What We Become

by Arturo Pérez-Reverte

  According to information from the hotel receptionist, Spadaro, Mikhail Sokolov occupies the penthouse in the apartment building housing the Soviet delegation. His spacious apartment has a balcony from which—above the centenary pines, beyond the main hotel buildings along the cliff top—he has a view over the entire Bay of Naples. That is where the world champion resides and prepares his chess games together with his team of helpers.

  Sitting beneath an ivy-covered bower with a pair of antique Wehrmacht Dienstgläser that Captain Tedesco has lent him, Max is studying the apartment building while pretending to bird-watch. And what he sees is far from encouraging: entry by the conventional route seems impossible. He spent the afternoon convincing himself of this, and told Mecha about it after dinner, sitting in that same spot in the garden.

  “Sokolov’s entourage occupies the lower floors,” Max explained, pointing toward the lit windows. “There is a single staircase and elevator in the lobby from which to access all floors. I’ve made a few inquiries and they always have a man on guard. No one can get into Sokolov’s apartment without being seen.”

  “There has to be some other way,” insisted Mecha. “There’s a game this afternoon.”

  “Too soon, I’m afraid. I still don’t know how to do it.”

  “They play again the day after tomorrow, and it’ll be dark when they finish. You’ll have time, then. And closed doors were never a problem for you. Haven’t you got . . . I don’t know. Tools? A picklock or something?”

  There were years of professional poise in the way Max shrugged his shoulders.

  “The problem isn’t the locks. The one downstairs is a modern Yale, easy to pick. The one to his suite is probably even simpler, the old, conventional type.”

  He fell silent, gazing up at the gloomy building with a worried look. Like a mountaineer contemplating the difficult part of a rock face.

  “The problem is getting up there,” he said. “How to get past those damned Bolsheviks without being seen.”

  “Bolshevik.” She chuckled. “No one uses that word anymore.”

  A flash. Mecha was lighting a cigarette. The third since they had been in the garden.

  “You have to try, Max. You did it before.”

  A silence. The faint odor of tobacco wafting through the air.

  “In Nice, remember,” she said. “At Suzi Ferriol’s house.”

  Funny, he thought. Or ironical. That she should use that as an argument.

  “Not only in Nice,” he replied calmly. “But I was half the age then that I am now.”

  He remained silent for a moment, calculating even the unlikeliest probabilities. In the silence of the garden they could hear distant music coming from a bar on Piazza Tasso.

  “What if they catch me . . .”

  His words hung gloomily in the air. In fact, he was scarcely aware of having said them out loud.

  “They would undoubtedly rough you up,” she admitted.

  “That doesn’t bother me so much.” He smiled to himself, uneasily. “But I’ve been thinking about it. What scares me is going to jail.”

  “How odd, to hear you say that.”

  She seemed genuinely astonished. He shrugged.

  “It always scared me, but now I’m sixty-four.”

  In the distance, the music was still playing. Fast, modern. Too faint for Max to be able to recognize the tune.

  “This isn’t like in the movies,” he went on. “I’m not Cary Grant, playing the guy in that absurd caper about a hotel thief. There aren’t any happy endings in real life.”

  “You were much more handsome than Cary Grant, silly.”

  She had taken his hand and was pressing it between hers: thin and slender. And warm. Max was still listening to the music in the distance. Of course, he concluded pulling a face, it wasn’t a tango.

  “Do you know something? You’re the one who reminded me of that woman, that actress. Or she reminded me of you: slim, refined. You still look like her. Or she looks like you.”

  “He’s your son, Max. Be sure of that, at least.”

  “Perhaps he is,” he replied. “But look.”

  He had lifted her hand, inviting her to touch his face. To feel the effects of time.

  “There could be another way in.” Her touch feels like a caress. “Maybe you should look again tomorrow, in daylight. And you’ll find it.”

  “If there was another way.” He was barely listening to her. “If I was younger, more agile. Too many ‘ifs,’ I’m afraid.”

  Mecha withdrew her hand from his face.

  “I’ll give you everything I have, Max. However much you want.”

  He turned to look at her, astonished. He could make out the shape of her face in the darkness, silhouetted against the distant lights and the glowing tip of her cigarette.

  “You’re joking, of course,” he said.

  The silhouette moved. Two shiny copper-colored eyes glinting at Max. Her gaze fixed on him.

  “Yes, I’m joking.” Twice the glowing tip burned more brightly. “But I will, I would give you everything.”

  “Including a cup of coffee at your place in Lausanne?”

  “Of course.”

  “And the pearl necklace?”

  Another, lengthy silence.

  “Don’t be silly.”

  The glowing tip dropped to the ground, and went out. She was clasping his hand again. The distant music in the square had stopped.

  “I’ll be damned,” he said. “You make me feel like a foolish lover. You make the years fall away.”

  “That’s the idea.”

  He hesitated slightly. Only slightly, now. His mouth throbbed from keeping back what he was about to confess.

  “I don’t have a penny, Mecha.”

  She waited a few seconds.

  “I know.”

  Max had the breath knocked out of him. He was shocked and speechless.

  “How do you know?” Something burst inside him, a wave of panic. “What do you know?”

  He wanted to snatch his hand away, sit up straight. Run away from there. But she restrained him gently.

  “I know you don’t live in Amalfi, but here in Sorrento. That you are employed as a chauffeur at a house called Villa Oriana. I know things haven’t gone well for you in the last few years.”

  Thank goodness I’m sitting down, Max thought, his free hand leaning on the bench. Otherwise I’d have keeled over. Like an idiot.

  “I made some inquiries the moment you turned up at the hotel,” Mecha said at last.

  Bewildered, Max tried to make sense of his thoughts and feelings: humiliation, shame. Mortification. All those days keeping up a pointless charade, making a fool of himself. Pirouetting like a clown.

  “You’ve known from the start?”

  “More or less.”

  “And why did you play along?”

  “Several reasons. Curiosity, at first. It was fascinating to recognize the old Max: the man of the world, deceitful and amoral.”

  She paused for a moment. She was still holding his hand in hers.

  “Besides, I like being with you,” she said at last. “I always have.”

  Max freed his hand and rose to his feet.

  “Do the others know?”

  “No. Only me.”

  He needed some air. To breathe deeply, rid himself of conflicting emotions. Or possibly he needed a drink. Something strong. Which would shake up his guts until they turned inside out.

  Mecha remained seated, perfectly calm.

  “If Jorge weren’t involved, under different circumstances . . . well. It would have been fun. To spend time with you. See what you were after. How far you intended to go.”

  She fell silent for a moment.

  “What was your plan?”

  “I’m not sure
now. To relive the old days?”

  “In what way?”

  “In every way, perhaps.”

  She stood up slowly. Almost laboriously, Max thought.

  “The old days died. They went out of fashion, just like our tango. Dead, like your boys from the old days, like you yourself. Like the two of us.”

  She clung to his arm the way she had twenty-nine years before, that night they had gone to Lions at the Kill, in Nice.

  “It’s flattering,” she added. “To see you come alive again because of me.”

  She had taken his hand and was raising it gently to her lips. A sweet kiss. Her voice sounded like laughter.

  “To pretend to look at you again the way I once did.”

  The sun already is high in the sky. Max continues to study the apartment block next to the Hotel Vittoria, the binoculars pressed against his eyes. He has just walked around the outside of the building, looking closely at the entrance leading to the main gate, and has now positioned himself among some bougainvilleas and lemon trees, in order to examine the other side. Nearby is a small pond, and a little pavilion with a bench. He approaches the pavilion, and from there inspects the part of the building that was hidden before. He now has a clear view of the whole of the front, including Sokolov’s balcony, the red-tiled cornice and the surrounding gutter, above which he spots a lightning rod. Gutters and lightning rods require maintenance, someone to go up and check they are in working order, Max says to himself. With a flash of optimism, he scours every inch of the façade. And what he sees there brings back his old, youthful smile, which seems to erase the ravages of time from his face: a metal ladder set into the wall and ascending from the garden.

  Replacing the binoculars in their case, Max passes close to the building, as if taking a stroll. When he reaches the bottom of the ladder, he looks up. The metal has rusted, leaving orange marks on the wall, but the rungs look sturdy enough. The bottom one is near the ground, above a flower bed. The distance up to the roof is forty meters, and the rungs are quite close together. The amount of effort required seems reasonable: ten minutes to climb up in the dark, taking every kind of precaution. It might be a good idea, he thinks, to carry a snap hook and harness to secure himself halfway up, and to take a rest, if he gets too exhausted. Apart from that, he wouldn’t need much equipment: a small rucksack, some mountaineering rope, a few tools, a flashlight, and the right clothing. He looks at his watch. The shops in the center of town are already open, along with the hardware store in Porta Marina. He’ll need some sneakers as well, and black shoe polish to dye everything with.

  Just like in the good old days, he reflects, turning his back on the building and walking away through the garden. He is excited to be doing something again, or by the imminence of action. That old, familiar flutter of doubt, calmed by a drink or a cigarette, when the world was still a hunting ground for the clever and intrepid. When life had an aroma of Turkish cigarettes, cocktails in the lounge bar of a Palace Hotel, a woman’s perfume. Of pleasure and danger. And now, remembering that, Max has the impression that each step he takes is lighter, that he has regained his agility. But the best of all isn’t that. When he looks in front of him, he discovers that his shadow has come back. The sun piercing the tops of the pine trees is projecting it onto the ground, steady and elongated, as it was before. Joined to his feet, where it had been in the past. Timeless, with no signs of aging, or fatigue. And, having recovered his shadow, the former ballroom dancer laughs out loud the way he hasn’t laughed for many years.

  11

  The Ways of a Wolf

  THE RAIN WAS still falling on Nice. Amid the murky grayness enveloping the old city, clothes hung from the balconies like the tatters of tragic lives. His raincoat buttoned up to the neck and with opened umbrella, Max Costa crossed Place du Jésus, avoiding the rain-pocked puddles, heading for the cathedral steps. Mauro Barbaresco was there, leaning against the locked gates, hands in the pockets of his oilskin sleek with rain, watching Max curiously from beneath the soggy brim of his hat.

  “It’s tonight,” said Max.

  Without uttering a word, Barbaresco began to walk toward Rue Droite. Max followed him. There was a bar on the corner, and two doors down, a dark tunnel-like entrance. They crossed an interior patio and climbed two flights of wooden stairs that creaked beneath their feet. On the second-floor landing, Barbaresco opened a door and ushered Max through. Max left his umbrella propped against the wall, removed his hat, and shook off the water. The house, dark and uninviting, stank of boiled vegetables and damp, soiled clothing. A corridor led to the kitchen door, then another door, which was ajar, revealing a bedroom with an unmade bed, and finally a sitting room with two old armchairs, a sideboard, and a dining table with the remains of breakfast on it. Seated at the table, vest undone, shirtsleeves rolled up above his elbows, Domenico Tignanello was reading the funnies in Le Gringoire.

  “He says he’s doing it tonight,” said Barbaresco.

  Tignanello’s gloomy expression appeared to brighten a little. He gave a nod of approval, put the newspaper down on the table, and with a gesture offered Max the coffeepot standing next to a couple of dirty cups, an oil cruet, and the remains of some toast on a plate. Max declined the offer as he undid his raincoat. A dim light was seeping through the open window, casting the corners of the room in shadow. Barbaresco, removing his oilskin, went over to the window, framed in the murky square of light.

  “What news of your Spanish friend?” he asked, after he had taken a good look outside.

  “He isn’t my friend, and I haven’t seen him again,” Max replied calmly.

  “Not since your meeting at the harbor?”

  “That’s right.”

  Barbaresco had draped his oilskin over the back of a chair, oblivious to the drops of water pooling on the floor.

  “We’ve made some inquiries,” he said. “Everything he told you is true: the nationalist radio station in Monte Carlo, his attempts to redirect the Luciano Canfora to a Republican port . . . The only thing we haven’t been able to establish, for the moment, is his identity. Our organization has no record of any Rafael Mostaza.”

  Max gave him the blank stare of an impassive croupier.

  “I suppose you could follow him. I don’t know . . . take his photograph, or something.”

  “Maybe we will.” Barbaresco smirked. “But to do that we’d need to know when your next meeting with him is.”

  “There’s nothing planned. He turns up and asks me to meet him whenever he pleases. Last time he left a note at the reception desk of the Negresco.”

  Barbaresco stared at him in astonishment.

  “He doesn’t know about you breaking into Susana Ferriol’s house tonight?”

  “He knows, but he said nothing.”

  “Then how does he plan to get the documents?”

  “I haven’t the faintest idea.”

  Barbaresco exchanged a bewildered glance with his colleague before looking back at Max.

  “Curious, don’t you think? That he doesn’t mind you telling us everything? That he even encourages it. And that he hasn’t shown up today.”

  “Perhaps,” Max conceded coolly. “But it isn’t my job to find out these things. You’re the spies.”

  He took out his cigarette case, contemplating the open box, as though which cigarette he chose was what mattered just then. Finally he placed one in his mouth and put the case away, without offering it to the two men.

  “I suppose you know your job,” he said at last, flicking his lighter.

  Barbaresco walked to the window and looked outside. He appeared anxious, as if he had fresh cause for concern.

  “It certainly isn’t normal. Showing one’s hand like that.”

  “Maybe he’s trying to protect him,” Tignanello suggested.

  “Protect me? . . . From whom?”

  Domenico Tignanello quiet
ly contemplated the hair on his arms. Silent once more, as though the effort of opening his mouth had exhausted him.

  “From us.” Barbaresco replied, for him. “From his people. From yourself.”

  “Well, when you find out, let me know.” Max calmly exhaled a puff of smoke. “I have other things to think about.”

  Barbaresco sat down in one of the armchairs. Pensive.

  “We’re not being set up, are we?” he said at last.

  “By Mostaza or by me?”

  “By you, of course.”

  “How would I do that? I have no choice in all this. But if I were in your shoes, I’d try to locate this fellow. Clear things up with him.”

  Barbaresco exchanged further looks with his colleague, before glancing resentfully at Max’s suit, visible beneath his open raincoat.

  “Clear things up . . . you make it sound refined.”

  Those two, Max thought, always looked as if they’d emerged from a sleepless night, with their crumpled clothes, bloodshot eyes ringed with dark shadows, and their stubbly faces. They probably had.

  “Which brings us to the important bit,” Barbaresco added. “How do you propose to enter the house?”

  Max looked down at Barbaresco’s damp shoes, the soles split at the toes. With all that rain, his socks must be drenched.

  “That’s my concern,” he replied. “What I need to know is where we’re going to meet so that I can hand over the letters, assuming I get them. Assuming everything goes well.”