Miss Eva is right here, a few steps away from me. I pretend I don't notice her. I try to focus on my chess game. I bravely push my rook forward and take another pawn, but that really wasn't a good idea.
My opponent's no idiot. He spots my queen hanging right away, so I lose my queen and he only gives up a lousy bishop. Great trade! For him, maybe.
"Looks like you're beating yourself to a pulp," Eva says. Then she asks, just like that: "What do we have to eat?"
"You can choose between raw fish and raw fish," I answer, my eyes locked on the enemy knight.
"Raw? Why raw?"
"I didn't have time to make a fire."
"Uh-huh," she says in a calm tone. "And why didn't you have time?"
"Can't you see?" I snap. "I was busy with chess."
The fish are arranged nicely, hung up to dry on the life vest cord. They sway gently on the end of a stick in the wind. I sweep a hand at them and invite her to pick one.
No need to invite her twice. Eva's white teeth tear the meat off the bones slowly. Even though I could swear she's starving, she doesn't give herself away. She controls herself. A real lady, what can I say!
"You can eat them all," I say with the generosity of an oil sheikh. "I don't care. I restock every day."
Hunger doesn't scare me anymore. I've evolved! My belly's full and my head's clear. I'm in control of myself and everything around me. I've become the King of Fish, the King of the Island, the King of the Wind, and above all, the King of the Chessboard.
You'd better become King of Rain too, boy! The sooner, the better!
I get so puffed up with pride that I get careless. In under two minutes, I get myself checkmated!
That's what happens every time a woman shows up next to a man. Yeah, the poor bastard loses his mind. It happens the same way everywhere in the world. Thrones and heads have been lost like this.
"Do you still miss the civilized world?" I ask, trying to joke. "You'd better get used to our new life. I know you don't like it, but you can't fight destiny. That's fate."
The girl tears off a piece of fish and spits a bone in my direction. Well, look at that! She doesn't look like a lady anymore. Why's she acting like this?
"Fate, you say?" she asks, ready to pick a fight.
"Yeah, dear. Fate!"
Eva gives me a long look. I can't hold that look. Her eyes are a weird kind of pitch-black.
"Do you think I'm stupid?" she asks sharply. "Fate is slipping on a banana peel and breaking your leg. Fate is opening the window in the morning to air the room out and getting hit in the forehead by a meteor. But what happened to us up there isn't fate."
"Then what is it called?"
"It's called pure stupidity!" she suddenly screams. "That's what it's called. So tell me--what were you doing in the pilot's cabin?"
Ah, that? So that's what it was.
"I was dying for a cigarette," I say innocently. "Yeah, I openly admit it: I went there to smoke!"
"Uh-huh."
"And to fly a little," I continue, amused. "Jean-Louis promised he'd teach me how to fly."
"That takes the cake!" she screams again.
"Calm down! What the hell is wrong with you? Why are you screaming? It's not like I killed the poor bastard. The man drowned."
"On a sandwich," she growls.
"From me, yeah. But how was I supposed to know what was going to happen? Actually... I should've suspected it," I say, thoughtful. "Now that I think about it, I remember the guy had bitten his tongue a few hours earlier. Yeah, he had two stitches in his tongue."
"How do you know that?"
"Oh, well, he was with me the night before. We knocked back a few shots. Actually, the guy drank... kind of a lot, now that I think about it. What a pathetic drunk..."
"You drank with him the night before the flight?"
"A little. Yeah, I was kind of reckless. Now that you're saying all this, I'm seeing things in a different light. Clearer."
"So that means... you're not even a tourist, are you?"
"Yeah. I am."
"When and where did you book the flight? Through what agency?"
"Ag... agency? What agency? Me and the pilot had a little understanding. I paid on the spot, cash."
"Fantastic!" she groans. "I've got a bad feeling this isn't bad luck at all."
"Then what do we have?"
"Pure stupidity. Recklessness."
She's starting to piss me off. Well, look at that! My Eva is ungrateful.
Yeah, sure. She called me stupid!
What do you mean? She's already biting the hand that feeds her?
Women. Of course!
"Yeah, fine. Whatever you say, miss. Want another fish?"
"To hell with your fish!" she screams, furious. "You killed us all! You! Do you realize Doctor Baumgartner died because of you too?"
"That was his name?"
"Yes, Mr. Amateur Pilot, that was his name! That's exactly his name!"
"May he rest easy! I liked the guy. Shame he died."
By the look on her face, Eva is about to go for my throat. With her teeth.
"I can see you're upset," I continue, staring at the ground. "Let's drop it, okay? Dead with the dead, living with the living."
"Upset?" Eva starts laughing bitterly. "That's putting it mildly. I want to kill you right this second! I'm sorry I'm so weak, otherwise you'd wish you'd never ended up on the same island with me. Yeah, thank God I'm a woman!"
"A cranky woman looking for a fight," I mutter. "But a woman."
"You feel like joking?"
"No."
"Neither do I, believe me!"
She turns her back and walks off, muttering like a Greek goddess of rage.
I wipe the sweat off my forehead. Is it just me, or did it get cooler? Maybe the weather's changing. Maybe it's going to rain. Maybe... I killed that poor Frenchman.
Yeah, bullshit! I didn't kill anyone!
Eva suddenly reappears. I stand up and look at her, a little scared. What's with her? Is she insane?
"I never want to see you again," she snarls, furious.
"And I'd like to... to..."
"To what?"
"To never see me again either," I say, deflated. "I'm not crazy about me either."
"I think for the first time we agree," she says, sitting down on the sand in front of me.
Between us is a border of sixty-four squares.
"Explain how these pieces work," she says, pointing at the board. "I figure these little shells are the pawns, and the wooden pieces are probably the knights. But after that? Which ones are the rooks?"
I start explaining.
What happens next is insane. The chessboard becomes our battlefield. I get beaten to a pulp, then I get beaten again and--in the end--I get straight-up crucified on the chessboard. This petite chick, this girl the size of a matchbox, destroys me at chess.
I have to focus. I take a deep breath. Hours pass. The Pacific and the beach disappear like vapor. There's fog around me. I don't see anything but squares. My whole universe is made of shells, little bits of wood, and attack and defense strategies.
My German girl should've been born in Sicily. She's tougher than a Sicilian mobster. One by one, she lays the most merciless traps for me. I look like a total idiot. I get fooled every single time.
"But I thought I knew how to play chess," I growl.
To my shame, I don't really know how to lose like a gentleman. I moan, I protest, I ask for more time, but I'm starting to look more and more like a worm thrashing on the sand. If every chess game were a punch, right now I'd be lying unconscious in the sand with my teeth knocked out.
"Let's play one more!" I beg her. "I swear this time I'll be more careful!"
"I'm bored," she says coldly. "Do you think it's fun for me to win all the time?"
"No fun, is it?" I ask, annoyed.
"You're the weakest chess player I've ever met," she delivers the finishing blow.
I stand up, jaw clenched. I walk away without a word. I throw myself into the waves and take a long swim. I clear my head. Half an hour later, when I come back, Eva is still there.
"I cooled off," I tell her. "Now I'm thinking a lot more clearly. You're right, a game with no stakes can't be interesting. Let's play for something."
"For what?"
Eva sits right in front of me and looks at me with one eyebrow raised.
"Well? What are we playing for?" she repeats.
"I'm putting up all the fish I've caught."
"And what am I supposed to put up?" she asks, smiling. "All the fish I ate?"
"Nn... no. I don't know. Something else... What do you have? Pick something."
We play for her T-shirt against my five dried fish. And I lose.
I put up the life vests, and she puts up the wooden crate we found on the island. I lose again.
The chess games that follow are the most disappointing of my life. One by one, my stuff disappears. My property disappears. I lose all three sand traps I built with such effort, then my fanny pack, then my lighter and--the finishing blow--my MasterCard knife.
I feel like howling like a wolf and rolling in the sand. What a humiliation! I jump up and run so she won't see me crying. I lost everything. I'm dead broke.
This time it takes more than an hour before I come back.
Eva is studying the card with curiosity.
"Tiberiu, what language is this on the back of the card?"
"In... in whatever language is on the back of the card!" I growl.
I start setting up the pieces again, fast, and the girl looks at me, surprised.
"What's wrong with you? You still want to play? Are you addicted to games? Are you a compulsive gambler? Don't tell me you still have the guts to play with me."
"I'm not telling you."
This time I'm very careful. Very! The games last much longer. I lose my shirt. I lose my shorts. In the last game, I lose my briefs too.
"You can keep them!" she says mockingly when I'm about to take them off. "But don't forget, I can demand them anytime I feel like it. From now on, those briefs are mine! Remember that!"
"I hate you!" I tell her, teeth clenched. "I hated you from the first moment I saw you! Just so you know."
"I'm crushed," she says, grinning ear to ear. "You playing again, loser?"
We split the island in two and I lose my half. From king of the island, I've become a simple resident.
"One more! One last game and that's it!" I shout, desperate.
"And now what are we playing for?" she asks with an innocent face. "Any ideas?"
I play like a maniac. Eva is perfectly calm. In less than ten minutes the game is over. The result is official: I'm her slave for the next seven days. This island used to be a democracy!
It's over!