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chess fiction
It was as a small child, perhaps 5 years old, that I first saw the chess pieces. They were carved wood, and I was fascinated by the interesting shapes – particularly the horses! My grandmother told me that they had been given to her mother by some stranger when she was traveling in some country that Grandma called Flanders. I often played with those old wooden pieces, not realizing the amazing game that they were created for.
I still have them today, and it was when handling a black horse that the idea came to me for this little story. You see, the envelope in that cabinet held a sheaf of papers with the most peculiar symbols and numbers, which, not until last year did I realize were old-style chess notation in German! It was in April of 2004 that I happened to be in Interlaken, Switzerland, on business, and saw a large group of men playing chess in a park. It was some sort of tournament for which the first place winner, by tradition, wins a kiss from the mayor’s daughter. As the current mayor only had 3 sons, I had to presume that the cash prize was the only incentive.
You can imagine my excitement. I could hardly contain myself, and looked eagerly forward to returning home. But, back in the USA, where could I find those long-lost papers? My elderly mother, by then in a nursing home, did not know; but she mentioned that my sister had kept the old 78-RPM phonograph records from the old homestead. Perhaps she had also kept other old stuff. Thus began days of searching through carton after carton of “artifacts” stored in my sister’s garage. On the third morning, I was rewarded not only by finding the by now crumbling envelope, but also the original 78-RPM recording of “Wimoweh” (a.k.a. “In the Jungle”) by The Weavers!
I sent them all to my friend Terry at Shippensburg University (in Pennsylvania) for translation. With help from some of his chess friends they were able to piece together parts of one game, and nearly all of a second game. They were unable to read much at all from the other score sheets. The really amazing discovery came a couple of days later, when Matthew, a member of the local chess club, found the complete score of the second game in an old copy of Bilguer’s “Handbuch des Schachspiels” (the 1922, fifth edition)! Thus, it seems, the game that they reconstructed is one that took place over a chess board one afternoon in 1907, in Oostende, Belgium. A famous master, Jacques Mieses, had the White pieces against the great Znosko-Borovski (Snosko-Borowski)!
As all but one of the other old score sheets were Mieses’ games, I presume that we were holding the very piece of paper on which Jacques Mieses recorded this amazing victory! The game is, according the Bilguer’s tome, known as either a Damenspringerspiel (Queen’s Knight’s Game) or the Wiener Partie (Vienna Opening), and played as follows: Oostende, 1907
Checkmate follows no matter what (if Kc8, then the white queen will check on a6 and again on a7 and the black king has nowhere to retreat except the back rank, when White’s rook moves up for the kill.) The other game that was only partially readable came from a score sheet that was severely damaged and was clearly not in Mieses’ hand. The names of the players are not filled in, but several things are apparent to the several experts whom I have consulted:
There is some speculation that this crumbling sheaf of Eaton stock holds a game between some unfortunate Flemish expert and the mysterious D. Pillsbury, the younger brother of the more famed master. There are many ink smudges, a couple of holes in the page, and what appears to be dried oatmeal on the paper. Nevertheless, most of the missing moves may be deduced from the context of the moves that remain readable. I hope to complete the work of unraveling the mysteries contained in this frail document, and perhaps present the game, with fresh commentary and modern insights, sometime in the future.
What if that old box of carved wooden chess pieces was given to her by Mieses at the Oostende tournament? She was, after all, in Flanders, which is an area encompassing much of Belgium! Could those just possibly be the very same pieces once used by Jacques Mieses to defeat Eugene Znosko-Borovski nearly a century ago? Unfortunately, I will never know the answer...
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Chessville
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Years later, when I joined my high school chess club, I
searched for those wooden pieces, but they were not to be found. I
told my mother about them, and she led me to a small wooden cabinet in the
cellar. In a drawer were a tin box of buttons, a envelope of yellowed
papers, and the wood box with my well-beloved chess pieces!
Anyway,
I am straying from the point of this little aside, which is that on looking
over the shoulder of the nearest player, I saw on his score sheet those very
symbols which I’d thought so cryptic long years before!
Anyway,
with the greatest care, I removed the contents of the envelope. There
were a few pages of notes and six score sheets, four so badly weathered as
to be almost unreadable.
