Club de Ajedrez July 25, 2021
For only fifteen pesos I become a member, which permits me to maneuver pawns toward their eventual doom, expose the bishops, and even maybe force a king to surrender. All of this happens beneath the arches and bays of an ancient confiscated convent, once blessed by Phillip of Spain. At the Club de Ajedrez, however, my membership only lasts for a day. Wait, I am informed of a correction—my membership is good for only one hour.
My new club is housed in a small anteroom of the Convent of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception of Franciscan Sisters, a name that is as imposing as the place. Are these Sisters supposed to have been immaculately conceived? More likely, they were exquisitely abandoned by the conquistadors that brought them from Guatemala, forcing them to seek refuge in the Church. Regardless, they lived precarious lives here in relative isolation from the natives, on the southern side of this city called Ciudad Real, next to my neighborhood of Santa Lucia.
The south side of San Cristobal is the low side, and it has been subject to flooding for centuries. A major one devastated the convent in 1649, and another in 1785 drove the nuns to seek refuge at the Dominican convent, Santo Domingo, located on a northern hill, less than a mile away. In between, there were cholera epidemics and other outbreaks, including frequent native revolts. Nuns may have died but the order survived.
The Sisters of San Francisco were finally evicted from their convent in 1863, apparently in the middle of the night, during enforcement of the Liberal Reformation of President Juarez. After this, Arco del Carmen, as the cloistered complex is called, became a hospital first, then a school for girls, then an old-age home, and later the Institute of Arts and Sciences of Chiapas. For brief periods in between, El Carmen also served as a military barracks and apparently even a Masonic temple. Today it is an art center offering classes, workshops, studio and theater space, and, in one small anteroom with a mud-brick floor and decrepit furniture, the Chess Club—Club de Ajedrez.
On a rainy late afternoon, the next generation of masters convenes for a tournament, squeezed into the anteroom. Young prodigies improve their skills in a collegial but competitive atmosphere, moving swiftly at first, exchanging small pieces, pounding clocks like marimbas. The flurry of early captures thins the board of obstacles, options open, and the play slows. Players rub their foreheads, drum their fingers, considering some consequence in a distant, unknowable future. The game is supposed to be fun, but I feel a disturbance in the force—perhaps the ghosts of angry nuns—so I make my way back to the secular world.
By 10 o’clock, a dozen Tzotzil youngsters sit at the entrance of the Oxxo on the Zocaló. People are heading home for the evening, making one last stop downtown, and these children see their last best opportunity to get someone to buy them a cup-a-soup for the chilly night ahead. I wish I had coins. This plastic visa card seems worthless. My only move is the knight—two steps forward, one to the side, without touching one of the poor pawns.
Out in the brisk breeze, some drag performers are blocking traffic with their burlesque act, while two older couples shake their heads at the display and mutter disapproval under their masks. They share their grievance with some sympathetic cops, but police downtown prefer observation to intervention. This might be wise because there are not enough of them to deal with all the freaks and drunks that collect along Real de Guadalupe. Stalemate here is not a bad option.