Уолтер Тевис - The Queen's Gambit

Beth looked at her, hating her and saying nothing.

Mrs. Blocker opened the clasp on the envelope and pulled out a sheet of paper filled with typing. She gave it to Beth.

It was the same stationery the original letter had come on, with its list of names running down the side. Beth glanced down the list and saw “Telsa R. Blocker, Executive Secretary,” just above half a dozen men’s names with the abbreviation “Rev.” in front of them. Then she read the statement quickly. Some phrases in it were underlined, like “ the atheist-communist nexus ” and “ a militant Christian Endeavor .” She looked up from the paper at Mrs. Blocker, who was sitting with her knees pressing together, looking around the room with a subdued dislike. “I’m a chess player,” Beth said quietly.

“Of course you are, my dear,” Mrs. Blocker said. “And you’re a Christian.”

“I’m not sure of that.”

Mrs. Blocker stared at her.

“Look,” Beth said, “I have no intention of saying things like this.”

Mrs. Blocker leaned forward and took the statement. “Christian Crusade has already invested a good deal of money…” There was a glint in her eye that Beth had seen before.

Beth stood up. “I’ll give it back.” She walked to the desk and found her checkbook. For a moment she felt like a prig and a fool. It was money for her air fare and Benny’s and for the woman from the Federation as an escort. It would pay her hotel bill and incidental expenses on the trip. But at the bottom of the check they had sent her a month ago, in the place where you normally wrote “rent” or “light bill” to say what the money was for, someone—probably Mrs. Blocker—had written “For Christian Service.” Beth made out a check for four thousand dollars to Christian Crusade, and in the space at the bottom she wrote “Full refund.”

Miss Dodge’s voice was surprisingly gentle. “I hope you know what you’re doing, dear.” She looked genuinely concerned.

“I hope so too,” Beth said. Her plane for Moscow left in five weeks.

She got Benny on the phone at the first try. “You’re crazy,” he said when she told him.

“Anyway, I did it,” Beth said. “It’s too late to undo it.”

“Are the tickets paid for?”

“No,” Beth said. “Nothing’s paid for.”

“You have to pay Intourist for the hotel in advance.”

“I know that.” Beth did not like Benny’s tone. “I’ve got two thousand in my bank account. It would be more, but I’ve been keeping up this house. It’s going to take three thousand more to do it. At least that.”

“I don’t have it,” Benny said.

“What do you mean? You’ve got money.”

“ I don’t have it .” There was a long silence. “You can call the Federation. Or the State Department.”

“The Federation doesn’t like me,” Beth said. “They think I haven’t done as much for chess as I could have.”

“You should have gone on Tonight and Phil Donahue .”

“God damn it, Benny,” Beth said. “Come off it.”

“You’re crazy,” Benny said. “What do you care what those dummies believe? What are you trying to prove?”

“ Benny . I don’t want to go to Russia alone.”

Benny’s voice suddenly became loud. “You asshole ,” he shouted. “You crazy fucking asshole!”

“Benny…”

“First you don’t come back to New York and then you pull this crap. You can fucking well go alone.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t have done it.” She was beginning to feel a chill inside. “Maybe I didn’t have to give them back the check.”

“‘Maybe’ is a loser’s word.” Benny’s voice was like ice.

“Benny, I’m sorry.”

“I’m hanging up,” Benny said. “You were a pain in the ass when I first met you, and you’re a pain in the ass right now. I don’t want to talk to you anymore.” The phone in her hand went click . She put it back in the cradle. She had blown it. She had lost Benny.

She called the Federation and had to wait on hold for ten minutes before the director came on the line. He was pleasant with her and sympathetic and wished her well in Moscow but said there was no money to be had. “What we have comes mostly from the magazine. The four hundred dollars is all we can possibly spare.”

It wasn’t until the next morning that she got her call returned from Washington. It was somebody named O’Malley, from Cultural Affairs. When she told him the problem, he went on about how excited they were, there at State, over her “giving the Russians a jolt at their own game.” He asked her how he could help.

“I need three thousand dollars right away.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” O’Malley said. “I’ll get back to you in an hour.”

But it was four hours later that he called back. She paced around the kitchen and the garden and made a quick call to Anne Reardon, who was to be the chaperone required by Christian Crusade. Anne Reardon had a woman’s rating of 1900 or so and at least knew the game. Beth had wiped her out once somewhere out West, practically blasting her pieces off the board. No one answered the phone. Beth made herself coffee and leafed through some copies of Deutsche Schachzeitung , waiting for the call. She felt almost nauseated at the way she had let the Christian Crusade money go. Four thousand dollars—for a gesture. Finally the phone rang.

It was O’Malley again. No dice. He was terribly sorry, but there was no way government funds could be handed out to her without more time and approval. “We’ll be sending one of our men with you, though.”

“Don’t you have petty cash or something?” Beth asked. “I don’t need funds to undermine the government in Moscow. I just need to take some people to help me.”

“I’m sorry,” O’Malley said. “I’m really sorry.”

After hanging up, she went back out into the garden. She would send the check to the Washington office of Intourist in the morning. She would go alone, or with whomever the State Department found to send with her. She had studied Russian, and she would not be totally at a loss. The Russian players would speak English, anyway. She could do her own training. She had been training alone for months. She finished off the last of her coffee. She had been training alone for most of her life.

They had to sit in a waiting room at Orly airport for seven hours, and when the time came to board the Aeroflot plane, a young woman in an olive-drab uniform had to stamp everybody’s ticket and study everybody’s passport while Beth and Mr. Booth waited at the back of the line for another hour. But it cheered her a bit when she finally got to the head of the line and the woman said, “The chess champion!” and smiled broadly at her with a surprising lightening of her features. When Beth smiled back at her, the woman said, “Good luck!” as though she really meant it. The woman was, of course, Russian. No official in America would have recognized Beth’s name.

Her seat was by a window near the back; it had heavy brown plastic upholstery and a little white antimacassar on each arm. She got in with Mr. Booth beside her. She looked out the window at the gray Paris sky with the water in broad sheets on the runways and the planes gleaming darkly in the evening wetness. It felt as if she were already in Moscow. After a few minutes a steward started handing out glasses of water. Mr. Booth drank about half of his and then fished in his jacket pocket. After some fumbling he produced a little silver flask and pulled the cap off with his teeth. He filled the glass with whiskey, put the cap back on and slipped the flask into his pocket. Then he held the glass toward Beth in a perfunctory way, and she shook her head. It wasn’t easy to do. She could have used a drink. She did not like this strange-looking airplane, and she didn’t like the man sitting beside her.