The Flanders Panel

by Arturo Pérez-Reverte

  "Now there's another level," he said in a worried voice. "You're at least as involved as any of the others."

  "That's what I thought," said Julia.

  "Level 6 is the one that contains all the others." Muñoz pointed to the list. "Whether you like it or not, you're there in it too."

  "That means," said Julia, looking at him with wide-open eyes, "that the person who may have murdered Álvaro, the same one who sent us that card, is playing some kind of mad chess game. A game in which not only I, but we, all of us, are pieces. Is that right?"

  There was no sadness in Muñoz's face, only a sort of expectant curiosity, as if fascinating conclusions could be drawn from what she'd just said, conclusions he would be only too happy to comment on.

  "I'm glad," he replied at last, and the diffuse smile returned to his lips, "that you've both finally realised that."

  Menchu had made herself up with millimetric precision and had chosen her clothes to calculated effect: a short, very tight skirt and an extremely elegant black leather jacket over a cream sweater that emphasised her bosom to an extent that Julia instantly decried as "scandalous". Perhaps foreseeing this, Julia had opted that afternoon, for an informal look, choosing to wear moccasins, jeans, a suede bomber jacket and a silk scarf. As César would have said, had he seen them parking Julia's Fiat outside Claymore's, they could easily have passed for mother and daughter.

  Menchu's perfume and the sound of her high heels preceded them into an office with walls of fine wood, a huge mahogany table, and ultramodern lamps and chairs, where Paco Montegrifo advanced to kiss the hand of each of them, smiling the trademark smile that displayed his perfect teeth, a flash of white against his bronzed skin. They sat in armchairs offering a splendid view of the valuable Vlaminck that dominated the room; Montegrifo sat beneath the painting itself, on the other side of the table, with the modest air of someone who deeply regretted being unable to provide them with a better view, a Rembrandt, perhaps. At least that could have been the implication behind the intense look he gave Julia, once he'd cast an indifferent eye over Menchu's ostentatiously crossed legs. Or perhaps a Leonardo.

  He lost no time in getting down to business once his secretary had served coffee in china cups from the East India Company, coffee that Menchu sweetened with saccharin. Julia took hers black, bitter and very hot and drank it in small sips. By the time she'd lit a cigarette–Montegrifo leaning impotently across the vast table with his gold lighter–he'd already outlined the situation. And Julia had to admit that he could certainly not be accused of beating about the bush.

  At first sight, the situation seemed crystal-clear: Claymore's regretted that they were unable to accept Menchu's conditions as regards equal shares in the profits from the Van Huys. Menchu should know that the owner of the painting, Don–Montegrifo calmly consulted his notes–Manuel Belmonte, with the agreement of his niece and her husband, had decided to cancel the agreement made with Dona Menchu Roch and transfer all rights in the Van Huys to Claymore and Co. All of this, he added, was set out in a document, authenticated by a notary public. Montegrifo gave Menchu a look of deep regret, accompanied by a worldly sigh.

  "Do you mean to say," said a shocked Menchu, her cup rattling in its saucer, "that you're threatening to take the painting away from me?"

  Montegrifo looked at his gold cuff links as if it were they who had uttered some unfortunate remark and tugged fastidiously at his starched cuffs.

  "I'm afraid we already have," he said in the contrite tone of someone regretting having to pass on to a widow the bills left by her dead husband. "However, your original percentage of the profits on the auction price remains the same; minus expenses of course. Claymore's does not wish to deprive you of anything, only to avoid the abusive conditions that you, my dear lady, tried to impose." He slowly took out his silVer cigarette case and placed it on the table. "Claymore's simply sees no reason for an increase in your percentage. And that's that."

  "No reason?" Menchu glanced towards Julia in despair, expecting indignant exclamations of solidarity. "The reason, Montegrifo, is that, thanks to research carried out by us, the painting will vastly increase in price. Isn't that reason enough?"

  Montegrifo looked at Julia, making it silently and courteously plain that he did not for a minute include her in this sordid bit of horse-trading. Turning back to Menchu, his eyes hardened.

  "If the research that the two of you have carried out"–that "two of you" made it absolutely clear what he thought of Menchu's talent for research–"increases the price of the Van Huys, it will automatically increase the percentage of the profits you agreed to with Claymore's." He allowed himself an affable smile before turning away from Menchu again and looking at Julia. "As for you, the new situation in no way affects your interests. Quite the contrary. Claymore's," he said, and the smile he gave her left no doubt as to exactly who in Claymore's, "considers your handling of the affair to have been exemplary. So we'd like you to continue your restoration work on the picture. You need have no worries at all about the financial aspect."

  "And may one know," Menchu said, and her lower lip, as well as the hand holding the coffee cup, was trembling now, "how it is that you're so well informed about the painting? Because Julia may be a little naive, but I can't imagine that she'd pour out her life story to you over a candlelit supper. Or did she?"

  That was a low blow, and Julia opened her mouth to protest. Montegrifo, however, calmed her with a gesture.

  "Look, Señora Roch, when I took the liberty of putting some proposals of a professional nature your friend a few days ago, she chose the elegant option of simply saying that she would think about it. The details about the state of the painting, the hidden inscription and so on, were kindly supplied to us by the niece of the owner. A charming man, by the way, Don Manuel. And I must say that he was most reluctant to withdraw responsibility for the Van Huys from you. A loyal man, it would seem, for he also demanded, indeed he insisted, that no one but Julia should touch the painting until the restoration work was done. In all these negotiations my alliance, my tactical alliance, if you like, with Don Manuel's niece has proved very useful. As for Señor Lapeña, her husband, he raised no further objections once I'd mentioned the possibility of an advance."

  "Another Judas," said Menchu, almost spitting the words out.

  "I suppose," he said, shrugging, "you could call him that. Although other names also spring to mind."

  "I've got a signed document too, you know," protested Menchu.

  "I know. But it's an unauthenticated agreement, whereas mine was made in the presence of a notary public, with the niece and her husband as witnesses and all kinds of guarantees that include a deposit as security on our part. If I may use an expression Alfonso Lapeña used as he signed our agreement, it's a whole new ball game, my dear lady."

  Menchu leaned forwards in a way that made Julia fear that the cup of coffee her friend had in her hand might just end up all over Montegrifo's immaculate shirt front, but she merely placed it on the table. She was bursting with indignation, and, despite all the careful make-up, her anger added years to her face. When she moved, her skirt rode up still further, and Julia, embarrassed, regretted being there with all her heart.

  "And what will Claymore's do," asked Menchu in a surly tone, "if I decide to take the painting to another auctioneer?"

  Montegrifo was contemplating the smoke spiralling from his cigarette.

  "Frankly," he said, and he seemed to give the matter serious thought, "I'd advise you not to complicate matters. It would be illegal."

  "I could also sue the lot of you and tie you up in a court case that would drag on for months, putting a stop to your auctioning the painting. Have you considered that?"

  "Of course I have. But you'd come off worst." Montegrifo smiled politely. "As you can imagine, Claymore's has very good lawyers at its disposal. You risk losing everything. And that would be a great pity."

  Menchu gave a tug at her skirt as she stood up.

  "A
ll I have to say to you"–and her voice cracked, overwhelmed by anger–"is that you're the biggest son of a bitch I've ever set eyes on."

  Montegrifo and Julia also stood up, she upset, he in complete control of himself.

  "I can't tell you how much I regret this scene," he said calmly to Julia. "I really do."

  "So do I." Julia looked at Menchu, who was at that moment throwing her bag over her shoulder with the determined gesture of someone slinging on a rifle. "Couldn't we all be just a bit more reasonable?"

  Menchu glared at her.

  "You can be reasonable, if you like, seeing you're so taken with this swindler, but I'm getting out of this den of thieves."

  Her high heels click-clacked fast and furiously away. Julia remained where she was, not knowing whether or not to follow her.

  "A woman of character," Montegrifo said.

  Julia turned towards him, still uncertain.

  "She's just invested too many hopes in the painting. Surely you can understand that."

  "Oh, I do understand." He gave a conciliatory smile. "But I can't allow her to blackmail me."

  "But you plotted behind her back, conspired with the niece and her husband. I call that playing dirty."

  Montegrifo's smile grew broader. That's life, he seemed to be saying. He looked at the door through which Menchu had departed.

  "What do you think she'll do now?"

  Julia shook her head.

  "Nothing. She knows she's lost the battle."

  "Ambition, Julia, is a perfectly legitimate feeling," Montegrifo said after a moment. "But where ambition's concerned, the only sin is failure. Triumph automatically presupposes virtue." He smiled again, this time into space. "Señora Roch tried to get involved in something that was too big for her ... Let's say"–he blew a smoke ring and let it float up to the ceiling–"that she just wasn't big enough for her ambitions." His brown eyes had grown hard, and Julia realised that behind his rigorous mask of politeness, Montegrifo was a dangerous adversary. "I trust she will cause us no further problems," he continued, "because that would be a sin that would have to be punished. Do you understand? Now, if you don't mind, let's talk about our painting."

  Belmonte was alone in the house, and he received Julia and Muñoz in the drawing room, sitting in his wheelchair near where The Game of Chess used to hang. The solitary nail and the mark left on the wall created a pathetic air of domestic desolation, of despoliation. Belmonte, who had followed the direction of his visitors' gaze, smiled sadly.

  "I didn't want to hang anything else there just yet," he explained, "not for the moment." He raised one bony hand and waved it in a gesture of resignation. "It's difficult to get used to..."

  "I understand," said Julia with genuine sympathy.

  The old man nodded slowly.

  "Yes, I know you do." He looked at Muñoz, doubtless hoping for a show of equal understanding from him, but Muñoz remained silent, looking at the empty wall with inexpressive eyes. "I've always thought you were an intelligent young woman, right from the very first day." He looked at Muñoz. "Wouldn't you agree, sir?"

  Muñoz slowly shifted his eyes away from the wall to the old man and nodded slightly, without saying a word. He seemed immersed in remote thoughts.

  "As for your friend," Belmonte said, and he seemed to be embarrassed, "I'd like you to explain to her ... that I really had no choice."

  "Don't worry. I understand. And Menchu will too."

  "I'm so glad. They put a lot of pressure on me. Señor Montegrifo made a good offer too. He also undertook to give maximum publicity to the painting's history." He stroked his ill-shaven chin. "And, I must confess, that did influence me somewhat," he sighed softly, "that and the money."

  Julia pointed to the record player.

  "Do you play Bach constantly, or is it just a coincidence? I heard that record the last time I was here."

  "The Musical Offering?" Belmonte seemed pleased. "I often listen to it. It's so complex and ingenious that every now and then I still find something unexpected in it." He paused, as if recalling something. "Were you aware that there are certain musical themes that seem to sum up a whole life? They're like mirrors you can peer into and see yourself reflected. In this composition, for example, a theme emerges expressed in different voices and different keys; indeed, sometimes at different speeds, with inverted tonal intervals, or even back to front." He leaned on the arm of his wheelchair. "Listen. Can you hear it? It begins with a single voice that sings the theme, and then a second voice comes in, starting four tones higher or four tones lower, and that becomes a secondary theme. Each of the voices enters at its own particular time, just like different moments in a life. And when all the voices have come into play, the rules come to an end." He gave Julia and Muñoz a broad, sad smile. "As you see, a perfect analogy of old age."

  Muñoz pointed at the wall.

  "That nail," he said rather abruptly, "also seems to symbolise a lot of things."

  Belmonte looked attentively at Muñoz and nodded slowly.

  "That's very true," he confirmed with another sigh. "And sometimes I find myself looking at the place where the picture was and I seem to see it there still. It isn't there, but I see it. After all these years, I still have it up here." He tapped his forehead. "The people, the exquisite detail. My favourite parts were always the landscape you can see through the window and the convex mirror on the left, reflecting the foreshortened figures of the players."

  "And the chessboard," said Muñoz.

  "Yes, and the chessboard. I often used to reconstruct the position of the pieces on my own chessboard, especially at the beginning, when I inherited it from my poor Ana."

  "Do you play?" asked Muñoz casually.

  "I used to. Now I hardly ever do. But the truth is, it never occurred to me that you could play that game backwards." He paused, tapping his hands on his knees. "Playing backwards. It's odd. Did you know that Bach was very keen on musical inversions? In some of his canons he inverts the theme, elaborating a melody that jumps down a pitch every time the original theme jumps up. The effect can seem strange, but when you get used to it, you find it quite natural. There's even a canon in the Musical Offering that's played the opposite way round from the way it's written." He looked at Julia. "I think I told you before that Johann Sebastian was an inveterate joker. His work is full of tricks. It's as if every now and then a note, a modulation or a silence were saying to you: 'I've hidden a message in here: find it.'"

  "As in the painting," said Muñoz.

  "Yes. With the difference that music doesn't consist of images, the positioning of chess pieces or, in this case, of vibrations in the air, but of the emotions that those vibrations produce in the brain of each individual. You'd run into serious problems if you tried to apply to music the investigatory methods you used to solve the game in the painting. You'd have to find out which particular note provoked which emotional effect. Or which combinations of notes. Doesn't that strike you as much more difficult than playing chess?"

  Muñoz thought about it carefully.

  "I don't think so," he said at last. "Because the general laws of logic are the same for everything. Music, like chess, follows rules. It's all a question of working away at it until you isolate a symbol, a key." One half of his mouth seemed to twist into a smile. "Like the Egyptologists' Rosetta Stone. Once you have that, it's just a question of hard work and method. And time."

  Belmonte blinked mockingly.

  "Do you think so? Do you really think that all hidden messages can be deciphered? That it's always possible to reach an exact solution just by the application of method?"

  "I'm sure of it. Because there's a universal system, general laws that allow one to demonstrate what is demonstrable and to discard whatever is not."

  The old man made a sceptical gesture.

  "Forgive me, but I really can't agree with you there. I think that all the divisions, classifications, categorisations and systems that we attribute to the universe are fictitious, arbitrary.
There isn't one that doesn't contain within it its own contradiction. That's the opinion of an old man with some experience of these things."

  Muñoz shifted a bit in his seat and looked round the room. He didn't seem very happy with the turn the conversation had taken, but Julia had the impression that he didn't want to change the subject either. She knew he was not a man to waste words and concluded that he must be after something. Perhaps Belmonte was one of the chess pieces Muñoz was studying in order to solve the mystery.

  "That's arguable," Muñoz said at last. "For example, the Universe is full of demonstrable infinites: prime numbers, the combinations in chess."

  "Do you really think so? That everything is demonstrable, I mean? Allow me to say, as the musician I once was, or, rather, despite all this," he indicated his useless legs with a kind of calm disdain, "as the musician I still am, that every system is incomplete. That demonstrability is a much weaker concept than truth."

  "The truth is like the perfect move in chess: it exists, but you have to look for it. Given enough time, it's always demonstrable."

  Hearing that, Belmonte smiled mischievously.

  "I would say, rather, that the perfect move you talk about, whether you call it that or whether you call it the truth, may exist. But it can't always be demonstrated. And that any system that tries to do so is limited and relative. Try sending my Van Huys to Mars or to Planet X, and see if anyone there can solve your problem. I'd go further: send them the record you're listening to now or, to make it still harder, break the record and send them the pieces. What meaning will it contain then? And since you seem so keen on exact laws, I'd remind you that the angles of a triangle add up to one hundred and eighty degrees in Euclidian geometry, but to more in elliptic geometry and to less in hyperbolic. And that's because there is no one system, there are no universal axioms. Systems are disparate even within themselves. Do you enjoy resolving paradoxes? It isn't only music, painting or, I imagine, chess that are full of them." He picked up pencil and paper from the table, wrote a few lines and showed them to Muñoz. "Have a look at that, will you?"