So stupid. So stupid. So stupid. She turns by the window, back to the kitchen. Takes another swig. The TV blares a sitcom behind her; she turns the canned laughter up.
Why hadn't she realised? So obvious. Why had she thought that nobody would see? That no-one would see the weakness, glaring out of her. That they wouldn't do the obvious thing, to get what advantage they could.
She'd been so close to going upstairs with him. So close.
The red wine bottle is empty; she hurls it overhand towards the trash and digs the bottle of vodka out of the freezer. There's a ricochet and a splintering noise somewhere behind her. The vodka doesn't burn going down; she's numb already, except for rising bile. The carpet under her bare feet feels like foam rubber. The electric lights are glaring and blurred.
What now? When everyone she plays will know, know that she can be got at, undermined. She has to be better than everybody. She has to be twice as good. Benny will know. Borgov. Townes. Jolene. Everyone.
It's already over. She's gone as far as she'll ever go.
She should put the bottle back. She should go upstairs to bed. Take a pill from under the floorboard. Sleep, and think on this disaster tomorrow. Think how she can get back on track. But she can't make it up the stairs; she can see Harry, and Jolene, in that bed. Alma.
Morphy. The pride and the sorrow of chess. "I think that is you."
Their eyes.
Beth blinks at her feet; they're smeared with red. There's a sharp grittiness under her soles against the linoleum; and, as she moves, the first twinges of pain. She reaches her hand down, and her fingers come away red.
Too much, just too much. She stumbles to the couch with the bottle. It's blissfully cold. She rests her cheek against the cool glass, lets the bite sink into the bone above the eye.
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The first thing she's aware of is red. The second thing is the smell.
Her shirt is white, or was yesterday. Now it's spattered with dark patches, winey patches, leading down from her chin. Almost all liquid; she didn't eat yesterday. It's soaked through to her bra. She groans, and retches helplessly over the arm of the couch; her shirt sticks painfully to her belly when she moves.
Her feet, when her stomach has ceased convulsing, announce themselves as baths of liquid fire, clotted with sharp grit. There's blood smeared on the end of the couch where they were, and a red stain soaked into the carpet.
In her sleep. She threw up in her sleep. She could have died.
She moans out loud, sharply, when her feet touch the floor and pain shoots further up her leg. There are still pieces of glass in there; she can feel them. But she can't go anywhere like this. She bites her lip hard as she picks her way across the floor to the foot of the stairs, but when her foot touches the floor the sounds leak out.
Just get to the bathroom. Just get there.
When she's turned the shower on, she swings her stiff legs one by one over the edge of the tub and climbs in in her shirt and underwear. She stares at the glossy pink tile, and lets the red swirl away in the water.
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Both her head and foot are still throbbing when she gets out of her cab outside the Herald-Leader and limps to the door.
I put the letters on my desk for you, Townes's note had said. I had them forwarded from the Review's P.O. Box. Just ask someone on the newsdesk.
The emergency room visit and the stitches had cost eighty dollars.
"Good morning," she says, thick-tongued, to the brightly lipsticked woman at the Herald-Leader's front desk. "Townes, I mean, Mr. Townes, he left some mail for me to collect on his desk. Harmon."
"Miss Harmon!" the woman says in a voice that hurts Beth's ears, and smiles cloyingly. "Of course, I'll show you to his desk."
The chatter of the bullpen is like an assault; Beth bites back a wave of nausea and follows the woman, deliberately not looking at the name on her desk. The noise falls off slightly as she walks through, as men with phones to their ears and cigarettes on their lip pause to contemplate her. She glares at her shoes and walks deliberately into the woman. "Could we hurry up, please? I have an appointment."
Townes's desk is vacant; his chair is neatly pushed in, some pens haphazardly dropped, a half-empty pack of cigarettes, a jacket hanging vacant on the chair. Beth breathes in just a little, and touches the empty shoulders. The envelopes are in a half-collapsed pile on the left side of the desk, at least a dozen, maybe more: Beth Harmon, ℅ Chess Review, P.O. Box 2902, New York, N.Y. 10090. Miss Elizabeth Harmon. Miss E. Harmon…
"Thanks," she says flatly, and scoops the pile into a bag.
At home, she rips them open one by one, between sips. Dear Miss Harmon, I read your interview and felt I could be of some help. Dear Miss Harmon, please find enclosed my application for the position of. Miss Harmon, your tits are so I enclose a picture write back. Dear Beth, you clearly need my assistance, your play of late has not been. Miss Harmon, my experience in the field of chess is unparalleled and I have been coaching for.
Miss Harmon, you have yet to truly understand the Queen's Gambit.
Beth pulls the letter closer to her face, and tries to focus.
You understand its classic potential and have used it to great effect, but you have yet to see some of its beauty. It stands on a pivot, from which it could turn any number of ways. In your hand it can be more than an opening.
I do not make you promises, but I wish to discuss working with you. I believe I can show you some possibilities.
Beth squints at the signature; it means nothing to her. There's an address, in Cincinnati, and a phone number. Demyan Vladychenko.
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The bishop keeps falling over. Beth pokes at it. There's no reason it shouldn't be behaving. Somehow it topples over again, and takes out one of the pawns on its way down. Pawn to king's knight three. She giggles. King's knight opens. Morphy defense. The knight feels sticky when she moves it; she swipes at the board with her sleeve, which seems to be wet.
Morphy only had to play until he was twenty-two. Two more years. She can do two more years. They can lay the wreath of laurel on her head, and she'll play every night in Paris, until dawn, two grandmasters at once. Just win the championship, just play a few more years, and then she can do... She can do…
She'll recreate that match with Borgov, in Mexico. She could have won. Where's the pamphlet? Wait, she doesn't need the pamphlet. She rolls onto her back and stares dreamily at the ceiling. Sicilian. Rossolimo attack. Queen to queen's knight three. Fianchetto her bishop. The pieces are dancing for her. She has to stop him getting his pawn to queen's rook four. Knight to queen's knight seven. That's where she lost. Let down by her knights…
Should have gotten the queen to queen's knight six. Pinned him down by his rooks.
He moved everything with hardly a pause. Every piece before he started was precisely where he wanted it to be. And then he moved every one as though he had the whole game long ago, and could see what she would do, and was just waiting for her to do it. He saw everything, and she, just a speck…
Beth rolls to her feet and stumbles to the phone, blinking at the light in the hall.
Buzzing. Click.
"Da, zdravstvuyte." The right voice this time.
"Maybe you are a machine," she says, and giggles drunkenly.
"Chto vy?"
"You know. The game. In Mexico. You were like a computer. I think maybe you are a computer." She rolls onto her back again. "I was playing the game again."
"Miss Kharmon." Borgov sounds cautious. "Hello."
"Hello. I was replaying the game, and I wanted to ask you about it. Do you remember the pawn to queen's rook four? Except to you it was queen's rook five! That's what's so funny." She giggles again. "It's all different from the other side. That's what I learned. It's all different to you. Is it late where you are?"
Borgov laughs; she can feel him thawing over the thin wire she imagines suspended over the Atlantic. "Slower, Leezabeth. I not follow English so fast. You say, is it late?"
Beth winds the phone cord around her knuckles, letting his pronunciation of her name slide down her spine like a warm hand. "Yes. Is it late in Moscow? I loved it in Moscow."
"It is morning here. Soon I take my son to the park. Is it late for you?"
She squints at the streetlight glow through the frosted glass above her front door. "I don't know. I don't feel tired. I was playing chess. Do you remember Mexico City?"
"I remember. An ugly city. I am pleased you like my city. V gostyákh khoroshó, a dóma lúchshe." Borgov rustles and breathes out.
The warmth fades quickly; Beth feels a chill creeping up her bare arms from the floor. "Don't you remember the chess?"
"There was much chess. I remember the chess. But not every game." Now he sounds irritated. "We played a game, I know. But it was long ago."
"I thought you were a computer," Beth says, and she can hear the way she slurs the last word, but it seems like much too much effort to get all the consonants in the right place. "Playing chess."
"Ah, Leezabeth, I am not a computer," says Borgov lightly. "But you, perhaps, have had much vodka tonight?"
"Not vodka. Vodka is too quick. I like wine. Maybe whiskey." She stares at the pattern of tiles in the kitchen, unfocusing her left eye a little.
"The vodka is not always kind."
"Wine is cruel too. It plays tricks." It's playing one now; Beth can feel her good mood ebbing away, the tears creeping up to start gathering behind her eyes. "Borgov," she says suddenly, before they can get into her throat, "why do you do this?"
"Do - this?" He sounds lost
"Why do you play? It's all so - and I don't know - why do you keep playing?"
"I don't understand, Leezabeth."
"I just don't know - how to play. Why to play. When I beat you again - "
"You have not beaten me again yet." Cold.
"I thought you could tell me," she says, a little girl. A mistake. A rounding error. "I thought if I knew how you did it…"
"Miss Kharmon. I think you should sleep."
"Borgov…"
"You should sleep. Do you not have a friend? You should take care. Where is your father?"
"Vasily," she says desperately, "tell your wife - she doesn't have to. Tell your wife…"
"I will manage my wife. You should go to sleep, Miss Kharmon." Click.
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Demyan Vladychenko is at least fifty, and short. He's dark and peppered with gray. And when she opens the door, he shoulders his way in without waiting for an invitation and deposits himself on her couch with a scowl.
Beth stands with her mouth slightly open for a few seconds, not troubling to try and hide it. By the time she's turned to face him, she's arranged her face into a skeptical expression that feels pretty good.
Vladychenko isn't embarrassed, but he seems to recognise that there's some sort of formula he hasn't quite followed. "Miss Harmon," he says, slightly awkwardly. "My thanks for the invitation to your home." There are hints of Borgov in his voice, but only hints. He prods her couch with one finger and then rests his fists on his spread thighs like a boxer.
Beth raises one eyebrow and lets the tension stretch a little. "Can I offer you a drink?" she says, when she's sure she's judged it right.
"Black tea. Yes. Always black. With sugar." He's now studying her chess trophies, completely unembarrassed.
Fine. One cup of tea, and she can get him out. She didn't have high hopes for this anyway. She fumbles for the plastic jar on the kitchen counter, and dry-swallows two aspirin while the tea is steeping. Sugar in both, her best cups; Alma would have died before she'd have put forward anything else, and somehow with a guest she always feels Alma hovering, bending her knees straight-backed as she puts a cup on the table and smiling her hostess smile.
"So," she says when she's seated across from him. "You wrote to me about my chess game."
"Your game, yes." He's watching her alertly. "You have the true feel for the game, but too many blind spots. You cannot go further without help."
This is almost funny. Beth feels her lip twitch despite herself. "Is that so."
"It is so," Demyan says, with the air of issuing a final ruling.
"May I ask who you are exactly, Demyan?" she says sweetly. "Am I saying your name correctly? I don't recall seeing it on the list of world champions."
"No, you do not," he says, his face creasing in another scowl. "I do not play their games. Do not ask me about my rating, or those silly championships. I play. I show you how to play. That is what I do."
"That is a large amount to take on faith."
"Take faith or not. It makes no difference to me. We play together, or we do not." He sets his cup down roughly, and she enjoys seeing him wince as a little hot tea runs over his hand.
"You said," she says, feeling irresistably drawn to ask this much, "that I didn't understand the Queen's Gambit."
"I said. And you do not."
"What, exactly, do I not understand?"
"You think it is a move. An opening."
Beth's headache is intensifying; he's talking such obvious garbage, and yet his self-possession is so strong she can't shake it off. "Of course it's a move," she says, "I've played it a million times myself. As an opening. It's been an opening for hundreds of years..."
"No. It is not."
"What is it, then?" she says, irked beyond belief, longing to swat him like a fly.
"It is a door. It swings on a pivot, and opens to possibilities." Vladychenko stirs his tea, once again unmoved.
"I beat the world champion in Moscow a few months ago. Using the Queen's Gambit."
He waves a hand. "I did not watch that game."
Beth stands up abruptly. "I think we're finished, Mr. Vladychenko, don't you?"
He pauses with the cup halfway to his lip. "No, I do not. You have not listened."
Beth walks in sharp stiff steps to the front door and holds it open. "Thank you for coming all this way, but I don't think we would work well together. Goodbye."
He creases his face at her again for a long moment, but then he sets his cup on the side table, straightens his crumpled white shirt, and walks out. (Leaving his teaspoon on the couch, some inner part of her notes.)
Beth swings the door shut behind him with a satisfying crash, and goes to look in the refrigerator for a drink.
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When she wakes it's with a jerk, facedown on her own kitchen counter. It's after one in the morning by the kitchen clock, and the hairs are standing up on her arms.
She can see it; the straight flat road, the sunlight, hands on the wheel, a sudden jerk. Fire. Pain.
It's late. It's too late. She isn't getting anywhere, and it's all slipping away. Time is slipping away. She knows it, really. It's all slipping away…
The straight flat road. The bridge. The swerve. The railing.
This house has been so many things to her. When she was a kid it was the landscape of her dreams, the better ones. The ones about what other little girls had, the ones who went home to a mother and a father and were tucked in and read stories to. When she came home with Alma it was a different kind of dream, the one where everything seems normal but is just a little wrong. Then it was their haven, the two of them, the place where Alma would play and Beth would play and they would both fall asleep to the soundtrack of sitcoms. And then…
The straight flat road. The hands on the wheel. The crash.
Beth gets up shakily, and begins to hunt for her purse. She packs a bag, in a state of frozen dread, her hands methodically putting underwear and pants and skirts and blouses in one by one. She wraps her toothpaste in a plastic bag and digs a wad of cash out of the folds of the couch. She calls a cab company.
The airport is deathly silent at this hour. The duty-free is closed. It's nearly three hours until the first flight; she spends them sitting in a plastic chair in the departure lounge, staring at the travel posters until their meaning unravels in strings of letters and colours. When her flight is called, she unfolds her limbs stiffly and presses her forehead against the cool of the window, watching the ground staff move the stairs and buzz past in their bright jackets, taking comfort in their reality, their loud voices and bad backs and wives and overtime problems.
She clutches her carry-on at the other end all the way to another cab rank, and watches the bridges rise up on the horizon like ancient monoliths. She closes her eyes and imagines being rooted all the way down into the earth, concrete and steel, huge and immovable…
The light is falling full and golden on the street by the time she raps on his door again, with her heart in her mouth.
Shuffling. A cough. "What?"
"Benny," she says, low and honest. "Please. I'm here. It's Beth."
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Russian notes
V gostyákh khoroshó, a dóma lúchshe - A Russian proverb; it's good to visit, but it's better to be home.
If anybody's reading and wants me to continue, now is definitely a good time to let me know! All feedback is appreciated as though it consisted of golden retriever puppies.