Checkmate in Amber

by Matilde Asensi

  ‘AND IF SOMEBODY WENT WITH YOU? NOT ME, OF COURSE - YOU SAW HOW NERVOUS I GOT AT CASTLE KUNST. I’M BEST JUST SITTING IN FRONT OF A COMPUTER. BUT SURELY ONE OF US COULD BE YOUR PARTNER DOWN THERE.’

  ‘I am too old for that, I’m afraid,’ Donna responded.

  ‘With everything that’s going on at the moment, I’ve no choice but to keep my eyes permanently on the markets.’

  ‘So - that’s three no-shows already,’ I commented sarcastically. ‘Two to go then. Roi? Cavalo?’

  ‘As you know, Peón, I’m seventy-five years old. God knows I would be delighted to go with you. But I would just be a burden on you.’

  ‘Cavalo …?’

  ‘Signed, sealed, delivered - I’m yours.’

  OK, I admit it - a small smile did begin to play about my lips.

  ‘CAVALO WOULD MAKE PEÓN A PERFECT PARTNER!’

  ‘Hush now, you wuss,’ I threw back at him, jokingly.

  ‘NO, I’M SERIOUS! HE’S PERFECT. HE EVEN SPEAKS GERMAN BETTER THAN I DO!’

  ‘Hey, I’m not so bad at it myself,’ I added, slightly overrating my four-word vocabulary. ‘Anyway, we’re not exactly planning to start chatting with the locals.’

  ‘I do have a slight problem, actually,’ José admitted. ‘My daughter had a big row with her mother and she’s staying with me right up until Christmas.’

  ‘Well, that’s you out as my bodyguard then.’

  ‘No, no - I’ll sort it out. Don’t worry about it.’

  ‘So we can all agree then. Peón and Cavalo will carry out the operation together.’

  I could tell that Roi was not very happy with this arrangement. Leaving the two of us alone together for such a long time didn’t really strike him as a very good idea, especially given my record of lustful escapades and current desire for Iberian reunification. But there wasn’t much he could say about it, as Cavalo was the only one prepared to come with me. And as far as I was concerned, I was ready to go any damn place with José. After all, what could be more romantic than a long hike in the dark down some smelly and filthy old German sewers?

  ‘Fine, we will carry out this operation in accordance with the standard Group guidelines. Ladies and gentlemen, today sees the launch of Operation Peter the Great,’ Roi began to wind up the meeting with the usual litany. ‘I believe this name to be the most appropriate in this instance. As you know, from this moment on, all and any direct communication and personal encounters between Group members - except for Peón and Cavalo, of course - are strictly prohibited. All and any relevant news, information or advice must be passed through me and me alone, always using the Group encoder and the exclusively personal cipher and password with which I will provide each one of you, and which you are forbidden to share with anyone else. Bear in mind that apprehending the Chess Group would be the absolute highlight of any Interpol officer’s career. And don’t forget: maximum security is our best possible insurance. If one of us goes down, we all go down.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Cavalo and I were walking along an endless tunnel when suddenly the cell phone began to ring insistently. ‘It must be for you,’ I told him, without turning to look back at him. He must have answered it, because after three or four ringtones the noise stopped. We headed towards a doorway which looked like the main entrance into Castle Kunst and then the damn thing started ringing again. ‘Why do they keep calling you on your cell phone?’ I asked as I pushed the door open and walked through into a bright sunlit meadow. ‘Hurry up and answer it, José - please,’ I begged him, as it was starting to annoy me. Another three or four ringtones later, Cavalo answered it. I headed on towards a huge tree whose trunk was cracked and dry. Through a split in the bark big enough to walk through, I could make out the beginnings of a staircase. But then the damn ringtones started droning again. ‘Enough, José, please!’ I yelled at him, losing my temper and turning towards him. It was then I realized that it wasn’t José who was behind me, it was Ezequiela. ‘Ezequiela …? What on earth are you doing in Weimar?’.

  I opened my eyes all of a sudden, sat bolt upright and pricked up my ears. I was in my own bed and the phone that was ringing was the one in the living room.

  ‘Oh no, to hell with it!’ I grumbled, curling myself into a ball and jamming the pillow over my head.

  But even so, Ezequiela’s voice, as happy as a clam at high tide, penetrated my semi-comatose neurons and dragged me out from the cozy madness of my dream.

  ‘Yes, yes, thank you very much! I’m so happy you remembered,’ she declared, delighted. ‘That’s right, at five o’clock. Don’t forget now.’

  I sighed. Today was Ezequiela’s birthday. OK, I’d got my wake-up call, I said to myself, and sat up in bed with some difficulty, trying to shake off the cobwebs and get my head together. It was going to be a long, long day. The telephone wouldn’t stop ringing, the door would be spinning like a turnstile and all of Ezequiela’s girlfriends would be dropping round loaded with gifts and eating their heads off. My house was on the point of turning into a not-so-fast-food joint jam-packed with crazed senior citizens.

  I jumped out of bed and headed for the chest of drawers where I had hidden the birthday present for my old nurse the previous afternoon. I always had a hard time working out what to buy her, and every year I got increasingly nervous as October 14th got closer and closer. And I always ended up buying her, at the very last minute, the most absurd gift imaginable. But, year after year, she reacted as if what I had given her was just exactly what she had always wanted, hugging me to death and squealing with pleasure. So I had high hopes that she would adore the dish set I had bought her, perfectly matching the tiles in her bathroom.

  ‘Happy birthday!’ I shouted out as I emerged from my bedroom with the package in my hands.

  ‘Thank you, thank you! I’m so happy you remembered.’

  My slight frown on hearing that same old worn-out phrase soon disappeared as I watched her come towards me with her arms outstretched and a look of sheer happiness on her face. She didn’t mess around: two quick kisses and she grabbed the gift right out of my hands.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked me enthusiastically as she tore off the wrapping.

  ‘What are you asking me that for? You’re just about to find out,’ I answered her with a smile. ‘Come on, get on with it. Open it up! I’m off to pour myself a coffee.’

  I could hear her admiring comments from the kitchen, but still couldn’t entirely repress the usual doubts that hit me every year on her birthday. Ezequiela’s unrestrained shrieks of joy were hardly deserved by the shower gel dispenser, soap dish and toothbrush holder that I had bought her. But she really did seem to be pleased with them.

  She rushed into the kitchen, rose up on tiptoe, put her hands on my shoulders and pulled me down to plant another kiss on my cheek.

  ‘They’re lovely! Really lovely! And they go perfectly with my bathroom tiles! Thank you so much, Ana, they’re absolutely …’

  As luck would have it, the phone started ringing again and I shot off towards the living room. And kept right on going. I walked out the front door and down the four steps to the street, carrying a file with the latest documents that Läufer had sent me. There was a wide selection of photographs of the renovated Weimar Gauforum and the enormous Beethovenplatz, a green space on one of whose flanks Läufer had marked all the manhole covers leading down into the underground sewage system. He’d also included photos of all the surrounding streets, as well as an illegible plan of the city center with a big cross marking the Gauforum’s location.

  I had lunch at a mesón near my store, safe in the knowledge that Ezequiela was busy fixing up the house and preparing food for her friends’ arrival. Then I settled down on the sofa in the back room of the store, next to my desk, carefully studied all the material which Läufer had sent me and finally had my short siesta until it was time to raise the security shutters and open up for business. I had an appointment arranged for that afternoon with an agent representing an English b
uyer who was interested in an eighteenth-century Spanish console table whose long legs ended in lion’s paws. It was a piece of furniture that I had bought for surprisingly little at an auction in Madrid. I bid successfully for the whole lot in which it was included, sold all the other pieces before I even left the auction room and included the beautiful console in my next biannual catalog, giving it pride of place and a particularly fancy filigreed layout. It worked a treat. Within a couple of weeks I had over twenty offers from foreign collectors.

  The Englishman’s agent, a pot-bellied fifty-something guy with a miserable face and a strong smell of liquor on his breath, spent ages examining every inch of the console. Finally, looking slightly happier, he came over to my desk, quickly signed the huge pile of documents that I laid in front of him and disappeared at full speed, heading for the nearest bar, no doubt. I was just finishing off the endless paperwork when the telephone rang.

  ‘Ana? It’s your aunt.’

  God in heaven! I had completely forgotten to take her the money for the coffered ceiling in the scriptorium!

  ‘Ana María - are you there?’

  ‘Yes, here I am, Tía,’ I finally answered, in an apologetic tone of voice.

  ‘I am sure that you know exactly why I’m calling.’

  ‘Yes, Tía, I can well imagine.’

  ‘And I suppose that you have a good excuse for it.’

  ‘I do, Tía, I do.’

  She was getting more and more annoyed.

  ‘Is everything alright?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Excellent. So you can stop playing the fool with me,’ she snapped. ‘When precisely do you plan on bringing me the check?’

  ‘I’m not sure, Tía, because I’ve got to go on another trip.’

  ‘When, exactly?’

  ‘The day after tomorrow.’

  ‘This Friday?’

  ‘Yes, Tía. As soon as I close the store. I’ve already booked my flight. But don’t worry. I’ll be back on Sunday night, so I promise to drive over with the money on Monday.’

  ‘I take that as a promise,’ she said, challengingly. ‘I expect to see you on Monday. Don’t let me down again.’

  ‘Of course I won’t,’ I growled back, fed up by now with her badgering.

  ‘Oh yes, just one more thing …’

  Enough already!

  ‘If I’m not mistaken, today is Ezequiela’s birthday, is it not?’

  I grunted in exasperation.

  ‘That is so, is it not?’ she repeated, in a menacing tone worthy of Cinderella’s wicked stepmother.

  ‘Yes indeed …’

  ‘Well, do congratulate her on my behalf.’

  I groaned audibly.

  ‘Congratulate her!’

  ‘Yes, Tía.’

  ‘Fine. I will expect you on Monday. Enjoy your trip.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘See you on Monday then.’

  ‘Yes, Tía.’

  Needless to say, I made damn sure not to pass on her birthday wishes. The last thing I needed was to provoke Ezequiela into launching into yet another endless rant about Juana’s countless failings.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  My Iberia flight left Barajas airport in Madrid at seven in the evening and when we landed in Porto, the co-pilot announced that it was just five minutes past seven. What? Only five minutes’ flight time? Then I realized how stupid I was being: the clocks in Portugal are always an hour behind Spain’s. So five minutes officially, yes. But then my Sunday flight back to Madrid would take two hours and five minutes. Officially speaking.

  I got off the plane and boarded the bus that took me to the terminal building. Once inside and waiting for my baggage to appear on the carousel, I could see José and Amália waving at me cheerfully from the other side of the glass partition at the back. José was looking really good. He was wearing a long navy blue overcoat, his immaculately ironed trousers leading down to a pair of deep-shined shoes. The sight of him made me catch my breath and I couldn’t help wondering, yet again, why the hell I found him so damn attractive. If only Amália didn’t have to be there every single time we met. It was becoming a real nuisance.

  José and I greeted each other with the traditional kisses on both cheeks, giving me a disconcerting whiff of his musky but subtle cologne which briefly threatened to knock me off balance. Amália, who was wearing a leather jacket, jeans and sneakers, restricted herself to brushing her cheek against mine and blowing a raspberry into my ear. But when we moved apart, her oh-so-innocent face was flashing an angelical smile. That girl was clearly going to be a handful, and I realized that she was dead set against my staying at her home over the next two days. If she thought it was because I wanted to, she couldn’t have been more mistaken. I would much rather have stayed in one of the glorious suites at the Grande Hotel do Porto and been able to wander in and out of the bathroom without a stitch on if the mood took me, for instance. Or whatever. I’d stayed there several years before, but Cavalo vetoed it outright this time, so I had no choice but to stay with Amália and her father, like it or not, until Sunday afternoon.

  Porto provoked in me the same sensations as it had the first time I visited there: a small city teetering on the edge of total chaos. The sheer quantity of people and traffic reminded me of Paris, but with the key difference that in Paris the avenues are a whole lot wider and the traffic lights are more or less respected. Porto’s narrow old alleyways rise and fall like never-ending mountain ranges, and are jam-packed twenty-four hours a day. But the city has something friendly and familiar about it that makes you feel very much at home.

  José left the car in an underground parking lot on the Rua da Alegria, and carried my little travel bag for me as we strolled along to the Rua de Passos Manuel, which was just around the corner. Soon I caught sight of his Ourivesaria store sign, his goldsmith’s. The truth of the matter was that I was very curious and keen to get to know the house where he had lived his entire life, just like I had in mine.

  In fact, once we got there, it struck me that they were both very similar: old and large, with high ceilings and countless rooms, half of which were completely unused. The living room, which looked onto the street through huge bay windows, was full of sofas and bookshelves. In one corner you could see a small TV facing a comfortable-looking armchair with a matching footstool. All the display cabinets and bookshelves were antiques, made of mahogany and chock-full of chess trophies. In the opposite corner from the armchair was a large dining-room table, and between the two an enormous Persian carpet which almost covered the entire floor.

  ‘It’s beautiful, José,’ I told him, gazing over the room.

  ‘You really like it?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m crazy about it,’ I confirmed. ‘It’s so cozy and welcoming.’

  And if he came to my house sometime, I suddenly thought, I would really have to get rid of Ezequiela’s shabby old armchair, not to mention her beloved mesa camilla, that round table with the brazier underneath to keep her legs warm under the tablecloth.

  ‘Are you going to go out for dinner, Papá?’ asked Amália, as she wandered away down the long hallway which led to the other rooms in the house.

  ‘Yes, Amália, but I would rather you didn’t run away quite so soon. You should help me show our guest around.’ His daughter immediately picked up on José’s cautionary tone of voice and swiftly returned to stand obediently by her father’s side.

  Room by room, they showed me round the whole house. Amália’s was done up with a strange mixture of cuddly toys, old-style lace curtains with festoons matching the bedspread, posters of rock bands on the walls and at the far end, the cutting edge of modern technology: three computers - a laptop and two big desktops - hooked up to a monitor so huge that it was more like a cinema screen than a computer’s. And stacked up in a nearby corner was a top-of-the-range networked sound system. On a small armchair by her bed sat a gigantic teddy bear with a virtual reality headset and wearing a pair of earphones and an extra-lar
ge tee-shirt with the Stones’ Tongue and Lips logo.

  José’s room was quite a bit less exuberant - in fact, I would have even called it monastic had it not been for the huge wrought-iron bed, whose headboard of scrolls and vine leaves stretched across the whole width of the room and looked as if it posed a serious danger to people’s heads. Where on earth had he got hold of a bed like that? It looked well over a hundred years old. Even two hundred, maybe. And a bit noisy, perhaps? It was a pleasure to see the enormous collection of beautiful antique toys displayed on his bedroom’s mantelpiece, shelves and windowsills. I could just imagine them wound up and moving around with all their different tunes ringing out. On the right, just next to a big built-in wardrobe, was a mirrored door which led to the bathroom.

  My own bedroom was right at the end of the hallway, warm and comfortable, and I was thrilled to see that it too had its own bathroom. The window looked onto the Rua, like in the living room, so you could hear some street noise. But the bed was big and beautiful and the mattress was as firm as a plank, just the way I like it.

  José took me out to dinner in a small village close by, called Foz do Douro. Our table looked west, so we were treated to a wonderful sunset over the Atlantic. The food was slightly too greasy for my taste, all seafood, and it reminded me vividly of Spanish restaurants along the Mediterranean. The strange thing about the evening was that both José and I were desperately awkward and uptight with each other. We no sooner started a conversation than it ground to a shuddering halt. It was as if neither of us knew what the hell to say. Or we were both thinking stuff that had nothing to do with what we were supposedly talking about. I was looking at him with rapt attention as he struggled to explain me something or other, and I felt his eyes tight on me whenever it was my turn to dream up a sensible-sounding remark. We were both smiling our heads off and you could see from a mile away that we were making complete fools of ourselves. But, luckily, no-one else noticed. Apart from us.