But still and all, of course, of course, they would have been glad to have him back.
Petr Pavlovich called Aleksandr in January 1997. Aleksandr saw his name pop up on the caller ID—a new acquisition of Nina’s, which she used to avoid answering the calls of those lady friends of hers who’d fallen into disfavor that week. Aleksandr cringed and considered ignoring it, but he was ultimately defeated by curiosity. It had been many months since he’d spoken to Petr Pavlovich for any length of time. He wondered if the nasal polyps had ever gotten take care of.
“Hi there, Petr Pavlovich,” said Aleksandr, and enjoyed the momentary disoriented silence that followed.
“Caller ID,” said Petr Pavlovich finally.
“Right.”
“Very up-to-date of you.”
“It’s all the wife.”
“How is the wife?
“A joy, as always.”
Aleksandr tried to remember if Petr Pavlovich had married. There’d been a woman at a party some years ago, of this he was sure—he remembered that she was delicate and chain-smoking and smiling and seemed to make Pavlovich very happy. Aleksandr wasn’t sure whether that had been a wife or a mistress or a girlfriend or a friend whom Petr Pavlovich was trying and failing to woo. He’d guess the latter.
“Are you married, Petr Pavlovich?”
“I was. Thanks for asking. She died three years ago. Esophageal cancer. Quick.”
Aleksandr cringed. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m sure the card’s in the mail.”
Aleksandr coughed his voice into something gentler and more supplicating. “Did you have children?”
“Why, we didn’t, Aleksandr Kimovich. This outpouring of interested generosity on your part is unprecedented. I hope you’re not on antidepressants. They’ll mess with your game.”
“I’m not on antidepressants.”
“That’s a relief to hear.”
Petr Pavlovich sniffed, and Aleksandr feared mightily—and momentarily—that he was crying.
“And you, Aleksandr? Any plans for children? You and that beautiful wife of yours, what’s her name?”
“Nina.”
“Nina. Of course. And so?”
“Ah, no.” Aleksandr shifted the phone to the other ear. “No immediate plans.”
“I see. You’re much too busy, I’d imagine.”
“What are you calling about?”
“Well.” Aleksandr could hear Petr Pavlovich gearing up to make his pitch, stripping his voice of its endemic weary sarcasm. “I know you’re very into technology. Very up on the latest developments. The caller ID and so on.”
“Mmm,” said Aleksandr. He eyed the stereo system nervously.
“As you’re probably aware, IBM has been building a program that plays chess.”
“I know,” said Aleksadr eagerly. This he actually did know.
“Big Blue, Deep Blue Sea, something like that. It’s very good now. Been in testing for years. It beats everyone who plays it. They program all possible responses to all possible moves into its—whatever—its brain, I guess, and then they program it to know which ones are most likely to be successful in every possible scenario. It’s what your brain must do, essentially. You’re programmed for exactly the same kind of responses.”
“Yeah, but I have to think about them.”
“This thing thinks, right? It just thinks faster. It’s what—algorithms, right? I don’t know, it’s not my area. Anyway, they want you to play it.”
“Should I?”
“Of course. Can’t you beat it?”
“I don’t know.”
“It’s a pile of tubes. You’re the greatest living chess player in the world. I’m sure these kids at MIT who made it are smart, but it’s going to be a game of Tetris for you, right?”
“Probably. How should I know?”
There was a pause. “When you were a younger man, you know, I don’t think you would have hesitated.”
Aleksandr went to the picture window. Outside, the St. Petersburg sky was ensconced in folds of blues and grays, masking all the new construction projects, the new billboards, the new fruits of what was fast becoming a new kleptocracy. It was the future. They wanted him to play a computer. Aleksandr would not have hesitated when he was a younger man, but he was no longer a younger man.
“It’ll be a disaster if I lose,” he said.
“It’ll be publicity if you lose. But you won’t lose.”
“I don’t know.”
“Aleksandr,” said Petr Pavlovich merrily. Aleksandr could almost hear him smiling. “You forget you’re the world champion. Have a little confidence.”
Aleksandr would remember the game much as he’d remember the entire decade, when he remembered it at all, which was rarely. It came back distorted, in fragments—the puckered cheeks of the man who stood in for the computer, inflating and deflating with distraught little breaths; the silence of the crowd—still, then suspenseful, then stunned. Afterward, there was the astonished grimace of Petr Pavlovich—he’d often been surprised by Aleksandr, but never this way. Then there was the gleeful chattering of the MIT people, the Internet enthusiasts, the tech reporters—the triumphalism, everybody buzzing happily about this brand-new kind of apocalypse. Aleksandr knew—even as he was playing, even as he was losing, even as he was taking the limousine back to his apartment—that he’d have to approach this evening in the same way that he’d approached his marriage. He would try not to think about it. He would try not to remember its details, its sequences, its accumulated humiliations.
Nina had been following online, and when he got home, he caught her, feet curled up under her, silk nightgown shimmering in the moonlight (Nina owned so much silk that he wondered whether she had an entire silkworm army somewhere in the closet)—and he knew that she’d been poring over the results, the analysis, the obsessive online speculation. She might not understand the details, but the tone—the headline, the upshot—was inevitably clear.
“I’m sorry, Aleksandr.” She closed the computer quickly.
“Yes.” He beelined for the cabinet and poured whiskey into a water glass.
“I really am.”
Aleksandr considered ice, then rejected it. “I really am, too.”
“Do you want to tell me about it?”
He did not want to tell her about it. He did not want to tell anyone about it. He did not even want to tell himself about it in his own head. The people who had watched had understood. What was there to say about it? Nobody would ever beat that thing. Nobody would ever again do sums on an abacus. And could he be sorry? What kind of person could be sorry to watch history march forward, and progress be attained, and problems be solved? Yes, yes, there was some romance lost when they mapped the entire globe, but still. You couldn’t root against it; that was like wishing that all the tiny villages of the world would keep their untranslatable, useless languages and their horrific hygiene practices just so we could all go and look and think that they were authentic and quaint. Aleksandr had an ego but not that kind of ego. He would not demand that the world know less so that he could know the most.
“You look awful,” said Nina.
He poured another whiskey. “I’m fine.”
“You look like you’re about to kill yourself.”
“Well, I’m not.”
“Or me.”
“Never fear.”
Nina went to the couch and produced a nail file from somewhere on her person. Aleksandr poured a third glass. On the couch, Nina commenced vigorous filing, and he watched her for a few moments. He never understood how she managed not to start filing her actual fingers. Aleksandr sat down at the computer.