Checkmate
Written by Flo Anderson
The stone doors swung open and a foot emerged. Then a figure. Swaddled in lace and taffeta. With a deft flick of her right wrist her fan unfurled and instantly shot up to her face. It was carefully poised to reveal the wry eyes, dancing behind the netting of her eyelids. A mastered move that had clearly been made a thousand times. She let out a giggle which dripped in condescension. It danced through the fan and echoed throughout the concrete room. She was lugging the train of her dress which seemed to drag behind her like a moping child and uttered a gasp of relief as it slumped into the chair. It’s counterpart rested empty.
« So where is she then; this fabled opponent of mine? »
Catherine’s question was answered by the slight shuffling of feet and the appearance of a motley entourage including her husband Peter who replied; « I have received word from her pilot, she should be landing imminently my love. » Disgruntled, she stared down at the board in front of her and had her eyes examine each of the characters at her whim. The sacrificial pawn. The slippery bishops. The unnerving knights. The stalwart rooks. And finally, she cast her eyes to the emblem of victory - the king, burdened by his crown of delusion. It was he who forced the Queen into her militaristic dance. Everyone knew it was she who held the power yet the charade of womanly subjugation that she was forced to dance made her blood boil.
Catherine’s musings were suddenly pierced by a clip clop that reverberated around the stone box, far preceding the arrival of the tottering woman. When she appeared, her head looked like it was the only thing to have been spared from the quicksand of her mink coat. Catherine rose to greet her opponent. A courteous bow was given by Catherine and in return Imelda outstretched her hand. With one fluid movement she shed the fur which came tumbling down onto the chair. Hidden underneath was a masterpiece. The skin of silk was protected under swathes of what appeared to the unfocused eye as cornflower blue scales, each one delicately constructed by opaque sequins. They drew the eye towards the centre of the dress where the pattern swelled into two iridescent copper ovals that held an unflinching gaze with Catherine as Imelda descended into her seat.
Catherine turned her gaze to Imelda’s attendants. The Catholic priest with his latticed ear. Proceeded by the Governor, her stocky sibling, whom Catherine had seen photos of in the journals. The infamous Ferdinand, whose cadaverous features were dressed with pride, and finally, a beautiful youth whose face was so expressional one would expect him to have been wearing a mask. Peter rose to greet Ferdinand and offered to escort him to his resting place after they had had their inaugural feast. The two men slinked off like apparitions into the warren of rooms. As the others settled into their places, Catherine pierced the awkwardness with her chipper greeting, « I am so glad you could make it dearest. »
« I have to say I was rather intrigued when your invitation found its way into my grasp. »
« Yes well it wouldn’t have found its way anywhere else, I had my Grigory deliver it specially », the little lap dog peeped his head out from behind Imelda’s living mask at his mistress’ call.
« You piqued my curiosity. »
« Well I hope I live up to the myth » With this, Catherine’s eyes began to brim with mischief under the rims of her lashes, she flashed a glance to the benches and continued, « Shall we make the game interesting? ».
« What did you have in mind? » inquired Imelda prudishly.
Catherine picked up the incapacitated King and Imelda watched as her opponent’s lips curled into a demonic grin. « Let us place a bet. »
In one brusque movement Imelda stretched out her arm and nonchalantly began observing her stately fingers.
« What do you possibly think you could give me that I couldn’t just procure myself? If you know how rich you are, you are not rich. But me, I am not aware of the extent of my wealth, that is how rich we are. »
Her absorption with her bejewelled fingers seemed almost gluttonous to Catherine’s priest. Even with the aid of his spectacles, his hazy eyes could not put into focus each finger. Instead they appeared as bulbous tentacles, ready to ensnare and subsume Catherine’s resin army. He squinted at the Catholic priest who sat a few bodies to his left, he too seemed to jangle with the same colourful disposition. A corrupted stained glass window.
« Well I for one am rather fond of your Hawaiian retreat.»
« In return for your Winter Palace. » Howls of indignation where heard from Catherine’s corner.
« That is absurd. » She replied stalwartly.
« Your Titians too. I must insist that paintings of such calibre hang together in splendour. » Imelda added politely with a curt smirk.
« I am starting to see how it transpires. »
« How what transpires? »
« Your system of martial law with a smile. »
Imelda snickered condescendingly.
« The Winter Palace is utterly off bounds. » Catherine leaned over the checkered battle field, « There is something I could more easily part with, it just depends on whether you have the nerve and the gall to commit the same. »
« I think you would be surprised. »
« I bet the head of my King. »
A litany of gasps and gulps arose from the benches as hands shot to mouths and cradled foreheads in hands. Imelda nurtured these moments, eyeing Catherine with composure and a mouth tightly sewn shut. When she finally uttered « Why not. » Catherine’s stately comportment dropped and she seemed as a child with a new toy, impatiently eager to begin. Reaching within the voluptuous folds of her skirts, Catherine prized her coin purse from its claws. The purse clicked open and she drew out her husband’s likeness which was etched upon the ruble.
« The game always starts with chance » said Catherine as her hands drew behind her back and passed the regal head back and forth. She let it nestle in the clammy grasp of the left and hid his protruding eyes under her thumb.
« Which hand do you choose? »
« The Right », proclaimed Imelda assuredly.
Catherine’s fingers itched and surreptitiously passed the floating head between them. The corrugated neck of the Catholic priest craned round to see the outcome.
« Congratulations. » Catherine exclaimed as she uncurled her hand, « Your move to start. »
Imelda peered down at the board in front of her. « Convenient that you had me sit behind the white already ». She rolled her first pawn across her fingers and dropped him down on a black square.
« It’s funny I have a pen pal who has been writing about chance ». Catherine’s priest rolled his sunken eyes from the bench.
« Enlighten me. » Catherine advanced her first pawn.
« He believes that chance is a word void of sense; that nothing can exist without a cause. »
« He seems like an astute pen pal. Does he have a name? » Imelda’s fingers ran along the front rank of her platoon.
« Voltaire. »
« Well, I am a Catholic, I don’t believe in chance I believe in fate. Nothing can exist without a cause and to take his idea further, a conclusion. » With this Imelda took the first capture of the game.
« Well then what was the cause of your tardiness that saw me take the seat I am currently in and leave you the other.
« We flew from Rome which meant I could at least be surrounded by a few comforts. But my fool of a husband left our cheese at the Hotel de Russie - »
Some faint chuckles emanated from the benches but Imelda completely ignored them, « Hence our tardiness. I had to order the pilot to turn around. » She crossed her legs and in doing so flicked her rook to the ground as Catherine pushed her another pawn forward.
« Oh my, what a lark « Catherine giggled as she bent over to retrieve the piece, « Gorgonzola blessed by the papal committee? »
An intermingling of snorts and exasperated exhales could be heard from the benches. Imelda plastered her instinctive grimace with a saccharine smile and plucked the piece from Catherine’s hand. Talking is a physical ability, she thought to herself, but speaking is an art.
« Hilarious. I forget your stiff upbringing, Lutheranism wasn’t it? » jousted Imelda as her knight galloped forward.
« Yes indeed. I was raised on a strong diet of etiquette; french language and Lutheran theology. ». Catherine advanced her rook to the precipice of Imelda’s rank and file and prized the overzealous knight from her grasp.
« What an unholy trinity… » Catherine’s rook fell to a lowly, now gloating pawn.
« Here, here! » Imelda’s catholic companion belched, his gold chains dancing around his neck as copious flecks of spittle fled his mouth.
« It was merely the vessel through which I was intended to improve the position of my house. I left Luther in Germany and welcomed Russian orthodoxy into my bosom when I assumed the name of Catherine. They demanded that I be baptised another time when I entered the Orthodox church. My papal name you could say. »
« How pious of you » retorted Imelda as her diamond encrusted finger nudged the bishop forward and toppled the quivering pawn under Catherine’s control.
« And you would call yourself a devout follower? » Catherine wryly quipped, « I hear your palace is filled with the reliquaries of your political enemies…». Imelda’s eyes flickered as she recalled the concrete underbelly of the Philippine Heart Centre filled with captives. She always rewarded herself with a new pair of shoes for each political prisoner. Twirling around the red Louboutins on her feet, she distinctively remembered that they were from Benigno Aquino Jr.
« Yes, I am a good Catholic, » she mused « although the only thing I won’t do by the book is pray before my meal. I certainly shall not be giving thanks if the food is bad. »
Catherine let out a high-pitched cackle that bounced off the pock-marked crevasses of the stone walls and into the ears of the onlookers. Spreading her fine lace fan she forced it over her obnoxiously gaping mouth and advanced her bishop.
« You know, it is not merely the venomous papal exploitation nurtured in the heart of the city’s bosom that I find unappetising about Rome. I also harbour a profound scorn for her aesthetics.’ The Queen took her first steps.
A pawn fell. Imelda gasped, « What could you possibly find unpleasant about Rome? You mount blasphemy upon blasphemy to let a statement like that pass into breath. »
« I hate fountains that torture water in order to make it take a course contrary to its nature. The straight lines and symmetric avenues betray a falsity because it assumes the stable essence of an object and its universality of perception.» The rook whizzed along the checkered corridors.
Catherine continued, « Of course this leads me to my opinions on your brutalist ‘projects’, so to speak. »
« Let’s not get the lost in the quagmire of pussyfooting. It seems the difference between you and I is that you want to be the bearer and I want to be the maker of meaning. » The Knight assertively marched forward and bashed down Catherine’s rook. « Brutalism looks forward rather than pandering to the whimsical notions you speak of. »
Catherine eyed the fallen rook with a renewed sense of determination as a playful smile tugged at the corner of her lip. She pushed her queen forward with careful precision, capturing Imelda’s brash Knight. « The bearer or the maker. To confine oneself to a single role is to deny the complexity of our nature. »
Imelda arched her spine and advanced a pawn. « You speak of complexity yet you revel in tradition, in the baroque. Have you blinded yourself to the reality that this adherence is its own kind of confinement? MY CCP Complex is unapologetically bold and defiant; it a sanctuary for the the Filipino soul that has endured the impact of these alien traditions for too long. »
The bodies began twitching on the bench.
« If you permit me to offer my opinion, a future that has had to build itself on the shards of the past must remember the impact of the fragments that it uses. It seems to me in your pursuit, you create these towering fortresses of concrete that are as rigid as the structures that you seek to dismantle. »
The sequins on Imelda’s dress seemed to bristle as she reached her arm forward and snatched up the black Queen. « And for the woman who rubbed out little Lutheran Sophie to install in her place Catherine The Great? »
« She was the sacrificial pawn who climbed her way through the slippery bishops. The unnerving knights. The stalwart rooks. And finally, she cast her eyes on the emblem of victory, the King. There is no aphrodisiac in politics that powerful people love more than naivety. »
Imelda surveyed her army, her fingers passed over her characters and plucked the King from his bed. « Oftentimes I find that men put their hand on their sword and entirely lose their personality, but we women always have the end in sight. »
She placed him back down opposite a meek black pawn.
The pendulum of heads strained to see the board. The queen stood proudly, her form imbued with the grace of a monarch in her prime. The black king was encircled by the rook, the knight and the priest. It was decided.
Catherine moulded her face into a frown and bent the corners of her lips slightly to impart an air of sorrow and defeat. She looked to her pieces on the bench and bade them rise. Moving through the warren of pockmarked rooms they found Peter. Pale Peter, clutching onto a bottle and sleeping soundly in his place of rest. With one swift movement the deal was done. Catherine’s eyes gleamed with satisfaction as the head rolled under the fold of her gown, « My time chewing the cud of human sorrows has passed. »
As they made their way back to the game room, processing the head as if he were John the Baptist, they were greeted with an eery silence that seemed to have poisoned the air. Imelda’s army had vacated their seats and their victory lay dormant on the table. They felt deflated. Catherine slumped into her chair like an impetuous child, the severed head of her husband drooling onto her lap.
Then, as if the past few hours had been but a daydream, the clip-clop punctured the still air, it ran through the rooms and greeted the attendees before its maker had a chance to arrive. Except this time Catherine could discern a drip. It was slightly out of kilter with the metronomic rhythm of the shoes. Imelda appeared in the doorway. In the crevasses of her glistening fingers were intwined the hairs of her husband’s head. The mouths dropped.
« The ultimate luxury is to do unnecessary things » she giggled sardonically.