Zugzwang

by Ronan Bennett

‘I could meet you at Filippov’s at nine o’clock?’ I suggested.

  She said she would see me there. When I put the telephone down I reviewed the conversation, trying to imagine what it had sounded like to the secret policemen who, if Petrov was right, were listening. A psychoanalyst arranging an interview with his patient? I told myself I had nothing to hide, but I didn’t believe it myself.

  At breakfast Lidiya was cheeriness itself. We chatted about ordinary matters: things that needed doing around the house, provisions we required, bills to be paid; it was a strained reaching for normality. The gendarmes’ raid was past. I was willing to collude with Lidiya in this illusion but not with Catherine. When Catherine came to the table – refusing all food, of course, accepting only tea – I asked Lidiya to excuse us.

  When we were alone I said, ‘You lied to me.’

  ‘Yes,’ she admitted, to my surprise. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Is what Lychev says true? Were you’ – here I stumbled – ‘were you Yastrebov’s lover?’

  She wavered only a moment. ‘Yes.’

  A great wave of sadness broke over me. ‘You know that Yastrebov was part of a terrorist cell,’ I said, ‘that he came to the city to assassinate the tsar?’

  ‘So Lychev says,’ she answered.

  The features of her little oval face took on a familiar uncompromising cast. I could have thrown so much at her, not least the days and nights I had spent in detention. That I kept my temper had nothing to do with wisdom or patience on my part. In a contest of wills, Catherine would always emerge triumphant. If I were to get from her what I wanted, I would have to come to this interview as I would a session of analysis, teasing the information I sought with neutral questions. I had also to remember that Catherine had suffered a bereavement, that her first lover had been murdered. I had to proceed with sensitivity.

  ‘What did Yastrebov tell you he was doing in St Petersburg?’ I said, keeping my voice calm and reasonable.

  ‘He said he was a poet.’

  ‘A poet?’

  ‘He wasn’t a very good one,’ she said with a small, judicious smile. ‘He wanted to meet Blok and Akhmatova, to hear them read. He wanted to get to know editors who would publish his poems.’

  ‘How long did you know him?’

  ‘Two or three weeks.’

  ‘Did he tell you much about himself?’

  ‘We talked a lot,’ she said, taking a delicate sip of tea.

  ‘Do you know what his real name was?’

  Shebitherlip. ‘What does it matter?’ she said. ‘He’sdeadnow.’

  ‘Is someone preventing you from speaking?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Is it because you don’t trust me? You know my sole concern is with your safety and happiness.’

  She put her hand on top of mine and squeezed it. ‘I understand that is your intention.’

  ‘Tell me you are not mixed up in his plot,’ I said.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m not.’

  ‘Do you swear to me?’

  ‘I do.’

  She got to her feet.

  ‘Where are you going?’ I asked.

  ‘To the university,’ she said blithely. ‘I’ve missed enough classes already.’

  Tact and neutrality had got me nowhere. She was more resistant than any of my patients.

  I said, ‘I would like you to see a colleague of mine, Sukovsky.’

  ‘Why?’ she asked, frowning.

  ‘You’ve suffered a great trauma and I think it would help to talk to someone like Sukovsky.’

  ‘I would hardly call it great,’ she said. ‘Vera Figner was in prison for twenty years – I was held for less than a month.’

  ‘I wasn’t referring to your detention. I meant your loss.’

  Her frown deepened. ‘My loss?’

  ‘The man you loved was murdered. I think it important that you talk about this with someone who will be able to help you.’

  ‘Are you referring to … Yastrebov?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I didn’t love Yastrebov.’

  ‘You had physical relations with him,’ I heard myself declare.

  She looked at me as if I understood nothing. ‘That was only sex,’ she said as she left the room.

  As I drove to my office the car in front of mine ran into a horse. Seconds before, I had been distracted by the sight of a pair of men walking together on the far side of the street. Kavi? Tolya? I was turning to get a better look when I heard the sudden, sharp screech of tyres. Swivelling to the front again, I saw I was almost on top of the other car. I braked quickly but could not avoid a collision. There was a loud bang; steam hissed from the radiator. The owner of the dead horse began cursing the other driver. A gendarme ran over and a small crowd of curious onlookers gathered, the leather soles of their boots crunching on the glass of the Renault’s broken lamps. I looked around for Kavi – if indeed it had been the Cossack – but he was nowhere in sight. After half an hour I was allowed to proceed.

  I was inspecting the damage to the car outside my building when Semevsky, the new porter, came up. ‘Has his honour been hurt?’ he asked, all lively solicitude.

  ‘No, I’m fine, thank you,’ I answered.

  My tone was reserved and probably not very friendly. I had not forgotten my suspicions of the man I had first seen the day Lychev arrived to question me about Yastrebov’s murder, and with Petrov’s warning still ringing in my ears I was doubly suspicious.

  He ran his eye over the smashed lamps. ‘If his honour wishes,’ he said, ‘I will take his car to my uncle’s garage. My uncle is a first-class engineer and mechanic. I assure his honour everything will be taken care of.’

  Perhaps I had got him wrong. In any case, I could think of no good reason to refuse, unless cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face counts as a good reason, and so thanked him.

  I was about to step inside when he said, ‘I hope his honour will not think me impertinent. I was here the night the police came. They demanded I open up his honour’s office. I refused them, of course. They threatened to arrest me but I told them I had only started in my post and so did not know where the keys were kept.’

  ‘You should have let them in,’ I said. All at once his expression crumpled. ‘Only so as to avoid bringing trouble on yourself,’ I hastened to add. ‘In future, please, for your own sake, do as the police order. It is the safest way.’

  ‘Sometimes the safest way is not the right way,’ Semevsky answered. I made my way to the elevator, berating myself for my earlier ungenerous assessment of the doorman.

  Thirteen

  There was no evidence of Lychev’s raid. The furniture was back in place, the books were precisely arranged on the shelves. Even my Jaques chessmen were set out as I had left them. Minna and her sense of order. Minna was diligent, efficient and reliable. She was tall and pale and her eyes were grey-blue. She kept her hair pinned severely back, and her clothes seemed designed more for the purposes of sexual invisibility than advertisement; she had nothing of Catherine’s carnal frankness. Once, shortly after she had started to work for me, she came into the office and took off a light raincoat. As she put her arms behind her to tug at the sleeves, I happened to glance up from some papers and saw her bust strain against the fabric of her blouse. I registered – not quite matter-of-factly but certainly not lasciviously – the simple fact of her breasts. Our eyes met. I thought very little of it but for the rest of the day Minna was unable to look me in the eye. Over the years I had asked about her life, but never found out anything other than that she lived with an unmarried aunt – her mother’s sister – in a small apartment near the American Chapel.

  ‘Did you speak with Rozental?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  ‘How did he sound?’

  ‘I’m not sure he had any idea who I was, or who you were, but he said he would be here at seven o’clock.’

  I saw two patients between ten and twelve o’clock. After lunch, Kopelzon telepho
ned to confirm he had reserved a table at A l’Ours. I saw another patient and was trying to catch up on my correspondence when Minna announced I had a visitor, his honour Peter Arseneyevich Zinnurov.

  ‘I owe you an apology, Spethmann,’ Anna’s father boomed as he took a seat across the desk from me. ‘I promised I would get that infuriating little detective out of your hair and instead he breaks into your house and arrests you.’

  ‘And my daughter.’

  ‘Quite,’ he said. ‘As soon as I heard what had happened I went personally to Maklakov to complain. Sadly, with the way things now are, the minister had no choice but to let the police continue their investigations.’

  I doubted whether Zinnurov had done anything of the sort but thanked him anyway.

  ‘Happily, you’re free and there’s no harm done,’ he said.

  I smiled frostily. ‘What can I do for you, sir?’

  His smile was the equal of mine. ‘In the last few weeks, since I saw you at the Yacht Club, I have written three or four times to my daughter. I have tried telephoning as well. She will not accept my calls, nor has she responded to my letters.’ His smile faded and was replaced by a harder, more implacable look. It was the Mountain who addressed me now, not Anna’s father. ‘I asked you to speak to her and, if I remember correctly, you promised you would. Did you in fact keep your promise?’

  ‘I did,’ I said evenly. ‘I saw Anna the night before I was arrested. She would not agree to see you.’

  ‘What did you say, exactly?’

  ‘I told her that you wanted to see her on whatever terms she dictated.’

  ‘And she said no?’

  ‘She said no.’

  ‘Did you encourage her to see me? Did you tell her you thought she should see me?’

  ‘Why does Anna not want to see you?’

  The Mountain banged his fist on the top of the desk. His ruddy cheeks flushed a deeper red. ‘You do not question me,’ he bellowed. ‘Is that understood?’ He banged the desk again. ‘You do not question me!’

  I was unmoved by this display. Psychoanalysts see much worse every day. I stared at him. Eventually, a look – not so much of contrition but of recognition that a tactic had failed – came over him and he settled back in his chair.

  ‘As you can see,’ he began, moderating his tone, ‘I am upset by this business, this estrangement. Very upset.’

  ‘If I knew the circumstances behind your quarrel,’ I said, ‘I might be in a better position to effect a meeting.’

  I could tell he was profoundly irritated but was holding his temper in check, for the time being. He summoned a weary smile, ‘I have already told you, Spethmann, Anna appears rational but, believe me, she is unstable and sometimes does not know what she’s saying.’

  ‘I find that very hard to believe,’ I said. ‘I’ve never seen her other than self-possessed and entirely rational.’

  ‘You have no idea what she is capable of,’ he said.

  ‘What is she capable of?’

  He pressed his lips together and drew in a deep breath through his nose before expelling the air in a heavy sigh. ‘There are things that are private and should always remain so.’

  ‘My profession takes a different view,’ I said.

  ‘You want everything brought to the surface, is that it, Spethmann?’

  ‘More or less,’ I said.

  ‘Then it’s a very foolish business you’re in,’ he snorted. ‘Very foolish. In my experience, life runs more smoothly with secrets left undisturbed. I am an old man. I have lived a long life. I have done things of which I am ashamed. Some of them are known. Others stay in here,’ he said, tapping his breast, ‘and that’s where they belong.’

  ‘When she was thirteen, you took Anna on a trip to Kazan, in the summer.’

  There was a long silence. He shook his head and laughed in derision. ‘Kazan again.’

  ‘Again?’

  ‘What has she told you about Kazan?’

  ‘You took Anna to visit your mother in Kazan.’

  ‘My mother?’ He laughed again, then, after he’d composed himself, he declared with some force, ‘Anna never met her grandmother.’

  ‘She is certain she did.’

  ‘When she was thirteen, you say?’

  ‘In the summer of 1889.’

  ‘Impossible.’

  ‘Why is it impossible?’ I asked.

  ‘Because, Spethmann, her grandmother – my mother – died two years before. I have the death certificate if you’re interested.’

  Now it was Zinnurov’s turn to stare. Was it possible Anna had imagined the trip?

  ‘What interest do you have in this fantastical trip to Kazan, anyway?’ he asked.

  ‘From Anna’s account, I believed it possible she may have suffered some trauma and that this is at the root of her illness.’

  He shook his head as at a deluded imbecile. ‘All women tell stories,’ he said, adopting the confidential, knowing tone men employ when together they generalise about women. ‘They embellish, they exaggerate, they create crises where no crisis exists. It’s their nature. They want drama because without it they do not feel alive. Anna is no different.’

  His look was pleasant, a man inviting another man to concede the immutable truths about the foibles of women.

  ‘I do not believe Anna made up the story about Kazan,’ I said.

  At once his look became contemptuous. ‘Then you don’t know Anna very well – certainly not as well as you think you do.’

  He got to his feet in a quick, smooth movement. For an old man, he was remarkably supple. I stood up and went to the door while he gathered his coat and cane. He paused at the threshold.

  ‘Tell me,’ he said in a voice full of sly insinuation, ‘what is the precise nature of your relationship with my daughter?’

  ‘I am her doctor.’

  ‘I get the impression there is more to it than that.’

  It was half-statement, half-question. I had no reply ready, not even for myself. He looked me up and down and, dispensing altogether with the need for formal politeness, said, ‘You came to me for help. I said I would do what I could, even though, to be frank, you are not, properly speaking, Russian. You are not to see my daughter again. Do not try to contact her. If you attempt to telephone her or write to her, I will be aware of it.’

  ‘So far as I know,’ I said, ‘there is no law in Russia to prevent a doctor from treating his patient.’

  ‘Don’t underestimate me, Spethmann,’ he said, putting on his hat. He smiled and added, ‘Don’t be a fool.’

  When he’d gone, I went to the chessboard and stared at the position. It took almost an hour before I could see the pieces properly. Even then, I could not stop trembling, with anger, with anxiety, and above all with doubt. Was Zinnurov right about his daughter? Had I misread Anna so badly?

  Shortly before seven o’clock, Minna entered to say that Rozental had arrived. She also told me that Semevsky had informed her my car had been mended and was parked in its usual place. Then she handed me an envelope.

  ‘A messenger delivered this a few minutes ago,’ she said.

  I went to my desk and sliced the seal with a letter opener. Inside was a handwritten note.

  It read, ‘I meant what I said’ and it was signed ‘P.A. Zinnurov’.

  Rozental received my apology for my absence with indifference. Monomaniacally fixated on chess, he was someone for whom nothing had the slightest meaning except as it affected his freedom to play; the existence of others he understood only in terms of their capacity to help or hinder his obsession. If this is to paint an unattractively selfish picture of my patient, I should emphasise that Rozental’s character was not in the least manipulative, cynical or grandiose. He was a shy and gentle man, with a pathetic aura of sadness, as though perpetually confused by the world and the people in it. Whenever I looked at him, I was put in mind of a child who has lost his parents in a crowd. Chess was Rozental’s life; beyond was a void. To be prevented fr
om playing, whether through illness or mishap or the machinations of others, was as traumatic to him as the loss of a limb to anyone else.

  His movements were quick and jerky, he could not sit still. I tried to calm him with some innocuous questions about his hotel and his room (overheated, he muttered) and whether he had any relations with Lasker, Capablanca, Tarrasch, Nimzowitsch and the other participants (he did not). He spent all his time studying the games of his opponents, looking for improvements in his opening repertoire and, his speciality, analysing endgames. I should not give the impression that the information I elicited came easily or conversationally. Again, I was put in mind of a child – one with a very short attention span and with only a minimally developed awareness of others.

  The tournament was only three days away. It was time to get to the heart of the matter.

  ‘I have been giving a great deal of thought to the fly that so torments you,’ I began. He gave me a wary, doubtful look. ‘Do you recall you told me that everyone wanted you to do this or that, to be this or that? Do you remember I asked to whom “they” referred?’

  His features took on the suspicious expression of a man who thought himself being lured into a trap.

  ‘You said “they” were not your grandparents, and yet it is clear from other things you have told me that your grandparents had extraordinarily high expectations of you. “They” are your grandparents, are they not?’

  He twisted uncomfortably and turned to look directly at me. It was unusual for him to make eye contact in this way and, paradoxically, it was a sign in him of extreme distress. At such critical junctures the psychoanalyst must decide whether to proceed with the line of inquiry which has produced this heightened level of anxiety in the hope of a breakthrough, or, fearing more harm than good will come of it, pull back and endeavour to calm the patient.

  ‘You disappointed your grandparents, Avrom,’ I said, deciding to press on. ‘You did not do what “they” wanted you to do.’

  ‘No, no, no! Not me, not me!’ he cried.

  ‘And naturally you experience guilt because you are doing something they think is wrong.’

  ‘I’m not doing anything wrong,’ he mumbled, ‘I’m not.’

  ‘Of course you’re not, Avrom –’