PASSENGER CARD NO. 61
OTHER INFORMATION:
Boarding from: Los Angeles
List of baggage: Two suitcases of average size; one leather briefcase containing a chessboard and books on chess strategy
The official purpose of trip: Attending a chess tournament in Tokyo
Description:
Chess grandmaster Yuri Makarovich Sitnikov has a reputation to defend. After a humiliating defeat at a tournament in Los Angeles—to an American, no less—he’s begun to wonder if he’s now past his prime, and if he should retire early, before his career can be further ruined. But his pride will not allow him to admit defeat, nor can he avoid participating in the tournament in Tokyo he was already scheduled to attend. Therefore, Yuri has concocted a plan; he will travel across the Pacific by ship, use the time spent onboard to study intensely and repair his shattered nerves, and will emerge refreshed and prepared to play flawlessly. There’s only one problem with his plan; Grandmaster Sitnikov has become increasingly convinced that his inability to find any woman (besides the white and black queens, of course) attractive may be a sign of something besides his devotion to the chessboard…and, as a man who’s almost always in the public eye, he’s terrified of exploring the possibility that he might be homosexual. In the face of the burgeoning HIV/AIDS pandemic, the continued criminalization of homosexuality in the USSR, and decades of being in the closet, will this voyage be the source of liberation he needs…?
Boarding from: Los Angeles
List of baggage: Two suitcases of average size; one leather briefcase containing a chessboard and books on chess strategy
The official purpose of trip: Attending a chess tournament in Tokyo
Description:
Chess grandmaster Yuri Makarovich Sitnikov has a reputation to defend. After a humiliating defeat at a tournament in Los Angeles—to an American, no less—he’s begun to wonder if he’s now past his prime, and if he should retire early, before his career can be further ruined. But his pride will not allow him to admit defeat, nor can he avoid participating in the tournament in Tokyo he was already scheduled to attend. Therefore, Yuri has concocted a plan; he will travel across the Pacific by ship, use the time spent onboard to study intensely and repair his shattered nerves, and will emerge refreshed and prepared to play flawlessly. There’s only one problem with his plan; Grandmaster Sitnikov has become increasingly convinced that his inability to find any woman (besides the white and black queens, of course) attractive may be a sign of something besides his devotion to the chessboard…and, as a man who’s almost always in the public eye, he’s terrified of exploring the possibility that he might be homosexual. In the face of the burgeoning HIV/AIDS pandemic, the continued criminalization of homosexuality in the USSR, and decades of being in the closet, will this voyage be the source of liberation he needs…?