What We Become

by Arturo Pérez-Reverte

  “I worked hard to get there.”

  They continued studying each other in silence for a moment, with mutual distrust, while Rebenque flicked the last bit of ash from his cigar with the elongated nail on his little finger. Some situations shouldn’t be hurried. A lesson both men had learned on the same streets. Max figured Rebenque must be ten or twelve years older than him. Probably one of the local youths he had seen as a little boy in a gray smock, with a satchel full of books on his back, envying their freedom to loiter outside pool halls, hitch free rides on the backs of the Southern Electricity Company trams, lie in wait like bandits for the carts selling Aguila chocolate, and filch croissants from the counter at the Mortero bakery.

  “In which street, my friend?”

  “Vieytes. Opposite the 105 tram stop.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” the other man declared. “Almost neighbors.”

  The blonde woman took his arm, her breasts thrust forward beneath her half-unbuttoned blouse. She wore a cheap-looking imitation Manila shawl draped over her shoulders, and was gaping at Max and the de Troeyes with renewed interest, arching her plucked eyebrows, reduced to a thin, black pencil line. It was obvious that the prospect of leaving La Ferroviaria for a while appealed to her more than the monotony of tangos at twenty cents a dance.

  “Allonzenfanz,” de Troeye declared cheerfully, seizing his hat and cane and making his way toward the door, staggering from the effects of alcohol.

  As they stepped outside, Petrossi drove the Pierce-Arrow up and they all piled into the back. De Troeye sat on the backseat flanked by Mecha and Melina, with Max and Rebenque on the jump seats opposite. By then, Melina had understood the situation, realized who was paying for the party, and obediently followed the silent instructions Rebenque’s darting eyes flashed at her through the gloom. Max observed all this, tense as a coiled spring, calculating the pros and cons, foreseeing the problems they might encounter, and the best way to escape from that dangerous territory when the time came, relatively unscathed and without a knife in the groin. As everyone from that neighborhood knew, no tourniquet could stanch a bleeding femoral artery.

  Just after ten o’clock at night the game is adjourned. It is dark outside, and in the picture windows of the Hotel Vittoria images of the room reflected in the glass are superimposed on the lights from the villas and hotels along Sorrento’s cliff top. Sitting in the audience, Max gazes at the big wooden panel reproducing the game, including the last move Sokolov made before the referee approached the table. The Russian scribbled something on his score sheet, then rose to leave the room while Keller remained behind studying the chessboard. After a while, Keller also scribbled something on his score sheet, but without moving any of his pieces, and slipped both score sheets into the same envelope, which he sealed before handing it to the referee.

  And now, as Keller vanishes through a side door, the audience breaks its silence with murmurs and applause. Max stands up and glances about, puzzled, trying to determine what has just happened. He watches from a distance as Mecha Inzunza, who has been sitting in the front row between Irina Jasenovic and the burly grand master Karapetian, gets up to follow them and her son.

  Max goes out into the now-noisy corridor and wanders among the fans, listening to comments about the game, the fifth in the Campanella Chess Contest. The press office is in a small side room, and as he walks past the doorway, Max hears an Italian radio journalist relaying the game over the telephone.

  “Keller seemed to be playing kamikaze chess with his black bishop move. . . . It wasn’t the sacrifice of his knight that was so remarkable, but the bold advance of his bishop across a board fraught with danger. It was a deadly blow, and only Sokolov’s presence of mind saved him. The Soviet Wall blocked the attack and instantly proposed a nichiá—a draw . . . Keller refused, and the game is set to resume tomorrow.”

  In another, smaller room, which appears to be out of bounds to the public, a crowd of eager fans has gathered around the open door. Inside, Max sees Keller poring over a chessboard with Karapetian, the young Jasenovic, the referee, and a handful of others, seemingly engaged in a reconstruction or breakdown of the game. Max is surprised at the difference between how long it takes for them to move during the actual game, and the speed with which Keller, Karapetian, and the girl are almost banging the pieces around the board, making and unmaking moves, considering new ones, as they discuss the merits of this or that.

  “It’s called a postmortem,” says Mecha. He turns around to find her standing beside him, in the doorway. He didn’t notice her approach.

  “It sounds funereal.”

  She peers into the room, pensive. As is her custom in Sorrento (he knows this wasn’t always the case), she dresses in a way that is unfashionable among women of any age. She is now wearing a dark skirt and loafers, and her hands remain in the pockets of an attractive, and no doubt equally expensive suede jacket. The jacket alone, Max calculates, must have cost at least two hundred thousand lire.

  “It is, sometimes,” she says. “Especially when Jorge loses a game. They analyze his moves to see if he made the right ones or if there were better variations.”

  The clatter of pieces being moved swiftly around the board continues and occasionally they hear laughter as Keller makes a comment or joke. Then the clatter resumes, scarcely pausing even when a piece accidentally falls on the floor and the player picks it up and places it back on the board.

  “I can’t believe how fast they are playing.”

  She nods, contented. Or perhaps proud, in her quiet way. In common with all grand masters of his caliber, she explains, Jorge Keller can remember all the moves in the match, as well as all the possible variants. In fact, he is capable of reproducing from memory every game he has ever played. And most of those his opponent has played.

  “At the moment, he is analyzing his moves, and those of Sokolov,” she adds. “But this is for the gallery, friends, and journalists. Later, he will carry out a far more serious and complex analysis with Emil and Irina, behind closed doors.”

  She pauses, tilting her head slightly to one side as she contemplates her son.

  “He is worried,” she adds, in a different tone.

  Max glances at Jorge Keller, and then at her.

  “He doesn’t look it,” he says at last.

  “He is puzzled by his opponent anticipating what he was planning with his bishop.”

  “I heard someone mention that just now. Something about a kamikaze bishop.”

  “Oh, well, people expect that from Jorge. The supposed mark of a genius . . . In fact, the move was carefully planned. He and his assistants have been preparing it for some time, in case a favorable situation arose . . . exploiting what might be a weakness in Sokolov’s game when confronted with the Marshall gambit.”

  “I am afraid I know nothing about this Marshall fellow,” Max confessed.

  “What I mean is that even world champions have their weak points. It is the analysts’ job to help their player discover and use them to their own advantage.”

  The glass door of a small adjoining room opens and the Russians appear. Two assistants lead the way, followed by the champion escorted by a dozen or so others. Behind them is a table and a jumbled chess set. Doubtless they have just carried out their own postmortem, although unlike Keller’s theirs has taken place behind closed doors, witnessed only by a handful of their own journalists, now making their way to the pressroom. Sokolov, holding a lighted cigarette, passes within a few feet of Max, and his watery blue eyes meet those of his opponent’s mother, to whom he directs a polite nod.

  “The Russian players enjoy the advantage of being funded by their federation and supported by the state apparatus,” explains Mecha. “You see that tubby fellow in the gray jacket? He is the culture and sports attaché at the Soviet embassy in Rome. . . . That one is the grand master Kolishkin, president of the Soviet Chess Federation.
The tall, fair-haired man is Rostov, who almost became world champion and is now one of Sokolov’s. . . . And you can be sure there are at least two KGB agents in the group.”

  They watch the Russians disappear down the corridor toward the foyer, headed for their delegation’s apartment house overlooking the hotel gardens.

  “Western players, on the other hand,” she goes on, “need to win or to find some other activity that enables them to keep playing. . . . Jorge has been lucky.”

  “Undoubtedly. He has you.”

  “Well . . . that’s one way of putting it.”

  She is still looking toward the corridor, apparently unsure about whether to add something or not. At last she turns to Max and smiles with a distracted, pensive air.

  “What’s the matter?” he asks.

  “Nothing, I suppose. The usual in these situations.”

  “You look worried.”

  She hesitates a moment longer. At last, she makes a vague gesture with her slender, graceful hands, flecked with age spots.

  “Just now, when Jorge came out, he said, ‘Something isn’t right.’ And I didn’t like the way he said it . . . or the way he looked at me.”

  “Well, he doesn’t seem at all worried to me.”

  “That’s the impression he gives, and wants to give. Friendly and relaxed, as you can see. As if all this took hardly any effort, when in fact you can’t imagine how much effort, how many hours of study go into it. The exhausting pressure.”

  Her face looks weary, as if the pressure exhausts her, too.

  “Come on. Let’s get some fresh air.”

  They head down the corridor and out onto the terrace, where most of the tables are full. Beyond the balustrade, above the glow of the lantern, the dark Bay of Naples is ringed with distant, flickering lights. Max nods at the headwaiter, who seats them at a free table. Then an obsequious waiter appears out of nowhere and Max orders a couple of champagne cocktails.

  “What happened today? . . . Why was the game adjourned?”

  “Because they ran out of time. Each player has forty moves, or two and a half hours of play. When one of them uses up their allotted time or their forty moves, the game is adjourned until the next day.”

  Max leans over the table to light the cigarette she has just placed in her mouth. Afterward, he crosses his legs, trying to preserve the crease in his trousers, an instinctive habit from the old days, when an elegant appearance was still one of the tools of his trade.

  “I don’t understand what the sealed envelopes are about.”

  “Before retiring, Sokolov noted down the position of the pieces on the board in order to reproduce it tomorrow. It is Jorge’s turn to move, and so, after deciding what move to make, he noted it down and gave it to the referee in a sealed envelope. Tomorrow, the referee will open the envelope, carry out Jorge’s move for him on the board, set the clock in motion, and the game will recommence.”

  “So then it will the Russian’s turn.”

  “Precisely.”

  “I expect he will have a lot to think about tonight.”

  “They all will,” Mecha replies. “When a game is adjourned, the sealed move becomes a problem for both players. One tries to second-­guess what move he has to confront, while the other wants to establish whether what he noted down was the best possible move, whether his opponent will have figured it out, and if so, will he have come up with a dangerous countermove.

  “That means,” she concludes, “dinner, breakfast, and lunch with a pocket chessboard next to you, working for hours on end with your assistants, thinking about it in the shower, while you brush your teeth, when you wake up in the middle of the night. . . . The chess player’s worst headache is an adjourned game.”

  “Like ours,” Max says.

  Ignoring the ashtray as usual, Mecha lets the ash drop onto the floor before lifting her cigarette to her lips. As occurs whenever the light is muted, her skin appears youthful, her face radiant. Her honey-colored eyes, the same ones Max remembers, are gazing intently into his.

  “Yes, in a way,” she replies. “That was an adjourned game as well . . . in two parts.”

  In three, Max thinks. Another one is under way. But he doesn’t say so.

  When the automobile came to a halt on the corner of Garibaldi and Pedro de Mendoza, a sliver of moon was piercing the night sky, competing with the glow of a street lamp shining through a tangle of branches. As he stepped out of the car, Max moved discreetly closer to Mecha, restraining her by the arm while he undid the clasp of her pearl necklace. He let it fall into his free hand before slipping it into his jacket pocket. Amid the shadows and the electric light shining in the distance, he saw her eyes open wide with surprise, and placed two fingers on her lips to silence the words she was about to utter. Then, while the others started to walk away from the car, he went up to the open window.

  “Look after this,” he said in a low voice.

  Petrossi took the necklace without a comment. Max could only just make out his face, dimmed beneath the peak of his cap, but he thought he glimpsed a flash of complicity.

  “Can you lend me your pistol?”

  “Of course.”

  The chauffeur opened the glove compartment and placed a small, compact Browning in Max’s hand, its nickel-plated barrel glinting for an instant in the dark.

  “Thanks.”

  Max caught up with the others, ignoring the inquiring look Mecha gave him as he rejoined the group.

  “Clever boy,” she whispered.

  As she spoke, she slipped her arm through his with perfect ease. Two steps in front of them, Rebenque was extolling the virtues of Squibb ether, available over the counter. It was heavenly, he maintained, when poured into a small glass and inhaled between drinks. Although nothing compared with Margot’s raviolis. He gave a knowing laugh, now that they were all best friends. Unless, of course, the gentlemen preferred something a bit stronger.

  “How much stronger?” de Troeye wanted to know.

  “Opium, my friend. Or hashish, if you prefer. Morphine even . . . There’s something for everyone.”

  And so they crossed the street, stepping gingerly over the abandoned railway tracks thick with weeds. Max could feel the reassuring weight of the gun in his pocket as he stared at Rebenque’s back, and at de Troeye walking beside him, as casually as if he were strolling down Calle Florida, hat tipped back over his head, arm in arm with the blonde woman, her heels clacking. Finally they arrived at Casa Margot—a dilapidated building with an air of faded opulence next to a tiny restaurant, closed at that time of night. Above the entrance clothes were hanging on a line and the ground was strewn with prawn shells and other detritus. There was a smell of dampness, of fish bones, fish heads, and stale biscuits, as well as the swampy waters of the Riachuelo, with its tar and rusty anchors.

  “La Boca’s finest,” Rebenque said, and Max realized he was the only one to detect the note of irony.

  Once inside, everything happened without any unnecessary formalities. The establishment was a former brothel, now an opium den. As for Margot, she was a middle-aged woman of ample proportions and dyed copper-colored hair. After Rebenque whispered a few words in her ear, she bent over backward to appear courteous and accommodating. Three incongruous portraits of former Argentine rulers hung in the entrance, Max noticed, as though the previous occupants, catering to a more select clientele, had attempted to lend the bordello an air of decorum. But that was the only concession to respectability. The hallway opened out into a dark, smoky room illuminated by old-fashioned oil lamps whose fumes tainted the air. The smell of kerosene mixed with Bufach insecticide, tobacco, and hashish smoke permeated the room, along with the perspiration of half a dozen couples (some exclusively male), dancing in a slow embrace, oblivious to the music playing on the Victrola. This in turn was operated by a young Chinese man with the pointed sideburns of a scre
en villain, who changed the records and turned the handle. Casa Margot, Max concluded, confirming his worst fears, was a place where, at the first sign of trouble, knifes and razors would be whipped out of vests, corsets, trousers, or even shoes.

  “Marvelously authentic,” de Troeye said approvingly.

  Mecha also seemed pleased with the place. She was studying everything with a vague smile, eyes shining, mouth slightly open, as though breathing in that atmosphere stimulated her senses. Occasionally her eyes met those of Max, and revealed a mixture of excitement, appreciation, and promises. At such moments, Max’s desire became more urgent and physical, eclipsing his anxieties about where they were and with whom. His eyes lingered pleasurably on Mecha’s hips, right in front of him, as Margot led the group upstairs to a room with Turkish-style furnishings, including two green oil lamps on a low table, carpets with cigarette burns, and two large divans. A burly waiter with the air of a circus strongman brought in two bottles of alleged champagne, and two bundles of cigarettes, while the company installed themselves on the divans. All except for Rebenque, who left with Margot: to fetch food for the canaries, he said with a grin. By then Max had reached a decision, and he walked out into the corridor to wait for Rebenque, listening to the strains of “The Way to the Workshop” drifting up the stairway from the gramophone below. After a while, Rebenque reappeared carrying hashish cigarettes and six little bags, containing half-gram doses carefully folded in grease paper.

  “I have a favor to ask,” said Max. “Man to man.”

  The ruffian looked at him with sudden mistrust, trying to guess his intentions. His smile, ever-present beneath his criollo mustache, froze on his lips.

  “I’ve been with the lady for a while,” Max went on, without batting an eyelid. “And her husband likes Melina.”

  “So?”

  “So, five is an uneven number.”

  Rebenque appeared to reflect for a moment about even and uneven numbers.

  “Hey, my friend,” he said at last. “Do you take me for a fool?”