What We Become (30 page)

“You know perfectly well . . .”

“Oh no I don't.”

She has stepped away from the rail and is strolling beneath the palm trees toward the cloister. After an almost theatrical pause,
Max follows and draws level with her, walking alongside her in reproachful silence.

“I honestly don't know,” Mecha repeats, pensive. “But that isn't my main concern.”

Max's curiosity gets the better of his pretense at wounded pride. He politely extends an arm to steer his companion clear of a pair of voluble Englishwomen taking photographs of each other.

“Is this about your son and the Russians?”

Mecha doesn't reply straightaway. She has come to a halt at the corner of the convent, in front of a small archway leading to the cloister. She appears to hesitate about whether to keep walking, or to say what she then says: “He has an informant. Someone on the inside who is telling them how Jorge prepares his games.”

Max blinks in astonishment.

“A spy?”

“Yes.”

“Here in Sorrento?”

“Where else?”

“But that's impossible. There is only you, Karapetian, and Irina . . . unless there is someone you haven't told me about.”

Mecha shakes her head.

“No one. Just the three of us.”

She walks under the archway and Max follows her. After crossing the gloomy corridor, they step into the greenish luminosity of the deserted cloister, amid the columns and pointed stone arches that surround the trees in the garden. There was that sealed move, Mecha explains in hushed tones. The one her son placed in the envelope and handed to the referee after the game was adjourned. The whole of that night and the next day were spent going over the move and its consequences, examining each of Sokolov's possible responses. Jorge, Irina, and Karapetian carried out a systematic analysis of all the variants, preparing countermoves for each one. They all agreed that, after studying the board for no less than
twenty minutes, Sokolov would most likely respond by taking a pawn with a bishop. This would give Jorge the chance to lay a trap with his knight and queen, and Sokolov's only way out would be a risky move with his bishop—a kamikaze style of play that was typical of Keller but not of his conservative opponent. When the referee opened the envelope and played the sealed move, Sokolov, as predicted, walked straight into the trap by taking the pawn with his bishop. After which Keller played his knight and queen as agreed. And then, without batting an eyelid, analyzing for only eight minutes something it had taken Keller, Irina, and Karapetian all night to come up with, Sokolov played the risky variant with his bishop. The very move they were sure he would never attempt.

“Could it be a coincidence?”

“There are no coincidences in chess. Only right and wrong moves.”

“Are you saying Sokolov already knew what your son was planning and how to counter it?”

“Yes. Jorge's idea was quite obscure and brilliant. Not the most logical move. Impossible to fathom in eight minutes.”

“And couldn't there be other people involved, an employee at the hotel, for example? Or hidden microphones?”

“No. I've checked. It's an inside job.”

“Really? Goodness me. Then it's either Karapetian or the girl.”

Mecha remains silent, contemplating the trees in the little garden.

“That's incredible,” says Max.

She turns toward him, almost brusquely, a mixture of astonishment and scorn on her face.

“Why incredible? It's simply part of life, with its customary betrayals.” Her expression has grown suddenly dark. “That should come as no surprise to you, of all people.”

Max chooses to sidestep her comment.

“I suppose it must be Karapetian.”

“It could equally well be Irina.”

“Are you serious?”

She replies with a cold, halfhearted smile that lends itself to a host of different interpretations.

“Why on earth would Jorge's trainer or his girlfriend betray him?” asks Max.

Mecha makes a weary gesture, as though disinclined to spell out the obvious. Then she lists the various possible motives in an impassive voice: personal, political, financial, adding a moment later that the reasons for the betrayal are immaterial. There will be time enough to find that out. The important thing is to protect her son. The Sorrento tournament is reaching its halfway mark, and the sixth game will be played tomorrow.

“All this, and the world title just around the corner. Imagine the damage. The devastation.”

The two Englishwomen taking photographs have just entered the convent. Mecha and Max move away from them, through the cloister.

“If our suspicions hadn't been aroused, we would have been sold down the river long before we got to Dublin.”

“Why are you confiding in me?”

“I told you before,” she said, with the same icy smile. “I might need your help.”

“I don't see how. Chess isn't my . . .”

“This isn't just about chess. I also said, all in good time.”

They have come to a halt once more. Mecha leans back against one of the columns, and Max feels a stab of his old fascination. Despite the years that have passed, Mecha Inzunza retains the stamp of her former beauty. She isn't as splendid as she was thirty years ago, and yet she still reminds him of a serene gazelle, harmonious and agile in her movements. Realizing this, Max gives a gentle, melancholy smile. By staring at her so intently, he has miraculously conflated the features of the woman before him with those of the
person he remembers: one of those unique creatures for whom, in a now distant past, sophisticated high society became a willing accomplice, a resigned servant, and a brilliant stage. The magic of all her former beauty blossoms once more before his astonished eyes, almost triumphant amid the drooping flesh, skin blemishes, and other signs of aging.

“Mecha . . .”

“Be quiet. Don't.”

He remains silent for an instant. We weren't thinking about the same thing, he concludes. Or so it seems.

“What will you do about Irina, or Karapetian?”

“My son spent last night mulling it over, and we discussed it this morning. . . . A decoy move.”

“Decoy?”

The Englishwomen are approaching through the garden, and so Mecha lowers her voice to a whisper. It involves planning a particular move or series of moves in order to check your opponent's response, she explains. Depending on what Sokolov does, it might be possible to deduce whether one of his analysts has warned him beforehand.

“Is it foolproof?”

“Not completely. The Russian might conceal the fact that he already knew by pretending to be flummoxed or in difficulty. Or even work the problem out by himself. But it could give us a clue. Sokolov's own self-confidence might also be of some use. Have you noticed how condescending he is toward Jorge? My son's youth and audacity infuriate him. That may be one of the world champion's weak points. He thinks he has this sewed up. And now I am beginning to understand why.”

“Who will you try this out on, Irina or Karapetian?”

“Both. Jorge has come up with two theoretical innovations, two new ideas for the same, very complex, position, which have never been put into practice by any grand master. They both relate to one
of Sokolov's favorite opening gambits, and Jorge intends to use them to lay his trap. He will ask Karapetian to analyze one, and Irina the other, but insist they don't discuss the problem with each other on the pretext of avoiding contamination.”

“And then by playing one or the other he will unmask the traitor. Is that the idea?”

“Roughly speaking, yes. Although it isn't quite that simple. Depending on Sokolov's response, Jorge will know which of the two moves he was prepared for.”

“You seem very sure that Irina doesn't suspect what your son is up to. To share a bed is to share intimacies.”

“Is that the voice of experience talking?”

“It's the voice of common sense. For men and women.”

You don't know Jorge, she replies, a faint smile on her lips. His ability to be secretive, where chess is concerned. His mistrust of everything and everyone. His girlfriend, his trainer. Even his mother. And that is on a normal day. Imagine what he is like now, with this worry hanging over him.

“Amazing.”

“No. Just chess.”

Now that he has at last understood, Max reflects calmly on the possibilities: Karapetian or the girl, secrets that survive pillow talk, suspicion and betrayal. Life's lessons.

“I still don't know why you are telling me about this. Why you confide in me. We haven't seen each other for thirty years. I am practically a stranger.”

She has stepped away from the column, drawing her face nearer to his. She almost brushes against his cheek as she whispers, and for a moment, despite all the years, the ravages of time and old age, Max feels the murmur of the past, as a shudder of excitement passes through him at the closeness of Mecha's body.

“The decoy move for Irina and Karapetian isn't the only one we have planned. Failing all else, there is another, which an analyst
with a sense of humor might call the
Inzunza Defense
or the
Max Variant.
And that, my dear, will be played by you.”

“Why me?”

“You know why. Or perhaps not. Perhaps you are so stupid that you really don't know.”

7

O
f Thieves and Spies

T
HE BAY OF
Angels was still a deep shade of blue. The high rocks beneath the chateau of Nice offered protection from the mistral wind, which barely riffled the water on that part of the shoreline. Leaning against the parapet wall at Rauba-Capeù, Max turned his gaze from the white sails of a sloop moving away from the port and looked at Mauro Barbaresco, standing next to him with his jacket unbuttoned, his necktie loosened, hands thrust in the pockets of his crumpled trousers, hat tipped back on his head. He had dark shadows under his eyes, and his face needed the attentions of a barber.

“There are three typewritten letters,” he was telling Max. “They're in a folder Ferriol keeps in the safe in his study at his sister's villa. No doubt there are other documents in there. But we're only interested in the letters.”

Max glanced at the other man, Domenico Tignanello, who
had the same disheveled appearance as his colleague. He was standing a few yards away, leaning with a weary air against the door of a dilapidated black Fiat 514 with French plates and a dirty mudguard, gazing gloomily up at the monument to the dead of the Great War. Both men looked as if they had spent an uncomfortable night. Max imagined them lying awake, earning their meager salary as small-time spies, tailing someone (possibly him), or driving through the night from the nearby border, chain-smoking in the glare of the headlights along the twisting black ribbon of asphalt, bordered by streaks of white paint on the trees lining the road.

“Don't take the wrong letters,” Barbaresco went on. “We want those three and no others. Double-check before taking them, and make sure you put the file back where it was. The longer it takes Ferriol to find out they're missing, the better.”

“I need an exact description.”

“You'll recognize them easily from the official seal. They were written between July twentieth and August fourteenth of last year, a few days after the military uprising in Spain.” Barbaresco paused for a moment, wondering how much more he should reveal. “They are signed by Count Ciano.”

Max listened impassively to this information as he tucked his cane under his arm and reached into his pocket for his cigarette case. He gently tapped a cigarette against the lid and placed it between his lips without lighting it. Like everyone else, he knew who Count Galeazzo Ciano was. Newspaper headlines carried his name, and his face often appeared among the pages of illustrated magazines and newsreels. Swarthy, good-looking, and elegant, always in uniform or wearing evening dress, Il Duce's son-in-law (he was married to Mussolini's daughter Edda) was minister of foreign affairs in the fascist government.

“It would help if I knew more. What is in these letters?”

“You don't need to know much. They contain secret commu
niqués about preliminary military operations in Spain, as well as expressing my government's sympathy for the patriotic uprising of Generals Mola and Franco. For reasons that are of no concern to us or to you, the letters must be retrieved.”

Max listened carefully.

“Why are they here?”

“Ferriol was in Nice last year, around the time of the uprising. He stayed at the villa in Boron and used Marseille airport as the connection for the various trips he made in a private airplane between Lisbon, Biarritz, and Rome. It's quite normal for him to receive personal correspondence here.”

“I assume the letters must be compromising. For him or someone else.”

Barbaresco ran his hand over his unshaven cheeks in a gesture of impatience.

“You aren't paid to make assumptions, Costa. Besides any technical considerations that might help you do your job, what is in the letters is none of your concern. Or ours, for that matter. Just use your skills to find the best way to obtain them.”

With these last words Barbaresco signaled to his colleague, who stepped away from the car and walked leisurely toward them. He had taken an envelope out of the glove compartment in the car and was looking askance at Max.

“Here's the information you asked for,” said Barbaresco. “It includes a plan of the house and another of the garden. The safe is a Schützling, installed in a cupboard in the main study.”

“When was it made?”

“Nineteen thirteen.”

Max was holding the sealed envelope in his hands. Without opening it, he slipped it into his inside jacket pocket.

“How many servants in the house?”

Lips sealed, Tignanello raised five fingers.

“Five,” Barbaresco specified. “Maid, housekeeper, chauffeur,
gardener, cook. Only the first three live in. Their rooms are on the top floor. There's also a guard in the lodge at the entrance.”

“Any dogs?”

“No. Ferriol's sister can't stand them.”

Max calculated how long it would take him to open a Schützling. Thanks to the instruction of his former colleague Enrico Fossataro, the former ballroom dancer boasted two Fichets and a Rudi Meyer on his curriculum, not to mention half a dozen safes with more conventional locks. Schützlings were Swiss-made, and had a slightly antiquated mechanism. If conditions were ideal and he used the right technique and made no mistakes, he would need an hour at most. However, the problem wasn't time, but rather how to get at the safe and work calmly and without interruption.

“I shall need Fossataro.”

“Why?”

“Keys. The safe has a combination and a traditional lock. Tell him I need a full set of double-bitted keys.”

“A full set of what?”

“He'll know what I mean. And I'll need another advance. My costs are mounting.”

Barbaresco remained silent, as if he hadn't heard Max's last words. He glanced at his colleague, who was once more leaning against the Fiat, gazing up at the monument to the dead. An enormous white urn set in an arched niche in the rocky wall, and below it the inscription
La ville de Nice à ses fils morts pour la France.

“It brings back sad memories for Domenico,” Barbaresco said. “He lost two brothers at Caporetto.”

Barbaresco had removed his hat and was running his hand over his bald head in a weary gesture. Then he looked at Max.

“Were you never a soldier?”

“Never.”

Max stared straight at him. Barbaresco seemed to be studying him, turning his hat over in his hands as if that helped him
discover whether Max was telling the truth. Perhaps being in the army leaves its stamp on you, reflected Max. Like the priesthood. Or prostitution.

“I was,” said Barbaresco after a moment. “In Isonzo. Fighting the Austrians.”

“How interesting.”

Barbaresco shot Max another probing, suspicious glance.

“The French were our allies in that war,” he added after a moment's silence. “That won't be the case in the next one.”

Max raised his eyebrows with the right amount of ingenuousness.

“Will there be a next one?”

“You can be sure of that. All that English arrogance together with the stupidity of the French . . . and the Jews and communists plotting behind the scenes. Do you see what I am saying? It can only end badly.”

“Of course. Jews and communists. Thank heavens for Hitler. Not to mention Mussolini.”

“You can be sure. Fascist Italy . . .”

Barbaresco broke off, as though suddenly wary of Max's calm approval. He glanced at the entrance to the old port and the lighthouse on the end of the jetty, then took in the sweep of the beach and the city, which stretched beyond Rauba-Capeù beneath the green hills speckled with pink and white villas.

“This city will be ours again one day.” He narrowed his eyes, darkly.

“I have no objection to that,” said Max. “In the meantime, I need more money.”

A further silence. Not without an obvious effort, Barbaresco slowly emerged from his patriotic dreams.

“How much?”

“Another ten thousand francs. Or the equivalent in your currency, I don't mind. This is an expensive town.”

Barbaresco responded with an evasive gesture.

“We'll see what we can do. Have you met Susana Ferriol yet? Have you found a way of getting close to her?”

Cupping his hands, Max lit the cigarette, which for a while he had been holding between his fingers.

“I'm invited to dinner there tomorrow evening.”

A look of genuine admiration flashed across Barbaresco's face.

“How did you pull that off?”

“It doesn't matter.” Max exhaled a puff of smoke that was instantly swept away by the breeze.

“Once I have staked out the house, I'll report back to you.”

Barbaresco smirked, glancing obliquely at Max's immaculately pressed, tailored suit, Charvet shirt and tie, and shiny leather Scheer shoes purchased in Vienna. Max thought he detected a simultaneous glint of respect and envy in his eyes.

“Well, be quick about reporting back and doing the job. Time is running out, Costa. And that is bad.” He put on his hat and nodded in the direction of his partner. “For Domenico and myself. As well as for you.”

“The Russians have much more at stake in Sorrento than a prize,” says Lambertucci. “What with the cold war, the nuclear arms race, and the rest of it, why not throw chess into the mix as well?”

The muffled strains of Patty Pravo singing “Ragazzo Triste” on the radio reach them from the kitchen, muffled by a multicolored plastic strip curtain. At one of the tables near the door, a dejected Captain Tedesco (he lost both games to Lambertucci that afternoon) is gathering the chess pieces up off the board while Lambertucci pours three glasses of red wine from a carafe.

“The Kremlin,” continues Lambertucci, setting the glasses down on the table, “wants to show that their grand masters are superior. Thereby proving that the Soviet Union is, too, and will end up winning a political and, if necessary, a military victory over the West.”

“Is it true?” Max asks. “Are the Russians better at chess?” Max (in his shirtsleeves, collar undone, jacket draped over the back of his chair) is paying careful attention to what is being said. Lambertucci puts on a smug expression in homage to the Russians.

“They have every reason to show off. They have bribed the International Federation, which is safely in their pocket. . . . As we speak, only Jorge Keller and Bobby Fischer pose them any real threat.”

“And they will eventually succeed,” says Tedesco, who has closed the box containing the chess pieces and is sipping his wine. “Those unorthodox youngsters play a new, more imaginative game. They are forcing the dinosaurs to leave the confines of their habitual positional play and venture into unknown territory.”

“In any event,” says Lambertucci, “up until now they have had the upper hand. Tal, who was Latvian, was beaten by Botvinnik, who lost a year later to Petrosian, who was Armenian. All Russians. Or Soviets, to be more precise. And now Sokolov is world champion. Another Russian, and then another. Moscow doesn't want that to change.”

Max raises his glass to his lips and looks outside. Beneath the bamboo canopy, Lambertucci's wife is laying out checkered tablecloths and candles in empty wine bottles, for customers who, given the lateness of the season, are unlikely to arrive at that time in the afternoon.

“And so,” Max says cautiously, “spying might be usual practice in these instances. . . .”

Lambertucci brushes away a fly that has landed on his forearm and rubs his old Abyssinian tattoo.

“Absolutely,” he confirms. “Every competition is fraught with a web of conspiracies worthy of a spy movie. The players are under immense pressure. If a top-class Soviet player becomes champion, he will enjoy a privileged lifestyle, but if he loses, he risks reprisals. The KGB is unforgiving.”

“Remember Streltsov,” say Tedesco. “The soccer player.”

The carafe is passed around the table again as Tedesco and Lambertucci explain what happened to Streltsov. One the best players in the world, on a par with Pelé, his career was destroyed because he broke the rules by refusing to leave his local team, Torpedo, to join Dynamo Moscow, the unofficial KGB team. He was tried on some trumped-up charge and sent to a Siberian labor camp. When he returned five years later, his sporting career was over.

“Those are their methods,” concludes Lambertucci. “And Sokolov must be going through the same thing with all those analysts, advisers, bodyguards, and calls from Khrushchev urging him on, assuring him the proletarian paradise is cheering him on. He may give the impression of being calm when he is playing, but still waters run deep.”

Tedesco nods in agreement.

“But in spite of all this, their players manage to stay focussed and perform well. That's the real Soviet miracle.”

“Does it include cheating?” Max asks, casually.

Tedesco gives a one-sided grin, screwing up his good eye.

“It certainly does. Anything from the silliest ploys to the most elaborate trickery.”