Curiosity by Gary Blackwood

that I knew exactly what was going on. Maelzel was rolling me and Otso to a spot about ten feet from the audience, who stood behind a velvet rope. For exactly a minute and a half, he delivered his spiel about how the Turk had withstood the finest players of Europe and America and excited universal admiration.
    When I heard his key turning in the lock, I slid my seat carefully backward and closed my eyes so the light wouldn’t blind me. Through the open doors, I heard his voice: “As you may see for yourselves, ladies and gentlemen, this side of the cabinet is entirely empty except for a few levers and dials that are necessary for the proper functioning of the machine. And now—” As soon as the doors swung shut, I slid forward into my fetal position. The left-hand door opened. “—that there is nothing behind this door but the Turk’s intricate and ingenious clockwork mechanism. Once I have wound that up, we may begin.”
    While he inserted a crank and noisily wound the mainspring, I opened a small cavity in the Turk’s abdomen and lit the candle, then pulled the folding chessboard down onto my knees. For the next several minutes, I knew, Maelzel would be conferring with someone from the audience, someone who was confident that he could defeat a mere machine. All I could do was sit and wait.
    Though the inside of the cabinet was cramped, it didn’t feel claustrophobic, as you might expect. It felt . . . How can I explain it? It felt like a sanctuary, like pulling the bedclothes over your head, like the den you make for yourself beneath an overturned armchair. It felt like playing hide-and-seek and knowing that, if you stay perfectly still and quiet, the seeker will never discover your secret hiding place, no matter how hard he tries.
    At last I heard the brass dial being turned; it stopped on 14, indicating that my opponent had chosen endgame number 14. Then Maelzel began setting up the board. As he put down each chess piece, it lifted the little metal ring beneath it, and I stuck a corresponding peg into my little board.
    The last piece Maelzel set down would indicate which color my opponent had picked. Mulhouse had pointed out that, since White had one more piece than Black, nine out of ten players would choose White, not noticing that Black actually had the stronger position. Sure enough, the last piece in place was the White king. Maelzel released the mainspring; the clockwork began clicking and whirring. I put the mechanical arm into action and threatened White’s queen with my knight.
    I checkmated the poor fellow in just seven moves. I assume it was a fellow; in my experience, women don’t seem to care much for chess—except, of course, for the ill-fated Mademoiselle Bouvier. Anxious to avoid a similar fate, I checked the candle to make sure it couldn’t possibly fall over and catch the felt on fire.
    A second player challenged us, with the same swift result, and then Maelzel wheeled the automaton back behind the curtain. I snuffed out the candle and sat in the dark, replaying the two endgames in my mind, until I heard the series of raps that meant the coast was clear. But I found myself curiously reluctant to climb out of the cabinet. Partly it was because I wanted to savor that delicious sense of sanctuary a little longer. But there was more to it than that.
    When I was inside that felt-lined box, I inhabited a small, well-ordered world, like the one in which I grew up. And when I played those two endgames, it gave me an unaccustomed, almost heady feeling of . . . well, of power, I suppose. After months of being nothing more than a pawn in someone else’s game, I was actually in control of something, however inconsequential and artificial. Instead of being shuffled about or cast aside at the whim of others, or at the whim of Fate, I was the one calling the shots, dictating the moves—for half an hour or so, anyway. Is it any wonder I