A Momentary Lapse of Reason - 10
A Novella
10. 从容不迫[i]
(cóng róng bù pò)
Pressure on my move.[ii] It is the first time my moves would be for the permanent record.
Her position was a mess.
There
Is
No
Other
Word
For
It.
But none could be found in all the cacophonous spikes of the position. She was familiar with the Pirc Opening but her opponent was better in his sleep.
Her move as white had been what, to her, seemed absolutely the most logical approach: stick three paws down her opponent’s throat. Then she would develop an attack to level the fianchettoed Bishop in the corner square, and that would be enough. Or so she thought.
She had a bad bishop.
And a tied-up knight.
All her schemes…
… had come for naught.
The chess god laughed…
For her.
She needs luft – air – a space to breathe.
What changed her mind was the realization of the name of the person she was opposing: he was the best player in the game. So rather than it being a timid newcomer she realized then that there had to be a plan to his madness. She realized that this was not some random furball of an opening but a deliberate plan to let her as white extend herself beyond her reach and then come collapsing in at the right moment. The counterattack from black was the size and she realized concentrated at the vulnerable point of her center. She reached four a piece to go to extremes and crack was positioned but then she realized that this was a hill which she could not defend, and the tension grew even higher.[iii] She realized that whether she stood or fell on this move would be the key to winning the game. [iv]
Now what is she going to do? Five minutes were gone when no clue as to her salvation. Coal seemed to burn inside of her.
At this point, she did not want to dream about other things, but the jade fantasies kept shopping their way into her mind.
A merge of multi-hued apparitions collided and poured over her face taking colors that she started to see even in the real world. The rays went from purple to orange to red in an abstract expressionist collage. She had to get herself under control and she realized the only step was to ask to go to the bathroom and stare into the mirror. She was given five minutes, and no more than that. She thought that they had had experience with delay tactics before, but she wasn’t sure. The monitor checked for her cell phone and then she rushed to the ladies’ room and immediately started to weep. But this did not last at all because she had to gain control and reason may have of the situation. She looked at herself in the mirror and gained that hard cold look that she had mastered with her parents’.
It was at this point that she could almost read the lines on MCO’s table. She also realized she did not need to win the game. Her opponent had blundered his third game against the second-strongest player and therefore needed to win. But she had not done any such blundering and only needed a draw to win the entire match. She mentally turned the page read the notation and saw that there was a draw if everything went according to Hoyle.
She gathered her face together and went out with just enough time to spare and we the motions that she had read in her mind. It was, in an odd sense, beautiful.
Her opponent was flabbergasted. He had expected her to be a pushover or at least someone who could be wood-chipped into submission. He chose an out-of-the-way opening. She looked him in the eye through his glasses and saw that his approach was to get her away from the standard openings and into less charted territory. His eyes squinted. And it was at that moment that she realized she had turned the tables and put him on the defensive. It was not enough to win the game, he needed to win whereas is she merely needed to not lose.
For more sets of moves she offered him a drop. He hesitated and then nodded his head no and tried to recover the position.
And an odor of stale came to their board. It grew and the other people who were watching the game could see that there was no way that he could maneuver her into a checkmating position. It was still 30 moves away from this, but the aura of burnt bread grew stronger with each passing moment. Finally, she made a move, with poise, from which there was no turning back. Since he was not on the cosmic scale a good player, this wasn’t a surprise, it was only a surprise because she was an unknown player, and it was a minor tournament. The last thing that she did was to finger a couple of pawns and then slip them into two her pocket. The confusion made it so that nobody noticed and she barely noticed herself.
Then he shook her hand and slumped away to get some rice with soy sauce.
Then Tal came out of the crowd. “I thought you were doomed after the tenth move.”
“I went to the bathroom and saw mentally the book.” Meeting the Modern Chess Openings by de Firmian. “I simply read, in my mind, the line and went to the footnote which offered me a draw.”
There was silence. Tal nodded.
Then there was a member in her left hand, and she was offered a chair and sank into it. Her eyes were closed but she could hear the confusion as someone asked for some help. She seemed to sleep soundly but then managed to open her eyes, and everyone decided she was at least conscious and able to look out onto the world. What they did not see was that she was reading the lines of the Pirc Opening which she had only glanced at because they were right after her favorite line, of the Sicilian opening.
She looked around the room and she thought she saw Kit, but she was not sure. She also saw two ominous men but they too left. Three of a perfect pair.[v]
Afterward out on the street she was walking with Tal. Tal puffed himself up and said: “You need to find the interdependence between two states. It is calm.” He reached for a cigarette in his pocket but did not find one.
She looked at him and laughed. “Your namesake wanted treacherous traps and finicky closings. I don’t think he would give that advice. It is doubleplusungood.[vi]”
“Perhaps not. But that is a low wall. What would you suggest?”
She thought and then replied: “They showed me a statue and told me to pray.”[vii]
[i] Take one’s time.
[ii] Reference to Billy Joel, “Pressure”.
[iii] Reference to Billy Joel, “I Go to Extremes”.
[iv] Reference to Billy Joel, “I Go to Extremes”.
[v] King Crimson, “Three of a Perfect Pair”
[vi] From George Orwell, 1984.
[vii] A reference to Billy Joel, “Only the Good Die Young”