The Lesson

Blindfold Chess, as Told to Stan

— Chess is many things, but one thing it IS not is a game that is played on a board. Make no mistake, good chess is played entirely in the head. And that is why it is no difficulty at all for masters to have a game wherein they simply announce the moves to another and never look at a board at all.

— But doesn’t that become confusing very quickly?

Stan was sitting on the floor underneath the table. He had discovered a hole of some kind, possibly a mousehole, in the wall by the near table leg. He was trying to peer into this hole, and at the same time was listening very carefully, one supposes.

— Yes and no, said Loring. In fact, people have been known to play not only blindfold, but also simultaneously. That is to say — if I showed up in a town and had no money to pay for my dinner, I might be convinced to give a simultaneous exhibition wherein I would play ten or fifteen people at the same time, going from board to board and making my moves. Now, a blindfold simultaneous exhibition, as you may imagine, is a little more difficult. There, one goes from board to board and is simply told the last move that happened. You are at board three. Your opponent played pawn to c3. What is your move? This may seem entirely impossible, but players do it, and have done it, playing blindfold simultaneously against more than thirty master-strength players. Of course, it takes its toll on the mind. In fact, that’s why it has been outlawed in certain countries. The sense is, it shortens the careers of the best masters. It ages you, mentally, which is an awful idea.

— Can you do it? asked Stan.

— I have only done it with three or four games going on at once. Ezra gave an exhibition once where he did twenty boards.

— Did he win?

— He won fifteen, drew four, and lost one.

— To whom did he lose?

— To me. It was a trick. The organizers switched me in for the amateur that was supposed to be playing. He, of course, recognized it at once, but it didn’t help. Here, let me show you the moves.

Stan climbed up into his chair, leaving his perhaps-mouse-hole behind somewhat regretfully.

She showed him the moves of the game on the chessboard.

— And here he is forced to resign. He’ll lose his knight no matter where it moves. Any of these pawn moves lose immediately also. That’s called zugzwang.

— Shall we play a game without a board, asked Stan.

They tried, but it soon proved impossible. Stan could not remember which piece was where and kept trying to move knights that were hiding elsewhere or rooks that had already been taken off the board.

— Don’t worry, said Loring encouragingly. It comes in time. Let’s play our weekly match.

While they played, many things happened all around them. Loring thought about the open window upstairs and that it should be shut. She thought about the photograph that was lying on the bureau in that same room. She thought of the teacher that she had seen instructing the class, and of the dog that had been barking early that same morning. Mostly, though, she thought of standing in the bedroom and looking at her husband out of the corner of her eye.

— What have you been thinking about, Stan? she asked after he lost all four games in a row, quite badly.

— I was thinking about what you told me.

— What is that?

— About imagining things that might happen or might have happened. About trying to pretend that those things are real, in order to see what might be true about them. You said I should, if I felt the edge of something, I should follow it and see where it leads.

— And what were you imagining?

She sat up.

— Well, there came a knock at the door, and when you went to check, it was my father, only he looked different than the way that he usually looks.

The boy told Loring a story then, in which she was included as a character. They were sitting there, at lessons, as always, and a knock came at the door. Loring went to answer it, but there was no one there.