“I’ve met her,” I said. “The widow of the man Vados defeated for the presidency.”
The professor’s fine-arched gray eyebrows went up. But before he could comment, his wife had touched him on the arm. “Leon!” she said quietly.
I noticed that a general movement was taking place up the lawn and toward the house. Rows of chairs had been set out on the asphalt drive, overlooking the place where we were now standing. The band was putting its instruments away. A group of servants had brought a long rolled-up cylinder of stiff heavy cloth down to the side of the lawn and were laying it in front of the bandstand.
“Ah, yes, of course,” said the professor, glancing at his watch, and without further explanation my companions started to join the move toward the steps. We were among the last to ascend, but the chairs were set in staggered tiers, and all the places commanded a view of the lawn. I saw that Vados was laughing and joking with Garcia in the center of the front row as we filed into our places to await whatever was going to happen.
Below us, the servants briskly unrolled the cylinder, and it proved to be a gigantic chessboard, fully sixty feet square. As soon as it was laid flat, the servants unrolling it retired, and from opposite ends of the avenues of trees at the back of the lawn, two files of men began to march out.
Those on the left wore white shirts and trousers; those on the right wore black. The first eight on each side had plain skullcaps on their heads; those who came next had tall round cylinders topped with crenellated indentations. After them followed men with horses’ heads, and then others with bishops’ miters; then the only women among the whole group, each with a gilded coronet. Lastly, to the accompaniment of clapping, came two very tall men wearing crowns.
These people marched up the sides of the chessboard to the beating of a single drum in the bandstand. Two at a time, they made a deep bow before the President; then they turned away to take up their positions on the board.
I was so astonished at this unexpected display that all the “pieces” had fallen in before I managed to turn to Señora Cortes and look inquiringly blank.
“Did you not know about this?” she said in surprise. “Why, this is the highest tribute we pay to our chess masters. Each year the national champion, or anyone who wins a championship abroad, has his winning game played through like this before a distinguished audience. This is the ninth time such an honor has befallen Señor Garcia — a wonderful achievement, no? But look, they are starting to play.”
A tap from the drum; a white pawn marched solemnly two squares forward. Another tap; a black pawn marched out to face him. Pawn to Queen Four on both sides.
People settled themselves more comfortably in their seats, as if preparing for a long session. But I was too fascinated to relax at once. This was the most extraordinary game of chess I had ever seen. I had, of course, heard of the games that used to be played by despotic Middle Eastern rulers — by Shahs of Persia, or somewhere, where every time a piece, represented by a slave, was taken, the executioner decapitated the unfortunate victim on the spot. I had heard of attempts to stage similar games — shorn of their barbaric refinements — on boards the size of tennis courts, directing the pieces by megaphone. But from what I had heard, most of these stunts were failures, owing to the length of time involved and the risk of the actors fainting like soldiers kept too long on parade.
But this dramatization of chess, with the living pieces moving according to carefully rehearsed patterns, was something infinitely more impressive than any stunt.
XII
It was a long game, though — eighty or ninety moves — even shorn of the thinking time it must have needed in the actual tournament. I’m not a good enough player to appreciate the fine points of end-game play, and long before the forces on either side were reduced to two pawns and a rook I was feeling as restive as I had when watching Cordoban take on Dr. Mayor after dinner at the TV center.
I noticed that I was not completely alone in growing restive. In the opening stages the play was interesting enough as simple spectacle: pieces not being moved dropped to one knee to facilitate the audience’s view, and there were pauses at intervals to emphasize a particularly skilled piece of development. Usually there was a spattering of applause when this happened, and once there was a burst of approving cries as well. The taking of a piece was pantomimed with short daggers, and the victim was then carried from the board by two pawns of the opposing side and dumped on the lawn. The whole thing took place almost in silence, aside from the tap of the drum which signaled each move, and the occasional clapping.
But once the slow routine of the end game set in, with the pawns solemnly moving their one square forward in monotonous alternation, almost everyone except Garcia and a few others (Garcia himself, I noticed, was reliving the game in an agony of nervousness) adopted polite but bored expressions and signaled more and more often to the hovering waiters for a tray of drinks.
The most noticeable exceptions to this rule, aside from Garcia, were President Vados and Diaz. Vados watched with as much attention as a fan at a Melbourne test (the likeness reminded me that sometime I ought to go home and see another Shield match — sometime); Diaz, on the other hand, seemed to be watching Vados almost as closely as the game itself.
Once, when the game had been halted for a particular move to sink in, Vados happened to glance at his Minister of the Interior. Their eyes met. A muscle in Vados’s cheek tensed suddenly. Diaz’s hands clenched, with deliberation, as if squeezing something that wasn’t there. The tableau lasted a few seconds; then both at once looked back toward the game, with a suspicion of guilt, like children pretending they hadn’t been disobedient.
There had been dislike in their expressions. Or perhaps not dislike, no. Something nearer to — nearer to hatred, and yet tempered with a mutual respect. I thought of all the stories I’d heard about their rivalry. Well, there it was, burning brightly. And unless habit had enabled them to control it, it was violent enough to break loose.
The pieces finished their complicated maneuverings; the white king dropped to his knees and bent his head. The black king stepped from the board, bowed before Garcia, and gave him the dagger from his side, before escorting him across the board to administer the coup de grace in pantomime. Vados led the applause, and Garcia stood between the two tall kings smiling and nervously fingering his spectacles.
Then Diaz looked at Vados again. This time he smiled: a great loose-lipped smile that exposed a broken tooth.
Beside me, Señora Cortes gathered herself together with a sigh.
“Well, that’s over,” she said with satisfaction. “Now we only have to join the line of people waiting to say good-bye to the president, and we can get away.”
“ ’Belita!” interrupted her husband, a distant look in his eyes. “You’re going back to the studios, aren’t you? I want to stay and have a word with Pablo about that king’s knight development in the opening — I haven’t seen him use it before.”
“Very well,” said Señora Cortes composedly. “I’ll see you at home tonight.”
Cortes pushed his way through the dissolving crowd; servants rerolled the chessboard and carted it away; I went to receive Vados’s nod of dismissal and returned to my car.
This was a cock-eyed country, I was thinking as I drove away down the road to the city. Chess champions for public heroes; public opinion molded by subliminal perception, without any great effort made to conceal the fact; primitive squalor next door to buildings as modern as tomorrow. What a weird city this “child” of Vados’s had turned out to be…