Windborne Memories

CHAPTER III - Games We Play

For several days and nights, I would rehearse his movements in my mind. Leopold had shown me how each piece possessed unique capabilities, manoeuvres, and strategies. I would practice with an imaginary chessboard as I impatiently waited to be called for more deliveries. No matter what I did, chess would linger in my mind.

In school, which was scheduled once a week, we sat crammed in the small classroom with one window. Between some two dozen others, my mind would wander away. Our slim, chatterbox teacher would provide us with her lessons on agriculture, animal husbandry, cultivation, and pottery; lessons which surrounded subsistence and survival. I was bored but curious, eager but patient, and I wondered across long days and even longer nights about the final piece Leopold was to teach me.

When school had ended and I was home, mother called me over in a melodic tone, leading me over excited. There, where she laid knitting on her old rocker, she looked at me with a nimble smile, 'Ready for more rounds?'

I smiled back and disappeared without a response, leaving her bemused with my eagerness for deliveries. I sped down the path with the barrow filled with milk, delivered to all, and with sincere excitement, plodded down the cobbled path.

But as I neared Leopold's cabin, I saw an old lady on his porch who seemed deeply engaged in conversation; but her voice reached me muffled. The closer I emerged, the clearer her voice became, until I was able to establish the words: 'abandon', 'family', and 'Leonard'. I stood beside the bend, and waited until she was gone. When so, I headed towards the old man's cabin. I knocked, but no answer. I knocked once more, still, no response. I was sure I had seen Leopold speaking with her, so I knew he was home; but after having knocked on his door several times and waited some while without a response, I was compelled to head back, disappointed. I placed his milk by his door and rolled the barrow back home.

The next morning, however, I was awoken from a rhythmical series of knocks followed with a muddled conversation from below. As I headed downstairs, I saw father and Leopold by the door.

'Ah, forgive an old man, lad,' said Leopold as his eyes latched onto mine, 'I brought the eggs in exchange for yesterday's milk,' and handed them over to father.

'Your father mentioned you could drop by later to help me with an errand,' he said, exposing his creases in unison with a smile. I responded with a simple nod and a smile back.

'He'll be over around noon,' father said.

The door soon closed, and the old man was gone. Father looked upon me with a furrowed brow above his narrowed eyes, mumbled into his beard, and walked away. He was surprised to have seen Leopold at our door, this much I knew.

By noon, I was back on the cobbled path to Leopold's, still anxious to learn the final piece, but keener to know why the old man had ignored me the previous day. When I knocked, his hound began to bark, and the old man opened his door within seconds.

'There you are,' he exclaimed, 'come in, come in.'

In his living room, steaming mulled wine seemed to have become a custom, as two cups laid beside the chess table. The old man and I sat before the table, him releasing a solemn sigh, and I remaining quiet.

'So, lad, where were we?'

'You'd mentioned a final piece you'd show me,' I quickly replied, 'but you've already showed all, haven't you?'

'Ah, yes,' he smiled once more, each time, his creases growing in numbers. 'Shall we?' and opened the game with his corner pawn.

For some moves, we silently exchanged pieces across clinks and clanks; his eyes flicking from his pieces to mine and back to his. As I look on each marbled warrior to distinguish which one remained to be shown, I could not seem to spot even one. Here were our soldiers, military commanders, religious leaders, economic rulers, powerful queens, and powerless kings, so who remained?

'Check mate!' the old man exclaimed, his queen beside my king, his eyes fixed on mine, and my focus on his pieces. 'Where is your head, lad?'

'Where is the final piece?' I probed him inquisitively.

He smiled, as was his habit, leaned back and downed his wine, 'That'll be you, boy,' and raised from his chair.

'Me?!'

'Yes! You,' he exclaimed, 'and I. We players who decide which piece moves, where and when.'

His words were abnormal, bizarre, curious even, but held a truth in them, a truth I was unable to apprehend at thirteen.

'Follow me, lad. There's something I wish to show you,' and he soon ambled away.

In his hallway, books in myriads laid on bookshelves which served as walls like a labyrinth of knowledge. The books, as antiquated as Leopold himself, spanned across all periods, mediums, and vocations; canonicals and contemporaries alike. The old man approached where raven-shaped metallic ornaments adorned the arches, pulled one which served as lever, and his bookshelf slid open to divide as two. Beneath where dowsed torches festooned the archway, a stone staircase spiralled into a dark void below. The old man ambled over to clutch one, and with a matchstick's strike, the dark archway illumined with his torch.

'This way, lad,' he whispered, while fire flickers mirrored in his eyes.

The lower I followed, the more apprehensive I became. Distanced drips in endless echoes evolved louder the lower we descended. The damp mould, now much stronger, had divorced the rosewood aroma it combined with. The old man led the way as I followed his torch's blaze, round and round the spiralled stairs and down below.