The last chess game, Chess City, Kalmykia
T he auditorium they send me to has bright lights, almost blinding, focused on two chairs with a table in the middle and a chessboard upon it. Carroll’s chessboard, with pieces made of his bones.
Walking onto the stage, I hear murmurs and heavy breathing from the audience, but it’s too dark to see them. This intimidates me even more.
I’m asked to sit on my chair, creepily tagged with the words Alice: Loser .
It looks like a gravestone, not a chair to sit on and play chess. But I have no choice and take my place.
In front of me, I realize I will be playing with the black pieces. The Chessmaster with the white. I’m not sure what’s going on.
Why is the Chessmaster playing with white chess pieces?
Then my eyes catch a strange sight. One of the white pieces, specifically the knight, is missing. It’s the only piece that’s missing on the whole board. I’m assuming this is where Carroll’s Knight is supposed to be.
But I am not catching the meaning behind it.
On both sides of the chessboard I see seven small cups, filled with that poison the Tibetan woman mentioned. I swallow hard. Will I really drink seven cups and die today?
A few tight breaths later, the unseen crowd applauds. Cocking my head, I see the Chessmaster arrive.
He strolls over as if he were Julius Caesar. Brushes his handlebar mustache to the left and right. Even combs the thin hairs on his head, and bows to the invisible crowd in his ridiculous armor outfit.
Suddenly, it strikes me. His outfit is that of a knight. So is he actually Carroll’s Knight? I don’t get it.
The Chessmaster sits with ease and then lightly touches the top of each of his chess pieces for luck, or as some kind of ritual. He doesn’t meet my eyes, but then pulls out a chess piece of a white knight, rubs it gently with his hands and kisses it, then places it on the board where it should be.
“My beloved white knight,” he says. “Carroll’s Knight.”
“Congratulations. I figured.” I keep an expressionless face.
“This is what you, Alice, helped me retrieve after all these years.”
“I wonder why it’s so important.”
“I can’t win without it,” he says with a smile. It’s the smile of a psychopath, but it’s strangely genuine.
“I find that hard to believe,” I say. “You’ve never lost a game, and yet you were playing without it.”
“Smart girl.” He claps his hands, the flesh barely meeting, like an aristocratic old lady living in an ancient mansion she’s never left for ages. “That I will answer, but first I need you to listen to this.”
He claps once more and the speakers start playing a nonsensical song. It’s all vocals of children and has no music in it. Probably some sort of a poem. I realize it’s called “Haddock’s Eyes. ”
“Remember this one, Alice?” He tilts his head with curiosity.
I do. “It’s a poem in Alice Through the Looking Glass .”
“Bravo.” He claps. “Clever girl. Does it remind you of me?”
“I don’t know who you are.”
“But you do know me. You used to know my children, too. My wife and my grandmother.”
“We were neighbors in Wonderland?”
“Not exactly.” He raises a single forefinger. “But back to your question: why I can’t win without Carroll’s Knight?”
“I’m all ears.”
His eyes dim, and a dark flash of anger and a vengeance-seeking look consumes me in ways I can’t explain. I feel sucked in by his stare, watching him lean forward. “Because Carroll denied me taking my revenge on you and killing you, though he knew what you did to me.” His voice is really unsettling. Not because he is scary, but because he is sincere. A sincere villain isn’t a good thing.
“I get it that I hurt you in Wonderland. You still haven’t explained the necessity of Carroll’s Knight.”
“It’s the only piece in chess I can kill you with, and I have it now. And the irony? You brought it to me. The double irony? That Lewis made Fabiola bury and hide it in Chess City.” His eyes are moistening, and it’s getting to me. “And triple irony? That Lewis made the chess piece I can kill you with in the first place. I guess he was confused about whether to kill you or give you another chance, so he left it to Fabiola, and the random fate of finding Carroll’s Knight.”
There is too much for me to absorb here, but what is most troubling is the Chessmaster’s ability to make me feel evil.
“You can’t win this game, Alice. I’ve mastered the game of chess for almost two centuries, so I will never lose one,” he says. “You know why? Because I was waiting for this moment all my life. You deserve this, Alice. To burn in hell. And all I needed was Carroll’s Knight.”
He pats his beloved chess piece one more time, as if it were alive.
So many questions are on my mind. What could I have possibly done in the past to this man that made him hate me so much? But the one that comes out of my mouth is this: “Why a knight? Why not any other piece?”
“Because I, the Chessmaster, Vozchik Stolb, was a Wonderlander once,” he says in a tone so friendly and naive that I’m starting to hate myself for hurting him. “In fact, I was the funniest, most harmless, of Wonderlanders. Lewis has mentioned me with care and I’m proud of it—though I still hate him.”
“Mentions you in the book?” I ask. “Who are you?”
“I’m the White Knight.”