The Game

Supper time. She’s done ahead of him, although she’s the one supposed to be eating for two now. What’s left is too much to eat, too little to save. She looks at David, who raises his hand, showing his palm in a “stop” gesture. She stacks the salad bowl on top of the spaghetti dish. The transparent bowl, with a couple of wilted lettuce leaves and a single onion ring, rocks slightly between the edges of the rectangular Pyrex dish. The chair is uncomfortable and she squirms a little, watching him masticate his pork chop. As he swirls his spaghetti, little specks of tomato sauce spatter the rim of his plate and land on the checkered table cover, red on white and red on blue. Red, white, and blue.

They’re finally done, and she goes over to the sink. David starts clearing the table. She turns the faucet off: was there a knock at the door? Nothing, not yet. She lets the water run again and sure enough, when she turns her head there he is, already inside, the door behind him already shut.

Now David loses interest. What’s the rush? She motions toward the bedroom door, which is open. Cynthia had been running a fever and she had put her to bed early. David closes the door to their bedroom. She tries to listen, but the only noise comes from her at the sink as she rinses the cutlery. 

She can’t see them from where she stands, but she knows exactly how they’ve settled at the so-called game table: a piece of fiberboard over an orange crate. She knows how David’s back slouches forward and sideways, the beginning fold of fat on the back of his neck and the hair that’s getting sparse in the middle of his head. And in a couple of minutes when she’ll come out, she will keep her eyes to the floor. No matter when she comes out, he’s looking.

She folds her arms over the baby, turns around and steps forward. But he is not looking. The light behind his left shoulder cuts his face up into sharp angles of cheekbone and chin, stiff black hair over lowered eyelids. It’s David’s move. His finger rests on a pawn, tentatively. He never dawdles like that: his moves are fast, like springing a trap. But you can’t really tell who is winning. 

“How about some coffee, honey?”

David has leaned back and pats her backside. She puts her arm around his neck and leans down against him. As always, she’s surprised how smooth the little patch behind his ear is. David’s other arm comes to rest on her belly. He looks away. What does he expect? Yet he shows up, night after night. The game goes on.

“The coffee’s perking, help yourselves.”

She’s off to check on Cynthia. The fever seems down some.  Cynthia takes a few sips of water, and asks for the story, always the same. But before she’s even had a chance to open the book, Cynthia is asleep again.

The bedroom door is ajar. From where she stands she sees them sideways. From here the chessboard takes the geometrical narrowing of perspective you see in Dutch paintings, with their scrubbed tile floors, bird cages, and dowdy maidens. And those convex mirrors, always repeating the scene in reverse: his profile now sharply outlined, David leaning the other way, and the chessboard stretching out, narrowing down to a road of cobblestones, uneven, resounding to the sound of boots, horses’ hoofs, and the thud of wheels dragging heavy cannon. The black night rears up and David’s bishop is kaput. But then David nudges his little pawn forward and both the black queen and the black bishop are in the line of fire. 

“Hi Mom. Sorry it has been a while. I know you told me to call collect, but that makes David uncomfortable, like it’s his fault he didn’t get the T.A. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you butting in. Anyway, what’s wrong with writing? I’ll impersonate Aunt Jenny. Remember how everyone used to comment on her Queen Ann desk, her collection of greeting cards for every occasion, her recherché letterhead? We half-expected quills or at least real ink in the silver inkwell, polished to a soft gleam to the very end. Do you miss her? I can still see her at her desk, the sun scattered through the lace curtain all around her, the Meissen cup at her elbow, the waft of fragrant tea, the smell of roses fresh from the garden, and the aura of strange places hovering about as she wrote to all those faraway friends.  

Sorry, I got interrupted. Cynthia has a cold and I had forgotten to start the vaporizer. I guess I got all caught up with Aunt Jenny. Do you miss her? And then Dad: I had a dream about him the other day. He was standing a ways off, turning away: I went toward him, but then he sort of walked away. Do you ever dream about him? I can’t believe it’s been two years since he’s gone. Are you taking good care of yourself?...”

                * * * * *

Supper’s over. She knows she can’t drink wine right now, but she reaches for David’s glass, and takes a couple of sips. He pulls a face. Not that two sips could harm the baby. What bothers him is the crossing of boundaries. Boundaries, lines, fences, walls, borders… She feels lazy, her body sprawls far and wide, over hills and valleys, gushing springs, sprouting buttercups, birthing lambs and little yellow chicks. 

David takes the initiative, and starts piling the dishes into the sink. This chair is SO uncomfortable: she really needs to look for some pillows at the thrift store. Or maybe even a rocking chair. Right now it’s hard to say what’s worse: getting up or staying put. O.K., she gets up, straightens her back. It’s only one, two, three, steps to the sink, but her legs are too waterlogged to move. This time the knock is loud and clear: he knows the bell is out of order. David goes to the door and she sits back down. David’s glass has left a little red stain on the plastic table cover. It’s perfectly round. Another circle, where she had picked up David’s glass and put it back again, overlaps with the first circle, forming two interlocking rings. David accelerates putting things away, shoving stuff in the wrong cabinets. In one quick sweep of his arm, David wipes away their double ring.

Cynthia is getting better, but still, it’s bed time. She skips the bath, sorry kid, too tired. Cynthia wants the same story and she wants it from the beginning: never mind where they left off the day before.

                    * * * * *

  . . . “Hi again, Mom. I had to stop the other day, the vaporizer made me sleepy and I dozed off. I have been meaning to tell you something and I’ve been putting it off. Here goes: 

David has this chess game going every night and you’ll never guess WHO David is playing chess WITH. It’s John. He turned up here some time back. I know I didn’t tell you, what’s the point. So now I told you.”

               * * * * *

David brings out the new rocking chair out of the bedroom, the one they bartered down to just about half price, and places it next to his own chair. They had had an argument about why she doesn’t hang out with them at the game. He had looked at her funny, and she couldn’t come up with an excuse.

So she settles down next to David and unfolds the canvass and yarn, can’t find the needle. She had claimed this unfinished piece of needlepoint when Aunt Jenny passed away: a shepherdess both scrumptiously plump and deliciously wasp-waisted is fluttering on a swing, a shepherd in powdered wig kneeling before her on thin air, submissively suggestive. She unrolls the canvass: across from them, is he putting on a faint, patronizing smile, or is there a hint of regret in it? She doesn’t look up, keeps looking for the needle. She prepares to stitch in the shepherd’s purple stocking: dangerous liaisons, anyone?

She glances at the chess board. It’s hard to tell who’s ahead. David’s hand settles on her knee. She pulls the canvass out from under the flat of his hand, the rocking chair tilts slightly back, then lurches forward. The black and white squares stretch out diagonally, like the meshes of a net. The net tightens: it’s a hunt. Supernatural horsemen, disgorged by the sea, ride down little terra-cotta pawns, their plumes and feathers scattered on the beach. Superhuman horsemen, their helmets and shields gleaming in the land of the sun-god, crash through the jungle. The canopy of leaves rocks above them, back and forth, black and white, jasper and onyx. Bright birds screech in their flight, raining feathers, feathered arrows fly to their mark. The mesh of roots, branches, lianas tightens: the net closes in.    

Japer and onyx. Dad used to have a chess set like that: step pyramids for rooks, snake dancers for bishops, some top-heavy slab on stubby feet, feet of clay, the king. And the pawns, short figures with powerful torsos and gaping jaws. All useless without the horse. Dad and John used to play chess together.

Supper time. Daddy’s turn to read Cynthia a story and David is explaining to her how it makes no sense to read the same story over and over again. Cynthia holds her ground, and while they are negotiating, she thinks of something for desert. The smell of food gets to her, like the whole world is in her mouth. And it’s not a clean world. The more they disinfect it with soap, powder, liquid, detergent, turpentine, bleach, spray, extract, distillate… the more she’s overcome with nausea, forced to breathe in and swill down this collective mouthwash, let it course through her blood stream, her rivers, her lakes, her fjords, her bays, her oceans. Until she foams at the mouth and spews dead fish and chokes on oil-slicked birds and the bloated carcasses of whales.

She struggles with the can opener: canned fruit was on sale. Chunks of pineapple, apricot or is it peach, Technicolor bright, plump into the bowl and the syrupy ooze bubbles over the edge. Slowly, the heavy liquid slithers down the outer side of the bowl, defying the laws of gravity: it just won’t drip. As she observes this phenomenon, blood-shot cherries eye-ball her. They watch each other. 

Actually, no one’s watching, no one’s looking, no one’s minding. She should be eating fresh fruit right now, you wish: wild strawberries, hidden in the undergrowth. Aunt Jenny holds her hand. As they walk through the woods, Aunt Jenny names the trees and bushes. They collect leaves: later they will glue them into her notebook, all properly classified. But now they stop. They squat down together and Aunt Jenny lifts aside a roundish, finely edged leaf, and shows her the strawberries: the fragrance, the taste, she’s never found or tasted anything like that again. Super-thin women faking orgasms as they bite into chocolate cake on TV can’t convince her, she bets they rush out to regurgitate off camera. 

David takes a second wallop of the canned fruit, and tops it off with Lucky Whip. Lucky David. As the can gasps its last spurt of instant gratification, all she can smell is tin.  David is done with Cynthia and John has already stepped in. She lingers in the kitchen, tidying up. She cannot see them sitting across from each other, or the disposition of the figures. Perhaps they haven’t even started yet, and the lines are unbroken, marching in good order, to the beat of the drum. Charlton Heston, spitting orders through his teeth, every breath a cannon ball. Errol Flynn, making his big little stand. John Wayne, grunting up the impregnable hill. And loose cannon George C. Scott loosed on the helplessly barking, saluting, strutting Krauts. 

“How about some beer, honey?”

She turns the corner, holding the tray. David jumps up, scoops up the pile of junk to make room for the tray. He hesitates, unsure where to put the stuff down. Unopened mail, savings coupons, bills, clippings, Cynthia’s finger-paint art, folders, magazines, begin to slide out of his grip. As he tries to catch the bits and pieces, the whole mess comes tumbling to the floor. He doesn’t make the slightest move to help pick up. David busies himself for a while collecting loose papers, then gives up, pushes the lot together into a pile, and the pile into the corner. The path is clear. She puts her tray down, and David pulls up her rocking chair.

It’s an ordinary chess set, the standard, mass-produced kind. Whatever happened to Dad’s Mexican one? They come in all shapes and sizes these days. They say the game came out of India, long ago. Two turbaned worthies sit cross-legged on a delicately embroidered carpet surrounded by flute players and dancing girls, puff on water pipes and gamble away half a continent. Those two take little gulps of beer as they stare at the board and push plain little figures around. David does the king rook switch and right away, John moves his rook, a stately elephant, swaying through the jungle, crushing everything in its way. Front-runners scatter away, one of them, however, too slow. You’d expect the sound of crunching bones, but the ground is still soggy from the monsoon rains. The little brown man is simply pressed in to mingle with the gorgeous leaves and flowers.    

Cynthia calls, she excuses herself. Cynthia’s had a bad dream. She tries to reassure her, but she is inconsolable. She crawls into bed with her, they hold each other.

                 * * * * *

“Hi Mom, Cynthia’s asleep and I’m using the flashlight to write. David and John are at it again, slugging away. This goes on just about every day. Mom, sounds like the game is breaking up in the next room. They never talk wins or losses. Oh well, gotta go, (Aunt Jenny would not have approved of this shortcut language). Anyway, to be continued... David’s coming.”

                     * * * * *

Or is it John? Waiting for John, unable to sleep. What’s keeping him this time? Another deadline, another study group - or another woman? He is on-call with the Big Man, the system is down, and only John has the light touch to set the numbers crunching again. That, at any rate, is the story. 

Light touch, so light. As she waits, the moonlight hangs like a harp behind the open window and her waiting, when his fingers touch her at long last, begins to vibrate, faster, stronger, countdown time, and once again he sets her free. 

David crawls into bed cautiously, trying not to wake her.

Another day, another dollar. Long wait at the HMO. Some snot-nosed kid demolishes Cynthia’s cube tower, and Cynthia lights into him. She pulls them apart, and astonishingly, her mother’s voice, to its minutest acid intonations, is her own voice – cajoling, threatening, promising. But they call her in at last, and Cynthia gets a lollipop: those people should know better, but she lets it pass. The nurse proceeds briskly to take her vitals, enters them on a chart, then leaves. They wait some more: Cynthia will not color any more and prefers to explore: you’d never think a doctor’s examination room had so many child traps. The doctor shows up at last. But while he looks over her chart, they call him out again. When he comes back he looks a little startled, as if she didn’t belong in this room, or maybe he didn’t. But he recovers and gets back to the chart. They are on a first-name basis, of course: she calls him Doctor, and he calls her Diana.

Diana? He shakes his head and lectures her on smoking. She has quit smoking at her first pregnancy and never lit up since. “And sorry to disappoint you, doctor, but my name is not Diana.” Time out. What is her first name then? And her last name? Hold everything, we have the wrong chart here. The doctor exits one more time. The nurse reappears, tight-lipped. Everything starts all over again, and maybe it’s worth it, because when it’s all done, she gets a clean bill of health. What about the tiredness and the swollen feet? All within normal range. What about occasional cramping? Stay off your feet when tired.

So with a last ounce of her strength she lifts Cynthia into her car seat and struggles with the straps. They were supposed to stop for groceries, but forget about groceries. As they inch forward in peak hour traffic she prepares to entertain David with a full-fledged sit-com version of her adventures at the HMO. 

David’s home already. She goes straight to the sofa and collapses. The sofa collapses with her. This is the last straw, and she gets the giggles. The giggles grow until she shakes, and she can’t stop. She starts telling him, between gasps of laughter and Cynthia’s back-up shrieks, and David’s efforts to pull her and her belly up, the whole saga of the day. He doesn’t even crack a smile. So she pulls him down instead, and Cynthia jumps on top of both of them, and they are having, or so she thought, a fireworks of family fun and togetherness. This deserves to be topped off by a night out on the town. Have appetites, will travel.

David steels a glance at his watch. Their silly laughter peters out. They get themselves back on their feet. 

COMPROMISE: David’s calling in for a pizza, he’ll pick it up himself to save time: saving time, so that’s it. He takes Cynthia and they leave together.

She settles in his chair and observes the battlefield. The collapsed sofa is really a folding bed turned into something much better than a dumb sofa. Think oriental divan with casually scattered pillows. Think exotic shawl from How Sweet it Was, cleverly draped over busted springs.

Did he knock? He stands in full view and from “his” chair SHE looks, for a change. Does she see single strands of white in his thick dark hair? The hair is still cut close at the temples, and falling, as before, into his eyes. And he still has that abrupt, useless gesture of pushing it back. She heard he’d been in a committed relationship: that should be interesting. She doesn’t ask. And funny, she doesn’t worry about her own looks: she must be a sight. Somehow her disheveled hair, her belly, her swollen ankles are not an issue. Maybe because of the way he is looking at her just now, not like a man sizing up a woman, but detached, with a kind of, who knows, gentleness. 

Oh no, don’t go there. She is about to tell him about her god-awful, ridiculous day, but somehow, with the famous “sofa” still pitifully collapsed on the floor as witness, this seems even more intimate, more private, than if they had sunk on that sofa together, slowly, and the collapsing made no difference, and that strange, hoarse cry rising deep inside her, her own voice again.

So she stills her voice, and he doesn’t say anything either. How long can this last? Mercifully she hears the car door slamming outside, and David walks in with the goods. Impersonating an Italian waiter, the pizza box held high on his spread-our finger tips, he makes his way through the wreck, Cynthia closing ranks behind him. They’re intact, the very picture of a family picture.

They’re chewing on the pizza while he leafs through a book. After a day like this, you’d think Cynthia would fall asleep in her chair. No such luck. She and David now do a variation on a theme, allegro ma non troppo, about whose turn it is to put Cynthia to bed. David wants to check the calendar. For God’s sake, who cares about the calendar, be it Christian, Chinese or Chaldean. She knows very well it’s her turn, but can’t he see how exhausted she is?

As she reads the story, however, she must be way off key. Cynthia picks up on it and acts clingy. She lets her wrap herself around her belly in the rocking chair, and they stay like that, rocking each other to sleep. They swell gently, the oceans breathe in and out, and as they rotate she turns her belly to the sun. It’s already ground hog day, buds swell everywhere, ready to burst, as her nipples, also, are swelling. And pretty soon new corn stalks push out of the ground, and the first tufts of grass.

And in the forest of her hair snow drops and violets weave a garland. Chattering magpies, cooing turtle-doves, sparrows, king-fishers and the mighty eagle, they all get busy settling and cozying and nesting in her arm pits. Soon enough, kids everywhere will roll colored eggs on green-washed lawns.

But lower the dogwood is already in bloom and fluttery peach trees spread a cover of fragrance over them and she breathes orange blossoms and whispers wedding bells into young girls’ dreams. Further to the West snowcaps are melting, salmon begin their journey upstream and foamy torrents bathe her breasts. And her parched skin is healed, and the prickly pear and the saguaro drink their fill.

Ants begin to fetch and carry and spiders thread pearl drops between her toes. And snakes, shedding their old skins, coil coral belts around her waist and emerald bracelets around her wrists and ankles. The sacred dance begins.

The next morning, the Easter hunt is a big success. David had been extremely reluctant to participate, but now he basks in Cynthia’s excitement, takes pictures. After lunch she asks David to take Cynthia to the park. She needs time alone to do nothing, or maybe just catch up with this and that. The laundry basket is full of clean clothes still waiting to be put away. David’s socks with red-white-and-blue rim cling together, and she shakes them loose. John never wore such socks. He was rather vain: not showy God forbid, just casually elegant. He noticed HER clothes too, expressed opinions, paid compliments. Of course he noticed other women too, not just noticed. She confronted him, he made it up to her, made promises, and broke them. So she broke with him.

David and Cynthia are back, both in good spirits. Exhausted after this eventful day, Cynthia does fall asleep in her lap after supper while the two men, next door, pursue their game. Her chest feels tight, and her lower back aches with a dull pain. Can she lift Cynthia and carry her to bed? It’s being Easter didn’t stop the game. They bomb cathedrals on Easter and mosques during Ramadan. What time is it anyway? She calls out to them softly, but they don’t hear her. Slowly, she braces her back and concentrates on using her leg muscles. She manages to get up, she manages to carry the child across, she manages to lower her to her bed. Cynthia’s arm looks uncomfortably bent, her head turned unnaturally sideways. She kneels down, eases her limbs, and pulls the cover up.

Has it ever been any different? The bedroom door is open just a crack, enough to let a strip of light fall across the tiled floor. Two knights in shining armors confront each other. The two armies, the black and the white, allegorically correct, stand in full battle array. King Arthur, as is his want, is a little slow on the trigger, but Lancelot awaits on bended knee. But look yonder to the Holy Grail! The wondrous cup floats on high in an aura of supernatural light: this is the signal, and the battle begins.

Three days and three nights the battle rages. The pawns, with their spikes and axes, advance and retreat. They climb ladders and get boiling pitch poured on their heads. The bishops stand guard over their respective queens. So far, the rook-towers hold out. Lancelot fights mightily. Gawain’s horse collapses under him. He picks himself up, somewhat dazed. Horseless, he trudges on, trying to glimpse, through his visor, the light of the Holy Grail.

Three days and three nights, the battle rages. Lancelot, tireless, slugs away while Gawain, horseless, picks his way through the broken ground. Emaciated women, holding infants with swollen bellies, stare at him in silence. Still he goes forth, among corpses piled upon corpses, skeletons half stuck in rusted armor, horses’ carcasses, skulls spiked on sticks.

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. She cannot open her eyes. David pulls the shades up, she pulls the covers over her head. This feels like a hangover. If at least there had been some wild party to remember, or to forget. A big drunk or acid trip – something, anything.

To think that’s how she had met David. She and John had split up, and she was proving herself, taking all comers, testing her limits and finding none. There had been this Rock concert, then the car race and shower of lights from on-coming traffic bouncing off the windshield, and then the party. She was dancing, and she caught a glimpse of this one guy. He sat alone in a corner, the only still object in the floating, sound-saturated place. She danced toward him, and would have crashed to the floor if he hadn’t caught her. She woke up in his bed. She got sick and he wiped her mouth and cheeks, and got the puke out of her hair. That was David. He did not push himself on her. Only later did they let their bodies discover each other.

And here they were, for better, for worse. Of course her folks were disappointed. David was no catch like John. “Your father says he’s brilliant, just brilliant.” Because he beat Dad at chess? Even dear old Mom was acting funny around John. Did she have a thing for him, in a motherly sort of way? Most women did, and he returned the favor. Is that what they call sex appeal? Quiet-like, patient, getting his way.

David is dressing Cynthia. He calls from the kitchen to ask if she wants any breakfast. It’s business as usual. Not on your life. What’s the matter with him anyway? They used to talk, they used to laugh, they used to fuck. Yes, she knows, he has a lot on his plate: the money, the dissertation, the adviser. The son-of-a-bitch buttered him up to direct his dissertation, and now pulls him apart limb from limb: the idea is untested, the idea is old news; the idea is underdeveloped, the idea is overworked. That much she can read between the lines. Why can’t he unzip his lip for a change, and let her in on his bellyaches? Aren’t they supposed to be in this together? But then it’s not as if she always tells all.

Tell him what, exactly? It’s not like her husband doesn’t know that John, “the man of the future,” has a past with his wife. Now a post-doc on some special assignment while David is still struggling with his dissertation. On special assignment, with special status, special grant support, special, special, special. He certainly acts the part: alludes to independent status and obscure obligations at the same time. Some Defense contract, what else. Is David, possibly, FLATTERED? At first, she had been grateful that he didn’t probe, didn’t cross-examine. Decent, kindly, tolerant David.

Decent, kindly, tolerant David, ever so sly, challenging the established opponent, established with the establishment, not his wife, not his wife. Instead of letting the proverbial sleeping dogs lie, he wants to muddy the proverbial waters, the fool. Bent over the chess board, wearing one of those colonial helmets and holding a rifle, the great white hunter stands on the boat, the boat floats down the silent river, David enters the darkest Africa of them all.

The boat steers clear of the rustling, whispering shores, where shallows swell under dark water, and naked roots grab at propellers, and dead logs open crocodile jaws. The lowering sun casts long shadows from the shore, cutting up the shimmering mass of the river into a grid of light and darkness, black and white.

Stop. Game’s up. She’s going to put a stop to it once and for all. Well, better not be too abrupt, do it right. First they have to talk. Nothing big, no special effects or true confessions. Just tell him the obvious: you love him, you miss him, you want more time together, just the two of you. God, this sounds like “Dear Abby,” next they’ll be appearing on Oprah. What else can she say, what else IS there to say? David should know, of all people, he is the great white hope of psychology. Why doesn’t he say something instead of pushing little wooden toys around on a board divided into black and white squares? What kind of game plan is that?

So here’s HER plan. Tonight, she’ll have supper ready ahead of time. No candles, that’s too clichéd. But why not use Mother’s birthday check, (saved up so far, just in case) for that little smock at Mother’s World. No hand-me-downs, she’ll splurge. She feels better already. Is the morning sickness coming to an end? Maybe that’s it. And in the short time available, they’ll make a start. They will agree on something easy, maybe a movie, it’s been ages since they stepped out. They’ll get a sitter for Cynthia and have a date.

It rains all day, but she loves it. The smock is still there and they have her size. There is some money left over and she gets two plastic umbrellas, with yellow polka dots for Cynthia, and green ones for herself: they are two bright mushrooms dancing in the rain. She even gets the idea of surprising David and showing up on campus, but thinks better of it. They hurry home to set things up.

Supper’s ready: a stew, David’s favorite. He isn’t too choosy, give him his comfort foods. David is late. This happens occasionally, but not very often. Somehow waiting for David is not the same as waiting for John. DELETE THAT. She feeds Cynthia, gives her her bath, and has already started the story when she hears the car in the driveway: David at last.

“Hi, what’s up? Go ahead and get started with supper, I made stew. I will be joining you in a few minutes.”

“But isn’t it my turn? No way am I going to give up my turn with my princess, right princess?”

Right. Cynthia gets all excited, they take forever, and THEIR time together is running out. Now he’s eating and she is watching him eat. He did not notice the new smock. Or maybe he did, just didn’t say. No point starting anything now, it’s too late anyway. It rains hard again, maybe John won’t come.

John comes in, dripping. He does not use umbrellas. As she takes his jacket, he shakes his hair out and a droplet lands on her cheek. It’s as if he had kissed her. He takes his shoes off, David grabs a piece of pie, and they settle in for the game. Around his shoes a puddle begins to form, a rivulet starts across the floor tiles, black and white. The river shimmers, the boat rocks between patches of light and darkness. The river carries them along, no turning back.

The landing ahead is a problem: the shore is flooded. As they approach, a huge flock of birds scares out of the tree tops, a screeching black cloud against the blinding light. Among the mangroves masks, white paint on black faces. They hold dark wooden shields covered by intricate white tracings. The shaman, his long grass skirt swaying with every move, steps forward. The great white hunter, pistol drawn, steps forward to meet his counterpart.

She can’t watch the sequel: New York, London and Paris are now divided into black and white zones. Move one piece across the line and all hell breaks loose: sirens, car chases, the rattle of automatic weapons, drug money changing hands.

She can’t watch this anymore, she can’t take the weight of skyscrapers, of prisons, she can’t breathe through the cracks anymore. And the stranglehold of looping highways, and the seeping fumes from the processed, compressed, pulverized dumps, where rats and seagulls and children swarm. She strains to absorb, to transform, to renew. This is hard, she is very tired.

She feels tired, she excuses herself. As she gets up, her sleeve catches the corner of the chess board, the pieces slide together, the lines are scrambled. AT LAST. Can you believe it, David picks up the pieces, they remember the disposition of the figures and even whose turn it was. The game goes on and she retreats and wonders among demolished cities while the two of THEM sit in their underground bunkers, watching the big electronic board light up. While the two of them stick to their primary colors, black and white. While the two of them take turns pushing buttons and mercenary armies march on, flanked by flying horses with flexible response capabilities. While the two of them keep their heavily armored pieces in reserve, and ever so sensitive to collateral damage, send off drones. While the two of them still take orders from the dwarf king…

               * * * * *

“Hi Mom, thanks for the nice letter. I am so glad the bridge game is underway again. Sure things are O.K. here. I went to the HMO the other day, and check-up was fine. Cynthia’s fine and so is David. Mom, we won’t be able to come in June, David’s got a summer job. Actually John fixed it up for him, some big Government project, and don’t ask me why, they can use David too. You’re right, Mom, why worry, what could happen? Mom, I’m tired. Bye, Mom.”

It really is getting warm, but Aunt Jenny’s quilt is light. She had often imagined that Aunt Jenny was her mother. Aunt Jenny had never married, but there were hints of romance and adventure in her youth. But then Aunt Jenny’s beau was killed in some overseas war. She runs her fingers over the quilt in the dark, and the pattern emerges: pin wheels set in squares. The colors are magenta and lavender and lime green: a riot of early summer colors. Early summer: they dig in the flower garden, they bake cookies, they dust and polish, they do scales on Aunt Jenny’s upright, they ride their bikes to Mrs. O’Dwyer’s who tells them all about her rheumatisms. Busy bees, never a dull moment. But there is plenty of time to count clouds, and splash in the river and build sand castles while Aunt Jenny works on the quilt: she asks her for her favorite colors, and she fits them into the quilt which covers her now, her quilt pattern of flooded rice fields, shining pink and lavender in the early dawn, best time to spray. The planes and helicopters move in, she grabs Cynthia, and they run for cover. But the strange-smelling dust seeps through the thickest cover of leaves, even where they hide out in the ditch. When the planes have gone they come out, but the stuff is in their clothes and hair, their nostrils, their mouths, and every inch of their skin. She tries to shake it out of Cynthia, Cynthia coughs, Cynthia coughs, and she gets up to check her out. But it’s nothing, Cynthia never woke up, there’s just a thin thread of saliva on the pillow.

Supper time. Just rice and beans today, like south of the border. No, she didn’t do the groceries, yes she could have called him, she knows he could have picked something on the way. She knows. But she didn’t call and it’s rice and beans. Cynthia is at the neighbor’s, she arranged for a play date with little Suzy, so could David please pick her up and put her to bed? That’s right, she doesn’t feel well. If he doesn’t mind, she’s going to bed right away.

She hears the door open and shut when David comes back with Cynthia. That’s O.K., they should eat without her. They come into the bedroom, Cynthia slips her arms under her neck and says good night and good night. David reads her the story, right from the beginning: they don’t argue. She hears the door open and shut again. The men talk briefly, then she hears how they pull their chairs up to the table: the game goes on.

David left the door ajar, in case she needs him. She needs him, the pain grows into a spasm. There is a noise of planes or helicopters, and they wake her. People are yelling, she sees them running past her window. She has another cramp, this time much longer. What’s going on? There is noise of explosions and machine gun fire, and more people running. She needs to get up. She needs to run, run with the people, take Cynthia and hide in the gully. Women are screaming: is she screaming too? Their houses, her own house, is burning. She’s got to run, she can’t feel her legs, they overtake her. Is she screaming or is it Cynthia? They hold her down, laughing. They hold her arms, they spread her legs, they take turns. In one last, endless spasm she pushes out the baby. The blood flows on over stones, pebbles, cobble stones, flagstones, over the tile floor and across the threshold. It flows right across the chess board as they ponder their next move.