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You have seen many chess players over the course of your career, of course you have, and with those many chess players comes their many bizarre habits. It seems to be the case that to be a grandmaster, one has to be a little strange. When one has been an arbiter for so long, it goes without saying that you have seen your fair share of these things. There had been that German player who refused to sit down at the board until he had personally inspected every one of the pieces, a Soviet player with a penchant for singing to himself between matches, a British player who would only eat fruit for the entire duration of a tournament. Compared to this, you think that a twitchy American who seems to be unable to keep the pen he uses to take down moves out of his mouth, is rather tame.
Both the US and USSR delegations have gone all out with their accusations of cheating this year. It had been ramping up rather steadily, but this is a new high. You suppose that the matches that you had presided over before had been on a smaller scale before, and this is the World Championship. Understanding doesn’t make you any less exhausted however as you field complaints about the size of the Soviet delegation and about the chemical composition of the chairs they sit on. Are they not both here for chess? Can they not just sit down and dedicate themselves to the love of the game without having to bother you about these things that do not matter. You are there to ensure that no cheating occurs, they should not need to worry about that, and yet they seem to insist on it. The Americans want to advertise—because of course they do—and the Soviets seem to take that as a personal offence. You just want to shout at them all to shut up and play, but that would be unprofessional, so you nod and smile and pretend that you care about anything aside from the upcoming game.
When they both sit down in front of the chessboard, you let yourself breathe a sigh of relief. This is what you know, it is what you are used to. You can run through the rituals of starting the game, and you can get to work for real this time. The Russian sits so still you can see the way he breathes; The American twitches seemingly uncontrollably, his fingers tapping on his leg, his feet moving beneath the table. The Russian tilts his head every time he reaches out to make a move; The American takes a deep breath in before he touches a piece. The Russian meticulously writes his notes in the smallest script you have ever seen, noting the moves and nothing more; The American scribbles aimlessly, the moves caught in between what seems to be other observations, if you could read his atrocious handwriting to identify them. None of this is interesting, none of this is out of the ordinary for a chess match, these are all things you have seen before.
One thing that does catch your eye however, is The American’s habit of chewing anything he can put in his mouth. Most of the time it is his pen, the biro littered with so many bite marks that you are amazed it has not split open yet, but not always. Sometimes it is the sleeves of the suit jacket he clearly does not want to be wearing. He tugs on it uncomfortably, pushing the sleeves up and down restlessly, and sometimes raises a hand to his mouth and chews on them. It makes you wince a little to watch it, you cannot imagine that the wet sleeves will feel pleasant against his wrists, but he seems so deep in focus that you can imagine that he barely even realises what he is doing. Many chess players seem to be that way. So caught up in the moment that everything they do feels completely natural. It takes an outside objective observer, such as an arbiter, to notice the strangeness in their rituals.
So he chews on his pen, on his sleeve, on his fingers, and you do nothing about it. It is a relatively harmless habit compared to others you have seen—though not entirely victimless, if the plasters that you see on most of his fingers are anything to go by—and there is no need to take action if it does not affect the chess.
That is, until they start fighting. As The Arbiter, it is your job to remember who started it, but you really aren’t sure it was any one of them. They had been flinging accusations of cheating back and forth before the match even started, and they had certainly not stopped once they started playing. You suppose the tournament is getting its money’s worth from you, but you wish they had a little more respect for the game itself. As the shouting gets more heated however—The American is now saying something about the yoghurts that The Russian has been brought throughout the match—it is clear that they are not going to stop without intervention.
Before you can say anything though, The American stands up with a flourish, and slams his hands down so hard on the table that the pieces almost rattle. You want to jump into action then and there to protect that game that is in the midst of play. If a careless action sets the whole board wrong, it is fixable of course, the moves are recorded for reasons such as this. However it is still never a desirable outcome. Still, you watch, frozen to the spot as The American shouts again, and then picks up a pawn. You can see the spot that he intends to move it to, you do not work as an arbiter without an incredibly high understanding of the game yourself. You can see the pawn in one hand, and the pen still clutched in the other, and then you see something that it takes your brain a moment to wrap itself around.
The American goes to move the pawn, but instead the hand with the pen moves forward. The other, absentmindedly, on instinct, goes up to his lips. The small white piece goes straight into his mouth. You can see his teeth clamp down upon it, and it takes a second before his eyes widen and he realises what he has done. The Russian is already shouting, something about inappropriate disposal of pieces, and then The American throws the piece in his face. Great, so much for a peaceful match, with nothing to worry about aside from the chess itself. In all your years as an arbiter you have had players slip pieces into their pockets, into their bags, their shoes—you name it. This however, is the first time you have seen a player eat one and you are not quite sure what to make of it.
At this point, there is no hoping that they will return to the play as normal. Once the first piece is thrown, that tends to be it for diplomacy. You might not have seen anyone eat a chess piece before, but you have seen more of them lobbed over the board at opponents than you would care to count. You sigh, looking at Mr. Molokov and Ms. Vassy to your side, their long-suffering seconds. Somehow you are going to have to get this all back on track, but this is your job after all. Certainly one of the more lively aspects of it, but if there’s one thing you are good at it is getting rogue players back on track. They are going to sit down and play nicely if that is the last thing they do. You will personally make sure of that.
The rest of the match plays out more peacefully once you can get them to agree to return to finish, and you can actually watch the game without fearing that one of them is going to flip the board. They play good chess, great chess even, and you remind yourself that this is why you put up with all these idiosyncrasies and eccentricities. The moves are like a dance across the board, and you allow yourself for just a moment to slip away from your role to enjoy it all like a child watching their mother explain the movement of the fascinating little pieces to them all over again.
You are woken up in the early hours of the following morning with an envelope from the American Delegation: a forfeit. Something in your heart sinks as you realise that you are not going to get to watch him battle it out until the bitter end, you have grown rather fond of his style of play. In the end though, it is not his resignation of the match that is what people talk about when they talk about Merano in years to come. They do not mention his near-consumption of a pawn either, they do not talk about The American at all. No, The Russian has upstaged it all with the news of his defection. You hear them announce it on the radio, and then you turn it off and clamber back into your bed. The chess is over, they are outside of your jurisdiction now and free to go on with their own lives after having passed through yours. The Russian is for the diplomats to deal with now, and with that reassuring thought, you close your eyes and dream of chess.