Max doffed his hat to two familiar faces (a Hungarian couple in the room next door to his at the hotel) who had just walked past.
“If that isn’t a threat . . .” he whispered sarcastically.
Mostaza responded with an exaggerated sigh of resignation.
“This is a complicated game, Mr. Costa. We have nothing against you personally, unless your actions put you in the enemy camp. Otherwise, you will enjoy our full support.”
“In the form of more money than the Italians, you said.”
“Of course. Providing the sum isn’t astronomical.”
They continued strolling along the Promenade, where a continuous flow of stylish people passed them by: men in midseason tailor-made suits, beautiful, haughty women walking pedigree dogs.
“This is a curious city,” Mostaza remarked, confronted by two smartly dressed ladies with a borzoi on a lead. “Full of women who are inaccessible to most men. You and I are the exception, of course. . . . The difference is that I have to pay, and for you it is the other way around.”
Max glanced about: women, men, it made no difference. These were people for whom, in short, carrying five one-thousand-franc notes around in their wallet was nothing out of the ordinary. The cars with their shiny chrome rolled along the road’s surface, in perfect harmony with the glittering landscape of which they were a part. The entire Promenade was one long hum of purring engines and carefree conversations, of blithe, expensive well-being. I worked hard to get where I am, Max thought angrily. To move with ease in these comfortable surroundings, far away from those squalid neighborhoods smelling of rotten food, which in places like this have been banished to the outskirts. And I’ll see to it that no one sends me back there.
“But don’t imagine that this all boils down to who pays more or less,” Mostaza was saying. “My bosses think, I suppose, that my personal charm plays a part. My job is to persuade you. To convince you that working for thugs like Mussolini, Hitler, and Franco isn’t the same as working for the legitimate Spanish government.”
“Skip that bit.”
Mostaza laughed the same way he had before. Softly, jaw clenched.
“Very well. Let’s leave ideology out of it and focus instead on my personal charm.”
He had come to a halt and was emptying his pipe, tapping it gently against the handrail between the Promenade and the beach. Afterward he slipped it into his jacket pocket.
“I like you, Mr. Costa. . . . Despite your shady profession, you are what the English would call a decent chap. Or at least, you give that impression. I have been looking into your past for some time, as well as watching the way you behave. It will be a pleasure to work with you.”
“What about the competition?” Max protested. “The Italians might grow angry. Understandably.”
Mostaza responded with a sharp smile, no more than an instant and none too pleasant. A predatory glare. The scar on his neck seemed to grow deeper in the brightness of the walkway.
“I can’t give you an answer now,” said Max. “I need time to think it over.”
Mostaza’s round spectacles flashed twice beneath his panama hat as he nodded understandingly.
“I’ll make sure you get it. You reflect about it calmly, while continuing to deal with your fascist friends. In the meantime, I will follow your progress discreetly, from a distance. Far be it from us, as I said before, to force the issue. We prefer to believe in your common sense and your good conscience. There is no hurry. You can give me your answer at any time, even at the last moment.”
“Where can I find you, if necessary?”
Mostaza flapped his hands, in a vague gesture that might have referred to their present location, or the South of France in general.
“During the next few days, while you are making up your mind, I have other business in Marseille. So I shall be coming and going. But don’t worry. I’ll be in touch.”
He proffered his hand, waiting for Max to reciprocate the gesture, which he did, encountering a firm, frank grip. Too firm, he told himself. Too frank. Then Fito Mostaza hurried away. For a few moments, Max watched the small, agile figure, swerving in and out of the passersby with surprising ease. After that, all he could see was the man’s light-colored hat moving amid the crowd, and soon he lost sight of him completely.
The day dawns clear and sunny, as on previous mornings, and the Bay of Naples is vivid with blues and grays. The waiters move around the terrace of the Hotel Vittoria carrying trays laden with coffeepots, rolls, butter, and jam among the metal tables decked with white tablecloths. At the table in the western corner of the stone balustrade, Max Costa and Mecha Inzunza are having breakfast. She is dressed in a suede jacket, dark skirt, and Belgian loafers, while he is sporting his preferred morning attire since he has been staying at the hotel: flannel trousers, a dark blazer, and silk neckerchief. His gray hair, meticulously groomed, is still damp from the shower.
“Have you found a solution to the problem yet?” he asks.
They are alone at the table, and the adjacent ones are empty. Even so, she lowers her voice.
“It’s possible. We’ll find out this afternoon whether it has worked or not.”
“Irina and Karapetian aren’t suspicious?”
“Not at all. The pretext of avoiding any contamination between them has worked for the moment.”
Pensive, Max spreads a pat of butter onto a triangular piece of toast. They had met by chance. She was reading a book, which is now lying on the table (The Quest for Corvo: he doesn’t recognize the title) between her empty coffee cup and an ashtray bearing the hotel crest and containing two Muratti cigarette butts. She was closing her book and stubbing out the second cigarette when he stepped through the glass door of the Liberty lounge and went over to greet her, whereupon she invited him to take a seat.
“You said I would be doing something.”
She gazes intently at him for a moment, scouring her memory. Finally she leans back in her chair with a grin.
“The Max variant? . . . All in good time.”
He takes a bite of toast and sips his coffee.
“Are Karapetian and Irina already working on those ideas Jorge came up with?” he asks, after patting his lips with his napkin. “Those decoy moves you mentioned?”
“They are. Separately, as we planned. The two of them think they are analyzing the same situation, but they aren’t . . . Jorge keeps insisting they don’t exchange ideas because he doesn’t want any contamination to occur.”
“Who has made more progress?”
“Irina. And that is good for Jorge, because the thought that it could be her is more abhorrent to him. . . . And so in his next game, he will try out that new variant, to clear up any doubts as soon as possible.”
“What about Karapetian?”
“He has asked Emil to do a more in-depth analysis, because he plans to keep that one for Dublin.”
“Do you think Sokolov will fall into the trap?”
“Probably. The idea is to make him play with the Keller touch, sacrificing pieces and launching bold, penetrating, brilliant attacks.”
Just then, Max glimpses Karapetian in the distance, a couple of newspapers in his hand, heading for the lounge. He points him out to Mecha, who follows the grand master with a vacant expression.
“It’ll be sad if it’s him,” she says.
Max can’t help looking surprised.
“You’d prefer it to be Irina?”
“Emil has been with Jorge since he was a boy. He owes a great deal to Emil. We both do.”
“But the two youngsters . . . I mean, what about love and all the rest of it?”
Mecha looks down at the ground strewn with the ash from her cigarettes.
“Oh, that,” she says.
Then, without pausing, she starts talking about the next step, assuming Sokolov takes the bai
t. They don’t intend to expose the informant, if it does turn out to be one of these two. With the world title challenge in Dublin coming up, it is better to give the information to the Soviets, so that Sokolov doesn’t suspect they have been onto him since Sorrento. After Dublin, of course, whoever turns out to be the spy will never work with Jorge again. There are ways to get rid of people with or without a scandal, as appropriate. This has happened before: a French analyst was talking too much at the tournament in Curaçao, where Jorge was playing Petrosian, Tal, and Korchnoi. On that occasion it was Emil Karapetian who exposed the infiltrator. In the end they agreed to fire him without anyone suspecting why.
“He could also have been a scapegoat,” Max points out. “A ploy by Karapetian to divert suspicion away from himself.”
“I thought of that,” she said, solemnly. “And so did Jorge.”
And yet, her son owes his teacher so much, she goes on to say a few moments later. Jorge was thirteen when she persuaded Karapetian to work with him. They have been together for fifteen years, playing on pocket chessboards everywhere they go, on trains, in airports and hotels. Preparing for games, studying gambits, variants, attacks, and defenses.
“For more than half his life I have watched them eat breakfast together, playing blindfold chess, going over plans they made during the night, or improvising.”
“You’d prefer it to be her,” Max says gently.
Mecha seems not to have heard his remark.
“He wasn’t a remarkable child. People have this idea that great chess players are more intelligent than the rest of humanity, but that isn’t true. Jorge was only exceptional in his ability to concentrate on several different things at once; the Germans have a long word for it ending in verteilung, and to think abstractly about number series.”
“Where did he and Irina meet?”
“At the tournament in Montreal, a year and a half ago. She was dating Henry Trench, a Canadian chess player.”
“And what happened?”
“She and Jorge met at a party held by the organizers, and they spent all night sitting on a park bench talking about chess. Then she left Trench.”
“She seems to be good for him, don’t you think? Keeps him sane in situations like this.”
“She plays her part,” Mecha admits. “But Jorge isn’t an obsessive player. He isn’t the type to let the uncertainties and tensions of a long game get to him. His sense of humor and a certain amount of detachment help. One of his pet expressions is “I’m not going to let this drive me crazy.” That attitude keeps him from becoming neurotic. As you say, it helps him to stay sane.”
She pauses for a moment, head tilted to one side.
“Yes, I imagine Irina does play a part in that,” she says at last.
“If his girlfriend is passing information to the Russians, I imagine that would affect his concentration. His performance.”
Mecha isn’t concerned about that aspect of the problem. Her son, she explains, is capable of working with the same intensity on several different things, apparently simultaneously, without losing sight of the main issue: chess. His ability to focus is astonishing. He might seem to be daydreaming, and all of a sudden he blinks, grins, and is with you again. That capacity he has to go off and come back is the most remarkable thing about him. Without these flashes of normality, his life would be very different. He would become an eccentric or a depressive.
“That’s why,” she adds after a pause, “as well as being capable of superhuman concentration, he can also become absorbed by things other than the game he is playing. Like playing a different game in his head. Thinking calmly about the infiltrator, about a trip or a film. Solve another problem, or make light of it. Once, when Jorge was small, he sat in front of the chessboard analyzing a move for twenty minutes without budging or making a sound. And when his opponent started to show signs of becoming impatient, he looked up and said, ‘Ah, is it my turn to move?’ ”
“You still haven’t told me what you think. Whether you believe she is the one passing on information.”
“I told you. It could equally be Irina or Karapetian.”
He raises his eyebrows, acknowledging the difficulty.
“She seems to be in love.”
“Heavens, Max.” She looks at him ironically, almost with surprise. “Am I hearing things? Since when did love get in the way of betrayal?”
“Give me one good reason why Irina would sell him to the Russians?”
“That question doesn’t become you either. Why would Emil?”
She has raised her eyes, impassively, and Max follows the direction of her gaze. Three floors up, beneath the arches on the patio of the adjacent building, Jorge and Irina are leaning out, contemplating the view. They are both wearing white bathrobes and look as if they have just got up. She has her arm looped through his and her head is resting on his shoulder. After a moment, they notice Max and Mecha, and wave to them. He waves back while she remains motionless, staring at them.
“How long did your marriage to his father, the diplomat, last?”
“Not long,” she says after a brief silence. “Although I tried my hardest. I suppose having a child made a difference. At some point in her life every woman becomes a victim of her womb or her heart. But none of that was possible with Ernesto. He was a good man, made unbearable not by his many qualities, but because he refused to give any of them up.”
She breaks off, a curious smile playing across her face. She rests her hand on the tablecloth, next to the stain left by a drop of coffee. The blemishes on the back of her hand resemble the stain. Liver spots marking the years on her loose skin. Suddenly, the memory of that firm, warm flesh thirty years ago becomes hard for Max to bear. Masking his unease, he leans across the table and checks how much coffee is left in the pot.
“That was never your problem, Max. You always knew . . . Oh, hell. I often wondered where you got all that composure. That watchfulness.”
He makes as if to pour her some more coffee, but she shakes her head.
“So handsome,” she adds. “My God, you were handsome. A watchful, handsome scoundrel . . .”
Embarrassed, Max studies the inside of his empty coffee cup.
“Tell me more about Jorge’s father.”
“I already told you, I met him in Nice, at that dinner party at Suzi Ferriol’s house. Don’t you remember?”
“Vaguely.”
With a weary air, Mecha slowly withdraws her hand from the tablecloth.
“Ernesto was terribly polite and distinguished, but he lacked Armando’s talent and imagination. One of those men who use others as a pretext to talk about themselves. What they say might interest you, but they don’t need to know that.”
“Are a lot of men like that?”
“You never were. You were always a good listener.”
Max graciously acknowledges the compliment, with calculated modesty.
“Tricks of the trade,” he confesses.
“That fact is, things went wrong between us,” she goes on, “and I ended up behaving with the spiteful resentment we women often resort to when we are in pain. Actually, I suffered very little, but he didn’t need to know that, either. More than once, he tried to escape from what he referred to as the mediocrity and failure of our marriage. And, like most men, he only got as far as other women’s vaginas.”
It didn’t sound vulgar coming from her, Max noticed. Like so many other things imprinted on his memory. He had heard her use stronger words in the past, with the same, almost surgical coolness.
“I got a lot further, as you know,” Mecha resumes. “I am referring to a particular kind of immorality. Immorality as a conclusion. As an acknowledgment of morality’s sterile, passive injustice.”
Once again, she gazes, with indifference, at the ash on the floor. Then she looks up at the waiter, who informs them that the breakfa
st service is about to close, and asks if they would like anything else. Mecha stares at him as though she hasn’t understood the question, or was far away. Finally she shakes her head.
“Actually, I failed twice,” she says when the waiter has left. “As an immoral wife with Armando and as a moral wife with Ernesto. Fortunately for me, my son came along and changed everything. I was given another possibility. A third way.”
“Do you remember your first husband more?”
“Armando? How could I forget him. His famous tango has haunted me all my life. As it has you, in a way. And it lives on.”
Max looks up from his empty coffee cup again.
“I eventually found out what we still didn’t know in Nice,” he says. “That they killed him.”
“Yes. In a place called Paracuellos, just outside Madrid. They dragged him from the prison and took him there to shoot him,” she says, with an imperceptible shrug, accepting tragedies that occurred too far back in time, the scars conveniently healed. “A group of men dragged poor García Lorca out and made a martyr of him. Another lot did the same to my husband. Which of course turned him into a hero. And made his music famous.”
“Did you never go back to Spain?”
“To that sad, embittered country reeking of the sacristy and run by black marketeers and mediocre ruffians? No. Never.” She looks toward the bay and gives a sarcastic smile. “Armando was cultured, educated, a freethinker. A creator of marvelous things. If he were still alive, he would have despised those military butchers and their blue-shirted thugs with pistols on their belts, just as he would the numbskulls who killed him.”
She pauses, then gazes at him, inquisitively.
“What about you? What was your life like during that time? Is it true you returned to Spain?”
Max puts on a suitably serious face as he casts his mind back over those heady days: all those people with new money greedy for luxury, hotels returned to their previous owners, newly rebuilt towns and cities, businesses flourishing under the protection of the new regime: rich pickings for those who knew where to look. Max’s cautious expression is his way of glossing over years of exploits and possibilities, vast sums of money changing hands, there for the taking by anyone with the courage or talent to go after it: the black market, women, hotels, trains, borders, refugees, worlds collapsing amid the ruins of the old Europe, one war following another, even more bloodthirsty one, with the feverish conviction that when it was all over, nothing would be the same.
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