Curiosity (2 page)

Our room and board was only two dollars a week, but it was two dollars more than we had. My father was forced to sell off his precious library, one volume at a time. In the meantime, the collector of South American specimens and the printer of the ill-fated book grew tired of waiting for their money and took him to court. I believe the magistrate, who was also a church deacon, held a grudge against my father, too, because of the ideas contained in
The
Development of Species
. Ironic, isn't it? Though no one bought the book, everyone seemed to know what it said.

Rather than give my father a chance to pay his debts—which he surely would have done in time—the magistrate sent him to the debtors' apartment at Arch Street prison. Don't let the word “apartment” fool you; it was nothing more nor less than a jail cell, made up of five rooms, each occupied by eight or ten other debtors of all stripes, from habitual drunks to failed businessmen. Some had friends generous enough to buy them a few amenities: a bed, hot meals, a plug of tobacco now and again. The rest got only two scanty blankets and a daily loaf of questionable bread. My father was one of “the rest.” When he was the respected Reverend Goodspeed, he'd had no shortage of friends. Now they wanted nothing to do with him, not even Father Barry.

We had no family to turn to, either. My grandparents on the Goodspeed side were Methodist missionaries, who had been living among the Ojibwa people of Upper Canada since before I was born. My father seldom talked about my mother's family, the Raybolds, but I gathered that they disapproved of their little Lily's choice of a husband; after her death, they had broken off all contact with us.

In all the times I visited my father at his new and Spartan lodgings, he never uttered a word of complaint about his own condition; he thought only about how I was faring. That was his way. For a minister, he wasn't much good at giving advice, but I've always remembered something he told me when I was very young: “I've come to believe,” he said, “that the secret of life is to accept with good grace whatever befalls you.”

I would have paid his debts myself, or at least bought him decent food and bedding, if I'd known how. But I'd never done a day's work in my life, and in any case who would hire a weak, sickly boy with no skills except a freakish prowess at chess?

A
SIDE FROM THE OCCASIONAL TRIP TO
the prison, I stayed holed up at the boardinghouse. I had grown up with no company but my own and Fiona's and Father's, and it had made me shy of other people. Most of the boarders gathered in the parlor in the evening; I remained in my cramped, musty room playing chess against myself—that is, I made the moves for both Black and White, an arrangement with one big advantage: I always won. I had to show up in the dining room twice a day for meals, of course, but I timed it so that I arrived as everyone else was leaving. The food was all cold by then, and there wasn't much to choose from, but it kept me alive.

I went on paying for my room and board by selling off what remained of our little library. Our only other possessions worth anything were the chess set and my father's treasured microscope. I knew that, if I asked, he would tell me to pawn them and use the money for my own needs. But I couldn't sleep nights, thinking of him lying on that cold stone floor and eating stale bread laced with sawdust and plaster of Paris.

With my sheltered upbringing, I knew nothing about money matters, so I consulted Mrs. Runnymead, who owned the boardinghouse. It took some courage, for she was an imposing, intimidating figure. She didn't just look large because I was so small, either. She loomed over all her other boarders, the way the chess queen looms over the pawns. “Please,” I said, in what I'm sure was a pitiful voice, “can you tell me where I might go to pawn something?”

She peered down at me as though I were too far away to see clearly. “What sort of something?”

“A microscope,” I said, feeling much the way a tiny bug on a microscope slide must feel.

“Like a telescope, you mean?”

“Not exactly. It's more for looking at very small things.”

“Oh. Is it worth much?”

“I think so.”

“Hmm. Why don't I show it to my friend Mr. Wheelock? He'll take most anything, and give you the best price.”

I was only too glad to let her handle it. I surrendered the microscope and waited for her return, hoping it would fetch enough to at least buy my father a straw mattress. To my delight, Mrs. Runnymead came back with ten dollars in crisp banknotes. “Mr. Wheelock snatched it right up,” she said. “It seems them things are in great demand.”

“He won't sell it, though? You told him not to sell it?”

“Of course, he'll sell it, you gilly. For twice what he gave me, I've no doubt.”

“But—but I only meant to pawn it,” I protested feebly, “and buy it back later.”

“Oh, dear.” Mrs. Runnymead made a
tsk
ing sound. “Ah, well, what's done is done. Anyway, a Michaelscope is no good to your dad if he's locked up in prison, now is it?”

Though I felt as if I'd betrayed him, I had to admit she was right. Just now my father needed nourishing food and a warm bed far more than he needed a “Michaelscope.” I sighed and held out a hand for the money. But instead of giving the notes to me, Mrs. Runnymead folded them briskly and stuffed them into her already overstuffed bosom. “There. That'll pay your room and board for a good while, I guess. I'm not running an almshouse here, after all.”

I had always managed to get my own way with Fiona and with my father, but I knew somehow that no amount of pleading or coaxing would have the slightest effect on Mrs. Runnymead, except perhaps to make her angry, and I didn't care to have her angry at me. My position was precarious enough.

I had tenaciously held on to the chess set and the Philidor chess manual, partly because they were a way of filling up the long, solitary days, but more, I think, because they were familiar and comforting, the only relics that remained of my old life. The fact was, though, I didn't really need them. I had the Philidor book all but memorized and, if it came to it, a person could just as well play chess on a checked tablecloth, with pieces of dried bread.

Father's set was a fine one, brought back from China by some Methodist missionary. The board was ebony and maple and the ivory pieces were of an Oriental design; the king and queen wore kimonos, and the knights resembled dragons. When we played at the Chess Club, many of the players had admired it. If one of them were to buy it, perhaps we could get it back when our fortunes improved—which I had no doubt they would. As I told you, I had a sunny disposition.

The Chess Club gathered at a coffeehouse in the Earle and Sully Exhibition Gallery, which was on Chestnut Street. With my twelve-year-old's sense of humor, I thought it hilarious that a group of chess nuts should meet on Chestnut Street. It was only fifteen minutes' walk from Sassafras Alley, where the boardinghouse lay, but for my short legs and milk toast constitution that was quite a hike. Still, I would have managed it well enough if I hadn't encountered the two young rowdies.

They were no older than I, but considerably larger, and so dirty and so ragged that I was sorry for them. At the same time, I felt somehow akin to them; if my situation did not improve, in six months I might be every bit as dirty and ragged.

They clearly had no feelings of kinship toward me. At first it seemed they might be content just to poke fun at my skinny frame and hunched back. But then they noticed the package under my arm, which I had wrapped in brown paper.

One of them seized it and, when I refused to let go, he punched me in the face, hard. I toppled over like a checkmated king. As I lay there amid the refuse and garbage, the other boy, laughing, kicked me in the ribs; fortunately for me, he was barefoot. It was fortunate, too, that my feet were so small, or he would surely have had my boots. The two of them hurried off with their prize; they hadn't even looked to see what it was.

The boy who had kicked me was limping—not from the kick, of course. Even in my dazed state, I noticed that his other foot was black and swollen, probably with gangrene. I feared he would not have long to enjoy his ill-gotten gains.

I was left with nothing to sell now but the clothes on my back. If I said I sat there in the dirt and cried my eyes out, it probably wouldn't surprise you. But for all my frailties, I was not a weepy sort. Though I wasn't accustomed to being beaten up and robbed, I was accustomed to pain and to bearing it as best I could, without feeling sorry for myself.

I got gingerly to my feet, knocked off the worst of the dirt, and went on. Why I still headed for the Chess Club, and not back to my cheerless room or to the prison, to tell my sad tale to my father, I'm not sure. Perhaps it was because I didn't want to burden him. Perhaps it was because I was so stubborn. One thing I do know: I had learned from playing chess that, if your strategy fails, you don't concede the game; you come up with a new strategy.

During my visits to the Chess Club, I had seen men play for money. Each player put up a stake, and the winner took the lot. I had no money to put up; I didn't even have a chessboard. But there were plenty of wealthy businessmen who fancied themselves crack players and who might find it amusing to be pitted against an undersized twelve-year-old.

Many of the regulars at the Club had seen me play, of course, and when I stood in the center of the coffeehouse and called out, in my piping voice, “Who'll wager fifty cents that he can beat me?” they glanced knowingly at one another. But there were several newcomers at the tables, playing or just drinking coffee and observing. A portly, red-faced man called out, “I'll be glad to beat you, my lad; just let me go find a stick.”

A slim, well-dressed fellow with a French accent spoke up. When you're twelve, it's hard to know the age of adults; they all seem old to you. But I'd say he was a bit younger than my father—perhaps thirty-five. “Beat you at chess, you mean?” he said. When I nodded, he raised an eyebrow skeptically. “Are you a good player?”

Since I so seldom spoke to anyone outside my little circle, I had never learned to be either modest or tactful. “Yes. If I'm not, why would I bet money on myself?”

He laughed. “I know many men who are not nearly as good as they think they are.”

“Well, I guess you won't find out unless you play me.”

“I could watch you play against someone else.”

“No one else has taken the bet.”

The Frenchman glanced around the room. “No? Then I shall.” He gestured to the chair opposite him and I sat. “What happened to your face? You look as though someone
has
been beating you with a stick.”

“On the way here, I was knocked down and robbed.”

“Ah,
quel
dommage
. So they took all your money?”

“I didn't have any to take. They stole my chessboard.”

“Why, the deuced scoundrels!” put in Mr. Peach, one of the regulars, who was playing a game at the next table. “Was it your father's Oriental set?”

I nodded glumly.

“Did you report it to the gendarmes?” asked the Frenchman.

Mr. Peach gave a humorless laugh. “You're not in Paree, monsoor. We have a total of twenty-four constables to patrol the entire city; they're not likely to bother with anything so minor as the theft of a chess set.” To me he said, “I hear the Reverend Goodspeed has fallen on hard times.”

“He's in debtors' prison.”

Mr. Peach shook his head sadly. “I wish I could help him, but I don't dare. If my customers got wind of it, they'd take their business somewhere else.”

The Frenchman gave him a disdainful glance, then turned to me. “
Eh bien
, if you've lost your board, we shall have to rent one, shan't we?”

“You can use ours,” said Mr. Peach. “I was about to lose, anyway.”

“No, no, m'sieur
.
It might distress your customers if you helped the son of such a notorious criminal. I am sorry, my boy; I don't know your name.”

“Rufus Goodspeed.”

He shook my hand. “They call me Mulhouse.
Excuse-moi
.” He sought out the proprietor and returned with a simple wooden chess set. “Pardon me for being blunt, Rufus, but you say you have no money and your father is in debtors' prison. How will you settle the wager, if you should lose?”

Like any good chess player, I had my next move already planned. “I'll do a week's work for you, whatever kind you want, without pay.”

“Hmm. Again, pardon me for saying so, but you don't look very strong.”

“I'm not. But I am very clever.”

Mulhouse grinned wryly. “Yes, I've no doubt you are.” He swiftly set up the board. “Do you prefer Black or White?”

In case you don't know, White has the advantage of the first move. But I didn't want it to seem as if I
needed
the advantage. “Black, if it's all the same to you.”

A move-by-move
account of a chess game is like a blow-by-blow account of a bare-knuckle boxing match. All you want to hear about are the knockdown blows, and perhaps a little about the style of each fighter. Did he dance around the ring, feinting and dodging, like Country McCloskey? Or did he pound steadily, relentlessly at his opponent, like Yankee Sullivan?

Mulhouse's style was nothing like mine. He was all flash and daring, sacrificing pieces without a qualm to further his ends. My strategy was straight out of Philidor's manual. I was methodical and careful, and reluctant to part with so much as a pawn. According to Philidor, pawns were not expendable; they were crucial. Instead of putting my big pieces into play, I concentrated on advancing my pawns, using them as a sort of protective wall. Mulhouse seized a few, but one made it all the way to White's home row where, like some poor girl from a fairy tale, it was transformed into a queen. From that point on, the game was mine.

Like my father, Mulhouse accepted his fate gracefully. He seemed more surprised than upset. As he slid the coins across the table, he said,
“
Another game? With a larger stake,
peut-être
?”

The second game was much like the first—daring versus doggedness. I expected Mulhouse to be a bit more careful and calculating this time. But he seemed less concerned with winning than with dazzling the crowd that had gathered around us. Looking back on the game, I think that, in fact, he had no intention of winning, that this was his way of helping me without seeming to help.

During both games, he displayed an unfortunate tendency to cough just as I was considering my next move. At first I thought it was deliberate, but then he offered a sincere apology. “I assure you that I am not trying to distract you, Rufus. I have an irritation of the throat, as a result of—well, never mind that.” He fished a packet of lozenges from his pocket and slipped one in his mouth. “That is better.”

On the twelfth move, I put my Black queen in a position to be captured by the White knight. A sympathetic murmur went up from the crowd; they naturally assumed that, if I lost my most powerful piece, it was all over for me. I could see Mulhouse hesitate. But with all those people watching, there was no way he could refuse to take her; it would be obvious that he was letting me win. He shrugged and gently toppled Her Majesty.