if you did it with enough assurance and picked the right moments.
The theatre was only half full, there were several empty rows at the back. They sidled away into one of these, through the blinking darkness, and sat down. Soon the gyrations of the gray shadows on the screen took on a little sense.
There were a man and a woman getting married, or else remarried after a divorce, it was hard to tell which. Then she left him because she thought he was interested only in business. Then she came back, but he left her because he thought she was interested only in social life. Then he came back, but then they both left each other again, simultaneously.
From all around came the soft breathing and somnolent gum chewing of drugged humanity.
Then the man and woman both raced to the bedside of their dying little boy, who had been tucked away in a military academy all this time. But the boy recovered, and then the woman left both of them, for their own good, and a little while afterwards the man did the same thing. Then the boy left them.
“Do you play chess?” Jane asked suddenly.
Carr nodded.
“Come on,” she said. “I know a place.”
They hurried out of the theatre district into a region of silent gray office buildings.
Carr remarked, “I suppose it must be because they don’t have an audience while the picture is being made, that movie actors sometimes seem so unmoved. Having a real audience puts an actor on the spot.”
“Yes,” she agreed, her voice fast and low, “watching you every minute, waiting for you to make one false move…” Her hand tightened on his arm and she looked up at him. “I hope you don’t ever have to learn to act that way. I mean when it isn’t a matter of appearing convincing to an audience that, after all, can’t really hurt you, but where the slightest slip...” She stopped.
“You mean, for instance,” said Carr, “as if a person had been confined, perhaps falsely, in an insane asylum, and then escaped?”
“No,” she said shortly, “I don’t mean that.”
She turned in at a dusky black cave-mouth, flanked by unlighted windows dimly displaying, to the left, knives and other menacing hardware, to the right, behind slim bars, ornate engagement rings. Pushing through a side door next to the locked revolving one, they came into a dingy lobby floored with tiny marble tiles and surrounded by the iron grille-work walls of ancient elevators. A jerkily revolving hand showed that one was still in operation, but Jane headed for the shadow-stifled stair.
“I hope you don’t mind,” she said. “It’s thirteen stories, but I can’t stand elevators.”
Carr grinned resignedly.
They emerged into a hall where the one frosted door that wasn’t dark read: CAISSA CHESS CLUB.
Behind the door was a long room. A drab and careless austerity, untidy rows of small tables, and grimy floor littered with trodden cigarettes, all proclaimed the place to be the headquarters of a somber monamania.
Some oldsters were playing near the door, utterly absorbed in the game. One, with a dirty white beard, was silently kibitzing, occasionally shaking his head, or pointing out, with palsied finger, the move that would have won.
Carr and Jane walked quietly to the far end near the windows, found a box of men as battered by long use as the half-obliterated board, and started to play.
Soon the maddening, years-forgotten excitement had Carr gripped tight. He was back in that relentless little universe where the significance of things is narrowed down to the stratagems whereby turreted rooks establish intangible walls of force, bishops slip craftily past bristling barricades, and knights spring out in sudden sidewise attacks, as if from crooked medieval passageways.
They played three slow, merciless games. She won the first two. Carr was too intent to feel much chagrin. He had never seen a woman play with such sexless concentration. She sat leaning forward in a way that emphasized her slightness—feet on
The theatre was only half full, there were several empty rows at the back. They sidled away into one of these, through the blinking darkness, and sat down. Soon the gyrations of the gray shadows on the screen took on a little sense.
There were a man and a woman getting married, or else remarried after a divorce, it was hard to tell which. Then she left him because she thought he was interested only in business. Then she came back, but he left her because he thought she was interested only in social life. Then he came back, but then they both left each other again, simultaneously.
From all around came the soft breathing and somnolent gum chewing of drugged humanity.
Then the man and woman both raced to the bedside of their dying little boy, who had been tucked away in a military academy all this time. But the boy recovered, and then the woman left both of them, for their own good, and a little while afterwards the man did the same thing. Then the boy left them.
“Do you play chess?” Jane asked suddenly.
Carr nodded.
“Come on,” she said. “I know a place.”
They hurried out of the theatre district into a region of silent gray office buildings.
Carr remarked, “I suppose it must be because they don’t have an audience while the picture is being made, that movie actors sometimes seem so unmoved. Having a real audience puts an actor on the spot.”
“Yes,” she agreed, her voice fast and low, “watching you every minute, waiting for you to make one false move…” Her hand tightened on his arm and she looked up at him. “I hope you don’t ever have to learn to act that way. I mean when it isn’t a matter of appearing convincing to an audience that, after all, can’t really hurt you, but where the slightest slip...” She stopped.
“You mean, for instance,” said Carr, “as if a person had been confined, perhaps falsely, in an insane asylum, and then escaped?”
“No,” she said shortly, “I don’t mean that.”
She turned in at a dusky black cave-mouth, flanked by unlighted windows dimly displaying, to the left, knives and other menacing hardware, to the right, behind slim bars, ornate engagement rings. Pushing through a side door next to the locked revolving one, they came into a dingy lobby floored with tiny marble tiles and surrounded by the iron grille-work walls of ancient elevators. A jerkily revolving hand showed that one was still in operation, but Jane headed for the shadow-stifled stair.
“I hope you don’t mind,” she said. “It’s thirteen stories, but I can’t stand elevators.”
Carr grinned resignedly.
They emerged into a hall where the one frosted door that wasn’t dark read: CAISSA CHESS CLUB.
Behind the door was a long room. A drab and careless austerity, untidy rows of small tables, and grimy floor littered with trodden cigarettes, all proclaimed the place to be the headquarters of a somber monamania.
Some oldsters were playing near the door, utterly absorbed in the game. One, with a dirty white beard, was silently kibitzing, occasionally shaking his head, or pointing out, with palsied finger, the move that would have won.
Carr and Jane walked quietly to the far end near the windows, found a box of men as battered by long use as the half-obliterated board, and started to play.
Soon the maddening, years-forgotten excitement had Carr gripped tight. He was back in that relentless little universe where the significance of things is narrowed down to the stratagems whereby turreted rooks establish intangible walls of force, bishops slip craftily past bristling barricades, and knights spring out in sudden sidewise attacks, as if from crooked medieval passageways.
They played three slow, merciless games. She won the first two. Carr was too intent to feel much chagrin. He had never seen a woman play with such sexless concentration. She sat leaning forward in a way that emphasized her slightness—feet on
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