Checkmate in Amber

by Matilde Asensi

  ‘But I never said a thing!’ she insisted indignantly.

  ‘You didn’t have to,’ her father answered her in a chilly tone of voice. ‘We read your thoughts.’

  ‘Listen to you! Apparently you’re not even your own man anymore! Have you already forgotten how to say “I”, Papá?’ she snapped back, getting to her feet to face him down.

  José studied her for a good long while.

  ‘Go to your room,’ he instructed her calmly.

  ‘Why should I?’ she challenged him.

  ‘For being so spiteful, for yelling at me and for being rude to our guest. That’s more than enough reasons for me to punish you for misbehavior,’ he told her, as he patted her arm reassuringly. ‘Now go.’

  ‘Someone might think that you just want to get me out of the way right now.’

  Clearly a seasoned blackmail artist, I thought to myself.

  ‘That someone wouldn’t be very smart at all. You know very well that that’s not why I’m sending you to your room. If I’d wanted to be alone with Ana, we wouldn’t have come home to have dinner with you.’

  José was a good father, that was crystal clear and Amália knew it, so she turned to me with a serious face and said:

  ‘I apologize for what I said.’

  ‘Apology accepted,’ I told her, with a gentle smile. ‘No problem.’

  ‘Goodnight then.’

  ‘Goodnight,’ her father and I answered in unison.

  Once we’d heard the door of her room shut, José reached over the table and took my hand.

  ‘I want to apologize to you too.’

  ‘You really don’t have to,’ I said, but I could see the pained regret in his eyes. I rearranged his hair with the fingers of my free hand and leant towards him to plant a quick kiss on his lips. ‘Listen, José, nobody said it would be easy. We’re not a couple of kids without a care in the world. We’ve both got our separate lives, our homes, our jobs. You’ve even got yourself a teenage daughter,’ and we both laughed. ‘What is it that you want from me, from this relationship? Have you given it some thought?’

  He looked at me and bent forward to kiss me again.

  ‘Would it sound terribly old-fashioned if I said that I love you, that I want to marry you and have more children with you?’

  ‘Yes, I guess it would.’

  ‘Well - what is it that you want?’

  ‘What I want is,’ I stopped to think for a second. ‘What I want is to carry on the way I have been up until now, except for seeing you a lot more often, of course.’

  ‘So - you want us to spend our money on plane tickets?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I mumbled. ‘Anything else would be much too complicated.’

  ‘But it could be dangerous for the Group. Roi would be utterly opposed to it.’

  I lowered my head and hid my face behind my hair. But José pushed it back and hooked it behind my ear.

  ‘There are lots of things that Roi doesn’t know, and doesn’t need to know,’ I said, referring not only to what José and I were up to, but also to the fact that Amália knew about the Chess Group.

  José took a deep breath and looked up at the ceiling. I didn’t say a word either. I guess that both of us were weighing up the pros and cons of my proposal. Which was far and away the most sensible one, no question about it. Would he really be able to walk out on Porto and his Ourivesaria, and live so far away from his daughter? And what about me? Could I really leave Ávila, my beautiful antique store and my old family home, and drag poor Ezequiela to another country and away from everything and everyone she knew? I would much rather spend five days a week missing him, then two at his side, than seven days a week thinking that we’d made a huge mistake. And anyway, what was all this wanting-to-have-more-children business? Who wants children? Not me, that’s for sure.

  ‘OK, fine,’ he agreed. ‘But just as a temporary solution. I want you to know that I’m going to do everything possible to change your mind.’

  ‘What? Absolutely anything?’ I smiled at him.

  ‘Anything and any way possible, not to mention a touch of the impossible. And I’m planning on starting right away.’

  We didn’t get any work done that night, either.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  I was woken up by the light pouring in through the window. I always slept with the blinds down but José didn’t, so even though we’d only finally gone to bed a couple of hours earlier - the alarm clock on the bedside table claimed it was ten minutes past nine - I opened my eyes and blinked groggily, surrounded by antique mechanical toys.

  At this early hour of Sunday morning, Porto was still taking it easy, the usually noisy avenue outside was beautifully silent and I could hear the birdsong clearly and undisturbed. I looked over at José and he was fast asleep at my side, his eyes shut and his hair all mussed up. His breathing was calm and regular and his right arm was resting on my waist. I tried to move away slowly to get a better look at him but he tightened his grip on me as if unwilling to let me go, even though he was sleeping. Perhaps I had fallen in love with a possessive type, I worried to myself, and then a broad smile spread quickly across my face: I was far too grown up not to appreciate unprompted expressions of love. So I closed my eyes again, laid myself down and snuggled up to him - he hugged me closer without waking up - and let myself drift back down into forgetfulness.

  Suddenly, the sound of steps approaching at high speed along the passageway dragged me back to consciousness. My eyes flew open, my pulse started racing and my body started pumping emergency adrenaline into my bloodstream. Two loud knocks on the door reverberated around the room.

  ‘Are you awake yet?’

  ‘No!’ I yelled out, quickly pulling up the eiderdown to cover up the both of us.

  ‘OK! It’s nine-fifteen. I’ve made coffee and toast.’

  ‘We want to sleep!’ shouted José, pulling me even closer and keeping his eyes tight shut.

  ‘Fine. But you still haven’t done any prepping for the Weimar job.’ Her voice got fainter as she went back down the passageway. ‘Just don’t try giving me any more speeches about behaving responsibly, Papá!’

  ‘God, I hate that girl sometimes …’ muttered her father, kissing me longingly. Then, raising his voice, he shouted back at her: ‘Why don’t you bring us breakfast in bed!’

  ‘Don’t ask her to do that! Are you crazy?’ I whispered to him, getting jumpy.

  ‘There are some things I’m definitely too young to set my eyes on!’ insisted Amália from a distance.

  Thank goodness for that, at least.

  It took us a while to get out of the room - showering, and stuff - but eventually we walked into the kitchen clean and fully dressed. There was a glorious smell of freshly-made coffee. Amália was sitting down at the kitchen table, eating buttered toast and reading a book. She had jeans and sneakers on again, and a big old baggy sweater in a horrible olive green color. A livelier color would have gone so much better with her dark black hair. José bent down to give her a kiss and she offered him her cheek.

  ‘Are you going to work in the workshop or up here?’ she asked without taking her eyes off the book.

  ‘In the workshop. That way I can show Ana around it and we won’t get in your way. You’ve got things to do as well, haven’t you?’

  Amália frowned slightly and nodded her head.

  ‘I’ve got two exams tomorrow, English and Math.’

  I took a cup of coffee down with me to José’s workshop, which was in the back of his Ourivesaria and which we reached by going down a narrow spiral staircase from his apartment. The Ourivesaria itself was a large space, very elegant with its display cases full of jewelry of all kinds, which shone away even in the subdued light that managed to get in through the chinks in the security shutters. I tiptoed with care across the immaculate carpet. I felt a bit as if I’d stumbled into the throne room of some imperial palace.

  ‘Good security system you’ve got,’ I commented admiringly.

 
‘Not to mention premium anti-theft insurance!’ he added, and we both burst out laughing.

  His jewelry shop had impressed and amazed me, but his workshop really got my attention. I could just imagine Isaac Newton sneaking out the back door hand-in-hand with Leonardo da Vinci just before I walked in: it was scientific laboratory meets medieval artist’s studio, a large space filled with workbenches loaded up with mysterious mechanical contraptions. I wandered from bench to bench, from industrial apparatus to surgical instrument, from one microscope to the next, like a pool ball rebounding from cushion to cushion. I just couldn’t stop myself inspecting the burnishers, the alcohol lamps, the countless boxes of toothed wheels, watch and clock hands, springs, delicately-woven fine silk cords … There were old clocks and watches everywhere, and more mechanical toys, of course. The shelves in José’s glass cabinets were sagging under the weight of all the pieces he had accumulated, and some of them looked like they were worth a fortune. If I’d had a camera with me, I would have taken a photo of his wonderful workshop, had it blown up and framed, and hung it on the wall of my study.

  On top of a large mahogany table at the back of the room stood José’s computer, printer and scanner, with the usual bundle of cables, including the telephone connection running into the box down by the baseboard, which sent another cable up through a hole in the ceiling, into Amália’s room, no doubt. The table was set tight against the wall and there, to liven up the boring view, José had hung an antique lithograph showing the inner workings of a clock mechanism. The main component parts were illustrated in fine detail: the dial, the hands, the weight, the escapement and the pendulum, with explanatory notes scribbled next to each. I think José could see the envious look on my face.

  ‘Do you like it?’ he asked me, knowingly. ‘It’s taken from a professional clockmaker’s manual, written by Ferdinand Berthoud in the first half of the eighteenth century.’

  ‘It’s stunning.’

  ‘Thanks. I’ll give you a copy. Come here and sit down. Take the desk chair - I’ll sit on the stool.’

  We worked seriously hard, right up until lunchtime. What it really came down to was that I laid out the plan, and he diligently wrote down what I said in a notebook. We began at the beginning, organizing the trip to Germany. It made good sense to use one of our own cars on both the outward and the return journeys, avoiding hire car rentals and public transport so that we could get in and out undetected. And we could store all our equipment in the trunk and lower the seats if we needed to rest or sleep.

  José lifted the pen off the notebook.

  ‘How about we sleep in some good hotel, with a big double bed and a shower?’

  ‘Sorry about that,’ I answered him with a smile, ‘but I have a strict policy never to sleep in a public establishment when I’m on a job. It’s much better to keep everything simple: get to the target, do what has to be done and get away immediately. That way there’s no proof that you were anywhere in the area.’

  ‘Understood.’

  Once over the border and inside Germany, we would change vehicles and use a car with a German license plate, which Läufer could arrange for us, leaving our own car parked for a few days on a street where it wouldn’t attract any attention.

  ‘Why not in a public parking lot?’

  ‘Because of the attendants. Parking lot attendants always remember any cars parked longer than twenty-four hours.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘The equipment we take should be kept in large waterproof backpacks, ideally with well-padded backs and adjustable strapping, as we could be carrying them around for days. You’ll need a thermal protection suit, which is what I usually wear on a job. They’re comfortable, keep your body warm and minimize humidity. I imagine that it’ll be freezing cold in those Weimar sewers and we can’t wear layer after layer of clothing.’

  ‘Where can I get hold of one of these suits?’

  ‘In the first place, make sure that you buy it nowhere near Porto. Go down to Lisbon and look for one in a marine store or a diving center.’

  ‘There are stores like that all along the Portuguese coast.’

  ‘Good. You’ll have no trouble with that, then. Make sure you buy a black one. Right - and don’t forget to get yourself a bathing cap in the same color.’

  ‘What, with little flowers on it and stuff?’

  ‘Get outta here!’ I said, whacking him with my pencil. ‘Strictly standard issue. Smooth and made of rubber.’

  I spelt out in exhaustive detail every single piece of equipment I needed, so that he could take on the job of getting hold of it. We each also needed a good pair of boots, with alveolite lining to protect our feet from the wet and the cold. The only things that he wouldn’t be able to buy were good night vision goggles, because their sale and distribution was strictly controlled by the armed forces. Low-quality low-resolution goggles could be found at fishing tackle stores, but in any case, a better and more comfortable alternative was available for this operation: powerful halogen headlamps. So we would also have to bring along a good reserve supply of alkaline batteries.

  José raised his pen again, claiming his turn to speak.

  ‘How about a change of clothes? You know, just in case, for hygiene reasons.’

  ‘Sorry, but no. The less weight we carry the better. When we leave there and get back home, you can shower, shave and change your clothes as often as you want.’

  ‘We’re going to stink to high heaven by the end of it,’ he pointed out.

  Then we talked about food, in some ways the most important item as there was no guarantee that we could return to the surface before having explored the whole filthy labyrinth of galleries and tunnels. The food would have to be lightweight and nutritious, like freeze-dried or dehydrated meat and vegetable meals and powdered milk. To cook these gourmet delights, we’d need a camping stove, fitting the smallest available gas canister and preferably foldable. We would also bring vitamin supplements and protein pills. It was safe to assume that the tunnel system would be extremely humid, so we could survive by carrying the minimal amount of water required to prepare our food and a supply of isotonic drinks with mineral salts to keep our body fluid levels in balance.

  We were also going to need a couple of high-quality sleeping bags, a first-aid kit, a manual rangefinder to measure distances, a small portable magnetometer to detect hidden objects and a two-way radio system, with a good supply of replacement batteries, given that our cell phones, however powerful, just wouldn’t work underground.

  ‘So who’s going to be our outside back-up?’ asked José, looking up from his notebook. A vision of Amália immediately flashed up before our eyes.

  ‘Läufer, of course,’ I replied.

  ‘Heinz? Have you actually asked him?’

  ‘Well,’ I hesitated for a second, ‘he doesn’t have to like it. He just has to do it.’

  ‘I seriously don’t think he’ll agree to do that. He does what he does for the Group and he does it well, Ana, but risking his skin on the ground is not his thing at all.’

  ‘But somebody has to be our link to the outside world,’ I objected. ‘There’s no way we can stay down there I don’t know how long without anyone from the Group watching over us. We could get lost, we could get hurt in a fall, we could end up buried underground till kingdom come.’

  All we could think of was leaving it up to Roi to sort out, so we quickly sent him off an urgent email explaining the problem and then went back to planning the job. We were going to need a good toolbox, a high-speed micro drill, a desoldering tool, a metal detector, coils of rope, bolts, grapnels, stirrups, pulleys, mechanical ascenders, masks, heavy-duty gloves … The list was endless.

  ‘What about paint, to mark the route we’ve taken?’ José suggested.

  ‘Wouldn’t you rather borrow Hansel and Gretel’s breadcrumbs?’ I joked. ‘Relax - a ballpoint pen and some paper will do the trick.’

  We divided up the shopping list between the two of us and then discusse
d whose car to take. In the end, we decided that José’s dark grey Saab with its colossal trunk was better suited than mine for the trip. Money was also a crucial question. My strict modus operandi completely ruled out the use of credit cards, because the time and place of every transaction immediately went onto a bank database. Payments for food and gasoline had to be made exclusively in cash.

  We carried on working for another half-hour, by which time it was around noon and we had to start thinking about cooking lunch. But there were still important issues that we hadn’t yet resolved.

  ‘We need a detailed up-to-date map of Weimar.’

  ‘I’ll make sure I get one this week,’ José said absent-mindedly, drawing a line under his interminable task list.

  ‘No, that’s no good. What I’m trying to say is that we need it now. We have work out our route and memorize the street layout in the target area.’

  ‘Well, this may surprise you, but I just don’t seem to have one on me right now. But we should be able to find one on the internet.’

  ‘I’ve already found one, Papá.’

  Jesus! I almost had a heart attack. José stared at me in shock, and then slowly raised his eyes to the ceiling, which was where his daughter’s muffled voice seemed to be coming from.

  ‘Amália?’ he asked in disbelief.

  ‘Yes, Papá?’

  ‘Amália, have you been eavesdropping?’

  ‘You both talk very loudly and I can hear every word through the hole in the floor.’

  ‘Just what I needed!’ I laughed out loud, despite myself.

  ‘Amália!’ shouted José angrily. ‘Get down here right now! You and I have got some talking to do!’

  Complete silence.

  ‘Did you hear what I said, Amália?’

  ‘Yes, Papá.’

  ‘Well, then do as you’re told. Immediately!’

  Not a sound, again. But this time because the condemned child had begun her grim reluctant journey down to face the music.

  ‘If you want me to, I’ll leave, José.’