They tried to play chess but soon found it boring. In any case, Wojnicz did not like chess. His father had tormented him with it too often. He must have been hoping that learning to play chess would organize Mieczyś’s foggy, unruly mind. After all, chess was played at court, and the emperor himself had shown great fondness for it. This was the entertainment of well-born men, requiring both the intelligence essential for playing it and an ability to see ahead. Wojnicz senior believed that moving around the chessboard in keeping with the rules would introduce an element of automatism into his son’s life that would make the world safe for him, if not friendly. So every day after lunch, just as the body was digesting and a gentle afternoon somnolence was suffusing it, they sat down at the table and set out the chessboard, and his father would let Mieczysław make the first move. Whenever the boy made a mistake, his father came over to his side, stood behind him and tried to steer the child’s attention in a cause-and-effect chain of potential next moves. But whenever Mieczyś was resistant, or “dull,” his father let himself be carried away by anger and left the room to smoke a cigar, while his son had to sit over the chessboard until he had thought up a sensible defense or attack.
Little Mieczysław Wojnicz understood the rules and could foresee a lot, but to tell the truth, the game did not interest him. Making moves according to the rules and aiming to defeat your opponent seemed to him just one of the possible ways to use the pawns. He preferred to daydream, and to see the chessboard as a space where the fates of the unfortunate pawns and other pieces were played out; he cast them as characters weaving complex webs of intrigue, either with or against each other, and linked by all sorts of relationships. He thought it a waste to limit their activity to the checkered board, to leave them to the mercy of a formal game played according to strict rules. So as soon as his father lost interest and went off to see to more important matters, Mieczyś would move the chess pieces onto the steppes of the rug and the mountains of the armchair, where they saw to their own business, set off on journeys, and furnished their kitchens, houses and palaces. Finally his father’s ashtray became a boat, and the pen holders were rafters’ oars, while the space underneath a chair turned into a cathedral where the wedding of the two queens, black and white, was taking place.
Among this race of chess people, he always identified with the knight, who delivered news, made peace between those who were at odds, organized the provisions for expeditions or warned of dangers (such as Józef’s entrance, carpet cleaning or being summoned for lunch). Then, when chided by his father, or sent to his room without supper as a punishment, he would head off with the dignity of a knight—two steps forward and one to the side.
