Before I begin to expound on my knowledge of the character of Mr. Hasenblach, I feel it necessary to relate our chance encounter, and subsequent friendship. It began on a sweltering 1934 summer day, near the Zaire Grasslands, in the Belgium Congo. My exploration party was set upon discovering the source of bacteria infecting a small heard of lemmings up stream in Gabon. We, when searching for a clean water hole, happened upon a fellow German explorer Franz Gruller, with his entourage. They were watching a heated game of chess between a native of the jungle and the group hairdresser. As it occurred, I took a liking to the king's-bishop pawn, whom, at the moment, was threatening promotion to queen. He was soon afterward promoted and, as a result, placed the opposing king in mate; and, being the hero of the afternoon, I had the chance to meet him over a drink. Here is where Pierre entered into my life.
Born to poor, peasant pawns in rural France, he found work at an early age as a drink stirrer in the thriving passenger railroad system. (an unfortunate side effect of his success at this job was more and more pawns being taken out of their God foreseen line of work and designated as toothpicks, doorstops, and worst of all, earplugs. After rising through the ranks (no pun intended) to headmaster of Burgundy Rail Co., and making a small fortune, he decided to "see the world" and made the difficult decision to reenter into the family business, being a pawn to marble board sets.
On the board, as he calls it, Pierre will usually be found sporting a dressy jacket, fine Italian pleated slacks, a brightly colored vest patterned with every sort of design imaginable, and always a matching silk scarf in the top left breast pocket. This, it has been said more than a few times, is his trademark; I, however, firmly believe it is a symbol representing the quality of his night's sleep (not to be confused with this pawn's counterpart, the knight, who's sleep is equally meritorious.)
Take, for instance, the occasion the two of us were guest lectures at New York University, attending a conference on preservation of endangered wasps. We both, by virtue of the college, had adjoining rooms, and, adjacent to us was a hall of visiting eighth grade students from nearby Rhode Island. Sleep was, naturally, not granted to either my friend or myself by the powers that be (in this case, the power of the student's hoots, hollers, and jumping). The next morning, he had on a soft-gray pin-striped suit, an assorted colored checker vest, and a navy blue scarf. This is only a theory of mine, and I have not shared it until now, but it is not uncommon for Pierre to be taken in the first five to ten moves of the game when donning melancholy pigments.
I must now confess a certain jealous animosity towards Pierre, for several reasons, predominantly superficial; one such: his good looks. Soon after I had met this vivacious pawn, I was playing a small game of speed chess with the locals in east Central Park, and was winning thanks to the astute planning on the part of the king's-rook pawn (Pierre). Through his leadership of several others (namely both knights and the friendlier of the two bishops), I mated the opponent, but in the aftermath of the victory, I was not the recipient of much wanted attention, but instead my good friend was encompassed by well-meaning women. On this particular occasion Pierre was approached by a tall, thin blond, inquiring as to his "freeness" on the forthcoming Saturday night. His reply, to the best of my memory was, "Thank you, Madame, for the concern as to my liberty, but the fact of the matter is that I am perfectly free to do as I please every night of the week." As the woman left, questioning her belief in the natural order of the universe, I came to the recognition as to why my friend is not married.
Hasenblach once told me, at a fashionable uptown coffee shop, that the only thing wrong with life is the realization that there is only so much cappuccino that you can drink. I have asked many colleagues of mine the meaning of the profoundly brief statement; the general consensus being his grievance over not seeing the obscure, untraveled sections of the planet, the God given time restraints provoking a tragic inability to understand more, and basically not being able to play against all the chess pieces alive then. Personally, on reflection, the comment was a complaint directed towards his doctor, whom, earlier that same week, gave him instruction to, among numerous other food restraints, limit himself to one cup of coffee a week. (I had noticed his problem with caffeine emerging, especially after shaking so excessively that the pawn protecting him was knocked over.) But in true Pierre W. Hasenblach fashion, the directions were followed to a tee, and his health rapidly improved.
Just as Pierre lived, he died in the same light. He had experienced life as a chess pawn to the fullest, playing and mastering enough opponents to have the honour of being knighted in England (despite the fact that he was French and a pawn, which made this an exceptional honour.) I believe it was a painless end, plummeting the three feet, as a comet falling in the night sky from the heavens above. In Pierre's case, his own little corner of heaven was the seemingly ordinary black and white squared chess board. A small token given to myself by this little man of genius was a simple phrase, that has abetted my gaunt existence; he said, while heavily sedated with the help of a red wine, "There are but two things in life to worry about, one: what the piece next to you thinks about you, and two: what the rest of the pieces on the board think about you. But first and foremost, take prudence to those in arm's reach."