in this posture, to see how old Louis has become. I never thought of him as being old, of course; he is my age and consequently quite young ... but indeed he is falling apart psychologically and physically.
A cackle, like the very drone of senility, comes from him. “Whoop,” Louis says. “Whoop!”
“Are you quite all right?” I say, still talking in lowered tones. I am afraid that someone will come in shortly behind the camera, seeking a closeup, and what will they make of this? What can they possibly make of it out there? Collaboration over the table in the course of a match? Incredibly damaging; our reputations would never survive this kind of thing. Also, the Overlords might shortly notice weeping. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he sighs, his voice cracking on the
noth
. “Nothing is wrong with me, David, except that you’re such a fool, don’t you see?” And then his weeping shifts to laughter. Louis begins to giggle over the pieces. He reaches into a pocket, removes and unfurls an enormous green handkerchief and wipes it over streaming eyes, pulsating nose. “What a fool,” he says weakly.
What is this? It seems impossible that his behavior will not draw attention, and yet we seem to be at some dead point in the match. All of the referees are off the stage; booms and lenses remain stationary. Obviously no one expects anything interesting to be happening at this moment. Can the Overlords be in frenzied conference backstage?
Louis snaps the handkerchief into a small gathering, then folds it into his pocket. He sighs, shakes his head, meditates over the pieces. “Such a fool,” he says, but only in a whisper’s echo. I have to lip-read this. He reaches outward, grasps his Bishop lightly, then lets it fall from his palm. Touch-move.
“What’s going on here?” I say. “What are you talking about now?” But Louis is in some deep well of concentration. Whatever little spasm affected him has now been overcome; my opponent has literally nothing to say. He wipes a jacket sleeve over his mouth, belches, looks at the board. “Isn’t this enough?” I say. “Haven’t you caused enough trouble here with this nonsense of yours?”
“Not quite,” Louis says, “not quite enough, David.” And he reaches out his hand—touch-move is proper—and then slowly stalks his piece across the board, little plumes of dust seeming to become a halo as the Queen begins her move. Louis settles the Queen into place. He sits back
then, flat to his chair like a man being electrocuted, and stares at me, seemingly overwhelmed by consequence.
“My friend,” he says, “my dear, dear old friend of my youth, why, this is too terrible!”
I consider the board.
INTERREGNUM:
A Discovered Check
In discovered check, the checking piece is not moved to attack the opponent’s King. This is crucial.
Rather, rather: It remains in place, the check administered by the removal of another piece out of the line of attack. Thus, a Bishop between a Rook and an opponent’s King, innocently moved away to expose the King to a Rook attack, can deliver a devastating blow even though it is not being used for attack. A Bishop, say, can attack the opponent’s Queen in that uncovering move and since under the rules of chess the opponent’s obligation is to remove his King from check at all costs, it can be seen that this is a powerful move.
Indeed it has a long and honorable history, this discovered attack. Most notably it was used by the long-deceased Frank Marshall in his famous “shower of gold” game against a then world champion in New York City at the turn of the century. Unfortunately it was not in a tournament game. Marshall, behind, and apparently defeated, made a move so wondrous that spectators are supposed to have showered the board with goldpieces (the possession of gold was not then illegal). Like most chess stories this is hyperbole from desire.
Still, against Stiller, the impetuous Stiller, in 1967 in Heidelberg, I had such an opportunity
available to me. I had stumbled through sixteen moves in a haze of stupidity, the pieces themselves feeling uneven within my hand, the board a dazzling and impenetrable collection of little squares, the progress of the game seeming to take place between various layers of gauze. Chess-blindness had gripped me; all motives, the very rules of the game themselves, seem arcane, and the mind, moving slowly through imploded layers of glue and cement, simply refuses to collaborate with intention ... and going into this game with Stiller, my standings in the tournament, dead-even to that point, seemed in danger of collapsing completely.
In fact, I would fall under the fifty-percent mark with seven wins, eight losses and fourteen draws in this endless match. So if there was ever a time to turn the tide, get hold of myself and begin that late-tournament charge made famous through the years, it was at this point ... but I could not, sixteen moves into the game, bring mind and attention together. My development was skewered. A transposed Sicilian had failed at the ninth move to make the transposition when Stiller, the bastard, had lumbered into an audacious and serendipitous sacrifice of his Rook. All in all, it was clear that I was within five moves or less of a resignation.
Then it happened.
It was as if some quality of light in the hall changed, as if the intensity of fluorescence beamed straight, breaking open the dried kernels of my stupidity. My head, heavy for hours, became preternaturally light. My body, similarly weightless, seemed to expand. It became so light and gaseous that at any moment it seemed likely to spin gracelessly from the board itself. I would
drift then through referees, spectators’ ring, out of the hall itself and into the air of Heidelberg, another German airborne object ... and stunned by these sensations, it was with an effort that I forced my attention back to the board, wondering if I was going to become ill. And at that point I saw it. The world tied itself into a knot around my intestines.