The Chess Players – Part 1: Opening Gambit

"Checkmate," said Anselmo, gently.

Rosario stared at the board. It was the nineteenth time. She was sixty-two, a retired nurse, sitting on a green bench in a sun-dappled Lisbon park with a thermos of coffee and a face like a thundercloud. Across the stone table sat a slender old man in a white linen scarf, with silver hair and a kindly, aquiline face.

"Again," said Rosario.

"You are not tired?"

"I am furious."

"Then you are learning." He began setting up the pieces, long fingers precise. "Fury is the beginning of chess."

Anselmo was sixty-six, a retired schoolteacher, widowed for four years. He had played in the park every morning for thirty years, and had beaten everyone who dared. He had never, as far as the regulars knew, let anyone resign.

"Why won't you let me give up?" she asked.

"Because you are on the verge of something," said Anselmo. "I can see it in your eyes."

"I have no eyes for chess. I was a nurse."

"A nurse watches many things at once. It is exactly the skill."

She considered this. For three weeks she played, lost, played again. He explained, in his soft voice, every mistake. She began to see the board as a ward: the pieces patients, the threats symptoms, the king a very fragile case. Her play sharpened.

On the twenty-eighth day, she took his queen.

He sat back, astonished, and burst into delighted laughter. A pigeon flew up from the table. The old men at the next bench turned to stare.

"You see?" said Anselmo. "A nurse."

"I saw an opening."

"You saw it perfectly."

"Can I ask you something?" said Rosario, flushed with triumph.

"Yes."

"Do you always teach this way?"

"No," said Anselmo, slowly. "I have never wanted to before."

"Green?" she said, a word from the chess clock.

"Green," said Anselmo, with a gleam. "Very green. Your move."

Continue the story: Part 2 – Endgame.