Уолтер Тевис - The Queen's Gambit

He looked astonished. “Jesus,” he said. “That’s fast.”

Jenny was smiling. “See, Hilton,” she said.

Benny had been watching all this silently. “Let’s do a simultaneous,” he said suddenly to Beth. “Play us all.”

“Not me,” Jenny said. “I don’t even know the rules.”

“Do we have enough boards and pieces?” Beth asked.

“On the shelf in the closet.” Benny went into the bedroom and returned with a cardboard box. “We’ll set these up on the floor.”

“Time control?” Levertov said.

Beth suddenly thought of something. “Let’s do speed chess.”

“It gives us an edge,” Benny said. “We can think on your time.”

“I want to try it.”

“No good.” Benny’s tone was severe. “You’re not very good at speed chess anyway. Remember?”

Something in her responded strongly to what he was not saying. “I’ll bet you ten I beat you.”

“What if you throw the other games and use all your time against me?”

She could have kicked him. “I’ll bet you ten on each of them, too.” She was surprised at the firmness in her own voice. She sounded like Mrs. Deardorff.

Benny shrugged. “Okay. It’s your money.”

“Let’s put all three boards on the floor. I’ll sit in the middle.”

They did it, using three clocks. Beth had been very sharp for the past several days, and she played with unhesitating precision, attacking on all the boards at once. She beat the three of them with time to spare.

When it was over, Benny didn’t say anything. He went to the bedroom, got his billfold, took three tens out of it and handed them to Beth.

“Let’s do it again,” Beth said. There was a bitterness in her voice; hearing the words, she knew it could have meant sex: Let’s do it again . If this was what Benny wanted, this was what he would get. She began setting up the pieces.

They got into position on the floor, and Beth played the whites on all three again. The boards were fanned out in front of her so that she didn’t have to spin around to play them, but she found herself hardly consulting them, anyway, except to make the moves. She played from chessboards in her head. Even the mechanical business of making the moves and punching the clocks was effortless. Benny’s position was hopeless when his clock flag fell; she had time left over. He gave her another thirty, and when she suggested trying again he said, “No.”

There was tension in the room, and no one knew how to deal with it. Jenny tried to laugh about it, saying, “It’s just male chauvinism,” but it didn’t help. Beth was furious with Benny—furious at him for being easy to beat and furious with the way he was taking it, trying to look unmoved, as though nothing affected him.

Then Benny did something surprising. He had been sitting with his back straight. Suddenly he leaned against the wall, pushing his legs out on the floor, relaxing. “Well, kid,” he said, “I think you’ve got it.” And everybody laughed. Beth looked at Jenny, who was sitting on the floor next to Wexler. Jenny, who was beautiful and intelligent, was looking at her with admiration.

Beth and Benny spent the next few days studying Shakhmatni Byulletens , going back to the nineteen-fifties. Every now and then they would play a game, and Beth always won it. She could feel herself moving past Benny in a way that was almost physical. It was astounding to them both. In one game she uncovered an attack on his queen on the thirteenth move and had him laying down his king on the sixteenth. “Well,” he said softly, “nobody’s done that to me in fifteen years.”

“Not even Borgov?”

“Not even Borgov.”

Sometimes chess would keep her awake at night for hours. It was like Methuen, except that she was more relaxed and not afraid of sleeplessness. She would lie on her mattress on the living-room floor after midnight with New York street noises coming in through the open bay window and study positions in her mind. They were as clear as they had ever been. She did not take tranquilizers, and that helped the clarity. It was not whole games now but particular situations—positions called “theoretically important” and “warranting close study.” She lay there hearing the shouts of drunks in the street outside and mastered the intricacies of chess positions that were classic in their difficulty. Once during a lovers’ quarrel where the woman kept shouting, “I’m at my fucking wit’s end. At my wit’s fucking end !” and the man kept saying, “Like your fucking sister,” Beth lay on her cot and came to see a way of queening a pawn that she had never seen before. It was beautiful. It would work. She could use it. “Up your ass,” the woman shouted, and Beth lay back exulting and then fell pleasantly asleep.

They spent their third week repeating the Borgov games and finished the last of them after midnight on Thursday. When Beth had done her analysis of the resignation, pointing out how Borgov could avoid a draw, she looked up to see Benny yawning. It was a hot night and the windows were open.

“Shapkin went wrong in midgame,” Beth said. “He should have protected his queenside.”

Benny looked at her sleepily. “Even I get tired of chess sometimes.”

She stood up from the board. “It’s time for bed.”

“Not so fast,” Benny said. He looked at her for a moment and smiled. “Do you still like my hair?”

“I’ve been trying to learn how to beat Vasily Borgov,” Beth said. “Your hair doesn’t enter into it.”

“I’d like you to come to bed with me.”

They had been together three weeks and she had almost forgotten sex. “I’m tired ,” she said, exasperated.

“So am I. But I’d like you to sleep with me.”

He looked very relaxed and pleasant. Suddenly she felt warm toward him. “All right,” she said.

She was startled to wake up in the morning with someone beside her in bed. Benny had rolled over to his side and all she could see of him was his pale, bare back and some of his hair. She felt self-conscious at first and afraid of waking him; she sat up carefully, leaning her back against the wall. Being in bed with a man was really all right. Making love had been all right too, although not as exciting as she had hoped. Benny hadn’t said much. He was gentle and easy with her, but there was still that distance of his. She remembered a phrase from the first man she had made love with: “Too cerebral.” She turned toward Benny. His skin did look good in the light; it seemed almost luminous. For a moment she felt like putting her arms around him and hugging him with her naked body, but she restrained herself.

Eventually Benny woke, rolled over on his back and blinked at her. She had the sheet up, covering her breasts. After a moment she said, “Good morning.”

He blinked again. “You shouldn’t try the Sicilian against Borgov,” he said. “He’s just too good at it.”

They spent the morning with two Luchenko games; Benny put the emphasis on strategy rather than tactics. He was in a cheerful mood, but Beth felt somehow resentful. She wanted something more in the way of lovemaking, or at least in intimacy, and Benny was lecturing her. “You’re a born tactician,” he said, “but your planning is jerry-built.” She said nothing and dealt with her annoyance as well as she could. What he was saying was true enough, but the pleasure he took in pointing it out was irritating.

At noon he said, “I’ve got to get to a poker game.”

She looked up from the position she had just analyzed. “A poker game?”

“I have to pay the rent.”

That was astonishing. She had not thought of him as a gambler. When she asked about it, he said he made more money from poker and backgammon than from chess. “You ought to learn,” he said, smiling. “You’re good at games.”