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In memory of Mario Viola - by Marco Borsari

Every three months Mario and I would meet one evening at nine, half past nine. Mario always arrived first, with a pack of colour-printed covers in his hands and the inevitable folder under his arm. It was all that was needed to produce a new issue of “Scacchi e Dintorni”, the Club 64 newsletter, our club's periodical which attracted so much interest among members and enthusiasts.
We would go up together to my office, which for a few hours turned into a makeshift clandestine print shop. The covers were the only part of the newsletter that was already printed; Mario had collected them that very morning from his trusted copy shop. The cover, in fact, had to be in colour, on glossy, high-quality paper: really too much for our limited technical means of printing.
Having switched on the lights and the printer, Mario would show me the master of the newsletter, the original that had to be reproduced to make a hundred or so copies.
Putting this original together had cost him hours of hard work: articles to write, proofs to correct, diagrams and columns to fit into the pages that made up the issue.
As we arranged the sheets in the right page order, there was as a rule an exchange of quips about the most original and amusing articles, about the most spectacular “blunders”, about the most outlandish chess adventures recounted in that issue of the newsletter. And we would fantasise about the expression a certain member would have on seeing an unexpected piece about him, or bet on how many hours some other chess player, chronically thirsty for puzzles, would lose his head over a problem.
I would fill the by-now warm printer with blank A3 sheets and press the start button. Through our rudimentary presses, the newsletter let out its first cry.
Meanwhile Mario, having cleared the office tables of the day's paperwork, would lay out the first covers side by side, ready to be covered by the copies coming out of the machine one after another.
Mario had wanted this newsletter. It was his idea.
He had been nurturing it since the years of his youth, when he frequented the Modena chess clubs of the time, but had never found the conditions to make it happen.
He had understood that this was the right moment and Club 64 the most suitable environment for a magazine that talked not only about chess but also (and above all) about its “surroundings”, so rich in events and adventures, in characters and human stories, in curiosities and witticisms.
He did not want to be named as editor of the newsletter. Mario was too modest for those titles, which he felt were bigger than him. Yet he was much more than a newspaper editor; he was also a witty composer of puzzles, a lucid columnist and a highly effective populariser.
Creativity was an innate gift in Mario. It had perhaps been repressed during the years of his trade as an electrician, but, after retirement, it had found an extraordinary outlet in the world of chess. He brought it into play first of all in the schools where he taught chess, with pupils and teachers who adored “maestro Mario” with his method and his humanity. There was plenty of it too in the games he played, with variations that were not very theoretical, but always sharp and effective. And he put an enormous amount of creativity into the newsletter as well, at the service of everyone.
The sheets piled up on the table and the air in the office grew heavy with an acrid smell of ink. It was dark outside and the office was the only light on in the building. There was a feeling of belonging to a sort of “secret society”; after all, we too were printing a newspaper at night, in secret, for the good of our community.
These hours flew by very quickly, as we chatted non-stop. It would start with an anecdote from the previous Sunday's tournament or some trivial club affair and, in no time at all, we would end up talking about anything but chess.
We talked with absolute freedom about school, work, current affairs, politics, moving from one topic to another with ease and without realising it.
It was a pleasure to talk with Mario. Even if we started from different ideas, we would end up converging on the same conclusion. He often backed up his arguments with anecdotes from real life, from work or family events. He often talked about his mother, over ninety, who caused him so much trouble but whom he loved so much.
Meanwhile, the first copies of the newsletter were laid out on the table, ready to be stapled. It was a solemn act that Mario took care of, using a special tool. The newsletter was officially born. We would open it and leaf through it, putting ourselves in the reader's shoes and imagining the pleasure they would feel in browsing those pages.
The operations were repeated identically over and over, to reach the hundred or so copies that were the minimum requirement for the wide audience of interested readers.
The last copy was completed at around one in the morning. Even though we would have had every reason to be, we were not tired. We went down to the car park with a stack of newsletters each. He would take his copies to the club the next day, I would deliver mine in the following weeks. We wished each other goodnight, satisfied at having once again accomplished what we felt to be our unfailing duty.
Mario, I know you are playing chess up there. I can hear your unmistakable laugh. You have won this game too.