The Queen's Gambit Read Free

him fourteen moves to trap her queen. She tried to play on, queenless, to ignore the mortal loss, but he reached out and stopped her hand from touching the pawn she was about to move. “You resign now,” he said. His voice was rough.
    “Resign?”
    “That’s right, child. When you lose the queen that way, you resign.”
    She stared at him, not comprehending. He let go of her hand, picked up her black king, and set it on its side on the board. It rolled back and forth for a moment and then lay still.
    “
No
,” she said.
    “Yes. You have resigned the game.”
    She wanted to hit him with something. “You didn’t tell me that in the rules.”
    “It’s not a rule. It’s sportsmanship.”
    She knew now what he meant, but she did not like it. “I want to finish,” she said. She picked up the king and set it back on its square.
    “No.”
    “You’ve got to finish,” she said.
    He raised his eyebrows and got up. She had never seen him stand in the basement—only out in the halls when he was sweeping or in the classrooms when he washed the blackboards. He had to stoop a bit now to keep his head from hitting the rafters on the low ceiling. “No,” he said. “You lost.”
    It wasn’t fair. She had no interest in sportsmanship. She wanted to play and to win. She wanted to win more than she had ever wanted anything. She said a word she had not said since her mother died: “Please.”
    “Game’s over,” he said.
    She stared at him in fury. “You greedy…”
    He let his arms drop straight at his sides and said slowly, “No more chess. Get out.”
    If only she were bigger. But she wasn’t. She got up from the board and walked to the stairs while the janitor watched her in silence.
    ***
    On Tuesday when she went down the hall to the basement door carrying the erasers, she found that the door was locked. She pushed against it twice with her hip, but it wouldn’t budge. She knocked, softly at first and then loudly, but there was no sound from the other side. It was horrible. She knew he was in there sitting at the board, that he was just being angry at her from the last time, but there was nothing she could do about it. When she brought back the erasers, Miss Graham didn’t even notice they hadn’t been cleaned or that Beth was back sooner than usual.
    On Thursday she was certain it would be the same, but it wasn’t. The door was open, and when she went down the stairs, Mr. Shaibel acted as though nothing had happened. The pieces were set up. She cleaned the erasers hurriedly and seated herself at the board. Mr. Shaibel had moved his king’s pawn by the time she got there. She played her king’s pawn, moving it two squares forward. She would not make any mistakes this time.
    He responded to her move quickly, and she immediately replied. They said nothing to each other, but kept moving. Beth could feel the tension, and she liked it.
    On the twentieth move Mr. Shaibel advanced a knight when he shouldn’t have and Beth was able to get a pawn to the sixth rank. He brought the knight back. It was a wasted move and she felt a thrill when she saw him do it. She traded her bishop for the knight. Then, on the next move, she pushed the pawn again. It would become a queen on the next move.
    He looked at it sitting there and then reached out angrily and toppled his king. Neither of them said anything. It was her first win. All of the tension was gone, and what Beth felt inside herself was as wonderful as anything she had ever felt in her life.
    ***
    She found she could miss lunch on Sundays, and no one paid any attention. That gave her three hours with Mr. Shaibel, until he left for home at two-thirty. They did not talk, either of them. He always played the white pieces, moving first, and she the black. She had thought about questioning this but decided not to.
    One Sunday, after a game he had barely managed to win, he said to her, “You should learn the Sicilian Defense.”
    “What’s that?” she asked