A King in Hiding

by Fahim

  ‘This is the canteen, CANTEEN. This is where you’ll come to eat for the moment.’

  The hours pass, quietly, slowly, pointlessly. And then – then I hear a vague murmur, footsteps, noises getting louder, people chasing each other, a stampede, shouts, voices – children! It’s five o’clock. Success! Friends!

  I race out to meet them. By a stroke of luck there’s a Bangladeshi boy, Hadi. He introduces me to the rest of them, and straight away I’m one of the gang. Some of them speak good French. I admire that. Maybe one day I will too. We play games – not cricket or badminton but football and tag. On fine days we play outside, behind the building. On rainy days we hang about on the stairs. Sometimes we play outside even so and get soaked and are told off by our parents. But we do it again anyway.

  In the morning my friends go off to school, and I wait. I’m impatient. When the clock says the school day is over, life will begin again for me. The older boys arrive back first, then the younger ones who are at primary school. Maybe in France the older you are, the less you have to work?

  Muhamad puts my name down to go to school. On my first day, my friends show us the way. I’m happy not to be left all alone in the hostel any more. The head teacher meets us at the school door. His name is Jean-Michel. He has white hair that makes him look old, and jeans that make him look young. I’ve never seen a head teacher wearing jeans before.

  Jean-Michel takes me into the playground. There are children running in all directions, but I’m not fazed. I’m not easily fazed. Plus I recognise some of them from the hostel. When break is over, Jean-Michel takes me into Mme Faustine’s class, which is for children who don’t speak French. Then he takes me into Mme Klein’s class for eight- and nine-year-olds. Then we go back to Mme Faustine’s class. I’m not sure whose class I’m in.

  Mme Faustine tells me to sit down. There are only ten children in the class: two Chinese girls, a Sri Lankan boy who lives at the hostel, a Chechen boy who is also from the hostel, two black boys, a fair-haired boy, a weird boy from I never find out where, a chubby girl and a wimp. Mme Faustine gives me some colouring to do. I take my time, as I’m in no rush to start work. When I’ve finished, she tells me the picture is of Father Christmas. She makes me say it after her. FATHER CHRISTMAS. I’ve never heard of Christmas. In Bangladesh we celebrate Eid.

  I have lunch in the canteen. The dinner lady serves me a sort of white sausage, peculiar and not particularly nice-looking. One of my friends explains something to me but I don’t really understand: I think it’s a special sausage for Muslims.

  After lunch, Mme Faustine puts a sheet of paper on my table. There are blanks to fill in. I glance at it, then look up at the teacher in surprise. It’s so easy that for a moment I think she must be making fun of me. But no, she keeps a straight face. So I take my time. I’m not frightened of her: Alya’s mother told me that teachers in France never hit their pupils, even when they get things wrong.

  The next morning I’m not so eager to go to school. My father wakes me up quietly. Then loudly. Then he shakes me. Then he gets cross. I can’t stay in bed any longer. I start the day in a bad mood. The journey’s over. Life goes on.

  Chapter 6

  A TRUE DISCOVERY

  Even when we were still at the Bamouns my father would look all serious and say:

  ‘Fahim, I didn’t bring you halfway round the world so that you could watch cartoons.’

  In November, he bought a French book on chess for me. I couldn’t understand the French text, obviously, but I would look at the diagrams and try to work out the problems. More importantly, he decided to find a club where I could play. This wasn’t easy, as neither of us spoke French, and the Bamouns knew nothing about chess. But eventually he found a club called ‘La Tour Blanche’.

  To begin with I didn’t like it: it was nearly all adults there, and I couldn’t understand what they were saying. But I carried on going there, even after we moved out to the suburbs.

  In December I played in a tournament. I liked being back in the competitive atmosphere, and I was eager for the fight and for the pleasure of playing against new opponents. With eight wins and a draw, I was the winner. I felt proud. My father was over the moon. Both for my success and for the cheque for the 70 euro prize money.

  At the awards ceremony, a man came over to speak to us. When he realised that we didn’t understand what he was saying, he repeated himself slowly. My father made out ‘club’ and I grasped ‘Créteil’. The man scribbled a quick note and wrote down an address.

  Once we’ve settled in at the hostel, we decide to go and find this club in Créteil. We ask the people at the hostel, and Hadi translates. The club is in a street with a name. This always amazes me, as streets at home don’t have names.

  ‘It’s easy,’ they say. ‘It’s near those funny buildings that look like cabbages called Les Choux de Créteil.’

  My father and I set off to find it. We look everywhere, go round in circles, get it wrong, get lost, and before we know it it’s dark. It’s really hard to find your way in Europe. When at last we arrive outside the building it’s late. It’s in darkness, the door is shut and the metal shutter is pulled down.

  ‘Is this where it is, do you think?’ asks my father.

  I’m disappointed:

  ‘It doesn’t look like a chess club.’

  I look at the sign beside the door.

  ‘Wait!’

  I point.

  ‘I know that word. It’s on the cover of the book you gave me. I think it says “chess”.’

  We feel more hopeful again, and the next day we go back. Earlier. The club is open. A man stands in the doorway; he’s tall and thin and smoking. He smiles at us. My father gives him the note. The man reads it and looks interested, then tries to explain:

  ‘There’s no one here today. You’ll have to come back.’

  He waves his hands about, then goes off to find a calendar:

  ‘Saturday. Come back on Saturday. There’s a lesson at eleven o’clock.’

  We go away. I’m really disappointed. It’s pathetic, this club. Either it’s shut or there’s no one there. There’s nothing going on, it’s dead. And it looks cramped and shabby. We’ve got to find another club, but I don’t dare tell my father.

  Third time lucky. We go back on Saturday. The man teaching the lesson looks just like Nagy Laszlo. I’m surprised. He doesn’t look like a trainer. A trainer should be young, slim, clean-shaven. He’s the complete opposite. He has a big paunch and a beard, and he looks at least 70!

  He looks up:

  ‘Hello?’

  Another surprise. I’m expecting the voice of a little old man, weak and shaky, to match his grey hair. But his voice is loud and booming. I know at once that I will never get on with this man.

  ‘You must be Fahim?’

  Hearing my name I nod, feeling a bit shy.

  ‘I’m Xavier.’

  He beckons me to come closer. The club members are looking in silent concentration at the projected image of a large chessboard. Xavier takes me through the problem on his computer. I think about it. I know the answer, but I don’t know how to say it. So I point with my index finger as though I’m moving the pieces, one by one. Xavier smiles and turns to his pupils. He asks questions and they answer them. Words, words and more words piling up, mountains of words that I can’t understand. The lesson goes on for ages. I’m bored. Then the pieces on the wall begin to move, and I watch intently. Then they start talking again, and I’m bored once more.

  I turn to my father:

  ‘Can we go now?’

  ‘Don’t you want to watch the exercises?’

  I try to persuade him:

  ‘No, it’s too easy, I want to go.’

  ‘OK, let’s go.’

  But Xavier signals to us to wait, and my father sits down again. Too bad! When the lesson is finally over, I try to slip outside. Xavier keeps my father back and suggests we meet up the following Tuesday. I hope my father will refuse, but he agrees.


  It’s too late for lunch in the canteen. On the way back, my father buys me a sort of sandwich with hot meat in it, called a kebab. I know that today I’ve made a true discovery. Kebabs and I were made for each other!

  XP: When he first arrived at the club, Fahim was only eight. I remember a serious child – too serious perhaps – with eyes shining with curiosity. Whenever I spoke he frowned, as if to work out what I was saying, then looked questioningly at his father. This little boy from halfway across the world seemed lost.

  A few days earlier, my colleague Patrick had mentioned that an ‘exceptionally gifted’ child (that was what the note said) had arrived from the Indian subcontinent. It irritated me, as every week people tell me about some new prodigy. So it was with considerable reservations that I greeted him when he arrived – late – at my lesson. My students, all of them older, were preparing for a high-level championship, and were stumped by a problem designed to test their spatial awareness. Fahim was at least four years younger than them, but he surprised me. Instantly, he found the geometrical key to the problem. I knew then that this boy had the makings of a champion.

  On Tuesday I go back to the club, dragging my feet. I don’t want to see Xavier again, let alone work with him. But I don’t have the heart to disappoint my father. He seems so pleased to have found me a trainer. Xavier (or Exavier, as my father will always call him) is waiting for us. He gestures to me to sit down and we start to play. It’s hard but exciting. I make mistakes and lose quite a few games, which makes me cross and all the more determined to fight back.

  Time passes. What a funny teacher! We just play, and he doesn’t say anything: no remarks, no advice. He just thinks about the game, twiddling his beard between his fingers. I’m a bit thrown, but pleased: I don’t like it when people tell me how to play.

  It’s evening. We’ve been here for hours and I haven’t noticed the time slipping past. Xavier wants to fix a time to meet up again, but my father is embarrassed. With a few gestures, Xavier makes him understand that there is nothing for him to pay. I see him differently now: in the end, I can see that we’ll get on well together.

  From now on, I go to the club several times a week. Xavier gives me problems to solve by arranging pieces on a chessboard. While I solve one problem, he sets up another one. Then we play.

  XP: When I think back to those early games it makes me feel quite emotional. Fahim had been coached intensively by his father and his early teachers, and showed real potential. He had an astonishing ability to concentrate, extraordinary gifts for mental arithmetic and the geometrical perception of space, and a remarkable memory, all of which enabled him to put multiple moves together in advance and to plan well ahead. For such a little chap, he had an unbelievable mental overview of the game.

  I often quote Plato: ‘You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in an hour of conversation.’ It was perfectly clear already that this child, who spoke a different language from me and with whom my only means of communication was through playing and watching, was a shrewd tactician, alert to the slightest errors on his opponent’s part and capable of deploying a range of strategies that is rare in one so young.

  Fate, if such a thing exists, had put this child in my path for a reason. Forced by his chess-playing abilities to leave his home on the other side of the world, he had chanced to end up just a kilometre away from the club. I had to take him under my wing: ‘If you refuse to teach a man who possesses the right disposition, you lose a man. If you teach a man who does not possess the right disposition, you lose your teaching. A wise man loses neither men nor his teachings.’ I am a great admirer of Confucius.

  To begin with it wasn’t easy, all the same. The chessboard was our sole means of communication. For tactics this wasn’t a problem. But for working on the subtleties of the game it was impossible. How can you explain the complexities of these things through hand gestures? Fortunately, Fahim picked up French at a rate that was quite astounding.

  Xavier teaches me the French names of the pieces – the queen was a mere lady (dame) and the bishops fools (fous) – and technical vocabulary such as the term for a ‘pin’ (clouage) and ‘promotion’ when a pawn reaches the other side of the board. He shows me when you have to sacrifice a piece to put yourself in a position of strength, why I shouldn’t play my queen too early in the game, tricks for stopping my opponent from castling, and how to avoid traps for beginners.

  Gradually the club wakes up. The place livens up and the atmosphere is more welcoming, with nice people and lots of children, running around, shouting, laughing, playing. I like it.

  As well as doing one-on-one training, I also take part in coaching for the competition. I get to know the others in my group: Keigo, small and half-Japanese; a girl called Cécile; tall Louis, called Loulou by everyone; another Louis, Chinese with glasses; and his sister Charlotte, who looks exactly like him and wears the same glasses. I make friends with all of them, especially Chinese Louis. We’re always together, sitting next to each other during coaching, waiting for each other before it starts and playing chess together afterwards. We communicate as best we can. When we play, he often tries to soften me up by proposing a draw in Bengali:

  ‘Shoman shoman?’

  Certainly not! We fight to the end! In Chinese (sort of, anyway) I shoot back:

  ‘No ping du!’

  One day I arrive late for a tournament and everyone has already had lunch. There’s nothing left. Chinese Louis gives me his KitKat and is instantly one of my best friends in France. But our friendship isn’t to last. Soon after this he stops playing chess and disappears from my life.

  My lessons are getting more and more amazing. Xavier is nothing like any chess coach I’ve ever known. Behind his grizzled beard, he’s anything but a boring old teacher. He smokes cigars and rides a motorbike. He’s laid back, cool and funny, full of life and fun.

  At first I don’t understand his jokes, but I like watching the others laughing at them. Then I begin to grasp a few words, a few phrases, and finally everything. Well, nearly everything.

  ‘Frankly, Charlotte, your variant is camel’s piss.’

  ‘Variant’ I knew, but ‘camel’s piss’?

  ‘Cécile, if you pull back your king it will be as disastrous as the Flight to Varennes during the Revolution.’

  Or:

  ‘Bravo Louis and Loulou, my two louis d’or!’

  What about me, could I be his ‘Fahim d’or’?

  Xavier loves his quotations, particularly Chinese sayings.

  ‘Well done Keigo! Now you’re getting interesting, kid! You’ve worked out that “the greatest generals are those who gain victory without giving battle”.’

  ‘Was it Confucius who said that?’

  ‘No, it was Mencius.’

  ‘Whatever, it’s always either Mencius or Confucius with you.’

  ‘Or Lao Tzu.’

  Everyone bursts out laughing.

  Xavier doesn’t just teach us chess, he tells us all the stories that go with it too. He’s the type of coach who can spot a position played years ago in a historic game – he must know them all – in a nano-second, and who can then effortlessly slip in some anecdote to do with it.

  ‘Tell Fahim the story of Bobby Fischer and the journalist!’

  ‘Why don’t you tell him?’

  ‘You’ll like this one, Fahim. A journalist was interviewing Bobby Fischer – you know, the world champion – and asked him, “What do you talk about with your opponent?” To which Fischer replied: “When I arrive I say hello. When I leave I say checkmate.”’

  Sometimes, especially when everyone wants to answer a question at once, Xavier raises his voice:

  ‘Woah! Shouting won’t make your moves any better. Chess is like life: shouting louder doesn’t put you in the right. That’s why it’s so interesting.’

  But hidden behind that scary booming voice is a really good guy.

  XP: A few days after I first met Fahim and Nura, I rememb
er I went to see the film Welcome, the story of a young asylum-seeker in Calais who decides to learn to swim in order to get across the Channel to England, and of his swimming teacher, who is prosecuted for the ‘crime’ of helping an asylum-seeker. Like many others, I’d been appalled to discover that there was a law that made it illegal to offer someone hospitality, a law that turned normal human values on their head.

  It was a period when there was a lot of talk about ‘selective’ immigration and national identity, and there were mass expulsions of Roma people. France seemed to be able to remember the first part of the Socialist politician Michel Rocard’s famous pronouncement on immigration (‘France cannot take in all the world’s poor and dispossessed …’) while conveniently forgetting the second part (‘… but she should be proud to play her part’).

  When I came out of the cinema, I had the impression that the film was carrying on in real life, for me and my young pupil. From the outset, my involvement had gone beyond simply teaching him to play chess.

  During the spring holidays, I took Fahim and his father on a long walk through Paris. We went up to the top of the Eiffel Tower, then we walked through the Trocadéro gardens, Place de l’Etoile and the Tuileries. I remember Fahim’s expression of amazement as he stood looking up at the Eiffel Tower, and his puzzlement at the trees pruned into square shapes on the Champs Elysées.

  Along the way, I tried to tell them about some of the major events in French history: the Napoleonic victories symbolised by the Arc de Triomphe, the guillotine that stood on what is now Place de la Concorde, the Palais Royal that used to stand in the Tuileries. I began to realise what a vast cultural gulf lay between us: neither Fahim nor his father had ever heard of the French Revolution or the rights of man, nor of major figures from outside France such as Hitler and Stalin.