Pale olive trees shaded the pavements in the square. A peaceful retreat for sun-worn men. There were three tables outside the café, each with a chess board, populated by armies, waiting for generals to command them.
The trees were still and quiet, until a stray breeze rippled through them. An old man was sat at one of the tables.
The boy’s family had driven down through France to the Spanish coast. It was only twelve years since war had raged across Europe, but the only armies still prepared to do battle and defend their monarchs were now poised, waiting patiently, outside that café.
The small hotel in which the family were staying was occupied predominantly by Germans, still were portrayed as the enemy in the boy’s school playground. But at breakfast and supper, in that hotel, they all ate the same fare.
His father had presented him with a chess set on his seventh birthday. He understood the game as a conflict between two warring patriarchies, weak kings protected by flamboyant queens. Within his family, he saw himself as a pawn, one with little power but hoping to achieve rank and be rewarded one day. More often, he would be sacrificed in exchange for a small victory in the skirmishes between his parents. The game replaced a life in which he understood little, with one that was governed by clearly defined rules.
The old man held an open palm towards the empty seat on the opposite side of the table. It was early evening, but the heat of the day lingered in the dust and stones of the dry buildings and weary streets. The chair was old too, bare wood worn smooth by years of use. The man held out two clenched fists. The offer understood, the boy touched one of the man’s wrinkled hands, and was presented with a white pawn. The challenge accepted. The board was turned, the pawns restored to their ranks. The armies were complete again.
The boy never raised his head until the game was over. The battle was tightly fought, but in the end, the black king lay diagonally across two squares, defeated.
Looking up, the boy saw the man smiling, offering a hand across the table. Unused to being treated as an equal, he hesitated. The man nodded, smiled again. His teeth resembling the bombed, shattered buildings the boy passed on his walk to school each day. They shook hands.
When the man picked up two pawns again, the boy nodded.
By the end of the second game, they had drawn an audience. Rather than watching in silence, the onlookers groaned and gasped when a concealed attack unfolded. There was a small ripple of applause when the second game ended, a victory for the black army this time, commanded by the boy.
When the man held up three fingers, the boy looked at his watch, and stood, knowing he should return to the hotel.
“Tomorrow?” he asked.
One of the spectators echoed mañana, and they all nodded, patting the boy on his back, some reached out to shake his hand. They spoke rapidly, in short bursts. The boy nodded and smiled.
Returning to the hotel, he found his parents in the lounge. His sister was there too, refilling her tumbler from a large jug of sangria. He knew he would not be permitted to share this glamorous drink.
A waiter appeared and the boy’s father ordered a cola for him. It came with ice cubes, a slice of lemon and two short straws. Nobody asked where he had been or what he had been doing. He offered no explanation, in fear of being forbidden to return to the square.
Over the course of his holiday the boy learned a few words of Spanish and the names of some of the men at the café. He did not win all his games, but from the second night, he kept a record of the moves on scraps of paper. During the day, on the beach, when the sand became too hot, or the sea too monotonous, he would ask his mother for a few pesetas to buy a cold drink. With a pocket chess set, he sat in the shade at the beach café, replaying games from the previous evening.
His family’s time in Spain ended all too soon for the boy. His sister exchanged addresses with a young German, his mother wept her farewells to their waiter. He said goodbye, as best he could, to his new friends in the shady, quiet square. He had scoured his father’s phrase book for something suitable to say.
He received more applause, more smiles and laughter, and a long speech from his original opponent, of which he understood barely a single word.
His family never returned to that same resort. Planes replaced roadmaps and took them further afield. The boy kept the record of his games tucked into the back of a small book of chess openings. In later years, he would play through the games noting his errors. His friends’ names were eventually forgotten, but their laughter stayed with him.
Many years later, shortly before his eighteenth birthday, he returned to that same village on the Spanish coast, accompanied by a friend who had no interest in chess. The small book, containing the records of those past games, was carefully stowed in his luggage. One evening, while his friend lingered in the shower, the boy retraced his steps to the familiar leafy square.
The café was still there, but there were more tables outside, now in full sun where the trees had been pollarded. The tables against the wall no longer supported chess sets. They had been replaced by menus.
His childhood companions had survived a civil war, a European war, and a brutal dictatorship, but had finally fallen to an army in which he was an unwitting pawn. They had been vanquished by a new, peaceful invasion.