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There he is.
Beth stares at him from the other side of the stage, her fists clenched so tight that her knuckles go pale. She can see him smiling softly at his wife, a hand pressed to the small of her back, while his seconds give him a last minute rundown of the opening he should go for.
Oh, how much she hates him. She feels the iron taste of her righteous fury in her mouth, but she tries to swallow it, to keep it under control. If she were the same young and tempestuous girl of Mexico City, she would go up to him and slap him right across that smug face, wanting nothing more than to wipe out that lopsided smile that curves the corner of his lips; yet, she has learned how to hone her rage, to channel it into the chessboard. Nobody can do anything to stop her when she unleashes it: Taimanov was the first to fall, a quick 6-0 that shook the chess world to its core, and soon Larsen met the same fate. Petrosian, the great defender that he is, did put up a staunch resistance, even breaking her 20-game winning streak, but he had to concede defeat too. Beth remembers the roar of the Argentinean crowd, when the Armenian Grandmaster resigned for the last time, how they chanted her name over and over again; however, the sweet taste of victory, of absolute dominion over the Candidates Tournament, didn’t last long before she reminded herself of the bigger prize on the horizon. The World Championship of 1972.
And here she is.
Reykjavík is cold, even in July, but her shivers have nothing to do with the temperature. She is so close to her goal, but it feels oh so wrong. Sitting through the press conference was a nightmare, a long and boring affair, and her quick answers didn’t have the usual bite that journalists were accustomed to; on the other hand, he was irritatingly courteous — complimenting her play in the Candidates without any reservation, and tastefully avoiding to bring up the ludicrous amount of requests she had made to attend the event — with his hesitant English that made him endearing to everyone. She didn’t thought possible to hate him even more, but it was. And she did.
At last, the arbiter beckons them closer: it is time. Beth holds her head high while she approaches the chessboard — the pieces are from a Staunton chess set, exactly what she had asked for — and she meets the gaze of the World Champion without faltering. His handshake is firm, his wedding ring digging into her skin. His light eyes are inquisitive, searching her blank face for an answer to her animosity, but can’t find one. He never will as only one person can read her and he is not there.
Oh, how incredibly wrong this is. Now she wants to crush him even more.
That is why, when she presses down the button of the clock, she leans slightly closer, a cruel smile curving her lips. “I will have no mercy, Boris Vasilievich. Borgov was mine to beat.” She whispers in Russian, too softly for others to catch on.
Beth can see Spassky swallow while he opens with pawn to queen four, her solemn vow making him slightly uncomfortable, maybe even afraid.
As he should.
While she brings her knight forward, she doesn’t avert her eyes and her smile widens. Game on.
They meet in Lugano, in late spring 1973. The symbolism of such a venue is not lost on Borgov: Switzerland is the only country where their match wouldn’t — explicitly — be treated as a political showdown. Here they wouldn’t need to check their room for bugs, or feel slightly out of place in the midst of a crowd that clearly has a favorite. It is an even field, where only chess matters, exactly what Elizabeth has always wanted.
He won’t deny it, it is definitely weird to sit next to her again.
He had seen her the last time in Palma de Mallorca, at the end of 1968. He remembers her well in that warm Spanish winter: she was a fire, an all-consuming inferno, sweeping through everyone, merciless and unstoppable. Borgov had tasted her flame and managed to escape the fate that befell on so many others by the skin of his teeth, snatching a draw with a perpetual. He could do nothing but admire her play, her creativity over the board, and her incredible precision. She was brilliant, magnificent and awe-inspiring. Beautiful and formidable.
She scared him like no other.
It was the way her lips curved in the faintest of smiles when she knew she had the upper hand in a game, the way her dark eyes glinted when they talked during a formal dinner party, how she walked confidently in the playing hall, her hips slightly swaying underneath her pristine dresses. Elizabeth Harmon awakened something in him that he hadn’t felt in a long time, and it terrified him.
Standing next to her, while receiving his third-place award, made him feel extremely aware of their 18 years difference. He could very well be her father, yet his treacherous mind didn’t particularly care about this small detail. That night, at the traditional dinner with all the other players, he had complimented her for her masterful win in the tournament and especially for her game against Spassky, and she had blushed ever so slightly. Her smile was bright and contagious when she asked him to wait for her, for she had missed the opportunity to qualify in that year Candidates Tournament but she wanted to win the World title from him; Borgov had acquiesced, amazed by her confidence, because he would concede to her every request if she asked it like that. And this tenderness, born from his concern for her well-being in Paris and evolved in something he couldn’t name in the years they spent apart, petrified him.
However, he had lost to Boris Vasilievich, a few months later in Moscow. Spassky was brilliant, the new poster child of the party, and playing against him felt like wrestling a boa constrictor: his play was so methodical, so brutal in its execution that he felt like his soul was slowly squeezed out of his body. Borgov did put up a tough fight, evening the score twice, but after almost two months of battle he simply ran out of stamina; in the end, he had to concede defeat and abdicate from his throne.
That night, when he went back into his hotel room, he poured himself a drink and sat by the window, waiting for the sadness and disappointment to set in, now that he was away from prying eyes. But they never came, on the contrary, he felt relief. It was as if a weight had been lifted from his chest, something so heavy that it impeded him to breathe correctly; the mounting pressure to perform at his best, so as not to embarrass the Union, had disappeared like morning mist. In 1963, when Borgov was only 33, he had thrived under that kind of pressure, it was an incentive to play better, to play sharper. However, the Kremlin didn’t care about the beauty of the game, what mattered were the results and he had to be invincible. Over the years he adapted to the growing list of requests, he became known for his inflexible defense and his vast knowledge of ending theory, but he was infamous for his dry style that yielded great results but little spectacle. Borgov knew what they said behind his back: he was a boring player, stoic and rigid, but as long as he kept winning, nobody dared to tell him those things to his face.
His spectacular loss in the Moscow Invitational and his third place in Palma de Mallorca, behind Elizabeth Harmon and Boris Spassky, showed that his grip on the World title was loosening. The party soon endorsed the idea of his challenger succeeding him and that was exactly what happened, in mid-June of 1969. Now Boris Vasilievich was the one to wear that crown, to bear all the burdens that came from calling himself the best chess player in the world and living in the USSR.
Now Borgov was free.
His divorce came later that same year. That too felt liberating, both for his wife and for him.
They had married as soon as they could, barely of age, blinded by that tumultuous and absolute love that only young people can feel. However, over the years, it slowly fizzled out, leaving in its stead a quiet and deep affection that felt more like friendship than love: their shared passion for French literature and the genuine enjoyment of the time they spent together simply wasn’t enough anymore. Their son had just turned two years old when, at last, they decided to address the issue, which was becoming too grave to ignore. At the end of a long heart-to-heart talk, they decided to stay married, for the sake of his chess career — that was taking off in that moment, with his name being one of the favorites for the victory in the Candidates Tournament of 1959 — and for Sasha. They both doted on their son, the greatest gift that came from their marriage, trying to preserve the image of a perfect happy family on the outside while on the inside Lyudmila started to take lovers and Vasily spent more and more time away in his study. He too had dalliances, little flings here and there, but they were nothing more than a way to release steam so that he could get back to his chessboard without the burden of his body’s desires. His mind always was — and still is, in fact — devoted to the 64 squares.
Borgov retired from competitive chess a few days later his divorce was announced.
His six years as World Champion had been peaceful, thoroughly dominated, but now it was time for a new generation of players — younger and uncompromising in their attacking prowess — to take central stage. Spassky would serve well as a leading figure, and then there was Elizabeth Harmon.
Elizabeth Harmon who is now sitting next to him, drinking tea on the hotel’s terrace overlooking the lake.
She has changed in this past five years, grown since the last time he saw her. Her features are sharper, her cheekbones more prominent, and her carefully styled copper hair falls well below her shoulders. Yet her eyes are still the same, dazzling and piercing. Photographs truly didn’t do her justice.
“Do you know why I asked to play specifically against you?” She doesn’t look at him, her gaze pointed at a boat entering the port.
That is the million-dollar question indeed. When Elizabeth had triumphed over the best players that the Union had to offer — mesmerizing the world with the ease with which she achieved those results — the USSR Chess Federation desperately tried to curb the damage: they soon organized an exhibition match against Spassky, with a considerable prize fund to pique her interest, hoping for a favorable result that would restore the Soviet chess school’s honor. The bait was successful, since she accepted the invitation right away, but she requested to choose herself the venue and to play against Vasily Borgov instead; if they didn’t agree to her wishes, she would just cancel the whole affair and go on her merry way. No matter how many times they explained he was retired and didn’t wish to come back, she was steadfast in her resolution until they acquiesced. He had to cancel a fishing trip he had planned with his son and rush back to Moscow when he received a call from a very distressed chairman of the Federation.
“No, I don’t,” he states plainly, turning his face towards her. He can see out of the corner of his eye the KGB agent inching slightly closer, far away enough to give them a false sense of privacy but close enough to eardrop everything they say. Looking discretely behind his shoulder to check if he’s being watched — and he usually is — is still second nature to him, even years after his last tournament abroad.
Borgov can see a muscle in her jaw twitch at his response and he briefly considers if he said something wrong. “You really don’t remember, do you?” Her voice is softer, almost timid, as if whatever he’s supposed to recall is an intimate thing that happened between them. And nothing of that sort ever came to be, he could never forget such a thing.
“I’m afraid I don’t, Miss Harmon. Downsides of my age, I suppose,” he weights carefully her reaction to his quip: the corner of her crimson lips curves upward, good. “Please, remind me.”
She fidgets with the silver spoon for a few seconds, still looking at the calm water of the lake below, before dignify him with an answer. “I asked you to wait for me in Palma,” she whispers, meeting his eyes at last and the world seems to stop: he never truly forgot the magnetism of Elizabeth’s dark irises, but seeing them again knocks the wind out of his lungs; her gaze pierces him like a spear, and he feels naked and vulnerable in front of her. It lasts only for a moment, an eternity enclosed in one second, before she resumes, her lips slightly quivering: “And yet in Reykjavík I found Spassky, not you.”
“Are you mad at me for losing in 1969?” Borgov doesn’t realize how patronizing his tone of voice is until he sees how she physically recoils, tearing her eyes away from him and moving her seat slightly further off. It seems like he’s mocking her, while he is simply curious and wishes her to open up with him: Elizabeth Harmon always was a puzzle, a rebus to solve, with her volatile temper, incredible talent, and silent demons that ate her from within; ever since Paris, when she ran away from him after disgracing herself with her horrible play, he had wanted to peel back all of her layers and find out what was hiding underneath them.
However, it appears he has screwed this rare opportunity up.
“Forget it, Mr. Borgov,” she hastily gets up, her delicate face flushed. “I’ll see you tomorrow at the board.” Vasily can do nothing but watch her storm off, leaving behind only the sweet smell of her expensive perfume and the regret for a lost chance.
The next day, when their eyes meet during their brief handshake, Borgov knows Elizabeth will try to take revenge for that perceived slight. She challenges him in his favorite opening, a sly smile curving her soft lips, but her aggressive play leaves him enough room to plan his defense: slowly he improves his position and shuts down all of her plans before they could become a serious threat. She prepares an attack on his queenside? He pushes the pawns to form an impenetrable fortress. She tries to infiltrate with the queen? He attacks it with his bishop, forcing it to retreat. Only when Borgov knows that she has nothing to go for, his position completely unassailable, he counterattacks and there is nothing that Elizabeth can do to save her king.
He wins the first game, to everyone’s surprise.
The next day, their second encounter is a hard-fought draw. The young World Champion tried all she could to find an advantage in an opposite-colored bishop endgame, but he methodically shut her down at every turn. Unlike in Moscow, she accepts his draw offer and there’s a softness in her eyes that stuns him for a few seconds: that silent rage in her irises — that characterized the previous game and her rise to the World title — is now gone and she seems pleased, like she has proven a point of some sort. Vasily files this gaze in his mental file on Elizabeth Harmon and spends the night in his room thinking about her.
Not before long, she ties the score and then takes the lead. Despite losing and falling behind in the overall match, Borgov isn’t disheartened: their games are intense, unpredictable and utterly interesting. He’s having fun, something that hasn’t occurred to him during a game in a very long time. Playing against Elizabeth always was something else, but he had forgotten how much he enjoys going head to head with her. She appears to be of the same mind: she is visibly relaxed, almost cheerful, when they meet over the board or when they bump into one another in the hotel or during a stroll in the city. Her courteous smiles often dazzle him.
In the end, Elizabeth wins the match, but it’s closer than everybody expected, with only one point separating them. Yet it all feels bittersweet: his performance was phenomenal, considering he had come out of his retirement only a few months prior, but now it is over; tomorrow Borgov will board a plane that will take him back to Moscow and Elizabeth will return to the US. He will probably never see her again.
That’s why, taking advantage of a moment when his minder is distracted, he asks the receptionist for Elizabeth’s room; he knows it’s a bad idea, terrible actually, but he can’t help himself. He doesn’t want her last words to him to be those exchanged on the terrace.
The advantage of having the reputation of a calm and dutiful player is that his surveillance is rather lax. Unlike Luchenko — who in his youth drove his minders crazy, always trying to sneak out of the hotel he was staying to enjoy what the Western nightlife had to offer — Borgov has always been respectful of curfews and other rules, so that the KGB agents assigned to him never actually checked if he was in his room during the night. This oversight will allow him to slip out unnoticed and go to Elizabeth, a chance to air out what troubled her so much.
Borgov is getting ready when he hears an unexpected knock on his door. He opens, expecting his minder to give him some last minute instructions about tomorrow, but he finds Elizabeth Harmon, still in that beautiful dark blue dress that emphasize the alabaster color of her skin and the soft curves of her body. “Good evening, Mr. Borgov,” she whispers, discretely checking the corridor to see if someone is coming. “May I come in?”
Seeing her in his suite, quietly taking in the drab furniture and his personal objects dotting the room, is quite the experience. Yet again, she has surprised and anticipated him, something that she is very apt to. “What do I owe the pleasure, Miss Harmon?” He manages to croak out, closing the door behind them.
“It’s Beth,” she corrects him, still not looking at him. Her eyes are fixed on his unpacked suitcase, her brows knitted. “And I’ve come to apologize.”
That surely is a novelty. He patiently awaits for her to continue, while remaining perfectly still: he’s almost afraid that if he moves she’d get scared and flee like a little dove. “I shouldn’t have acted like that, running off like I’m still fifteen, it was very immature. I’m sorry,” she offers him, a tentative smile on her crimson lips.
“You don’t need to, my choice of words was very poor,” he tries to interject, but she stops him raising her hand. “Still, I wanted to apologize,” her voice is soft and she’s still avoiding his eyes: despite her best attempts at appearing relaxed, her body language betrays the nervousness she must feel. The silence that follows her last sentence doesn’t help either.
“Well, I’m sorry if I bothered you, Vasily. I can call you Vasily, right?” She tries yet again, pausing for a moment for his nod of approval before resuming. “I suppose I’ll see you the next tournament. There’s the Canadian Open Championship in a few months, which sounds very promising, so I hope to see you there…”
“I’m not going.”
“What?” It’s almost a squeal, a sound so foreign coming from her smart mouth. Borgov has truly caught her by surprise, because for once her expression isn’t guarded at all and he can read genuine bewilderment twisting her features.
“I have retired, Beth,” he reminds her, closing the distance between them in two slow strides, her nickname heavy on his tongue. “This match was a one-time only.”
“Why?” It is strange to see her so lost: usually she is confident, self-possessed, a queen amidst pawns; now she seems utterly confused, terribly young. She shows her twenty-four years.
“I’ve nothing else to give to chess,” he admits without reservations because she’s looking at him with those big doe eyes of hers that make him want to give her everything, because she’s Elizabeth Harmon and no one more than her deserves the truth. “It’s time for me to give way to a new generation of players.”
“Fuck that!”
Where the hell did she learn that? Is this really what they teach in Russian classes in America? That stupid thought, however, rapidly evaporates from his mind since the fire that burned in her irises — that same rage of game one, the one that abided during the course of the last week and a half — is back, and her stare is fixed on him. Elizabeth clenches her fists, as if she’s forcing herself not to grab him by the collar of his shirt and shake him, and tips her chin upward to look more imposing than she is. Not that she needs to: despite being shorter than him — and than most of the opponents she met over the years — the aura that surrounds her always demanded respect, even from people who initially didn’t want to treat her as an equal. “You have nothing else to give to chess? Are you out of your mind?” The fury in her voice is palpable, it’s almost like he has insulted her personally. “Haven’t you seen how you played? Spassky can only dream to play like you!”
If it wasn’t such a serious moment, Vasily would smile at that dig: everybody knew about Elizabeth’s dislike of Boris Vasilievich, but nobody understood the reason behind it. A few months before Reykjavík, Spassky had called him one night asking him for some advice, as the only Soviet player with a positive score against the young American; he had also asked if it was normal that she glared at him so much when they met in a playing hall. Like she’s imagining thousand different ways to kill me were his exact words. Borgov had shrugged off that inquiry and had wished him the best for the upcoming World Championship. “Elizabeth…” he tries to interrupt her, but she ignores him, her eyes reduced to two slits: “Petrosian is your age and has played in the Candidates Tournament almost since the day I was born. Don’t try to bullshit me with talks about age.”
“There is no other reason,” he whispers trying to calm her, suddenly aware they’re still in a hotel room with very thin walls and his minder is just down the corridor, but she doesn’t buy it: she’s looking at him so intensely that he fears, for a brief moment, that she might slap him. Elizabeth bites her lower lip, her pearly white teeth digging into that tender skin, and then snorts, exasperated. “It’s such a waste,” she bemoans, almost to herself.
Borgov can’t help but put a hand on her trembling shoulder. He knows it’s a blunder, a terrible one at that, but today has not been his brightest day. He can feel the warmth of her body through her dress and how she holds her breath at his touch. “Why do you care so much?” She might hit him now, considering how her eyes — are they truly watery or are the lights of the room playing a trick on him? — go wide open at such a direct question. However, that wall that separated them, built on all the things that should have kept them apart, had come tumbling down the moment Elizabeth took the initiative and knocked on his door. It’s fitting this way, as she has always been the one to take charge.
“You’re the only player to have a positive score against me,” she murmurs and Borgov raises an eyebrow, not buying it. It’s only a part of the truth, a factor but not the reason why she’s so passionate about this. “The last time we played was in Palma,” she adds, her voice so soft that it’s almost inaudible.
Palma de Mallorca was the last tournament where they had met. There he had acquiesced to her request to wait for her, there he had wished her a safe journey — that sunny and warm morning when all players were checking out the hotel — with a handshake and the promise of seeing each other again at the Venice Invitational, in September 1969.
It was his last tournament before he retired.
He never got to say goodbye to her, from her point of view he had simply vanished into thin air.
“I’m sorry,” his hand is still on her shoulder and he can feel her shivering at his apology. Borgov knows how much she valued playing against him, but he had always assumed that her obsession with him was only due to his title; the length she went through just to organize this match, forcing him out of retirement to play another time, contradicts this preconception. Elizabeth wanted him.
There’s a flash in her dark irises, a spark that lightens them for a second, but before he can understand what it means she throws her slender arms around his neck and presses her mouth to his. It takes him a long moment to realize what is happening, but when her hot tongue traces the seam of his lips, his rationality is thrown out the window. Borgov knows it’s a terrible blunder, he knows he shouldn’t give in, but Elizabeth has always been his weakness. He holds her tight, pressing her body against his, and marvels at her softness; he runs a hand through her copper hair, entwining his fingers in her silky locks, and presses the other on the small of her back. “Please, come back,” she whispers among desperate kisses, her breath unbearably sweet. “Come out of retirement, Vasya”. He’s this close to give in, to prostrate himself in front of her like the terrible sinner that he is, but instead he kisses her harder, as to compensate for that promise he can’t make.
They soon lose all sense of time, and when he reluctantly steps back he can see that Elizabeth no longer has her signature crimson lipstick, yet her lips are the same color of cherries. There’s no shame in her gaze, in her relaxed face, when she stands on her toes to kiss him on the cheek; it’s a gentle little thing that makes his heart skip a few beats, the familiarity of it so electrifying. “Goodnight, Vasily,” her tone of voice is carefully even, but there’s so much he can read in her eyes: all of her fears, her hopes, and that declaration so hard to express yet so painfully obvious in her shining irises. Borgov gently strokes her cheek, trying to instill in that gesture his answer, before letting her go.
Sleep doesn’t come easily that night and, when he boards the flight that will take him home, he can still feel her taste in his mouth. And she tastes more like a see you soon than a farewell.