TRITE BUT TRUE:
I went to Diana’s apartment for the first time two nights ago. She’s asked a couple times for me to come over, especially since her family would like to meet the American she’s been spending all this time with. I’ve avoided it just because, even though we’re not dating, it is one of those “meet the family” things. I could already see it in my head: awkwardly sitting around, everyone looking at me, various cookies and tea being pressed upon me as I struggled to keep up any kind of conversation in Russian. Besides, I had already met her brother a couple of times and her mom once, at various functions. But when she told her grandfather I played chess, apparently he got excited and Diana finally found the way to bait the hook.
So I went over, chess set in hand. Diana’s mom wasn’t there, but I was introduced to her grandfather and grandmother. Her grandfather had fought in World War II and later served in Zhytomyr’s administration before becoming a pensioner. A balding, short man who was solidly built despite his age, he immediately guided me to a table and pulled out the chess set, so eager was he to play a game. Her grandmother, a squat babucia with eyes that never really seemed to focus, disappeared into the kitchen with Dianna. Her grandfather donned a pair of old glasses with square frames each five times the size of his eyes, warned me that he wasn’t any good and then began to play.
Diana served us the customary tea and cookies during the opening moves, being lightly berated by her grandfather for putting them too far away. Her response was to smile indulgingly and move them closer: which I found amusing because if I ever said that to her, she’d hit me upside the head and tell me to move myself.
Yarik, a local radio personality who lives in a different apartment with Diana’s mom, came over to await his match. The game with Diana’s grandfather was not going well: within fifteen minutes I had lost my queen and was down two pawns. Her grandfather, quite simply, was very good. I had pretty much relegated myself to loosing, and told this to Diana, who was now watching MTV with Yarik. Her grandmother, still in the kitchen, was not seen again until I left.
Diana looked disappointed. She had wanted me to win, she told me. I had thought me winning would be a bad thing: I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s pride. My winning would actually make me look good to her family, she said.
I looked back at the board. Jesus Christ this was going to be difficult. But I dug in. The game lasted two more hours and required more thinking than I had done in the past month. I had simultaneously to keep up the defense and whittle him down piece by piece until the end game itself became bloody tradeoffs. By the time it was said and done, both Diana and Yarik now watching, I had a king and a pawn and he had a king. Three moves later, it was certain that I was going to get my pawn across the board and he conceded the game.
I had never seen Diana so proud, beaming while trying not to show that she was beaming. I looked around the tiny apartment then, grandfather trading places with Yarik, Diana going to her room to listen to music, hearing her grandmother in the kitchen and felt a kind of homey feeling. I’ve lived on my own since I was 17, but the only times I felt really comfortable about it where when I had a number of people living with me. I just like the background noise and spatial sensation of half a dozen people going about their business around you, probably because there were 9 people living with me in my grandfather’s house growing up. It wasn’t something I realized I missed until, playing that game with Yarik, I felt quite comfortable, with none of the awkwardness I had dreaded. And, rather than being the object of attention, it seemed playing the game with the grandfather brought on immediate acceptance.
Yarik wasn’t as good as his grandfather and quickly lost, and in the next game the grandfather came back to beat me, although not by much. Our third game—both of us still even—was stopped midway through by Diana, who made it known she hadn’t invited me over to have me ignore her the whole evening for chess. She then invited me to leave the apartment with her. Ironic for the time she spent getting me to come over.
At first I was in shock. You’re asking two competitive guys to abandon their match game when it could go either way? Why don’t you just turn off the Superbowl during overtime? Switch off the Playstation during the last level? Stop other generic chest-thumping cockfights? I didn’t actually say any of that, but I was still in shock.
But she pointed out that she had to go out and buy groceries for her mom before the stores closed and, since she would be taking them over to her mom’s apartment, she wouldn’t be coming back to her grandparent’s apartment. She thought it rude to them and to me to leave a stranger in the house. So her grandfather and I left the chess board as it was, and I went for a walk with Diana to the store. She couldn’t really see my side: why would I want to be left in a house full of strangers? Would I do that to her? I pointed out that if she and my sister were watching a movie and I had to go to the store, even if I wasn’t coming back, I would not make them stop watching the movie. So she finally understood where I was coming from and apologized, and we had a nice walk, wrapped warm in the cold evening.
It’ll be good to go back, though, and finish the match, hear a couple more of her grandfather’s war stories (which he loves to tell) and to be, in some small way, part of a family here. Cliché as it is to say it, I feel like I’ve found something I hadn’t even been looking for.