The
Puzzle Book
By NM Dan Heisman
“Don’t turn out the light!”
Andrea paused. One more puzzle.
“It’s mate in 3, I know I can do
it.” James was forever balding, but that didn’t necessarily make him
endearing. “It shouldn’t take 10 minutes.”
Andrea rolled over and pulled up the
covers. “Turn it out yourself when you are finished.”
James was eager to prove his estimate
right, but he just couldn’t find the right square for his queen. No matter how
he tried to set up the checkmate, the Black king would always laugh at him. One
time he thought he had it, but then it turned out that bishop from all the way
across the board was covering the mating square.
Twenty minutes passed. James gave up
and turned out the light.
Lying in the dark, he thought back to
what he had wanted to become, and how it all got away from him. Now his wife,
dog, and college son were all he really had – he tolerated his job because it
fed the dog and occasionally paid the mortgage. Andrea needed to work, too, so
the rest of the bills got paid.
But at least he had chess. Something
to stimulate his mind – not like the kind of work his boss gave him. Doing a
chess puzzle book gave him a kind of feeling of power – and completing it
would be a real sign of something significant.
James had been doing The Puzzle Book
for five years. He wasn’t quick, but he was persistent.
“Never look up the answer!” How
many times had Andrea groaned when he told her that? Many times she sensed his
frustration and had urged him to give up and go to the next one, but that just
wasn’t the “James Style.”
“I’ll never get anywhere if I
give up and look at the answer!” But James was not going anywhere anyway, not
with the “James Style” and not in his dead-end job. Sleep beckoned.
The next evening James was still
working on the same puzzle. Put off by his lack of progress, he decided to count
how many puzzles he still had to go – only eleven!
“Andee, dear, I have only got
eleven puzzles to go to finish the book!”
Andrea looked at the book, which had
long ago fallen apart at the seams, and rolled her eyes. “Good luck, dear, I
am sure you will get them quickly.”
James ignored any irony in her voice
and – seemingly out of nowhere – ventured “I will bet that finishing the
book will signify something significant!”
Andrea smiled and cooed supportingly,
“If it is significant for you, that is good enough for me.
But James was a little perturbed by
her lack of independent enthusiasm, and tried to support his thesis: “It must
be so – I can just feel it. After all, if you believe in the law of
ethnocentrism, then all the universe revolves around your existence, so
completing monumental tasks must have some significance.”
That was too much for Andrea, who had
been trying to be supportive. “That’s nice, dear.” She returned to reading
Harry Potter and the Center for Doom.
But by then James was distracted by a
nice knight sacrifice…Suppose the knight just lets the pawn take it on g6?
Then the rook can slide over and mate is unstoppable on the next move. But if he
doesn’t take the knight, then the pin will win…yes, yes, yes. Mate in three.
It only took a little over an hour, less than the average.
Over the next few weeks James slowly
tackled one puzzle after another. Very slowly.
But with only six puzzles to go, he
hit a hard one. One of the hardest in the book. One time it had taken him almost
six months to do one of the puzzles, but this one looked harder.
“Nobody takes six months to do a
puzzle!” Andrea had said. But she had been wrong. It started after an Easter
Egg Hunt and ended with Trick-or-Treaters pounding at the door. Candy for the
mind.
Could this be another season grinder?
James did not think so, but then again he never did – well at least
consciously. This one seemed to be impossible, but that only made his growing
feeling that he would be accomplishing something significant if he finished the
book. It made him feel important, and that in itself was important enough.
There just did not seem to be any way
for White to Play and Win. The Black pawn could only be stopped from queening by
allowing a drawn king and pawn endgame. Even James could draw this against
Rupert, and Rupert had been an expert, once, or so he said. James was not even
sure what an expert was, but it sounded impressive. But was an expert better
than a master, a Grandmaster, a shark, or a Top Gun? Besides, Rupert had been
known to exaggerate, or at least get a little confused, like when he said he
once owned a Mercedes, but it turned out only to be a BMW.
He could sacrifice his knight for the
pawn, but then there seemed to be no way the rest of his pieces could win.
Weeks dragged on. What threatened to
be an Indian Summer turned into an early winter. Two bar mitzvahs, three
Christmas parties, a wedding, a Baptism, and a Super Bowl party. Still no answer
and four problems left after this one.
Harry Potter now had turned 17. The
James Style was again wearing thin. But then, just before the 11 O’Clock news
got to the sports, James thought, I’ll just let him queen. What else is
possible? But then I am just down a queen for a knight and there is no win in
sight. He slept on it. Perchance to dream.
In the morning James looked at the
board. Knight to c1. It threatens mate. What can the queen do?
He was late for work, so he
couldn’t stop to figure it out. But that evening, before he could take off his
tie, he confirmed the sneaky rat of a problem. Who put such hard problems in a
book for average chess guys, anyway?
Four more to go. None that easy, but
none so hard as the blasted Nc1 one had been.
And so a few weeks later it was a
bright sunny afternoon when James was puzzling over the last problem. He
hadn’t quite found the key when it occurred to him that he could buy another
problem book. Unless it was a lot easier, it was likely that he would not live
long enough to finish it. So maybe instead he would test his newfound knowledge
and try playing again at the local club – he hadn’t been back since Herb
snickered at him for losing six in a row to Herb’s dreaded Stonewall Attack.
It would be worth it just to win a game from Herb – not to even mention
Rupert! Perchance to dream…all he ever wanted to do was feel a little
important, anyway, not be Club Champion. Significant.
Even finishing the Puzzle Book would
not make James seem more important to Andrea. She loved him, but she loved him
for what he was, and not for what he aspired to be.
Queen sacrifice? Underpromotion?
Castling? En passant?
No, none of these hallmarked the last
problem. It was just a nice little quiet move that made an innocuous-looking but
actually deadly threat. It could not be parried. Eureka.
But James’ thoughts stopped there.