"Why do they let you fuck an American woman?" she asks, looking toward the door where they both know two KGB agents are standing guard, listening.
He is silent for a long while before he answers.
"This affair, our affair... it is good leverage. The first leverage they have ever had over me. I have always been a model Soviet. I fought in the Great Patriotic War, against the Germans at Stalingrad when I was 15 years old. I married a very beautiful Russian woman and I fathered a very smart Russian boy. I was, until you, the undisputed world champion at Chess. They had nothing to hold against me, no way to manipulate me. Until you. Until this."
She looks over at him, across the bed, and she bites her bottom lip.
"Some of them also think that in the course of this affair, I might persuade you to defect, become a Soviet. So they allow it."
She smiles at that.
"They think you fuck me that well?"
"They know I do. They have microphones in the hotel rooms and spies all around. They hear the way you scream for me."
She laughs and lets him kiss her a moment before she pulls back.
"I like being rich too much to ever be a communist."
He smiles at that.
"Yes, I know that. The Soviet fashion, too, you would hate. What would you do without your Parisian dresses?"
The affair doesn't start when she beats him for the first time in Moscow. It starts several years later. After the two of them have swapped the title of world champion back and forth between them several times. After his wife grows weary of travelling with him, tired of endless flights and hotel rooms, missing her home. When his son is 15 years old and in boarding school. That is when the affair starts.
She is a decent woman, Anna Evgenievna Borgova. His beautiful Anya. A good woman and a faithful wife. He is the one who breaks their vows. He is the faithless one, the selfish one, the wicked one. It's he who ruins their marriage, not her.
He freezes when he pulls out of her. She looks up at him, at his unreadable face. He lets out a slow breath of air and looks her in the eyes.
"It ripped," he states.
Her brow furrows in confusion.
"The condom. It ripped."
"Oh."
They stare at one another for several long seconds before he rolls off her and they both stare at the ceiling.
She climbs from the bed and walks to the bathroom. He hears the squeak of the sink faucet opening and the splash of water against the porcelain sink.
He decides he will never come back here, to Montreal. It's unlucky. A loss in 31 moves and now this.
She walks back out of the bathroom with water dripping down her legs. She picks up her underwear off the floor and steps into them. She grabs her dress and slides it down over her head. She walks to the vanity mirror and straightens her hair.
"You're playing in Palo Alto?" she asks.
"Yes."
"I'll see you in three months then."
He nods. Three months.
She nods too and closes the door behind her.
He has dinner with his son eight times in the three months between Montreal and Palo Alto. He returns to Stalingrad and leaves flowers on the graves of his mother, his father, his sister, and his brother. He calls on his wife in her apartment in Petrograd and gives her an extravagant sapphire necklace, a diamond bracelet, and an especially long strand of pearls. Assets they can't take from her no matter what happens to him.
She sneers at him, a well-earned resentment, but she lets him kiss her cheek.
The night before his flight, he packs his favorite suits, his two dearest chess sets, a handful of family photographs, a stack of well-worn letters, his father's pocket watch, and all of his identifying documents. Just in case.
He walks into the hall in Palo Alto with Luchenko and two KGB agents at his side. He sees her across the hall.
He can't tell. And she isn't giving him any indication either way. She looks no different, acts no different. Perhaps not. Perhaps he won't have to do it.
He tries to catch her several times throughout the day. But she avoids him. She won't tell him.
He follows her to her hotel room at the end of the first day. The door closes behind them and they stare at one another for an unending minute. He hesitantly reaches his hand out and lays it on her abdomen. There's a firmness where three months ago had been soft.
"You don't have to. I can do it on my own," she says.
"No. It's mine."
"It's yours," she agrees.
"If we have a son, I'll name him 'William', for Mr. Shaibel" she announces.
He nods.
"Fine."
"'Bella' for a daughter," she continues.
"Whatever you like," he agrees, moves his rook, and taps the clock.
They play in silence for another 10 moves.
"Names are different in Russian, are they not?" she asks several minutes later, breaking their silence.
"Yes. Different from the West," he agrees.
"How do they work?"
He looks up from the board at her consideringly. He taps out his cigarette and exhales the last of the smoke through his nose.
"What difference does it make? The child will be American, will likely never step foot on Soviet soil."
"All children are named after their father in Russia, yes?" she asks, ignoring his question.
"Yes. Patronymic. What of it?" he retorts.
"What's the patronym for your name?"
He stares at her. She stares directly back.
"'Vasilievich' for a son, 'Vasilievna' for a daughter."
"'William Vasilievich' or 'Bella Vasilievna'," she states.
He stares at her.
"We are in America. Would you not prefer to name the child in the American fashion?"
"No."
"Why? What compels you?"
She doesn't answer him for another 3 moves, until she's captured his knight.
"I'm fascinated by the idea of a man who gives up everything for his child. Who leaves his whole life, his country, for his child. A father who doesn't walk away when given the chance."
Always an orphan, he thinks.
"Unlike your father?" he observes.
"Yes."
They finish the game in silence. They both can see he'll have her at checkmate in 4 moves. She tips over her King.
"My mother tried to give me to my father before she killed herself. He wouldn't take me."
"A fool," he replies.
She nods sharply and stands from the table, quickly stepping away.