Manila Gambit. John Zeugner

know.

      But something is not quite right. I hear hostility in the buzzing air. The nostalgia is gone and eyes are turning toward me. What can be happening? Clearly someone is upset. Someone is very upset. Better listen. Better listen carefully now, but the accents are peculiar—ingratiating but peculiar. Difficult to fix on. One of them is saying something about chess. That’s it. Someone is talking about chess. No need to feel hostile about that. But, ah, such an automatic response. A clue there? Maybe I can’t last through the Interzonals. Such a long time away.

      Van Shuten restates the argument, looking this time at Waldo, who merely turns toward me. Van Shuten says, “So the position is clear enough. Even publishing a column on the game lends a kind of support to Soviet hegemony. I can understand that. The Soviets have put enormous investment into their chess prowess, and we here simply call attention to that achievement. Every other day reminding hapless readers that, after all, the Soviets are masters of this intellectual endeavor. Why should we become the vehicle of publicity of Soviet pre-eminence, is that your position?” Van Shuten turns toward the three gentlemen

      “The game seems innocent enough,” says one, “but that is the point. It is not innocent to the Soviets. They see it as a wedge into the intellectual aspirations of the rest of the world.”

      “More than that,” the other says, “publicity about the game legitimizes a despicable system that robs the youth of Russia of their own intellectual freedom. Making heroes out of these automatons created by the Soviet chess system.”

      “More than that, the last says, “it sanctions the whole elitist framework by which Soviet masters lead an elevated life while the masses in Russia continue in their long lines and in their endless suffering.”

      I am thinking, who is suffering? Let me get this right. The masses of Russia—they are suffering because of my chess column? Can that be it?

      “Three powerful arguments,” Van Shuten says, “perhaps we can hear from the publisher?”

      Waldo slowly gets to his feet. “Good points, but why not hear from the horse’s mouth. Maybe not everybody knows it, but Mr. Snell who bylines the column, is actually here tonight. Right back there.” Waldo points at me. Waldo’s meaty and surprisingly red hand goes up and down gesturing at me.

      I start gathering my legs up. It takes an enormously long time to reel them in from under the pediatrician’s chair. They are like the old time dental drills, weird springs bobbing back into place under the chairs, despite conscious summonings. And Waldo’s menacing hand is like the dentist’s light above the group. I struggle to my feet. “Ah, ah,” I say, conscious of turning flaming red, “Ah, I’m sorry. I don’t quite, ah, I don’t quite,” I take a deep breath, thinking this is very peculiar. “I don’t quite see the issue. Maybe if you could state it again, I could respond a little more coherently, a little more—”

      “Chess,” Van Shuten interrupts me, “is a Soviet achievement—”

      “But Fischer was an American,” I interrupt him.

      “True enough. But no one would deny Soviet supremacy in the chess world.”

      “It’s a game, a game the Soviets have only recently, very recently, dominated it. Maybe in a while—”

      “You’re missing the point,” Van Shuten says, a little too loud it seems to me.

      “You are not thinking deeply about what you are saying,” one of the elderly gentlemen says slowly, in a kindly fashion. “It was a game, but the Soviets have transformed it into an instrument of propaganda, a constant reminder to the world of the edge they feel their system has. You have to stop thinking of it as a game.”

      “There are no games,” another says.

      “There are no games,” I repeat. That seems like good sense. I can begin to relax. “There are no games. There are no games. I didn’t want to write the column. I really didn’t.”

      “You didn’t?” Van Shuten shouts.

      Waldo is back on his feet, four fingers against the back of the chair in front of him.

      “You didn’t want to write the column? Someone forced you to write the column, is that it?” Van Shuten fairly howls with interest. “Someone told you to do it. Ordered you to do it?”

      “Technically,” Waldo says firmly, “technically,” he repeats louder, “Mr. Snell is correct.”

      “Who ordered you to write the column?” Van Shuten cuts Waldo off. “Who? Who?”

      “Wait a minute,” Waldo says, taking his fingers off the chair. “Wait a minute.”

      Van Shuten stops. The rooms falls silent. Waldo waits, then he says “Wait a minute.” We wait. “The decision to initiate the column, the decision to initiate the column,” Waldo speaks slowly, doubtless trying to find some way out. “The Tampa Tribune has a chess column. So does the Fort Myers Sun.”

      “So does the St. Petersburg Times,” Van Shuten sneers.

      “And the New York Times. And the Daily Worker,” someone shouts.

      “I understand that, “Waldo says, “The decision was an editorial decision and a circulation decision. We were losing readership in the trailer parks. Isn’t it better they should find their chess interests met by the Hane Tribune with its columnists, than by the St. Petersburg Times and with its columnists? Isn’t it?” Waldo begins to ride an evidently appreciated point.

      “Besides,” I add, getting into the loopy swing of things, “the column will have a very American focus. I want to write about younger American masters. People like Fischer who can humiliate the Soviets, the Soviet system, make a mockery of it. Prove it to be stultifying, insulting, to the natural function of the most advanced minds.” I wonder what are the natural functions of advanced minds?

      “Good point,” someone says.

      “Fischer was an exception,” someone disagrees.

      “America is full of Fischers,” Waldo says, resonantly. “That’s the secret of America, the secret of this great republic!”

      The phrase echoes in the long living room, under the slowly revolving bamboo ceiling fans. And before Van Shuten or someone less enthusiastic can react, an elderly black man in a white jacket wheels in a tray of coffees and nineteen tiny, filled brandy snifters. With tacit swiftness the groups stands and moves quickly toward the trays.

      Chapter 7

      The coffee is strong, stabilizing, but not enough. I swill a snifter. One of the ancient émigrés says to me, “You are not used to political thinking, are you, Mr. Snell?”

      “I guess not. I’m sorry.”

      “Most Americans aren’t and that is a tragedy. Most Americans aren’t aware of what they have, what their blessings are.”

      “I’ve noticed that,” I answer swilling another snifter. I try looking beyond the fellow, glazing over my own eyes in an effort to peer through him, but his eyes insist on fixing on mine.

      “There are great dangers,” he goes on, watching carefully to see the barest flicker of skepticism come into my face. “Grave dangers. These are not good times.”

      I wonder when were the good times? When was it safe? “My fiancé,” I interrupt him. Why bring up Pam here? “My fiancé,” I repeat again as if on a trampoline, “feels exactly as you do.” For some reason in the slow turn of the gin and Drambuie and wine and now the coffee and brandy, the sound fee on say is fascinating. “My fee on say feels just as you do. She knows the world immediately around her is full of danger.”

      “Your fiancé,” he repeats apparently equally enchanted by the sounds.

      “Yes. Yes, she’s hospitalized but coming along well. But she knows rather better than I do just what is wrong out there.” I gesture toward the front door.