Shadows of Berlin

21.

Blitzkrieg in Washington Square

The day is not as chilly as it has been. A breeze blows the trash around Washington Square. The smell of dog poop scents the air, combining with the lightly vomitous perfume of the ginkgo trees. At the entrance to the South Square, the game tables are thickly settled by chess players huddling around their boards.

“Ain’t no crime, brutha. Ain’t no crime.” Tyrell is grinning as he counts through the money he’s just won from a skinny Negro youth in a plaid coat. “Next victim,” he calls out. But then his expression stiffens as Rachel sits down on the bench opposite him.

“You’re different here,” she observes.

Tyrell observes her as if from a distance, then stuffs the money into the pocket of his short-­waisted jacket. “Is that right? Different from what, Mrs. Perlman?”

“Different from when you were in Naomi’s apartment. You speak differently. I didn’t hear you say ‘ain’t’ once while you were eating chicken Kiev.”

And now he chuckles mildly to himself at this lady’s nerve. “No, you did not,” he must agree. “That’s because I was around a bunch of white people.”

“Otherwise, you say ‘ain’t’?”

“Otherwise, I’m myself.”

“Tyrell-­Who-­Says-­Ain’t.”

“Sometimes I’m him, yeah.”

“Do you say it when you’re with Naomi?”

“Are you driving at something, Mrs. Perlman?”

“Please call me Rachel.”

“Nah, I don’t think I will,” he answers. “Are you trying to make a point?”

“I’m not,” she answers. “I’m just curious. My guess is you’re different with different people. I know something about that. I think it’s a trait we share. Being an ‘autseyder’ we would call it in Yiddish. A person on the outer edge of things.”

“Same in English. An outsider.”

“Yes, the same.”

Tyrell studies her for a moment with a kind of blunt, hammer-­heavy gaze. “Look, Mrs. Perlman. We met once. That’s it. Let’s not pretend we’re friends. Okay? If you don’t mind, I’ve got bills to pay, and I’ve gotta make some money,” he tells her. “So unless you’ve got five dollars you feel like parting with…” he says.

Rachel gazes back at him. She produces her cigarettes and then opens her bag and pulls out her matches. Lights up with a cupped match flame.

“Uh, Mrs. Perlman…”

“So you said five dollars?” she asks, cigarette fluttering from her lip as she frets through a wad of bills. “That’s one, two,” she counts.

Shaking his head with limited tolerance. “Mrs. Perlman.”

“Three, four, and that’s five.” Digging coins from her change purse.

Tyrell stares at her thickly. “You’re not serious,” he tells her.

Offering it. “What? My money’s no good here?”

Again a stare, and then, “All right.” He nods. “All right, Mrs. Perlman. If this is the way you want it. Hold on to your money. I trust you to pay up when you lose.”

“Okay,” says she, depositing the bills and change into her coat pocket. “You must explain to me the use of the clock, though, before we begin.”

His voice is bemused. “Oh, we’re not using the clock, Mrs. Perlman. You’re in no way ready for the clock. Just a friendly little game.” He snaps up two pawns, one white, one black, mixes them about, and holds out his fists. “Your choice,” he tells her.

“This one,” she says and points.

Tyrell opens the chosen fist, revealing a small white pawn. “You’re white,” he tells her. “That means you have the advantage.”

They shake hands before beginning, because it’s what opponents do apparently. American women don’t shake hands, with men or even each other, but everybody in Germany is trained to do so from childhood, so Rachel thinks nothing of it. Also she likes his grip. Pleasantly firm. The games commences, but of course she is immediately lost, nudging pieces outward. What goes where?

“No, no,” Tyrell corrects, half smiling with a kind of mildly alarmed indulgence. “That’s not,” he says, “how the knight moves.”

“I know, but I can never remember correctly.” Rachel frowns. “It’s a capital L, isn’t it? A knight moves like a capital L?”

“Two spaces, then one space at a corner angle.”

“Ah, azoy dos iz rikhtik,” she reminds herself. “So two,” she says, repositioning the small wooden horse, “and then one.”

Tyrell flattens his expression. “You sure you wanna do that?”

“Hmm. I don’t know. Maybe not?”

The man grinds up a few words at the back of his jaw before he answers. “No. No, Mrs. Perlman. I assure you, you don’t want to do that. Not unless it’s your intention to lose your bishop. You see? Your knight’s the only protection your bishop has from being taken by my queen.”

“Okay. Well, that’s too bad. But I moved. Vos iz geshen, iz geshen,” she concludes, removing her bishop from its square and replacing it with Tyrell’s queen.

“Aw, now see, you don’t do that either,” he corrects her. “You don’t touch your opponent’s pieces unless you’re taking them. Not ever.”

“Ah. Sorry. My mistake,” Rachel says. “There’s certainly no shortage of rules in this game.”

Tyrell sighs. “Let’s quit this, shall we, Mrs. Perlman? Just keep your money.”

“Does that mean you’re surrendering?”

“Resigning, not surrendering. And no. I’m not resigning. But this is getting ridiculous, don’t you agree?”

“So do you despise my husband?”

Tyrell blinks, but other than that, he doesn’t move. “Despise? No. I don’t think I despise anyone.”

“Even though he was terribly insulting to you? I would despise him if I were in your shoes.”

“Which, by the way, Mrs. Perlman, you will never be.”

“Of course. I know that,” she answers. “I’m well aware of that fact.”

“Are you?” he wonders doubtfully and gazes back at her. “You think, Mrs. Perlman,” he says, “you think your husband insulted me? He did. But that ain’t nothing. Nothing I’m not used to. I was born down south. And right now, if we were down there? You and me? Well…” He shrugs. “I guess you might have read in the newspapers what happens to a Negro if he so much as speaks to a white woman. That boy in Mississippi who was ripped to pieces? Fourteen years old. A child,” he says, swallowing. “His momma kept the coffin open at his funeral just so people could bear witness to the pure barbarity of his murder.”

“But we’re not in Mississippi,” she points out.

“No?” Tyrell frowns again. “Mrs. Perlman, this whole country’s Mississippi. Don’t you get that? North, south, makes no difference. This whole damn country’s Mississippi.”

“And do you think, Mr. Williams, that a Jew is welcome in Mississippi?”

He puffs his cheeks with a sigh. “I never said there wasn’t enough to go around. I know about your—­your past.”

“Oh, so you know that my mother was gassed to death? You know that I was hunted like an animal? Is that the past to which you refer, Mr. Williams?”

Tyrell looks back at her bluntly. “What do you want me to say? That you’ve suffered more than me? That I should be grateful that nobody ever stuck me in a concentration camp? Well, they did lynch my grandpa when I was a tyke, right in his own front yard.”

“I’m sorry,” Rachel says. “I didn’t mean to make this a competition.”

“No? I think maybe you did. But if not? Okay. Then you tell me, what is your intention here, Mrs. Perlman? What exactly did you expect to get for your five dollars?”

Suddenly Rachel feels her eyes heat with a sheen of tears. “I’m not sure. It’s only that I must always be so normal. Such a good American. Such a good American housewife and a good Jewish girl. I too am expected to be grateful to God for my life. For the fact that I am living, and not ashes in a pit in Poland. I’m sorry. I just felt the need,” she says and sniffs, “to talk to someone. Someone who was an outsider like me.” She is opening her bag for the Kleenexes that she keeps there, but then Tyrell is offering her an immaculate cotton handkerchief. She accepts it, tamping her eyes. “Thank you.”

He speaks not a word for a moment. Pigeons coo and flap their wings. And then he says, “So I’ve been curious about something.”

Rachel raises her reddened eyes.

“When we were having supper at Naomi’s place,” he says, “you turned that wineglass over on your husband intentionally.”

“Because he was making a fool of himself, you know?”

“Maybe he was, but that ain’t why you did it, is it? You wanted to grab that roll from the basket. Why was that, Mrs. Perlman?”

She feels a drag of panic pull all expression from her face. “Because,” she says but must start again. “Because I thought I could be hungry later.”

“You thought?” Tyrell asks.

“Because I was afraid I would be hungry later,” Rachel confesses. “Because I was desperately afraid I would be hungry later.” She stares blankly, then wipes the sting from one of her eyes.

Tyrell nods but does not relax his keen observation of her until a rather scruffy white beatnik kid appears with horn-­rim glasses, uncombed hair, and a wisp of a beard on his chin. “Hey, Williams,” the boy declares. “Yaakov’s asking for a game.”

“Excuse me, hot dog, but do you have eyes in your head? Can’t you see I’m in the middle of my own game right now?”

“Really?” the kid asks dubiously. “Doesn’t look like much.”

“Now, that’s an insult,” Tyrell replies, but without much conviction.

“It’s all right, Mr. Williams,” Rachel inserts quickly, reclaiming herself. “He’s right. I resign,” she says and topples over her queen with a tap.

The boy barely smothers a laugh.

“That’s your queen, Mrs. Perlman,” Tyrell informs her. “When you resign, you tip over your king.”

“Oops,” says Rachel flatly and topples the king as well.

“So I guess you’re open,” the boy points out.

“And who are you? The great man’s messenger boy?”

“Nah,” says the kid with a sniff. “I just came over to bum a cig.”

“Here,” says Rachel, standing. “Take one of mine.” She doesn’t know if it’s because he’s being gentlemanly, but when she stands, Tyrell stands too.

“Thanks,” says the boy enthusiastically as he accepts the cigarette. “Got a light?” he asks.

But Tyrell intervenes, shoving a book of matches into the boy’s hand. “Keep ’em,” he says in the same tone he might use to say beat it.

“Tell Mr. Yaakov that he should have a care playing Mr. Williams,” Rachel informs the kid and then explains in a conspiratorial stage whisper. “He knows how all the pieces move.”

“Sure,” the kid says, blinking at the crazy lady. “Thanks for the cig.”

“You’re an odd duck, Mrs. Perlman,” Tyrell observes, not without some appreciation.

“So, Mr. Williams. If you’re going to play the great man, may I observe?”

To which Tyrell shrugs. “It’s a free country. So they say.”

Pigeons flap and bustle around the edges of the gaming tables. The great man has a head like an old melon. Not a hair remains, only the tough, spotted rind. He surveys the board with a lurking superiority, as if he has already mapped out his victory and it’s now only a matter of deploying the pieces.

“So I’m playing white?” Tyrell asks as he sits, considering the setup of the board facing him.

Yaakov lifts his eyes, his arms crossed over his sparrow’s chest, his hands tucked under his armpits as if holding his rib cage together. “Vye naught?” he declares.

A crowd has coalesced around them. A circle of interested observers whom Rachel has joined. No one speaks or even dares to cough as the game begins with a clatter of pieces sped along by the thump of the time-­clock buttons. It has the feeling of a prizefighter’s match that’s been sealed inside a mason jar. The speed with which the fingers fly and the pieces are marched across the board or snatched away is so astounding that it is like trying to focus on the view out a window on the Seventh Avenue Express bulleting down the track. Pawns, knights, bishops, are swept from the board in a rage of passive violence, their carcasses piled on the sidelines. Then Tyrell suddenly applies the brakes.

The great man has flicked a pawn two spaces forward. Not a very threatening move as far as Rachel can see, but it causes Tyrell to visibly stiffen. Keeping his gaze nailed to the board, he peels the foil from a stick of Wrigley’s Spearmint and shoves it into his mouth, chewing hard at the back of his jaw. She can see the cool tension in his eyes as he decides to respond with a quick prance of his remaining knight. The great man, however, whose hands are once more tucked under his armpits, removes one hand long enough to shove his queen along a diagonal, and now Tyrell starts chewing again. Rachel tries to analyze the Russian’s expression as he sits in a forward-­leaning slouch, but he has no expression. Just the same, peeled-­egg blankness. He doesn’t even blink.

Tyrell stops chewing. His body hesitates, and then he acts. Plucking up his knight, he snatches one of the great man’s pawns and replaces it. The Russian’s hand shoots out and plunks his knight onto the middle of the board.

Rachel can see Tyrell’s eyes racing. How many moves ahead is he calculating? How many must he be calculating to beat the great man’s game? How many can he be? Another pawn moves. A bishop. A shift of the knight, and then, just when Rachel expects the board to explode, the great man pauses. There is no hesitation in his posture; he simply seems to momentarily harden into his slouch as if he has transformed into a pile of stones.

The onlookers tense. Someone takes a deep breath but then does not exhale it. Another clears a thorn of anxiety from his throat, but still the old man sits like a pillar. Has he died? Rachel begins to wonder. How long will everyone stand here before his corpse slumps over and disperses the pieces from the board with a crash? But then he stirs. He stirs, and without ceremony or comment, the Russian’s hand shoots out and topples his king.

For a moment, it seems nobody can believe what they have just witnessed. Was it an accident? Did the great man reach for a bishop and inadvertently tip the wrong piece? It can’t possibly be over, can it? Not just like that? The onlookers stare dumbly, still waiting for the next move. Even Tyrell looks stunned, or is he simply guarded? What kind of trap is this old Russki setting by resigning? It’s only the great man himself who seems utterly unconcerned. “Nize game.” He shrugs, with his hand glued under his armpits, his voice a quiet rasp of steel wool on an iron skillet. “Zo maybe you got spare steek of gum?”