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 Borgov 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.
When she looked out, sleepily, they were stopped at a traffic signal. Up ahead, to the right, was the forested park that was visible from her room. She shook herself awake and leaned forward to the driver. “Let me off at the park.”
Sunlight filtered through the trees on her. The people on the benches seemed to be the same people as before. It did not matter whether they knew who she was or not. She walked past them along the path into the clearing. Nobody was looking at her. She came to the pavilion and walked up the steps.
About halfway down the first row of concrete tables an old man was sitting alone with the pieces set up in front of him. He was in his sixties and wore the usual gray cap and gray cotton shirt with the sleeves rolled up. When she stopped at his table he looked at her inquisitively, but there was no recognition on his face. She sat behind the black pieces and said carefully in Russian, “Would you like to play chess?”
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Grateful acknowledgment is made to Scribner, an imprint of the Simon and Schuster Adult Publishing Group and A. P. Watt Limited for permission to reprint ten lines from “The Long-Legged Fly” from The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats, Volume 1: The Poems, Revised, edited by Richard J. Finneran. Copyright © 1940 by Georgie Yeats; copyright renewed 1968 by Bertha Georgie Yeats, Michael Butler Yeats and Anne Yeats. Rights outside of the United States are controlled by A. P. Watt Limited, London. Reprinted by permission.
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