Varanasi, India: The Chess Match (cont.)

While it was Ashu’s turn, the lights flickered, and the ceiling fan glided to a graceful stop, culminating in complete darkness. Vikee fumbled around in for a few minutes for a flashlight, candles and matches. The air grew heavy and wet as cool air stopped circulating. The back of my neck began to sweat and my legs began to glue themselves to the chair. It wasn’t unusual; I had already grown accustom to power outages. The power went out almost every day for at least ten minutes, often several hours.

"No problem," said Vickee, the standard response to occurrences ranging from inconvenience to crisis.

"Where is the darn torch?" he said in careful English for my benefit. Eventually, he found it and the room got a little lighter. Chacheji found a fan made from a palm leaf and began fanning herself and me, alternately. She spoke almost no English, so I smiled at her in thanks. Before long, Ashu gently reminded me that we were in the middle of a game, power or no power. I looked at the board and arbitrarily moved a bishop. Vikee sucked his teeth: Ashu whooped loudly, grinned, and took my knight.

"That was a bad move!" he sang out, gleefully. "You should watch the whole board! Whole game!" I raised my eyebrows at him and he burst out into laughter again. At least I was amusing him, if not providing a very challenging game of chess. It was at the very least more fun than their father’s long-winded daily lectures in broken English about the faults of the American lifestyle, that covered everything ranging from diet to religion, and politics.

As I haphazardly moved another chess piece, two small children came storming in from outside. One girl, about eight and a boy maybe four were suddenly climbing on my back, pulling my hair, and talking to me in nearly flawless English. They had been over several times that week; I thought that they were cousins, but it wasn’t entirely clear. It didn’t matter, though; the family seemed to expand almost daily. I said hello and smiled at them. The girl reached into her pocket, pulled out two, small paper flowers, and presented them to me.

"I made these for you!" She beamed and held her chin high in the air. I smiled, genuinely pleased.

"Thank you, they’re beautiful!" They were beautiful. I wondered why she decided to give me a present.

Ashu cleared his throat loudly. I looked at the board. Things were looking bad for me. He was either, as Vikee had warned, very good or I was just remarkably bad. The lights suddenly kicked back on, illuminating the small, dusty house and starting the fans again. The relief was instant; I felt the cool air moving across my face and blowing my hair off my neck. It was my move, but it was already hopeless. I moved my queen, knowing it would do no good. It reminded me of earlier that week when, while walking home, a massive, brown cow completely obscured my path. I tried to go around her, but it was futile, and finally I had to passively wait for her to leave.

As the game neared its close, I thought about this family that had generously adopted me for a few weeks. They were refreshingly warm and polite, always careful to make me comfortable. Over the next few weeks, as we grew closer, I learned to find delight, at times, in what might normally have been uncomfortable surroundings, in situations like chess games. Which was good because, with the next move, it was over.

"Checkmate!" bellowed Ashu gleefully. "I win!" He danced around the room in victory, rubbing the defeat in my face—just like a real brother.

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