Cal had written twelve questions for his grandfather. The first was, “What moment changed your life?”
Otto read it over Cal’s shoulder.
“Moving here changed the bus I take,” he said. “Is that what you mean?”
“Something bigger.”
“It was a very useful bus.”
They sat in the shared room of Otto’s retirement home. A chess board lay on the table between them. Cal put his camera beside it.
He needed an interview for his college application. He had chosen the section about service and hoped this visit would show what he had learned from an older person.
“May I record?”
“Ten minutes,” Otto said. “Then help me with an envelope.”
He held out a folded sheet. Cal put it beside the camera.
“Of course. First, what was the hardest thing you ever did?”
“That’s a large question.”
“Take your time.”
Otto looked at the chess board. Cal had said take your time, but he was counting the ten minutes.
“Mum told me you lived near the factory when it caught fire,” Cal said. “Did you help rescue anyone?”
“I worked across town. I was fixing a bicycle when somebody told me.”
“But you must have gone over.”
“By the time I got there, the fire crews had stopped people entering. I stood on the road.”
Cal waited for more.
“You could say you helped the community afterward.”
“I could say a great many things.”
Otto turned his chair toward the board.
Vera came in carrying her own cup. She stopped beside his rook.
“You’re still thinking of that move?”
“I like it,” Otto said.
“That’s not the same as it being good.”
Cal picked up the folded sheet. It was a letter to Otto’s friend Alec, who lived in another town. Near the bottom Otto had written a chess move.
“Can’t you play online?” Cal asked.
“Alec likes letters.”
“It would be faster.”
“Yes.”
Vera sat across the table.
“If you move the rook there, he takes your knight.”
“He may not see it.”
“He’s not blind, Otto.”
Cal glanced at the camera. Its small light was still on.
“I could put the position into my phone,” he said. “It would tell you the best move.”
“Don’t,” Otto said.
Cal held the phone without waking its screen.
“It would only take a minute.”
“I want to play Alec. I don’t want your phone to play him.”
Vera sipped her tea. “I could tell you the best move, free.”
“I’m beginning to think that offer is rather expensive,” Otto said.
Cal stopped the camera.
“Do you want me to delete that part?”
“I’d rather you didn’t send any of it. You kept asking for a fire I wasn’t in.”
“I thought there would be a story.”
“There was. You didn’t want that one.”
Cal looked down at the folded letter. Its first page described Otto’s new room and asked whether Alec’s leaking roof had been fixed. The chess move was only the last line.
“What does this move do?” he asked.
Otto leaned toward the board.
“Look at his king.”
Cal had learned chess years ago and forgotten most of it. Otto pointed out the squares. If he moved the rook, Alec would have to move his king.
“Then you take that piece,” Cal said.
“That’s the hope.”
“But Vera says he can take your knight.”
“She always has a complaint.”
Vera set down her cup. “Because your knight is sitting there with nobody protecting it.”
Cal looked at the board again. He saw the open line from Alec’s bishop to the knight.
“Could this pawn go forward first?”
Otto tried it. Vera folded her arms but did not object.
“That closes the line,” Otto said. “It gives him a turn for something else.”
“It always gives him a turn,” Vera said. “That’s the difficulty with playing another person.”
Otto laughed. He moved the pawn back and studied the board. Cal stayed quiet this time.
At last Otto crossed out the rook move and wrote down the pawn move instead.
“Read it to me,” he told Cal.
Cal did. Otto checked the letter, folded it and slid it into the envelope Cal had brought from the front desk.
They addressed it together. Cal wrote; Otto gave him Alec’s street and house number from his small book.
“Last collection is four,” Otto said.
Cal looked at the clock. It was twenty to four.
“I can make that.”
“You can walk. It’s round the corner.”
Cal put the camera in his bag. Outside, he deleted the interview before he reached the postbox. He sent Otto a message saying it was gone and the letter was posted.
He still had an application to write.
When he visited the next week, Otto had Alec’s reply open on the table. The roof still leaked. Alec had found a move neither Otto nor Vera had expected.
“We’re in trouble,” Otto said.
Vera shook her head. “You are. I warned you.”
Otto turned the board around and handed Cal the white pieces.
“Set up the starting position,” he said. “We can play our moves again. You ought to see how this happened.”
Cal put his bag under the chair. He had brought another envelope. He left it on the table where they could both reach it.
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