What To Bring To A Middle Eastern Chess Match

I try to call my mother every few days, more during the World Championships.

We avoid talking about The Game too much but every so often one of the major players makes a risky move, and my mother, one of the many pawns, gets anxious about her position on the board.

After seventy-five years many have ditched this game for another where the odds of surviving are better. Some leave temporarily hoping some day the kings and queens on either side will stop trying to put each other in check.

Many say they will return as my mother has, and, depending on which commentator she’s following, she uses her less than perfect English to keep me in the loop.

“They say something going to happen but they don’t know when”, she tells me. “First, they say don’t go out, then they say go out but don’t go to busy place.”

She doesn’t understand why so many fans are interested in this particular match, when there are more than sixty going on in the championship and that’s not counting the minor domestic games.

‘It’s not personal,” I say. “Spectators tend to follow the cameras.”

After almost a year straight of rooks making dodgy moves, my mother has adapted. But then she’s in her mid-seventies and has literally been on the board since day one. Sometimes before an en passant, a warning in the form of loud sirens is issued, giving my mother and the other pawns time to take cover.

“Yesterday,” my mother says, “they tell us to bring stuff to the miklat—the shelter.”

The opposing bishops have sent rockets again, and the officiators provide a list to help the pawns prepare. My mother recites the items she can remember. 

It’s been decades since I was on the board for any significant amount of time, so my job as a spectator is to distract my mother or at least make her laugh.

I think I’m failing.

“What kind of food did you bring?” I ask.

“They tell us to bring tinned food, she says,  but I not bother. Taste horrible. You must to have some nosh.”

“Don’t you need something to sleep on?” I ask.

“Uch! “ she recoils. “I hate to go in the miklat, I don’t want sleep there. I bring chair, it’s enough. I take book also, otherwise I be bored.”

She feels better when the commentators assure her the knights are protecting her.

“They bring ships, “ she says, “British. American. Elohim yishmor.”

God will guard.

I’m just relieved they have a stake in the game, and I silently hope the knights don’t lose interest because if they do, it’s checkmate.

And then we’re all fucked.