Уолтер Тевис - The Queen's Gambit

Beth sat through it, not participating in the gossip and laughter during the commercials, until it ended at eleven. She was astounded at the dullness of the evening. This was the elite Apple Pi Club that had seemed so important when she first went to school in Lexington, and this was what they did at their sophisticated parties: they watched a Charles Bronson movie. The only break in the dullness was when a girl named Felicia said, “I wonder if he’s as well-hung as he looks.” Beth laughed at that, but it was the only thing she laughed at.

When she left after eleven no one urged her to stay, and no one said anything about her joining. She was relieved to get into the taxi and go home, and when she got there she spent an hour in her room with The Middle Game in Chess , translated from the Russian of D. Luchenko.

The school knew about her, well enough, by the next tournament, and this time she hadn’t claimed illness as an excuse. Mrs. Wheatley talked to the principal, and Beth was excused from her classes. Nothing was said about the illnesses she had lied about. They wrote her up in the school paper, and people pointed her out in the hallways. The tournament was in Kansas City, and after she won it the director took her and Mrs. Wheatley to a steakhouse for dinner and told her they were honored to have her participate. He was a serious young man, and he treated both of them politely.

“I’d like to play in the U.S. Open,” Beth said over dessert and coffee.

“Sure,” he said. “You might win it.”

“Would that lead to playing abroad?” Mrs. Wheatley asked. “In Europe, I mean?”

“No reason why not,” the young man said. His name was Nobile. He wore thick glasses and kept drinking ice water. “They have to know about you before they invite you.”

“Would winning the Open make them know about me?”

“Sure. Benny Watts plays in Europe all the time, now that he’s got his international title.”

“How’s the prize money?” Mrs. Wheatley asked, lighting a cigarette.

“Pretty good, I think.”

“What about Russia?” Beth said.

Nobile stared at her a minute, as though she had suggested something illicit. “Russia’s murder,” he said finally. “They eat Americans for breakfast over there.”

“Now, really …” Mrs. Wheatley said.

“They really do,” Nobile said. “I don’t think there’s been an American with a prayer against the Russians for twenty years. It’s like ballet. They pay people to play chess.”

Beth thought of those pictures in Chess Review , of the men with grim faces, bending over chessboards—Borgov and Tal, Laev and Shapkin, scowling, wearing dark suits. Chess in Russia was a different thing than chess in America. Finally she asked, “How do I get in the U.S. Open?”

“Just send in an entry fee,” Nobile said. “It’s like any other tournament, except the competition’s stiffer.”

She sent in her entry fee, but she did not play in the U.S. Open that year. Mrs. Wheatley developed a virus that kept her in bed for two weeks, and Beth, who had just passed her fifteenth birthday, was unwilling to go alone. She did her best to hide it, but she was furious at Alma Wheatley for being sick, and at herself for being afraid to make the trip to Los Angeles. The Open was not as important as the U.S. Championship, but it was time she started playing in something other than events chosen solely on the basis of the prize money. There was a tight little world of tournaments like the United States Championship and the Merriwether Invitational that she knew of through overheard conversations and from articles in Chess Review ; it was time she got into it, and then into international chess. Sometimes she would visualize herself as what she wanted to become; a truly professional woman and the finest chessplayer in the world, traveling confidently by herself in the first-class cabins of airplanes, tall, perfectly dressed, good-looking and poised—a kind of white Jolene. She often told herself that she would send Jolene a card or a letter, but she never did. Instead she would study herself in the bathroom mirror, looking for signs of that poised and beautiful woman she wanted to become.

At sixteen she had grown taller and better-looking, had learned to have her hair cut in a way that showed her eyes to some advantage, but she still looked like a schoolgirl. She played tournaments about every six weeks now—in states like Illinois and Tennessee, and sometimes in New York. They still chose ones that would pay enough to show a profit after the expenses for the two of them. Her bank account grew, and that was a considerable pleasure, but somehow her career seemed to be on a plateau. And she was too old to be called a prodigy anymore.

Although the U.S. Open was being held in Las Vegas, the other people at the Mariposa Hotel seemed oblivious to it. In the main room the players at the craps tables, at roulette and at the blackjack tables wore brightly colored double-knits and shirts; they went about their business in silence. On the other side of the casino was the hotel coffee shop. The day before the tournament Beth walked down an aisle between crapshooters where the main sound was the tapping of clay chips and of dice on felt. In the coffee shop she slid onto a stool at the counter, turned around to look at the mostly empty booths and saw a handsome young man sitting hunched over a cup of coffee, alone. It was Townes, from Lexington.

She stood up and went over to the booth. “Hello,” she said.

He looked up and blinked, not recognizing her at first. Then he said, “Harmon! For Christ’s sake!”

“Can I sit down?”

“Sure,” he said. “I should have known you. You were on the list.”

“The list?”

“The tournament list. I’m not playing. Chess Review sent me to write it up.” He looked at her. “I could write you up. For the Herald-Leader .”

“Lexington?”

“You got it. You’ve grown a lot, Harmon. I saw the piece in Life .” He looked at her closely. “You’ve even gotten good-looking.”

She felt flustered and did not know what to say. Everything about Las Vegas was strange. On the table in each booth was a lamp with a glass base filled with purple liquid that bubbled and swirled below its bright pink shade. The waitress who handed her a menu was dressed in a black miniskirt and fishnet hose, but she had the face of a geometry teacher. Townes was handsome, smiling, dressed in a dark sweater with a striped shirt open at the throat. She chose the Mariposa Special: hot cakes, scrambled eggs and chili peppers with the Bottomless Cup of coffee.

“I could do half a page on you for the Sunday paper,” Townes was saying.

The hot cakes and eggs came, and Beth ate them and drank two cups of coffee.

“I’ve got a camera in my room,” Townes said. He hesitated. “I’ve got chessboards, too. Do you want to play?”

She shrugged. “Okay. Let’s go up.”

“Terrific!” His smile was dazzling.

The drapes were open, with a view of a parking lot. The bed was huge and unmade. It seemed to fill the room. There were three chessboards set up: one on a table by the window, one on the bureau, and the third in the bathroom next to the basin. He posed her by the window and shot a roll of film while she sat at the board and moved the pieces. It was difficult not to look at him as he walked around. When he came close to her and held a little light meter near her face, she found herself catching her breath at the sensation of warmth from his body. Her heart was beating fast, and when she reached out to move a rook she saw that her fingers were trembling.