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Budapest, Hungary, December 5th, 1955
Florence threw her doll, and stomped her feet, and shouted at the top of her lungs that she wasn’t sleepy, but her father only smiled indulgently and kissed her forehead when she was done.
“Come now,” he said. “Be good. If you don’t go to bed now, you won’t be getting treats from Mikulás at all. You’ll be getting a pile of coal from Krampusz.”
Even at three years old, Florence had some sense that coal wouldn’t be such a bad thing. She often woke in the night from shivering. But still, chocolates sounded better, and so she placed the well-shined boot under the bed, and then she climbed up and got under the covers, as her father instructed.
As an adult, she would learn that the tradition was to place a boot on the windowsill for Saint Mikulás to fill with treats (or Krampusz with coal, if you were naughty), but her father’s fear of attracting any party attention for celebrating what could be seen as a religious festival had led to the creative measure of putting it under the bed.
When she woke up, she didn’t find chocolates or even coal. The boot was filled with oddly-shaped, black and white wooden pieces. The grain of the wood was rough against her small, soft fingers. They clearly weren’t dolls. She wasn’t sure if they were even toys at all. The cold from the floorboards seeped up through her woolen socks to the soles of her feet and up through her body. She shivered.
Florence didn’t know what to make of her gift. She always meant to be good, but she was often scolded anyway, even when she thought she was following the rules. She couldn’t tell if the pieces in her hands were the work of Mikulás or Krampusz. She still can’t.
*
Bayonne, NJ, U.S., December 24th, 1977
Florence’s building was poorly insulated, and the wind whistled as it swept through the gaps between the window frames, but the steam from the soup bubbling on the stove had warmed the kitchen, and the smell of frying onions covered up the usual noxious odors from the perms they did in the salon downstairs.
She’d met Freddy Trumper at the chess tables in Tompkins Square Park last November, and now they were living together for reasons that were practical, not romantic.
Freddie had been sharing an old tenement on the Lower East Side with four roommates, a shower, and roaches the size of silver dollars in the kitchen where they’d sit bent over the board until 2 or 3 in the morning. By that time, it was too late to take the bus back to her hovel in Princeton, and the roommates were starting to get mad that she slept there most nights but didn’t pay any rent. And also one of them kept “accidentally” walking into the kitchen whenever she showered.
She had convinced him to cross the river to Bayonne where they could just barely afford a two bedroom, but half the time Freddy would come sleep in her bed. Almost always, they would just sleep, not touching. She’d noticed from when she met him that he seemed to avoid touch as much as possible, but sometimes he would reach for her in the night, and they’d have sex that was oddly fast and furtive for two people alone in their own apartment. He’d also usually go back to his own bed afterward.
With another guy, maybe she’d worry about that more, but the way he played chess was too fascinating to leave room for her to think about much else when she thought about him.
A stray comment he’d made when they’d first met implied that he hadn’t had too many happy Christmases as a kid. She hadn’t either. Maybe this could be the start of a new tradition. She had told him she was making dinner, but hadn’t made too big a deal, thinking it’d be a nice surprise.
At 8:30, she’d called Murphy’s, the bar around the corner, but he wasn’t there. At 9:45, after she’d reheated the soup for the third time, thinking he’d surely be home any minute, she decided she might as well go ahead and eat some.
The broth was okay, but the chunks of fish were mushy and mostly disintegrated from all the reheating.
The sound of the door closing woke her. The clock on the stove let her know it was well past 11.
“Where’ve you been?” she muttered, still disoriented and trying to rub out the crick in her neck from falling asleep at their little kitchen table.
His expression went hard and suspicious. “What’s that to you?” he asked sharply. There was a mark on his chin that might have been lipstick. Or a bruise. Or nothing at all. She might have been imagining it.
“Nothing, I--” she felt tears stinging her eyes, “I made Christmas Eve dinner.”
“Oh.” His expression got less guarded. “What’d you make?”
“Fish soup.” Freddy looked skeptical. “It’s a traditional Hungarian Christmas dish. It’s called halászlé.” She hadn’t learned how to make it until she was in college and the dorm wanted to do a “potluck.” Everyone was supposed to bring a dish from their ethnic background, and Florence had realized that she didn’t know a single Hungarian dish. “Do you want to try it? I could warm it up for you.”
“I was just gonna go back over the Botvinnik Variation.” They had three boards set up in their tiny living room, all of them currently playing out variations on the Semi-Slav Defence.
“It’s Christmas Eve,” she said.
“I know what fucking day it is, Florence!” He yelled with enough force that it left him panting. She sat frozen watching his chest rise and fall twice, three times.
“Florence, I’m sorry.” He reached out a hand, but she jumped up from the table to evade him. She ran to her bedroom and closed the door.
*
Tokyo, Japan, December 25th, 1979
They decided to head east a few weeks early and do a little bit of sightseeing as they prepped for Anatoly’s title defense. Defection had proven quite lucrative. Florence had negotiated sponsorships from a number of prestigious brands and even gotten Wheaties and Special K into a bidding war. And then there had been an appearance on Concentration for which Florence had commanded a fee befitting a grandmaster and champion of such fame, genius, and handsomeness.
She booked them into an opulent suite at the Mandarin Oriental in Tokyo, and Florence had even convinced them to throw in a free night and a free dinner in return for permission to publicize that Anatoly had stayed there once they checked out.
Every day the hotel sent up a complimentary breakfast that contained toast, jam, and eggs, and also rice and fish.Their third morning in Tokyo Anatoly looked up from the paper and said, “Oh no, it’s December 25th already. I completely lost track of the date with all the flights and time changes. Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Say anything about what?”
“That it’s your Christmas, of course. You know I’m not so familiar with the Western celebrations. I wish you’d reminded me.”
Florence intended to say that she didn’t celebrate Christmas, or that she wanted to celebrate his Christmas in January instead, or something else that would get him to leave it alone, but then he said “Ah, but I wonder if we can find a place that would have halászlé. Of course we should have had it last night, but better late than never.”
“Do you like halászlé?” she asked.
“Yes, I love it. We had a Hungarian neighbor when I was growing up. Auntie Szabova. I’ve never mentioned her? She moved in when I was about seven. She always made bejgli at Christmas too. They were . . .” He trailed off, probably realizing, as Florence had, that the woman was most likely a spy who had been moved to Moscow in return for information on members of the uprising. For all they knew, she was the one who had named Florence’s father.
“Anyway,” Anatoly said with false cheer, “these Eastern European dishes are probably not to your Western tastes. What shall we have instead? Mincemeat pies? Roast beef?”
“I do like halászlé,” she said. She didn’t pronounce it as well as he did which made her angry.
“It’s a big city. Shall we ask the concierge if he knows of anywhere that might have it? It’s not too late for you to have a happy Christmas.” He was smiling like this would be a grand and fun adventure.
How could she tell him that no, it was definitely far, far too late. His government had made sure of that. Well, not his government anymore, she supposed.
He was still looking at her expectantly, so she said, “I don’t think I have time today. I have so many more of Viigand’s matches to go over. You know I was only just able to get the score sheets from Lucerne.”
“It’s Christmas Day,” he said.
“Anatoly, I know what--” she caught herself. Took a deep breath. “Okay. You want to try to find a Hungarian restaurant, in Tokyo, open on Christmas Day? That is the wild goose chase you think would be a good use of our time here?” She’d gotten herself worked up again by the end of her harangue.
“Why are you so angry?” he asked.
“I’m not.”
“You are. Is this our first fight?”
She snorted. “Hardly.”
“When have we fought before?”
“Now you want to have a fight about fighting?”
“No. I don’t want to fight at all,” he said, but his tone had gone from bemused to irritated. “And so I am going out.” He tossed the paper aside and rose to his feet. “You enjoy Viigand’s eleven draws in Lucerne. Let me know what they elucidate about his weaknesses for you.”
“I will.”
“Good.”
“Fine.”
Anatoly held her eyes for a moment, and then he looked around the room like he didn’t quite know what to do next. Florence felt he was probably waiting for her to tell him not to go. She didn’t want him to, but she couldn’t make herself say it. After a moment, he strode over to the closet and put on his coat and pulled on his gloves.
She buried her face in her hands as the door closed behind him.
*
Hastings, UK, January 7th, 1992
The plan had been to slip into the hall where he was playing his fifth match once it was underway, get a good look at him, and then, well, she didn’t know what then. Possibly get on the next train right back to London. Or not. But definitely she had expected to have an entire chess match to decide.
Instead, she rounded the corner as she left the railway station in Hastings, and there he was, standing in front of her on the pavement, not three feet in front of her.
There’d been a couple grainy photographs of him in Chess Life and Kingpin over the years, and the very rare news report when he’d win another Eastern Bloc tournament (they didn’t let him outside of territories they controlled after Bangkok), but the images were never clear enough to see how he really looked. She’d expected more of a change in him, imagining that life back in the Soviet Union would age him, but his face was unlined. His wool coat tapered to a trim waist, and there was no gray in his dark hair. He looked the same as he had all those years ago when he’d declared to the world that he intended to win the World Chess Championship and take the title from the arrogant American, Frederick Trumper.
She suddenly felt very conscious of the fact that she’d turned 40 only three days ago.
He spotted her only seconds after she’d seen him. Their eyes met, and they both stood frozen. He was the first to move, inclining his head he said, “Ms. Vassy, hello. I didn’t know you would be attending the tournament.”
She blurted out, “I’m not. I mean--I’m not here professionally. I only came down to watch for the day.”
She couldn’t tell if he was slow to respond, or if the pounding of her heart and the fact she hadn’t slept the night before was somehow distorting her sense of time, but eventually he said, “I see. Well, I am afraid you will be disappointed. A pipe has burst. They’ve had to clear everyone out of the hall, and all play has been canceled until further notice.”
“Oh.” She felt bereft, trying to think of an excuse that could keep her here another day, another minute even. She couldn’t believe she was seeing him again, now, finally, and it would be over so soon.
A salty breeze off the Channel lifted the ends of the grey scarf around his neck, and she wrapped her own more tightly.
He seemed to hesitate, but then he said, “I was just on my way to a pub called The Three Stags. I hear the owner’s wife makes pelmeni she learned from her Russian grandmother.”
“Ah. Because it’s Christmas,” she said.
He nodded.
“And what is Christmas without pelmeni?” she asked.
“I’ve had many,” said Anatoly. He looked at her with an earnestness that was both serious and wary, and suddenly a seaside town in East Sussex became a mountain top in Italy. “I’ve had many Christmases without the elements one needs even more than pelmeni to have a happy holiday. I think,” he added slowly, “that you take my meaning?”
Florence felt breathless. She didn’t know what to say, but she nodded.
“I was afraid that this year would be the same,” he said.
“So there’s no one--I mean, you’re not meeting anyone there at the pub?”
“No. I am entirely alone.” The words and their full meaning hit her, and she shivered, although the breeze had died down. “Perhaps, if you are free, you would consider accompanying me, Ms. Vassy?”
That made her smirk. “So formal. Shall I call you Mr. Sergievsky?”
He bit his lip and looked down at his feet. “Please don’t,” he said softly, almost too low for her to hear.
“Yes, I--Anatoly, I can’t think of anything I would rather do.”
He held out his arm for her, and she took it.