A King in Hiding

by Fahim

  Catherine and Patrick treat my father like a king. They trust him with a key to ‘his’ room and another to ‘their’ apartment. They tell him to help himself to anything in the fridge and invite him to share their meals: I’m not the only one who thinks he’s too thin.

  When I go to bed at Anna-Gaëlle’s or Gilles’ I feel better now, reassured. I know that I’ll see my father the next day. I know he won’t have left for Spain, that he won’t have frozen to death in the night. I know he’s safe inside, and I don’t have to feel guilty any more about being in the warm. I can breathe again.

  Every afternoon, my father catches the Métro to Créteil to meet me at the club. We spend the evening together and have supper, just the two of us: this is our time for us – even if some people complain about the cooking smells, even if we don’t really know what to say to each other.

  At the weekend, Catherine and Patrick sometimes take my father with them to the country, to a big house with a garden, an orchard and a kitchen garden. To thank them, he stacks wood, cuts the grass, tidies the flowerbeds and digs the soil, just like he used to at the barracks in Dhaka. In the holidays they invite me too. In the middle of February, when it’s ten degrees below zero, they ask if I’d like to go horse riding. I don’t want to disappoint them so I say yes, but I’m terrified. I get to ride a pony that’s actually quite cool and I manage not to fall off. In the end it’s fun. How strange life can be: yesterday sleeping on the streets, today going horse riding.

  But nothing is sorted yet. My father still has no papers, no right to stay in France, no money, no future. We’re still waiting for answers from the Préfecture, and the refusals keep coming. I can feel that he hasn’t completely given up on Spain.

  XP: The plight of Fahim and Nura had caused such a stir in Créteil that it reached the ears of the mayor, Laurent Cathala, who went into action on their behalf. He supported every one of their applications at the Préfecture, writing lengthy letters stressing their willingness to integrate, Fahim’s success at school and his achievements at chess.

  Thus he formed a link in the chain of solidarity that had been forged around them, as if to protect them from the fate that seemed to be closing in on them so relentlessly. It is impossible to do justice to the herculean efforts made by certain organisations that can never be praised too highly, by some social workers and by many supporters who remained nameless. Some gave material or financial aid, others offered psychological and moral support, and others again found the time to send an email to the right person at the right time, to call over and over again on jammed phone lines until they managed to get an appointment, to write a letter of protest or to collect signatures for a petition. It was an image of suburban life far removed from the one we normally see in the media.

  Not to be outdone, the little world of chess lived up to the motto of the International Chess Federation, Gens Una Sumus, meaning ‘We are one family’. Championships in particular offered opportunities for meetings, discussions and sharing notes. Some of the players and their families had heard about Fahim’s success, and about his father’s commitment. An appeal launched during a tournament even resulted in the manager of a supermarket making Nura a formal job offer so that he could obtain a work permit. But yet again it all came to nothing. We were making no headway at all.

  Chapter 12

  JUST A SINGLE PAWN

  Right from the start of the season, Xavier is absolutely clear:

  ‘For years Créteil has competed at the highest level nationally, but we haven’t won the trophy for … oh, I don’t know how many years, I hardly dare count!’

  ‘Oh go on, Xavier, tell us.’

  We titter a bit, but Xavier frowns:

  ‘There’s a time for everything: a time for making a joke of things, and a time for competing. And this time the competition will be stiff. You’re playing in the “first division” now. If you’d rather be playing marbles I’m sure you can find somewhere to do that round here. If you stay here, you stay here to train and to win that trophy.’

  Someone whispers a silly joke in my ear. It’s my good friend Isma (Ismaël is his real name, or Ismaboul to us), who’s half-Tunisian and is always clowning about. Also in this year’s team are Loulou, who’s very serious but still funny, Yovann, who’s half Indian and seriously driven, and Tanguy, the intellectual of the group. Then there’s Tarujan, a Sri Lankan who’s always chilled, Quan Anh, a half-French half-Vietnamese geek, and Aymeric, who’s – French, I think. And me of course.

  XP: In my 30 years as a trainer, both for local teams and for the French national team, I’ve coached countless pupils from all over the world. Taken together, the Créteil youth team were ten years ahead of their age group at school, and represented – counting dual nationalities – six or seven different countries. Brainpower knows no national boundaries.

  There’s a very clear link, by contrast, between money and success. How could Fahim possibly compete on equal terms with players whose parents were able to lavish funds on chess coaching, lessons, trainers, courses, trips abroad and competitions? Not to mention the gulf that lay between him and the little Ukrainian and Chinese players who, though no more talented than him, were the product of state training programmes? Harshly treated by life as he was, limited to a single trainer, prevented by his irregular status from competing at international level, unable to take part in most national competitions for lack of funds, it was a miracle that Fahim was still playing at all.

  ‘Well, Cannes will beat us anyway,’ someone says.

  ‘Yeah, they’re really good.’

  ‘They’re terrifying!’

  Xavier stops us:

  ‘If the Cannes team is your bête noire, work out how to beat your bête noire.’

  ‘But that’s impossible!’

  ‘Nothing is impossible to a willing heart! You know Karpov and Kasparov, the Starsky and Hutch of chess? The first time they played each other was in the world championship final in 1984. On one side Karpov, world champion since 1975. Opposite him Kasparov, a mere youth, spirited, still developing as a player and with no experience of playing at that level. And wham! Kasparov was down 5-0. At that time, when one player had won six games the championship was stopped. So Kasparov was determined that he wouldn’t lose another game: they would all be wins or draws. He wouldn’t cede a single point. And he held out, one game after another, and fought his way back up: 5-1, 5-2, 5-3, and so on and on. The match dragged on for ever. After 48 games and five months, Karpov couldn’t stand the psychological stress any longer, and the match ended without a winner.’

  ‘But that’s a cop out!’

  ‘The spectre of that match and the way it ended haunted Karpov for the rest of his life. Whenever he played Kasparov after that, at crucial moments he would just completely lose it, and there can be little doubt why. He couldn’t get it out of his mind that this was the snotty-nosed kid that he just couldn’t beat a sixth time.’

  ‘He must have felt really bad about it!’

  ‘I’m telling you this story to make you think. Which of these two mental attitudes will you adopt when you face Cannes? Will you be like Kasparov, 5-0 down to the unbeatable world champion but absolutely determined never to give up? Or like Karpov, the heavyweight who loses his grip when he sees his opponent as his bête noire? If you go in to face Cannes like losers, they’ll wipe the floor with you. It’s like every sport, it’s crucially important to go in with the right mindset.’

  I love Xavier’s stories. And I make up my mind that this season my mindset will be as tough as steel. I am totally psyched up. And I promise that after every lesson I’ll do my exercises. I swear it! Even though I put them off that week, and the next week, and the week after. Sometimes I make the others laugh by telling them that I want to show Xavier I’ve really understood what the verb ‘to procrastinate’ means. It’s fun making them laugh. But I will knuckle down, I know I will. Soon.

  ‘So let’s work out a strategy for beating our bête noire,’ Xavier
goes on. ‘Has anyone got any ideas?’

  ‘Er …’

  ‘The secret in this sort of case is to hang on to the initiative. The player who has the initiative imposes his own rhythm on his opponent, who can only try to catch up and fight back.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Well, it’s quite simple really: put his king in check to put him on the defensive; make your own choice of which pieces to take and which ones to lose; or force him to react by threatening him. In short: check, take, threaten!’

  Check, take, threaten. That’s exactly what I dream of doing. And not just in chess either.

  My first opponent at Top Jeunes, the youth tournament, is pretty weak. A walkover. So I let my mind wander, I make careless moves – and within a quarter of an hour I’ve lost my queen without taking his. A scary wake-up call! I go crazy. I might as well throw in the towel now. I’m furious – with myself, with my opponent, with the whole world. I’m so angry it hurts. I could almost hit the boy opposite me.

  ‘A great player never dies without attempting a final flourish,’ Xavier would say.

  So I throw myself back into the fight with a last desperate push. And I don’t back down. I resist for three hours, three long hours, without my queen. No one would bet a single taka on me winning, or even squeezing a draw. But I wear my opponent down, surprise him, knock him off balance, exhaust him – until finally he cracks and makes a stupid mistake. I win the game. It’s brilliant. I love it! I’m happy. What style! I get up with a big grin on my face. Then I look at Xavier. He’s furious.

  ‘This is not just about you, Fahim! By acting like that you put the whole team in jeopardy. You’ve pulled the rug out from under their feet. The others were counting on you to win and the team was ahead. But when I could see you were going to lose—’

  I shrug.

  ‘But I won!’

  ‘Shush! When I could see you were going to lose, I had to push the others to get the points we were going to need. I forced the ones who could have gone to a draw to carry on playing. I couldn’t let them off with only half a point. I had to make them try to win, to get a full point. So they had no choice but to take risks, and some of them lost. All because of you!’

  ‘Yeah, well, it’s not my fault.’

  ‘On the contrary, Fahim, it is your fault. You might have won, but because of you the Créteil team has lost the first round!’

  XP: Fahim’s playing that year was distinguished only by his poor standard. His sole success was coming second in the Île-de-France versus England tournament, winning a ticket to Disneyland as his prize. I tried to get a response from him, but he just couldn’t get himself together. He’d stopped making progress. In fact he was going backwards, and I was afraid that at any moment he might give up altogether. I’ve seen it happen to so many young players who have had their heads turned and then crashed out. Fahim would arrive late for lessons and training sessions, refused to apply himself, wouldn’t put his games online or study them, and regularly ‘forgot’ to do his exercises. He was apathetic, dragged his feet, answered everything I said with a shrug, and was cheeky in his attitude. I wasn’t the only one who noticed it. His teachers at school complained that he talked and fidgeted in class, skimped his work and was casual to the point of rudeness. He was starting to come unstuck, if not in the standard of his work then at least in terms of his future prospects and his attitude. How could it have been otherwise?

  I hate my life, it’s horrible. I used to find a refuge in chess. That was a battlefield where I was the king. Even better than that, in fact: I was the one who commanded the king, who gave him his orders. I used to know I was in charge of the army and of the game. But for a while now the game has been slipping through my fingers, just like my life. I’m not the one who decides any more. I’m less important than the king, whose survival governs the game; less important than a rook, which can cross the board to checkmate; less important than a bishop or a knight, which can’t even checkmate on their own. Perhaps I’m only a pawn. If I’m just a pawn, who will take orders from me? Who will take any notice of me at all?

  Xavier’s not happy, it’s perfectly obvious:

  ‘Fahim, where did that good, polite, respectful, motivated boy go, the one I met that morning in February 2009?’

  I shrug. I don’t know what to say. I don’t have any memory of that boy. I can barely remember that time, when my father and I lived together, when we thought we would always have a roof over our heads, food on our plates and pride in our hearts. When I still had hope that I would see my mother again.

  Now I feel alone. I feel in danger. I don’t believe in anything, I’m not expecting anything, I’m not hoping for anything. Every day is an ordeal. I leave my feelings, hopes and fears outside, then I shut the door and double-lock it. I move forward blindly, always on the look-out for a laugh, just to pass the time.

  Christmas 2011. Despite the way I’m behaving, Xavier is still kind to us. To celebrate the holiday, he puts together a Christmas lunch at the chess club, just for my father and me.

  ‘Foie gras and microwave ready meals: a real feast in the circumstances,’ he greets us with a chuckle. He tells jokes and even manages to make my father smile.

  We’re in the middle of eating when the phone rings. Xavier answers it, and all of a sudden his face falls.

  XP: For some time my mother had been suffering from chronic bronchitis. On Christmas Day disaster fell: rushed to accident and emergency, she was rapidly diagnosed with advanced lung cancer. She had only a few weeks to live, just time for us to say our farewells.

  From then on I spent as much time as I possibly could with her, sharing breakfast with her, playing cards, talking, laughing – and crying. I gave up chess in favour of Scrabble, playing it with almost as much enthusiasm as chess, especially on one occasion when, after beating me (a rare event), she got up and put the game away, just to tease me:

  ‘I want to bow out victorious, so that’s our last game!’

  Fortunately it didn’t take much to persuade her to carry on playing – and losing.

  Xavier isn’t there. He comes to lessons, but he doesn’t look at me. He doesn’t say anything. At first I think he’s angry with me.

  ‘Fahim, my mother’s ill. Gravely ill.’

  His eyes are red.

  ‘She needs me just now. And I need her. I want to spend all my time with her. Do you understand?’

  Oh yes, I understand! I put on my casual air, but for once I don’t shrug.

  XP: I know that Fahim and Nura must have missed me a great deal during this time. I fitted lessons in when I could, dashing off to the hospital straight afterwards. I could only listen with half an ear, even to Nura.

  One lunchtime I stopped off to buy a bottle of champagne: when there’s nothing left to celebrate, there’s always champagne. My mobile started to vibrate:

  ‘Exavier, it’s Nura. I no money left.’

  ‘Listen Nura, I’m on my way to the hospital. Then I have to give a lesson in Paris. I’m not free until nine o’clock.’

  ‘Exavier, I no money. Is all gone. I need. Big problem. Tonight no good, no shop. Shop shut. Now shop. Need eat.’

  I looked at the bottle I was about to pay for. Only a complete bastard would refuse. But a detour via Créteil would mean that I’d miss visiting time at the hospital, and I wouldn’t see my mother that day.

  ‘Nura, I can’t come to you. You come to me. Catch the bus at the Pompadour intersection, and I’ll wait for you at La Croix-de-Berny. La Croix-de-Berny. Do you understand?’

  Of course Nura didn’t know the bus, he didn’t know the bus stop and he never turned up. Furious at having wasted precious time waiting for him, but also filled with remorse, I went off to the hospital. I don’t think Nura and Fahim had anything to eat that night.

  Another time, when I’d rushed from the hospital to give him his lesson, I found Fahim sprawled on the sofa. When he told me he hadn’t done his work I was so angry I was shaking: I could have stayed with
my mother for another hour! I went outside and lit a cigar to calm myself down. ‘He’s only a child, it’s up to me to find a way to get him to work again,’ I tried to reason with myself. But did Fahim care about chess any more?

  Xavier has vanished from my life. He’s melted away. I see him at the club, when he comes for lessons and for my training sessions. But he comes without his laugh, without his stories, without his expressions. Without his will to see me win. Even before he leaves again, I’m facing everything alone: the chessboard, my life, my future. I keep my thoughts from wandering to the European championships: is it just a dream too far for a boy from Bangladesh?

  I don’t kid myself: soon, at my present rate, I’ll only be eligible for the Val-de-Marne championships.

  I try to remember. How was it that I used to be able to command my pieces on the chessboard, to tell the king where to go, order the queen about, force the pawns to sacrifice themselves? How did I manage to take control of my own life, to go in the directions I decided, to try to live a life with no regrets?

  Then slowly, gradually, almost without noticing, I start to get a grip again. Without my father who is still silent, without Xavier who is so far away inside his head, I set out on my journey again alone. I travel over the chessboard, looking for the path to follow.

  If Xavier was here he’d say: ‘A long journey begins with a single step.’

  That’s another quotation from someone Chinese. I let my mind wander, thinking back to those openings that I haven’t worked at. I try to remember what Xavier told me:

  ‘Since you like the Sicilian, you should find out about all the Sicilians. With black, it could become your home ground, where you feel most comfortable. But you need to know your ground. Remember that Anand–Kramnik game: e4 c5 Nf3 d6 d4 cxd4 Nd4 …’