Les joueurs d'éches

Sunday is the seventh day, the day for rest and relaxation. So it is said in the great Book, and it was your intention to follow this good advice, until you started working and forgot all about how tired you were (not to mention what the Almighty might or might not think about your transgression). For a few hours you're mesmerized in finishing a drawing you've been working on over the weekend. It's after a bust of Marcus Brutus, that strange roman fellow who helped assassinate the Caesar some 2050 years ago. You have to have done something right when people are still depicting you after such an infinitely (in human terms, that is) long period of time. It's turned out good, even though it didn't take much more than 10-12 hours to do - pleasing indeed.

At noon you decide it's about time to do a little of that relaxing you'd planned, so you head out into a bright and warm september day, of course in the direction of the Luxembourg garden, as there's nothing in the city to compare with it on such a day as this. And what a day! The sun beams down from a sky of great blue, the streets are filled with people singing and dancing and licking their ice creams with the utmost summerly delight. And how the garden itself is bubbling with fantastic and beautiful summer people! All the tennis courts are filled with good looking and sweaty men and women, young and old, skilled and amateurish - but all enjoying their game in the sun. On the lawns people are sitting, eating and drinking and rolling over laughing at some sort of french joke that's incomprehensible to you, but you still laugh, watching them and keeping pictures of them in your mind, strangely a little sad that you'll never see these people again.

A little further in the chess players are numerous and all exuberant. They're yelling and laughing and stomping their feet as the seconds on their clock tick away, their mind racing to find that one move that will crush the opponent and secure them the win of yet another game. The players are mostly men - men living for the game, men who remember thousands of opening moves and all know how to mechanically secure a win in the end game. But among them there are some women, old and young, beautiful and weathered, following the games, asking questions and playing the men who always grow excited when a woman takes an interest in the royal game.

At one table a stunning young german girl is playing an old french man. They communicate in a wonderful mixture of german, french and english, laughing as they struggle both on and off the board. She's got wonderfully long brown hair and a pretty face full of charming freckles, he's very dirty, with a large, shabby beard and an old cap on his head. You listen to their conversation and watch as the game progresses in a horrible fashion. They're both making bad mistakes, and every time the girl makes a bad move you take your eyes off the board and look at her pretty face instead, so you don't have to watch the coming slaughter. But the old man misses his chance, and the game continues. You want to move on, because you feel so bad watching this game and looking at the beautiful girl, but you just keep standing there, following their hands as they're moving the pieces around. You're thinking that its a great thing, the way they enjoy playing a game they're not very good at. You wish you could be that way too, just playing and talking and not caring if you're any good or not.

"Portrait of two chess players" - Daumier (1868)

And then it happens - she turns to you, looking at you with blue eyes half hidden beneath long lashes, and asks if you want to play chess with her. The old man is looking at you. The two other guys watching her and the game are looking at you. For a moment, you're looking at you. What to say, what to do! Oh, if only you were a man and not a mouse! You stutter a little, shuffling your feet. "Oh..." you say - "oh, no, I don't play chess." - What the hell, what on God's green and beautiful earth did you just say? I don't play chess! you scream silently inside yourself, thinking about the tens and hundreds of hours you've spent bent over a chess board, alone and with others. I don't play chess!

"Oh, I see, neither do I, really!" she says and smiles at you. It's not too late, you can still say you'd like to try the game anyway, and then lose gracefully to her, it's not too late! But your mouth remains shut. The old man shrugs happily, and they play another game of their wonderful and mediocre chess. You watch for a while, both laughing and crying inside, amused by yourself and your lunacy.

When you can't take it anymore, you hurry home, wanting to throw yourself at your work, screw the day of rest and relaxation! Better to be alone inside, deep in a world of your own, than to be alone outside, in the world of those who aren't too timid to open their mouth. As you run up the stairs your own fantastic words ring like giant thunderous cathedral bells in your head: I don't play chess!