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Somewhere between the U.S. Open in ‘66 and the U.S. Championship in ‘67, Beth becomes formidable, and Benny finds hairline fractures in the titles into which he’s swaddled his identity.
He’s as mesmerized with the prospect of losing as he is terrified. Like the government requesting their tax by April, or Arthur insisting that his stupid dingy umbrella is fine every time it refuses to retract, or Cléo recklessly running every red light she can in a city, the future feels inevitable. He’s less curious as to when he loses his title, more curious about how (it better be with style) and what’ll happen after.
When he reads through her games in Mexico City, against Marenco and Diedrich and Girev and Borgov, he feels a twinge of sadness — there are no photographs, but he can see her confidence crumbling and spirit sinking from the moment Borgov plays that Ruy Lopez, her moves clumsy and blustery and so lacking in her usual poise. He can imagine her anguish, ten times worse than when they played earlier that year in Las Vegas. From a country away, his heart aches for her.
He’s not there to greet her when she arrives, but from his dormitory window he can see her pull up in her taxi, a solitary figure with a swaying strut in kitten heels, head fixed forward like the bow of a ship, maroon coat fluttering like a battle flag. If she doesn’t notice the students on their bikes or at a picnic, they won’t notice her, but he’s drawn to her like a lodestone.
He remembers how lonely traveling by oneself can be, and maybe he can help her feel less alone. She doesn’t talk much, but she’s easy to talk to. He almost gives his condolences about her mother, too, but thinks better of treading potentially raw ground right before the start of her first game. Her flashes of unbridled competitiveness (“You should see where they play in the Soviet Union.” “I’m planning on it.” You’ll have to get past me first.” “I’m planning on that, too”) he can’t resist trying to goad out of her. Beth has no intention of losing, he has no intention of giving in, and only one of them will be pleased with this outcome. He’s sure that time will erode her genteel veneer. It did his.
They play fiercely but never directly, like when his high school classmates would trip over themselves to stay in the periphery of their romantic interest’s eyes (never directly in front of them, but definitely there). Sometimes when he looks at her, she sees right past him, eyes steady on the ceiling or the floor, and he wonders what it would take to draw her eye.
Every morning, he’s the first player to grab the print ups of every game from the Xerox machine in the college library. One day, she arrives just as he’s leaving. They nearly collide and while it’s too early in the morning for either of them to stop and chat (“You’re, uh, caught on my coat.” “Oh, sorry.” “No, no, it’s fine.”), Benny stifles a laugh when he sees his book peeking out of her bag. He feels his heart intensify when he sees her near-illegible scrawl over his games at the top of her notes, even though he knows studying these games is just the rational thing for any player to do.
When the evening light percolates through the beige curtains and the scent of freshly cut grass permeates the shut window that could really use a power wash, he lies on a creaky mattress that will definitely break if someone as childish as Hilton were to jump on it. And what does he do?
He closes his eyes and fantasizes all the ways she’d play against him. What response she’d choose to his opening, why she’d choose it, the flash in her eyes when he responds instead of resigning.
He’s positively dying to see just how good she is. He chides himself to take it one day at a time.
The very thought of her name sends shivers down his spine in a wholly unfamiliar way, and if he was terrified of losing himself without his title before, he’s utterly aghast with himself now. He plays skittles with Weiss (#4 in the U.S.) and Friedman (#6) in the Student Union every night, where he’s definitely not glancing toward the door every so often to see if she makes an appearance. Does she hang out in a different lounge? Does she not drink coffee?
He should probably focus on anything but her. Anything but her.
So logically, the first time he gets to talk to her that week, he invites her to play, too.
In the Student Union that night, he’s hyper-aware of the click of her shoes (as he is with everyone and all his surroundings, of course). He’s read her games and built her up in his head, for sure, but it’s still ecstasy to discover her like this. It’s immediately clear she’s a speed chess virgin. She always plays the predictable openings, the Sicilian and French and Pirc. She’s good, but he shows her how it’s done. He plays deftly, expertly, like one is supposed to, and the junk openings and irregular responses throw her considerably. She hands him five dollars, and five dollars, and five dollars, and watching her come undone at these games is everything and more than he could have hoped for. She can’t stop, and neither can he. Although they don’t talk, Benny can tell she wants to smack him, and when she finally nods curtly, thanks him, and stalks out, he makes a mental note he should probably apologize tomorrow. If anyone should feel welcome in the chess world, it should be her.
Beth blunders when she’s angry, and he wants to play her at her best. She’s almost as sharp as he is. When he compliments her he means it genuinely, and he’s almost frustrated she doesn’t see just how talented she is. She thinks in the same patterns that he does; that should speak for itself. They chat for hours on that bench outside the building (Benny says “chat,” he really means “share a few words then sit comfortably in silence until the next exchange”), and when she mentions she’s heard there are a dozen places to drink beer here, he invites her to the bar after the final game. Like a date.
The day of the tournament, she saunters in just on time. The second she takes her seat, the whole auditorium fades away. It’s just the two of them, the two best players in America, and their plastic board of a palace.
Soon you’ll be mine, he challenges her, silently, a murderous kind of playful.
But I want you now, she responds, smirking through her glare as the game begins.
Losing is never pleasant. He curses his queen bishop pawn, a bitter reminder that he can plan ahead but never predict precisely, and this miscalculation is now a handicap that gives her a definite advantage. He takes her knight; there will be no doubled pawns in this game.
They’re breaking protocol a bit when they don’t even bother to say “check,” but the board is already her language as much as it is his. What use is it to state the obvious with her when there’s so much else to process? They’re leagues beyond the rest.
He wonders whether she’ll fade back into that long line of every other opponent he’s ever played once the pressure of the Championship has lifted, once his king has toppled and he concedes in thirty moves. When he offers his hand to shake, he feels the usual smarting sting of losing (it was a foregone conclusion nineteen moves in. Nineteen.), but he also registers that same electricity he felt in the Student Union and a climactic glow, like he wants to play again (just give him an hour to recover). At this angle, in the sunshine, her eyes are jubilant, exultant, and so alive — Benny realizes they’re stunning. It must be something about the light.
The air of the bar is stuffier with so many people around, background music a sultry swing, lights a smoky yellow that clashes magnificently against her hair, cigarettes smoldering distantly in their ashtrays. Even while he’s using alcohol to dull his inward brooding, he realizes she could drink him under a table with no desire to stop. She’s not even drinking to impress anyone, it’s just a habit for her, and an orange trickle of concern infiltrates the hazy red of his mood. He uses discussion of her future to distract from the fact that he has no idea what comes next for him, just as much as she uses it to deflect from his scrutiny of her lifestyle choices.
He registers they converse in hushed, intimate tones, poking verbally at each other like sewing needles threading holes through the fabric of their minds. They sit barely a foot apart, the outside world excised. A few times, their elbows brush. She blushes when he calls her “tiger,” tucks his hair behind his ear like she can’t help it, and her eyes flicker to his lips and his neck every minute. Jesus. She’s not subtle.
His apparent position in her mind isn’t meaningful or permanent or even intentional; it’s definitely the high of her new title and the buzz from the alcohol and her meandering lack of focus on anything but what’s directly in front of her. Besides, Benny has no interest in physical gratification tonight. If she’s going to win the next international Invitational, and she has so much sheer talent it could power her flight there (and enough of a temper to bring it down), they both need to focus as hard as they can, every day of study too precious to let slip. He’s never really taught anyone, nor has he ever been formally taught. It’s always been his head, his hands, and himself, reading every book front to back, clinging like shrinkwrap to the edge of every tournament conversation with a respected legend, then nosing his way into the conversation as an opponent, then finally leading the conversations himself (in the US, at least). But he can do this.
He’s learned through their tête-à-têtes that Beth wears her ego on her sleeve: she’s impatient, prickles at criticism, hates admitting mistakes, takes victory for granted even when she’s just scraped by, collapses like a house of cards in the face of defeat, and when challenged her first instinct is to hide. He used to be just like her, had to armor himself the hard way, and she’ll probably have to, too. He’s strategic with his rating, but he’d rather play amongst the best than cower.
He doesn’t mean to sound as harsh as he does when he finally admits, “You beat me.” He doesn’t mean to take as large a swig as he does right after, as if he can drown those traitorous words he fruitlessly wishes were reversed. But this chip at his pride, a small knight sacrifice, works: Beth agrees to come to New York.
Beth, it seems, only takes feedback when she herself gets to feed on wounded ego and anything he can offer her of his now-brittle identity. (That’s what was missing from their conversation in Las Vegas, apparently.)
He departs from the bar, determined and bruised and awed and tired but ready to throw his whole self into teaching his rival and…friend (the word burns like acid but it’s fact that they are, no more, no less) to recoup his loss the only way he can conceive how, ready to identify any other weaknesses in her game (for her, and for him, too), ready to glean her intuition with every scythe he can forge, ready to tease out the best chess the world has ever seen from both of them.
Tomorrow, Chess Review will call her the new American royalty of chess, but he regards her talent more like the sun: inescapable, fascinating to study, something he can’t help basking in until it burns like it did today. Maybe she’ll play his style, apply his knowledge, better than he can, a sight that would be so euphorically beautiful and harrowingly devastating for him to behold that he wonders whether Beth isn’t the only self-destructive one traveling to New York tomorrow.
Unbidden, he realizes he smiles like a fool as much as he rages like one whenever she’s near. Playing her is fun, intoxicating, and incensing in a way that it’s never been with everyone else. And, strangely, he really enjoys her presence.
He supposes that she’s just that strong of a player, and that sometimes being around her is like being around a version of himself.
He wipes his mind clean; right now, he needs to sleep. Contrary to what he’d always thought, he’s still Benny, still breathing, without his number one ranking. It’s been a long day, and it’s going to be a long six weeks.