The Queen's Gambit

partition made of unplanned wooden boards nailed to two-by-fours. A
calendar used to hang there, with scenes from Bavaria above the sheets for
the months. Now the calendar was gone and the entire partition was covered
with photographs and clippings and covers from Chess Review, each of
them neatly taped to the wood and covered with clear plastic to keep it
clean and free of dust—the only thing in this dingy basement that was.
They were pictures of her. There were printed games from Chess Review,
and newspaper pieces from the Lexington Herald-Leader and the New York
Times and from some magazines in German. The old Life piece was there,
and next to it was the cover of Chess Review with her holding the U.S.
Championship trophy. Filling in the smaller spaces were newspaper
pictures, some of them duplicates. There must have been twenty
photographs.
***
“You find what you were looking for?” Jolene asked when she got back to
the car.
“More,” Beth said. She started to say something else but didn’t. Jolene
backed the car up, drove out of the lot and turned back onto the road that

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led to the highway.
When they drove up the ramp and pulled onto the interstate, Jolene
gunned the VW and it shot ahead. Neither of them looked back. Beth had
stopped crying by then and was wiping her face with a handkerchief.
“Didn’t bite off more than you could chew, did you?” Jolene said.
“No.” Beth blew her nose. “I’m fine.”
***
The taller of the two women looked like Helen Deardorff. Or didn’t exactly
look like her as much as display all indications of spiritual sisterhood. She
wore a beige suit and pumps and smiled a good deal in a way totally devoid
of feeling. Her name was Mrs. Blocker. The other was plump and slightly
embarrassed and wore a dark floral print and no-nonsense shoes. She was
Miss Dodge. They were on their way from Houston to Cincinnati and had
stopped by for a chat. They sat side by side on Beth’s sofa and talked about
the ballet in Houston and the way the city was growing in culture. Clearly
they wanted Beth to know Christian Crusade was not merely a narrow,
fundamentalist organization. And just as clearly they had come to look her
over. They had written ahead.
Beth listened politely while they talked about Houston and about the
agency they were helping to set up in Cincinnati—an agency that had
something to do with protecting the Christian environment. The
conversation faltered for a moment, and Miss Dodge spoke. “What we
would really like, Elizabeth, would be some kind of a statement.”
“A statement?” Beth was sitting in Mrs. Wheatley’s armchair facing them
on the sofa.
Mrs. Blocker picked it up. “Christian Crusade would like you to make
your position public. In a world where so many keep silent…” She didn’t
finish.
“What position?” Beth asked.
“As we know,” Mrs. Dodge said, “the spread of Communism is also the
spread of atheism.”
“I suppose so,” Beth said.
“It’s not a matter of supposing,” Mrs. Blocker said quickly. “It’s a matter
of fact. Of Marxist-Leninist fact. The Holy Word is anathema to the

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Kremlin, and it is one of the major purposes of Christian Crusade to contest
the Kremlin and the atheists who sit there.”
“I have no quarrel with that,” Beth said.
“Good. What we want is a statement.” The way Mrs. Blocker said it
echoed something that Beth had recognized years before in Mrs.
Deardorff’s voice. It was the tone of the practiced bully. She felt the way
she did when a player brought out his queen too soon against her. “You
want me to make a statement for the press?”
“Exactly!” Mrs. Blocker said. “If Christian Crusade is going to—” She
stopped and felt the manila envelope in her lap as though estimating its
weight. “We had something prepared.”
Beth looked at her, hating her and saying nothing.
Mrs. Blocker opened the clasp on the envelope and pulled out a sheet of
paper filled with typing. She gave it to Beth.
It was the same stationery the original letter had come on, with its list of
names running down the side. Beth glanced down the list and saw “Telsa R.
Blocker, Executive Secretary,” just above half a dozen men’s names with
the abbreviation “Rev.” in front of them. Then she read the statement
quickly. Some phrases in it were underlined, like “the atheist-communist