The Flanders Panel

by Arturo Pérez-Reverte

  And the worst thing, Master Van Huys, the worst, old friend, old painter, you who loved him almost as much as I did, the worst is that there is no room for vengeance. For she, like me and even he himself, was just the plaything of more powerful people, of those who, because they have the money and the might, can simply decide that the centuries will erase Ostenburg from the maps drawn up by the cartographers. There is no one person I can have beheaded upon my friend's N tomb–and even if there was, I wouldn't do it. She alone knew and chose to remain silent. She killed him with her silence, letting him appear, as he did every evening–oh, yes, I too have my spies–near the moat at the East Gate, drawn by the silent siren song that drags all men to their fate, a fate that seems asleep or even blind until the day it opens its eyes and looks directly at us.

  As you sec, Master Van Huys, there is no possible vengeance. I put my faith in your hands and in your genius, and no one will ever pay you the price I will pay you for this painting. I want justice, even if it is only for me, even if it is only so that she knows that I know, and so that when we too are gone to ashes, like Roger de Arras, someone else other than God might also know it. So paint the picture, Master Van Huys, for God's sake, paint it. I want you to leave out nothing, and let it be your best, your most terrible work. Paint it, and then may the Devil, whom you once painted riding at his side, carry us off.

  And finally, she saw the knight. Both his slashed tunic and his hose were the colour of amaranth; he wore a gold chain round his neck and a useless dagger hanging from his belt. He was walking through the twilight along the moat at the East Gate, alone, no page with him to interrupt his thoughts. She saw him raise his eyes to the lancet window and saw him smile. It was barely the suggestion of a smile, distant and melancholy, the sort of smile that speaks of memories, of past loves and dangers, and seems to have some inkling of its own fate. And perhaps Roger de Arras senses, on the other side of the crumbling battlements, from between whose stones gnarled bushes spring, the presence of the hidden crossbowman, who pulls the string of his bow taut and aims at his victim. Suddenly he understands that his whole life, the long road walked, the battles he fought, hoarse and sweating, in creaking armour, the women's bodies he has known, the thirty-eight years he carries on his back like a heavy burden, all will end here, in this precise place and at this precise moment, and that after he feels the blow there will be nothing more. He is filled by a profound sense of grief, because it seems to him unjust that he should die like this at twilight, pierced by an arrow like a wild boar. And he raises one delicate, beautiful hand, a manly hand, the kind of hand that immediately brings to mind the sword it must once have wielded, the reins it held, the skin it caressed, the quill it dipped into an inkwell before scratching words on parchment, he raises that hand by way of protest, though he knows it is in vain, for, amongst other things, he is not even sure to whom he should protest. He wants to shout out, but remembers the decorum he owes himself. So he reaches with his other hand for his dagger, thinking that at least with a steel blade in his hand, even if it is only that dagger, his death will be one more suited to a knight. He hears the thump of the crossbow and thinks fleetingly that he should move out of the path of the arrow, but he knows that an arrow moves faster than any man. He feels his soul slowly dissolving in a bitter lament for itself, whilst he searches desperately in his memory for a God to whom to offer up his repentance. And he discovers with surprise that he repents of nothing, although it is not clear either, as night closes in, that there is any God prepared to hear him. Then he feels the blow. He has suffered other blows, where now he bears the scars, but he knows that this will leave no scars. It does not even hurt, his soul seems simply to slip out of his mouth. Endless night falls, but before finally plunging into it, he understands that this time it will be for ever. And when Roger de Arras cries out, he can longer hear his own voice.

  VIII

  The Fourth Player

  The chess pieces were merciless. They held

  and absorbed him. There was horror in this,

  but in this also was the sole harmony.

  Because what else exists in the world besides chess?

  Vladimir Nabokov

  MUÑOZ HALF-SMILED, in that mechanical, distant way that seemed to commit him to nothing, not even to an attempt to inspire sympathy.

  "So that's what it was all about," he said in a low voice, matching his step to Julia's.

  "Yes." She was walking along with her head bent, absorbed in thought. Taking her hand out of the pocket of her leather jacket she brushed her hair from her face. "Now you know the whole story. You have every right to, I suppose. You've earned it."

  He looked straight ahead, reflecting on that recently acquired right.

  "I see," he murmured.

  They walked unhurriedly, side by side. It was cold. The narrower, more enclosed streets still lay in darkness and the light from the street lamps illuminated only segments of the wet asphalt, making it gleam like fresh varnish. Gradually the shadows grew less intense as a leaden dawn broke slowly at the far end of the avenue where the outlines of the buildings, silhouetted against the light, were shading from black into grey.

  "Is there any particular reason," asked Muñoz, "why you've kept this part of the story from me until now?"

  She looked at him out of the corner of her eye before replying. He seemed interested, in a vague way, but not offended. He was gazing absently at the empty street ahead of them, his hands in his raincoat pockets and his collar turned up.

  "I thought you might prefer not to get involved."

  "I see."

  As they turned the corner they were greeted by a noisily churning refuse collector, and Muñoz helped her squeeze past the empty bins.

  "What do you think you'll do now?" he asked.

  "I don't know. Finish the restoration work, I suppose. And write a long report about its history. Thanks to you, I might even get to be a bit famous."

  Muñoz was listening distractedly, as if his thoughts were elsewhere.

  "What's happening with the police investigation?"

  "Assuming there was a murderer, they'll find him eventually. They always do."

  "Do you suspect anyone?"

  Julia burst out laughing.

  "Good heavens, no!" She frowned as she considered the possibility. "At least I hope not." She looked at Muñoz. "I imagine that investigating a crime that might not be a crime is very like what you did with the picture."

  Muñoz's lips curved into a half-smile.

  "It's all a question of logic, I suppose," he replied. "And that might be something that's common to both chess players and detectives." Julia couldn't tell if he was serious or only joking. "Apparently Sherlock Holmes played chess."

  "Do you read detective novels?"

  "No. Although the books I do read are somewhat like that."

  "What for example?"

  "Books on chess, of course. As well as books on mathematical puzzles, logic problems, things like that."

  They crossed the deserted avenue. When they reached the opposite pavement, Julia gave her companion another furtive glance. He didn't look like a man of extraordinary intelligence, and she doubted that things had gone well for him in life. Walking along with his hands in his pockets, his rumpled shirt collar showing and his large ears protruding above his old raincoat, he looked exactly like what he was, an obscure office worker, whose only escape from mediocrity was what chess offered him, a world of combinations, problems and solutions. The oddest thing about him was the gleam in his eyes that was quite simply extinguished the moment he looked away from a chessboard, and his way of bowing his head as if he had a heavy weight on the back of his neck, tilting his head forwards, perhaps to allow the outside world to slip by without encroaching on him any more than was absolutely necessary. He reminded her a little of the pictures of prisoners of war she'd seen in old documentaries, trudging along with their heads down. He had the unmistakable air of someone defeated before the battle has even st
arted, of someone who, when he opens his eyes each morning, awakens only to failure.

  Yet there was something else. When Muñoz was explaining a move, following the twisted thread of the plot, there was in him a fleeting spark of something solid, even brilliant. As if, appearances to the contrary, there was in him the pulse of some extraordinary talent, logical, mathematical or whatever, that lent a certain assurance and undeniable authority to his words and gestures.

  She realised that she knew nothing about him except that he played chess and was an accounts clerk. But it was too late now to get to know him better. His task was over and they would be unlikely to meet again.

  "We've had an odd sort of relationship," she said.

  "In chess terms, it's been a perfectly normal relationship," he replied. "Two people, you and me, brought together for the duration of a game." He smiled again in that diffuse way that meant nothing. "Call me if you ever want another game."

  "You baffle me," she said spontaneously, "you really do."

  He looked at her, surprised, not smiling any more.

  "I don't understand."

  "Neither do I." Julia hesitated slightly, unsure of her ground. "You seem to be two different people, so shy and withdrawn sometimes, with a kind of touching awkwardness. But as soon as anything to do with chess comes up, you're astonishingly assured."

  "So?" His face inexpressive, Muñoz seemed to be waiting for the rest of her argument.

  "Well, that's it really," she stammered, a bit embarrassed by her lack of discretion. "I suppose all this is slightly absurd at this hour of the morning. I'm sorry."

  He had a prominent Adam's apple, visible above the unbuttoned neck of his shirt, and he was in need of a good shave. His head was tilted slightly to the left, as if he were considering what she'd just said. But he didn't seem in the least bewildered.

  "I see," he said, and made a movement with his chin as if to indicate that he had understood, although Julia was unable to establish exactly what he had understood. He looked past her as if hoping that someone would approach, bringing a forgotten word. And then he did something that Julia would always remember with astonishment. Right there, in half a dozen phrases, uttered as dispassionately and coldly as if he were discussing some third party, he summarised his whole life for her, or that's what Julia thought he did, without pauses or inflections and with the sameprecision he employed when commenting on moves in a chess game. And only when he'd finished and fallen silent did the vague smile return to his lips, in apparent gentle mockery of himself, of the man he had just described and for whom, deep down, he felt neither compassion nor disdain, only a kind of disillusioned, sympathetic solidarity.

  Julia just stood there, not knowing what to say, asking herself how the devil a man of so few words had been capable of explaining everything about himself so clearly. She had learned of a child who used to play chess in his head, staring up at his bedroom ceiling, whenever his father punished him for neglecting his studies; and about women capable of dissecting, with the meticulous skill of a watchmaker, the inner mechanisms that drive a man; and of the solitude that came in the wake of failure and the absence of hope. Julia had no time to take it in, and at the end, which was almost the beginning, she wasn't sure how much of it he'd actually told her and how much of it she'd imagined for herself, supposing that Muñoz had done anything more than just bow his head and smile like a weary gladiator, indifferent about the direction, up or down, of the thumb that would decide his fate. When he stopped talking–if, that is, he ever really spoke–and the grey light of dawn lit half his face, Julia knew with total clarity just what that small area of sixty-four black and white squares meant to this man: a miniature battlefield on which was played out the mystery of life itself, of success and failure, of the terrible, hidden forces that rule the fates of men.

  She understood this, as well as the meaning of that smile that never quite settled on his lips. She slowly bowed her head, while he looked up at the sky and remarked how cold it was. She offered her pack of cigarettes; he accepted, and that was the first and almost the last time she saw Muñoz smoke. They walked on until they reached Julia's building. At that point it seemed that Muñoz would depart for good. He held out his hand to shake hers and say good-bye, but Julia had seen a small envelope, about the size of a visiting card, stuck in the little grid next to her bell. When she opened it and looked at the card it contained, she knew that Muñoz could not leave, not just yet, that a few other things, none of them good, would have to happen before they could let him do so.

  "I don't like it," said César, and Julia noticed that the fingers holding his ivory cigarette holder were trembling slightly. "I really don't like the idea that there's some madman out there, playing at being the Phantom of the Opera."

  As if those words were a signal, all the clocks in the shop started to chime, one after the other or simultaneously, in tones that varied from a gentle murmur to the grave bass of the heavy wall clocks. But the coincidence failed to make Julia smile. She looked at the Bustelli figure of Lucinda, absolutely still inside the glass case, and felt as fragile as it looked.

  "I don't like it either. But I'm not sure we have any choice."

  She looked away from the porcelain figure and across at the Regency table on which Muñoz had set out his pocket chess set, once again reproducing the positions of the pieces in Van Huys's chess game.

  "If I ever get my hands on the swine..." César muttered, casting a distrustful eye at the card Muñoz was holding by one corner, as if it were a pawn he was not yet sure where to place. "It's beyond a joke."

  "It's no joke," said Julia. "Have you forgotten about poor Álvaro?"

  "Forgotten him?" César put the cigarette holder to his lips and blew out smoke in short, nervous puffs. "I wish I could!"

  "And yet," said Muñoz, "it does make sense."

  They looked at him. Muñoz, unaware of the effect of his words, remained leaning on the table over the chessboard, with the card between his fingers. He hadn't taken his raincoat off, and the light coming through the stained-glass window lent a blue tone to his unshaven chin and emphasised the dark circles under his weary eyes.

  "My friend," said César, in a tone that was somewhere between polite incredulity and ironic respect, "I'm glad you can make some sense out of all this."

  Muñoz shrugged, ignoring César's comment. He was clearly concentrating on the new problem, on the hieroglyphics on the small card:

  Rb3? ... Pd7 - d5+

  Muñoz looked at them for a moment longer, comparing them with the position of the pieces on the board.

  "It seems that someone"–and with that word "someone" Julia shivered, as if, nearby, an invisible door had been opened–"is interested in the game of chess being played in the picture." He half-closed his eyes and nodded, as though in some obscure way he could intuit the motives of the mystery player. "Whoever he is, he knows the state of the game and knows too, or thinks he does, that we've successfully solved its secret by means of retrograde analysis. Because he proposes playing on, continuing the game from the current position of the pieces as they stand in the picture."

  "You're joking," said César.

  There was an uncomfortable silence, during which Muñoz glared at César.

  "I never joke," he said at last, as if he'd been considering whether or not this was worth explaining. "And certainly not about chess." He flicked the card with his index finger. "That, I can assure you, is exactly what he's doing: continuing the game from the point where the painter left off. Look at the board."

  "See," said Muñoz, pointing to the card. "That Rb3 means that White should move the rook currently on b5 to b3. I take the question mark to mean that he's suggesting we make this move. So we can deduce from that that we're playing White and our opponent is Black."

  "How appropriate," remarked César. "Suitably sinister."

  "I don't know whether it's sinister or not, but it's what he's doing. He's saying to us: 'I'm playing Black and I'm inviting you
to move that rook to b3.' Do you understand? If we agree to play, we have to move as he suggests, although we could choose a better move. For example, we could take that black pawn on b7 with the white pawn on a6. Or the white rook on b6 ..." He stopped, absorbed, his mind plunged automatically into considering the various possibilities offered by the move he'd just mentioned. Then he blinked and returned with a visible effort to the real situation. "Our opponent takes it as read that we accept his challenge and that we've moved our white rook to b3, to protect our white king from a possible sideways move to the left by the black queen and, at the same time, with that rook backed up by the other rook and the white knight, threatening the black king on a4 with check. I deduce from this that he likes taking risks."

  Julia, who was following Muñoz's explanations on the board, felt sure she detected in his words a hint of admiration for the unknown player.

  "What makes you say that? How can you know what he does or doesn't like?"

  Muñoz shrugged and bit his lower lip.

  "I don't know," he replied after a brief hesitation. "Every person plays chess according to who he is. I believe I explained that once before." He placed the card on the table next to the chessboard. "Pd7 - d5+ means that Black now chooses to play by advancing the pawn he has on d7 to d5, thus threatening the white king with check. That little cross next to the figure means check. In other words, we're in danger, a danger we can avoid by taking their pawn with the white pawn on e4."

  "Right," said César. "That's fine as far as the moves go. But I don't see what all this has to do with us. What relationship is there between those moves and reality?"

  Muñoz looked noncommittal, as if they were asking too much of him. Julia noticed that his eyes again sought hers, only to slide away a second later.

  "I don't know exactly what the relationship is. Perhaps it's a prompt, a warning. I have no way of knowing. But the next logical move by Black, after losing his pawn on d5, would be to put the white king in check again by moving the black knight on dl to b2. In that case, there would be only one move White could make to avoid check whilst at the same time maintaining his siege of the black king, and that's to take the black knight with the white rook. The rook on b3 takes the knight on b2. Now look at the position on the board."