A Momentary Lapse of Reason - 06
A Novella
6. 川流不息[i]
(chuān liú bù xī)
The river closed without stopping.[ii] One game after another with the score gradually tilting in favor of Maggie as she learned the intricacies of chess. But this time Tal was grumpy. “Your game is off.” The scowl on his face was illuminated by the red and green neon which flashed in the night. She was frightened by the scowl though she knew that it was probably not going to bite. But the abstract entities gutted into her soul.[iii]
“But I still beat you.” Her face was smitten with determination and a frightful grimace. In her mind, she thought that beating him was the only valuable piece.
“A wood pushers game only. I not the challenge that you need to face. You need to go to a tournament. With real players. Some of whom earn the money. Players like me are polyunphiloproenitive.[iv] We, are worse than nothing. You have talent, yes? A gift. A true gift.”
She only nodded but still thought that she was winning and that was all that was important.
But Tal did not stop: “In the beginning was the Word.[v] And the word breakage of that word is chekmaht. And the way out is a stalemate. You know these things. You believe these things. You trust these things. So, trust. Everything else Is the wilderness, cracked and browned.”[vi]
But then Tal saw that Maggie was shaking. So, at this point, he calmed down.
“What is wrong? It’s not chess.”
She shook him head.
“Is it the boy?”
Shaking of the head for “да.”
A lead back in two the darkness with the red neon light covering his face. “ you must think of this not as a game but something like levels of the game.”
She stared blankly.
“There is the game да?”
And nod came back for “Yes.” But the word yes is a foreign one to Chinese because there is no yes phrase, one simply duplicates the last positive verb.
“But we know more than this because it is you and I playing against each other.”
And her stairs came back.
“So that is itself a game and we can rate each.”
“By ELO.” With a quick edge, Tal could see that she was back in the conversation.
“да.” Tal then grunted. “да. But this game between you and I can be looked at by the chess game and other players can comment on the chess game.”
“So what?” It was an expression in Chinese.
“This means that other players can know our rating by looking at our game. Да?”
“So, if we walk into a tournament the other players know something about our relative strength.”
“And the weaknesses that we bring to the table. This is why you must play better than yourself to beat people you have not even yet crossed paths with.”
“Is that the farthest that we go?”
“Нет. Нет, Нет.”[vii] And with that Tal shook his head with vehemence and violence in and under the penitential gates.[viii] Surrounded and sustained by staring seraphim.
“What is beyond that?”
“Machines can play beyond what any human being can play yes?”
“The best machines can play any person.”
“Then that is a layer deeper.”
“And beyond that?”
“There are many who believe that there is the perfect machine which would see every move and solve the mystery of chess.”
“As we drift across the windowpanes?”[ix]
“If you like. But there is a glorious endpoint which the no never see and perhaps never even see the glimpses of. We get there recursively.”
“Do you mean God?”
Tal shifted nervously. “If God, if he exists, has not given me his telephone number.”
“So, you do not believe in the Father and the Paraclete?”[x]
“I suspend judgment because it is a problem which I do not know even the question to. The Masters of the subtle schools now more than I do.”[xi]
So, they again along the garden wall burned invisibly and dim the session of the grand game of which chess was a part of.[xii] Her game did not improve, however. Tal smoked a Camel and with an exhale he muttered something about leaving the boy to himself if she could not put him out of her mind for leaving chess.
Then at 3 o’clock in the morning, she was pushed out into the streets and looked for a way to distract her from going home.
Then streets were almost empty save for the distributors who packaged the next day’s food for eager consumption.
Then at last she went back to her parents’ place, and she opened the door so softly with a tender touch on her fingernails that were sublime and eager for the abuse that they would heap upon her. Under a cover of smoke. They woke up and teased her but did not her skin or polish her backside. Instead, they went to sleep.
There was disappointment because they were asleep, and she missed the grinding exhaustion that they would otherwise take out on her.
She knew that this was wrong, but she did not know what to do about it. It might have been the cheap bottle of perfume that her mother always wore.
And she stayed awake like Sweeney along the nightingales with a mortal blow. [xiii]
Then the sunrise illuminated through the garish windows.
And then she slept as her parents made the worst tea imaginable. They drank it without comment because it was their morning ritual.
It was to wake themselves up from a night of semi-debauchery. Her mother drank more tea and he smoked the foul-smelling cigarettes that he was addicted to.
And high overhead were the nightingales who were singing for a new day, whichever day that was. 红星. 红星. 红星.[xiv]
[i] The stream flows without stopping.
[ii] Title.
[iii] Reference to T.S. Eliot, “Mr. Eliot Sunday Morning Service.” 1.25
[iv] Reference to T.S. Eliot, “Mr. Eliot Sunday Morning Service.” 1.1
[v] Reference to T.S. Eliot, “Mr. Eliot Sunday Morning Service.”, 1.4
[vi] Reference to T.S. Eliot, “Mr. Eliot Sunday Morning Service.”, 1.12
[vii] No.
[viii] Reference to T.S. Eliot, “Mr. Eliot Sunday Morning Service.”, 1.21-22
[ix] Reference to T.S. Eliot, “Mr. Eliot Sunday Morning Service.”, 1.3
[x] Reference to T.S. Eliot, “Mr. Eliot Sunday Morning Service.”, 1.12
[xi] Reference to T.S. Eliot, “Mr. Eliot Sunday Morning Service.”, 1.31
[xii] Reference to T.S. Eliot, “Mr. Eliot Sunday Morning Service.”, 1.20-21
[xiii] Reference to T.S. Eliot, “Sweeney Among the Nightingales” title and the quote.
[xiv] Red Star.