Уолтер Тевис - The Queen's Gambit

Borgov reached down without hesitation and played knight to queen four. She stared at it; she had expected him to move his rook. Still there seemed to be no harm in it. Pushing her queen bishop pawn up to the fourth square looked good. It would force Borgov’s knight to take her bishop, and after that she could take his bishop with her knight and stop the annoying pressure on her other knight, the one that sat a bit too far down the board on king five and didn’t have enough flight squares for comfort. Against Borgov, the loss of a knight would be lethal. She played the queen bishop pawn, holding the piece for a moment between her fingers before letting it go. Then she sat a bit farther back in her chair and drew a deep breath. The position looked good.

Without hesitation Borgov took the bishop with his knight, and Beth retook with her pawn. Then he played his queen bishop pawn to the third rank, as she thought he might, creating a place for the nuisance bishop to hide. She took the bishop with relief, getting rid of it and getting her knight off the embarrassing rook file. Borgov remained impassive, taking the knight with his pawn. His eyes flicked up to hers and back to the position.

She looked down nervously. It had looked good a few moves before; it did not look so good now. The problem was her knight on king five. He could move his queen to knight four, threatening to take her king’s pawn with check, and when she protected against this, he could attack the knight with his king bishop pawn, and it would have no place to go. Borgov’s queen would be there to take it. There was another annoyance on her queen side: he could play rook takes pawn, giving up the rook to hers only to get it back with a queen check, coming out a pawn ahead and with an improved position. No. Two pawns ahead. She would have to put her queen on knight three. Queen to queen two was no good because of his damned bishop pawn that could attack her knight. She did not like this defensiveness and studied the board for a long time before moving, trying to find something that would counterattack. There was nothing. She had to move the queen and protect the knight. She felt her cheeks burning and studied the position again. Nothing. She brought her queen to knight three and did not look at Borgov.

With no hesitation whatever Borgov brought his bishop to king three, protecting his king. Why hadn’t she seen that? She had looked long enough. Now if she pushed the pawn she had planned to push, she would lose her queen. How could she have missed it? She had planned the threat of discovered check with the new position of her queen, and he had parried it instantly with a move that was chillingly obvious. She glanced at him, at his well-shaven, imperturbable Russian face with the tie so finely knotted beneath his heavy chin, and the fear she felt almost froze her muscles.

She studied the board with all the intensity she could muster, sitting rigidly for twenty minutes staring at the position. Her stomach sank even farther as she tried and rejected a dozen continuations. She could not save the knight. Finally she played her bishop to king two, and Borgov predictably put his queen on knight four, threatening again to win the knight by pushing up his king bishop pawn. Now she had the choice of king to queen two or of castling. Either way the knight was lost. She castled.

Borgov immediately moved the bishop pawn to attack her knight. She could have screamed. Everything he was doing was obvious, unimaginative, bureaucratic. She felt stifled and played pawn to queen five, attacking his bishop, and then watched his inevitable moving of the bishop to rook six, threatening to mate. She would have to bring her rook up to protect. He would take the knight with his queen, and if she took the bishop, the queen would pick off the rook in the corner with a check, and the whole thing would blow apart. She would have to bring the rook over to protect it. And meanwhile she was down a knight. Against a world’s champion, whose shirt was impeccably white, whose tie was beautifully tied, whose dark-jowled Russian face admitted no doubt or weakness.

She saw her hand reach out, and taking the black king by its head, topple it onto the board.

She sat there for a moment and heard the applause. Then, looking at no one, she left the room.

“Give me a tequila sunrise,” she said. The clock over the bar pointed to twelve-thirty, and there was a group of four American women at one of the tables at the far end of the room eating lunch. Beth had not eaten breakfast, but she did not want lunch.

“ Con mucho gusto ,” the bartender said.

The awards ceremony was at two-thirty. She drank through it in the bar. She would be fourth place, or maybe fifth. The two who had done a grandmaster draw together would be ahead of her with five and a half points each. Borgov had six. Her score was five. She had three tequila sunrises, ate two hard-boiled eggs and shifted to beer. Dos Equis. It took four of them to make the pain in her stomach go away, to blur the fury and shame. Even when it began to ease, she could still see Borgov’s dark, heavy face and could feel the frustration she had felt during their match. She had played like a novice, like a passive, embarrassed fool.

She drank a lot, but she did not get dizzy, and her speech did not slur when she ordered. There seemed to be a kind of insulation around her that kept everything at a distance. She sat at a table at one end of the cocktail lounge with her glass of beer, and she did not get drunk.

At three o’clock two players from the tournament came into the bar, talking quietly. Beth got up and went straight to her room.

Mrs. Wheatley was lying in bed. She had a hand on her head with the fingers dug into her hair as though she had a headache. Beth walked over to the bed. Mrs. Wheatley did not look right. Beth reached out and took her by the arm. Mrs. Wheatley was dead.

It seemed as though she felt nothing, but five minutes passed before Beth was able to let go of Mrs. Wheatley’s cold arm and pick up the telephone.

The manager knew exactly what to do. Beth sat in the armchair drinking café con leche from room service while two men with a stretcher came and the manager instructed them. She heard him, but she did not watch. She kept her eyes on the window. Sometime later she turned to see a middle-aged woman in a gray suit, using a stethoscope on Mrs. Wheatley. Mrs. Wheatley was on the bed and the stretcher was under her. The two men in green uniform were standing at the edge of the bed, looking embarrassed. The woman took off her stethoscope, nodded to the manager and came over to Beth. Her face was strained. “I’m sorry,” she said.

Beth looked away from her. “What was it?”

“Hepatitis, possibly. We’ll know tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” Beth said. “Could you give me a tranquilizer?”

“I have a sedative…”

“I don’t want a sedative,” Beth said. “Can you give me a prescription for Librium?”

The doctor stared at her for a moment and shrugged. “You don’t need a prescription to buy Librium in Mexico. I suggest meprobamate. There’s a farmacia in the hotel.”

Using a map in the front of Mrs. Wheatley’s Mobil Travel Guide , Beth wrote down the names of the cities between Denver, Colorado, and Butte, Montana. The manager had told her his assistant would be of whatever help she needed in phoning, signing papers, dealing with the authorities. Ten minutes after they had taken Mrs. Wheatley away, Beth called the assistant and read him the list of towns and gave him the name. He said he would call her back. She ordered a Coca-Cola grande and more coffee from room service. Then she undressed quickly and took a shower. There was a phone in the bathroom, but the call did not come through. She still felt nothing.