Jesse Ball: The Lesson

Stan was looking in the other direction. It was unclear whether or not he had been listening.

— Where did you learn to play? he asked.

— I was taught by my brother. He was also a master, but much older.

— Where is he?

— Oh, he died very long ago.

— Was he that old?

— No, he was killed. By mistake.

There was a clock on the mantel. It made a distinct tick and one might imagine that the boy, in future years, would think back on his time in that quiet room, and that the particular ticking of that clock would be recalled to him as part and parcel of that moment. In fact, one never knows what one will remember or why. There is a clock museum, for instance, at least it is called a clock museum (it is the front room of someone’s house), where there are at least two hundred clocks, all going at the same time. The noise is bewildering and wonderful. Everyone who hears it feels they must return and sit a little longer in one of the chairs here and there throughout the room, but of course, they do not come back.

Just as the return to the clock museum is lost, so is the sound of the clock in the Wesley house. The boy was drowsing and wakes at a loud tick. Loring was watching him and considering. They had just played another three games, all of which the boy lost. She had told him to look at the games, and to tell her in ten minutes why he had lost, and in the thinking, curled up in that black oak chair by the wall, he had fallen asleep.

— I have a question for you, he said.

He was wearing a very light brown color and this made him appear sympathetic to all those who saw him that morning. Someone in the street had even said to someone else, why, that is a fine little boy. Not everything in the world is for the worse.

Of course, this is not at all true. It is simply an explanation of the light brown color, and in that sense I stand by the anecdote.

— What is your question?

— Is that your husband on the wall?

Loring was astonished. Could he know nothing about Ezra? One is always surprised by the lack of knowledge others show about our dead. But for him not to know? When she had seen Ezra looking through his eyes?

— He was a chess player as well. That’s him, there. Fifteen years ago, I believe it was taken. I would have to say that: that it was fifteen years ago. Or perhaps longer, perhaps twenty-five.

— Was he very good?

— He was the strongest one for some years, the strongest of all. The best players would gather in some city, to play for some purse, I too, and he would defeat us all. But his style was too wild, and it tired him.

— I don’t understand.

— I will explain this eventually. For now, to answer you. He was also, like me, a master. Now, do you know what went wrong in those games?

— No.

— Figuring out what you did wrong and fixing it, that’s what being a chess player really is.

The bell rang, then, and a bunch of letters fell through the slot in the front door. The two in the parlor could hear them land, one by one on the wood floor of the hall.

— One moment, said Loring.

She was gone and came back and in coming back took a dull knife from the drawer of a desk. One letter she opened. The others she had left by the door. This letter was small, and shaped like a letter. Not all letters are, you know!

— Hmmm, she said.

and

— Something is ready in town. I am going to go down and pick it up. You shall come with me. We’ll get lunch there. There’s nothing to eat in the house anyway.

The boy got his coat and she fetched hers from a peg in the hall. Out the door they went. The hour was eleven. It was that sort of day where eleven means waiting. So, in that way, it was very comfortable to set out at such a time.

Beyond the door, the street was also extremely concerned with the hour of eleven, and with waiting. The street was solemn in that way, observant of the hour. The boy was very solemn at first, too, and strove to walk slowly, at the pace that Loring set, but at the canal he could not help but climb onto the lip and run with wildness back and forth. Loring said nothing in warning, and did not discourage him in the slightest. You must have imagined that she would permit behavior of this sort! It is quite clear from her character, as someone might tell you who knew her well, or who had known her. If you would speak to such a person about her, they might tell you a story such as this:

Why, once, on a bet, in younger days, she had stolen an automobile. She had been that sort of young woman — and nothing was too much for her. Someone tried to rob her once, an Italian, and she had brandished a knife at him. Do you see?

But now the boy had found a piece of glass. He brought it to her, in this way, saying,

— A piece of glass.

She took it and looked at it. Much of the deep depression that surrounds us in life has to do with this one thing — that we can’t even see the smallest plainest objects.

— Not much use, she said, unless you put it on top of a wall where someone might climb and cut themselves. The walls in old parts of Spain are like that. The tops are all broken bottles.

This was the sort of fact that a boy likes to hear, she thought to herself.

— Looking down a hill at the old stone houses with their intermittent walls, one can see the sun setting fire to the tops of those in the distance, when the sun strikes properly.

— Can I have it back?

— Of course.

She handed him the glass and he took it. In the exchange, she touched his hand, and as during their bargain, was momentarily shaken. It was a child’s hand. This was an odd thing to recall when looking at a child, when speaking with a child, but you must understand, already the boy was not entirely a child. And yet the hand restored it all again.

— But I don’t want to carry it, he said. And I can’t put it in my coat.

— Why don’t you hide it? she said. Put it somewhere. You can get it on the way back.

He looked around for a spot, but was having trouble.

— Well, the best place is probably wherever it was. If you can find that spot, exactly, I’m sure it will all go very well for you.

He looked around on the ground for that spot. At this moment a man came up.

— Have you lost something? he said.

The situation was explained to him. He frowned.

— Throw it into the canal. It will go somewhere, and if you find it again, then it will really mean something.

This was as good a suggestion as any, and so Stan threw the glass into the canal. He was at first worried that he had thrown it too much, and not let it drop enough, because he wanted it to be as much seemingly the will of the glass, as his own will. And yet it went off and was gone, and that was enough.

The man also went off and was gone.

— The people, you see, said Loring, who walk by the canal, are quite different from the regular run of people. Why this man, for instance, fit the bill. Not always is it the case that people come with a worthwhile suggestion.

— Fit the bill?

— Of the place — he joined the category of people who are interesting enough to want to walk by the canal, even though it is a bit dingy and old and doesn’t get cleaned nearly often enough.

— Well, I like the canal.

— I’m glad of that, said Loring. I used to walk here every day. I still do. I still do. But I used to walk here with my husband. Every day.

And so they passed on along the canal and out into a square. Across the square they went and there in a building, Loring claimed something or other, a package of some sort, something she had left and was now obtaining, perhaps repaired or restored. The details are not all clear. Out into the street she went, and with Stan, she made her way to a stall where sandwiches were made. Finest Quality, it said.