It’s only a game, Evan told himself, as he glared across the board at Ishmael.

Ishmael ignored the hostile stare. He focused instead on the chess pieces and board between them, stroked the black stubble of his face, and acted as though nothing unusual was taking place, masquerading his visions of victory.

Evan and Ishmael hovered over the chessboard, which sat on a rickety card table in the dim light and stiff humidity of Evan’s apartment kitchen. Four of Ishmael’s fellow countrymen stood, sipping beer and batting mosquitoes, watching the match unfold as a box fan in the open window above the kitchen sink stirred the soupy atmosphere and turned voices into a droning mix of sound. The Iranians hung out here with Evan and Ishmael, passing time as best they could between semesters, trying to escape thoughts of the turmoil of their homeland.

In the adjoining living room, where Evan’s roommate and friends partied, Queen’s latest album blared from the sound system. “Sheeer heart attack,” Freddy Mercury wailed, his voice blanketed by power chords and a staccato drumbeat that sounded like a barrage of gunfire. Normally, Ishmael’s friends would tap their feet to the sound, would talk and laugh wildly as a beer buzz took hold. Tonight, though, the four stood in odd silence, transfixed by the plastic black and white pieces on the board.

Evan had never lost a chess match to Ishmael. He had not lost a chess match since last December, when he was beaten, as usual, by his father. They played the game on a night of silent snowfall, when Evan was home for what would be his final Christmas break as a college student. A night of no parties, of nothing better to do. Evan’s father forced his son to resign early in the match, and while watching Evan tilt his king to the board, he pulled a Swisher Sweet, the victory cigar, from his shirt pocket. He produced one for Evan, too, a gesture of conciliation, but his son, not so graceful in losing as his father at winning, declined it with a wave.

That was before Evan’s disastrous spring semester, which led to his decision to drop out of college and try something different, like full-time work. Something his father had suggested all along.

Evan had returned to college the January after that loss to his father with a view to improve his chess game, if not his grades. He wanted to become good at something. He’d played chess avidly since his seventh birthday, when his father presented him with his first set—a small, metallic fold-up game with magnetic pieces Evan could either leave in place on the metal top or store in the case’s spongy insides.

Evan joined the campus chess club as the disastrous spring semester began, but he found the group too structured, the members unchallenging and, worse, uninteresting. Math geeks, computer nerds. Soon he quit the club, deciding that his father, who dropped out of high school to join the Navy and learned to play chess aboard a destroyer in the South China Sea, had taught him the game as well as anyone in the chess club could.

So Evan began an independent study of the game. He checked out a book by Bobby Fischer from the college library, studied its diagrams and moves, and searched the town for chessboards and willing opponents. He found them in his dorm, at keg parties, in a small pub near campus where old men gathered to drink and play chess or checkers or throw darts. Evan enjoyed playing at parties the most. He could display his talents to the few spectators, and he could stay seated most of the night (and in the thick of a match, someone was always willing to freshen his beer). “Chess is like a drug to me,” he would tell those who stood and watched. He was aloof and introverted but enjoyed the keg party atmosphere. He found the music, the noise, the crowds, the beer, and the pot as addictive as the game. He found he could focus more intently amid the distractions.

That semester, he spent more of his time at parties, less of it on his studies. At parties, he always had a good time. He always won at chess. At the end of a night of good times, he felt accomplished.

Tonight, Ishmael possessed the black pieces, Evan the white. Evan preferred the black pieces, preferred defense to offense, but decided he would make do with the white. Now, the game approached the one-hour mark. For the duration, Evan and Ishmael had managed to keep pace with one another, maneuvering the chess pieces with deliberation and skill, unveiling to each other with each intricate move a glimpse of strategy, positioning the pieces for full advantage and deterrence. Evan played with confidence. Ishmael, round glasses framing his gaunt, owlish face, calmly drank his beer and puffed on Salems. Evan thought Ishmael looked like a mystic or an ascetic. He is how the magi must have looked, but without the glasses, Evan decided.

The other Iranians chatted idly, a mix of English and Persian, while Dave, Corky, and Evan’s other American friends orchestrated a party in the other room. Also in the other room, Ishmael’s pregnant wife, Joanne, sat sullen and miserable on the edge of a lumpy couch.

Amid this swirl of laughter and music and incomprehensible chatter, Evan noticed that his position on the chessboard was weak. He noticed he was in danger of losing the match.

Anxiety forced a frown on his face. The music, the beer, the chatter, all of it was affecting his game, he thought. But the music was no louder than usual for his apartment parties, and Ishmael was quaffing beer like it was water, while Evan nursed his. Maybe the alcohol would get to Ishmael soon, Evan thought, and cloud his opponent’s senses.

Ishmael silently rubbed his stubbly chin and surveyed the board. He pushed the hand he rubbed with to his mouth and simulated a yawn to conceal the smirk of certain victory.

Ishmael had played Evan three times before. He had lost each time. Each game was like this one: slow, deliberate, exasperating, and close. Only this time, Ishmael was winning.

Everyone in the kitchen knew it. As the specter of Ishmael’s victory became more apparent, the Iranians who stood watching the game spoke louder to each other and with more fervor.

Ishmael leaned forward, studying the board as he had done in their previous matches, when Ishmael would study Evan’s moves, drawing in his mind a detailed map of the sequences and methods, attempting to find a pattern that could be read and memorized, some code that could be cracked, something that would unlock the dark secrets of Evan’s mastery and spill them into the light of analysis.

Evan’s moves were not easy to predict. His tactics were not easy to categorize. That Bobby Fischer book he’d studied introduced to him a measure of unorthodoxy and surprise, and while he typically played a conventional game, he employed surprise moves when the situation called for them. Ishmael could only conclude that Evan’s greatest advantage was extreme patience. Evan had told Ishmael as much. “The only way to win a game like this,” he told Ishmael after the most grueling of their previous matches, “is to outlast your opponent.”

Of all the Iranians who played chess with Evan, Ishmael was the most patient. Ali, Mehran, Mustafa, Dariush, all of them played careless, reckless games, pushing their pieces rampantly and thoughtlessly across the board, like they were intent on self-destruction. Against Evan or Ishmael, they were easy prey. Against one another, there was more parity. Even so, their games were quick and violent, ending usually when the victor, after capturing most of the opponent’s pieces and nearly expending every piece of his own, cornered his opponent’s king.

Ishmael was not Persian, like the others. He was a Kurd from northern Iraq. He was also poor; the others came from wealthy Iranian families. He did not wear their pastel Polo shirts and Jordache blue jeans, did not wear their expensive and liberally applied brands of cologne. Ishmael came to the United States through the aid of a democratized government scholarship program that was now in danger of collapsing, now that Shah Reza Pahlavi had been deposed and the Ayatollah Khomeini was eager to dismantle it and every other program associated with the former ruler. Ishmael’s fellow Iranians were here because their wealthy parents had sent them to the U.S. for a college education.

Ishmael feared he would be sought out and forced to return to Iran if the program supporting him were abolished. Now there was talk of freezing Iranian assets, talk which scared them all. Last year, Ishmael married Joanne in hopes it would help him stay in the United States long enough to complete his course of study.

In Iran, it would be almost taboo for Ali, Mehran, Mustafa, and Dariush to be associated with Ishmael or any other Kurd. In the United States, those barriers did not hold. Here, they were all Iranians, all countrymen, all foreigners. Here, they stuck together. Here, Ali, Mehran, Mustafa, and Dariush stood in a cramped, sweaty kitchen, drinking too much beer and, now stoned, began laughing and cheering, united in some sense of nationalistic pride with their brother Ishmael, a Kurd, urging him to kick a cocky American kid’s ass in a game of chess. They grew boisterous now in their praise for Ishmael, who sat tense and hushed on the edge of the uncomfortable folding chair, concentrating, calculating.

In the next room, Corky rolled joints on an album cover while Dave, kneeling before the stereo, sifted through a stack of records and tossed rejects like Frisbees to the floor, and ten or so others, all young men, milled about the small living room, drinking. There were no chairs, only the lumpy couch, and only Ishmael’s wife sat on it. A few tried to talk over the music but soon gave way to the booming of four huge speakers, one in each corner of the room. Joanne remained alone on the couch, slumped into one corner, near the kitchen and one booming speaker, her arms crossed, her face becoming more miserable with each peal of music.

Evan leaned back to examine his opponent and the position of the pieces. He studied both the layout of the board and Ishmael in silence. One of Corky’s joints made its way into the kitchen. Ali inhaled too strongly on it and suppressed a violent eruption of a cough, snickering as the smoke leaked out of his mouth. Head back and eyes clamped shut, he handed the joint to anybody. Mustafa received it and toked.

It was Evan’s move. He scowled at his predicament as Ishmael reached for his package of Salems on the table. He tapped out one cigarette, lit it, and shook one out for Evan.

Evan looked at Ishmael, studied his quizzical, owlish face—the face of a mystic—and declined. Ishmael shrugged and dropped the package on the table.

Ali recovered from his hacking. He cleared his throat and re-entered the conversation, in Persian, more animated than before.

Evan scooted forward in concentration. He shifted his gaze from the chessboard to Ishmael’s pack of cigarettes beside the board, watching the cellophane casing catch and reflect the soft glow of the ceiling lamp. He thought of his father’s Swisher Sweets, those victory cigars he had never tasted.

“Ah, what the hell,” he said. “I guess I’ll have a cigarette, since you offered.”

Ishmael smiled and pushed the package toward his opponent.

“I usually don’t smoke until after the game’s over, sort of a reward for my labors,” Evan said. “But it doesn’t look like I’ll have that luxury tonight.”

Ishmael raised his hand to cover a grin.

“When my dad and I play,” Evan continued, “the winner always gets a cigar. Swisher Sweets. They’re cheap, nasty things, but my dad loves them.” He shrugged and said, “Didn’t matter, really, because my dad always won. He always offered me a cigar anyway, but I never smoked one. Didn’t feel like I’d earned it.”

Evan paused. “We don’t have any cigars here anyway, so I guess we’ll make do with your Salems—if you don’t mind.”

Ishmael nodded coolly. Evan touched a match to the cigarette and inhaled. “Looks like this game’s yours anyway. So I guess I’ll have a loser’s smoke.”

Evan leaned back and inhaled again, the sting of the menthol pricking his throat.

“They always let a dying man have one last smoke, don’t they? In wartime, I mean. Chess is kind of like a war, right?”

He held the Salem before him, inspecting it as the ember consumed the paper and tobacco. He watched the ash grow until finally he leaned forward, toward the game, and let the ash drop to the linoleum floor.

“Your game has really improved,” he told Ishmael. “Or mine’s sure gone downhill. One or the other.”

Ishmael grinned and shrugged his angular shoulders. Evan said, “You’ve been practicing.”

“No, Evan,” Ishmael said. “I’ve just been watching you play.” He laughed a polite, halting laugh. “I learn a lot from watching you play.”

Ali and Dariush now pointed to the chessboard, commenting in Persian and laughing. Shah this, they were saying; shah that.

Shah this and shah that, Ali said, his voice breaking, and Mustafa snickered vehemently. Then Mehran chimed in. Ishmael dismissed their words with a wave of his beer can.

“What are they laughing about?” Evan asked.

Ishmael smiled wanly, as though in pain, and leaned forward. He almost whispered, as though he did not want the others to hear.

“They are talking about your king,” he said.

“What are they saying?”

“They are trying to tell me how I can”—Ishmael paused, searching for the proper words—“how I can win, how to shah mat.” He paused, then added. “How to take your shah, your king.”

“You mean like checkmate,” Evan said.

Ishmael nodded. “Like checkmate.” He smiled.

“Well, I hope you’re not looking to them for advice,” Evan said. “The way they play.”

Ishmael’s grin widened. “Oh, I do not listen to them, Evan. They give me advice all the time, but I never listen to them. I know they are much worse than I.”

He leaned forward once again, his voice growing fainter, conspiratorial.

“They are sometimes very stupid,” he said, nodding.

He returned to his stoic, upright posture and said, “But”—and he paused, holding forth his hand like a stop sign—“they are laughing because, in this game, even they can see the shah mat.”

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Andrew Careaga is a recovering marketing and public relations executive-turned-writer from Rolla, Missouri. His latest fiction and creative nonfiction appear or are forthcoming in The Argyle, Bulb Culture Collective, Club Plum, MoonLit Getaway, Painted Pebble Literary Magazine, Paragraph Planet, The Periwinkle Pelican, Roi Faineant, Spillwords, and Syncopation Literary Magazine.