A King in Hiding (11 page)

The same concerns about location stopped him from taking up a job as full-time carer to a very old lady who lived on the outskirts of the Paris area. It was too far from Créteil for Fahim to be able to come to coaching more than occasionally. Nura was prepared to sacrifice everything for a job and a normal life: everything except his son.

His limited grasp of French was a source of daily frustration for Nura. Months after the event, he told me rather sheepishly – though he could also see its funny side – about an incident that had nearly tipped over into farce. After going to have his hair cut in the Belleville district, he had gone into a café to use the toilet. While he was waiting, a young Asian girl came up and started talking to him. He could make out the words ‘work' and ‘40 euros'. Delighted at having found a job, or so he thought, he followed her back to her place. No sooner had they gone inside than she took all her clothes off and demanded 40 euros. Dumbfounded, Nura grasped the nature of the transaction and fled, while she yelled after him, calling him all the names under the sun.

Not all of Nura's adventures were so entertaining: far from it, in fact. Through the experiences he confided in me, I learned about the world of those with no money, no documentation, no defences and no rights. As he was coming out of the Métro one evening, a man set upon him for no reason and started beating him up. He punched Nura to the ground, then attacked him with a volley of kicks. When a police car came around the corner, the attacker took fright and ran off. Their suspicions aroused, the police officers stopped the car and came over to Nura:

‘What's going on here? Why were you fighting with that man?'

‘No worry, no worry,' replied Nura, struggling to his feet with difficulty.

Then a bystander intervened:

‘I saw it all: this gentleman was coming out of the Métro minding his own business when the other man launched an unprovoked attack on him.'

The police officers' attitude softened:

‘Are you all right, sir? Are you hurt?'

‘OK, no worry,' protested Nura, terrified that they might ask him for his papers.

‘Would you like us to take you to hospital?'

‘No, no! All fine,' he repeated, panic-stricken.

‘Come with us to the police station to make a statement.'

‘No, no! No problem. Much much no problem.'

‘But you need to stand up for yourself. Come with us.'

‘No, no! No problem, no worry.'

Nura was on the verge of tears. So plaintive were his pleas that the police officers let him go. He staggered painfully back to the hotel. The next day he had to drag himself to the nearest accident and emergency department.

I don't know why, but for a while I've been going through a bad phase. I keep losing, even against weak players. At one tournament, I'm flattened in 30 moves. My opponent takes one of my pawns and attacks the rampart that I've built around my king. As he does it I just watch: I can't react, can't defend myself. When it gets to checkmate, it's all I can do to stop myself from crying.

My father is furious. He flies into a terrible temper and won't speak to me for two days. He doesn't speak to me in the morning. He doesn't speak to me on the way to school. He doesn't speak to me on the way back from school. He doesn't speak to me when we eat. He just says nothing, as if I'm not there. He won't do anything for me. He doesn't even wash up my plate after supper. So I wait for him to speak to me. I know he will. He'll have to, he needs me to translate. But it goes on for ever and it hurts.

Another time, he looks on as the game I'm playing collapses. I can feel him getting crosser and crosser. Soon all I can think about is how angry he is, I can't think about the game at all. When the tournament is over, he picks up his things and leaves. I run after him, down the street, into the Métro. When we get to the hotel he won't speak. I feel so bad.

I refuse to eat and go and sulk in front of the television. Luckily I find a packet of crisps in my pocket, a bet I won off a friend at the club. I eat them in silence and manage to make my father feel guilty. I'm not proud of myself, though.

Sometimes I overhear conversations between parents at the club without them realising. They say that it's no good for a child to live like this, and that I'm disturbed by what's happening to me. That annoys me, as they seem to be criticising my father and to think that the situation is his fault. And above all because I'm not disturbed, I refuse to be disturbed. In my head I want to be strong.

XP
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While all this was going on, I went on the offensive with the Federation to get them to allow Fahim to compete in the French championship. It put my relationship with them under some strain: this was time spent in the wilderness for someone as outspoken as me, who knows that people don't always want to hear the truth but prefers to tell it anyway. Behind the scenes, I put pressure on my contacts to change the rules and bring them into line with those of the major sports federations. The idea was picked up and championed by other people who had no idea where it came from. The championships were now opened up to all foreign children who were in full-time education in France, as long as they had a licence that had to be obtained at the beginning of the season.

The news brought a smile to Fahim's face, even though lack of funds meant that he rarely took part in tournaments outside the Paris region. But the turn for the worse that he'd taken in the spring had become even more worrying by the autumn. He seemed to have lost his appetite for chess completely. When he sat down at the chessboard his eyes had lost their sparkle. He was half-hearted in lessons, at tournaments he just slumped in his chair, and his remarkable memory was losing its power. After one lost game, I looked at his score sheet and felt bewildered. Where was the Fahim I knew, the clever, agile rascal, the rebel fired up with reckless enthusiasm? After the opening, instead of sending his troops into battle he had retreated in order to defend a pawn that was of no importance. The victim of circumstances beyond his control, he avoided confrontation and withdrew anxiously into his own camp. He seemed to have lost all the fighting spirit that had been so much a part of him and had enabled him to reach his full potential. He was losing even that most fundamental attribute of a good player: his confidence in himself. He was becoming a timid and anxious opponent, who could work out his moves but had lost his dynamism. During coaching and at lessons, I would resort to every subterfuge – using provocation and humour on top of my teaching skills – in my attempts to reawaken the champion in him.

One evening when we're playing, Xavier attacks and forces me to retreat. He frowns:

‘Fahim, the Russians never retreat!'

‘Why do you say that?'

‘It's a famous story about a Russian master who lost to a lower-ranking player by letting him capture his knight rather than retreating.'

‘That wasn't clever, he lost!'

‘He lost that game, admittedly. But he was playing 30 opponents at once. And through his refusal to retreat he won the other 29. The Russians are great attackers. Take them as an example, adopt an attacking style. Never retreat and you'll win most of your games.'

‘But I'm not a Russian,' I shrug. Xavier doesn't like it when I shrug.

‘True, you're not a Russian. But in chess the Russians are the best, so take them as your example.'

‘I don't like the Russians. I prefer the Napoleons!'

‘The who?'

‘The Napoleons. I learned about them at school: the Napoleons attacked the Russians.'

Xavier smiles.

‘And then what happened?'

‘I don't know.'

‘Didn't your teacher tell you what happened when Napoleon's troops retreated?'

‘Um …'

‘The Battle of Berezina.'

‘The what?'

‘The Battle of Berezina.'

Xavier tells me a tale of a frozen river, melting ice, drowned regiments and disaster. It's fascinating. Then we start playing again. I am the Napoleons and Xavier is the Russians:

‘Look Fahim! The Russians never retreat!'

I refuse to give up any squares:

‘Nor do the Napoleons!'

After that game it becomes a sort of catchphrase for us:

‘The Russians never retreat!'

‘Nor do the Napoleons!'

At a tournament a few months later, I handle the opening well but then find myself plunged into the unknown. My opponent is pushing me into a corner but I refuse to retreat. In a sudden burst of arrogance, I launch a counter-attack, Russian-style.

‘It is at the moment of death that a chess player clings on to life,' as Alekhine would say.

I refuse to give in, and soon my opponent is sweating like mad. He's doing any old thing, and then he collapses. Phew! I've won! At last!

XP
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Despite a few good games, Fahim wasn't on the right wavelength for chess any more. ‘You can't look up at the stars when you have a stone in your shoe.' I wasn't sure what to do, whether to give him some breathing space or to push him? But the one thing I know how to do is to be a trainer. Forcing him to get a grip, encouraging him always to do better was my way of supporting him so that he could keep his head above water. And on top of this I also had the feeling that somehow – even if I couldn't see quite how exactly – chess could be a lifeline for him and his father.