Checkmate

From a very young age, Tatiana Aleksandrovich possessed great powers of logical reasoning and critical thinking.    For instance, when she walked to preschool with her mother and the other children would all make snowballs and throw them at each other – thereby getting their woolly gloves wet and soggy – Tatiana would wait until the walk home to play in the snow.    She knew that the clothes drying facilities in the little school where she went were not good and the gloves would still be damp on the walk home.   But she could tolerate wet gloves on the return journey knowing that they would be dry overnight hanging on the line over the big cast iron stove in the kitchen at home.
 
The family Ludovich in the flat above them regularly invited Tatiana to have hot milk and cake with them at 4 o clock.    They were 2 elderly people who had retired from teaching but still remained interested in culture and the arts and their tiny flat was filled with books.   When Tatiana was only 3 years old, she asked Papa Ludovich about the chessboard which was always on the kitchen table but the pieces were often moved and some lay outside the board.   Papa Ludovich played chess with an old comrade of his by post which as you can imagine made the game long and somewhat expensive (the Ludoviches only had a small pension and notepaper and stamps were costly in Russia).  Tatiana insisted that Papa teach her chess and before long she was challenging him and almost beating him. By age 5 she could beat him easily no matter what moves he made.
 
Papa Ludovich asked her parents would they allow him put her name down for the local junior chess competition played at the town hall in November.  They agreed and when the time came Tatiana was excited but calm.     She won her rounds easily and met a 16 year old boy in the final who had won the competition for the last 4 years.  The whole town came because they had heard about Tatiana.      How could a 5 year old girl (who by the way was teeny tiny in stature with bright blue eyes and tight curly sandy coloured hair) beat a big strong unsmiling boy (who by the way was the burgermeister’s eldest son).  Well the unthinkable happened. The boy played carelessly and somewhat wildly because he was confident he would easily beat this little whippersnapper with the big blue eyes and the curl falling over her forehead.  This little whippersnapper who had to have 2 cushions on her chair because her little face barely reached the top of the table.  She beat him in a carefully orchestrated aggressive campaign leaving him vulnerable and hunted.  The town hall erupted in a cheer for the little Tatiana and even the boy bowed to her superior skill.  The mayor also had to smile and was glad to shake her hand.
 
Over the next 15 years Tatiana’s skill and reputation increased and she travelled the world playing on the international chess circuit.    She loved to come back to her home town, to spend time with her parents and visit the Ludoviches in the flat above.     She also liked to walk in the woods near her home and hike in the mountains which surrounded her province.   The Prime Minister of Russia was very fond of her and he planned to personally attend the World Grand Master Championships which were to be held in Reykjavik, Iceland early in the next year.        Tatiana knew her opponent and she felt she could beat him.    The Prime Minister told her that if she won, he would present her family with a large apartment in St. Petersburg Square in the country’s capital and an annual pension which would allow them to live very comfortably for the rest of their lives.  This possibility appealed greatly to her family and they eagerly awaited the event.
 
Tatiana was a born strategist – a natural Grand Master.    She was therefore an independent thinker.... free of the consideration of the opinions of others, free of the overly emotional thought processes that cloud rational decision making, able to weigh up a situation and see an outcome knowing that sometimes compromise is essential to moving forward.   She made up her mind and she knew clearly what she had to do never faltering from her decision.
 
In February of the following year, they boarded a plane to Reykjavik – Tatiana, her parents, her 2 brothers and the Ludoviches who came as guests at Tatiana's request. The beautiful Harpa Building set the scene for a classic chess match between Tatiana Aleksandrovich and Gregor Makarov.  The world was watching.  The players took the stage.    Silence and expectation.    Tatiana was poised to take her place as World Grand Master and she knew she could do it.    But she smiled inwardly as she surveyed her surroundings and looked at her family and her friends.    She met Papa Ludoviches eyes and he knew that her composure was perfect and her spirit was keen.   But he also detected something else that he couldn’t understand.
 
The game began.  The players did not make eye contact.   There was not a sound to be heard amongst the 850 people in attendance except the barely audible sound of the chess clock as each player made their move.    3 hours passed and Tatiana was on the cusp of winning.   Then she looked over at her family, her neighbours, she could see the little flat where they lived and were happy.   She could smell the scent of the woodbine which grew wild in the woods near her home and she could visualise the snow capped peaks visible from their little kitchen window.     She would miss the Ludoviches if she moved 800 miles away to the capital to live.   Yes she would miss all of this.     And like the great strategist she was, she made a move which was contrary to all her chess playing instincts.   This caused her to lose ground and her opponent to gain momentum.  A sharp intake of breath from the audience as they knew something had shifted.   They knew that Tatiana would lose and they also knew that she could have won.
 
She lost the match.  But even the winner could hardly speak.   What had happened to Tatiana, people asked each other.   Her mother wept, her father looked bewildered.    But Papa knew that this little girl was the supreme chess player.    He knew that she had ultimately controlled the board.   He knew that she had gained the outcome she wanted.    He smiled at her and she smiled back. 
 
In life sometimes what everyone else wants for us, is not what we want for ourselves.    We have to follow our own pathway – but first we have to know exactly what it is that we want.   Yes that it is the key – we have to find out exactly what it is that we want.




(I have just finished this story and entered it in short story competition - fingers crossed)


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Thanks to 60th for MM challenge