Paul Robertson - According to Their Deeds

“Very good, then,” Charles said. “Here is a check, and I’m very glad to have the whole set. We’ll keep it in the basement for now. I just wish I had someone to play with.”

“I’d like to speak to Mr. Galen Jones, please. This is Charles Beale.”

He waited.

“Beale. Now what do you want?”

“I want you to build a table for me.”

“What table?” There was some suspicion and a little curiosity.

“Do you remember Derek Bastien’s chess set, Mr. Jones?”

“Sure. I told you I replaced the queens.”

“I have that set now. Norman Highberg says it would have had a matching table once. I’d like for you to make one for me.”

“Okay…” For the first time, there was less suspicion in his voice than interest. “I’ll come look at it.”

“Please. At your convenience.”

“My convenience is Thursday. Are you always there?”

“Usually,” Charles said. “You could call. Or no, we should meet up at Norman Highberg’s. He’ll know just how the table should look.”

“Okay, ten o’clock?”

“Good. I’ll bring the board.”

“The pieces, too. But just don’t tell Highberg I ever touched them. So, Beale, anybody asking you about the desk lately?”

“It’s come up, but I haven’t said your name.”

“Just keep doing the right thing, okay?”

“ ‘To be, or not to be? That is the question.’ ”

“Are you still being Shakespearian, Charles?” Dorothy said. They were together in their parlor, but Charles had no book in his hand.

“No, it is a question. Wasn’t Hamlet’s great flaw that he couldn’t make up his mind?”

“He did have that problem.”

“I do, too.”

“You’ve been hoping for better choices.”

“None have presented themselves,” Charles said.

“I think I’ve lost track of all your conversations with everyone.”

“There is one point, dear, that is especially troubling me. It is from Galen Jones, on Friday. I have been trying to work out what it means.”

A breeze troubled the curtains.

“What, dear?”

“There was a hidden drawer in Derek’s desk. Mr. Jones put it there.”

The hidden breeze stirred the air in the room. “But Derek’s papers were in the book you bought.”

“Some papers were.”

Some of the breeze swirled about him; some twirled about her.

“You think there were more papers?”

“I know he had a drawer and a book, and I have what was in the book.”

“Then what was in the drawer?”

“I do not know,” Charles said. “But the point that is most troubling to me isn’t what was in each place, but why.”

“I don’t understand.”

“What is it about the papers in the book that he chose to keep them there, instead of in the drawer?” The breeze died in a maze of eddies. “Alas, poor Derek, I thought I knew him well.”

“Again! Five games, Charles, and I have yet to capture your elusive king.”

“They have all been very close, Derek.”

“And I think I see your methods. You hold back your stronger pieces longer than most players.”

“They’re wasted on a crowded board. Pawns are the power in the beginning, when they hold territory. All the other pieces’ tactics have to cooperate with them.”

“I’ve seen that you don’t like giving them up.”

“Sentiment, Derek. I don’t have the ruthless streak a real master would.”

“And you need to use your knights better.”

“That is my other weakness. They have the greatest strategic potential, but I can’t see far enough ahead with them.”

“You did quite well in taking my castle, Charles.”

“Sometimes I notice an opportunity, Derek! On the crowded board, they’re very strong, but they weaken compared to the other pieces as the board clears. I trade them too quickly, while they’re still more useful than a bishop. The key is to know the right moment, when their capabilities are becoming less useful.”

“And then sacrifice them.”

“ Trade them. I think it’s a better word.”

“You mean it’s a less ruthless word.”

“No. A trade is for mutual advantage, and even as opponents, we choose trades that benefit us both. A sacrifice is giving something up for no return. It might have no place in chess, Derek, but it has in real life.”

“Which is why I like chess, Charles. It mirrors my life quite well.”

“I would think that was a callous statement, Derek, if I didn’t know that you say such things just to provoke me.”

“All right then, Charles, consider this: If I am the callous one, and chess is a ruthless game, why do you always beat me?”

The stone held away a steady rain.

Charles and Dorothy sat in the still dimness for their quiet hour. The muted, silent roar of sky-sent water on hard earth-anchored roof was the only answer to every thought and question.

The service began and they sang as they did every week, and the heavens replied with their streams.

They listened.

“Look at the world we have to live in. Our purpose might be to live the best we can in this world of decisions and challenges and tragedy. We would serve God, and the best lived life wouldn’t be the most successful or accomplished, but the life that served God most sincerely. What would God’s role be in a world like that? Just to watch and keep score in a grand game?

“No. The vast difference between our lives and a game, the great single fact of our lives, is Christ’s sacrifice. Our lives cost him dearly, and that alone makes them desperately valuable. We have great worth because a great price was paid for us.”

“He cost us dearly,” Charles said. His suit was gray, and Dorothy’s coat was black. The umbrella was black and the rain was gray.

“He was very dear to us,” Dorothy said. The upright stone was gray. All the stones were gray and upright in the emerald grass, and the rain darkened them to black.

“Desperately valuable,” Charles said. “If only I could have given enough.”

“Oh, Charles. If only I knew why.”

“If only we knew why.”

He held the umbrella over them as seas fell around them, and seas rose within them.

The rain had fallen and was all on its way to the sea. Only chill, moist winds were left, and the smell of the rain in the open window.

“I think I’m ready to be finished,” Charles said.

“Finished with what?”

“Secrets and sins and confusions.”

“How will you finish with them, Charles?”

“When we were out there this afternoon with William, I thought I knew.”

“What did you know?”

But he shook his head. “Don’t ask me yet.”

“Of our philosophers, Charles, did any practice what they preached?”

“Do you mean, were any of them more than theorists?”

“Yes. They could scribble their reams, but did they live any of their principles? Adams risked his life to put his signature on the Declaration.”

“Madison would be the real example. He was the real brains behind the Constitution, and then he had to govern by it for eight years.”

“Hoisted on his own petard, wasn’t he, Charles? He had his theories about divided government, and then he had to pay the price when he was president. He must have wished at times he’d written the Constitution differently.”

“But he knew what he was getting into. You know, Derek, I think his experience in real governance would have convinced him that his theory of governance was correct. He would have been willing to pay the price.”

“And Thomas Hobbes was exiled to Paris.”