He stirred in his chair, his face turned to gray light that came in through the shady garden, and he asked me out of the blue if I knew German. Without waiting for an answer, he said, "Schachmatt." Then he explained that the word "checkmate" was an European hybrid made of the Persian word for king, "shah," and the Arabic word for killed, "mat." We were the ones who had taught the West the game of chess. In the worldly arena of war, the black and white armies fought out the good and evil in our souls. And what had they done? They had made a queen out of our vizier and bishop out of our elephant; but this was not important in itself. What was important, they had presented chess back to us as a victory of their own brand of intellect and the notions of rationalism in their world. Today we were struggling to understand our own sensitivities though their rational methods, assuming this is what becoming civilized means.
O.Pamuk / The New Life
