The Queen's Gambit by Walter Tevis Page B

knight five, then the remaining rook could slide over, and if the black player took the pawn, the bishop could uncover, and if he didn’t…
    She closed her eyes. If he didn’t capture it, Morphy could force a mate in two, starting with the bishop sacrificing itself with a check. If he
did
take it, the white pawn moved again, and then the bishop went the other way and there was nothing Black could do.
There it was.
One of the little boys across the street began crying.
There was nothing Black could do.
The game would be over in twenty-nine moves at least. The way it was in the book, it had taken Paul Morphy thirty-six moves to win. He hadn’t seen the move with the rook.
But she had.
    Overhead the sun shone in a blank blue sky. The dog continued barking. The child wailed. Beth walked slowly home and replayed the game. Her mind was as lucid as a perfect, stunning diamond.
    ***
    “Allston should have returned weeks ago,” Mrs. Wheatley was saying. She was sitting up in bed, with a crossword-puzzle magazine beside her and a little TV set on the dresser with the sound turned down. Beth had just brought her a cup of instant coffee from the kitchen. Mrs. Wheatley was wearing her pink robe and her face was covered with powder.
    “Will he be back soon?” Beth said. She didn’t really want to talk with Mrs. Wheatley; she wanted to get back to
Chess Review
.
    “He has been unavoidably detained,” Mrs. Wheatley said.
    Beth nodded. Then she said, “I’d like to get a job for after school.”
    Mrs. Wheatley blinked at her. “A job?”
    “Maybe I could work in a store, or wash dishes somewhere.”
    Mrs. Wheatley stared at her for a long time before speaking. “At thirteen years of age?” she said finally. She blew her nose quietly on a tissue and folded it. “I should think you are well provided for.”
    “I’d like to make some money.”
    “To buy clothes with, I suspect.”
    Beth said nothing.
    “The only girls of your age who work,” Mrs. Wheatley said, “are colored.” The way she said “colored” made Beth decide to say nothing further about it.
    To join the United States Chess Federation cost six dollars. Another four dollars got you a subscription to the magazine. There was something even more interesting: in the section called “Tournament Life” there were numbered regions; including one for Ohio, Illinois, Tennessee and Kentucky, and in the listing under it was an item that read: “Kentucky State Championship, Thanksgiving weekend, Henry Clay High School Auditorium, Lexington, Fri., Sat. Sun.,” and under this it said: “$185 in prizes. Entry fee: $5.00. USCF members only.”
    It would take six dollars to join and five dollars to get into the tournament. When you took the bus down Main you passed Henry Clay High; it was eleven blocks from Janwell Drive. And it was five weeks until Thanksgiving.
    ***
    “Can anyone say it verbatim?” Mrs. MacArthur said.
    Beth put up her hand.
    “Beth?”
    She stood. “In any right triangle the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides.” She sat down.
    Margaret snickered and leaned toward Gordon, who sat beside her and sometimes held her hand. “That’s the brain!” she whispered in a soft, girlish voice radiant with contempt. Gordon laughed. Beth looked out the window at the autumn leaves.
    ***
    “I do not know where the money goes!” Mrs. Wheatley said. “I have bought little more than trifles this month, and yet my hoard has been decimated. Decimated.” She plopped into the chintz-covered armchair and stared at the ceiling for a moment, wide-eyed, as if expecting a guillotine to fall. “I have paid electric bills and telephone bills and have bought simple, uncomplicated groceries. I have denied myself cream for my morning coffee, have bought nothing whatever for my person, have attended neither the cinema nor the rummage sales at First Methodist, and yet I have seven dollars left where I should have at least