A Partial History of Lost Causes (31 page)

“It’s protocol,” said Aleksandr. Dmitry had a worshipful regard for protocol.

Twelve minutes later, they were hurrying down slushy streets. Dmitry’s nose ran chronically, and today was no exception: he tilted his head back and feigned interest in the sky; he surreptitiously found excuses to run his sleeve along his face. Aleksandr did not know why the nasal challenges of everyone around him should be such a large part of his own emotional life.

At the press conference, Aleksandr stood awkwardly onstage next to Oleg Chazov, the FIDE president. On the other side of Chazov stood Rusayev. The journalists looked exhausted, vitamin D–deficient, bored beyond belief. When the cameras flashed, the light made their lanyards glitter. In the audience, Petr Pavlovich stared at Aleksandr with bittersweet fondness, like a mother proud of the military boy she was about to send to his death.

Chazov droned into a microphone about the interminable match. He gestured to Rusayev, who smiled weakly, with the shining eyes of a religious supplicant, and licked his lips. He looked prophetic, otherworldly. Aleksandr tried not to scowl.

“As you all know, this match has been going on for months and months,” said Chazov. “The players have pushed themselves to the point of exhaustion and beyond.”

Aleksandr opened his eyes wide. He tried to look not exhausted, not weak. He tried to communicate to the crowd that he was young, that he was alive, that he was smart—most important, that he was winning, or that he might be, if they would just let him keep playing.

“Our players have played honorably. Aleksandr Bezetov here, despite some faltering beginnings”—and here the crowd laughed lightly, knowingly, and Aleksandr stopped trying not to scowl—“has proved a—well, an astonishingly enduring opponent. And Igor Rusayev is, of course, our cherished current champion. He has played some of his best games during this match, and watching him play has been a privilege and an honor for us all.”

Rusayev bowed humbly. This felt false to Aleksandr—only the victorious were allowed to look so self-abnegating. Wasn’t there any shame (just a little, just a little) in having earned the title so sloppily once, then defecting from his chance at properly defending it? Aleksandr had been doing him a favor by playing this match; he’d been giving Rusayev an opportunity to retroactively justify his whole ludicrous career, and that wasn’t something he could do on his own.

“But now,” said Chazov grandly, “we must conclude this exercise. It has become absurd.”

Rusayev smiled bravely.

“It has become a test of physical will, more than mental agility. It is no longer a fair arena in which to judge these men’s chess capacities.”

Maybe it was the reference to “fairness”—abstract nouns, of late, had a tendency to make Aleksandr feel savage. Or maybe it was the way Rusayev just stood there, looking sallow, overly polite.

“Excuse me,” said Aleksandr. “I’m just—Excuse me.” The journalists swiveled to look at Aleksandr, as if remembering for the first time that he was there. They raised their cameras, they raised their notepads.

“What?” Chazov looked horrified.

“Well,” said Aleksandr. “We both wish to keep playing, if I’m not mistaken?”

“What are you saying?” Above Chazov, Lenin and Gorbachev gazed evenly out of framed portraits. Gorbachev’s birthmark was the color of raw meat and the shape of the kingdom of Thailand.

“Well,” said Aleksandr. His voice was coming out strangely—too solicitous, half an octave higher than was typical. “It’s not clear to me why the FIDE should intervene and disrupt play when both players are willing to continue.”

The journalists began to scribble. Pavlovich shook his head furiously. A camera flashed in Aleksandr’s face. It was too late to retreat.

Aleksandr cleared his throat, trying to maneuver his voice back to its normal pitch. “We all know he didn’t win his title honorably. Perhaps he’d like to honorably defend it?”

“Enough,” said Chazov severely.

“I’m just wondering,” said Aleksandr. He looked at the video cameras. He remembered something about following the one with the light. Pavlovich was glaring in disbelief. “I’m just wondering if there’s something a little corrupt about this. Maybe we should ask Rusayev directly what he’d prefer.”

Chazov was gesturing to the journalists to turn off their cameras. He mimed cutting his own neck; he mimed unplugging technology from walls. He edged his way in front of Aleksandr and the microphone. “We’re having some confusion here,” he said. Petr Pavlovich held his head in his hands, and Aleksandr hoped momentarily that no trouble would befall him because of this outburst. “Everyone break for lunch,” said Chazov hurriedly. “We’ll be back with updated information shortly.”

Petr Pavlovich called the next morning. Out the window, car horns bleated; a mossy smell kicked up from somewhere. Aleksandr could barely remember what it was like to live in the world.

“Well, Aleksandr,” said Petr Pavlovich. “I don’t know what to tell you.”

“Isn’t it your job to know exactly what to tell me?”

Aleksandr could hear Petr Pavlovich lighting a cigarette. He breathed noisily into the phone.

“In their magnanimousness, they have seen fit to allow you to continue to play.”

“Because it was on television.”

“You must never, never do anything like that again. I know you don’t really understand what my job is. I know you think I’m out to get you. But I am telling you as a colleague—I won’t say friend—but as a colleague who respects your game. You must never, never do that again.”

“On television?”

“Anywhere. Anywhere at all. It’s completely unacceptable.”

“I don’t see why they care so much about who wins. They get their fifty percent of the winnings either way.”

“You have been so much more trouble than you’re worth.”

“But I am going to be world champion, aren’t I?”

“You’re not fit to be world champion. You’re not fit to represent Soviet chess.”

“But I
am
going to be world champion, aren’t I?”

“Don’t you understand anything?”

“Aren’t I?”

“Don’t you understand
anything
? Someone has to be.”

Aleksandr mulled this for a moment. “And you guys really want it to be that obsolete clown?”

There was a sniff, and Aleksandr tried to assess its emotional content. Over the years, Aleksandr had come to know the vast variety of Petr Pavlovich’s sniffs and snuffles; he could diagnose and interpret them; he knew them the way a mother knows the subtleties of her newborn’s various cries. Petr Pavlovich had a sniff when he was irritated and a sniff when he was disappointed—he even, bizarrely, had a phlegmy, chuckling sniff when he was satisfied. He also had a sniff that meant he was feeling passive-aggressive. This was the one he employed most often, and it was the one he issued now.

“Are you going to be fired?” said Aleksandr.

“Not by you, friend. That’s not your prerogative.”

“By the Party.”

“Every time you have a temper tantrum, you know, they give me a raise. They see how hard my job is, and tovarish, that’s a good thing.”

His words fired like pistons. Aleksandr flinched.

“Every time you come across as an ungrateful, temperamental child, they understand better what a delight—a
pure
delight—it is for me to wrangle you. So please, if that’s your concern, have at it.”

Silence. Aleksandr waited for Pavlovich to sniff again, but he did not.

“What you’ve never seemed to understand is that I’m genuinely concerned about your career. I see a talent like yours, and I want to protect it. I want to help it. I want to be instrumental in its navigation of the system. I want to mitigate its exposure to certain corroding effects.”

Out the window, Aleksandr watched a car splash mud on the side of a building.

“But it’s not you I care about, tovarish. It’s only your brain. Let’s get that straight.”

Aleksandr, who’d long thought that he and his brain were one and the same, did not know why he found this insulting. “Yes,” he said. “I don’t think I was confused on that point.”

“So you can go back to playing,” said Petr Pavlovich. “That’s the upshot. I hope you’re happy. I hope you’re overjoyed.”

“Thrilled.”

“Good. I’d hope so. Your happiness is just such a radiant thing, you know? It lifts us up and makes us better people. It’s truly a joy to witness. It’s an inspiration to all generations.”

“All right. Enough.”

“The match will resume on Tuesday.”

“Noted.”

“You’re welcome in advance,” said Petr Pavlovich, sniffing sadly. “I’m sure there’s a thank-you card already in the mail.”

The match resumed, and Aleksandr found himself gripped by caustic paranoia. He began to regard Dmitry with grave suspicion. He watched as Dmitry chewed his lips unconsciously or shaved his stupid face (needlessly, always needlessly) or talked inanities into the telephone—to his tedious girlfriend, allegedly, though Aleksandr no longer felt sure that was the case. There were a few openings in which Rusayev responded a little too quickly, a little too cleanly, and Aleksandr began to wonder whether Dmitry had been bribed to pass on his opening moves to Rusayev. As soon as Aleksandr wondered, he was convinced. The theory moved in his head like a mechanical apparatus. The gears shifted; the pulleys pulled.

When Aleksandr went to the Party doctor—to be weighed and assessed and prodded like a piece of prize cattle—he was asked about his stress level, his nightmares, his anxieties, his fears. Aleksandr sat on the edge of his seat and refused to answer. These questions were too pointed; Aleksandr wouldn’t be surprised if this guy, too, was in on it. No matter: he wasn’t a chess prodigy for nothing. Aleksandr swung his knees and spoke brightly about the satisfactions of the game: the consolations to be found in triumph, the wisdom to be found in
loss. The doctor’s mouth went flat as a blade. He made a note on his paper.

In the end, the match took fifty-three games—an unending, unthinkable number. The journalists were alternately awed and gleeful and bored and disbelieving. When the final moves were made—when Aleksandr sacrificed his queen to the ready arms of Rusayev’s waiting bishop—the audience leaned forward, intent, breathless. The cameras snapped like offended turtles. Aleksandr cracked his knuckles and shuffled his fingers. He realigned his shoulders. He was the first to see when Rusayev’s gaze started to swim—not with tears but with the blurry confusion of a child who has been asked to explain how he solved a copied math problem. The audience didn’t see, though, so they hunched forward and held still and wondered collectively at the nature of what they were witnessing—insane, suicidal, miraculous? Out into the universe, the taut figures of Aleksandr and Rusayev were cast on beams of light that dodged checkpoints and disregarded diplomatic protocol. Bits of dust fell from the ceiling and caught the limited glow of the lamps, making the room frosted and dreamlike. Aleksandr drummed his fingers, which he knew was cruel and theatrical. Rusayev’s face hemorrhaged momentary disbelief before easing into the nearly grateful expression of someone whose bitter disappointment is outmatched in the end by his profound fatigue. He had seen. He took his next turn with a resigned graciousness. The rest was ritual, the stately etiquette followed by a retreating army. Rusayev smiled slightly and swallowed. Aleksandr blinked and saw his future flash before his eyes. His hands shook, his head emptied, a cable ran arctic-cold from his throat to his stomach, and he was surprised even then by how the best moment of his professional life could feel so much like absolute terror.

And then it was over. Rusayev’s king was idling on the tile, and Rusayev was signing the score sheet, and Aleksandr’s ears were failing him. A man was loping up the stage with a cavernous smile, an outstretched hand, and a trophy.

Afterward, Aleksandr sat at the hotel bar while Dmitry went to pack. On state television, an ugly news reporter was talking about Aleksandr’s win. His youth was much remarked upon, as though the
best thing that could be said of him was that he’d had the courtesy not to be around for very long.