فصل 13

THIRTEEN

Jolene was not in the Lexington directory. Beth Tried information in Louisville and Frankfort. No Jolene DeWitt. She could have married and changed her name. She could be in Chicago or the Klondike for that matter; Beth had not seen or heard from her since the day she left Methuen. And there was only one thing to do if she was to go through with this. Her adoption papers were in a drawer in Mrs. Wheatley’s desk. She got the folder out and found a letter with the Methuen name and slogan at the top of it in red. The phone number was there. She held the paper nervously for several moments. At the bottom it was signed in a small, neat hand: Helen Deardorff, Superintendent.

It was almost noon, and she had not had a drink yet. For a moment she thought of steadying herself with a Gibson, but she could not hide the stupidity of that idea from herself. A Gibson would be the end of her resolve. She might be alcoholic, but she was not a fool. She went upstairs and got her bottle of Mexican Librium and took two. Waiting for the tension to ease, she walked into the yard which the boy had mowed the day before. The tea roses had finally bloomed. The petals had fallen from most of them, and at the end of some of the stems were spherical, pregnant-looking hips where the flowers had been. She had never noticed them when they were blooming in June and July.

Back in the kitchen, she felt steadier. The tranquilizers were working. How many brain cells did they kill with each milligram? It couldn’t be as bad as liquor. She walked into the living room and dialed the Methuen Home.

The operator at Methuen put her on hold. Beth reached over to the bottle, shook out a green pill and swallowed it. Finally the voice came, shockingly crisp, from the receiver. “Helen Deardorff speaking.” For a moment she couldn’t speak and wanted to hang up, but she sucked in her breath and said, “Mrs. Deardorff, this is Beth Harmon.” “Really?” The voice sounded surprised.

“Yes.”

“Well.” During the pause that followed it occurred to Beth that Mrs. Deardorff might have nothing to say. She might find it as difficult talking to Beth as Beth did talking to her. “Well,” Mrs. Deardorff said, “we’ve been reading about you.” “How’s Mr. Shaibel?” Beth asked.

“Mr. Shaibel is still with us. Is that what you called about?”

“I called about Jolene DeWitt. I need to get in touch with her.”

“I’m sorry,” Mrs. Deardorff said. “Methuen cannot give out the addresses or phone numbers of its charges.” “Mrs. Deardorff,” Beth said, her voice suddenly breaking through into feeling, “Mrs. Deardorff, do this for me. I have to talk to Jolene.” “There are laws—”

“Mrs. Deardorff,” Beth said, “please.”

Mrs. Deardorff’s voice took on a different tone. “All right, Elizabeth. DeWitt lives in Lexington. Here’s her phone number.” ***

“Jesus fucking Christ!” Jolene said on the phone. “Jesus fucking Christ!”

“How are you, Jolene?” Beth felt like crying, but she kept the quaver out of her voice.

“Oh my God, child,” Jolene said, laughing. “It is so good to hear your voice. Are you still ugly?” “Are you still black?”

“I am one black lady,” Jolene said. “And you’ve lost your ugly. I saw you in more magazines than Barbra Streisand. My famous friend.” “Why didn’t you call?”

“Jealous.”

“Jolene,” Beth said, “did you ever get adopted?”

“Shit, no. I graduated from that place. Why in hell didn’t you mail me a card or a box of cookies?” “I’ll buy you dinner tonight. Can you get to Toby’s on Main Street at seven?” “I’ll cut a class,” Jolene said. “Son of a bitch! U.S. Champion at the historic game of chess. A genuine winner.” “That’s what I want to talk about,” Beth said.

When they met at Toby’s the spontaneity was gone. Beth had spent the day without a drink, had her hair cut at Roberta’s and cleaned up the kitchen, almost overcome with the excitement of talking to Jolene again. She arrived at Toby’s a quarter of an hour early and nervously turned down the waiter’s offer to bring her a drink. She had a Coke in front of her when Jolene arrived.

At first Beth didn’t recognize her. The woman who came toward her table in what looked like a Coco Chanel suit and a full, bushy Afro was so tall that Beth could not believe it was Jolene. She looked like a movie star, or a rock-and-roll princess—fuller in the figure than Diana Ross and as cool as Lena Horne. But when Beth saw that it was in fact Jolene, that the smile and the eyes were the Jolene she remembered, she stood up awkwardly, and they embraced. Jolene’s perfume was strong. Beth felt self-conscious. Jolene patted her back while they hugged, and said, “Beth Harmon. Old Beth.” They sat down and looked at each other awkwardly. Beth decided she had to have a drink to see her through this. But when the waiter came, blessedly breaking the silence, Jolene ordered a club soda and Beth had him bring her another Coke.

Jolene was carrying something in a manila envelope, which she set on the table in front of Beth. Beth picked it up. It was a book, and she knew immediately what it was. She slipped off the envelope. Modern Chess Openings. Her old, nearly worn-out copy.

“Me all the time,” Jolene said. “Pissed at you for being adopted.”

Beth grimaced, opening the book to the title page where the childish handwriting read “Elizabeth Harmon, Methuen Home.” “What about for being white?” “Who could forget?” Jolene said.

Beth looked at Jolene’s good, beautiful face with all the remarkable hair and the long black eyelashes and the full lips, and the self-consciousness dropped away from her with a relief that was physical in its simplicity. She smiled broadly. “It’s good to see you.” What she wanted to say was, “I love you.” During the first half of the meal Jolene talked about Methuen—about sleeping through chapel and hating the food and about Mr. Schell, Miss Graham and the Saturday Christian movies. She was hilarious on the subject of Mrs. Deardorff, imitating her tight voice and her way of tossing her head. She ate slowly and laughed a lot, and Beth found herself laughing with her. It had been a long time since Beth had laughed, and she had never felt so easy with anyone—not even with Mrs. Wheatley. Jolene ordered a glass of white wine with her veal and Beth hesitated before asking the waiter for ice water.

“You not old enough?” Jolene said.

“That’s not it. I’m eighteen.”

Jolene raised her eyebrows and went back to her veal. After a few moments she started talking again. “When you went off to your happy home, I started doing serious volleyball. I graduated when I was eighteen and the University gave me a scholarship in Phys. Ed.” “How do you like it?”

“It’s all right,” Jolene said, a bit fast. And then, “No, it isn’t. It’s a shuck is what it is. I don’t want to be a gym coach.” “You could do something else.”

Jolene shook her head. “It wasn’t till I got my bachelor’s last year that I really caught on.” She had been talking with her mouth full. Now she swallowed and leaned forward with her elbows on the table. “I should have been in law or government. These are the right days for what I’ve got, and I blew it on learning the side straddle hop and the major muscles of the abdomen.” Her voice got lower and stronger. “I’m a black woman. I’m an orphan. I ought to be at Harvard. I ought to be getting my picture in Time magazine like you.” “You’d look great with Barbara Walters,” Beth said. “You could talk about the emotional deprivation of orphans.” “Could I ever,” Jolene said. “I’d like to tell about Helen Deardorff and her goddamn tranquilizers.” Beth hesitated a moment. Then she said, “Do you still take tranquilizers?”

“No,” Jolene said. “Hell, no.” She laughed. “Never forget you ripping off that whole jarful. Right there in the Multi-Purpose Room in front of the whole fucking orphanage, with Old Helen ready to turn into a pillar of salt and the rest of us with our jaws hanging slack.” She laughed again. “Made you a hero, it did. I told the new ones about it after you was gone.” Jolene had finished her meal; she sat back from the table now and pushed the plate toward the center. Then she leaned back, took a package of Kents from her jacket pocket and looked at it for a moment. “When your picture came out in Life, I was the one put it on the bulletin board in the library. Still there as far as I know.” She lit a cigarette, using a little black lighter, and inhaled deeply. “’A Girl Mozart Startles the World of Chess.’ My, my.” “I still take tranquilizers,” Beth said. “Too many of them.”

“Oh, you poor thing,” Jolene said wryly, looking at her cigarette.

Beth was quiet for a while. The silence between them was palpable. Then she said, “Let’s have dessert.” “Chocolate mousse,” Jolene said. During dessert she stopped eating and looked across the table. “You don’t look good, Beth,” she said. “You’re puffy.” Beth nodded and finished her mousse.

Jolene drove her home in her silver VW. When they got to Jan-well, Beth said, “I’d like you to come in for a while, Jolene. I want you to see my house.” “Sure,” Jolene said. Beth showed her where to pull over, and when they got out of the car Jolene said, “That whole house belong to you?” and Beth said, “Yes.” Jolene laughed. “You’re no orphan,” she said. “Not anymore.”

But when they came into the little entryway inside the front door, the stale, fruity smell was a shock. Beth had not noticed it before. There was an embarrassed silence while she turned on the lamps in the living room and looked around. She had not seen the dust on the TV screen or the stains on the cobbler’s bench. At the corner of the living room ceiling near the staircase was a dense cobweb. The whole place was dark and musty.

Jolene walked around the room, looking. “You been doing more than pills, honey,” she said.

“I’ve been drinking wine.”

“I believe it.”

Beth made them coffee in the kitchen. At least the floor in there was clean. She opened the window out into the garden to let fresh air in.

Her chessboard was still set up on the table and Jolene picked up the white queen and held it for a moment. “I get tired of games,” she said. “Never did learn this one.” “Want me to teach you?”

Jolene laughed. “It’d be something to tell about.” She set the queen back on the board. “They’ve instructed me in handball, racquetball and paddleball. I play tennis, golf, dodgeball, and I wrestle. Don’t need chess. What I want to hear about is all this wine.” Beth handed her a mug of coffee.

Jolene set it down and got out a cigarette. Sitting in the drab kitchen with her bright-navy suit and her Afro, she was like a new center in the room.

“It start with the pills?” Jolene asked.

“I used to love them,” Beth said. “Really love them.”

Jolene shook her head twice, from side to side.

“I haven’t had anything to drink today,” Beth said abruptly. “I’m supposed to play in Russia next year.” “Luchenko,” Jolene said. “Borgov.”

Beth was surprised that she knew the names. “I’m scared of it.”

“Then don’t go.”

“If I don’t, there’s nothing else for me to do. I’ll just drink.”

“Looks like you do that, anyway.”

“I just need to quit drinking and quit those pills and fix this place up. Look at the grease on that stove.” She pointed to it. “I’ve got to study chess eight hours a day, and I’ve got to do some tournaments. They want me to play in San Francisco, and they want me on the Tonight Show. I should do all that.” Jolene studied her.

“What I want is a drink,” Beth said. “If you weren’t here, I’d have a bottle of wine.” Jolene frowned. “You sound like Susan Hayward in those movies,” she said.

“It’s no movie,” Beth said.

“Then quit talking like one. Let me tell you what to do. You come over to the Alumni Gymnasium on Euclid Avenue tomorrow morning at ten. That’s when I work out. Bring your gym shoes and a pair of shorts. You need to get that puffy look out of you before you make any more plans.” Beth stared at her. “I always hated gym…”

“I remember,” Jolene said.

Beth thought about it. There were bottles of red wine and white in the cabinet behind her, and for a moment she became impatient for Jolene to leave so that she could get one out and twist the cork off and pour herself a full glass. She could feel the sensation of it at the back of her throat.

“It’s not that bad,” Jolene said. “I’ll get you a couple of fresh towels and you can use my hair dryer.” “I don’t know how to get there.”

“Take a cab. Hell, walk.”

Beth looked at her, dismayed.

“You’ve got to get your ass moving, girl,” Jolene said. “You got to quit sitting in your own funk.” “Okay,” Beth said. “I’ll be there.”

When Jolene left, Beth had one glass of wine but not a second. She opened up all the windows in the house and drank the wine out in the backyard, with the moon, nearly full, directly above the little shed at the back. There was a cool breeze. She took a long time over the drink, letting the breeze blow into the kitchen window, fluttering the curtains, blowing through the kitchen and living room, clearing out the air inside.

The gym was a high-ceilinged room with white walls. Light came in from enormous windows along the side where a row of strange-looking machines sat. Jolene was wearing yellow tights and gym shoes. The morning was warm, and Beth had worn her white shorts in the taxi. At the far end of the exercise room a doleful-looking young man in gray trunks lay on his back on a bench, pushing up weights and groaning. Otherwise they were alone.

They started with a pair of stationary bicycles. Jolene set the drag on Beth’s at ten, and sixty for her own. By the time they had pedaled ten minutes Beth was covered with sweat and her calves were aching.

“It gets worse,” Jolene said.

Beth gritted her teeth and kept pedaling.

She could not get the rhythm right on the hip-and-back machine, and her ass slid on the imitation-leather bench she had to lie on while she pushed the weights down with her legs. Jolene had set it for forty pounds, but even that seemed too much. Then there was the machine where she raised the weights with her ankles, making the tendons in her upper legs stand out and hurt. After that she had to sit upright in what reminded her of an electric chair and pull in weights with her elbows. “Firm up your pectorals,” Jolene said.

“I thought that was a kind of fish,” Beth said.

Jolene laughed. “Trust me, honey. This is what you need.”

Beth did them all—furious and terribly out of breath. It made her fury worse to see that Jolene used far heavier weights than she did. But then, Jolene’s figure was perfect.

The shower afterward was exquisite. There were strong water jets, and Beth sprayed herself hard, getting the sweat off. She soaped herself thoroughly and watched the foam swirl on the white tiles at her feet as she rinsed it off with a stinging hot spray.

The woman at the cafeteria was handing Beth a plate with salisbury steak on it when Jolene pushed her tray up next to Beth’s. “None of that,” Jolene said. She took the plate and handed it back. “No gravy,” she said, “and no potatoes.” “I’m not overweight,” Beth said. “It won’t hurt me to eat potatoes.

Jolene said nothing. When they pushed their trays past the Jell-O and Bavarian cream pie, Jolene shook her head. “You ate chocolate mousse last night,” Beth said.

“Last night was special,” Jolene said. “This is today.”

They had lunch at eleven-thirty because Jolene had a twelve o’clock class. When Beth asked her what it was, Jolene said, “Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century.” “Is that part of Phys. Ed.?” Beth asked.

“I didn’t tell all of it yesterday. I’m getting an M.S. in political science.” Beth stared at her. “Honi soit qui mal y pense,” Jolene said.

When Beth got up the next morning, her back and calves were sore, and she decided not to go to the gym. But when she opened the refrigerator to find something for breakfast, she saw stacks of TV dinners and suddenly thought of the way Mrs. Wheatley’s pale legs had looked when she rolled down her stockings. She shook her head in revulsion and started prying the boxes loose. The thought of frozen fried chicken and roast beef and turkey made her ill; she dumped them all in a plastic shopping bag. When she opened the cabinet to look over the canned foods, there were three bottles of Almadén Mountain Rhine sitting in front of the cans. She hesitated and closed the door. She would think about that later. She had toast and black coffee for breakfast. On her way to the gym, she dropped the sack of frozen dinners into the garbage.

At lunch Jolene told her about a bulletin board in the Student Union that listed students who would do unskilled work at two dollars an hour. Jolene walked her over on the way to class, and Beth took down two numbers. By three o’clock that afternoon she had a Business Administration major beating the carpets in the backyard and an Art History major scrubbing the refrigerator and kitchen cabinets; Beth did not supervise them; she spent the time working out variations on the Nimzo-Indian Defense.

By the next Monday, she was using all seven of the Nautilus machines and doing sit-ups afterward. On Wednesday, Jolene added ten pounds to each of them for her and had her hold a five-pound weight on her chest when she did the sit-ups. The week after that, they started playing handball. Beth was awkward at it and got out of breath quickly. Jolene beat her badly. Beth kept at it doggedly, panting and sweating and sometimes bruising the palm of her hand on the little black ball. It took her ten days and a few lucky bounces before she won her first game.

“I knew you’d start winning soon enough,” Jolene said. They stood in the center of the court, sweating.

“I hate losing,” Beth said.

That day there was a letter waiting for her from something called Christian Crusade. The stationery had about twenty names down the side, under an embossed cross. The letter read: Dear Miss Harmon:

As we have been unable to reach you by telephone we are writing to determine your interest in the support of Christian Crusade in your forthcoming competition in the U.S.S.R.

Christian Crusade is a non-profit organization dedicated to the opening of Closed Doors to the Message of Christ. We have found your career as a Trainee of a Christian Institution, the Methuen Home, noteworthy. We would like to help in your forthcoming struggle since we share your Christian ideals and aspirations. If you are interested in our support, please contact us at our offices in Houston.

Yours in Christ,

Crawford Walker

Director

Christian Crusade

Foreign Division

She almost threw the letter away until she remembered Benny’s saying that he had been given money for his Russian trip by a church group. She had Benny’s phone number on a folded piece of paper in her chess clock box; she got it out and dialed. Benny answered after the third ring.

“Hi,” she said. “It’s Beth.”

Benny was a bit cool, but when she told him about the letter, he said at once, “Take it. They’re loaded.” “Would they pay for my ticket to Russia?”

“More than that. If you ask them, they’ll send me over with you. Separate rooms, considering their views.” “Why would they pay so much money?”

“They want us to beat the Communists for Jesus. They’re the ones who paid part of my way two years ago.” He paused. “Are you coming back to New York?” His voice was carefully neutral.

“I need to stay in Kentucky a while longer. I’m working out in a gym, and I’ve entered a tournament in California.” “Sure,” Benny said. “It sounds all right to me.”

She wrote Christian Crusade that afternoon to say that she was very much interested in their offer and would like to take Benjamin Watts with her as a second. She used the pale-blue stationery, crossing out “Mrs. Allston Wheatley” at the top and writing in “Elizabeth Harmon.” When she walked to the corner to mail the letter, she decided to go on downtown and buy new sheets and pillowcases for the bed and a new tablecloth for the kitchen.

The winter light in San Francisco was remarkable; she had never seen anything quite like it before. It gave the buildings a preternatural clarity of line, and when she climbed to the top of Telegraph Hill and looked back, she caught her breath at the sharp focus of the houses and hotels that lined the long steep street and below them the perfect blue of the bay. There was a flower stand at the corner, and she bought a bunch of marigolds. Looking back at the bay, she saw a young couple a block away climbing toward her. They were clearly out of breath and stopped to rest. Beth realized with surprise that the climb had been easy for her. She decided to take long walks during her week there. Maybe she could find a gym somewhere.

When she walked up the hill to the tournament in the morning, the air was still splendid and the colors bright, but she was tense. The elevator in the big hotel was crowded. Several people in it stared at her, and she looked away nervously. The man at the desk stopped what he was doing the minute she walked up.

“Do I register here?” she asked.

“No need, Miss Harmon. Just go on in.”

“Which board?”

He raised his eyebrows. “Board One.”

Board One was in a room by itself. The table was on a three-foot-high platform, and a display board as big as a home-movie screen stood behind it. On each side of the table was a big swivel chair of brown leather and chrome. It was five minutes before starting time, and the room was jammed with people; she had to push her way through them to the playing space. As she did so, the buzz of talk died down. Everyone looked at her. When she climbed the steps to the platform, they began to applaud. She tried not to let her face show anything, but she was frightened. The last game of chess she had played was five months before, and she had lost it.

She didn’t even know who her opponent was; she hadn’t thought to ask. She sat there for a moment with her mind nearly empty, and then an arrogant-looking young man came briskly through the crowd and up the steps. He had long black hair and a broad, drooping mustache. She recognized him from somewhere, and when he introduced himself as Andy Levitt, she remembered the name from Chess Review. He seated himself stiffly. A tournament director came up to the table and spoke quietly to Levitt. “You can start her clock now.” Levitt reached out, looking unconcerned, and pressed the button on Beth’s clock. She held herself steady and played her queen’s pawn, keeping her eyes on the board.

By the time they had got into the middle game, there were people jammed in the doorway and someone was shushing the crowd and trying to maintain order. She had never seen so many spectators at a match. She turned her attention back to the board and carefully brought a rook to an open file. If Levitt didn’t find a way to prevent it, she could try attacking in three moves. If she wasn’t missing something in the position. She started moving in on him cautiously, prying the pawns loose from his castled king. Then she took a deep breath and brought a rook to the seventh rank. She could hear at the back of her mind the voice of the chess bum in Cincinnati years before: “Bone in the throat, a rook on the seventh rank.” She looked across the board at Levitt. He looked as if it were indeed a chicken bone and deeply imbedded. Something in her exulted, seeing him try to hide his confusion. And when she followed the rook with her queen, looking brutal on the seventh rank, he resigned immediately. The applause in the room was loud and enthusiastic. When she came down from the platform she was smiling. There were people waiting with old copies of Chess Review, wanting her to autograph her picture on the cover. Others wanted her to sign their programs or just sheets of paper.

While she was signing one of the magazines, she looked for a moment at the black-and-white photograph of herself holding the big trophy in Ohio, with Benny and Barnes and a few others out of focus in the background. Her face looked tired and plain, and she recalled with a sudden remembered shame that the magazine had sat with its tan mailing cover in a stack on the cobbler’s bench for a month before she had opened it and found her picture. Someone thrust another copy at her to sign, and she shook off the memory. She autographed her way out of the crowded room and through yet another crowd that was waiting outside the door, filling the space between her playing area and the ballroom where the rest of the tournament was still in progress. Two directors were trying to hush the crowd to avoid disturbing the other games as she came through. Some of the players looked up from their boards angrily and frowned in her direction. It was exhilarating and frightening, having all these people pressed near her, pushing up to her with admiration. One of the women who had got her autograph said, “I don’t know a thing about chess, dear, but I’m thrilled for you,” and a middle-aged man insisted on shaking her hand, saying, “You’re the best thing for the game since Capablanca.” “Thanks,” she said. “I wish it were as easy for me.” Maybe it is, she thought. Her brain seemed to be all right. Maybe she hadn’t ruined it.

She walked confidently down the street to her hotel in bright sunshine. She would be going to Russia in six months. Christian Crusade had agreed to buy tickets on Aeroflot for her and Benny and a woman from the USCF and would pay their hotel bills. The Moscow tournament would provide the meals. She had been studying chess for six hours a day, and she could keep it up. She stopped to buy more flowers—carnations this time. The woman at the desk had asked for her autograph last night when she came in from dinner; she would be glad to get her another vase. Before leaving for California, Beth had mailed off checks for subscriptions to all the magazines Benny took. She would be getting Deutsche Schachzeitung, the oldest chess magazine, and British Chess Magazine and, from Russia, Shakhmatni v USSR. There would be Échecs Europe and American Chess Bulletin. She planned to play through every grandmaster game in them, and when she found games that were important she would memorize them and analyze every move that had consequence or developed any idea that she was not familiar with. In early spring she might go to New York and play the U.S. Open and get in a few weeks with Benny. The flowers in her hand glowed crimson, her new jeans and cotton sweater felt fresh on her skin in the cool San Francisco air, at the bottom of the street the blue ocean lay like a dream of possibility. Her soul sang silently with it, reaching out toward the Pacific.

When she came home with her trophy and the first-prize check, she found in the pile of mail two business envelopes: one was from the USCF and contained a check for four hundred dollars and a brief apology that they couldn’t send more. The second was from Christian Crusade. It had a three-page letter that spoke of the need to promote international understanding through Christian principles and to annihilate Communism for the advancement of those same principles. The word “His” was capitalized in a way that made Beth uneasy. The letter was signed “Yours in Christ” by four people. Folded up in it was a check for four thousand dollars. She held the check in her hand for a long time. Her prize money at San Francisco was two thousand, and she had to take her travel expenses out of it. Her bank account had been dwindling for the past six months. She had hoped to get at most two thousand dollars from the people in Texas. Whatever crazy ideas they might have, the money was a gift from heaven. She called Benny to tell him the good news.

When she came in from her Wednesday morning squash game the phone was ringing. She got her raincoat off in a hurry, threw it on the sofa and picked up the phone. It was a woman’s voice. “Is this Elizabeth Harmon?” “Yes.”

“This is Helen Deardorff, at Methuen.” She was too astonished to speak. “I have something to tell you, Elizabeth. Mr. Shaibel died last night. I thought you might want to know.” She had a sudden image of the fat old janitor bent over his chess set in the basement, with the bare light bulb over his head, and herself standing by him, watching the deliberateness, the oddness of him there alone by the furnace.

“Last night?” she said.

“A heart attack. He was in his sixties.”

What Beth said next surprised her. It came out almost without conscious thought. “I’d like to come to the funeral.” “The funeral?” Mrs. Deardorff said. “I’m not sure when—There’s an unmarried sister, Hilda Shaibel. You could call her.” ***

When the Wheatleys drove her to Lexington six years before, they had gone on narrow asphalt roads through towns where she had stared out the car windows at stoplights while brightly dressed people crossed the streets and walked on crowded sidewalks in front of shops. Now, driving back with Jolene, it was four-lane concrete most of the way and the towns were visible only as names printed on green signs.

“He looked like a mean son of a bitch,” Jolene said.

“He wasn’t easy to play chess with, either. I think I was terrified of him.”

“I was scared of all of ‘em,” Jolene said. “Motherfuckers.”

That surprised Beth. She had imagined Jolene as fearless. “What about Fergussen?” “Fergussen was an oasis in the desert,” Jolene said, “but he frightened me when he first came. He turned out to be okay.” She smiled. “Old Fergussen.” Beth hesitated a moment. “Was there ever anything between you two?” She remembered those extra green pills.

Jolene laughed. “Wishful thinking.”

“How old were you when you came?”

“Six.”

“Do you know anything about your parents?”

“Just my grandmother, and she’s dead. Somewhere near Louisville. I don’t want to know anything about them. I don’t care whether I’m a bastard or why it was they wanted to put me with my grandmother or why she wanted to shove me off on Methuen. I’m just glad to be free of it all. I’ll have my master’s in August, and I’m leaving this state for good.” “I still remember my mother,” Beth said. “Daddy’s not so clear.”

“Best to forget it,” Jolene said. “If you can.”

She pulled into the left lane and passed a coal truck and two campers. Up ahead a green sign gave the mileage to Mount Sterling. It was spring, almost exactly a year since Beth’s last trip in a car, with Benny. She thought of the griminess of the Pennsylvania Turnpike. This white concrete road was fresh and new, with Kentucky fields and white fences and farmhouses on either side of it.

After a while Jolene lit up a cigarette, and Beth said, “Where will you go when you graduate?” She was beginning to think that Jolene hadn’t heard her when Jolene spoke. “I’ve got an offer from a white law firm in Atlanta that looks promising.” She fell silent again. “What they want is an imported nigger to stay even with the times.” Beth looked at her. “I don’t think I’d go any farther south if I was black.”

“Well, you sure ain’t,” Jolene said. “These people in Atlanta will pay me twice what I could get in New York. I’d be doing public relations, which is the kind of shuck I understand right to my fingertips, and they’ll start me out with two windows in my office and a white girl to type my letters.” “But you haven’t studied law.”

Jolene laughed. “I expect they like it that way. Fine, Slocum and Livingston don’t want any black female reviewing torts. What they want is a clean black woman with a nice ass and a good vocabulary. When I did the interview I dropped a lot of words like ‘reprehensible’ and ‘dichotomy,’ and they picked right up.” “Jolene,” Beth said, “you’re too smart for that. You could teach at the University. And you’re a fine athlete…” “I know what I’m doing,” Jolene said. “I play good tennis and golf and I’m ambitious.” She took a deep drag on her cigarette. “You may have no idea just how ambitious I am. I worked hard at sports, and I had coaches promising I’d be a pro if I kept at it.” “That doesn’t sound bad.”

Jolene let the smoke out slowly. “Beth,” she said, “what I want is what you’ve got. I don’t want to work on my backhand for two years so I can be a bush league pro. You’ve been the best at what you do for so long you don’t know what it’s like for the rest of us.” “I’d like to be half as good-looking as you are…”

“Quit giving me that,” Jolene said. “Can’t spend your life in front of a mirror. You ain’t ugly anymore anyhow. What I’m talking about is your talent. I’d give my ass to play tennis the way you play chess.” The conviction in Jolene’s voice was overwhelming. Beth looked at her face in profile, with its Afro grazing at the top of the car interior, at her smooth brown arms out to where her steady hands held the wheel, at the anger clouding her face, and said nothing.

A minute later Jolene said, “Well, now. There it is.”

About a mile ahead to the right of the road stood three dark brick buildings with black roofs and black window shutters. The Methuen Home for Orphaned Children.

A yellow-painted wooden stairway at the end of a concrete path led to the building. Once the steps had looked broad and imposing to her, and the tarnished brass plaque had seemed a stern warning. Now it looked like only the entrance to a shabby provincial institution. The paint on the steps was peeling. The bushes that flanked them were grubby, and their leaves were covered with dust. Jolene was in the playground, looking over the rusty swings and the old slide that they had not been allowed to use except when Fergussen was there to supervise. Beth stood on the path in the sunlight, studying the wooden doors. Inside was Mrs. Deardorff’s big office and the other offices and, filling one whole wing, the library and the chapel. There were two classrooms in the other wing, and past them was the door at the end of the hallway that led to the basement.

She had come to accept the Sunday-morning chess games as her prerogative. Until that day. It still constricted her throat to remember the silent tableau following Mrs. Deardorff’s voice shouting “Elizabeth!” and the cascade of pills and fragmented glass. Then no more chess. Instead it had been the full hour and a half of chapel and Beth helping Mrs. Lonsdale with the chairs and listening to her give her Talks. It took another hour after putting the chairs away to write the précis Mrs. Deardorff had assigned. She did it every Sunday for a year, and Mrs. Deardorff returned it every Monday with red marks and some grim exhortation like “Rewrite. Faulty organization.” She’d had to look up “Communism” in the library for the first précis. Beth had felt somewhere in her that Christianity ought to have something more to it.

Jolene had come over and was standing beside her, squinting in the sunlight. “That’s where you learned to play?” “In the basement.”

“Shit,” Jolene said. “They should have encouraged you. Sent you on more exhibitions after that one. They like publicity, just like anybody else.” “Publicity?” She was feeling dazed.

“It brings in money.”

She had never thought of anyone there encouraging her. It began to enter her mind now, standing in front of the building. She could have played in tournaments at nine or ten, like Benny. She had been bright and eager, and her mind was voracious in its appetite for chess. She could have been playing grandmasters and learning things that people like Shaibel and Ganz could never teach her. Girev was planning at thirteen to be World Champion. If she had had half his chances, she would have been as good at ten. For a moment the whole autocratic institution of Russian chess merged in her mind with the autocracy of the place where she was now standing. Institutions. There was no violation of Christianity in chess, any more than there was a violation of Marxism. It was nonideological. It wouldn’t have hurt Deardorff to let her play—to encourage her to play. It would have been something for Methuen to boast about. She could see Deardorff’s face in her mind—the thin, rouged cheeks, the tight, reproving smile, the little sadistic glint in her eyes. It had pleased her to cut Beth off from the game she loved. It had pleased her.

“You want to go in?” Jolene asked.

“No. Let’s find that motel.”

The motel had a small pool only a few yards from the road, with some weary-looking maples beside it. The evening was warm enough for a quick swim after dinner. Jolene turned out to be a superb swimmer, going back and forth the length of the pool with hardly a ripple, while Beth treaded water under the diving board. Jolene pulled up near her. “We were chicken,” she said. “We should have gone in the Administration Building. We should have gone in her office.” The funeral was in the morning at the Lutheran Church. There were a dozen people and a closed casket. It was an ordinary-sized coffin, and Beth wondered briefly how they could fit a man of Shaibel’s girth into it. Although the church was smaller, it was much like Mrs. Wheatley’s funeral in Lexington. After the first five minutes of it, she was bored and restless, and Jolene was dozing. After the ceremony they followed the small procession to the grave. “I remember,” Jolene said, “he scared shit out of me once, hollering to keep off the library floor. He just mopped it, and Mr. Schell sent me in to get a book. Son of a bitch hated kids.” “Mrs. Deardorff wasn’t at the church.”

“None of them were.”

The graveside service was an anticlimax. They lowered the coffin, and the minister said a prayer. Nobody cried. They looked like people waiting in line at a teller’s window at the bank. Beth and Jolene were the only young ones there, and none of the others spoke to them. They left immediately after it was over, walking along a narrow path in the old cemetery, past faded gravestones and patches of dandelions. Beth felt no grief for the dead man, no sadness that he was gone. The only thing she felt was guilt that she had never sent him his ten dollars—she should have mailed him a check years ago.

They had to pass Methuen on the way back to Lexington. Just before the turnoff, Beth said, “Let’s go in. There’s something I want to see,” and Jolene turned the car down the drive to the orphanage.

Jolene stayed in the car. Beth got out and pushed her way into the side door of the Administration Building. It was dark and cool inside. Straight in front of her was a door that read HELEN DEAR-DORFF—SUPERINTENDENT. She walked down the empty hallway to the doorway at the end. When she pushed it open, there was a light on below. She went slowly down the steps.

The chessboard and pieces weren’t there, but the table he had played on still sat by the furnace, and his unpainted chair was still in position. The bare bulb over it was on. She stood looking down at the table. Then she seated herself thoughtfully in Mr. Shaibel’s chair and looked up and saw something she had not seen before.

Behind the place where she used to sit to play was a kind of rough partition made of unplanned wooden boards nailed to two-by-fours. A calendar used to hang there, with scenes from Bavaria above the sheets for the months. Now the calendar was gone and the entire partition was covered with photographs and clippings and covers from Chess Review, each of them neatly taped to the wood and covered with clear plastic to keep it clean and free of dust—the only thing in this dingy basement that was. They were pictures of her. There were printed games from Chess Review, and newspaper pieces from the Lexington Herald-Leader and the New York Times and from some magazines in German. The old Life piece was there, and next to it was the cover of Chess Review with her holding the U.S. Championship trophy. Filling in the smaller spaces were newspaper pictures, some of them duplicates. There must have been twenty photographs.

“You find what you were looking for?” Jolene asked when she got back to the car.

“More,” Beth said. She started to say something else but didn’t. Jolene backed the car up, drove out of the lot and turned back onto the road that led to the highway.

When they drove up the ramp and pulled onto the interstate, Jolene gunned the VW and it shot ahead. Neither of them looked back. Beth had stopped crying by then and was wiping her face with a handkerchief.

“Didn’t bite off more than you could chew, did you?” Jolene said.

“No.” Beth blew her nose. “I’m fine.”

The taller of the two women looked like Helen Deardorff. Or didn’t exactly look like her as much as display all indications of spiritual sisterhood. She wore a beige suit and pumps and smiled a good deal in a way totally devoid of feeling. Her name was Mrs. Blocker. The other was plump and slightly embarrassed and wore a dark floral print and no-nonsense shoes. She was Miss Dodge. They were on their way from Houston to Cincinnati and had stopped by for a chat. They sat side by side on Beth’s sofa and talked about the ballet in Houston and the way the city was growing in culture. Clearly they wanted Beth to know Christian Crusade was not merely a narrow, fundamentalist organization. And just as clearly they had come to look her over. They had written ahead.

Beth listened politely while they talked about Houston and about the agency they were helping to set up in Cincinnati—an agency that had something to do with protecting the Christian environment. The conversation faltered for a moment, and Miss Dodge spoke. “What we would really like, Elizabeth, would be some kind of a statement.” “A statement?” Beth was sitting in Mrs. Wheatley’s armchair facing them on the sofa.

Mrs. Blocker picked it up. “Christian Crusade would like you to make your position public. In a world where so many keep silent…” She didn’t finish.

“What position?” Beth asked.

“As we know,” Mrs. Dodge said, “the spread of Communism is also the spread of atheism.” “I suppose so,” Beth said.

“It’s not a matter of supposing,” Mrs. Blocker said quickly. “It’s a matter of fact. Of Marxist-Leninist fact. The Holy Word is anathema to the Kremlin, and it is one of the major purposes of Christian Crusade to contest the Kremlin and the atheists who sit there.” “I have no quarrel with that,” Beth said.

“Good. What we want is a statement.” The way Mrs. Blocker said it echoed something that Beth had recognized years before in Mrs. Deardorff’s voice. It was the tone of the practiced bully. She felt the way she did when a player brought out his queen too soon against her. “You want me to make a statement for the press?” “Exactly!” Mrs. Blocker said. “If Christian Crusade is going to—” She stopped and felt the manila envelope in her lap as though estimating its weight. “We had something prepared.” Beth looked at her, hating her and saying nothing.

Mrs. Blocker opened the clasp on the envelope and pulled out a sheet of paper filled with typing. She gave it to Beth.

It was the same stationery the original letter had come on, with its list of names running down the side. Beth glanced down the list and saw “Telsa R. Blocker, Executive Secretary,” just above half a dozen men’s names with the abbreviation “Rev.” in front of them. Then she read the statement quickly. Some phrases in it were underlined, like “the atheist-communist nexus” and “a militant Christian Endeavor.” She looked up from the paper at Mrs. Blocker, who was sitting with her knees pressing together, looking around the room with a subdued dislike. “I’m a chess player,” Beth said quietly.

“Of course you are, my dear,” Mrs. Blocker said. “And you’re a Christian.”

“I’m not sure of that.”

Mrs. Blocker stared at her.

“Look,” Beth said, “I have no intention of saying things like this.”

Mrs. Blocker leaned forward and took the statement. “Christian Crusade has already invested a good deal of money…” There was a glint in her eye that Beth had seen before.

Beth stood up. “I’ll give it back.” She walked to the desk and found her checkbook. For a moment she felt like a prig and a fool. It was money for her air fare and Benny’s and for the woman from the Federation as an escort. It would pay her hotel bill and incidental expenses on the trip. But at the bottom of the check they had sent her a month ago, in the place where you normally wrote “rent” or “light bill” to say what the money was for, someone—probably Mrs. Blocker—had written “For Christian Service.” Beth made out a check for four thousand dollars to Christian Crusade, and in the space at the bottom she wrote “Full refund.” Miss Dodge’s voice was surprisingly gentle. “I hope you know what you’re doing, dear.” She looked genuinely concerned.

“I hope so too,” Beth said. Her plane for Moscow left in five weeks.

She got Benny on the phone at the first try. “You’re crazy,” he said when she told him.

“Anyway, I did it,” Beth said. “It’s too late to undo it.”

“Are the tickets paid for?”

“No,” Beth said. “Nothing’s paid for.”

“You have to pay Intourist for the hotel in advance.”

“I know that.” Beth did not like Benny’s tone. “I’ve got two thousand in my bank account. It would be more, but I’ve been keeping up this house. It’s going to take three thousand more to do it. At least that.” “I don’t have it,” Benny said.

“What do you mean? You’ve got money.”

“I don’t have it.” There was a long silence. “You can call the Federation. Or the State Department.” “The Federation doesn’t like me,” Beth said. “They think I haven’t done as much for chess as I could have.” “You should have gone on Tonight and Phil Donahue.”

“God damn it, Benny,” Beth said. “Come off it.”

“You’re crazy,” Benny said. “What do you care what those dummies believe? What are you trying to prove?” “Benny. I don’t want to go to Russia alone.”

Benny’s voice suddenly became loud. “You asshole,” he shouted. “You crazy fucking asshole!” “Benny…”

“First you don’t come back to New York and then you pull this crap. You can fucking well go alone.” “Maybe I shouldn’t have done it.” She was beginning to feel a chill inside. “Maybe I didn’t have to give them back the check.” “’Maybe’ is a loser’s word.” Benny’s voice was like ice.

“Benny, I’m sorry.”

“I’m hanging up,” Benny said. “You were a pain in the ass when I first met you, and you’re a pain in the ass right now. I don’t want to talk to you anymore.” The phone in her hand went click. She put it back in the cradle. She had blown it. She had lost Benny.

She called the Federation and had to wait on hold for ten minutes before the director came on the line. He was pleasant with her and sympathetic and wished her well in Moscow but said there was no money to be had. “What we have comes mostly from the magazine. The four hundred dollars is all we can possibly spare.” It wasn’t until the next morning that she got her call returned from Washington. It was somebody named O’Malley, from Cultural Affairs. When she told him the problem, he went on about how excited they were, there at State, over her “giving the Russians a jolt at their own game.” He asked her how he could help.

“I need three thousand dollars right away.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” O’Malley said. “I’ll get back to you in an hour.”

But it was four hours later that he called back. She paced around the kitchen and the garden and made a quick call to Anne Reardon, who was to be the chaperone required by Christian Crusade. Anne Reardon had a woman’s rating of 1900 or so and at least knew the game. Beth had wiped her out once somewhere out West, practically blasting her pieces off the board. No one answered the phone. Beth made herself coffee and leafed through some copies of Deutsche Schachzeitung, waiting for the call. She felt almost nauseated at the way she had let the Christian Crusade money go. Four thousand dollars—for a gesture. Finally the phone rang.

It was O’Malley again. No dice. He was terribly sorry, but there was no way government funds could be handed out to her without more time and approval. “We’ll be sending one of our men with you, though.” “Don’t you have petty cash or something?” Beth asked. “I don’t need funds to undermine the government in Moscow. I just need to take some people to help me.” “I’m sorry,” O’Malley said. “I’m really sorry.”

After hanging up, she went back out into the garden. She would send the check to the Washington office of Intourist in the morning. She would go alone, or with whomever the State Department found to send with her. She had studied Russian, and she would not be totally at a loss. The Russian players would speak English, anyway. She could do her own training. She had been training alone for months. She finished off the last of her coffee. She had been training alone for most of her life.