Уолтер Тевис - The Queen's Gambit

When he had gone she went to look in the smaller room where Borgov played, but it was empty. The winning position—Borgov’s—was still displayed on the big board on the wall; it was as devastating as Beth’s win over Solomon had been.

In the ballroom she looked at the bulletin board. Some of tomorrow’s pairings were already up. That was a surprise. She stepped closer to look, and her heart caught in her throat; at the top of the finals list in black printed letters was BORGOV—HARMON. She blinked and read it again, holding her breath.

Beth had brought three books with her to Mexico City. She and Mrs. Wheatley ate dinner in their room, and afterward Beth took out Grandmaster Games ; in it were five of Borgov’s. She opened it to the first one and began to play through it, using her board and pieces. She seldom did this, generally relying on her ability to visualize a game when going over it, but she wanted to have Borgov in front of her as palpably as possible. Mrs. Wheatley lay in bed reading while Beth played through the games, looking for weaknesses. She found none. She played through them again, stopping in certain positions where the possibilities seemed nearly infinite, and working them all out. She sat staring at the board with everything in her present life obliterated from her attention while the combinations played themselves out in her head. Every now and then a sound from Mrs. Wheatley or a tension in the air of the room brought her out of it for a moment, and she looked around dazedly, feeling the pained tightness of her muscles and the thin, intrusive edge of fear in her stomach.

There had been a few times over the past year when she felt like this, with her mind not only dizzied but nearly terrified by the endlessness of chess. By midnight Mrs. Wheatley had put her book aside and gone quietly to sleep. Beth sat in the green armchair for hours, not hearing Mrs. Wheatley’s gentle snores, not sensing the strange smell of a Mexican hotel in her nostrils, feeling somehow that she might fall from a precipice, that sitting over the chessboard she had bought at Purcell’s in Kentucky, she was actually poised over an abyss, sustained there only by the bizarre mental equipment that had fitted her for this elegant and deadly game. On the board there was danger everywhere. A person could not rest.

She did not go to bed until after four and, asleep, she dreamed of drowning.

A few people had gathered in the ballroom. She recognized Marenco, dressed in a suit and tie now; he waved at her as she came in, and she forced herself to smile in his direction. It was frightening to see even this player she had already beaten. She was jumpy, knew she was jumpy, and did not know what to do about it.

She had showered at seven that morning, unable to rid herself of the tension she had awakened with. She was barely able to get down her morning coffee in the near-empty coffee shop and had washed her face afterward, carefully, trying to focus herself. Now she crossed the ballroom’s red carpet and went to the ladies’ room and washed her face again. She dried carefully with paper towels and combed her hair, watching herself in the big mirror. Her movements seemed forced, and her body looked impossibly frail. The expensive blouse and skirt did not fit right. Her fear was as sharp as a toothache.

As she came down the hallway, she saw him. He was standing there solidly with two men she did not recognize. All of them wore dark suits. They were close together, talking softly, confidentially. She lowered her eyes and walked past them into the small room. Some men were waiting there with cameras. Reporters. She slipped behind the black pieces at Board One. She stared at the board for a moment, heard the tournament director’s voice saying, “Play will begin in three minutes,” and looked up.

Borgov was walking across the room toward her. His suit fit him well, with the trouser legs draping neatly above the tops of his shined black shoes. Beth turned her eyes back to the board, embarrassed, feeling awkward. Borgov had seated himself. She heard the director’s voice as if from a great distance, “You may start your opponent’s clock,” and she reached out, pressed the button on the clock and looked up. He was sitting there solid, dark and heavy, looking fixedly at the board, and she watched as if in a dream as he reached out a stubby-fingered hand, picked up the king pawn and set it on the fourth rank. Pawn to king four.

She stared at it for a moment. She always played the Sicilian to that opening—the most common opening for White in the game of chess. But she hesitated. Borgov had been called “Master of the Sicilian” somewhere in a journal. Almost impulsively she played pawn to king four herself, hoping to play him on ground that was fresh for both of them, that would not give him the advantage of superior knowledge. He brought out his king’s knight to bishop three, and she brought hers to queen bishop three, protecting the pawn. And then without hesitation he played his bishop to knight five and her heart sank. The Ruy Lopez. She had played it often enough, but in this game it frightened her. It was as complex, as thoroughly analyzed, as the Sicilian, and there were dozens of lines she hardly knew, except for memorizing them from books.

Someone flashed another bulb for a picture and she heard the tournament director’s angry whisper not to disturb the players. She pushed her pawn up to rook three, attacking the bishop. Borgov pulled it back to rook four. She forced herself to concentrate, brought out her other knight, and Borgov castled. All this was familiar, but it was no relief. She now had to decide to play either the open variation or the closed. She glanced up at Borgov’s face and then back at the board. She took his pawn with her knight, starting the open. He played pawn to queen four, as she knew he would, and she played pawn to queen knight four because she had to, so she would be ready when he moved the rook. The chandelier overhead was too bright. And now she began to feel dismay, as though the rest of the game were inevitable—as though she were locked into some choreography of feints and counterthreats in which it was a fixed necessity that she lose, like a game from one of the books where you knew the outcome and played it only to see how it happened.

She shook her head to clear it. The game had not gone that far. They were still playing out tired old moves and the only advantage White had was the advantage White always had—the first move. Someone had said that when computers really learned to play chess and played against one another, White would always win because of the first move. Like tick-tack-toe. But it hadn’t come to that. She was not playing a perfect machine.

Borgov brought his bishop back to knight three, retreating. She played pawn to queen four, and he took the pawn and she brought her bishop to king three. She had known this much back at Methuen from the lines she memorized in class from Modern Chess Openings . But the game was ready now to enter a wide-open phase, where it could take unexpected turns. She looked up just as Borgov, his face smooth and impassive, picked up his queen and set it in front of the king, on king two. She blinked at it for a moment. What was he doing? Going after the knight on her king five? He could pin the pawn that protected the knight easily enough with a rook. But the move looked somehow suspicious. She felt the tightness in her stomach again, a touch of dizziness.

She folded her arms across her chest and began to study the position. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the young man who moved the pieces on the display board placing the big cardboard white queen on the king two square. She glanced out into the room. There were about a dozen people standing there watching. She turned back to the board. She would have to get rid of his bishop. Knight to rook four looked good for that. There was also knight to bishop four or bishop to king two, but that was very complicated. She studied the possibilities for a moment and discarded the idea. She did not trust herself against Borgov with those complications. To put a knight on the rook file cut its range in half; but she did it. She had to get rid of the bishop. The bishop was up to no good.