The Chess Club – Part 2: Endgame

Mateo came back the next Sunday, and the Sunday after that. He brought a thermos of mate and a paper bag of medialunas, and he always sat in the same chair, facing Sofía across the board.

"You're here again," said Don Ernesto, delighted, when he saw them settle in. "Is it the chess, or the company?"

"It's the chess," said Sofía.

"It's the chess," said Mateo, at exactly the same time.

Ernesto cackled and set out the pieces.

They played slowly, now. The games went on for hours, with long pauses where they talked instead of moving. Mateo told her about the letters he was translating: a bundle of love notes between a Buenos Aires seamstress and a Galician sailor, written in the 1920s and never meant to be read by anyone else. Sofía told him about her job at the translation agency, where she mostly converted tedious contracts into slightly less tedious English.

"You never talk about your family," said Mateo, one Sunday in late autumn.

"My father taught me to play," said Sofía, moving a pawn. "He was a bus driver. He played every Sunday at this table, and he cheated, and everyone knew it, and no one minded. When he died, I stopped coming for a year."

Mateo was quiet for a moment. "And then you came back."

"I came back because the old men asked me to," she said. "Don Ernesto said the table needed someone who couldn't lose gracefully."

"And you do."

"I do," said Sofía, with a small, rueful smile. "I'm terrible at losing."

"Then let me teach you," said Mateo, and reached across the board to touch her hand, very lightly, as if he were asking permission to move a piece he'd already decided on.

She didn't pull away.

They walked together after that, along the paths between the trees, where the lamps had come on and the jacarandas were dropping purple petals onto the cobbles. Mateo told her about his childhood in Córdoba, the summer he had been sent to live with an uncle who ran a bookshop and taught him to read in three languages. Sofía told him about the day she had realised she would never be a famous writer, and had decided to be a good translator instead.

"Being a good translator is a very underrated art," said Mateo.

"Being a good listener is," said Sofía. "You do that too."

He stopped walking. The park was quiet, the traffic far away, the fountain murmuring nearby.

"Can I ask you something?" he said.

"Yes."

"Would you like to have dinner with me, properly, not in the park, and not with the old men shouting about their knights?"

Sofía's heart gave a quick, nervous kick. "Yes," she said. "But only if you let me pick the wine. And you have to stop being polite about the chess."

"I'll be rude about the chess," said Mateo. "I promise. You're a terrible player."

"You're a terrible liar."

He laughed, and then he stepped closer, slowly, and she could see the question in his face before he asked it.

"Can I kiss you?" he said. "Here, by the fountain, where the old men can't see us for once?"

"Yes," said Sofía. "And if I say stop, we'll play one more game, and you'll let me win."

"Never," said Mateo, and kissed her.

It was warm and unhurried, tasting of mate and the sweet bread he had brought. Her hand rose to rest on his coat, and his arm came around her waist, steady and sure. When they parted, the jacarandas were still falling around them like slow purple snow.

"Green?" he asked, low.

"Green," said Sofía. "Very green. Now let's go find that wine. And tomorrow, you're playing the whole game again. Properly."

"Properly," said Mateo, and laughed, and took her hand as they walked out of the park together.