Christophe

The time has come to talk about my arch enemy. His name is Christophe and he plays chess at the cafe. He has mousy white-blond hair and perfectly round glasses and goes through life with his eyes squinted and his mouth pursed. It's all a bit too obvious, really. I've come to expect malice to hide itself beneath a charming exterior, but Christophe wears his pettiness on his sleeve. In a movie, he would be perfectly cast as himself. He would be the sort of villain you never meet in real life.

Of the guys who regularly play chess at the cafe all day he is the best and he has a correspondingly high opinion of himself. (As with the guys at the poker club, it is unclear how they support themselves.) He is not accustomed to losing. One thing I have to give Christophe, he is not a quitter. No matter how bad his position is he will fight on to the bitter end. When he has exhausted all of his resources he will sit and scowl his disgust as his clock runs down.

Someone told me he is a master, which is entirely believable. But he is not a great blitz player. He plays a superficial game, always bashing out the most obvious move whether it's right or wrong. This is probably a habit acquired from beating up on weakies all day.

Also, he's a cheater. He cheats in subtle ways, but when you add them up you get a clear picture of someone striving for an unfair advantage. For example, he always starts the opponent's clock first, no matter which color he is. (Really the game should begin with Black starting White's clock.) Sometimes he will take a move back early in the game, only to enforce touch-move on the opponent later on. The touch-move rule says that if you touch a piece you must move it, but it is often disregarded in casual games, whereas "no takebacks" is about as universal as chess rules get.

Like a hairy spider, Christophe would be an amusing malignity, fun to marvel at - if he didn't kind of get to me. I have a positive score against him, but I don't win every game. And no matter how many times I beat him he always seems to find the result unjust, some sort of fluke. When we play I know he is measuring himself against me, placing cosmic significance on the outcome of the game, and it's hard for me to avoid doing the same. I know how much it hurts him to lose and I really want to hurt him. My favorite games are the ones in which I come from behind. Once, having achieved a big opening advantage he actually crowed, "I've got you now!" I had always thought that was a sort of paraphrase of an emotional state, not words to be spoken aloud. He had nothing to say when I won that game.

In another game I built up a crushing position, but let it slip with a careless mistake and he escaped with a draw. According to the house rules at the cafe, in the event of a draw, whoever had black gets to stay on the board and whoever had white has to get up. I had white. As I got up from my chair, Christophe made some jeering comment and I snapped: "Okay then, Christophe," I said, "let's play for money. Fifty euros a game? A hundred?" That wasn't entirely fair. I know Christophe doesn't have much money, and I know I would win. I know that deep in his shriveled heart he knows that. And I know he knows I know. Christophe mumbled something about maybe playing tomorrow, but short of accepting the challenge there was no way he could save face in front of the cafe regulars.

I didn't go back the next day. I'd had enough of the emotional turmoil and I knew he would never play me for money. Now when I go to to the cafe I steer clear of Cristophe. There are a couple of young French-Arab guys, strong players, who I like to play with. We sit out in the sun while, in his own little corner, Christophe holds court with the regulars.