King's Gambit Read online

  John hesitated a moment, then abruptly walked away. Henry glanced at Tom.

  ‘What now?’

  ‘Go after him. He’ll snap out of it.’

  Henry nodded, then walked quickly after John. Tom stood alone, watching them go. After a few moments he turned and walked away.

  Across the street, Gligoric waited until the three men were out of sight, then stepped out of the doorway in which he had been standing. He got into a waiting car and instructed the driver to take him home. He was satisfied that everything was going according to plan. He decided to reward himself that night with a woman.

  THREE

  John had always believed that his life had begun when he discovered the existence of the game of chess His early childhood was a blur of vaguely defined memories of his mother and a hulking, faceless man that he associated with physical pain and that he assumed was his father, although he couldn’t be sure; there had been a lengthy procession of men in and out of his mother’s bedroom for as long as he could remember. He remembered himself as constantly feeling out of focus, drifting through school, bullied, afraid, alone, and—most of all—powerless. He was not small in stature, but he felt small—which was worse.

  Then he had been born again on a bright day in the early spring when he was eleven years old He had been walking home through a park near his school in the Greenwich Village section of New York City. As usual, old and young men, unemployed, drifters of all ages were hunched over the stone tables near the sidewalk, playing chess. John had seen the men and women playing many times before, but had never stopped. This day, for some reason, he did.

  There was a great deal of noise and argument as one or more of the spectators, unable to control a mounting frustration, would suddenly reach over the shoulder of one of the players and move a piece, loudly arguing that only an idiot could have missed that particular move. The player, backed by his own supporters, would argue back vehemently. Tempers would flare, but, as far as John could see, there were never any fist fights. Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves immensely, and the arguments seemed as much a part of the fun as the game itself.

  John moved closer so that he could see one of the games in progress. A young man in a business suit was playing an old woman with pale eyes and a moustache. There was much discussion going on among the onlookers, and the young man’s face was flushed, his jaw muscles tense, and it seemed obvious to John that he was losing. But it was the game pieces themselves that caught and held John’s attention. They were different from any game pieces he had ever seen before, and somehow beautiful; rearing horses, spear carriers, religious figures, castles, kings and queens. Players had different sets, some ornately carved, others very simple. John found all of them fascinating. He quickly learned, by watching, that each piece had its own special way of moving, and that a particular player’s prowess depended on how well he could co-ordinate the moves of his various pieces.

  ‘You wanna’ play, kid?’

  John turned and looked up into the rheumy, colourless eyes of the old man who had touched his shoulder The old man wore a ragged jacket over a shirt that had once been white. He smelled.

  ‘What’s the matter, kid? You don’t talk? You a dummy?

  John felt afraid; at the same time he experienced an entirely different emotion that he could not identify. Many years later he would realise that the emotion was gratitude. That day in the park was the first time in John’s life that an adult—any adult—had approached him as an individual, and not as a child. The old man simply wanted to play chess: John’s age was absolutely irrelevant. It was an exhilarating experience for the eleven-year-old John Butler, and it erased his fear.

  ‘I … I don’t know how to play, mister.’

  The old man hawked and spat on the sidewalk, then turned and started to walk away. John ran after him and grabbed his sleeve.

  ‘Teach me, mister.’

  ‘I ain’t no teacher, kid.’

  The old man kept walking. John hung on to his sleeve. ‘Please, mister.’

  The old man stopped and stared down at John for a few moments. Finally he motioned towards an empty table where a board and pieces had been set up. ‘Ten minutes, kid,’ the old man said gruffly.

  Ten minutes was all it took John to learn the moves of the pieces—eight pawns, two rooks, two knights, two bishops, a king and a queen.

  ‘And the object of the game is to capture the other man’s king?’ John asked, desperately trying to stretch out the precious, passing minutes.

  But the old man no longer seemed anxious to leave. The hard light in his eyes had diffused and grown softer. He shook his head. ‘The king’s never captured, kid. The game’s over when you’re about to capture the king on the next move and there’s not a damn thing the other guy can do about it. That’s called “checkmate”.’ The old mad hawked and spat again. Something rattled deep in his chest. ‘There’s an interesting thing about chess,’ the old man continued when he had caught his breath, ‘you can’t sneak up on another guy’s king When you’re threatening to take the king, you gotta’ say “check”, and he’s gotta’ move the king out of the way or protect it some other way. When he can’t, that’s ’mate There are some special rules, but I ain’t gonna’ teach you them now. I don’t come down here to play wet nurse to beginners Tell your old man to teach you.’

  ‘I don’t have a father. I mean, he doesn’t live with us.’

  ‘Sorry, kid. Didn’t mean to get personal.’

  ‘That’s all right.’ John fingered the chess pieces, practising the moves he had just learned ‘Is that all there is to it?’

  The old man threw back his head and laughed. The laugh ended, shifting down into a strangled, hiccupping cough that had a foul odour. The old man quickly set up the pieces, then leaned forward, his elbows resting on the sides of the table. ‘You’re white, smart-ass,’ the old man growled. ‘You move first.’

  John moved his king’s bishop pawn out two squares. The old man smiled and advanced his queen’s knight. John hesitated, then moved another pawn. He found that he remembered the moves of the pieces clearly, but he was no longer so confident that he knew what to do with the pieces. Now that the game had begun, their number appeared to have grown. The old man’s king, eight squares from his own, might as well have been a million miles away; John could think of no way of attacking it successfully. What to move, where to move it and when; those were the problems and the essence of the game, John thought. He moved a bishop to the opposite end of the board and watched it captured by a piece he hadn’t even noticed. His face began to burn. In a few more moves his king was surrounded by black men, none of which he could safely capture with his own white pieces.

  ‘Checkmate in three, smart-ass.’

  John glanced up. ‘How do you know that?’ he asked stiffly.

  The old man gestured towards the board. ‘It’s right there in front of you.’

  Three moves later John’s king was hopelessly trapped, and the old man’s prediction suddenly became painfully clear. ‘I told you, smart-ass,’ the old man said evenly. ‘That’s checkmate.’

  John felt humiliated. He wanted to get up and run but knew that would only make him feel worse. The old man’s eyes were filled with scorn, merciless.

  ‘Let ol’ Edgar tell you something, sonny,’ the old man said. ‘This here game was made up by an Indian general—or maybe a Persian. Doesn’t make any difference. The game was used to practise making war, and that’s what the game is all about; it’s a war. The armies are the same. Everything’s the same except the person runnin’ the army. When you get to be a better general than the other guy, that’s when you win the battles and the war. The game’s thousands of years old. It’s a game that will never die because it’s the greatest game there is.’

  Edgar swept the pieces to one side of the table and pressed his index finger directly in the centre of the board. ‘First lesson, sonny; you may learn the moves of the pieces in a few minutes, but it will take you the
rest of your life to learn to move ’em right. And that won’t be enough time. Nobody knows everything there is to know about this game.’ Edgar tapped his finger on the board. ‘This may look like a playing board with sixty-four squares to you, but you’re wrong. I’ll tell you what it is; it’s a bottomless pit Every time you move the pieces out there, you’re going into unknown territory. People have been working out new wrinkles ever since the game was invented. So don’t be a smart-ass, smart-ass! There ain’t no luck in this game. No luck at all. You always get exactly what you deserve. Remember that you’re a general; move your army right and you win; move it wrong and you lose. It’s just as simple as that Or as complicated. Learn the capabilities of your forces. Hell, it’s also like being an orchestra leader. You’re the conductor, and it’s only going to sound good when you get everybody playing together.’ Edgar paused and cleared his throat He seemed slightly embarrassed. ‘I talk too much, kid. Forget all that general and orchestra conductor crap. The only way you’re going to learn to play is to play. And that’s all I got time for. I wanna’ play some chess before it gets too dark to see the pieces.’

  John felt light-headed. ‘Thank you Mr Edgar,’ he said as the old man rose.

  Edgar hesitated, then reached into a pocket of his jacket and withdrew a thick, tattered paperback book. He tossed it across the table at John who caught it and looked at the title. The book was Modern Chess Openings. ‘Here, smart-ass. Check this out. Learn what’s been done and save yourself a lot of trouble. You can give it back the next time you see me.’

  John nodded and clutched the book firmly to his chest. He felt as if he had been given something very precious, a book that would teach him the secret of the old man’s skill at the chessboard. Edgar turned without another word and shuffled off into the crowd.

  Later, in his room, John was to discover that Modern Chess Openings might as well have been written in a foreign language; most of it was printed in what appeared to be a specialised notation. But, by using the few diagrams provided in the book and by remembering what Edgar had told him, John learned to read the book and decode the positions. And he stopped by the park every day to watch. Edgar ignored him, but other men would occasionally answer his questions or demonstrate a move on an unused board. He used one week’s allowance to buy a small pocket chess set, then spent every moment he could steal at home and school to practise the various opening sequences of moves he had read about in the old man’s book. He felt as if a new world had been opened to him, a world ideally suited to him; it was a world of figures and analysis, a world of tense confrontation which was nonetheless free of the kind of pain John had known most of his life. This was a world where everyone knew the rules and played within them, and this was all John had ever wanted.

  Watching the men in the park, John soon learned to recognise the same opening moves he had been practising. And he learned that there were three theoretically separate phases in a chess game· the opening, middle game and end game. Each phase had its own special characteristics, and different tactics were occasionally used in each phase. Some players were noted for their strengths and weaknesses in the different phases. Thousands of opening lines had been thoroughly analysed; it was the middle game, that stage of the contest where all the pieces had been deployed, where imagination combined with a strong sense of logic had to be used. It was the end game, when most of the pieces had been removed, that appeared, ironically, to be the most complicated phase of all, requiring the maximum of concentration and thought.

  Within a few weeks John discovered something else; he often saw more in any given position than other people who had been playing for years. At last he felt ready to play again. His mother rarely arrived home before eight or nine in the evening, and so John had no difficulty remaining in the park after school to play. Within ten days he had beaten Edgar for the first time.

  Edgar sat back and stared at John Something moved in the pale eyes; surprise, anger, then pride. ‘That’s good, kid,’ Edgar said. ‘That’s real good. Let me ask you something: how’d you know enough to sacrifice your knight on the fifteenth move? I mean, you didn’t really know how it was going to bust up my king’s side, did you? Wasn’t it a mistake?’

  John glanced at his score sheet, then set the pieces back in their original positions and played through the game until he reached the move Edgar had questioned. He demonstrated quickly. ‘You couldn’t afford to take the knight,’ John said. ‘This happens … then this.’ John’s fingers flew across the board, moving the pieces while Edgar absently nodded his head. ‘I think you could have defended with pawn to bishop four.’

  Edgar didn’t say anything and John grew nervous. ‘Did I do something wrong?’ John asked quietly.

  ‘No, kid.’ There was pride evident once again in Edgar’s eyes and voice. ‘You did just fine’ The old man cleared his throat. ‘Look, kid, you doin’ anything this weekend? I mean, will your folks let you spend some time with me Saturday and Sunday?’

  John dropped his eyes He wished he could say that someone would mind. In fact, ever since his father had left, his mother rarely knew whether John was home or not. And she gave no indication that she cared When she was home there was always a man—some man, different men—with her, and John found that he was often afraid of them When the men were not in his home, his mother was in theirs ‘I can get out,’ John said in a voice barely above a whisper. ‘Where do you want to take me?’

  ‘How old are you, kid?’

  ‘Eleven I’ll be twelve next month.’

  ‘Can you get some money? Maybe ten bucks?’

  John shook his head ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Never mind. You meet me here eight o’clock Saturday morning. Okay?’

  John gazed out over the huge hall with its hundreds of chess sets. They were early for the tournament, but there were already a few players there, sitting by themselves, poring over chess books and analysing past efforts. They all looked so terribly serious, and John felt a tightening in his stomach.

  Edgar walked back over to him and handed him a receipt. ‘All right, smart-ass,’ Edgar said with a broad smile, ‘you’re now a member of the United States Chess Federation. You’re also entered in this tournament. You sure your parents—your mother—doesn’t mind you coming out with me like this?’

  ‘I’m sure. You paid for me?’

  Edgar made a gesture with his hand. John realised with some surprise that the old man was embarrassed and he felt a flood of affection.

  ‘I know you know how to keep score, smart-ass, but you’re also going to use a clock here. You know how?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Then I’ll show you.’

  Edgar borrowed a chess clock from the tournament director and took John over to a table at the end of the hall. John watched carefully as the old man demonstrated the use of the two-faced clock. It had suddenly become important to John that he do well.

  ‘Do you play in these tournaments, Mr Edgar?’

  Edgar shook his head ‘No, smart-ass. Haven’t got the nerves for it. I’m a park player, a patzer, a wood pusher. I like to talk when I’m playin’, have fun. You’re not going to find that here. You talk too loud here and somebody will hand you your head. These guys are out for blood. But this is where you belong, kid. You got talent, and you need the competition.’

  John looked around him The hall was now filling rapidly. Players were standing around nervously waiting for the pairings for the first round to be posted.

  ‘After you play five rounds you’ll get what’s called a provisional rating,’ Edgar continued. ‘Your rating depends on the ratings of the guys you’re playing. The more you win and the higher their ratings, the higher your own rating goes The same goes for everyone all over the US. The average rating is about 1,500 When you get to 2,000, the USCF gives you a title. Then you’re an expert You get that far and you’re good, smart-ass. And I wouldn’t have brought you here if I didn’t think you could do it. If you hit 2,200 you’re a m
aster, 2,400 is what’s called a senior master. That’s as far as you can go with national titles.’

  ‘What happens after that?’

  ‘Tournament chess is internationally controlled. The US Chess Federation is the American part of an outfit that calls itself Federacion International des Echecs; FIDE. They’re the ones who decide who gets the international titles, and they control all international tournaments, including the candidates’ matches and the world championship matches.’

  ‘How do they work?’

  ‘Whoa, smart-ass. Let’s see if you can win a, few games at this level before you start worrying about the big boys.’

  ‘Please, Mr Edgar. I want to know.’

  Edgar shrugged with good-natured resignation. ‘If you get good enough, that is, if your rating gets high enough, you’ll be invited to certain international tournaments. You’ll earn the title of international master or grand master—the highest you can go—by beating a certain percentage of other grand masters For these championships, they’ve divided the world up into zones and play what are known as interzonals. Then they take the two best guys to represent each zone and these players go on to the candidates’ matches. The process takes three years. Finally you end up with one challenger, and he plays the current champion for the world title.’ Edgar paused. ‘You listening, kid?’

  John did not win any games in the first tournament He cried after the last loss, and was ready to quit Edgar insisted that they sit down immediately and analyse the games Upon doing so John’s mistakes became painfully obvious to him, and he could not believe that he had missed so many obvious good moves.