“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 communiqués 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 gather
ing 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.”
He goes on to list a few. At the last world championship, when Sokolov was playing Cohen in Manila, a Soviet embassy employee sat in the front row taking flash photographs in an attempt to put the Israeli off his game. It was also rumored that during the olympiad in Varna, the Russians planted a parapsychologist in the audience with the aim of distracting Sokolov’s opponents telepathically. And apparently when he was defending his title against the Yugoslav Monfilovic, his advisers slipped him instructions with the yogurts they ate during the game.
“But the best story of all,” he concluded, “is the one about Bobkov, a player who defected from the Soviet Union during the Reykjavík tournament: they managed to infect his underwear in the laundry room at the hotel with the bacterium that causes gonorrhea.”
Now is the time, thinks Max, to cut to the chase.
“What if,” he suggests nonchalantly, “one of the opponent’s analysts were a spy?”
“Analysts?” Lambertucci looks at him, intrigued. “My word, Max, you are getting technical.”
“I’ve been reading about it.”
It does happen sometimes, they confirm. There was a notorious case involving an English analyst called Byrne. He was working for the Norwegian Aronsen, who played Petrosian shortly before Petrosian lost the title to Sokolov. Byrne confessed to having leaked information about Aronsen’s game with Petrosian to some alleged Russian bookmakers who were placing two-thousand-ruble bets on each game. It was later discovered that the information had in fact been passed on to the KGB, and in turn to one of Petrosian’s assistants.
“Could something like that be going on here in Sorrento?”
“Considering what is at stake between now and the world title, anything is possible,” says Tedesco. “Chess isn’t always confined to a board.”
Lambertucci’s wife comes in with a broom and dustpan, and turns them out while she airs the room and sweeps between the tables. They drain their glasses and step outside. Beyond the tables and the bamboo canopy, Dr. Hugentobler’s Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud flaunts its silver-plated angel on the cherry-red hood.
“Is your boss still away?” asks Lambertucci, admiring the vehicle.
“For now.”
“I envy you. What do you think, Capitano? A spot of work and then time off, until the boss gets back.”
The three men laugh together as they walk along the jetty to the harbor, where a fishing boat has just come in, attracting a crowd of passersby eager to see their catch.
“What’s so special about Keller and Sokolov?” Lambertucci asks Max. “And why the sudden interest in chess?”
“The Campanella contest has aroused my curiosity.”
Lambertucci winks at Tedesco.
“The Campanella contest and possibly a certain lady you dined with here the other night.”
“Who didn’t seem to be the housekeeper.” Tedesco chortles.
Max glances at Tedesco, who grins archly. Then he turns to Lambertucci again.
“You told him already?”
“Of course. Who else am I to confide in? Besides, I never saw you look so dapper. And there was I, pretending we’d never met. . . . God knows what you were up to!”
“You did your best to find out by eavesdropping.”
“It was all I could do not to laugh out loud, watching you play the lothario at your age. You reminded me of Vittorio De Sica when he puts on aristocratic airs.”
They are standing on the quayside, near the fishing boat. As the crew unloads the crates, a breeze sweeps through the nets and lines piled on the quayside, wafting the smells of fish, salt, and tar.
“You’re like a pair of old washerwomen with your gossip.”
Lambertucci nods, brazenly.
“Skip the introduction, Max. Get to the point.”
“She is, or was, an old acquaintance. That’s all.”
The two amateur chess players exchange a knowing look.
“She also happens to be Keller’s mother,” Lambertucci parries. “And don’t pull that face; we saw her photograph in the newspapers.”
“This has nothing to do with chess. Or with her son. . . . I told you, she’s an old acquaintance.”
Max’s last words elicit a skeptical look from both men.
“An old acquaintance,” says Lambertucci, “who sparks off a half-hour discussion about Russian chess players and the KGB.”
“A fascinating subject, it has to be said,” Tedesco remarks. “So, no complaints
.”
“All right. Let’s drop it, shall we?”
Lambertucci nods, still in a teasing mood.
“If you insist. We all have our little secrets, and this is your affair. But it will cost you. . . . We want tickets to watch the games in the Vittoria. But we can’t afford them. Now you have connections, that changes the situation.”
“I’ll do what I can.”
Lambertucci takes a last draw on his cigarette, which is burning down to his fingers. Then he throws it into the water.
“Aging is a tragedy. She was a beautiful woman, wasn’t she? You only have to look at her.”
“Yes.” Max watches the cigarette end bobbing on the oily water below. “They say she was very beautiful.”
Through a picture window open on to the Mediterranean, the midday sun cast a light on the Jetée-Promenade—a splendid edifice opposite HÔtel Ruhl, resting on piles dug into the seabed and offering a view of the coastline, the beach, and the Promenade des Anglais, as if the observer were in a boat anchored a few yards offshore. The restaurant window, adjacent to Max’s table, overlooked the Bay of Angels to the east, and gave a clear view of the towering castle in the distance, the port entrance, and beyond, Le Cap de Nice with the Villefranche road meandering through its craggy greenery.
He saw the shadow before the man. The first thing he sensed was the smell of English tobacco. Max was leaning over his plate, finishing his salad, when a waft of pipe smoke reached him and the floor creaked slightly as a dark shape loomed on the bright patch. He glanced up and encountered a polite smile, a pair of round, tortoiseshell spectacles, and a hand—the one holding the pipe (the other was clutching a crumpled panama hat)—pointing toward the empty chair across the table from Max.
“Good afternoon. . . . Might I sit down here for a moment?”
The oddness of the request, made in perfect Spanish, took Max by surprise. Still holding his fork in midair, he stared at the stranger (the intruder, to be more precise), racking his brains for a reply to this impertinence.
What We Become Page 24
