|
Copyright (C) Wilson F. Engel, III, 1992-2001 All Rights Reserved The Chess Master continued. After a very long interval he quietly seeks out an old hermit, Mr. Shan, who his friend once mentioned as being the wisest, if not the best, chess master in the world. The hermit lives in a hovel, far away on a mountain top. The hermit does not care about artificial refinements or the opinions of the world. He understands and loves the mysteries of chess and he understands, as a few others, the psychology of those who play the game. Therefore Mr. Shan intimately understands the tendency towards solitude of Mr. Wan, and, discerning the troubling signs in a brief, cryptic interview, he agrees to give Mr. Wan both lodging and competition, for a brief space of time, while he wrestles with his problem. He makes three conditions, which Mr. Wan accepts—that Mr. Wan pay Mr. Shan nothing, that Mr. Wan expect nothing in return for Mr. Shan's services, and that Mr. Wan depart as soon as he perceives that the way is clear for him to do so. There, on the mountain, exposed to the open sky and the immensity of space, the two masters battle in the primal way of chess. Their rhythm of play is like the rhythm of the heavens and the seasons. They eat and drink for survival only. For days, they live on the mountain air alone. Spring gives way to summer. Blue skies give way to autumnal gray. Winter comes with its jagged black boughs. For a full year, the two grapple with the immensity of the game. After a difficult time of mutual adjustment, the two become close, out of respect for the game. Mr. Wan finally confesses—with some hesitation and self-doubt—his discomfort at the laughter of others. He says that he thinks the laughter is not only impolite but unjust. He also says that his dreams are filled with vague figures; white and black statues taunting and ridiculing him. With gay eyes, the hermit says he sympathizes. Clearly this is why Mr. Wan has come to the mountain. Mr. Shan and Mr. Wan realize that it is time for the hermit's final advice and for Mr. Wan to depart. The hermit now gives his new friend advice explicitly. He tells Mr. Wan to go to a special garden temple in a pleasant valley in a far-away province and to follow the hermit's instructions exactly. These he requires Mr. Wan to memorize. These instructions, the hermit says, will lead Mr. Wan to a great chess master. This great chess master's art will cure Mr. Wan of the gnawing need in his heart. The great chess master's art will free Mr. Wan from his evil dreams and release his energies for the full enjoyment of the game of chess. V Following the hermit's instructions, Mr. Wan goes to the special garden with its spacious symmetrical grounds surrounding the ancient temple. The gardens are in the form of an elaborate grid, like an enormous chess board surrounded by a wall. In the middle of the gardens is the temple, open on all four sides, but apparently accessible only through one door opposite the garden's single gate. In this sacred place, as the hermit had predicted, within the raised temple, Mr. Wan finds the great chess master but things do not proceed as he had visualized beforehand. He expected to meet the master face to face and to talk with him as they played. Instead he never sees his opponent's face, and the master never speaks. The master remains concealed at all times behind a reed mat, hung from the ceiling like an impermeable plane, parallel to the entrance door and perpendicular to the board at the opposite side. The master remains invisible—except for his slender, expert hands with their refined elongated fingers and polished nails. Mr. Wan feels as if he is again a novice. The grand master is a cipher to him. For example, how the master enters and leaves the temple is, to Mr. Wan, a mystery. Mr. Wan never sees evidence of him except in the deft white hands gracefully moving the traditional pieces over the board. At times Mr. Wan thinks of the master as if he were a spirit of the place and not really a human being at all. Adjustment to the play is not easy. During the first few dozen games, Mr. Wan hears, low but certain, the sound of laughter from behind the mat—surely the laughter of the great master. Mr. Wan is very disturbed. He, however, was warned to expect this laughter by Mr. Shan. Following the hermit's advice, Mr. Wan breathes deeply and attempts to ignore the laughter by focusing on the play and the grand master's game is so engaging that Mr. Wan finds it easy to grow oblivious to his laughter. Indeed, as each match passes, the grand master's laughter itself lessens, and finally it disappears altogether, like the hoot of the night owl. Mr. Wan and the grand chess master play hundreds, thousands of matches. Mr. Wan loses count of the times he wins, loses or draws at chess. Each game becomes less significant as the broad mathematical context of the game of chess emerges as if for the first time to his view. Mr. Wan slowly becomes involved in the intricate maze of patterns of the game itself. He becomes absorbed in the labyrinth of chess. Gradually Mr. Wan has the illusion that he is not playing against the grand chess master at all, but rather he is playing against himself. He sees in the dividing mat a shadow of himself in the late afternoon, and it is as if he were playing against the shadow. Indeed, the divider between himself and his opponent seems sometimes to have become a mirror. One day, in a kind of hallucination, the dividing mat does, for a moment, become transparent, and he fancies that he himself is on the other side of it. Mr. Wan's brain seems to act simultaneously on both sides of the chess board, as both protagonist and antagonist. Alternative possibilities of strategies and individual moves, extending to their myriad probabilistic terminations, make for a labyrinth of mirrors. Mr. Wan no longer knows which player—himself or the grand master—is making the moves. The board is governed by disembodied hands. He is a spectator at a game at which he plays on both sides. In his ecstatic confusion of identity, Mr. Wan laughs out loud. He does this completely unselfconsciously. VI One morning not long after his own outburst of laughter, Mr. Wan is on the way to the very special place for chess. Ordinarily he walks the silent paths alone. Each time he marvels at the symmetrical arrangements of the blossoming plum trees to either side of the walk, in the fresh morning light. He wonders why he has never seen a single gardener in this immaculate horticultural paradise. Today, however, on the path ahead he espies a man. It is his old friend, Mr. Tze, who seems to be walking very slowly in the same direction as him. Mr. Wan draws alongside his friend and matches his measured pace. At first the two men do not speak, but they proceed in rank as if they were twinned in a shared rite of deep meditation. The two friends are dressed in identical style, as if they are images in a mirror, except that Mr. Wan wears white and Mr. Tze wears black. After proceeding for some time in silence they break off from their respective reveries. They exchange a few pleasantries and then, quite naturally, they discuss chess. Mr. Wan says that now numbers and rankings mean nothing to him. His friend understands. Mr. Wan says that now the mirrors mean nothing to him. His friend understands this too. Mr. Wan says that now the laughter means nothing to him. His friend laughs. Mr. Wan laughs too. The men's eyes are bright and gay. The two male figures together, right feet forward, mount the steps that lead up under the swaying arches of the open chess temple. Side by side, they bow as they enter the hallowed building, open on all sides to the pristine landscape and the resplendent dawn. It is no surprise that upon entering the special chess room they quietly take their places, on either side of the board, and continue their game.
The End
|
