The Automaton

The Automaton ~ David Wheldon ~ 6/11/2011
Mr Siddall, a pharmacist in Eastover and a keen chess player, stood next to the
local clergyman. I overheard their conversation. ‘It’s tempting to bet against her at
first. You see, her game is to all appearances very uneven: it’s full of perdus — she’s
not possessive of her pieces: she sacrifices her most valuable with disdain, though she
does look after her pawns, I notice. As all good players, she plays to win. Her
opponents generally think they are doing well and have a winning scheme. Until the
late mid-game, that is. Most of their pieces stand on the board: most of hers are taken
— but how those remaining pieces wreck her opponents’ strategies and hunt down
their enemy king! The word implacable does not begin to describe it. Her outcomes
are as inevitable as those of Destiny.’
‘It is gambling, though,’ said the clergyman.
‘There’s no chance to it, Mr Bennett. She does not play like a machine; her
strategies are too complex and too unseen. And, sometimes, after a run of games like
that, she will slay for the sake of it: particularly after dark. It is almost as if she had
moods. And emotions. Have you been here after dark, Mr Bennett? No? You should
come. When the sun dips down and the gas-lights are turned on: why, she is without
mercy. Her eyes gleam. How she assembles her killing-pen! And she understands the
calibre of her opponents. I’ll swear she does. She explores the psyche of the person
who sits opposite her. She will demolish a too-pert tyro in a couple of minutes with a
Scholar’s Mate: but how does she know that she’s dealing with a beginner? And her
range of gambits: I have never seen anything like it. She reads her opponent’s mind and
sees his game. It’s like imagining sabre-play between two persons: but only one of
them has full use of their sight: and that is she. And she hurts those she finds she does
not like. She will set mines.’ He sighed. ‘Let me put it like this. From a position of
apparent weakness she will force a zugzwang.’ Seeing that the word was unfamiliar to
Mr Bennett he added: ‘A zugzwang. How shall I explain that term? Well, you can
make no move which will do otherwise than worsen your own position. Your moves
are made under her compulsion. She has made you her accomplice in your own
downfall. You are forced to do her will. You are helpless. You are bound at her feet.
You are her minion. You are the creature of an automaton. Now that is exquisite
humiliation.’
So, over the course of a week a surprising amount of money was taken, but this
was tailing off: no-one would bet against the Automaton. And, in the end, very few
people would take her on. Hurt and defeated, the local chess-players stayed at home.
My father did not like the gambling. But we had to make money. Mr Peasey was
happy enough. And a lot of money was taken in drink, too, for gambling seems to be a
thirsty occupation. But even this source of revenue dried up, and eventually, the place
was empty. The Automaton would sit alone in her inscrutable isolation, staring at the
balcony, her right hand resting on her sand-glass.
At night the Automaton was taken, Sedan-chair style, into the Green Room. The
impresario was given a key, which he held. But he didn’t know that there was a spare
key in the office safe.
So, one night, after the Automaton had been taken to the Green Room and the
impresario had left, the theatre darkened and all the workers gone home, I took the
spare key — my father had earlier asked me to fetch something from the safe, and had
given me the safe’s key — and made my way down the aisle of the auditorium, climbed
on the stage beneath the single burner of the fish-tail gas-lamp which burned in the
proscenium all night and walked behind the wings prompt-side and along the players’
corridor, its damp closeness faintly lit with beads of gas; the little crooked corridor
6