The Lesson (6 page)

—I have a question, the boy said.

—What is it?

—How did Ezra become so strong?

—It was a part of him, of his habits, his style. He had enough will to force himself to do what he wanted to do. He arranged his life in such a way that all his activities supported his great hope, of being the champion. Even I, even my chess playing became arranged so that I would play in the way that would best serve the development of his skill. He wasn't very nice, and he wasn't very likeable. Not many people liked him. But being liked wasn't what he wanted. Later, of course, he was very beloved, but that's different from being liked. The main thing was, he beat them all, every last one.

—Do you think I could do the same?

The cloth of the boy's sweater had pilled. Loring pulled at it and set the fragment on the table.

—What do you mean?

—Well, perhaps if I learned about him, it would help me to be like him, to become a master.

—I can tell you many things about him, and show you, she said.

And she thought, If you are listening, please go and sit in the chair on the other side of the room.

A moment passed. Another. The glass of the windows looked suddenly very thin to Loring and she wondered how it could be that none of the panes had ever broken, not in all the years the house had stood.

The boy went and sat in the chair. He was holding something in his hand.

—What's that? asked Loring.

—It's an apple, he said.

She pried open his hand. It was the core of an apple.

—That's not an apple, she said. It was an apple.

—It is an apple to me, said Stan.

—I am going to cut this bread, she said. Would you like some?

They went then into the kitchen, and something stops us from following.

By what notion Loring had preserved that sense of herself which was her husband's, we cannot say. Perhaps that was what was in the box, for certainly it was nothing she knew of. Yet, the sense remained, she was the same person, and in the same way, as though he were still beholding her and keeping her to the idea of her that he had always had.

They used to say to each other, when one would leave the house, the one staying would say:

Nonetheless, my love, I hold out my hand only to you as the train departs!

And the other would smile and go.

did Loring decide. That the boy should be encouraged to play, but slowly, slowly—that also was decided. But none of it was in the nature of persuasion. Loring was not trying to persuade herself of anything, and certainly, she did not want to persuade the boy of something that wasn't true. Rather, she was investigating, and the thing she saw was terrifying, entrancing.

—I do not believe there is any other world, she said.

—Another world? asked Stan.

They were speaking of metaphysical matters. Stan was continually asking questions about dreams.

—Yes, there are many who will tell you about it, but it must not be true.

—Why is that?

—Not because no one has come back from it, said Loring. But, because…

And here she paused.

—Because why?

Loring fussed with the edge of the tablecloth a moment.

—Because nothing is ever that way—the way people guess it will be. And so many want it to be that way, that there is another world. There mustn't be. Do you see?

—Could we sit out on the lawn a bit?

She found a cloth from some hamper and tucked it under her arm.

They went together out the front door and around. To get to the back of the house they actually had to go down a lane that curved out and behind, past many other houses. There was no immediate access to the back. When they reached the next road, they turned and came along past a ridge of rock or an old stonewall, it was hard to say which it was. Then there was a long grassy rise, and there in its heart, the back of the house. Of course, they could have reached it just as well by climbing down through the trapdoor, but Loring was not much good at climbing down through trapdoors anymore, and besides, it was not the same thing—to take someone out to sit on the grass and to take someone through a trapdoor to go out and sit on the grass. Someone like Loring was skilled at nearly everything, and she did not get that way through imprecision. Therefore, they went the long way around.

—This is a book of photographs of him, taken by the artist Glisseau. He was very famous, and known for choosing his subjects very carefully. He has a book of photographs of Mussolini from his early days, and he photographed Pierre Solon on the day of his suicide.

She turned the pages for him, showing him photograph after photograph. In fact, she had not looked at the book in years, and it pained her to do so. She had forgotten a little what her husband had looked like to others.

—What are these things he's wearing?

—Those are spats—to keep one's boots clean. Although, really people wore them more for style than anything else.

In the photograph, Ezra was standing in front of some villa, holding a violin. Loring was looking out the window at him.

—He didn't play the violin, she said. It was someone else's. Oh, it was his.

She had turned the page and Ezra was standing with his arm around another man. Someone else was buried up to his neck, and the two were laughing at him.

—That's Federico Marz. He was a terrible chess player, but a wonderful man. They used to play great practical jokes on the other masters. The one in the ground is Garing. I believe they gave him sleeping pills and buried him while he was asleep. When he woke, he was in the ground, and they had hired dancing girls to dance around and tease him. Somehow they didn't make it into the picture. But he was a long-suffering fellow. He didn't hold a grudge.

—Buried him to his neck—that's awful, said Stan. Isn't it, isn't it awful?

—He was only like that for ten minutes, I think, said Loring defensively. See, here they are a week later—all friends.

Garing, Marz, Ezra, and Loring were in an high-backed carriage of some sort. It was a broad, open day and they were all four very young.

—Anna must have taken this. There are no photographs of her, though. She avoided it at all costs. She was Glisseau's wife, but she loved someone else. It was never clear whom. Glisseau was more like her brother.

A man in the background was holding a donkey.

—That's Glisseau there, sneaking into the picture. He had a sense of humor, too, of course, and liked being in his own pictures.

—I haven't been photographed, said Stan.

—That is probably not true, said Loring.

She turned another page. There, Ezra was standing with a very beautiful girl in a garland of flowers who was giving him some kind of plate covered in gold. It was raining very heavily in the photograph and the crowd before them bristled with umbrellas. The girl was very wet and laughing. She had committed her whole self to this enterprise of giving him the gold plate. Ezra had no expression whatsoever on his face.

—This is when he won the tournament at Viso.

—Do you think I look at all like him? asked Stan. I would like to look like that.

Loring was looking deeper and deeper into the photograph. Her voice came again, very quiet.

—Viso was a sort of gambit tournament, sponsored by an industrialist. The man, Dubuffet, a napkin-maker, or was it roof tiles, I can't recall, he fancied himself a skillful player, and had come up with a move in an opening line. No one played it because it was terrible, and he didn't like that, so what do you think he did? What would you do in that situation?

—Think of another move.

—Well, he liked his move, so he made a big prize fund and set up a tournament in which the players had to alternate taking black and white and playing this same sequence every game. Unfortunately for some of the players, the resulting positions didn't favor their proclivities. But Ezra enjoyed dubious play in open tournaments. He would play solidly against strong players, but in the opening rounds, he'd often sac unnecessarily. To him it was a joy to see terrific imbalances—he liked nothing better than to have three minor pieces for a queen, if it could be managed. Of course, he would only do such a thing if the pawn structure favored it.

Stan nodded a little uncertainly.

—We have that golden plate upstairs somewhere. Trophies are rather odious, though, and terrible to look at. Especially a golden dish, of all things. Better to just pawn it.

She laughed.

The sound of a crowd came closer suddenly, although it had not been there at all. Suddenly it was there, perhaps ten children and a teacher: a class, out for a walk from the nearby school.

—That is Miss Carnaugh. She is very strict, I hear, said Loring, peering under her hand. Perhaps you will have her as a teacher someday.

—I don't believe I will go to school, said Stan. I wouldn't like it.

—Your mother says you will.

The students appeared to be ten or eleven. They were playing some trust game where the students would fall from things and be caught, or get wrapped up in a bag and dragged around and then released.

—I have never understood these games, said Loring. I don't know why you would want to make children more trusting. That is their principle fault to begin with.

—What do you mean?

Loring shook her head.

And with that, they went back to the house.

Just then, a man was coming out of the house next door.

—I'm sorry to bother you, he said. But I believe this is yours. It was brought to our house yesterday and my daughter accepted the delivery. Of course, she shouldn't have; it isn't ours at all. But she did. In any case, here it is now for you.

He handed a long, flat package to Loring.

—Thank you, she said.

If the man was not a mortician, then it is impossible to say anything about him; he spoke soberly and quietly, dressed somberly, made persistent but nonconfrontational eye contact, and wore bifocals. His hair cut was so vague as to be indescribable. In general, one wouldn't be wrong to mention that he gave the comforting effect of a tree branch.

—Shall we open the package? asked Stan.

—Inside.

They set the package (which was very light) on the floor of the parlor. A scissors was to hand. But first:

The package was not addressed to Loring. As anyone could see, the exterior was entirely blank. Why the man would have thought that it was destined for Loring was a fact completely unexplainable. They might as well open it, then, to see.

Open it they did. Loring handed the scissors to Stan. The boy proceeded to cut here and there enthusiastically. He soon had one end undone, then the other. He put the scissors down and unfolded the cardboard. Inside was the single wing of a large bird.

—But what can it mean? mused Loring.

—What will you do with it?

—Quite right, Stan. What will we do with it?

—It would be a good prize in a contest.

—A jumping contest, said Loring. For people who fall out of planes and survive.

—Do people survive that? asked Stan.

—From time to time. We can call it the Daedalus prize.

She put it back in the box.

—Stick this in the closet for me, Stan. Thank you.

—Did you ask the man to deliver that wing? asked Stan.

He sat on the floor and stared up at Loring, who sat in the chair. They were in the middle of talking about pawn formations.

—Of course, she said. I thought it would be good for you, once in your life, to open a package and find something that you could never predict. It will change how you open packages from now on. The delivery of the package: that was today's lesson.

—Like all swindlers, Ezra loved magicians, most especially those who escaped from bonds: handcuffs, ropes, boxes, etc. And make no mistake, Ezra was a swindler, even though he was a great master. He made terrible moves all the time! It's just that it was hard for his opponents to see. But a magic show, have you seen such a performance?

They had been talking about Ezra for the past hour, with Stan asking questions of every sort, and Loring answering. The boy had apparently gotten a biography from someone and was reading it with the help of his oldest sister.

—I haven't ever been to a show, he said, with as much sadness as he could muster.

—Well, in these, the magician, usually a man, is bound so he can't possibly get out, and then, miraculously, he does. I am going to read to you from an account written by one such magician. He was a very good one, but they locked him up, and while he was in jail he wrote this book. As soon as he was done, he escaped.

—Did he stay escaped?

—He was stabbed in his sleep by the father of a girl he had taken in. He bled to death while trying to crawl out of the building. It was a boarding house with very long hallways. They rarely make buildings with hallways like that anymore. I suppose they are hazardous, at least for people who have been stabbed.

—All right, said Stan, a bit confused.

—Shall we start?

—Yes.

Stan curled up into something like the shape of a rabbit.

Loring opened a small square volume, shaped to look like a toffee box. One side unlocked, and then the flap opened and the pages might be turned. She rustled about in there for a minute or two before finding the passage she wanted.

—When one is dying, it is easy to grow fearful. And can it be called anything else but dying—being handcuffed, sewn into a bag that is then wrapped in chains and thrown into a river? The first minute, there is tremendous urgency. One feels one must struggle to escape, one tries as hard as one can, even in the smallest things: to grip the lock pick between two knuckles, pointing backwards, to use the slightest bit of razor to cut the bag. But in the second minute, and in the third, time stretches out. One feels no urgency at all, just a drifting lethargic sadness. This is the feeling of parting, and it grows on one as the breath slowly fails in the lungs. One begins to believe that one is saying goodbye—but if it happens that one believes too much, then that's the end. Then the onlookers can dredge the river for a dead man chained up in a sack. But, if one can believe, in the midst of all that sadness, all that leave-taking, that a small thing and another small thing, each carefully, correctly done, will lead to escape…such a person may be called an escape artist, and for him there is always the tiniest bit of hope.

—Are there many of them?

—No, not many, said Loring. Of course, the bad ones don't get very far.

She laughed.

—No, they don't get very far at all.

—But are there any around here?

—There was one, a good one, but I don't think he performs anymore. His theater was in a city nearby here. He was the only act that performed there; all the rest of the time, the theater was shut and no one could go in.

—Oh, I should just love to see it!

—It is something.

—What was his name?

—Dardanelle. Theodore Thomas Dardanelle, sometimes known as Menduus. He had one other amazing trick—with a broom, that I have never seen anyone else do. But I won't ruin it for you. Perhaps one day you'll see him, or someone else—one of his apprentices, do it. In any case, the time has come for us to play our weekly match. To the board!

Stan sat at the board. Loring sat.

The hands of the clock spun! Pieces fluttered and stood, and gathered at the corners of the table, sullen white and disconsolate black.

Soon, the boy had lost four more games.

—Next week, said Loring, we will talk about blindfold chess.

The doorbell rang.

—And here is your mother.

Stan stood, and crossed the floor. As he passed by the photograph of Ezra, it would not have been hard to suppose that there was some resemblance between the two.

Stop there, thought Loring.

Stan stopped, and stood for a minute.

—Goodbye, he said.