فصل 11

ELEVEN

After the ceremony Saturday evening, benny took her to a bar in town. They sat in a back booth and Beth drank her first beer and ordered another. They both tasted delicious. “Easy,” Benny said. “Easy.” He had not finished his first.

“You’re right,” she said and slowed down. She felt high enough already. No losses. No draws. Her last two opponents had offered draws in midgame, and she had refused.

“A perfect score,” Benny said.

“It feels good,” she said, meaning the victory, but the beer felt good too. She looked at him more closely. “I appreciate the way you’re taking it.” “A mask,” he said. “I’m raging inwardly.”

“It doesn’t show.”

“I should not have played that goddamned bishop pawn.”

They sat silently for a while. He took a thoughtful sip of beer and asked, “What are you going to do about Borgov?” “When I go to Paris? I don’t even have a passport.”

“When you go to Moscow.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t they deliver the mail in Kentucky?”

“Of course they do.”

“The Moscow Invitational. The U.S. winner is invited.”

“I want another beer,” she said.

“You didn’t know that?” Benny looked shocked.

“I’ll get the beer myself.”

“Go ahead.”

She went up to the bar and ordered another bottle. She had heard of the Moscow Invitational but knew nothing about it. The bartender brought her the beer, and she told him to get another. When she came back to the table, Benny said, “That’s too much beer.” “Probably.” She waited for the foam to settle and took a swallow. “How do I get to Moscow if I go?” “When I went, the Federation bought my ticket and a church group put up the rest.” “Did you have a second?”

“Barnes.”

“Barnes?” She stared at him.

“It would be tough to be in Russia alone.” He frowned. “You shouldn’t drink beer like that. You’ll be washed up at twenty-one.” She set down the glass. “Who else will be playing in Moscow?”

“Four other countries and the four top Russians.”

That would mean Luchenko and Borgov. Possibly Shapkin. She did not want to think about it. She looked at him quietly for a minute. “Benny, I like the way your hair looks.” He stared at her. “Sure you do,” he said. “What about Russia?” She took another drink of beer. She did like Benny’s hair and his blue eyes. She had never thought of him sexually before, but she was thinking that way now. “Four Russian chessplayers,” she said, “is a lot of Russian chess players.” “Murderous.” He raised his glass and finished off his beer. He had drunk only the one. “Beth,” he said, “you’re the only American I know who might do it.” “I went to pieces with Borgov in Mexico City…”

“When do you go to Paris?” Benny said.

“In five weeks.”

“Then get your life organized around that and study. Get a trainer.” “What about you?”

He thought a moment. “Can you come to New York?”

“I don’t know.”

“You can sleep in my living room, and leave for Paris from there.” The idea shocked her. “I’ve got a house to take care of, in Kentucky.” “Let the fucking house fall down.”

“I’m not ready…”

“When will you be? Next year? Ten years?”

“I don’t know.”

He leaned forward and said slowly, “If you don’t do it, you’ll drink your talent away. It’ll go down the drain.” “Borgov made me look like a fool.”

“You weren’t ready.”

“I don’t know how good I really am.”

“I know,” he said. “You’re the best there is.”

She took a deep breath. “All right. I’ll come to New York.”

“You can come with me from here,” he said. “I’ll drive us.”

“When?” This was happening too fast. She felt frightened.

“Tomorrow afternoon, when everything here’s finished. Whenever we can get away.” He stood up. “And about s@x…” She looked up at him.

“Forget it,” he said.

“Spring,” Benny said, “is first class. Absolutely first class.” “How can you tell?” Beth asked. They were driving along a gray asphalt section of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, pounding along the gritty road with semis and dusty passenger cars.

“It’s out there somewhere. Up in the hills. It’s even in New York.” “Ohio was pleasant,” Beth said. But she didn’t like this discussion. Weather did not interest her. She had made no arrangements for the house in Lexington, had not been able to get the lawyer on the telephone and did not know what to expect in New York. She did not like Benny’s insouciance in the face of her uncertainty, the kind of sunny blankness that suffused his face from time to time. He had looked that way during the awards ceremony and during the time she did her interviews and signed autographs and thanked the officials and the USCF people who had come down from upstate New York to talk about the importance of chess. His face was blank now. She turned her eyes to the road.

After a while he spoke up. “When you go to Russia I want to go with you.” That was a surprise. They hadn’t talked about Russia, or chess, since getting in the car. “As my second?” “Whatever. I can’t afford to pay expenses.”

“You want me to pay them?”

“Something will turn up. While you were interviewed by that magazine, I talked to Johanssen. He said there wouldn’t be any Federation money for seconds.” “I’m only thinking about Paris,” she said. “I haven’t decided to go to Moscow yet.” “You’ll go.”

“I don’t even know if I’m going to stay more than a few days with you. I have to get a passport.” “We can do that in New York.”

She started to say something but didn’t. She looked at Benny. Now that blankness had left his face, she felt warmer toward him. She had made love to two men in her life, and it was hardly making love; if she and Benny went to bed together, there would be more to it. She would see there was more to it. They would be in his apartment by midnight; maybe something would happen there. Maybe he would feel differently at home.

“Let’s play chess,” Benny said. “I’ll be White. Pawn to king four.” She shrugged. “Pawn to queen bishop four.”

“N,” he said, using the letter for “knight.” “K-B3.”

“Pawn to queen three.” She wasn’t sure she liked this. She had never shared her interior chessboard before, and there was a sense of violation in opening it to Benny’s moves.

“P to Q four,” Benny said.

“Pawn takes pawn.”

“Knight takes.”

“Knight. King bishop three.” Actually it was easy. She could look at the road ahead and at the same time see the imaginary chessboard and the pieces on it without difficulty.

“N to Q-B3,” Benny said.

“Pawn to king’s knight three.”

“P to B four.”

“P to B four.”

“The Levenfish,” Benny said dryly. “I never liked it.”

“Play your knight.”

Suddenly his voice was like ice. “Don’t tell me what to move,” he said. She pulled back as if stung.

They drove in silence for a few miles. Beth watched the gray steel divider that separated them from the oncoming lanes. Then, as they were coming to a tunnel, Benny said, “You were right about the knight on B-3. I’ll put it there.” She hesitated a moment before speaking. “Okay. I’ll take the knight.” “Pawn takes,” Benny said.

“Pawn to king five.”

“Pawn takes again,” Benny said. “Do you know what Scharz says about that one? The footnote?” “I don’t read footnotes,” Beth said.

“It’s time you started.”

“I don’t like Scharz.”

“I don’t either,” Benny said. “But I read him. What’s your move?” “Queen takes queen. Check.” She could hear the sullenness in her voice.

“King takes,” Benny said, relaxing now at the wheel. Pennsylvania rolled by. Beth forced him to resign on the twenty-seventh move and felt somewhat better for it. She had always liked the Sicilian.

There were plastic bags full of garbage in the entryway to Benny’s apartment and the light overhead was only a dirty bare bulb. It was a white tile hallway and as depressing at midnight as the toilet in a bus station. There were three locks on Benny’s front door, which was painted red and had some impenetrable word like “Bezbo” written on it in black spray paint.

Inside was a small and cluttered living room with books piled everywhere. But the lighting was pleasant when he got the lamps on. One end of the room was a kitchen, and near it was a door going off to the bedroom. There was a grass rug and no sofa and chairs—just black pillows to sit on with lamps beside them.

The bathroom was orthodox enough, with a floor made of black-and-while tile and a broken handle on the hot-water tap. There was a tub and shower with a black plastic curtain. She washed her hands and face and came back into the living room. Benny had gone into the bedroom to unpack. Her bag was still on the living-room floor next to a bookcase. She walked over to it and looked wearily at the books. They were all on chess—all five shelves of them. Some were in Russian and German, but they were all on chess. She walked across the hard little rug to the other side of the room where there was another bookcase, this one made of boards resting on bricks. More chess. One whole shelf was Shakhmatni Byulleten going back to the nineteen-fifties.

“There’s room in this closet,” Benny shouted from the bedroom. “You can hang up when you want to.” “Okay,” she said. Back on the turnpike she had thought they might make love when they got here. Now she wanted only to sleep. And what was she supposed to sleep on? “I thought I was going to get a sofa,” she said.

He came into the doorway. “I said ‘living room.’” He went back to the bedroom and returned with a bulky-looking thing and some kind of pump. He flipped it out in the middle of the floor and began pedaling the pump with his foot, and after a while it puffed up and became an air mattress. “I’ll get sheets,” Benny said. He brought them out of the bedroom.

“I’ll do it,” she said and took them from him. She didn’t like the looks of the mattress, but she knew where her pills were. She could get them out after he fell asleep, if she needed to. There would be nothing to drink in this apartment. Benny had not said so, but she knew.

She must have fallen asleep before Benny did, since she forgot about the pills in her luggage. She awoke to the sound of a klaxon outside—an ambulance or fire truck. When she tried to sit up she could not; there was no edge of the bed to hang her legs over. She pushed herself up and stood, wearing pajamas, and looked around. Benny was standing at the sink counter with his back to her. She knew where she was, but it looked different by daylight. The siren faded and was replaced by the general traffic sounds of New York. One blind was open and she could see the cab of a big truck as close as Benny was, and beyond it taxis weaving past. A dog barked intermittently.

Benny turned and came over to her. He was holding out a big cardboard cup to her.

“Chock Full O’ Nuts,” the cup read. Something seemed very strange about this. No one had ever given her anything in the morning—certainly not Mrs. Wheatley, who was never up before Beth had eaten her breakfast. She took the plastic top off and tasted the coffee. “Thanks,” she said.

“Dress in the bedroom,” Benny said.

“I need a shower.”

“It’s all yours.”

Benny had set up a folding card table with a green and beige chessboard on it. He was arranging the pieces when she came into the living room. “Okay,” he said, “we’ll start with these.” He handed her a roll of pamphlets and magazines wrapped with a rubber band. On top was a small pamphlet with a cheap paper cover reading “The Hastings Christmas Chess Congress—Falaise Hall, White Rock Gardens,” and under this, “A Record of Games.” The pages inside were dense with type, smudgily printed. There were two chess games on a page, with boldface captions: Luchenko—Uhlmann; Borgov—Penrose. He handed her another, titled simply Grandmaster Chess. It was much like the Hastings booklet. Three of the magazines were from Germany, and one was from Russia.

“We’ll play through the Hastings games,” Benny said. He went into the bedroom and came back with two plain wooden chairs, setting one on each side of the card table near the front window. The truck was still parked outside and the street was full of slow-moving cars. “You play the white pieces and I’ll play Black.” “I haven’t had breakfast…”

“Eggs in the fridge,” Benny said. “We’ll play the Borgov games first.” “All of them?”

“He’ll be in Paris when you go.”

She looked at the magazine in her hand and then over at the table by the window again, then at her watch. It was ten after eight. “I’ll have the eggs first,” she said.

They got sandwiches from a deli for lunch and ate them over the board. Supper came from a Chinese take-out on First Avenue. Benny would not let her play quickly through the openings; he stopped her whenever a move was at all obscure and asked her why she did it. He made her analyze everything out of the ordinary. Sometimes he would physically stop her hand from moving a piece to ask questions. “Why not advance the knight?” or “Why isn’t he defending against the rook?” or “What’s going to become of the backward pawn?” It was rigorous and intense, and he did not let up. She had been aware of such questions for years but had never allowed herself to pursue them with this kind of rigor. Often her mind would be racing with the attack possibilities inherent in the positions that developed in front of her, wanting to push Luchenko or Mecking or Czerniak into lightning attacks against Borgov, when Benny stopped her with a question about defense or opening the light or dark squares or contesting a file with a rook. It infuriated her sometimes, yet she could see the rightness of his questions. She had been playing grandmaster games in her head from the time she first discovered Chess Review, but she had not been disciplined about it. She played them to exult in the win—to feel the stab of excitement at a sacrifice or a forced mate, especially in the games that were printed in books precisely because they incorporated drama of that kind—like the game books by Fred Reinfeld that were full of queen sacrifices and melodrama. She knew from her tournament experience that you couldn’t rely on your opponent setting himself up for a queen sacrifice or a surprise mate with knight and rook; still, she treasured the thrill of games like that. It was what she loved in Morphy, not his routine games and certainly not his lost ones—and Morphy like everyone else had lost games. But she had always been bored by ordinary chess even when it was played by grandmasters, bored in the way that she was bored by Reuben Fine’s endgame analyses and the counteranalyses in places like Chess Review that pointed out errors in Reuben Fine. She had never done anything like what Benny was making her do now.

The games she was playing were serious, workmanlike chess played by the best players in the world, and the amount of mental energy latent in each move was staggering. Yet the results were often monumentally dull and inconclusive. An enormous power of thought might be implicit in a single white pawn move, say, opening up a long-range threat that could become manifest only in half a dozen moves; but Black would foresee the threat and find the move that canceled it out, and the brilliancy would be aborted. It was frustrating and anticlimactic, yet—because Benny forced her to stop and see what was going on—fascinating. They kept it up for six days, leaving the apartment only when necessary and once, on Wednesday night, going to a movie. Benny did not own a TV, or a stereo; his apartment was for eating, sleeping and chess. They played through the Hastings booklet and the Russian one, not missing a game except for the grandmaster draws.

On Tuesday she got her lawyer in Kentucky on the phone and asked him to see if everything was all right at the house. She went to Benny’s branch of Chemical Bank and opened an account with the winner’s check from Ohio. It would take five days for it to clear. She had enough traveler’s checks to pay her share of the expenses until then.

They did remarkably little talking during the first week. Nothing sexual happened. Beth had not forgotten about it, but she was too busy going over chess games. When they finished, sometimes at midnight, she would sit for a while on a pillow on the floor or take a walk to Second or Third Avenue and get an ice cream or a Hershey bar at a deli. She went into none of the bars, and she seldom stayed out long. New York could be grim and dangerous-looking at night, but that wasn’t the reason. She was too tired to do more than go back to the apartment, pump up her mattress and go to sleep.

Sometimes being with Benny was like being with no one at all. For hours at a time he would be completely impersonal. Something in her responded to that, and she became impersonal and cool herself, communicating nothing but chess.

But sometimes it would change. Once when she was studying an especially complex position between two Russians, a position that ended in a draw, she saw something, followed it, and cried out, “Look at this, Benny!” and started moving the pieces around. “He missed one. Black has this with the knight…” and she showed a way for the black player to win. And Benny, smiling broadly, came over to where she was sitting at the board and hugged her around the shoulders.

Most of the time, chess was the only language between them. One afternoon when they had spent three or four hours on endgame analysis she said wearily, “Don’t you get bored sometimes?” and he looked at her blankly. “What else is there?” he said.

They were doing rook and pawn endings when there was a knock at the door. Benny got up and opened it, and there were three people. One was a woman. Beth recognized one man from a Chess Review piece about him a few months before and the other looked familiar, although she couldn’t place him. The woman was striking. She was about twenty-five, with black hair and a pale complexion, and she was wearing a very short gray skirt and some kind of military shirt with epaulets.

“This is Beth Harmon,” Benny said. “Hilton Wexler, Grandmaster Arthur Levertov, and Jenny Baynes.” “Our new champ,” Levertov said, giving her a little bow. He was in his thirties and balding.

“Hi,” Beth said. She stood up from the table.

“Congratulations!” Wexler said. “Benny needed a lesson in humility.” “I’m already tops in humility,” Benny said.

The woman held out her hand. “Nice to meet you.”

It felt strange to Beth to have all these people in Benny’s small living room. It seemed as though she had lived half her life in this apartment with him, studying chess games, and it was outrageous for anyone else to be there. She had been in New York nine days. Not knowing exactly what to do, she sat down at the board again. Wexler came over and stood at the other side. “Do you do problems?” “No.” She had tried a few as a child, but they did not interest her. The positions did not look natural. White to move and mate in two. It was, as Mrs. Wheatley would have said, irrelevant.

“Let me show you one,” Wexler said. His voice was friendly and easy. “Can I mess this up?” “Go ahead.”

“Hilton,” Jenny said, coming over to them, “she’s not one of your problem freaks. She’s the U.S. Champion.” “It’s okay,” Beth said. But she was glad of what Jenny had said.

Wexler put pieces on the board until there was a weird-looking position with both queens in corners and all four rooks on the same file. The kings were nearly centered, which would be unlikely in a real game. When he finished, he folded his arms across his chest. “This is my favorite,” he said. “White wins it in three.” Beth looked at it, annoyed. It seemed silly to deal with something like this. It could never come up in a game. Advance the pawn, check with the knight, and the king moved to the corner. But then the pawn queened, and it was stalemate. Maybe the pawn knighted, to make the next check. That worked. Then if the king didn’t move there after the first check… She went back to that for a moment and saw what to do. It was like a problem in algebra, and she had always been good at algebra. She looked up at Wexler. “Pawn to queen seven.” He looked astonished. “Jesus,” he said. “That’s fast.”

Jenny was smiling. “See, Hilton,” she said.

Benny had been watching all this silently. “Let’s do a simultaneous,” he said suddenly to Beth. “Play us all.” “Not me,” Jenny said. “I don’t even know the rules.”

“Do we have enough boards and pieces?” Beth asked.

“On the shelf in the closet.” Benny went into the bedroom and returned with a cardboard box. “We’ll set these up on the floor.” “Time control?” Levertov said.

Beth suddenly thought of something. “Let’s do speed chess.”

“It gives us an edge,” Benny said. “We can think on your time.” “I want to try it.”

“No good.” Benny’s tone was severe. “You’re not very good at speed chess anyway. Remember?” Something in her responded strongly to what he was not saying. “I’ll bet you ten I beat you.” “What if you throw the other games and use all your time against me?” She could have kicked him. “I’ll bet you ten on each of them, too.” She was surprised at the firmness in her own voice. She sounded like Mrs. Deardorff.

Benny shrugged. “Okay. It’s your money.”

“Let’s put all three boards on the floor. I’ll sit in the middle.” They did it, using three clocks. Beth had been very sharp for the past several days, and she played with unhesitating precision, attacking on all the boards at once. She beat the three of them with time to spare.

When it was over, Benny didn’t say anything. He went to the bedroom, got his billfold, took three tens out of it and handed them to Beth.

“Let’s do it again,” Beth said. There was a bitterness in her voice; hearing the words, she knew it could have meant s@x: Let’s do it again. If this was what Benny wanted, this was what he would get. She began setting up the pieces.

They got into position on the floor, and Beth played the whites on all three again. The boards were fanned out in front of her so that she didn’t have to spin around to play them, but she found herself hardly consulting them, anyway, except to make the moves. She played from chessboards in her head. Even the mechanical business of making the moves and punching the clocks was effortless. Benny’s position was hopeless when his clock flag fell; she had time left over. He gave her another thirty, and when she suggested trying again he said, “No.” There was tension in the room, and no one knew how to deal with it. Jenny tried to laugh about it, saying, “It’s just male chauvinism,” but it didn’t help. Beth was furious with Benny—furious at him for being easy to beat and furious with the way he was taking it, trying to look unmoved, as though nothing affected him.

Then Benny did something surprising. He had been sitting with his back straight. Suddenly he leaned against the wall, pushing his legs out on the floor, relaxing. “Well, kid,” he said, “I think you’ve got it.” And everybody laughed. Beth looked at Jenny, who was sitting on the floor next to Wexler. Jenny, who was beautiful and intelligent, was looking at her with admiration.

Beth and Benny spent the next few days studying Shakhmatni Byulletens, going back to the nineteen-fifties. Every now and then they would play a game, and Beth always won it. She could feel herself moving past Benny in a way that was almost physical. It was astounding to them both. In one game she uncovered an attack on his queen on the thirteenth move and had him laying down his king on the sixteenth. “Well,” he said softly, “nobody’s done that to me in fifteen years.” “Not even Borgov?”

“Not even Borgov.”

Sometimes chess would keep her awake at night for hours. It was like Methuen, except that she was more relaxed and not afraid of sleeplessness. She would lie on her mattress on the living-room floor after midnight with New York street noises coming in through the open bay window and study positions in her mind. They were as clear as they had ever been. She did not take tranquilizers, and that helped the clarity. It was not whole games now but particular situations—positions called “theoretically important” and “warranting close study.” She lay there hearing the shouts of drunks in the street outside and mastered the intricacies of chess positions that were classic in their difficulty. Once during a lovers’ quarrel where the woman kept shouting, “I’m at my fucking wit’s end. At my wit’s fucking end!” and the man kept saying, “Like your fucking sister,” Beth lay on her cot and came to see a way of queening a pawn that she had never seen before. It was beautiful. It would work. She could use it. “Up your ass,” the woman shouted, and Beth lay back exulting and then fell pleasantly asleep.

They spent their third week repeating the Borgov games and finished the last of them after midnight on Thursday. When Beth had done her analysis of the resignation, pointing out how Borgov could avoid a draw, she looked up to see Benny yawning. It was a hot night and the windows were open.

“Shapkin went wrong in midgame,” Beth said. “He should have protected his queenside.” Benny looked at her sleepily. “Even I get tired of chess sometimes.” She stood up from the board. “It’s time for bed.”

“Not so fast,” Benny said. He looked at her for a moment and smiled. “Do you still like my hair?” “I’ve been trying to learn how to beat Vasily Borgov,” Beth said. “Your hair doesn’t enter into it.” “I’d like you to come to bed with me.”

They had been together three weeks and she had almost forgotten s@x. “I’m tired,” she said, exasperated.

“So am I. But I’d like you to sleep with me.”

He looked very relaxed and pleasant. Suddenly she felt warm toward him. “All right,” she said.

She was startled to wake up in the morning with someone beside her in bed. Benny had rolled over to his side and all she could see of him was his pale, bare back and some of his hair. She felt self-conscious at first and afraid of waking him; she sat up carefully, leaning her back against the wall. Being in bed with a man was really all right. Making love had been all right too, although not as exciting as she had hoped. Benny hadn’t said much. He was gentle and easy with her, but there was still that distance of his. She remembered a phrase from the first man she had made love with: “Too cerebral.” She turned toward Benny. His skin did look good in the light; it seemed almost luminous. For a moment she felt like putting her arms around him and hugging him with her naked body, but she restrained herself.

Eventually Benny woke, rolled over on his back and blinked at her. She had the sheet up, covering her breasts. After a moment she said, “Good morning.” He blinked again. “You shouldn’t try the Sicilian against Borgov,” he said. “He’s just too good at it.” They spent the morning with two Luchenko games; Benny put the emphasis on strategy rather than tactics. He was in a cheerful mood, but Beth felt somehow resentful. She wanted something more in the way of lovemaking, or at least in intimacy, and Benny was lecturing her. “You’re a born tactician,” he said, “but your planning is jerry-built.” She said nothing and dealt with her annoyance as well as she could. What he was saying was true enough, but the pleasure he took in pointing it out was irritating.

At noon he said, “I’ve got to get to a poker game.”

She looked up from the position she had just analyzed. “A poker game?” “I have to pay the rent.”

That was astonishing. She had not thought of him as a gambler. When she asked about it, he said he made more money from poker and backgammon than from chess. “You ought to learn,” he said, smiling. “You’re good at games.” “Then take me with you.”

“This one’s all men.”

She frowned. “I’ve heard that said about chess.”

“I bet you have. You can come along and watch if you want to. But you’ll have to keep quiet.” “How long will it last?”

“All night, maybe.”

She started to ask him how long he had known about this game, but didn’t. Clearly he had known it before last night. She rode the Fifth Avenue bus with him down to Forty-fourth Street and walked with him over to the Algonquin Hotel. Benny seemed to have his mind on something he wasn’t interested in talking about, and they walked in silence. She was beginning to feel angry again; she hadn’t come to New York for this, and she was annoyed at Benny’s way of offering no explanations and no advance notice. His behavior was like his chess game: smooth and easy on the surface but tricky and infuriating beneath. She did not like tagging along, but she did not want to go back to the apartment and study alone.

The game was in a small suite on the sixth floor and it was, as he had said, all male. Four men were seated around a table with coffee cups and chips and cards. An air conditioner whirred noisily. There were two other men who seemed merely to be hanging around. The players looked up when Benny came in and greeted him jokingly. Benny was cool and pleasant. “Beth Harmon,” he said, and the men nodded without recognition. He had gotten out his billfold, and now he slipped a pile of bills from it, set them in front of an empty place at the table and sat down, ignoring Beth. Not knowing what her role in all this was, Beth went into the bedroom, where she had seen a coffee pitcher and cups. She got a cup of coffee and went back into the other room. Benny had a stack of chips in front of him and was holding cards in his hand. The man on his left said, “I’ll bump that,” flatly, and threw a blue chip into the center of the table. The others followed suit, with Benny last.

She stood at a distance from the table watching. She remembered standing in the basement watching Mr. Shaibel, and the intensity of her interest in what he was doing, but she felt nothing like that now. She did not care how poker was played, even though she knew she would be good at it. She was furious with Benny. He went on playing without looking at her. He handled the cards with dexterity and tossed chips into the center of the table with quiet aplomb, sometimes saying things like “I’ll stay” or “Back to you.” Finally, while one of the men was dealing, she tapped Benny on the shoulder and said softly, “I’m leaving.” He nodded and said, “Okay” and turned his attention back to his cards. Going down in the elevator, she felt she could have beaten him over the head with a two-by-four. The cool son of a bitch. It was quick s@x with her, and then off to the boys. He had probably planned it that way for a week. Tactics and strategy. She could have killed him.

But the walk across town eased her anger, and by the time she got on the Third Avenue bus to go back up to the apartment on Seventy-eighth Street, she was calm. She was even pleased to be alone for a while. She spent the time with Benny’s Chess Informants, a new series of books from Yugoslavia, playing out games in her head.

He came in sometime during the middle of the night; she woke when he got into bed. She was glad he was back, but she didn’t want to make love with him. Fortunately he wasn’t interested either. She asked him how he had done. “Nearly six hundred,” he said, pleased with himself. She rolled over and went back to sleep.

They made love in the morning, and she did not enjoy it much. She knew she was still angry with him for the poker game—not for the game itself but for the way he had used it just when they had become lovers. When they were finished, he sat up in bed and looked at her for a minute. “You’re pissed at me, aren’t you?” “Yes.”

“The poker game?”

“The way you didn’t tell me about it.”

He nodded. “I’m sorry. I do keep my distance.”

She was relieved that he had said it. “I suppose I do too,” she said.

“I’ve noticed.”

After breakfast she suggested a game between the two of them, and he agreed reluctantly. They set the clock for a half-hour each, to keep it brief, and she proceeded to beat him handily with her Sicilian Levenfish, brushing aside his threats with ease and hounding his king mercilessly. When it was over he shook his head wryly and said, “I needed that six hundred.” “Maybe so,” she said, “but your timing was bad.”

“It doesn’t pay to cross you, does it?”

“Do you want to play another?”

Benny shrugged and turned away. “Save it for Borgov.” But she could see he would have played her if he had thought he could win. She felt a whole lot better.

They continued as lovers and did not play any more games, except from the books. He went out a few days later for another poker game and came back with two hundred in winnings and they had one of their best times in bed together, with the money beside them on the night table. She was fond of him, but that was all. And by the last week before Paris, she was beginning to feel that he had little left to teach her.