''It's very funny,'' he said, pointing to a highly technical end-game position in front of him.

As I thought about Gata's short, detached but provocative answers, I felt bad for him, for the austerity of his childhood and his isolation; but I also felt jealous. Like Gata, my 13-year-old son Joshua is a chess master, to be sure a much weaker master than Gata, but nonetheless a three-time scholastic national champion. For me, it was very strange entering into the world of Gata and Rustam, for with different details and textures their life has been my wicked fantasy. Like the parents of other chess-talented American children, I have often wondered how well Josh would play if he studied chess for five or six hours a day, like the top Eastern European kids, instead of attending a very demanding school, playing sports in the afternoon and pursuing an active social life. Like Rustam, I've also fantasized about my kid winning the world championship, and it frustrates me that in our middle-class life there isn't room to make a run at it. The American ideal of the well-rounded child precludes bold sacrificing for excellence.

After our lunch, Gata lingered for a few minutes, but his father gestured sharply with a finger - back to the books. There was hardly a moment I was with Gata that he wasn't going through chess books, pondering or smiling over ingenious moves, memorizing variations. He seems more complete, more content with the pieces beneath his hand, and stiff, somehow fragmented without them.

''The life you are leading is highly unusual,'' I said to Gata. ''Probably there is not another 15-year-old in the world living like this. Don't you sometimes wish you could play on a soccer team or go out with a girl?'' A flicker of a smile at the mention of girls. ''On his own, he would never have managed this,'' answered Gata's father. ''Not any child in the world could, unless he had someone by his side all the time.''

I often addressed questions to Gata, but except for the few minutes when we were alone, his father almost always answered, in the manner of a lecture to mankind. Indeed, Rustam, who does not have a job, refers to himself vaguely as his new and recently emigrated wife's teacher, and as Gata's teacher (I take that to mean ''of all things'') and chess coach, although his own knowledge of chess is far less sophisticated than his son's. Rustam gave his lengthy answers in Russian, his voice often baleful, and my translator provided the English. ''Gata didn't become interested in chess,'' Rustam said pridefully. ''At 8 years old, I made him play. I am the person that deserves the credit for my son being a champion. It is not Gata's doing. Any child can become a world champion. He has to work a lot and someone has to work with him. The coach has to put his soul into it. To give up his social life. Not watch television, no theater, no beach. The coach must completely forget about himself. There are few people like that.''

''Do you believe that?'' the boy was asked. ''That anyone can become world champion by working hard with the right coach?'' ''Sure.'' ''Good. Good,'' Rustam answered impatiently. ''I work 14 hours a day helping Gata, trying to make every second count. He has bad eyesight, so I read to him for hours and hours.''

While his father talked, Gata sat in front of the chess set, moving the pieces. Occasionally, he smiled a little. When I asked him why, he answered, ''Because I listen to my father, and he is right.''

Rustam complains incessantly about money and speaks of himself and Gata as global free agents. ''We have had invitations from the French and the Germans. I have asked them to wait until I see first what the Americans do.'' If he is not paid what he wants - which is a salary for his coaching on top of their stipend - Rustam threatens to leave the United States and win the world championship for another country.