It was late December of the year 1953, one night near midnight in the dark of a coming storm. We were all in bed, having shuttered the windows of our dacha and let the fires burn low. We boys, sleeping together in a bedroom on the lower floor, were the first to hear the tapping at the window that sounded different from the pomegranate tree blowing against the shutters. It was the sound of a person’s hand. We opened the window and the shutters—and there outside in the storm stood a silver-haired woman dressed in a long dark cape. She smiled at us and stepped through the window to come inside. Then she knelt before us on the floor. She was so beautiful.
“I am Minerva—your grandmother,” she told us. “But you must call me Minnie. I’ve come a long way, and I’m weary, but there is no time for rest. I’m in great danger. You must rouse your mother and tell her I have come.” Then she embraced us with great dignity, and we scurried upstairs to wake our parents.
“So she’s come at last—this grandmother of yours,” our father growled to our mother, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. This surprised us, for Minnie had said she was our grandmother. How could she be the same to our mother, too? Father put his arms about the wife he loved, who stood barefoot and trembling in the dark. He kissed her coppery hair, and then her eyes. “We’ve waited so long in fear,” he murmured. “Now at last, it is nearly over. Get dressed. I’ll go downstairs to meet her.” And ushering us before him, we went down to where Minnie waited near the dying fire below. She looked up with her large eyes as he approached, and came to embrace him.
“Yusef Pavlovitch,” she said, addressing our father—as she had us—in fluent Russian. “I am pursued. There’s little time. We must flee, all of us. Have you a ship we could secure at Yalta or Sevastopol—now? Tonight?”
“I’m not prepared for this,” he began, putting his two hands on either of our shoulders. “I can’t take my family out in weather like this, across the winter seas. You should have given some warning, let me know. It’s something you cannot ask of me at the final hour like this—coming in the dead of night.…”
“I tell you we must go!” she cried, clutching his arm and pushing us boys away. “For fifteen years you’ve known one day this would come—and now it has. How can you say you’ve had no warning? I’ve traveled all the way from Leningrad.…”
“Then you found it?” said our father, excitement in his voice.
“Of the board, there was no trace. But these I secured through other means.” Drawing her cape aside, she went to the table, and in the dim firelight she set down not one, but three chess pieces—glowing in silver and gold.
“They were hidden throughout the breadth of Russia,” she said. Our father stood, his eyes riveted on the pieces as we boys stepped up to touch them carefully. A golden pawn and a silver elephant, all covered with glittering jewels, and a horse of silver filigree, rearing on its hind legs, its nostrils flared.
“You must go now to the docks and secure a ship,” whispered Minnie. “I’ll join you with my children as soon as they’ve dressed and packed. But for God’s sake, make haste—and take these with you.” She gestured to the pieces.
“They’re my children, and my wife,” he protested. “And I must be responsible for their safety.” But Minnie had closed upon us, her eyes gleaming with a fire darker than the glow of the pieces.
“If these pieces fall into the hands of others, you’ll be able to protect no one!” she hissed.
Our father looked her in the eye and seemed to arrive at his decision. He nodded slowly. “I’ve a fishing schooner at Sevastopol,” he told her. “Slava knows how to find it. I’ll be ready to put to sea in two hours at most. Be there, and may God favor us in this mission.” Minnie pressed his arm, and he took the stairs in a few bounds.
And so our newfound grandmother ordered us to dress at once. Our parents had come downstairs, and Father embraced Mother again, his face in her hair as if he wanted to remember her scent. He kissed her once on the forehead, then turned to Minnie, who handed him the pieces. With a grave nod, he departed into the night.
Mother was brushing her hair and looking about with bleary eyes as she commanded us boys about, sending us upstairs to collect her things. As we went up we heard her speak to Minnie in low voice.
“So you’ve come,” she said. “May God punish you for beginning the dread Game again. I thought it was finished—over.”
“It was not I who began it,” Minnie replied. “Be thankful you’ve had fifteen years of peace, fifteen years with a husband you love and children whom you’ve kept always at your side. Fifteen years without danger breathing always at your shoulder. It’s more than I’ve had. It’s I who’ve kept you from the Game.…”
That was all we heard, for their voices fell to whispers. Just then we heard the footsteps outside, the hammering at the door below. We looked at each other in the dim light and started to run from the room. Suddenly Minnie appeared in the doorway, her face glowing with an otherworldly light. We could hear our mother’s footsteps coming up the stairs, the sound of the door below splintering, and men’s cries above the sound of thunder.
“Out the window!” said Minnie, lifting us one by one to the branches of the fig tree that grew like a vine up the south wall, a tree we’d both climbed a hundred times. We were halfway down, hanging like little monkeys from the tree, when we heard the sound of our mother’s scream.
“Flee!” she cried. “Flee for your lives!” Then we heard nothing as the rain slashed down upon us, and we dropped into the darkness of the orchard below.
The big iron gates of Nim’s estate swung open. Down the long drive, the arched trees shimmered in the late day sunlight. At its end was the fountain that had been frozen in winter, now surrounded by brilliant dahlias and zinnias, its tinkling water haunting like wind chimes against the wash of the nearby sea.
Nim pulled up to the front and turned to look at me. I could feel Solarin’s body, tight with tension, as I sat on his lap.
“That was the last time we saw our mother,” said Nim. “Minnie leapt from the second-floor window onto the soft ground beneath. The rain had already formed pools of water as she picked herself up and dragged us into the orchards. Even above the sound of the rain, we heard the sounds of our mother’s screams, the trampling feet of the men inside the house. ‘Search the forests!’ someone cried as Minnie dragged us on toward the cliffs below.” Nim paused, still looking at me.
“My God,” I said, trembling from head to foot. “They captured your mother.… How did you escape?”
“At the end of our orchard were cliffs of stone that tumbled down toward the sea,” Nim continued. “When we reached these, Minnie stepped over the edge and pulled us beneath the shelter of a broken ledge. I saw she had something in her hand, like a little leather-bound Bible. She pulled out a knife and cut away some pages, folding them quickly and stuffing them inside my shirt. Then she told me to go ahead—run to the ship as fast as I could. To tell my father to wait for her and Sascha. But we were only to wait for one hour. If they weren’t there by then, my father and I were to escape, she said, and take the pieces to safety. At first I refused to go on without my brother.” Nim looked at Solarin gravely.
“But I was only six years old,” Solarin said. “I couldn’t make it over the cliffs as quickly as Ladislaus, who was four years older and fleet as the wind. Minnie was afraid we’d all be captured if I couldn’t keep up. As Slava left, he kissed me and told me to be brave.…” I glanced back at Solarin and saw the tears in his eyes as he recalled his childhood. “It seemed like hours we struggled down those cliffs in the storm, Minnie and I. At last we reached the docks at Sevastopol. But my father’s ship was gone.”
Nim got out of the car, his face a grim mask, and came around to my side, opening the door and offering me his hand.
“I myself had fallen a dozen times,” Nim continued as he helped me from the car, “slipping through the mud and rocks to reach my father’s ship. When he saw I’d arrived alone, he was alarmed. I told
him what had happened, what Minnie had said about the pieces. My father began to cry. He sat with his head in his hands, sobbing like a child. ‘What would happen if we did go back—if we tried to rescue them?’ I asked him. ‘What would happen if those pieces were captured by others?’ He looked at me, the rain washing the streaming tears down his face. ‘I vowed to your mother I’d never let it happen,’ he told me, ‘even if it cost us all our lives.…’”
“You mean, you left without waiting for Minnie and Alexander?” I said. Solarin was crawling out of the Morgan behind me, bringing the bag with the pieces.
“It wasn’t so simple,” said Nim sadly. “We waited for hours—well beyond the time Minnie had allotted as a reasonable measure for safety. My father was pacing up and down the deck in the rain. I climbed to the crow’s nest a dozen times to see if I could catch sight of them through the storm. At last, we understood they weren’t coming. They’d been captured—it was all we could imagine. When my father put out to sea, I begged him to wait just a little longer. Then he made it clear for the first time that this had been expected, even planned. It wasn’t just the sea we were headed for—it was America. He’d known since the day he married my mother, perhaps even earlier—about the Game. He’d known a day might come—would come—when Minnie would appear, and my family would be called upon for terrible sacrifice. That day was here, and in a few hours half his family had disappeared in the dead of night. But the first and final vow he’d made my mother was that, even before his children, he would save the pieces.”
“Good Lord!” I said, staring at both of them as we stood together in the drive. Solarin strolled over into the zinnias and dipped his fingers in the splashing fountain. “I’m surprised you’d both agree to be players in a game like this—when it destroyed your entire family in a single night!”
Nim tossed his arm casually across my shoulder, and we went to his brother, who was gazing silently at the fountain. Solarin glanced at Nim’s hand, which rested on my shoulder.
“You’ve done as much yourself,” he said. “And Minnie isn’t even your grandmother. But then, I gather it was Slava who first seduced you into the Game?”
I couldn’t read from his voice or face what was going on in his head, but it wasn’t that hard to guess. I evaded his eyes. Nim squeezed my shoulder.
“Mea culpa,” he admitted with a smile.
“What happened to you and Minnie when you found your father’s ship had left?” I asked Solarin. “How did you survive?”
He was plucking petals from the head of a zinnia and tossing them into the fountain bowl. “She took me off into the forest and hid me until the storm was over,” he said as if lost in thought. “For three days we worked our way slowly along the coast toward Georgia, like a couple of peasants traveling to market. When we were far enough from home to be safe, we sat down to discuss our prospects. ‘You’re old enough to understand what I tell you,’ she said. ‘But not old enough to help me in the mission that lies ahead. One day you will be—then I’ll send for you and tell you what you must do. But now, I must go back and try to save your mother. If I take you with me, you’ll only get in the way, jeopardize my efforts.’” Solarin looked at us as one in a daze. “I understood completely,” he said.
“Minnie went back to rescue your mother from the Soviet police?” I asked.
“You did the same for your friend Lily, didn’t you?” he asked.
“Minnie put Sascha in an orphanage,” Nim interjected, hugging me with his arm as he looked at his brother. “Father died soon after we succeeded in reaching America, so I was left to fend for myself here, just as little Sascha was in Russia. Though I was never sure, somehow I always knew in my heart that the boy chess prodigy Solarin one read about in the papers was really my brother. By then I called myself Nim—a private joke, since that’s how I made my living, pinch as pinch can. It was Mordecai, whom I met at the Manhattan Chess Club one night, who discovered who I really was.”
“And what happened to your mother?” I said.
“Minnie was too late to save her,” said Solarin gravely, turning away. “She barely escaped from Russia herself. I got a letter from her at the orphanage some time later. Not really a letter, just a clipping from a newspaper—Pravda, I think. Though there was no date, no return address, and it was mailed from inside Russia, I knew who’d sent it. The article said the famous chess master Mordecai Rad would be touring Russia to speak on the status of world chess, give exhibitions, and search for young children with talent for a book he was writing about child chess prodigies. One of the places coincidentally on his route was my orphanage. Minnie was trying to contact me.”
“And the rest is history,” said Nim, who still had his arm draped over my shoulder. Now he put his other arm around Solarin and ushered us toward the house.
We passed through big sunny rooms filled with bowls of cut flowers and polished furniture that glowed in the afternoon sun. In the enormous kitchen, sunshine slanted sideways to fall in pools on the slate tiled floor. The flowered chintz sofas were even more cheerful than I’d remembered.
Nim released us but put his hands on my shoulders as he looked down at me with affection.
“You’ve brought me the greatest gift of all,” he said. “That Sascha is here is a miracle—but the best miracle is that you’re alive. I should never have forgiven myself if something had happened to you.” He embraced me again, then went off to the pantry.
Solarin had dropped the bag with the pieces and gone to the windows, where he stood looking across the green lawns toward the sea. Boats still fluttered like white doves across the water. I went to stand beside him.
“It’s a beautiful house,” he said softly, watching the fountain on the back lawn as it splashed from one level to another and tumbled into the turquoise swimming pool. Solarin was silent a moment, then he added, “My brother’s in love with you.”
I felt a cold ball like a fist tightening in my stomach. “Don’t be ridiculous,” I said.
“It must be discussed,” he replied, turning to look at me with that pale green gaze that always made me feel weak. He started to put his hand on my hair, but just then Nim returned from the pantry with a champagne bottle and a fistful of glasses. He came over and set them on the low table before the windows.
“We’ve so much to discuss—so much to remember,” he told Solarin as he started to unwrap the champagne. “It’s still impossible for me to believe you’re here. I don’t think I’ll ever let you go again.…”
“You may have to,” said Solarin, taking me by the hand and leading me to a seat on one of the sofas. He sat beside me as Nim poured the champagne. “Now that Minnie’s left the Game, someone has to go back to Russia and get the board.”
“Left the Game?” said Nim, pausing with the bottle in midair. “How could she? It’s not possible.”
“We have a new Black Queen.” Solarin smiled, watching his face. “One you seem to have chosen yourself.”
Nim turned to stare at me. Understanding spread across his face. “Damn!” he said, continuing to pour the wine. “Now I suppose she’s vanished without a trace, leaving us to clean up the loose ends.”
“Not exactly,” said Solarin, reaching inside his shirt to extract an envelope. “She gave me this, addressed to Catherine. I was to give it to her when we arrived. Though I haven’t opened it, I suspect it contains information of value to us all.” He handed me the sealed envelope, which I was about to open when suddenly we were disturbed by a jarring sound—a sound that took me a moment to identify. It was the ringing of a telephone!
“I thought you didn’t have a phone!” I looked at Nim with accusing eyes as he quickly set the bottle down and raced toward the area of the stoves and cupboards.
“I don’t,” he said, his voice tense as he extracted a key from his pocket and unlocked one of the cupboards. He pulled out something that looked very much like a phone, and it was ringing. “This phone belongs to someone else—a ‘hot line,’ you might sa
y.” He answered it. Solarin and I were on our feet.
“Mordecai!” I whispered, rushing across to where Nim stood speaking into the phone. “Lily must be there.”
Nim looked at me gravely and handed me the phone. “Someone wants to chat with you,” he said quietly, glancing at Solarin with an odd expression. I took the phone.
“Mordecai, it’s Cat. Is Lily there?” I said.
“Darling!” boomed the voice that always made me hold the receiver away—Harry Rad! “So I understand you’ve had a successful trip down there with the Arabs! We’ll get together and schmooze. But darling, I’m sorry to say something’s come up. I’m here with Mordecai at his place. He phoned me to say Lily’s called and was headed here from Grand Central Station. So of course I rushed right over. But she hasn’t arrived.…”
I was dumbfounded. “I thought you and Mordecai weren’t speaking to one another!” I cried into the phone.
“Darling, that’s meshugge,” said Harry soothingly. “Mordecai is my father. Of course I speak to him. I’m speaking to him right now—or at least he’s listening.”
“But Blanche said—”
“Ah, that’s different,” Harry explained. “Forgive me for saying such a thing, but my wife and brother-in-law, they’re not very nice people. I’ve been afraid for Mordecai ever since I married Blanche Regine, if you understand my meaning. I’m the one who doesn’t let him come by the house.…”
Blanche Regine. Blanche Regine?! Of course! What an idiot I’d been! Why on earth hadn’t I seen it before? Blanche and Lily—Lily and Blanche—they both meant “white,” didn’t they? She’d named her daughter Lily, hoping she’d follow in her footsteps. Blanche Regine—the White Queen!
My head was swimming as I grasped the phone, Solarin and Nim standing there in silence. Of course it was Harry—it was Harry all along. Harry whom Nim had sent me to, as a client; Harry who’d pushed my friendship with his family; Harry who understood my computer expertise as well as Nim did. Harry who’d invited me to meet the fortune-teller—who in fact had insisted I’d come that night at New Year’s Eve, and no other.