A King in Hiding (18 page)

We start to play. Unusually for me, I'm tense. But he spends too much time thinking and soon he's running out of time. So he gets in a rush, plays too quickly, moves his queen forward prematurely and loses her. Now I have an extra queen and time on the clock. I can breathe again! At that moment he decides to shake my hand and resign. Perhaps I really do have some luck left. I am awarded the trophy and – a video camera! I can't find anyone who'll buy it from me.

Marie-Jeanne's funeral is on a Tuesday. I can't go because I'm at school. When I see Xavier the next day, I try to say something, but I don't know what to say to someone who will never see his mother again. Then life goes on, and Xavier focuses on my training: the French championships are coming up soon.

‘Fahim, to prepare let's work on this game. Kasparov is black, Korchnoi is white.'

I study the board. Like this, perhaps? Oops, that's risky. I try another way. Just as bad.

‘Slow down, Fahim! You're playing first and thinking afterwards.'

I shrug.

‘I know, I could see that, but I risked it anyway because …'

‘Because you're a risk-taker!'

I smile.

‘I take, you take, he takes, we take, they lose. Look: Kasparov, an attacking player like you, chose the safer option for this move and went for a less risky endgame.'

‘But my move has more style! And maybe I'll manage to confuse white?'

‘Yup, at a championship for morons you'd win no problem.'

‘OK, but going for the safer option's rubbish. Much better to win in style!'

‘Which is better, to have style or to be the best player in the world?'

I hesitate. Xavier pretends not to notice.

‘So, a5 or e5?'

‘a5!'

‘Is that a guess? Or a bluff? Zorro rides again, is that it? Fahim, let me tell you something: the good thing about chess is that however badly or well you play, you can only ever lose one-nil. But if you want to win, it's time you got over this urge to show off, this need to take risks just for the thrill of pulling out all the stops at the last moment. Do you understand?'

I say nothing. I think. I don't know whether I could ever surrender a great move, a spectacular coup, a last-minute flourish in order to show how rational and ‘safe' a player I am. I think I'll always want to go down fighting!

XP
:
Fahim was still at the top of the pupils' rankings, but as time went on the peloton was closing in on him. And I wasn't satisfied. Is a trainer ever satisfied? They can never see the progress their pupils are making. They forget that progress comes in incremental stages, and that these become clear only in retrospect. It's like when you're hill-walking, and the top of the hill still seems so far away: it's only when you look back down into the valley that you realise how far you've come.

‘One last game before the championships. A Guljajev problem, white's move.'

‘I can't see it.'

‘Be creative! You're smart, you're a survivor.'

I think for a long time, then play in one go, avoiding Xavier's eye.

‘You see, Fahim: sometimes just a single pawn can rout an opposing army.'

I get the feeling he isn't talking just about chess.

Chapter 13

ENDGAME

I
t's Saturday. I'm in the hall. The players are milling around, looking for their places, putting bottles of water on their tables, scanning the room for familiar faces. I go and sit at the first table. My game will be streamed online, with a slight delay to avoid any possibility of cheating: what with earpieces, mobiles and all the other gizmos available nowadays, the organisers are becoming paranoid. Above the general racket a voice announces:

‘Welcome to the 2012 French national chess championships. Our thanks go to the city of Nîmes …'

No one pays any attention.

‘From the 4,000 participants in the regional rounds, 900 have been selected to be here today …'

Where is my opponent?

‘Now could I ask families, trainers and accompanying adults to please leave the competition area?'

People crowd back towards the exit or climb up the tiers of seats, where they sit down and straight away get out their binoculars, scanning the scrum below in search of the right table. The hall empties. Soon just the players and referees are left.

‘Now here is today's referee.'

‘Hello everyone. I'd like to remind you of the timing for today's event. You have an hour and a half, plus 30 seconds for each move. I should draw your attention to a new rule by which a draw by mutual consent is no longer allowed. The referee may be asked to grant a draw only if the same position has been repeated three times, if neither player has the pieces necessary for checkmate, or in case of a stalemate, when the player whose turn it is to move is not in check but cannot move without allowing his king to be taken, which is illegal. If you have a problem, please raise your hand and we'll come and see you. I wish you all good luck. Please shake hands with your opponent. Black to start the clock, white to play.'

Suddenly the room falls silent. I'm not nervous. I never am at the start of a game. It's when it's all going wrong, when I'm on the point of losing, that the fear kicks in. Now I'm calm right away, in control.

Round one. My opponent, who's ranked lower than me, starts to play. I don't know him. I watch him. He sits slumped with his elbow on the table, his head propped on his hand, still as a statue. I want to shake him. I get annoyed, and this means I let my guard slip. The game goes on for ever. I doze. He dozes. He knocks over his Coke. I get up, walk round the room and come back. I miss the chance to checkmate him in one. He wakes up and starts to struggle like a fly trapped in a glass of water. I get up again, this time to get a drink. I come back to the table. He tries to make a comeback and I get worried. Phew! I regain the advantage. I take the chance to stretch my legs. By the time I come back I've cooked up a secret potion in six or seven moves, to a recipe that comes from Xavier. He doesn't see it coming, not a thing. He swallows it whole. When he realises what's happened it's already too late. Checkmate! We raise our hands. A referee comes over to record the result. The number of players at the tables around us is dropping. Some of the losers are calm as they leave. Others look fed up, but at this stage in the competition it's still too early for tears.

XP
:
We'd arrived the day before after a long drive, from Paris to Nîmes with Fahim and Olivier on board, plus a detour of 150 kilometres to pick up Quentin. When we arrived, late in the evening, Fahim didn't miss the chance to get in a gentle dig:

‘You're even better than my father at getting lost!'

The following morning I was up early to be at the ringside. Slightly dazed, and exhausted by events in my personal life. My colleague Serge and I spent time with our pupils, who came to see us to discuss their game, to hear a little about the opponents they were about to meet, and to brush up on their strategies. That year I had a dozen children under my wing. For the duration of the tournament, I was no longer their trainer: the time for training was over. Now they were the mountaineers and I was their climbing partner, anchoring their ropes. All twelve of them.

By the time the children head off to the competition hall, it's already too late. I rarely go with them, preferring to take advantage of the peace and quiet to have some lunch and try to relax. I have to be on form and mentally fit and alert. I'll be up preparing for the next round late into the night, when I'll know who my pupils will be playing the next day.

By early afternoon I've kissed goodbye to all my good resolutions. Invariably I find myself glued to my computer screen and following the games on the top tables, especially Fahim's.

Sunday. Round two. I play Guillaume. We know each other a bit. He beat me at Top Jeunes by skewering my queen and king. I'm wired: I want revenge. Yesterday's spilt Coke is sticky underfoot. You can hear people coming by the rip-rip-rip noise their shoes make. It makes me want to laugh, but it's distracting too. Luckily Guillaume plays badly. I stay poker-faced and get my own back on him for his enfilade in our last game. His queen has no choice but to commit hara-kiri to save the king. And then I refuse to retreat: the Russians never retreat! Guillaume loses his grip and resigns after seventeen moves. He congratulates me very nicely. I'm happy. I've got my revenge.

XP
:
When Fahim came to see me I congratulated him: it was a magnificent game. It would be published in a number of magazines, moreover. It showed that he was back in tune with the dynamic of the game. He was even happier when he found out that someone had cleared the field by knocking out his
bête noire
, the player whose ‘client' he had become.

I was still concerned, nonetheless. Lacking the means to rent his own accommodation with guaranteed peace and quiet, as some of the other players had done, Fahim was sharing in all the holiday atmosphere, carefree fun and high-spirited excitement of the Créteil team lodgings. Nothing could have been further removed from the studious, focused atmosphere that is indispensable to any athlete in competition. At any opportunity he would cast concentration to the winds again and lark around with the others, hard to pin down and always eager to get back to having fun. I was afraid he might spoil his chances by getting some childish prank into his head, and I was always keeping him on the alert: during pre-game preparation, during post-game analysis, all the time.

‘There are two rounds today. I don't know who you'll be playing this afternoon, so I can't prepare you. Look out, Fahim! Don't wait for the game to jump up and hit you in the face before you start to attack. Focus before the game. Stay quiet in the car on the way there, don't dissipate your energies. Half an hour of quiet and calm, in the real world and inside your head. Then don't mess up your opening! Watch out! I can feel disaster looming!'

Sunday afternoon. Round three. My opponent seems nice, with a little round face, freckles, curly hair and a shy look about him. So shy that he never attacks. Maybe he's too scared of losing. I get off to a bad start. I'm not concentrating hard enough, and I play too quickly in the opening and make a terrible blunder: I lose a central pawn and the right to castle. I'm on my tenth move and I've ruined all my chances. What's left but to resign?

No! I refuse to lose, or even to draw! Burning to win, I put everything on the table. I plough straight ahead, risking everything. I check, I take, I threaten: the more of my pawns my opponent takes, the more aggressively I play. He's too concerned with protecting his pieces (Xavier would quote Mikhail Tal: ‘Chess is made up of three components: time, space and last of all material'), and especially with protecting his queen – he doesn't see my checkmate coming. His fear of losing is my salvation!

XP
:
As always, I had set up a quiet space away from the rest of the group, for the sake of my pupils' concentration and my own peace of mind during this intense week. As the afternoon wore on, I began to get phone calls and texts: I've won, I've lost. Then the first players returned. Some of them were bursting to tell me all about it, to explain, to celebrate, or to get it all off their chests. Others had gone to let off steam and would come later. When Fahim arrived I gave him a shake: