Chapter 4 #3
They sip in silence beneath the shade of the parasol, listening to conversation swell and fall around them. Children play in the park beyond Palacio Monterrey, shouting with glee. Sunlight peeks through the blossoming trees. Chocolate warms her chest. Spices settle on the tongue and melt.
Senora Encarnación points at the playing pieces still arrayed on the table that the waiters were careful not to disturb.
“You be black,” she says. “I’ll play white.”
Mice and Hounds is exclusively played by people of Senora Encarnación’s set: wizened and wealthy. The youth consider it unfashionable; to the poor, its mother-of-pearl and jade are an unnecessary extravagance. “I don’t know how to play, senora.”
“Not yet.” Senora Encarnación sets a ringed finger on a black piece and pushes it over to Minerva’s empty cup of chocolate. Minerva picks it up. It has the weight of a coin, though is larger than one.
“Black and white are opposing sides, of course. See how I have arranged my opening board? There are pieces on the white tiles and green tiles. Any piece that begins its life on the white becomes a Mouse. Any piece that begins on the green tile is a Hound. Hounds can attack; two or more Mice can defend. The victor is he who reaches the other end of the board with as many of his pieces as possible.” She settles back, reaching for a piece of sweet bread.
“You understand now, surely. Sit over there and begin.”
Minerva moves opposite Senora Encarnación and sits. She sets her black playing piece before her with a click. There are nine pieces pushed toward this end of the table, their arrangement haphazard in comparison to Senora Encarnación’s carefully placed pieces.
Minerva’s hand hovers over the pieces; suddenly, she finds herself paralyzed.
“It’s a bit confusing,” she says.
“Oh, of course, I forgot to add,” Senora Encarnación says, “any piece can move on a pink tile.”
This clarifies nothing. But, fortified by chocolate, Minerva inhales and begins to place pieces on the green tiles.
“Ah. Hm.” Senora Encarnación’s look slides down through her glasses and off the tip of her nose. “If you begin with all Hounds, you cannot defend yourself. All attack, no defense—too risky. They’ll all die off. And then what? You lose.”
Judging from her tone, losing is an intolerable outcome. Minerva moves the pieces over to white tiles.
“But you see,” Senora Encarnación interrupts, “you are now less vulnerable to attack, but you also have no way to attack your opponent. Your game is already lost, simply because you have no means to win.”
Minerva pulls her hand back with a frustrated noise. “Why aren’t the pieces governed by rules, like in chess?”
Senora Encarnación clicks her tongue. She tilts her chin, peering over the top of her spectacles. Their pearl rope sways slightly as she reaches forward to arrange Minerva’s tiles.
“It’s less confusing if you think about it like life,” she says.
“In this world, there are pawns, and there are powerful players, are there not? Sometimes”—and here her tone grows arch, veering toward weaklings and turncoats—“those who are born with money and influence are nothing but pawns. And sometimes, someone born with nothing becomes a player.”
She scans the black pieces. For a moment, she seems satisfied. Then she makes one final adjustment—a slight move to the left. A Mouse becomes a Hound, and as la senora settles back in her chair, Minerva’s board is set.
“It is not predestined which piece has power,” Senora Encarnación says. “You choose. That’s the lion’s share of the strategy.”
Minerva considers the pieces, how mother-of-pearl and jet are each lustrous in their own right in the sun. Even jet catches the light.
“Your move,” Senora Encarnación says.
Minerva loses eight times.
That evening, Senora Encarnación sends her to a dusty games room that smells as if the windows have not been opened in years. Her mission: to retrieve a tome on game strategy.
“You’re too clever to be stupid,” la senora says briskly as Minerva helps her into bed. “Now, brighten the lamp and read to me.”
Minerva cracks the book open, releasing the distinct aroma of mildew as she peels sticking pages apart from one another.
In the past, she has read Senora Encarnación encyclopedia entries on del Valles long dead, on the history of chispa mining, or any obituaries of Viceroyalty loyalists that had appeared in the day’s paper.
If she stumbled, Senora Encarnación would correct her, but never harshly; if Minerva read slowly, she waited.
Now she interjects, arguing with the author on different techniques. “He’s a coward,” she says around a yawn, waving at Minerva to put the book down on her nightstand. “The game is about the pursuit of victory. Victory, senorita. Think about what that means!”
“Sí, senora.”
When Minerva takes herself downstairs, she opens the back door and steps into the garden. She is enveloped by the smells of moist soil and greenery, aromatic from late-afternoon heat.
Think about what that means.
Senora Encarnación is crotchety and imperious, self-pitying and self-absorbed. She cares for no one but her own people.
Minerva is her people.
And from that day on, she is Minerva’s.