Asha didn’t look up. Her fingers hovered over the pawn, the most humble of soldiers. Humility was where she began everything. The pawn’s first step was a promise of the rest of the board.
“Why don’t you take it?” asked Ramesh, the neighborhood grocer, breaking the quiet with a tobacco-stained laugh. “Who’ll teach her opening traps? I’ll teach her the ones that pay off.”
That lesson came later, in more dangerous fragments.
Nana watched more customers than the river watched fish. He spoke little, but liked to say that some people were born to watch; others, to be watched. When Asha arranged the pieces—half of them missing their paint—he would smile with a tenderness he did not give others.
That night she dreamt in moves. The king darted left, the queen cut a diagonal like a shadowed blade, and each check ratcheted her pulse higher. She woke with the taste of metal in her mouth, which she later learned was fear; later still she’d learn how to turn that metallic tang into focus.
Nana only nodded. He had already promised. The promise felt heavy with hope. For Asha, it was lighter than the wooden pawn she balanced between her fingers.