In the chap­ter titled “WAR SURPLUS,” the nar­ra­tor reflects on the deaths of his par­ents, who passed away in their six­ties, pos­si­bly from bro­ken hearts. They did not dis­in­her­it him; instead, they left behind a con­sid­er­able estate val­ued at forty-eight thou­sand dol­lars in 1945, which has since quadru­pled, pro­vid­ing him with an annu­al income of sev­en thou­sand dol­lars. Despite his inher­i­tance, the nar­ra­tor lived fru­gal­ly in Green­wich Vil­lage, sur­viv­ing on about four dol­lars a day and using war sur­plus items for fur­ni­ture and every­day life.

His belong­ings were rem­nants of the war, includ­ing a nar­row bed, olive-drab blan­kets, and a portable phono­graph. Even his library pri­mar­i­ly con­sist­ed of books from recre­ation kits meant for sol­diers. An inter­est­ing acqui­si­tion from a war-sur­plus first-aid kit was mor­phine, which tempt­ed him briefly; how­ev­er, he real­ized he was already under the influ­ence of a dif­fer­ent kind of nar­cot­ic: his undy­ing love for Hel­ga. This love con­sumed him, lead­ing him to wor­ship death since her pre­sumed demise, cher­ish­ing rit­u­als and toasts in her mem­o­ry.

Then, one day in 1958, feel­ing inspired, he pur­chased a war-sur­plus wood-carv­ing set. This pur­chase sparked enthu­si­asm, prompt­ing him to cre­ate a chess set from a broom han­dle after hours of relent­less carv­ing. Seek­ing to share his cre­ation, he unex­pect­ed­ly knocked on his neigh­bor’s door, which turned out to be George Kraft, a com­plex fig­ure with oth­er iden­ti­ties includ­ing Colonel Iona Potapov, a Russ­ian agent.

Kraft’s apart­ment revealed his true pas­sion for paint­ing, adorned with his art­works that gar­nered high acclaim. The ini­tial con­ver­sa­tion uncov­ered Kraft’s fab­ri­cat­ed back­sto­ry, pre­sent­ing him­self as a wid­ow­er turned artist. The narrator’s chess set becomes a bridge to form­ing a con­nec­tion with Kraft, as they played chess reg­u­lar­ly and devel­oped a pro­found bond. With­in their com­pan­ion­ship, they trag­i­cal­ly nav­i­gat­ed the gray spaces of cama­raderie and life, find­ing shared joy in sim­ple things like food and wine, despite Kraft’s bat­tle with alco­holism and the under­ly­ing ten­sions of his espi­onage activ­i­ties. As their friend­ship deep­ened, both men found solace in one anoth­er, obliv­i­ous to the impend­ing com­plex­i­ties their con­nec­tion would bring.