Уолтер Тевис - The Queen's Gambit

He set it on the living-room rug and unceremoniously took Mrs. Wheatley’s magazines from the coffee table and slipped them into the magazine rack. He began taking books out of the box one at a time, reading off the titles and piling them on the table. “A. L. Deinkopf, Middle Game Strategy ; J. R. Capablanca, My Chess Career ; Fornaut, Alekhine’s Games 1938–1945 ; Meyer, Rook and Pawn Endings .”

Some of them were books she had seen before; a few of them she owned. But most were new to her, heavy-looking and depressing to see. She knew there were a great many things she needed to know. But Capablanca had almost never studied, had played on intuition and his natural gifts, while inferior players like Bogolubov and Grünfeld memorized lines of play like German pedants. She had seen players at tournament after their games had ended, sitting motionless in uncomfortable chairs oblivious to the world, studying opening variations or middle-game strategy or endgame theory. It was endless. Seeing Beltik methodically removing one heavy book after another, she felt weary and disoriented. She glanced over at the TV: a part of her wanted to turn it on and forget chess forever.

“My summer’s reading,” Beltik said.

She shook her head irritably. “I study books. But I’ve always tried to play it by ear.”

He stopped, holding three copies of Shakhmatni Byulleten in his hands, their covers worn with use, frowning at her. “Like Morphy,” he said, “or Capablanca?”

She was embarrassed. “Yes.”

He nodded grimly and set the stack of bulletins on the floor by the coffee table. “Capablanca would have beaten Borgov.”

“Not every game.”

“Every game that counted,” Beltik said.

She studied his face. He was younger than she remembered him. But she was older now. He was an uncompromising young man; every part of him was uncompromising. “You think I’m a prima donna, don’t you?”

He permitted himself a small smile. “We’re all prima donnas,” he said. “That’s chess for you.”

When she put the TV dinners in the oven that night, they had two boards set up with endgame positions: his set with its green and cream squares, its heavy plastic pieces; her wooden board with its rosewood and maple men. Both sets were the Staunton pattern that all serious players used; both had four-inch kings. She hadn’t invited him to stay for lunch and dinner; it had been understood. He went to the grocery store a few blocks away for the food while she sat musing over a group of possible rook moves, trying to avoid a draw in a theoretical game. While she made lunch he lectured her about keeping in good physical shape and getting enough sleep. He had also bought the two frozen dinners for supper.

“You’ve got to stay open ,” Beltik said. “If you get locked into one idea—like this king knight pawn, say—it’s death. Look at this…” She turned to his board on the kitchen table. He was holding a cup of coffee and standing, frowning down at the board, holding his chin with the other hand.

“Look at what?” she said, irritated.

He reached down, picked up the white rook, moved it across the board to king rook one—the lower right-hand corner. “Now his rook pawn’s pinned.”

“So what?”

“He’s got to move the king now or he gets stuck later.”

“I see that,” she said, her voice a little softer now. “But I don’t see—”

“Look at the queenside pawns, way over here.” He pointed to the other side of the board, at the three white pawns interlinked. She walked over to the table to get a better look. “He can do this,” she said, and moved the black rook over two squares.

Beltik looked up at her. “Try it.”

“Okay.” She sat down behind the pieces.

In half a dozen moves Beltik had gotten his queen bishop pawn to the seventh rank and queening it was inevitable. It would cost the rook and the game to stop it. He had been right; it was necessary to move the king when the rook had come across the board. “You were right,” she said. “Did you figure it out?”

“It’s from Alekhine somewhere,” he said. “I got it from a book.”

Beltik went back to his hotel after midnight, and Beth stayed up for several hours reading the middle-game book, not setting up the positions on a board but reviewing them in her imagination. One thing bothered her, but she did not let herself dwell on it. She could not picture the pieces as easily as she had when she was eight and nine years old. She could still do it, but it was more of an effort and sometimes she was uncertain about where a pawn or a bishop belonged and had to retrace the moves in her mind to make sure. She played on doggedly into the night, using her mind and the book only, sitting in Mrs. Wheatley’s old television-watching armchair in T-shirt and blue jeans. Every now and then she would blink and look around her, half expecting to see Mrs. Wheatley sitting nearby with her stockings rolled down and her black pumps on the floor beside her chair.

Beltik was back at nine the next morning, with half a dozen more books. They had coffee and played a few five-minute games on the kitchen table. Beth won all of them, decisively, and when they had finished the fifth game Beltik looked at her and shook his head. “Harmon,” he said, “you have really got it. But it’s improvisation.”

She stared at him. “What the hell,” she said. “I wiped you out five times.”

He looked back across the table at her coolly and took a sip from his coffee cup. “I’m a master,” he said, “and I’ve never played better in my life. But I’m not what you’re going to be up against if you go to Paris.”

“I can beat Borgov with a little more work.”

“You can beat Borgov with a lot more work. Years more work. What in hell do you think he is? Another Kentucky ex-champion like me?”

“He’s World Champion. But—”

“Oh, shut up!” Beltik said. “Borgov could have beaten both of us when he was ten. Do you know his career?”

Beth looked at him. “No, I don’t.”

Beltik got up from the table and walked purposively into the living room. He pulled a green-jacketed book from the stack next to Beth’s chessboard and brought it to the kitchen, tossing it on the table in front of her. Vasily Borgov: My Life in Chess . “Read it tonight,” he said. “Read the games from Leningrad 1962 and look at the way he plays rook-pawn endings. Look at the games with Luchenko and with Spassky.” He picked up his near-empty coffee cup. “You might learn something.”

It was the first week in June and japoncia blazed in bright coral outside the kitchen window. Mrs. Wheatley’s azaleas had begun to bloom and the grass needed mowing. There were birds. It was a beautiful week of the best kind of Kentucky spring. Sometimes late at night after Beltik had left, Beth would go out to the backyard to feel the warmth on her cheeks and to take a few deep breaths of warm clean air, but the rest of the time she ignored the world outside. She had become caught up in chess in a new way. Her bottles of Mexican tranquilizers remained unused in the nightstand; the cans of beer in the refrigerator stayed in the refrigerator. After standing in the backyard for five minutes, she would go back into the house and read Beltik’s chess books for hours and then go upstairs and fall into bed exhausted.

On Thursday afternoon Beltik said, “I’m supposed to move into an apartment tomorrow. The hotel bill is killing me.”

They were in the middle of the Benoni Defense. She had just played the P-K5 he had taught her, on move eight—a move Beltik said came from a player named Mikenas. She looked up from the position. “Where is it? The apartment.”