“Chess is an immaculate combination of art and war,” you said as you held the king out to me like a piece of treasure. I stared at you wide-eyed, fully enthralled by how beautifully you were describing the game.
I was ten years old and you were five years sober. We were in our backyard, starting what would become a sacred Sunday father-son ritual for years to come.
“I’ll teach you how to master playing with the black pieces,” you said smiling.
“But, Tipa, didn’t you say white gets to move first? Why would I want to be black?” I asked.
“Most players would think that’s an advantage, but there’s so much more to gain from moving second. You get to see who your opponent is, before he ever gets to know who you are. Like a spy gathering information before he attacks.”
“Like a black James Bond?” I asked, knowing it would make you chuckle.
“Yes, like a black James Bond.”
You went quiet and looked at the king in your hand.
“But your late grandfather would disagree. He said the game, at its best, is an honest conversation between two people. Sometimes a violent one full of yelling and screaming, and other times a softer, kinder conversation, like that of two people getting to know each other or old friends catching up. He was always the more romantic player. I think you’ll have more of his playing style, actually.”
“Tipa, how can people speak to each other by moving a bunch of wooden pieces on a board?” I asked.
“You would be surprised, Nathan,” you said, gazing at the chessboard as if it were saying something to you. I looked and tried to listen hard for all that you were hearing, but all I heard was the breeze weaving, bird melodies between us and the tree.
Now, ten years later, we haven’t played a game of chess since I started writing, or maybe I started writing when we stopped playing. I don’t remember. The pieces are dusty. The cloth board is wrinkled with neglect, and so are your hands. The Nama choir music from my neighbours softly seeping through my window goes quiet when I notice you standing in my front doorway.
“Hi,” you announce yourself.
“You’re early,” I reply.
“Can I come in?”
“Sure.”
You take your cap off and step inside. The white hairs scattered across your head look exactly like the mountains you grew up on during winter. The faint whiff of a hangover accompanies you. I watch your eyes as they look around. My apartment is small, but decent for someone just starting out. I wait for you to say something but you don’t. The text you sent was short and to the point. It felt like it didn’t have an agenda, or rather that the only agenda was chess. Like the good old days. If only it were that simple.
“How’ve you been?” I ask.
“Getting by, you know this city has never been kind to southerners. Were you playing before I got here?”
“No, it just stays set up. There’s no one to really play with around here.”
You silently take a seat at the kitchen table. The air is a little humid from my cooking, but the occasional breeze blowing through the kitchen window provides some reprieve. I check on the chicken on the stove. Our combined silence makes the lid sound extra loud as I set it down on the counter. Silence is always louder when you’re with people. I am waiting for you to ask when I learned to cook, but I guess you already know, so the sound of my knife on the cutting board is all that punctuates our reunion.
I feel your stare on the back of my head. I confirm it in your reflection on the microwave. Your mouth opens for a while, but no sound comes out. Instead, you sigh, place a cigarette between your teeth, and head to the porch. I continue to stir a pot that does not need any more stirring.
“How’s Namab doing?” I ask. A huge cloud of smoke leaves your being. You’ve been on fire since you were in high-school. You tried to quit once in your thirties, but burning is addictive when you’re taught how to do it well.
“He’s alright. He’s really into drawing these days. I’m planning on getting him some more supplies next week. But his grades are slipping a little.”
“Does he still do the long division exercises I taught him?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. He was never really into school and it only got worse when you left.”
“I didn’t leave, you kicked me out.” The words leave my mouth before I can stop them.
That night had started like any other.
Namab and I were watching cartoons, waiting for you to come home from work. You were later than usual. Your car pulled into the driveway but you took a while to enter the house. The way you had sped off in your car after you got fired, we all knew you’d come back a different person that night. But you didn’t even come back as a person, you came back a tornado, destroying everything you came into contact with. I was sixteen and you were five feet away—I had never seen a natural disaster up close before. When everyone told me the stories, I never thought they were lying, but I never truly believed them.
Why would I? You never gave me any reason to, until that night. I watched as you destroyed the TV, tore down the curtains, and flung the photo frames like frisbees. You must’ve tired yourself out, so you sat down on the floor, seamlessly blending in with your wreckage. You sat for a while and suddenly looked up at me like I was prey. Like everything around you was prey. I couldn’t move a muscle.
***
You say nothing.
The silence is maddening.
You want to pretend like it didn’t happen. Time forgets, but I don’t. I want you to say something, anything, everything, but you sit, stoically staring at the chessboard and say nothing. I notice you made the first move. Which makes me even more mad. I want to say something about how anything and everything could turn into nothing, but I look at you and I can’t find the words or my voice. So, I close my eyes, sigh, sit down, and make my move.
The game gets underway: your pawns are loose, basically free, and your knights on the rim are useless. I don’t take advantage of your seemingly weak position. I develop my pieces and castle. I leave the centre wide open to you. I want to see what your intentions are. I need to know what you want first.
“The King’s Indian defence—the same opening your grandad used to play,” you say, in a forced casual tone.
“Yeah, but I’m trying to play it better.”
“And you can. You are.”
I don’t know what you’re trying to imply so I don’t answer.
“I hear you’re a writer now?”
“Yeah, I wait tables to make ends meet, but I’m a writer.”
The very first poem I read at an open mic was about you. There were less than ten people in that room, and the light was really low. Perfect conditions for a confession under a borrowed name. A name I would unwittingly come to inhabit like skin.
People liked my poem about you; they loved how I used the watch you gave me on my 18th birthday as a metaphor for generational trauma. They even snapped their fingers, the same way you snapped yours from underneath your car at five in the morning when it broke down on our way back from your aunt’s funeral. I deciphered your snaps like Morse code to figure out which tool you wanted, while making sure the light in my hand did not tremble one bit. Your white vest was covered in oil. From where I stood, it looked like you were bleeding darkness. Above us, the cold darkness was shifting into daylight. If you had called your brother, my uncle, the mechanic, we would’ve been home hours ago but, no, constantly wanting to be the one who fixes things is a trait you inherited from your father. Along with constantly being the one who breaks things, who is the breaking, who is broken.
We stare at each other for a while, and then you play a pawn to C4. A hostile move.
“And how’s that going for you?” you ask, sitting back in your chair.
I play my pawn to H6. Some breathing room for my king when things inevitably get too messy.
“Really good. I try to spend most of my free time writing. My only vice, honestly.”
“For how long?”
I reinforce my defences; I don’t attack yet.
“You’re chasing your own tail, Nathaniel. You will tire soon and eventually have to deal with what I had to deal with and what we all have to deal with. I just want better for you,” you say.
“That’s why you’re here after everything? ‘Cause you want better for me?”
Your shoulders drop. You are relieved there’s something between us for you to look at. You stare at my knight with a blank expression and I immediately realise you’ve always seen my attack coming.
“I’m here because I miss playing chess with you,” you say.
“Even if I’m not the same player you want me to be?”
You don’t answer. I deliver a checkmate with my knight. You could’ve and should’ve played better, handled the opening with more care and paid more attention towards the middle game. Lord knows that’s when your pieces needed you the most.
You put both your palms on the table and lightly sigh, before getting up to go and smoke. I catch your reflection in the microwave again. Your eyes are still bloodshot from Saturday night. You’re downing the last of your beer. People look so different when they don’t know they’re being watched. I notice how much more grey your beard has gotten and the new stanza of wrinkles etched onto your forehead. Your hollow cheeks now highlight grandad’s high Nama cheekbones. Behind your weathered glasses your eyes look slightly dimmer, those ever-present dark circles around them.
It dawns on me that this is not the same man who taught me with a kind patient hand how a knight moves.
That man is long gone, and so is the little boy he raised.
Jeremy Tiboth is a Namibian writer currently studying Applied Math at the Namibian University of Science and Technology.