The three of them, still and silent, studied the new positions of the pieces. Julia would remark later that it was at that moment, long before she understood the meaning of the hieroglyphics, that she sensed the board had ceased to be simply a succession of black and white squares and become instead a real space depicting the course of her own life. i+3~ And, almost as if the board had become a mirror, she found something familiar about the piece of wood representing the white queen on el, so pathetically vulnerable to the threatening proximity of the black chessmen.
But it was César who was the first to understand.
"My God," he said. And those words sounded so strange on his agnostic lips that Julia looked at him in alarm. He was staring fixedly at the board, the hand that held the cigarette holder apparently frozen a few inches from his mouth, as if the realisation had been so sudden it had paralysed a gesture only barely begun.
She looked again at the board, feeling the blood beating silently in her wrists and temples. She could see only the defenceless white queen, but she felt the danger like a dead weight on her back. She looked across at Muñoz, asking for help, and saw that he was shaking his head thoughtfully, the furrow between his eyebrows deepening. Then the vague smile she'd noticed on other occasions flickered briefly and humourlessly across his lips. It was the fleeting, rather resentful smile of someone who finds himself obliged, most reluctantly, to acknowledge his opponent's talent. And Julia felt an explosion of intense, dark fear, for she understood that even Muñoz was impressed.
"What's wrong?" she asked, barely recognising her own voice. The squares on the board swam before her eyes.
Exchanging a grave look with Muñoz, César said: "It means that the white rook's move threatens the black queen. Isn't that right?"
Muñoz gave a lift of his chin.
"Yes," he said. "The black queen, who before was safe, is now under threat." He stopped. Venturing along the path of non-chess interpretations was not something he felt at ease doing. "That might mean that the invisible player is trying to communicate something to us: his certainty that the mystery of the painting has been resolved. The black queen..."
"Beatrice of Burgundy," murmured Julia.
"Yes, Beatrice of Burgundy, the black queen, who, it would seem, has already killed once."
Muñoz's last words hung in the air without expectation of any response. César reached out a hand and, with the meticulousness of someone who desperately needs to do something in order to remain in touch with reality, delicately flicked the ash from his cigarette into an ashtray. Then he looked around as if he might find the answer to the questions they were all asking themselves in one of the pieces of furniture, one of the pictures or objects in his shop.
"You know, my dears, it really is an absolutely incredible coincidence. This just can't be real."
He raised his hands and let them fall in a gesture of impotence. Muñoz merely gave a gloomy shrug of his shoulders.
"This is no coincidence. Whoever planned this is a master."
"And what about the white queen?" asked Julia.
Muñoz moved one hand towards the board where it hovered over the piece in question, as if not daring to touch it. He pointed to the black rook on cl.
"There's a chance she could be taken," he said calmly.
"I see." Julia felt disappointed. She thought she would have felt more of a shock if someone had confirmed her fears out loud. "If I've understood you correctly, the fact of having discovered the picture's secret, that is, the lady in black's guilt, is reflected in that move of the rook to b2. And if the white queen is in danger, it's because she should have withdrawn to a safe place instead of wandering around making life difficult for herself. Is that the moral of the message, Señor Muñoz?"
"More or less."
"But it all happened five hundred years ago," protested César. "Only the mind of a madman ..."
"Perhaps we're dealing with a madman," said Muñoz with equanimity. "But he played, or plays, damned fine chess."
"And he might have killed again," added Julia. "Now, a few days ago, in the twentieth century. He might have killed Álvaro."
César, scandalised, raised a hand, almost as if she'd made an improper remark.
"Now, hang on, Princess. We're getting ourselves tied in knots here. No murderer can survive for five hundred years. And a painting can't kill."
"That depends on how you look at it."
"Don't talk nonsense. And stop mixing things up. On the one hand there's a painting and a crime committed five hundred years ago ... On the other hand there's Álvaro, dead."
"And the sending of the documents."
"But no one has yet proved that the person who sent the documents also killed Álvaro. It's even possible that the wretched man cracked his own head open in the bath." César raised three fingers. "Third, we have someone who wants to play chess. That's all. There's nothing that proves there's any link among the three things."
"The painting."
"That's not proof. It's just a hypothesis." César turned to Muñoz. "Isn't that right?"
Muñoz said nothing, refusing to take sides, and César gave him a resentful look. Julia pointed to the card on the table next to the chessboard.
"You want proof, do you?" she said suddenly, for she'd just realised what the card was. "Here's a direct link between ûlvaro's death and the mystery player. I know these cards all too well. They're the ones Álvaro used in his work." She paused to take in the significance of her own words. "Whoever killed him could have taken a handful of his cards." The irrational sense of panic she'd felt only minutes before was already ebbing away, to be replaced by a more precise, more clearly defined feeling of apprehension. She said to herself, by way of explanation, that the fear of fear, of something dark and undefined, was not the same as the concrete fear of dying at the hands of a real human being. Perhaps the memory of Álvaro, of his death in broad daylight with the taps turned on, helped to clarify her mind and free her of superfluous fears. She had quite enough on her plate as it was.
She put a cigarette to her lips and lit it, hoping the men would interpret this as a display of self-control. She exhaled the first mouthful of smoke and swallowed. Her throat felt unpleasantly dry. She urgently needed a vodka. Or half a dozen vodkas. Or a strong, silent, good-looking man, with whom she could find oblivion in sex.
"Now what do we do?" she asked, mustering all the calm she could.
César was looking at Muñoz and Muñoz at Julia. She saw that Muñoz's eyes had become opaque again, devoid of life, as if he'd lost all interest until the next move claimed his attention.
"We wait," said Muñoz, indicating the board. "It's Black's turn to move."
***
Menchu was very excited, but not about the mystery chess player. As Julia told her what had happened, Menchu's eyes grew round, and if you listened carefully, you could have heard the clatter of a cash register ringing up totals. The fact is that, when it came to money, Menchu was always greedy. And at that moment, happily calculating future profits, she most definitely was greedy. And foolish, added Julia to herself, for Menchu had seemed almost unconcerned by the possible existence of a murderer with a taste for chess. True to her nature, her favourite method of dealing with problems was to act as if they didn't exist. Disinclined to give her attention to anything concrete for any length of time, perhaps bored with having Max in her home in his role as bodyguard–thus making other sexual encounters difficult–Menchu had decided to look at the whole business from a different angle. For her, it was now just an odd series of coincidences, or a strange, possibly harmless joke, thought up by someone with a peculiar sense of humour, whose motives were too ingenious for her to grasp. It was the most reassuring version of events, especially when there was so much to be gained along the way. As for Álvaro's death, hadn't Julia ever heard of judicial errors? Like the murder of Zola by that chap Dreyfus, or was it the other way round? And Lee Harvey Oswald and other such blunders. Besides, slipping in the bath
could happen to anyone. Or almost anyone.
"As for the Van Huys, you'll see: we're going to make a pile of money out of it."
"And what do we do about Montegrifo?"
There were only a few customers in the gallery: a couple of elderly ladies chatting in front of a large classical seascape in oils, and a gentleman in dark clothes who was flipping through the portfolio of engravings. Menchu placed one hand on her hip as if it were the butt of a revolver and said in a low voice, theatrically fluttering her eyelashes:
"He'll fall into line, sweetie."
"You think so?"
"Take my word for it. Either he accepts or we go over to the enemy." She smiled, sure of herself. "With your track record and this whole fabulous story about the Duke of Ostenburg and his harpy of a wife, Sotheby's or Christie's would welcome us with open arms. And Paco Montegrifo is no fool." She seemed suddenly to remember something. "By the way, we're meeting him for coffee this afternoon. Make yourself pretty."
"We're meeting him?"
"Yes, you and me. He phoned this morning, all sweetness and light. That bastard's got an amazing sixth sense when it comes to business."
"Look, don't drag me into this."
"I'm not. He insisted that you come too. I can't think what he sees in you, darling. You're nothing but skin and bones."
Menchu's high heels–the shoes were handmade, extremely expensive, but the heels were just half an inch higher than strictly necessary–left painful marks in the beige carpet. In her gallery, amongst all the indirect lighting, pale colours and large open spaces, there was a predominance of what César used to call "barbarian art". The dominant note was provided by acrylics and gouaches combined with collages, reliefs made from bits of sacking and rusty monkey wrenches or plastic tubing and steering wheels painted sky blue. Occasionally, relegated to some far corner, you would find a more conventional portrait or landscape, like an awkward guest, embarrassing but necessary to justify the supposedly catholic tastes of a snobbish hostess. Nevertheless, Menchu made money from the gallery; even César had (reluctantly) to recognise that, at the same time nostalgically recalling the days when every boardroom would have contained at least one highly respectable painting, suitably mellowed by age, set off by a heavy gilt wood frame, not the post-industrial nightmares so in keeping with the spirit–plastic money, plastic furniture, plastic art–of the new generations who now occupied those same offices, décor courtesy of the trendiest and most expensive interior designers.
As it happened, Menchu and Julia were at that moment contemplating a strange amalgam of reds and greens that answered to the portentous title Feelings. It had sprung only weeks before from the palette of Sergio, César's latest romantic folly, whom César had recommended, although he had at least had the decency to keep his eyes modestly averted when he mentioned the matter.
"I'll sell it somehow," said Menchu, with a resigned sigh, after they'd both looked at it for a while. "In fact, incredible though it may seem, everything gets sold in the end."
"César's very grateful," said Julia. "And so am I."
Menchu wrinkled her nose reprovingly.
"That's what bothers me. That you justify your friend the antiquarian's silly games. It's time the old queen started acting his age."
Julia brandished a threatening fist in front of her friend's nose.
"You leave him alone. You know that, as far as I'm concerned, César's sacred."
"Don't I just. For as long as I've known you, it's always been César this and César that." She looked irritably at Sergio's painting. "You ought to take your case to a psychoanalyst; he'd blow a fuse. I can just see you lying down together on the couch, giving him that old Freudian sob story. 'You see, doctor, I never wanted to screw my father, I just wanted to dance the waltz with César. He's gay, by the way, but he absolutely adores me.' A real can of worms, darling."
Julia looked at her friend without a trace of amusement on her face.
"That's utter rubbish. You know perfectly well the kind of relationship we have."
"Do I indeed?"
"Oh, go to hell. You know very well..." She stopped and snorted, irritated with herself. "This is absurd. Every time you talk about César, I end up trying to justify myself."
"Because, darling, there is something murky about your relationship. Remember, even when you were with Álvaro..."
"Now don't start in on Álvaro. You've got Max to worry about."
"At least Max gives me what I need ... By the way, how's that chess player you're keeping so quiet about? I'm dying to get a look at him."
"Muñoz?" Julia couldn't help smiling. "You'd be very disappointed. He's not your type. Or mine, for that matter." She thought for a moment, since it had never occurred to her to consider how she would describe him. "He looks like an office worker in some old black-and-white film."
"But he solved the Van Huys problem for you." Menchu fluttered her eyelashes in mock admiration, in homage to the chess player. "He must have some talent."
"He can be brilliant, in his own way. But not always. One moment he seems very sure of himself, reasoning things out like a machine, the next he just switches off, right before your eyes. You find yourself noticing the fráyed shirt collar, how ordinary he looks, and you think, I bet he's one of those men whose socks smell."
"Is he married?"
Julia shrugged. She was looking out at the street, beyond the window display consisting of a couple of pictures and some painted ceramics.
"I don't know. He's not much given to confidences." She considered what she'd just said and discovered that she hadn't even thought about it before. Muñoz had interested her less as a human being and more as a way of solving the problem. Only the day before, shortly before finding the card, when they were about to say good-bye, only then had she caught a glimpse of his life. "I imagine he's married. Or was ... He seems damaged in the way that only we women can damage men."
"And what does César think of him?"
"He likes him. I imagine he finds him amusing as a character. He treats him with somewhat ironic courtesy. It's as if César feels a pang of jealousy every time Muñoz makes some particularly brilliant analysis of a move. But as soon as Muñoz takes his eyes off the board, he's ordinary again, and César feels better."
She stopped talking, puzzled. She'd just noticed, on the other side of the street, parked by the kerb, a car that seemed familiar. Where had she seen it before?
A bus passed, hiding the car from view. Menchu saw the look of anxiety on her face.
"Is something wrong?"
Disconcerted, Julia shook her head. The bus was followed by a delivery van that stopped at the light, making it impossible to see if the car was still there or not. But she had seen it. It was a Ford.
"What's up?"
Menchu looked uncomprehendingly from Julia to the street and back. Julia had a hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach, an uncomfortable feeling she'd come to know all too well over the last few days. She stood absolutely still, concentrating, as if her eyes, through sheer force of will, could be capable of seeing straight through the van to the car. A blue Ford.
She was afraid. She felt the fear creep gently through her body, felt it beating in her wrists and temples. After all, it was quite possible that someone was following her. That they'd been doing so for days, ever since Álvaro and she ... A blue Ford with smoked-glass windows.
Then she remembered: it was double-parked opposite the offices of the messenger service and had jumped a red light behind them that rainy morning. Why shouldn't it be the same car?
"Julia." Menchu seemed genuinely worried now. "You've gone quite pale."
The van was still there, stopped at the light. Perhaps it was only coincidence. The world was full of blue cars with smoked-glass windows. She took a step towards the gallery door, putting her hand into the leather bag she wore slung over her shoulder. Álvaro in the bath, with the taps full on. She scrabbled in the bag, disregarding cigarettes, lighter, powder compact. S
he touched the butt of the derringer with a sort of jubilant sense of comfort, of exalted hatred for that car, hidden now, that represented the naked shadow of fear. Bastard, she thought, and the hand holding the weapon inside the bag began to tremble with a mixture of fear and rage. Whoever you are, you bastard, even if it is Black's turn to move, I'm going to show you how to play chess. And to Menchu's astonishment, Julia went out into the street, her jaw set, her eyes fixed on the van hiding the car. She walked between two other cars parked on the pavement just as the light was changing to green. She dodged a car bumper, ignored a horn sounding immediately behind her and, in her impatience for the van to pass, was on the point of taking out her derringer when, at last, in a cloud of diesel fumes, she reached the other side of the street just in time to see a blue Ford with smoked-glass windows and a numberplate ending in the letters TH disappearing into the traffic ahead.
IX
The Moat at the East Gate
ACHILLES: What happens if you then find a picture
inside the picture which you have already entered...?
TORTOISE: Just what you would expect: you wind up
inside that picture-in-a-picture.
Douglas R. Hofstadter
"THAT REALLY WAS a bit over the top, my dear." César was winding his spaghetti round his fork. "Can you imagine it? A worthy citizen happens to stop at a traffic light, at the wheel of his car, which just happens to be blue, when a pretty young woman transformed into a basilisk appears, quite without warning, and tries to shoot him." He turned to Muñoz, as if seeking the support of a voice of reason. "It's enough to give anyone a nasty turn."
The Flanders Panel Page 17
