Jesse Ball: The Lesson

— Chess is many things, but one thing it IS not is a game that is played on a board. Make no mistake, good chess is played entirely in the head. And that is why it is no difficulty at all for masters to have a game wherein they simply announce the moves to another and never look at a board at all.

— But doesn’t that become confusing very quickly?

Stan was sitting on the floor underneath the table. He had discovered a hole of some kind, possibly a mousehole, in the wall by the near table leg. He was trying to peer into this hole, and at the same time was listening very carefully, one supposes.

— Yes and no, said Loring. In fact, people have been known to play not only blindfold, but also simultaneously. That is to say — if I showed up in a town and had no money to pay for my dinner, I might be convinced to give a simultaneous exhibition wherein I would play ten or fifteen people at the same time, going from board to board and making my moves. Now, a blindfold simultaneous exhibition, as you may imagine, is a little more difficult. There, one goes from board to board and is simply told the last move that happened. You are at board three. Your opponent played pawn to c3. What is your move? This may seem entirely impossible, but players do it, and have done it, playing blindfold simultaneously against more than thirty master-strength players. Of course, it takes its toll on the mind. In fact, that’s why it has been outlawed in certain countries. The sense is, it shortens the careers of the best masters. It ages you, mentally, which is an awful idea.

— Can you do it? asked Stan.

— I have only done it with three or four games going on at once. Ezra gave an exhibition once where he did twenty boards.

— Did he win?

— He won fifteen, drew four, and lost one.

— To whom did he lose?

— To me. It was a trick. The organizers switched me in for the amateur that was supposed to be playing. He, of course, recognized it at once, but it didn’t help. Here, let me show you the moves.

Stan climbed up into his chair, leaving his perhaps-mouse-hole behind somewhat regretfully.

She showed him the moves of the game on the chessboard.

— And here he is forced to resign. He’ll lose his knight no matter where it moves. Any of these pawn moves lose immediately also. That’s called zugzwang.

— Shall we play a game without a board, asked Stan.

They tried, but it soon proved impossible. Stan could not remember which piece was where and kept trying to move knights that were hiding elsewhere or rooks that had already been taken off the board.

— Don’t worry, said Loring encouragingly. It comes in time. Let’s play our weekly match.

While they played, many things happened all around them. Loring thought about the open window upstairs and that it should be shut. She thought about the photograph that was lying on the bureau in that same room. She thought of the teacher that she had seen instructing the class, and of the dog that had been barking early that same morning. Mostly, though, she thought of standing in the bedroom and looking at her husband out of the corner of her eye.

— What have you been thinking about, Stan? she asked after he lost all four games in a row, quite badly.

— I was thinking about what you told me.

— What is that?

— About imagining things that might happen or might have happened. About trying to pretend that those things are real, in order to see what might be true about them. You said I should, if I felt the edge of something, I should follow it and see where it leads.

— And what were you imagining?

She sat up.

— Well, there came a knock at the door, and when you went to check, it was my father, only he looked different than the way that he usually looks.

The boy told Loring a story then, in which she was included as a character. They were sitting there, at lessons, as always, and a knock came at the door. Loring went to answer it, but there was no one there.

— A hermit always longs for visitors, said Loring, until they come, and then he wishes them gone.

— Are you talking about my dream?

— No, no, just speaking to myself. It is what old people do. You remembered those dreams very clearly, didn’t you?

— I have been trying to. I remember them partly, and make it up partly — make up what happened.

— I see, she said.

She looked at the boy in front of her. He was looking at her very closely; she felt herself being looked at. Who is it, she wondered, who is looking at me? If it is you, please put your hand out and touch my arm.

The boy sat and did nothing.

A moment passed.

Put your hand out and touch my arm.

But nothing happened. Loring was suddenly seized with a grave fear. Was it all a cruel trick? She stood up and rushed out of the room. The boy jumped up and followed after her. She stopped in the pantry, leaning against the shelves. Was she crying?

— Are you all right? asked Stan.

She knelt down next to him.

— I’m all right, she said.

— Will you tell me a story?

— I will.

And now it had been such a long time, such a very long time, and the mother must be arriving, might already have arrived — couldn’t possibly not be nearly to arrive.

— Shall we wait outside for her? asked Loring.

— All right, said Stan.

They went out to the steps and sat with the door shut and locked behind them.

— It is a nice thing, Loring said, to lock your door behind you when you sit on the stoop. Then, when it happens that the mood strikes you to rush off somewhere, you are totally prepared for it. Also, you have the complete freedom of your surroundings. If the door isn’t locked, then you, positioned in front of it, are in some sense defending the door. If it is locked, however, then you are a sort of sortie, sent out of the gates to some unknown end. Do you know to what purpose you have been sent out?

— To do the Knight’s Tour? asked Stan.

— Have you gotten it yet?

— I think so, said Stan, but I’m not sure.

— We can check it next time on the board, with you crossing off squares.

Then, a girl named Valerie showed up. She was like that, apparently. She would just show up and then she would be somewhere.

— Hello, said Valerie. I came to get Stan.

Stan looked at her a bit distrustfully.

— I’m your sister’s friend. Don’t you remember me?

Stan shook his head.

— Well, said Valerie, in that case, it will have to be kidnapping. Ms. Wesley, if you don’t mind I’m going to have to kidnap this boy.

— Don’t let her, shrieked Stan, suddenly seeming like he was actually afraid.

His face had become red. Afraid, really! And I believe he was, after all a five-year-old may cry about anything at all.

For some reason, Loring decided to continue the joke. Perhaps it was because she was tired, perhaps because he hadn’t touched her arm when she gave him the invisible request.

— Oh, take him away, she said. For all I care. But be sure to stuff something in his mouth or he’ll call for help.

Stan began to cry. It was just too much for him. He wasn’t at all prepared to be taken away by someone he didn’t know.

— But you know me, Valerie kept saying. You know me. You know me.

As is obvious, this is a pretty worthless thing to say if the other person doesn’t believe it.

Finally, the two of them walked Stan the whole way home. It was exhausting for Loring, for she was very old, and not given to sudden exertion. They had to stop many times, and by the end she felt the thinness of her old bones. As soon as she got out of sight of the house, she collapsed on a short wall, actually collapsed. Her body gave out. She fell onto her hands and hip and the stone cut her fingers in places.