She didn't talk a whole lot. He figured that one out pretty quickly. The cold reputation was warranted in this case so it seemed. Freddie let her run through her worries in her own head and come to her own conclusions, there was little else he could do of course. He sipped at his drink as she listened to him, not interjecting much but definitely seeming to take it all on board. He hoped it had some effect at the very least. For once it wasn't about him, it wasn't about Anatoly, it was just about helping someone that seemed like they really needed it.
And now that all that was done, he could talk about Chess. He could focus on the thing he knew best of all and could talk about it with someone that knew the game at his level. Not as well as he did of course. Svetlana was good but she wasn't him. She wasn't the best. And nor was her husband.
"You taught him. That doesn't surprise me as much as I thought it would. And who taught you?" he asked.
"I taught myself. Found it as a kid and it just became the only thing that really mattered. Whatever is going on, whatever problems. Those sixty-four squares, they just become the world, reason to exist, y'know." It might have sounded crazy to most, but Freddie suspected if anyone was going to understand what he'd just said it would be the woman who had spent years behind the Iron Curtain having to deal with being hounded by people like Molokov. Freddie had no love for the KGB moron but he'd sold his soul to him and Walter in Bangkok all the same for a second chance at Florence. And in doing so had probably inadvertently hurt the Russian woman a great deal.
He hadn't thought about that back then though.
He hadn't thought about much outside of his own ego. "Look, just trust this place, Just now and again it surprises you. Bringing you two here, your kids, and Florence, it changed things in ways I can't describe. And maybe its for the best, maybe the way it worked out here was the way it was supposed to but never could at home. Think about it?" he told her. "Over a game if you're in the mood?"