{"id":10432,"date":"2025-12-01T16:44:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-01T16:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vidgop.co.il\/?page_id=10432"},"modified":"2025-12-25T10:40:55","modified_gmt":"2025-12-25T10:40:55","slug":"a-queen","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/vidgop.co.il\/en\/books-2\/a-queen\/","title":{"rendered":"A Queen"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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A Queen<\/h3>

Translated by Leo Shtutin; Published in Ariel Chart \u2014 International Literary Journal<\/strong><\/p>

Dubliner Thomas O\u2019Gorman died from multiple knife wounds\u00a0\u00a0sustained during a chess game.<\/em><\/p>

Sky News<\/em><\/strong><\/p>

\u201cThere\u2019s nothing more pointless than chess,\u201d the downcast grandmaster in the hat with the sunken crown confided to my ear. \u201cYou concoct ambitious plans, you\u2019re an emperor, a strategist, a master of elephants, cavalrymen, siege towers, an entire army awaits your orders\u2026 and all for nothing. You can be a little more adroit, a little more whip-smart than your opponent, but that\u2019s it. Someday they\u2019ll invent an engine that\u2019ll learn all possible combinations of moves and calculate all possible positions. It\u2019ll outplay all the champions, and then the whole affair will become nothing but a meaningless game of high-aspiring wits.\u201d<\/p>

The grandmaster broke into a fit of coughing and pulled his crumpled hat further down on his brow.<\/p>

\u201cBelieve you me. Chess is a lie. An illusion. The game\u2019s monomaniacal greats\u2026 just recall who they were. La Bourdonnais, Morphy, Pillsbury\u2014all mentally disturbed. Schlechter\u2014died of starvation and privation. Steinitz\u2014went insane. Rabinovich\u2014committed to a mental institution. Capablanca\u2014died of severe cerebral sclerosis.\u00a0 Alekhine\u2014cooperated with the Nazis, died desperately alone after choking on a piece of meat. The game imparted meaning to their lives. Lives they ended up losing to it. Before killing himself, a Jinhua man named Liao killed his chess partner\u2014didn\u2019t want to be left without an opponent in the hereafter. \u2018Chess is ruthless,\u2019 the deranged Short has said. \u2018You have to be prepared to kill\u2019. Is the pursuit of an illusion worth such a price?\u201d<\/p>

The grandmaster fell abruptly silent. He took a backward step; furious now, he began flinging chess pieces from out the pockets of his old speckled overcoat. Pawns, bishops, knights scattered across the road. \u201cWretched things,\u201d he bellowed. \u201cI detest them!\u201d<\/p>

His pockets emptied, he wrenched his threadbare hat from his head and hurled it in the same direction. He stood in the light of a streetlamp, the tails of his overcoat flapping open in the wind. I moved off, glancing back at him, alarmed by his tirade. On gaining the ill-lit entrance to the nondescript hotel where I was lodged that evening, I turned around. My accidental interlocutor stood stock-still beneath the streetlamp.<\/p>

His aspect astounded me. The upturned chin, the sharp profile of the head, the black corner of the collar, the open overcoat\u2014all this recalled a sculpture forged from iron by a proficient hand.<\/p>

Yesterday, while attending to a tedious business matter, I found myself on the town\u2019s main street. I remarked a souvenir shop and decided to call in: I would purchase a trinket as a gift to my solitary sister. The little copper bell overhanging the door dully announced my entry. The portly waistcoated proprietor waved a hand in greeting. It was really more of a junk store, this souvenir shop. I was, I suppose, one of those rare droppers-by looking to while away an idle moment there. But, with the exception of a few cheap handmade knick-knacks, Indian and Chinese, I found nothing that captured my interest.<\/p>

I was making to leave when something familiar caught my eye from the depths of the shop. A human-sized figure stood in a shadowy nook.<\/p>

\u201cWhat\u2019s that back there?\u201d I said to the proprietor, who\u2019d been bustling about in the hope of flogging me something.<\/p>

\u201cAh, that\u2019s a chess queen,\u201d he said, scrambling to seize the figure by the waist and drag it over. \u201cWeighs a ton!\u201d<\/p>

\u201cThat can\u2019t be,\u201d I whispered, drawing involuntarily back. Before me stood the grandmaster I had happened upon in the street a few days prior. I saw it all: the upturned chin, the well-worn speckled overcoat, the sharp profile of the defiantly-held head. Regaining my composure somewhat, I reached out to touch his sleeve, but only to withdraw my hand at once\u2014my fingers encountered an iron silence.<\/p>

Seeing my bewilderment, the proprietor launched into a rapid-fire explanation. The figure, he said, was very valuable, a uniquely designed queen which, its weight notwithstanding, could be delivered to any specified address. I stood there, dazed, but at length composed myself enough to inform the proprietor that I did not play chess and had no understanding of it. The proprietor, though, had already scented the turmoil that gripped me when I saw the figure, and set about convincing me that I must buy it. I don\u2019t know what took hold of me in that moment, but, possessed by a mania of sorts, I scrawled my address onto a scrap of paper, paid the now-beaming proprietor, and dashed out.<\/p>

Today the figure was delivered to me. I had no sooner returned from my trip than a trio of removal men hauled it into my first-floor room. What am I to do with it now? The grandmaster stands in the corner, by the window, head still held high, and regards me with unblinking eyes. One night, perhaps, he\u2019ll let derangement set in, after the fashion of his fanatic idols, and strangle me with an iron hand.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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\u00a9 Jonathan Vidgop\u00a0 | Artist A. Gorenstein<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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