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- Prologue: Summer, 1966
Beth watches him move across the lobby of the Aztec Hotel, heedless of the stifling heat, the rays of sun that cut through the floor length windows, bright and slanting. There is a tigerish grace about him, as though he is stalking invisible prey.
Vasily Borgov.
She tries the name on her tongue, finds she likes it, half sibilant, half hard, like the bittersweet candies she likes so well.
In front of her the game remains forgotten, along with her opponent, an Italian grandmaster whose name she had barely caught. She fans herself absentmindedly with the program of the day’s play. By now Vasily Borgov has joined his entourage of equally flint-faced Soviets. From across the room he catches her gaze, absentmindedly, almost as an afterthought, and the corners of his lips quirk. Almost immediately she makes a blunder on the board. But when she looks back up she finds his attention drawn elsewhere, chatting amiably with his keepers.
She does not yet realize how much she will obsess over that little gesture, that half-formed smile, over the months that will follow.
- November 2, 1966
Beth stares at the calendar upon the kitchen wall—the picture of the month shows a pair of kittens playing with a ball of yarn. But it is not the photograph that has caught her attention as the beer from the bridge drips condensation upon her hand, it is the date circled in red pen underneath. November 2nd, the elegant cursive of her late mother proclaims, Beth’s birthday!
She takes a long swig from the bottle.
Birthdays.
When she had been little they had been innocuous occasions enough—November 2nd on the dot each year would pass like any other day, without any need to mark it apart from the others.
My girl is a good girl, Alice would remark, reaching over to give her hand a squeeze as they sat sewing together. She doesn’t need to be spoiled like other girls. And looking into her mother’s hard eyes she would almost believe a birthday was something ridiculous and frivolous, like the sinful desserts she would often spy other little girls indulging in at the local diner, or the frilly dresses she would catch them tearfully clutching at at the local department store without a single care for their mothers’ purses. Like her mother she would hold her head up high, and almost believe she was better than them, more mature, more self-sufficient—no need for mommy or daddy to stop and tie her shoelaces for her or treat her to ridiculous toys and outings, even for that overrated time of year known as a ‘birthday.’
Well—
She had almost believed it.
She has known for a while now what people once said about her mother. That she was cracked, no-good, worth less than trash, bottom line: not fit to raise a child. Beth remembers all the times she had been yelled at, doors slammed in her face, left forgotten at supermarkets as Alice, oblivious, rolled on home in their beaten-down station wagon and feels an ache in her chest. She may not have been perfect, but she was her mother still.
It was only later, at the unlikely setting of the orphanage, that she had realized what an unusual upbringing she had really received. That not all little girls had to content themselves on living on sugar sprinkled on white bread (whenever she did remember to eat) or looking on as their mother decided to build a bonfire in the middle of the night and toss in all her valuables—photographs and clothing and dissertations alike—toss in all the memories of a different life with a springy animalistic energy and a near-wild toss of her head, almost as though she were thumbing her nose at fate itself.
And then Jolene had come along.
It had taken a while, but it had been she who had finally managed to squeeze the story out of her. The story of how she had come to be at the orphanage in the first place, her crazy mother and her absent father and the run-down trailer they called home. Jolene had simply sat there on the hard mattress of her bed after lights-out with her chin in her hand as Beth had whispered the whole sorry tale, not even stopping her once to interrupt. In the near-dark her eyes had glittered like black beetles, but she could not tell whether she was crying or simply listening with rapt attention.
Unlike herself, Jolene made a big deal out of birthdays. Being one of the most popular girls in the sorry bunch that she supposed was their ‘class,’ she had her work cut out for her, but, to the best she knew, she never forgot a single birthday, surprising the lucky orphan on the morning of their special day with some small gift. Sometimes it would be a muffin she had smuggled out of the kitchens, other times it would be a few pennies and dimes, a still-new pair of knee socks. Either way her efforts were widely appreciated, and all spoke warmly of ‘Jolene’s birthday extravaganzas.’
Beth on the other hand…She could not relate. She would much rather take her ‘special day’ and spend it bent over a book of chess puzzles, like any other. It had been how she had been raised after all: to be small and independent, to not make a fuss.
Jolene did not understand her snubbing of what she felt to be nigh-on her birthright, one of the few pleasures to be had in a grey and mind-numbing institution such as the one they had fallen into. How could she make her understand that, ever since Alice’s death, she felt birthdays almost a crime? Another year on the calendar her mother would never get to see. One more year away from her.
Not that she had loved her mother that well. Not that Alice had ever allowed her to. Still she had the urge to call her mother. Still she missed her every single day. After all, wasn’t that love? Fucking complicated.
And then, somewhere along the way it had all started to change. She remembered being ushered into a shiny new Cadillac with two strangers, the woman turning around in her seat every once in awhile to give her, what she must have thought, was a reassuring smile. She remembered the prim little two-storey house they had driven up to, with its trim border of hedges and its well-manicured yard, so different from the junk that had littered the trailer yard of her former home. This is your home now, the woman had said with glittering eyes, watching her survey the living room with all its decorative whims and homely comforts that Alice would surely have scoffed at had she still been alive. Make yourself comfortable. Alma, her name was: her new mother. It would be a while yet before she proved the title on anyplace besides the dotted line.
Not that she didn’t try. That night she slept on pure cotton sheets in a bed almost as big as her old room in the trailer. For breakfast there were pancakes (special family recipe, Alma leaned in conspiratorially with a wink) and it may have been the most delicious thing she had ever tasted, better than Alice’s hastily boiled hotdogs or cold day-old pasta. Soon she had started school, and with it all the typical school pettiness and grievances. On November of that same year she had given herself her very first birthday gift: she had marched down and signed herself up for the Kentucky State Championship, nothing but a hastily ripped out advertisement out of a stolen magazine and the fire of her own obsession to aid her.
And then, against all odds, she had won. Alma’s chastisement of her willfulness had died on her lips when she had heard of the prize money for first place. They had locked eyes, and, for the first time since she had arrived, it had seemed they were finally on the same wavelength.
The next day had been her birthday, and they had spent it with a shopping trip at the local department store where she had purchased several books on chess, as well as the chess set she had had her eye on for a while. Later that night, Alma had baked her a cake, such as Alice would never have had the skill to attempt. Beth still could not shake off the magic of that moment, seeing the lighted birthday cake float across a darkened kitchen on invisible arms, an off-key rendition of happy birthday following suit…
In the equally dark kitchen Beth takes another drink of beer as the memory resurfaces. From then on birthdays had finally metamorphosed into something special. Unlike Alice, Alma never failed to remember her birthdays, and she passed the years in a warm glow, receiving everything from dinners to books to even lingerie (on her seventeenth birthday, with a short speech about being safe and using protection).
That was until now. Blankly Beth is aware of a single teardrop that lands on her hand upon the table. She watches as it is sprinkled by another without doing anything to wipe it off. Most days she is able to drink the grief away between the cigarettes and the booze, but this is not most days. Today she turns eighteen, and there is no mother to celebrate with her.
Unable to help herself, she lets the sobs escape her, still in a state of shock and grief as she climbs up the stairs, two at a time, and throws herself upon the bed.
And then, an idea hits her. She manages to wrench herself out of bed and sits herself down at her desk. The pen and paper is already set out and ready for her, as though anticipating what she is about to do. In retrospect it’s crazy, idiotic—she barely knows the man in the first place! Why would he give a single shit what she was going through? And then she remembers Mexico City, the way he had met her gaze across the room, offered her that small smile, and then later on, in the elevator when he had believed she could not hear him. She is like us—she is an orphan. Losing is not an option for her, with a look thrown over his shoulder, something soft and akin to pity, and usually she would have despised the person for it but for some reason she did not with him. Not him.
Beth picks up the pen.
- November 3, 1966
The alarm clock is excruciating as it pierces the early morning silence. Fuck! Beth rolls over in bed, eyes still glued shut and crusty and she knocks over one beer bottle after another as she reaches across the nightstand towards the approximate? Probable? Direction of the alarm clock. When she does finally succeed in turning the wretched thing off the arms of the clock show three minutes past nine AM.
Fuck! She curses again. From the opposite end of the room the radio plays Frank Sinatra. When somebody loves you, it’s no good unless he loves you—all the way. Beth takes a moment staring blankly at the ceiling before slowly, the events of the previous night start pouring in, slowly at first, then all at once. With a shriek she sits up in bed and clutches her face in her hands. No, no, no, no. What have I done?! She thrashes around some more on the bed, for good measure, tangling up the sheets in the wild movement.
And then all of a sudden, she ceases, springing up to a sitting position with a catatonic look upon her face. Yes, she had really done it—she had really written a long and humiliating letter to no other than Vasily Borgov, GM, and gone and mailed it too, and there was the evidence strewn about her desk, the paper and special (sickening!) glitter pen used to commit the crime.
For a moment Beth thinks she’s going to puke, before her stomach settles down again.
Okay.
There was no need to panic. The deed was done after all, and there was no changing it. The letter was off now, God knew where, perhaps changing hands from postal clerk to postal clerk this very moment, travelling thousands of miles through the air on a special mail plane heading to one European capital after another, before it would finally make it, finally arrive in Moscow and from there…
She does feel a little faint after all.
- November 17, 1966
It takes two weeks before she gets a response. The letter is there on her welcome mat one morning, perfectly pressed and as pristine white as if it had merely traveled across the street, rather than halfway around the world.
She nearly tears through the envelope—she has to stop her fingers from shaking.
Dear Miss Harmon,
I am writing to you in Russian because I have been told you yourself are fairly fluent in it, although please do not hesitate to inquire should you have any difficulty understanding my meaning.
Let me reiterate once again how sorry I am for your loss. I’m afraid I did not have the pleasure of meeting Mrs Wheatley, but by your description she sounds charming. I have myself lost my parents at a young age—younger than in your case, but I am not sure just how much of a difference it makes. Grief is grief after all, and, if you would allow me to give you some advice, you must find a means to process it one way or another, lest it accumulate and you are left with something dark and deep, something that threatens to corrupt the soul itself. You say you have been taking something for your troubles—if it is pills I advise you, Miss Harmon, to be careful. Medication might offer a temporary reprieve, but it is, in the end, trading one abyss for another.
Happy (belated) birthday before I forget (so much the gentleman I would be!) I wish I could send you flowers. But, alas, the distance between us prevents me. In Moscow there is a beautiful florist that my wife and I visit sometimes—the roses are her favourite, and their enchanting aroma never fails to bring a smile to her face.
I would like to see just such a smile bloom upon yours, Miss. Harmon.
Sincerely,
V. Borgov
- December 4, 1966
Dear Mr Borgov,
Thank you for your kind words about my mother and your birthday wishes. I understand your Russian very well, although I will stick to writing in English if you don’t mind, since my language skills are somewhat lacking when it comes to producing sentences myself.
Actually, I have to admit I didn’t expect you to reply at all after the mess that was my first letter. I wasn’t feeling much like myself, as you have already guessed. Birthdays are a tough time for me, and it’s even tougher to spend them alone. You talk about corruption and yet how can I explain to you it’s only when I’m drinking and on pills that I truly feel alive? When I can forget, just for a few hours, the pain that is in my soul? Grief feels as though it has teeth and it’s eating me alive.
You said you were also orphaned at a young age. How did you bear it? Sometimes I feel like I’m going crazy, like my first mother did. You’ve guessed it right—whenever I look into the future I can’t see anything but a deep, dark abyss. I know I sound dramatic. You probably think I’m simply a petulant child. But it’s the truth, and the more time passes the less certain I am how to hide it.
There are rooms in the house I can’t bear to go into, objects I can’t bear to touch. Her bedroom is one of them—the bed is still disarranged as though she has only just gotten up and forgotten to make it. Her piano is another. (You may have heard her play in Mexico City at the hotel. Everyone said it was quite the performance.)
You’ll probably think I’m ridiculous, but I feel like if I just leave everything as it is, if I tiptoe quietly and pretend nothing has changed, she will, eventually, come back. That I’ll find her in the kitchen one morning, making her famous pancakes like usual, or playing a Chopin Nocturne with a smile upon her face.
Yes, I know I’m pathetic.
If you find me too gloomy and don’t want to correspond with me anymore I would understand, really. You don’t even need to write an apology.
—Beth.
- December 26, 1966
Dear Miss. Harmon,
You are mistaken if you believe I can be scared off by a little melancholy. You asked how I could bear becoming an orphan, and in all honesty, I do not rightfully know. I have experienced the same abyss you speak of, walked through the same darkness. But always, always I have tried to walk it with my head held high. I know you will probably not take well to pity (it is the orphan’s lot) but believe me when I say there are worse things in the world than such kindnesses. Not all those who offer pity wish to revel in your unhappiness, at ‘how far you have fallen.’ Believe me when I say that there are many who are sincere in their well wishes for you—I myself am one of them.
I hope you will continue to consider me a friend and confidante in spite of all our opposites: in age, nationality, professional status… Speaking of which. I do hope you will not allow this temporary foray into misery to interfere with your chess career, Miss Harmon. Allow an old man with some experience to tell you you have a bright future before you. When I had the fortune to play against you in Mexico City I saw a ferocious young woman who knew how to put up a fight, who would let nothing get in the way of them and victory. Do not beat yourself up for losing that match by the way; many more will come your way in time.
For all things considered I think you neither ‘pathetic’ or ‘ridiculous’ (you are somewhat silly for thinking it!) As I suggested before, grief takes time to process, and I myself often found myself succumbing to despair before I finally reached a place where it was more…Manageable. Like a weight one has gotten so used to carrying one hardly notices it anymore. I’m afraid it will never truly leave you though. Sometimes I myself wake up in the night with tears in my eye, in the aftershocks of some dream of my late parents. It is often the same memory of my papa teaching me to fish for the first time in a great river by our dacha north of St. Petersburg, my mother on the banks watching our efforts with a picnic basket at her feet. We are knee-deep in water with our trousers rolled up and he is behind me, guiding my hand upon the rod, his thick whiskers brushing against my cheek with the motion. Above us is a canopy of autumn leaves, reds and oranges and yellows mixing and fluttering in the breeze, skylarks chirping merrily amongst the branches. (I must show you a Russian autumn one day, by the way—how crimson it is, what a feast for the eyes. If ever you deign to visit my beloved home country that is.)
But as I was saying—
The dream always ends right before we catch the fish. We see it swimming below the water—a silvery spectre big as my elbow. I cast the line and feel it catch, grow taut in my hands as the fish struggles. My mother’s shouts ring in the air. I pull against the line one more time and then, all of a sudden, my foot slips upon the rock on which I am standing and I pitch head long into the water, the rod released from my grip along with the fish upon it, washed downstream. The current is strong and I cannot easily right myself—water deeper than I remembered (it seems to grow deeper with each recurrence of the dream.) My sight grows red in the depths as blood mixes with water—mine I think, who else’s?—as I feel myself carried along with the current. For a moment—a split second, though it feels like an eternity—I feel as though my father will relinquish me to the river. My life does not flash before my eyes as the cliche goes. Instead I simply close my eyes—I allow nature to do what it will.
And then—just as I have given up my last breath, my father’s arms pull me up to air.
Perhaps you will be puzzled by all this. I barely know why I am relating them myself—I have told no one else, not even my wife. But it is to let you know you are not the only one who is haunted, who hankers after a different life than the one that they currently live. The question we must ask ourselves is—what are we willing to do about it?
Sincerely,
V. Borgov
P.S. Please call me Vasily in your future letters.
- January 18, 1967
Dear Mr Borgov Vasily,
Trust me, I won’t forget your kind words. And you have no reason to be anxious—I have no intention of giving up my chess career. In fact I am currently in training with no other than Harry Beltik, former grandmaster in the making, and my first real victory at the Kentucky State Championship. He’s going to college now, and has a job on the side, but he has decided to help me out in my ‘path to glory,’ as he calls it. When he’s not belting out chess theories or how to carry out a successful offensive he’s awfully fussy to be around—needs dinner to be at the same time everyday, dishes washed and cleared and everything. Like I’m running a hotel here or something.
We’re not living together, if that’s what you think, although I did extend the offer. It would have been a lot closer to his college than the cheap place he’s renting out now. I don’t know whether it was the booze or the sex (he’s a boy scout through and through) but he seems bent on avoiding me now, claiming he’s taught me everything he knows already.
I hope I’m not shocking you by being so frank. To be honest (and I don’t know why exactly) I feel like I can talk to you in a way I can’t with anyone else. Maybe it’s the distance between us that you’ve already pointed out, or maybe it’s the fact, as of yet, you’ve mostly been an entity of pen and paper only, a prisoner between the sheets of my pages (kidding.) I think Alma might even have called you my guardian angel. But I don’t want to think of her right now, not when I need to be working.
— Beth
P.S. If we’re on first name basis it’s no fair to keep calling me Miss Harmon.
- January 25, 1967
Dear Liza (I prefer to call you by your Russianate name, if you do not mind,)
I am not old enough to be shocked by a bit of youthful license, if you really want to know what I’m thinking. All the same, isn’t it best to focus on studying rather than distracting yourself with such things?After all, the Remy-Vallon International is only half a year away (it goes by quickly, I assure you), and I need you in your best shape for the event. In the danger of ‘honking my own horn’ (as the expression goes) I recommend you study my book on Endgame strategies; I believe you will find it both useful and informative.
P.S. I would not mind being your prisoner, Liza. I am sure you would make a most fair warden.
Sincerely,
V. Borgov
- September 10, 1967
Dear Vasily,
I have a new trainer now. His name is Benny Watts, the (now former) United States National Champion. Yes, that’s right. I won the U.S. Championship!!
To be honest I thought the game would be harder, especially after he handed my ass to me (American slang) over a dozen games of speed chess the night just before the big game. But of course, I pulled through, even in a second-rate university like Ohio State, playing on fucking cheap plastic boards. Honestly I’m ashamed of my country sometimes. How I wish I were in Moscow, playing chess in the park fresh air and fragrant firs and smooth, ivory pieces beneath my fingers. I don’t think it’ll surprise you to admit I’m something of an aesthete—I simply love beautiful things with all my heart and soul, appreciating them, making them my own. I’ve already planned a shopping trip in New York, where I’ll be training with Benny for the next few weeks in preparation for the Paris tournament (where I hope to fashion myself into a vraie Parisienne, just like Paul Morphy did in between games.) Have you read his biography by the way? Harry Beltik compared my playing to his but I honestly don’t see the connection, besides the superficial adoration of flânerie.
Benny is a tough trainer. Even tougher than Harry, maybe. Definitely has a puritan streak to him, despite the whole pirate charade—he’s banned all alcohol and drugs (even weed!) for the duration of our ‘collaboration’ as he calls it. As if he’s done anything except lick his wounds and sulk for the entirety of the time I’ve stayed with him thus far. You should see his flat by the way—it’s a fucking dump. I’m sure you’d get a real kick out of it (more American slang.)
We haven’t had sex yet if you’re wondering. Not that I haven’t tried. Guys usually love the whole teacher-student thing don’t they? The power dynamics of the set-up and all. And it’s not like I haven’t tried the whole ‘helpless girl-oh please won’t you teach me’ routine, but Benny only seems to get angrier the stupider I act. And besides, I think he likes the sound of his own voice more than he likes me or my presence. Not that he isn’t a good teacher. He’s just—
Well, anyways, the bottom line is: you’d better watch out.
Whether or not you like it I’m coming for your crown.
—Beth
- October 24, 1967
Hotel de Ville
Dear Liza,
I have only just sat down in my hotel room after our Paris game to write you these lines. Even though I have no words for you. You are not deserving of them. How could you do it? After everything you had achieved how could you throw it all away? I still cannot get the image of you out of my mind as you stumbled before me, still drunk and reeking of someone else’s touch. Even that chic little green slip you had on could not hide those damning facts. I had been looking forward to our game for so long, playing in my mind all the different scenarios it could evolve into... How was I to prepare myself for a game that was essentially blunder after blunder, you scrambling upon the board to save what remained of your dignity as the Paris crowds looked on, veiled in their sophistication?
I want to write how disgusted, disappointed I am, but I am sure nothing will match how you must feel now. I am alone in my hotel room, and I cannot even bear to look at the bouquet of peonies I have been given, nor the trophy of victory. Your face floats instead in my mind, the single tear frozen upon your delicate features, flushed either from drink or humiliation, I cannot know. I want to reach out to you, wipe away the tear as soft as a butterfly’s wing. I want to strike you square with the back of my hand and send your teeth knocking. Make certain my rage finally sinks into that airhead of yours.
I do not know what to do with these contrasting emotions you excite in me. I am a father, a husband, a chess player, but I have never before considered myself a passionate, a Romantic. I have divulged to you my dreams; you have told me much more (of your fears and successes, your loves and failures). Tell me this once, were you intending to set my blood on fire with what you did? Because you have gone through and coloured my thoughts like wine through water. Sometimes at night I wake up and believe it is your form lying next to me and not my wife’s—her raven locks morphed into your fiery tresses, familiar heart-shaped face transformed into your elfin features, sneering down at me, goading me on. There is something malevolent in it; something ravishing—
Perhaps it would be best if we ceased our communications for the time being.
Sincerely,
V. Borgov
- November 2, 1967
Beth watches the arm of the record player spin on empty, the sounds scratchy in the mess of the living room: empty beer bottles mixed with overturned packages of take-out food, books scattered all around with their covers facing up. In the background the phone has been ringing off the hook on and off for the last ten minutes, which she has thus far elected to ignore, too lazy to get up and pull the cord of the damned thing from the wall, but finally unable to withstand the shrill shrieking she gets up and does it. Her white satin nightgown shifts to cover her previously exposed creamy thighs with the motion. Another gift from Alma that she never saw her wear.
She plops down on the couch and lights a cigarette, not minding the piles of chess magazines littering the surface of the upholstery, various bits of food in the form of crumbs and drink stains covering what pages are open. She has gotten used to this nest of sorts—nestled herself deep in her filth and depression ever since she returned from Paris, ignoring any and all phone calls from what little friends she does have. What good would it do anyways besides remind her what a colossal fucking failure she was? Even Vasily had abandoned her. What were his final words again? ‘I want to write how disgusted, disappointed I am’? She has the urge to claw at her face, rend flesh from bone. She had fucked up. Massively. From the foot of the couch she picks up a half-empty bottle of red wine and chugs it straight from the bottle, enjoying the way her mouth tingles with the sour taste. Why would Vasily forgive her when she could barely forgive herself?
She did not know why she had done it, not really. Except for the fact she had been in Paris, young and free and a beautiful woman she barely knew had been making eyes at her—ever since she had met her in fact, that night in Benny’s grimy flat with the money flowing as hard and fast as her fingers upon the chess boards spread before her—
The image of Vasily’s frown flashes in her mind, eyes cold and empty as he watches her scramble like an insect upon the chess board. She had wanted to bolt out of her seat, scream and shake him until she had ruined that perfect composure of his, not a fucking hair out of place as he had moved piece after piece with mathematical precision. And all the while she had been on the verge of collapse before him, like a house on stilts for a foundation.
And here she was again, high and wasted on her nineteenth birthday just like last year, yearning yearning for someone to make it all better. Yearning for him—
All of a sudden a memory resurfaces: Alice’s voice, hard as iron and just as unforgiving.
The strongest person, Beth, is the person who isn’t scared to be alone.
The tears fall before she can stop them. Her vision becomes blurred in the torrent until she doesn’t know what she’s crying for, her lost family, or her lost career.
When she finally stirs out of her drunken haze the next morning there is a single package waiting for her in her mail box.
A single peony, dried and perfectly preserved without a note attached.
- Epilogue: Winter, 1968
Beth stops to adjust her coat, pulling the collar up against the bitter cold. The Moscow park is nearly empty this morning—she eyes the rows of tables and chairs where leagues of chess players would usually sit, bent on securing their own small share of glory against a neighbourhood rival or two. Beth saunters between them, her fingers brushing gently upon the wooden tables, lost in thought.
“Would you like to play a game?”
She blinks out of her reverie, and then blinks again as she processes the inquiry—her Russian has improved much over the last year of corresponding with Vasily Borgov, but she still has to take a split second to translate in her mind what she hears before responding. When she does, her words are clear, if a little formal in pronunciation.
“If you are up for a challenge.”
The old man gives her a sheepish smile as he gestures a hand towards the chair before him. A chess board is already before him, the pieces in disarray—he has clearly been playing against himself for a while before she has arrived and he makes a quick task of setting them back in their original positions.
She chooses a leisurely game rather than her usual penchant for fire and fury—perhaps it’s the bracing weather, or perhaps she is feeling sorry for the man, lonely and laconic as he appears. With his trim beard and snow white hair he gives her the impression of some kindly grandfather such as the kind she has never had, and she feels a need to be kindly and generous.
All the same the man, who introduces himself as Stepan Petrov, ends up putting up quite a fight, meeting her attacks with equally stubborn attacks of his own before finally relinquishing his king. Before the morning has waned they have attracted quite a crowd around them—mostly other elderly retired men jostling for a peek at the slim girl who has brought, what appears to be, the neighbourhood master to his knees.
“I never did catch your name, my dear” Mr Petrov remarks as he extends a hand to clasp her small alabaster fingers. When Beth smiles and gives him what he wants, the crowd’s excitement becomes simply electric, until they are nearly elbowing one another for a chance to shake hands with Liza Harmon herself.
She unglues herself from their well wishes and petitions for a game with some difficulty, finding herself once again walking the avenue of the park by herself. She breathes in the fresh scent of pines that perfumes the air, the crunching of her feet in the snow the only sound in the morning stillness. There is no thought in her mind as to her government entourage still waiting for her in her hotel, nor the flight she is about to miss for her excursion. Instead she enjoys the silence, drinking it in after the chaos and excitement of the last few days.
Beth Harmon: world champion.
She is aware she has come a long way since a year ago, and even the year before then. She repeats her new title once more in her mind, just to get used to the sound, before finding it is still too foreign for her liking.
The park is bordered by a small pond, its half-frozen waters spanned by wooden bridges at several places leading to trails at the opposite bank. Beth walks across one of them and pauses to look down on the floes of ice just below. There are no animals in sight, except for the errant feathers of ducks and geese who have long ago abandoned the place for warmer clines. Behind the trees, the sun is beginning to appear for the first time that day, and the light is golden as it mixes with the white of her breath.
“Beautiful is it not?”
Vasily Borgov lays a single leather gloves hand on the banister, following the direction of her gaze.
“This is one of my favourite parks to visit when I am in the city.”
Beth flushes as the remembrance of all that has passed between them last night returns. The king piece in her hand, the sensation of his warm arms enveloping her—
“It was a good game” Vasily echoes, as though reading her thoughts. In the morning light his cheeks also appear somewhat flushed, although Beth attributes it more to the Russian winter than anything else. “I relinquish my title with an easy heart—”
”—So you forgive me?” She interrupts, anxious. “Forgive me for beating you? And—for everything else?”
Vasily’s eyebrows furrow. “Forgive?” he echoes in his careful, statesman-like Russian. “What is there to forgive, Liza?”
She sways upon her feet, almost as though the earth is about to open up and swallow her whole. “Forgive me for—For Paris” she finally finishes feebly, unable to look at him. When she finally does she realizes he is smiling.
“I am only happy you are yourself again. Unless—”
She can guess his line of thought. “I flushed all the pills before our final game” she says quickly. Vasily nods.
“It is for the best. A clean game. How did it feel?”
Beth thinks back to the unexpected call from her friends, come to rally behind her, the terror of being cornered in spite of everything and then—the chess pieces upon the ceiling, the permutations and combinations they formed and unformed inside her mind in spite of everything, despite all odds—
“It was sublime,” she simply states.
In the distance the fir trees rustle and dance against one another.
“I have something for you” he says, before moving his hand to the inside pocket of his dark wool coat.
It’s a peony, fresh this time, as though just plucked out of the greenhouse. Beth stares, not moving to take it, which makes Vasily furrow his brows again.
“I know—It is a pitiful gift and a late one at that. But happy birthday, Liza.” More silence follows, which Vasily seems to interpret as judgment.
“You are right of course. Why would you accept another gift from an old man such as myself? And it is true—I was angry with you. Angry for deigning to throw away all the gifts God has given you. For acting like a petulant, incorrigible child. But what right had I to judge you, Liza? When I was committing such sins in my own heart, and secretly too? I have written to you about the dreams I have dreamt, dreams where I am holding you, Liza, do you understand me? Dreams in which we are man and wife—”
“Stop” Beth suddenly cries, overcome.
“I must go on, or I shall never start again” Vasily continues. “Simply tell me whether I am in your heart the way you once told me Moscow is, whether you can deign to love me—”
“—I already do!”
She had tears in the corners of her eyes, which she tried to wipe away before he saw. But Vasily was too quick—he leaned over, and gently, almost as though he were picking up dew off a spider’s web, lay a single leather gloved hand upon her cheek.
“I already do” she echoed weakly. “You know I’ve wanted you ever since I saw you. That day in Mexico City at the zoo—You didn’t know, at least I don’t think you did, but I followed you. I was watching you. At first it was curiosity, I think, but then it became something else. And when you were speaking in the elevator about me being an orphan, like you, and how losing was not an option for me—”
“You heard that?” He says quietly, troubled.
“Well, you were right. We are just alike.”
“Stubborn,” he says softly, with the hint of a smile playing upon his lips, and then, more as though he were speaking to himself than to her, “fire and ice burn alike…”
His lips are on hers before she can say anything else. Soft and warm despite the weather, despite the season, the time of day. Despite everything. They move against hers in a searing kiss—a bond, a promise to never let her go again.
Under the golden Moscow sun, in the arms of her lover, Beth smiles.