Chess Scenes
Nov. 12th, 2007 09:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
arqueeteChess
Life is a kind of chess. -Benjamin Franklin
Ch 1 : Once I had dreams
Airports had always made her nervous. She was never entirely sure why. It wasn't flying; she had long since become indifferent to planes. But airports... Florence didn't like airports. Perhaps it was the chaos, with people running this way and that – Florence was always a little obsessed with organization, perfection, but that was part of what made her good at what she did. Perhaps it was just... bad memories. Airports, an unavoidable reminder that no matter where she took off or landed, she was never leaving home, never going home, because she still wasn't sure where home was. Perhaps she was just thinking too much – airports made her nervous, after all.
So, Florence buried herself in headlines. Newspapers from all over were talking about chess – though, not really chess, she knew. Politics, always politics. But, for now, her beloved game was what was fueling political discussion. It was fascinating to her, how a game with a reputation for being dull could seemingly overnight become the talk of the world. It also scared her, a little... Somehow everything seemed so different now.
Florence purchased her papers and returned quickly to her seat. She glanced through the mound of articles. Paper after paper, in half a dozen languages, her companion was put down in favor of the Russian chess champion – Anatoly Sergievsky. She glanced beside her at the American man, who was absorbed in a crossword puzzle. Florence wasn't sure if he'd even noticed she was back.
“You were right – they love to hate you,” she said. Freddie's attention immediately shifted and he tossed his things aside to reach for a paper. But, Florence pulled them out of his reach teasingly. “They're sure Sergievsky will crush you.”
“Let me see,” Freddie said, leaning over and managing to snatch a paper from her. His eyes darted over the text quickly before he tossed it aside. “Good.”
He was content; his attention was gone. Florence leaned over to pick up the discarded paper, biting her lip. She couldn't understand how he could find any amusement in this. Florence certainly didn't. It would be so easy for him to win them over, but again and again Freddie reinforced the world's view of him as the arrogant and overly-competitive chess champion. She couldn't help but feel a little angry, a little bitter, at how he always left her in the dark.
An announcement – their plane was boarding. Florence grabbed her bag, and glanced for a moment at the stack of newspapers in her arms. Decisively, she threw them away. Maybe Freddie was on to something with his apathy.
Ch 1 : And How the Cracks Begin to Show
Merano was a tourist trap. Florence found herself surrounded by advertisements and trinkets galore. The city was well prepped to squeeze every cent they could out of the attention surrounding the chess championship, and they were good at what they did. It felt like a sort of betrayal of beauty. From the hotel window, Florence looked up at towering snow-capped mountains and Merano felt like a sanctuary, an island of society protected by the walls of nature. But, it was no more than an illusion, a mirage of sincerity cast over a city which exploited this shamelessly.
“Forty-eight hours in this dreary dump – whose idea was that? If I have to sit and twiddle my thumbs for two days I'd rather do it in my own country.” Florence could hear Freddie's complaints from the hallway. She hoped vaguely that other hotel guests couldn't hear his ranting, but Florence wasn't eager to encourage them to bring their so-called discussion into the room. She was out of luck, however, as the two men entered.
Despite being the target of Freddie's displeasure this morning, Walter's cheery disposition seemed relatively undampered. Though he was not always in such a good mood, Walter never seemed to break character in his portrayal of the charismatic businessman. Even now when he had no one to impress he dressed the part flawlessly, gaudy tie and all. However, like a door-to-door salesman with a too-pasted-on smile and too-friendly demeanor, upon meeting Walter Florence had quickly gained an uneasy feeling that never fully left her.
Even if Florence had been completely at ease with Walter in general, the direction he was pushing Freddie in would've quickly put him in her disfavor. She understood that it was his job to make monetary decisions, but he often seemed to care about nothing else.
Walter sat on the edge of the bed. “Think of it as two days of vacation. Relax a while before the match. Besides, there's the press conference this afternoon, so it's not as though you have nothing to prepare for.”
Freddie wasn't listening. He hadn't been looking for a response from Walter, she supposed the stress of the morning had left him looking for anything he could to complain about. Though he always gave an outward expression of confidence in regards to these competitions, Florence witnessed this heightened neuroticism enough in connection to them to understand it was an indirect show of nervousness.
Freddie also didn't enjoy watching people idling when he was in a bad mood.
“Florence... go fill the ice bucket or something,” he snapped, tossing a suitcase on the bed to begin unpacking.
“He doesn't like to see people idling when he's upset,” she told Walter, making no attempt to lower her voice. Walter smirked and Freddie didn't even look up from the dresser where he was rummaging through his things.
Florence went into the hall in search of an ice machine, not unhappy in having an excuse to get away from the two men. Wandering around a corner, Florence almost collided with a petite elderly woman. Florence herself was only a couple inches over five feet, but she had to have an inch or two on this woman. She looked up at Florence with deep brown eyes and babbled on in a sweet tone in a language Florence didn't understand.
“I'm sorry, ma'am, I don't speak... German, or... Italian,” she fumbled.
The woman frowned, shaking her head slightly. Her lips parted as though she was going to say something more, but then she closed them again and pushed past Florence to continue down the hall.
Florence could hear whispering and soft laughter. She turned to find three Russian-looking men staring at her from a stairwell, muttering things to each other in, assumedly, Russian.
“She was asking the way to the lobby – and that was German,” a heavily accented voice called to her.
“A bit late to be telling me that,” she called back.
One of the men gestured for her to come over, and Florence was suddenly disconcerted. She supposed it wasn't often you saw Russians in Merano, Italy – chances are these were men working for or otherwise associated with the Russian chess champion. Not exactly the sort of people Florence wanted to be associating with surrounding a championship.
But, they were watching her. They seemed... innocent enough.
“Yes?”
“You are... Florence Vassy?” one of the men asked curiously.
“Who's asking?” she responded, pursing her lips.
“Fine, nevermind,” he said, but the companions exchanged looks that made it clear that they knew exactly who she was.
“You... wouldn't happen to know where I could get some ice, would you?” she asked.
“That would be right behind you,” he said.
Florence turned and sure enough, a small room with vending machines and an ice machine was right behind her. “Thank you.”
(The following is a continuation of where the last section with this color left off, sort of an ~alternate ending~?)
“Fine,” she said, figuring the bonus of getting away for the men for a moment was enough to prevent argument.
In the hall, Florence realized she had no idea where she was going. She didn't mind so much, it gave her a reason to wander around a while.
She found a flurry of activity in the lobby where apparently the Russian delegation was arriving. Florence found an inconspicious spot along the wall to watch the activity, just in time to hear the discussions in Russian, a jumbled mess to her ears, interrupted by heavily-accented English from a hotel employee. "Welcome to Merano, Mr. Sergievsky."
Florence and Freddie had studied the Russian's play extensively, discussed his strategies – through his chess games, Florence thought she had an idea of how the man's mind worked. The man himself, however, she couldn't say she was so familiar with. She had to admit she was rather curious.
It took Florence a moment to spot Anatoly Sergievsky among the other men. He looked very... ordinary. Not unattractive but not remarkably handsome either, and rather typically Russian. It was perhaps the lack of anything particularly quirky or unordinary about him from where Florence could see that interested her most. In her experience, chess players of his level were rarely entirely or mostly ordinary.
Florence loved chess. Adored was prehaps a better word. As a child she had related the game to memories of her father, who spent countless evenings back in Hungary teaching her the game. She thought, now, that his obsession with the game was his way of putting away thoughts of the conflict that would eventually lead to his capture, with his daughter left in a foster home to fill his unknown fate with the alternating horrors and happy endings of her own imagination. However, as she grew older, Florence had developed a growing fascination with the game on its own, fascination which soon expanded to a fascination with chess players themselves, with the traits that made these men the intellectual champions that they were.
Sergievsky could not be an exception. Florence was almost eager to see what would happen when the Russian would meet her outlandish player in two day's time.
Florence was startled by a voice beside her. "Are you Florence Vassey?"
Eager to escape a conversation with this stranger, Florence pretended not to hear and slipped out of the lobby in what she hoped was an inconspicious manner.
Back in the room, she set the still-empty ice bucket back and glanced around to find herself alone. She looked around the dresser and desk for some sort of note telling where Freddie had gone, but found none. Florence couldn't say she was particularly surprised or disappointed, though it was one of countless traits of Freddie's that nagged at her day to day.
Florence turned on the television. A reporter babbled on about the coming championship and Merano's growing excitement at being home to not only a large cultural event, but the plethora of chess fans and other tourists that came with it. She marveled at how people had turned this championship into some kind of political metaphor worthy of the world's attention.
There was a click as Freddie opened the door. He tossed his room key on the dresser and glanced with distaste at the television. “How can you watch this crap?” he said with annoyance. She didn't reply, and he turned it off.
“Where have you been?” she asked, a little more sharply than she intended.
“With Walter,” he said vaguely, walking around her to lay down on the bed. “What are you so uppity about?”
“I'm not,” she said, getting up to turn the television back on.
Freddie shrugged, continuing to stare up at the bland white ceiling.
There was silence for a moment – an uncomfortable silence Florence was eager to escape. “I think I'll go take a shower before the press conference,” she said. “I hope you've been thinking about how you'll handle things tonight – there are a lot of eyes on this match, you know that.”
“You do that,” he answered, choosing to dodge her latter statement as she knew he would.
It was going to be a long afternoon.
“One wonders how he's lasted this long -- the man's out of his mind!” Molokov said, dropping into a chair. He grabbed the remote control and changed the channel, but the American player's press conference was on this one too.
Anatoly shook his head and moved a piece on the board before him. He was jet lagged and couldn't concentrate, but it seemed more productive than Molokov's current preoccupation. “He's not,” Anatoly said. His eyes fell on the image of his opponent on the television, giving aggressive responses to reporters who seemed to be thoroughly enjoying the spectacle.
“He's not what?” Molokov said, already forgetting his own words.
“He's not crazy. Though... Sometimes genius and insanity can be almost synonymous, can't they?” Anatoly said, but he knew he might as well be talking to himself.
Molokov's dark eyes remained glued to the television. “He – Anatoly, look at this! Tell me again he isn't crazy?” he said suddenly, pointing to the screen.
Anatoly looked up in time to see the American fleeing the riot of reporters. “What happened?” he said, pulling himself away from the chess board to better see the screen.
“He just attacked a reporter,” Molokov said, looking at Anatoly pointedly.
“Out of nowhere?” Anatoly inquired.
“The man made a comment about his having a woman as his second,” Molokov said.
“And that's her, the second?” Anatoly said. In the champion's absence, a blonde woman was accosting the reporters. They regarded her with a mixture of annoyance and amusement; the vehemence of her angry response would later benefit them if anything.
“That's her. His second – and lover. A recipe for disaster from the start, but it's been going on seven years now,” Molokov said.
Anatoly chose not to comment. He should be working... On what, for what reason, he couldn't be sure. But, idle time leads to thinking, and there's a lot he didn't want to be thinking about right then. He picked a newspaper off the nightstand, glancing through an article on the American's arrival in dreary Merano that morning. Anatoly and Molokov had arrived hours before, but the press was only concerned with the brash American.
“I'm telling you – crazy. He has no chance,” Molokov went on.
“You keep saying that, and I keep telling you it's nonsense. It would certainly not be in our best interest to be underestimating him in any case,” Anatoly retorted. “I can't believe you are so inclined to believe the papers.”
“We won't underestimate him,” Molokov repeated. “We wouldn't be so foolish. Afterall, a lose reflects badly on us all.”
“No. I'll be the one who will be blamed if I lose,” Anatoly said. He set aside the newspaper with disgust. If politics were his forte, he would've become a politician.
“It's not so simple anymore,” Molokov said, annoyance chipping away at his calm facade. “The whole world is following this competition – you've seen the news. This is no longer a match between two men, but a match of two nations.”
“Oh please, don't be like them – turning this into some kind of metaphor for war. I know they expect you to be on top of the press, but -- I'm a chess player. If I'm to win, I need a chess second,” Anatoly said, feeling relieved to finally voice his growing exasperation.
Molokov stared back blankly. He grabbed his coat and left, his indignation clear in each step out the door. Anatoly was left alone in the suite, alone with his accursed thoughts.
How did he get here? He had dedicated his life to this game, sacrificed so much for this game. And here he was – fast on his way to becoming champion. Yet, the thrill was long gone. He had loved it, in the beginning – the game, it's history, the eloquence of that match of intellect between two people. And he was good at it, amazingly good, in fact. But, when people started to notice, it stopped becoming just a game anymore. Before he could see it coming, it was his life – not just being a chess player, but being a pawn in a bigger game where the rules weren't so straightforward and the consequences greater. In this political game he was quickly becoming a different man than he was coming in. Was there no way out?
“If you lose this match, will you continue playing chess professionally?” The reporter's question hung heavy in the air.
Freddie's look answered the question before he could open his mouth to speak. “I don't intend to lose.”
By Florence's standards, which were doubtlessly a great deal higher than Freddie's, things were not going well. She'd spent the entire conference with her hands clasped firmly in her lap and her jaw tightly clenched while trying to maintain an expression that showed confidence in her player's words – words she was not eager to associate with.
Florence had seen people crushed under the pressure of the press, but Freddie had never been one of those. He was always the epitome of confidence – the epitome of confidence being arrogance. Effortlessly he threw about insulting and politically incorrect comments and cast undiplomatic looks. Florence hang on his every word with dread, knowing the next comment could easily bring forth a disaster she'd be left to deal with.
“Interesting that you've chosen a woman as your second.”
Florence locked eyes with the brazen reporter. She could feel the color draining from her face. It was immediately clear to her that he would be the one. The one who pushed things too far.
The room knew, too. She could feel the anticipation building. Many of these people were seasoned reporters, but anyone could see that this was the fire meeting Freddie's short fuse.
“What was that?” his voice rang out, hardly picked up by the microphone at the podium as he moved to stand beside it.
Florence gave an involuntary twitch. She wanted to get up, to interfere somehow, but she didn't know how, didn't know if she should.
“It's just an interesting... strategy, Mr. Trumper. Sleeping with your advisors.”
There it was. To Florence it was all a blur – fist meeting jaw and the flurry of the reporters, the man who jumped between them but Freddie was already slipping out the door, away from the eager flitter of camera shudders.
Florence leapt up, intending to hurry after him, but froze. The eyes were on her now, waiting for her to react. She looked into the eager faces, ready to absorb anything she might add to the scandal. She felt her poise being eaten away beneath the bright lights. Florence knew this was dangerous, that this wasn't her, but still she stepped off the platform before the reporters.
“I can just see the headlines now,” she said, her reeling mind struggling to twist the situation in their favor. “How you will tear apart a man who is volatile because you've made him so.”
Florence avoided the mixed emotions on her audience's faces and pushed through the crowd into the open hallway, almost jogging to the nearest elevator to get away from that public relations disaster. Once in the elevator she touched her forehead to the wall. She wasn't going to stand for this, she told herself. Not this time.
The elevator gave a definite ding and the doors slid open. Florence marched to the hotel room she and her player shared. The door was already open a crack, and she could hear Freddie and Walter's raised voices inside.
Florence shoved the door open and Walter found this his opportunity to push his way out, snapping something at her about this not being his job. Freddie and Florence's eyes met and for a moment there was a stillness.
“Freddie, I don't even know anymore!” she said, words meant to be a calm expression of frustration twisting into anger as they left her lips.
“I don't know what the hell you're upset about, Florence!” he returned, his face twisted in that not unfamiliar fury. “You have no right to come barging in here and going off on me as though this were my fault!”
“I don't even care how the whole thing started, Freddie! I am just sick and tired of being left to apologize for you all the time when sometimes I can hardly even convince myself that I shouldn't just let your career fall to shambles!” she said. “I am this close to...”
She hadn't meant to do that. It wasn't the first time she let that buried idea surface thoughtlessly, and the threat had grown empty over the years. But, now, her heart was heavy with feelings she didn't want to name and her voice carried sincerity that didn't seem so empty.
Freddie's expression shifted into a sort of mock incredulity. “This close to what, Florence? This close to leaving?”
In Freddie's mocking tone, the threat regained that hollow sound, and Florence's resolve weakened.
Freddie let out a long sigh and his anger seemed to fade into calmness. “It was just a stupid press conference, Florence. Things will cool down by the start of the match.”
Part of her felt like she shouldn't let this incident slip by so easily. However, another part of her felt foolish, knew that he was right, that she should know better. That latter part was winning.
She felt confused and not herself, but when Freddie pulled her into an embrace she didn't fight back. She told herself she shouldn't feel like it was wrong somehow that she was content with this ending.
Ch 2:
Freddie's sleeping form was silhouetted against the morning light peering through the hotel curtains. Florence toyed with the idea of waking him, but instead she just crossed to the window.
The tumultuous emotions of the previous night had faded, and Florence felt on top of things again. It wasn't unlikely that they had been the result of stress and jet lag, but she still felt a little uneasy about the whole thing. A seed of doubt had been planted in her subconscious, and she couldn't help but feel as though perhaps it had been there for a long time, swept under the rug.
Florence found a notepad in the nightstand's drawer, and jotted down a quick note: I'm going into town for breakfast. I assumed you'd prefer another hour of sleep over joining me. -- Florence. She doubted he'd have wanted to come anyway.
Outside the hotel Merano had awoken to a breezy spring morning, a distinct odor in the air hinting at rain. Florence usually liked rainy days, but today she felt like she could've used the sun.
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Date: 2007-11-13 03:29 pm (UTC)