I laughed. “Who would have thought that pushing black and white pieces around was such a lucrative business. Well, I hope you took your leave just as politely.”
But McConnor was deadly earnest. “The game is set for tomorrow afternoon at three. Here in the smoking lounge. I hope we won’t let ourselves be thrashed too easily.”
“What? You gave him two hundred fifty dollars?” I exclaimed in consternation.
“Why not? C’est son métier. If I had a toothache and there happened to be a dentist on board, I wouldn’t ask him to pull my tooth free of charge.
The man is quite right to set hefty prices; in every field, the real experts are also the best at business. And as far as I’m concerned, the more straightforward the deal, the better. I’d rather pay cash than have Mr. Czentovic do me a favor and be obliged to him. Anyway, I’ve lost more than two hundred fifty dollars in an evening at our club, and I wasn’t playing a world champion. For ‘third-rate’ players it’s no disgrace to be flattened by a Czentovic.”
I was amused to see how deeply I had wounded McConnor’s self-esteem with that single innocent phrase “third-rate player.” But as he was of a mind to pay for the expensive business, I wasn’t about to find fault with his misplaced pride, which would enable me to meet the object of my curiosity at last. We lost no time in informing the four or five gentlemen who had identified themselves as chess players of the impending event, and, in advance of the match, we reserved not only our table but the adjoining ones too so as to minimize any disruption by people passing through.
The next day our little group turned out at the appointed hour in full strength. The central seat, opposite the champion, was of course assigned to McConnor, who eased his nerves by lighting one strong cigar after another and restlessly checking the time again and again. But the world champion kept us waiting for a good ten minutes (I had had a pre-sentiment of something of the kind from my friend’s tales), which only heightened the effect of his poised entrance. He walked calmly and coolly to the table. Without introducing himself—“You know who I am, and who you are is of no interest to me,” this rudeness seemed to say—he embarked with professional dryness on the technical arrangements. As the unavailability of chessboards on the ship made a simultaneous game impossible, he said, he proposed to play us all jointly. After each move he would repair to a table at the other end of the room in order not to disturb our consultations. Once we had made our own move, we would tap on a glass with a spoon (unfortunately we didn’t have a bell). He suggested a ten-minute maximum for a move, unless we had another thought. Like bashful schoolboys we agreed to everything. Czentovic drew black; he made the first countermove while still on his feet and immediately went to wait in the spot he had suggested, where, casually hunched over, he leafed through an illustrated magazine.
There is little reason to describe the game. It ended, as it had to, in our total defeat, after only twenty-four moves. In and of itself it was hardly surprising that a world chess champion had dispatched a half-dozen average or below-average players with his left hand; what was so depressing to us was the overpowering way in which Czentovic made us feel all too clearly that he was doing just that. He would cast a single, seemingly cursory glance at the board before each move, looking past us as indifferently as if we ourselves were lifeless wooden pieces. It was a rude gesture that irresistibly recalled someone averting his eyes while tossing a scrap to a mangy dog. With a bit of sensitivity he could have drawn our attention to mistakes or bucked us up with a friendly word, in my opinion. But even when the game was over, this chess automaton uttered not a syllable after saying “mate,” but simply waited motionless in front of the board in case we wanted a second game. I had already stood up—clumsy as one always is when faced with crass bad manners—in an attempt to indicate that, with the conclusion of this cash transaction, the pleasure of our acquaintance was at an end, at least as far as I was concerned. But to my annoyance I heard the rather hoarse voice of McConnor next to me: “Rematch!”
The sheer provocation in his tone startled me; in fact McConnor at that moment looked more like a boxer about to throw a punch than a polite gentleman. Whether because of Czentovic’s unpleasant behavior or merely his own pathologically touchy pride, McConnor was in any case completely changed. Red to the roots of his hair, nostrils flared with the strength of his feeling, he was perspiring visibly, and a sharp crease ran between his firmly set lips and his aggressively jutting chin. I recognized uneasily in his eyes that flicker of uncontrolled passion that for the most part only grips people when they are at the roulette table and the right color hasn’t come up six or seven times running, the stakes doubling and redoubling all the while. At that instant I knew that, regardless of the stakes, this fanatically proud man would go on playing Czentovic until he had won at least once, even if it cost him his entire fortune. If Czentovic stuck it out, he had found in McConnor a gold mine from which he could shovel dollars by the thousands all the way to Buenos Aires.
Czentovic remained impassive. “As you wish,” he responded politely. “The gentlemen will now play black.”
The second game went much as the first, except that some curious onlookers both swelled and enlivened our group. McConnor gazed so fixedly at the board that it was as if he was trying to magnetize the pieces with his will to win; I knew that he would happily have sacrificed even a thousand dollars for the pleasure of shouting “Mate!” at his heartless adversary. Strange to say, we were all unconsciously picking up some of his determined agitation. We discussed each move with much greater passion than before, restraining each other until the last minute before agreeing to give the signal that summoned Czentovic back to our table. Little by little we had arrived at the thirty-seventh move, and to our own surprise our position seemed amazingly advantageous, because we had succeeded in advancing the pawn in file c to the penultimate square c2; we needed only to move it to c1 to win a new queen. Not that we were smug about this all too obvious opportunity; we were unanimous in suspecting that this apparent advantage must be a trap set by Czentovic, who did after all have a much broader view of the situation. But despite strenuous general study and discussion we were unable to discover the subterfuge. Finally, just as our time was expiring, we decided to risk it. McConnor had his hand on the pawn to move it to the last square when he felt his arm abruptly seized, and someone said in a faint, urgent whisper: “For God’s sake! Don’t!”
Involuntarily we all turned. It was a gentleman of about forty-five, whose long, sharp-featured face and strange, almost chalky pallor had caught my attention on the promenade deck. He must have come up during the last few minutes while all our attention was on our problem. Feeling our gaze upon him, he added quickly:
“If you make a queen now, he’ll take her immediately with bishop to c1, and you’ll take his bishop with your knight. But he’ll be moving his free pawn to d7 to threaten your rook, and even if you check with your knight you’ll lose—you’ll be done for in nine or ten moves. It’s almost the same as the combination that Alekhine introduced against Bogoljubov in the Pistyan Grand Tournament of 1922.”
Astonished, McConnor let his hand drop from the piece and stared with no less awe than the rest of us at the man who had unexpectedly come to our aid like an angel from heaven. Anyone who could calculate a checkmate nine moves ahead had to be an expert of the first rank, perhaps even a competitor for the championship traveling to the same tournament. There was something supernatural about his sudden appearance and intervention at such a critical juncture. McConnor was the first to recover his wits.
“What would you advise?” he whispered excitedly.
“Don’t advance just yet, first take evasive action! The main thing is to move your king out of the endangered file, from g8 to h7. Then he’ll probably shift his attack to the other flank. But you can parry that with rook c8–c4; that will cost him two tempi, a pawn, and thus his advantage. Then it’ll be your free pawn against his, and if you maintain a proper defense you’ll mana
ge a draw. That’s the best you can hope for.”
Once more we were astounded. There was something bewildering about both the precision and the speed of his calculations; it was as though he saw the moves printed in a book. In any event, his intervention and the unanticipated opportunity to draw against a world champion had a magical effect. We moved aside as one to give him a clearer view of the board. Again McConnor asked:
“So, king g8 to h7?”
“Right! The main thing is to keep in the clear!” McConnor did as he was told, and we tapped on the glass. Czentovic strode over to our table with his usual composure and assessed our move with one glance. He then moved his king’s pawn h2–h4—exactly as predicted by our unknown collaborator, who was already whispering excitedly:
“Advance the rook, advance the rook, c8 to c4, then he’ll have to cover his pawn first. But that won’t help him! You’ll capture it with your knight d3–e5, no need to worry about his free pawn, and you’ll be on an even footing again. Press the attack, stop defending!”
We did not understand this. It was Greek to us. But McConnor was under his spell, and again obeyed automatically. We tapped on the glass once more to summon Czentovic. For the first time he did not decide quickly, but studied the board with furrowed brow. He then made precisely the move foretold by the stranger and turned to go. But before he walked away, something new and unexpected happened. Czentovic raised his eyes and reviewed our ranks; he evidently wished to discover who was suddenly putting up such energetic resistance.
From that moment on, our excitement grew beyond measure. Until then we had played without any serious hope, but now the idea of breaking Czentovic’s cold arrogance quickened all our pulses. Our new friend had already indicated the next move, and we were ready to summon Czentovic—my fingers trembled as I struck the glass with the spoon. And now came our first triumph. Czentovic, who until then had always played on his feet, hesitated, hesitated, and finally sat down. He sat down slowly and ponderously; but with this movement alone the former de haut en bas inequality between us had been abolished. We had brought him down to our level, at least in a physical sense. He thought a long time, his eyes fixed on the board and downcast so that his pupils were hardly visible under the shadowed lids, and as he did his mouth gradually fell open, giving his round face a somewhat simple-minded appearance. Czentovic meditated intensely for some minutes, then made his move and rose. And already our friend was whispering:
“He’s stalling! Good thinking! But pay no attention! Force an exchange, an exchange at all costs, then we can draw, and not even God can help him.”
McConnor did as he was told. The next few moves were an incomprehensible give-and-take between the two antagonists (the rest of us had long since become mere supernumeraries). Some seven moves later, Czentovic looked up after long thought and said, “Draw.”
For a moment there was complete silence. You could suddenly hear the murmur of the waves, the jazz from the radio in the lounge, every footstep from the promenade deck, and the faint, delicate whistling of the wind through the cracks in the windows. Nobody breathed, it had happened too suddenly, and all of us were still almost in a state of shock after this improbable occurrence—this stranger had imposed his will on the world champion in a game that was half lost. McConnor leaned back suddenly, and the breath he had been holding escaped from his lips with a delighted “Ah!” I then observed Czentovic. During the last few moves it seemed to me that he had become paler. But he had no difficulty in maintaining his self-possession. He kept up a serene front and merely asked in the most unconcerned way, as he smoothly pushed the pieces off the board:
“Do the gentlemen wish a third game?”
He asked the question in a purely professional, businesslike manner. But this was the remarkable thing: instead of looking at McConnor, he had sharply and directly raised his eyes to our benefactor. During the last moves he must have recognized his real, his true opponent just as a horse knows a new, better rider by the way he takes the saddle. Involuntarily we followed his gaze, looking eagerly at the stranger. But before he had a chance to consider, much less respond, McConnor, bursting with pride and excitement, had called out triumphantly:
“Of course! But now you have to play Czentovic by yourself! Just you against Czentovic!”
But now something unforeseen happened. The stranger, who rather oddly was still staring intently at the empty chessboard, gave a start, feeling all eyes upon him and hearing himself addressed with such enthusiasm. He looked confused.
“Impossible, gentlemen,” he stammered, visibly disconcerted. “It’s completely out of the question … You shouldn’t even consider me … It’s been twenty, no, twenty-five years since I sat down at a chessboard … and only now do I see my impertinence in meddling in your game without being asked … Please excuse me for being so presumptuous … I certainly won’t bother you again.” And before we could recover from our surprise, he had already walked away and left the room.
“But this is incredible!” boomed the temperamental McConnor, banging his fist on the table. “It can’t be twenty-five years since this man played chess! He was calculating every move, every response five, six moves ahead. Nobody can do that off the top of his head. That’s completely impossible—isn’t it?”
As he asked this last question McConnor had turned without thinking to Czentovic. But the world champion remained unflappable.
“I am unable to say. However, the gentleman’s game was somewhat surprising and interesting; that is why I deliberately gave him a chance.” Rising nonchalantly, he added in his professional manner:
“If the gentleman, or you gentlemen, should wish another game tomorrow, I shall be at your service from three o’clock on.”
We could not suppress a faint smile. As we all knew, Czentovic had certainly not magnanimously given our unknown benefactor a chance, and this remark was nothing more than a simple-minded excuse for his own failure. Our desire to see such imperturbable arrogance brought low grew all the more fiercely. Peaceable, idle passengers though we were, we had suddenly been seized by a wild, ambitious bellicosity, tantalized and aroused by the thought that the palm might be wrested from the champion right here on this ship in the middle of the ocean, a feat that would then be telegraphed around the globe. There was also the allure of mystery, the effect of our benefactor’s unexpected intervention just at the critical moment, and the contrast between his almost anxious diffidence and the imperturbable self-assurance of the professional. Who was this stranger? Had chance brought to light an as yet undiscovered chess genius? Or was he a renowned master who was concealing his identity from us for some unfathomable reason? We debated all these possibilities in a state of utmost excitement; even the most daring hypotheses were not daring enough for us to square the stranger’s puzzling timidity and surprising avowal with the unmistakable artfulness of his play. But on one point we were agreed: on no account would we forgo the spectacle of a return engagement. We resolved to do everything to have our benefactor play against Czentovic the next day; McConnor agreed to bear the financial risk. In the meantime it had been learned from the steward that the stranger was an Austrian. Thus it fell to me, as his compatriot, to convey our request.
I soon found the man who had fled so hurriedly. He was on the promenade deck, reading in a deck chair. Before presenting myself I took the opportunity to study him. The angular head rested in an attitude of mild fatigue on the cushion; I was again especially struck by the remarkable pallor of the comparatively young face, framed at the temples by blindingly white hair. I had the feeling, I don’t know why, that this man must have aged abruptly. I had hardly approached him when he rose politely and introduced himself, using a name which was immediately familiar to me as that of a highly regarded old Austrian family. I recalled that one of the bearers of this name had been part of Schubert’s most intimate circle and that one of the old Kaiser’s personal physicians had descended from the same family. When I conveyed to Dr. B. our request that he acce
pt Czentovic’s challenge, he was visibly astonished. As it turned out, he had had no idea that it was a world champion, in fact the reigning one, against whom he had so magnificently held his own in that game. For some reason this information seemed to make a special impression on him, for he asked over and over if I was sure his opponent really was the acknowledged world champion. I soon found that this state of affairs made my task easier and, aware of his sensitivity, considered it advisable to conceal from him only that the financial risk of possible defeat was being borne by McConnor. After hesitating for quite a while, Dr. B. finally declared himself ready for a match, though not without expressly asking me to warn the other gentlemen that it was imperative not to place exaggerated hopes in his abilities.
“You see,” he added with a pensive smile, “I honestly don’t know if I can play a proper chess game according to all the rules. Please believe me, it was absolutely not out of false modesty that I said I hadn’t touched a chess piece since grammar school—that was more than twenty years ago. And even then I wasn’t considered a player of any particular talent.”
He said this so naturally that it was impossible to entertain the least doubt as to his sincerity. Nevertheless, I could not help but express my astonishment at the precision with which he had been able to remember every combination of moves played by a variety of chess masters; surely he must have been much involved with chess theory, at least? Dr. B. smiled once again in that oddly dreamy way.
“Much involved!—God knows you’d have to say I was much involved with chess. But it happened under quite special, indeed entirely unique circumstances. It’s a fairly complicated story, and one that might possibly be considered a small contribution to the delightful, grand times we live in. If you will bear with me for half an hour …”