The Lesson

That There Should Be a Game of Sorts

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.