The Flanders Panel

by Arturo Pérez-Reverte

  "What has that got to do with Álvaro's death?"

  "Everything has to do with everything else." César raised a hand, asking for patience. "Besides, life is a succession of events that link with each other whether one wants them to or not." He held his glass up to the light and peered at the contents as if the rest of his thought process might be found floating there. "Then -1 mean that day, Julia -1 decided to find out everything I could about the painting. And, like you, the first person I thought of was Álvaro. I never liked him, neither when you were together nor afterwards, with the important difference that I never forgave the wretch for having made you suffer the way he did ...

  "That was my business," Julia said, "not yours."

  "You're wrong. It was mine too. Álvaro had occupied a position that I never could. In a way..." he hesitated for a moment and gave a bitter smile, "he was my rival. The only man capable of taking you away from me."

  "It was all over between him and me. It's absurd to relate the two things."

  "Not that absurd. But let's not discuss it further. I hated him, and that's that. Naturally, that isn't a reason to kill anyone. If it were, I can assure you I wouldn't have waited so long before doing it. This world of ours, the world of art and antiquities, is a very small one. Álvaro and I had had professional contact now and then; it was inevitable. Our relationship could not be termed friendly, of course, but sometimes money and self-interest make strange bedfellows. The proof is that, when faced by the problem of the Van Huys, you yourself went straight to him. So I also went to see him and I asked him to write a report on the painting. I didn't expect him to do it for the love of art, of course. I offered him a reasonable sum of money. Your ex, God rest him, was always an expensive boy. Very expensive."

  "Why didn't you say anything to me about this?"

  "For various reasons. The first was that I didn't want to see you start a relationship with him again, not even professionally. You can never guarantee that there aren't some embers still burning beneath the ashes. But there was something else. The painting had to do with very personal feelings." He pointed to the ivory chess set on the card table. "It had to do with a part of me that I believed I had renounced for ever, a corner of myself to which no one was allowed access, not even you, Princess. That would have meant opening the door to matters that I would never have had the courage to discuss with you." He looked at Muñoz, who was holding himself aloof from the conversation. "I imagine our friend here could enlighten you on the subject. Isn't that right? Chess as a projection of the ego, defeat as a frustration of libido and other such deliciously murky things. Those long, deep moves diagonally across the board that the bishops make." He ran the tip of his tongue round the edge of his glass and shuddered slightly. "Oh, well. I'm sure old Sigmund would have had plenty to say on the subject."

  He sighed in homage to his own ghosts, then raised his glass slowly in Muñoz's direction.

  "I still don't understand," insisted Julia, "what all this has to do with Álvaro."

  "Not very much, at first," César acknowledged. "I just wanted a simple little report on the history of the painting. Something for which, as I said, I was prepared to pay well. But things got complicated when you decided to consult him too. That wasn't a serious problem in principle. For Álvaro, showing a praiseworthy professional discretion, refrained from telling you about my interest in the painting, since I'd specifically asked that it remain top secret."

  "But didn't he find it odd that you were researching the painting behind my back?"

  "Not at all. Or if he did, he didn't say anything. Perhaps he thought I wanted to give you a surprise, by providing you with some new facts. Or perhaps he thought I was playing a trick on you." César pondered seriously. "Now I think of it, he would have deserved to be killed just for that."

  "He did try to warn me. He said something about the Van Huys being very fashionable lately."

  "A villain to the end," remarked César. "By giving you that simple warning, he covered himself as regards you, without upsetting me. He kept us both happy: he took the money and kept open the possibility of reviving tender scenes from yesteryear." He arched one eyebrow and gave a short laugh. "But I was telling you what happened between Álvaro and me." He peered into his glass again. "Two days after my talk with him, you came and told me about the concealed inscription. I tried to hide it as best I could, but the effect on me was like an electric shock. It confirmed my feeling about the existence of some mystery. I knew that it would increase the value of the Van Huys, and I remember telling you as much. That, together with the history of the painting and its characters, would open possibilities that at the time I thought would be marvellous: you and I would share in the research and solve the enigma together. It would be like the old days, you see, like hunting for buried treasure, but a real treasure this time. And it would mean fame for you, Julia. Your name in specialist magazines, in art books. As for me ... let's just say that I was satisfied with that. But involving myself in the game also meant a complex personal challenge. One thing is certain, ambition had nothing to do with it at all. Do you believe me?"

  "I believe you."

  "I'm glad. Because only then will you be able to understand what happened next." César clinked the ice in his glass, and the noise seemed to help him order his memories. "When you left, I phoned Álvaro, and we arranged that I, would see him at midday. I went with no evil intentions, and I confess that I was trembling with pure excitement. Álvaro told me what he'd learned. I saw, with satisfaction, that he knew nothing about the hidden inscription. Everything went swimmingly until he started talking about you. Then, Princess, the whole atmosphere changed completely."

  "In what sense?"

  "In every sense."

  "I mean what did Álvaro say about me?"

  César shifted in his chair, apparently embarrassed, before he gave his reluctant reply.

  "Your visit had made a big impression on him. Or at least that's what he implied. I saw that you'd stirred up old feelings in a most dangerous way, and that Álvaro wouldn't mind at all if things were to go back to the way they were." He paused and frowned. "Julia, you simply can't imagine how that irritated me. Álvaro had ruined two years of your life, and there I was, sitting opposite him, listening to his brazen plans to erupt into your life again. I told him, in no uncertain terms, to leave you in peace. He looked at me as if I were an interfering old queen, and we began to argue. I'll spare you the details, but it was most unpleasant. He accused me of sticking my nose in where it wasn't wanted."'

  "And he was right."

  "No, he wasn't. You mattered to me, Julia. You matter to me more than anything in the world."

  "Don't be absurd. I would never have got together again with Álvaro."

  "I'm not so sure about that. I know how much that wretch meant to you." He smiled wryly into space, as if Álvaro's ghost, rendered inoffensive now, were there. "While we were arguing, I felt my old hatred for him well up in me. It went to my head like one of your hot vodka toddies. It was, my dear, a hatred I don't recall ever having felt before; a good, solid hatred, deliciously 'Latin'. I stood up, and I think I lost control, because I hurled abuse at him, using the select vocabulary of a fishwife, which I reserve for very special occasions. At first, he seemed surprised by my outburst. Then he lit his pipe and laughed in my face. He said it was my fault that his relationship with you had ended. That I was to blame for your never having grown up. My presence in your life, which he described as unhealthy and obsessive, had clipped your wings. 'And the worst thing,' he added with an insulting smile, 'is that, deep down, you're the one Julia's always been in love with, because you symbolise the father she never knew ... And that's why she's in the mess she's in now.' Having said that, Álvaro put one hand in his pocket, gave a few puffs on his pipe and peered at me through the smoke. 'Your relationship,' he concluded, 'is nothing more or less than a case of unconsummated incest. It's just lucky you're a homosexual.'"

  Julia closed her eyes. Cé
sar left his final words floating in the air and had retreated into silence. When, ashamed and embarrassed, she'd gathered enough courage to look at him again, he gave a dismissive shrug, as if what he was about to say was not his responsibility.

  "With those words, Princess, Álvaro signed his death warrant. He went on smoking in the chair opposite me but, in fact, he was already dead. Not because of what he'd said–after all, his opinion was as valid as anyone else's–but because of what it revealed to me about myself. It was as if he'd pulled back a curtain which, for years, had separated me from reality. Perhaps because it confirmed ideas that I'd kept locked away in the darkest corner of my mind, never allowing myself to cast the light of reason and logic on them."

  He stopped, as if he'd lost the thread of what he was saying and looked hesitantly at Julia and at Muñoz. At last, with an ambiguous smile, simultaneously perverse and shy, he raised his glass to his lips to take a sip of gin.

  "I had a sudden inspiration. And then, wonder of wonders, a complete plan revealed itself, just the way it happens in fairy tales. Each and every one of the pieces that had been floating randomly about found its exact place, its precise meaning. Álvaro, you, me, the painting. It fitted in too with my shadow side, with all the distant echoes, the forgotten feelings, the dormant passions. In those few seconds everything was laid out before me, like a giant chessboard on which each person, each idea, each situation found its corresponding symbol in a chess piece, found its exact place in time and space. That was a Game with a capital G, the great game of my life. And of yours. Because it was all there, Princess: chess, adventure, love, life and death. And at the end of it, there you stood, free of everything and everyone, beautiful and perfect, reflected in the bright mirror of maturity. You had to play chess, Julia; that much was certain. You had to kill us all in order, at last, to be free."

  "Good God."

  César shook his head.

  "God has nothing to do with it. I can assure you that when I went over to Álvaro and struck him on the back of the neck with the obsidian ashtray that was on the table, I no longer hated him. That was nothing but a rather unsavoury part of the plan. Irritating but necessary."

  He studied his right hand with some curiosity. He seemed to be weighing the capacity to inflict death contained in his long, pale lingers with their manicured nails, which at that moment were holding, with elegant indolence, his glass of gin.

  "He dropped like a stone," he concluded in an objective tone, once he'd finished examining his hands. "He fell without even a groan, with his pipe still clenched between his teeth. Once he was on the floor, I made sure he was well ánd truly dead with another blow, rather better judged. After all, if a job's worth doing, it's worth doing well. The rest you know already: the shower and everything else were just artistic touches. Brouillez les pistes, Arséne Lupin used to say. Although Menchu, God rest her, would doubtless have attributed the saying to Coco Chanel. Poor thing." He drank a sip of gin to Menchu's memory. "Anyway, I wiped my fingerprints off with a handkerchief and took the ashtray with me, just in case, throwing it into a rubbish bin some miles away. I know I shouldn't say so, Princess, but for a novice's my mind worked in an admirably criminal way. Before leaving, I picked up the report on the painting that Álvaro had intended delivering to you, and I typed the address on an envelope."

  "You also picked up a handful of his white index cards."

  "No, I didn't actually. That was an ingenious touch, but it only occurred to me later. There was no way I could go back for them, so I bought some identical cards in a stationer's. But first I had to plan the game; each move had to be perfect. What I did do, was to make sure that you got the report. It was vital that you knew everything there was to know about the painting."

  "So you resorted to the woman in the raincoat."

  "Yes. And here I must make a confession. I've never gone in for cross-dressing, it doesn't interest me in the least. Sometimes, especially when I was young, I used to dress up just for fun, as if it was Carnival time. But I always did it alone, in front of the mirror." César's face wore the roguish, self-indulgent look of someone evoking pleasant memories. "When it came to getting the envelope to you, I thought it would be amusing to repeat the experience. A whim really, a sort of challenge, if you want to think of it in more heroic terms. To see if I was capable of deceiving people by playing at telling a kind of truth or a part of it. So I went shopping. A distinguished-looking gentleman buying a raincoat, a handbag, low-heeled shoes, a blond wig, stockings and a dress doesn't arouse suspicion if he does it in the right way, in one of those big department stores full of people. The rest was achieved by a good shave and some make-up, which, I confess without embarrassment now, I did already have. Nothing over the top, of course. Just a discreet touch of colour. No one suspected a thing at the courier's. And I must say I found it an amusing experience ... instructive, too."

  He gave a long, studiedly melancholy sigh. Then his face clouded over.

  "In fact," he added, and his tone was less frivolous now, "that was what you could call the playful part of the affair." He gave Julia an intense look, as if he were choosing his words carefully for the benefit of a more serious and invisible audience, on whom he believed it important to make a good impression. "The really difficult bit came next. I had to guide you both towards solving the mystery, that was the first part of the game, and towards the second part, which was much more dangerous and complicated. The problem lay in the fact that, officially, I didn't play chess. We had to progress together in our investigation of the painting, but my hands were tied when it came to helping you. It was horrible. I couldn't play against myself either; I needed an opponent, someone of stature. So I had no alternative but to find a Virgil to guide you on the adventure. He was the last piece I needed to place on the board."

  He finished his drink and put the glass on the table. Then he dabbed carefully at his lips with a silk handkerchief he drew from the sleeve of his dressing gown. At last he looked across at Muñoz and gave him a friendly smile.

  "That was when, after due consultation with my neighbour Señor Cifuentes, the director of the Capablanca Club, I decided to choose you, my friend."

  Muñoz nodded, just once. If he had any thoughts on that dubious honour, he refrained from voicing them.

  "You never doubted that I would win, did you?" he said in a low voice.

  César doffed an imaginary hat, in ironic salute.

  "No, never," he agreed. "Quite apart from your talent as a chess player, which was apparent the moment I saw you in front of the Van Huys, I was prepared, my dear, to provide you with a series of juicy clues, which, if correctly interpreted, would lead you to uncover the second enigma: the identity of the mystery player." He gave a satisfied click of his tongue, as if savouring some delicious morsel. "I must admit you impressed me. To be honest, you still do. It's that way you have, so peculiar to you, of analysing each and every move, of gradually discounting all the unlikely hypotheses. I can only describe it as masterly."

  "I'm overwhelmed," remarked Muñoz expressionlessly, and Julia couldn't tell if his words were intended sincerely or ironically.

  César threw back his head and gave a silent, theatrical laugh of pleasure.

  "I must say," he added with an ambivalent, almost coquettish look on his face, "that the feeling of being gradually cornered by you became genuinely exciting, really. Something ... almost physical, if you'll allow me that word. Although, admittedly, you're not exactly my type." He remained absorbed in thought for a few moments, as if trying to decide exactly how best to categorise Muñoz, but then appeared to abandon the attempt. "With the final moves I realised that I was becoming the only possible suspect. And you knew that I knew ... I don't think I'd be wrong in saying that it was from that moment that we began to draw closer to each other. Wouldn't you agree? The night we spent sitting on a bench opposite Julia's building, keeping watch with the aid of my flask of cognac, we had a long conversation about the psychological characteristics
of the murderer. By then, you were almost sure I was your opponent. I listened with rapt attention as you explained, in response to my questions, the relationship of the known hypotheses on the pathology of chess. Except one, of course. One that you didn't mention until today but which, nevertheless, you were perfectly aware of. You know which one I mean."

  Muñoz nodded, a calm, affirmative gesture. César pointed at Julia.

  "You and I know, but she doesn't. Or at least not everything. We should explain it to her."

  Julia looked at César.

  "Yes," she said, feeling tired and irritated with both of them. "Perhaps you'd better explain what you're talking about, because I'm beginning to get thoroughly fed up with all this bloody matiness."

  Muñoz kept his eyes fixed on César.

  "The mathematical aspect of chess," he replied, unaffected by Julia's ill humour, "gives the game a very particular character, something that specialists would define as anal sadistic. You know what I mean: chess as a silent battle between two men, evocative of terms such as aggression, narcissism, masturbation ... and homosexuality. Winning equals conquering the dominant father or mother, placing oneself above them. Losing equals defeat, submission."

  César raised one finger, demanding attention.

  "Unless, of course," he pointed out politely,"that is the real victory."

  "Yes," said Muñoz. "Unless victory consists precisely in demonstrating the paradox: inflicting defeat upon oneself." He looked at Julia for a moment. "You were right in what you said to Belmonte: the game, like the painting, was accusing itself."

  César gave him a surprised, almost joyful, look.

  "Bravo," he said. "Immortalising oneself in one's own defeat; isn't that it? Like old Socrates when he drank the hemlock." He turned towards Julia with a triumphant air. "Our dear friend Muñoz knew all this days ago, Princess, but didn't say a word to anyone, not even to you or me. Finding myself conspicuous by my absence in my opponent's calculations, I modestly assumed that he must be on the right track. In fact, once he'd talked to the Belmontes and could finally discount them as suspects, he had no further doubts about the identity of the enemy. Am I right?"