Уолтер Тевис: The Queen's Gambit

“Well?” Mrs. Deardorff said. “Would you like to do that? It can be arranged as a field trip.” She smiled grimly at Mr. Ganz. “We like to give our girls a chance for experience outside.” That was the first time Beth had heard of it; she knew of no one who ever went anywhere.

“Yes,” Beth said. “I’d like to.”

“Good,” Mrs. Deardorff said. “It’s settled, then. Mr. Ganz and one of the girls from the high school will pick you up after lunch Thursday.”

Mr. Ganz got up to go, and Beth started to follow, but Mrs. Deardorff called her back.

“Elizabeth,” she said when they were alone, “Mr. Ganz informs me that you have been playing chess with our custodian.”

Beth was uncertain what to say.

“With Mr. Shaibel.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“That is very irregular, Elizabeth. Have you gone to the basement?”

For a moment she considered lying. But it would be too easy for Mrs. Deardorff to find out. “Yes, ma’am,” she said again.

Beth expected anger, but Mrs. Deardorff’s voice was surprisingly relaxed. “We can’t have that, Elizabeth,” she said. “as much as Methuen believes in excellence, we can’t have you playing chess in the basement.”

Beth felt her stomach tighten.

“I believe there are chess sets in the game closet,” Mrs. Deardorff continued. “I’ll have Fergussen look into it.”

A phone began ringing in the outer office and a little light on the phone began flashing. “That will be all, Elizabeth. Mind your manners at the high school and be sure your nails are clean.”

In “Major Hoople” in the funnies, Major Hoople belonged to the Owl’s Club. It was a place where men sat in big old chairs and drank beer and talked about President Eisenhower and how much money their wives spent on hats. Major Hoople had a huge belly, like Mr. Shaibel, and when he was at the Owl’s Club with a dark beer bottle in his hands, his words came from his mouth with little bubbles. He said things like “Harrumph” and “Egad!” in a balloon on top of the bubbles. That was a “club.” It was like the library reading room at Methuen. Maybe she would play the twelve people in a room like that.

She hadn’t told anyone. Not even Jolene. She lay in bed after lights out and thought about it with an expectant quiver in her stomach. Could she play that many games? She rolled over on her back and nervously felt the pocket of her pajamas. There were two in there. It was six days until Thursday. Maybe Mr. Ganz meant she would play one game with one person and then one game with another, if that was how you did it.

She had looked up “phenomenal.” The dictionary said: “extraordinary; outstanding; remarkable.” She repeated these words silently to herself now: “extraordinary; outstanding; remarkable.” They became a tune in her mind.

She tried to picture twelve chessboards at once, spread out in a row on the ceiling. Only four or five were really clear. She took the black pieces for herself and assigned the whites to “them” and then had “them” move pawn to king four, and she responded with the Sicilian. She found she could keep five games going and concentrate on one at a time while the other four waited for her attention.

From out at the desk down the corridor she heard a voice say, “What time is it now?” and another voice reply, “It’s two-twenty.” Mother used to talk about the “wee, small hours.” This was one of them. Beth kept playing chess, keeping five imaginary games going at once. She had forgotten about the pills in her pocket.

The next morning Mr. Fergussen handed her the little paper cup as usual but when she looked down into it there were two orange vitamin tablets and nothing else. She looked back up at him, behind the little window of the pharmacy.

“That’s it,” he said. “Next.”

She didn’t move, even though the girl behind her was pushing against her. “Where are the green ones?”

“You don’t get them anymore,” Mr. Fergussen said.

Beth stood on tiptoe and looked over the counter. There, behind Mr. Fergussen, stood the big glass jar, still a third full of green pills. There must have been hundreds of them in there, like tiny jellybeans. “There they are,” she said and pointed.

“We’re getting rid of them,” he said. “It’s a new law. No more tranquilizers for kids.”

“It’s my turn,” said Gladys, behind her.

Beth didn’t move. She opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out.

“It’s my turn for vitamins,” Gladys said, louder.

There had been nights when she was so involved in chess that she had slept without pills. But this wasn’t one of them. She could not think about chess. There were three pills in her toothbrush holder, and that was it. Several times she decided to take one of them but then decided not to.

“I hear tell you going to exhibit yourself,” Jolene said. She giggled, more to herself than to Beth. “Going to play chess in front of people.”

“Who told you?” Beth said. They were in the locker room after volleyball. Jolene’s breasts, not there a year before, jiggled under her gym shirt.

“Child, I just know things,” Jolene said. “Ain’t that where it’s like checkers but the pieces jump around crazy? My Uncle Hubert played that.”

“Did Mrs. Deardorff tell you?”

“Never go near that lady.” Jolene smiled confidentially. “It was Fergussen. He told me you going to the high school downtown. Day after tomorrow.”

Beth looked at her incredulously. The staff didn’t trade confidences with the orphans. “Fergussen…?”

Jolene leaned over and spoke seriously. “He and I been friendly from time to time. Don’t want you talking about it, hear?”

Beth nodded.

Jolene pulled back and went on drying her hair with the white gym towel. After volleyball you could always stretch out the time, showering and getting dressed, before going to study hall.

Beth thought of something. After a moment she spoke in a low voice, “Jolene.”

“Uh huh.”

“Did Fergussen give you green pills? Extra ones?”

Jolene looked at her hard. Then her face softened. “No, honey. I wish he would. But they got the whole state after ’em for what they been doing with those pills.”

“They’re still there. In the big jar.”

“That a fact?” Jolene said. “I ain’t noticed.” She kept looking at Beth. “I noticed you been edgy lately. You having withdraw symptoms?”

Beth had used her last pill the night before. “I don’t know,” she said.

“You look around,” Jolene said. “They’ll be some nervous orphans around here the next few days.” She finished drying her hair and stretched. With the light coming from behind her and with her frizzy hair and her big, wide eyes, Jolene was beautiful. Beth felt ugly, sitting there on the bench beside her. Pale and little and ugly. And she was scared to go to bed tonight without pills. She had been sleeping only two or three hours a night for the past two nights. Her eyes felt gritty and the back of her neck, even right after showering, was sweaty. She kept thinking about that big glass jar behind Fergussen, filled with green pills a third of the way up—enough to fill her toothbrush holder a hundred times.

Going to the high school was her first ride in a car since she came to Methuen. That was fourteen months ago. Nearly fifteen. Mother had died in a car, a black one like this, with a sharp piece of the steering wheel in her eye. The woman with the clipboard had told her, while Beth stared at the mole on the woman’s cheek and said nothing. Had felt nothing, either. Mother had passed on, the woman said. The funeral would be in three days. The coffin would be closed. Beth knew what a coffin was; Dracula slept in one. Daddy had passed on the year before, because of a “carefree life,” as Mother put it.