Zugzwang

by Ronan Bennett

  ‘I’d rather think about it,’ I said, ‘if you don’t mind.’

  He made an approximation of a smile. ‘Of course,’ he said with an expansive wave of the hand.

  My uncertainty seemed to lift his mood. Calling for the bill, he poured vodka into a little glass, then looked over at his besotted young admirer and raised it in a toast to her. Her features lit up at once. Her friends turned in our direction. Kopelzon inclined his head gallantly, much to their delight.

  ‘Let me pay,’ I insisted.

  ‘I wouldn’t hear of it,’ Kopelzon said.

  Whatever his other faults, he was a generous man; he spent money with an attractive recklessness.

  ‘Why don’t you join me and my new friend?’ he said with a mischievous grin. ‘She has companions – beautiful ones, too.’

  ‘I leave the women in your expert hands, Reuven.’

  We parted with the fulsomeness of friends who had had a disagreement but wanted to demonstrate the survival of their mutual affection. And yet neither of us could entirely overlook the hard edge of what had passed between us. I slipped on my coat, bade the maître d’ goodnight, took a last look at Kopelzon with his new young friends and went to the door. To my astonishment, Rozental entered. I had already started to greet him before I realised it was not Rozental after all, but a sturdy, crop-haired man of about the same age who was only superficially similar.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I mistook you for someone else.’

  The man seemed to think I had intended disrespect, for the look he gave me was stiff with reproach. He turned to the maître, his manner fretful and impatient, and said, ‘I must speak at once with Mr Kopelzon. He is dining here tonight.’ The accent was Polish.

  ‘I have just left Reuven Moiseyevich,’ I said, pointing to Kopelzon’s new table. ‘He’s over there.’

  The man walked briskly to the table. I saw Kopelzon rise as though looking at a ghost. Recovering himself, he made an excuse to his companions and came forward to meet his obviously unexpected visitor. Though I could not hear what passed between them, it was clear from their gestures that their business was fraught. Then Kopelzon noticed me by the door. He forced a smile to his lips and waved weakly.

  I waved back and stepped outside. The air had cooled and it was threatening to rain. I was about to set off up Konyushennaya Street to get a cab when I heard my name called. A figure stepped out of the shadows and came towards me.

  ‘I got worried when you didn’t come to Filippov’s,’ Anna said.

  I was so surprised, and pleased, I could say nothing.

  ‘Then I remembered you said you were having dinner here with Kopelzon,’ she said.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, not knowing how to explain my failure to keep our assignation. ‘Have you been out here all this time?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  There was a strange look in her eye, full of intensity but at the same time vague and slow. I was reminded of Zinnurov’s dark hints about her. But then a heavy fat raindrop suddenly struck the brim of her hat with the force of a pebble. It was followed by a second. Ten seconds later we were drenched to the bone. Her look became carefree and amused. She started to laugh.

  I pushed up the limp brim and kissed her.

  Sixteen

  Unwrapped, she was a surprise. I had always had the impression her frame was slight but, freed from her dresses and stays, her figure was revealed as fuller. I loved it. Her breasts were plump and soft. There were tiny hairs on her nipples; I felt them on my tongue. Impatience got the better of me. I wanted to touch every part of her all at once. No sooner had I put my lips to her breast than I wanted to kiss her belly. Then I wanted to admire her face and would raise my head to look at her.

  ‘You are so beautiful,’ I murmured.

  ‘I’m happy you think so,’ she said with a smile.

  Impatience again. I turned her over, she laughing, amused, I think, by my ardour. I had strength in my hands and arms and shoulders, and the only aches now were from desire. I licked the sweat from the small of her back and, my free hand reaching round to her breast again, I began to nuzzle between her legs. She stiffened, clenching, telling me I thought, No, not that. I was about to come away when she reared and pushed energetically into my mouth and started to moan. ‘That’s gorgeous,’ she sighed.

  When I came up, she said, ‘That always leaves me tingling all over.’

  I licked between her shoulder blades. I swept the thick black hair from her ears and kissed her lobes. Impatience! I went back between her legs. There was a slightly bitter outer tang; inside was sweeter.

  Gradually impatience gave way to purpose. I was behind her and above her. I wrapped her hair around my right hand and with the left took hold of my cock. I brought it gently to her and rubbed its way into her. She exhaled slowly and cried out a filthy word. I smiled to myself, thinking of her in her formal gown as I had seen her at so many soirées, the elegant society hostess, and I imagined her circulating among the generals and princes and their ladies, responding to their politenesses not with her customary decorousness but with the words she was moaning now: ‘Oh my cunt, my cunt.’

  ‘I worry I am a lazy lover,’ she said. ‘Let me do something for you.’

  I have always been in awe of women’s capacity for pleasure. So much of my own pleasure came from pleasing and this was pleasure. This glorious heat and sweat and sour, heavy smells, the sight of Anna’s flushed cheeks and the sound of her groans. The air in the room was dense.

  ‘There is nothing I want but this,’ I said.

  I tightened my grip on the rough braid I had made of her hair and began slowly to move against her. I soon found her rhythm. The pace quickened. I heard that joyful slap of groin and thigh against buttock. Pushing herself face down into the pillows, she raised her behind up so that I had to get to my feet to stay inside her. After that it was frenzy. It could not last long. With Elena, I could usually choose the moment of my own orgasm – age, a long marriage, the repeating patterns of kind and loving sex. But not now. With a gasp, I folded over on top of her and we collapsed, ending up on our backs, side by side. My nostrils filled up with more earthy smells. I felt a bead of sweat trickle down my neck. She reached out for my hand. I felt recklessly uninhibited. Had Minna or Kopelzon or Lychev walked in at that moment, I do not believe I would have pulled the sheets around me in shame. I would have said, Look, here is a man and a woman. This is what men and women do. Look or look away, the choice is yours.

  In the tournament hall there were half a dozen games in progress. Mine was a rook and pawn endgame, the kind of game in which Rozental’s skill was unsurpassed. With sudden blinding clarity I saw the way to win. I put my hand on my king and shifted it one square to the right, to h1. Zinnurov leaned back in his chair, stupefied by the unexpectedness and brilliance of my move. Lasker and Capablanca interrupted their game to come and look at the position. Lasker, grey, grizzled and ashy, relit his cigar and said, ‘Zugzwang, my dear Zinnurov. You are in zugzwang.’ The smooth and graceful Capablanca said, ‘There is only one thing for it, Zinnurov – resignation.’ The Mountain swallowed the dense French red wine in his glass, then turned the king on its side. ‘Congratulations,’ he said with a forced smile, rising from the table. He left the ballroom with Lasker clapping me on the back and Capablanca shouting ‘Bravo, bravo!’

  The childish dreams we dream when we are happy. I was but a few days short of my fiftieth birthday and here I was, a small boy again; I could not boast to my dead parents, but I could still boast to myself.

  I came half-awake to find that we were kissing. We were on our sides, facing each other. My right hand rested on her hip, her little fist worked on my cock. I began to masturbate her.

  ‘What will you tell your husband?’ I said. ‘How will you explain being out all night?’

  She turned on her back, urging me with a look to fuck her.

  I held her hand. Her bare upper arm lay against mine. She rose up and licked my nipp
le. This time she refused to let me be active, putting her hand to my chest and pushing me down on the bed when I tried to sit up. In contrast to my impatience, she was unhurried and feline. This time the pleasure was from being pleased.

  She kissed my chest as she straddled me. At the undersides of her breasts were fine white stretch marks, little slivers of imperfection. I put my hand up and touched them with my fingertips.

  I was not ready, but she was open and wet and once inside her I soon became fully hard again. The urgency was gone. I lay almost perfectly still while she moved slowly on top of me. She continued her slow work, occasionally using her own fingers to excite herself. I told her I loved her. She took her hand away from her cunt and lowered herself down on me. I pressed my nose into the sweat and perfume of her hair and kissed her ear and listened to her breathing. Her heart beat against my chest.

  I moved my hand up to cup her behind, slipping my fingertips between her buttocks, stretching her a little. I slipped a finger inside her. She arched and tensed. She moved her face so she could kiss me. Our tongues pushed through the veil of the strands of her hair that had fallen between us.

  ‘More fingers,’ she whispered.

  More and deeper. She let out a little cry and ran her tongue over my teeth. She screwed her eyes shut.

  ‘I don’t want to hurt you,’ I said.

  ‘You’re not hurting me.’

  She sucked my lower lip between her teeth and moaned; then, releasing me, lowered herself so her forehead was resting against my chin.

  ‘How many fingers now?’ she gasped.

  I dozed for a little while but lightly, aware that she was awake.

  ‘Can you remember anything more about your trip to Kazan?’ I whispered.

  ‘Why do you keep going on about Kazan?’

  ‘Something happened to you there,’ I said, ‘something that has affected the rest of your life.’

  ‘How do you know that?’ she asked with a playful smile.

  ‘It’s my job,’ I replied lightly and seriously at once.

  She pulled the sheet back, complaining of the heat, and lay unselfconsciously naked while we talked. Occasionally she would rub away the sweat from her breast or between her legs.

  ‘Are you sure your grandmother was there?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Had you met your grandmother before you went to Kazan?’

  ‘No, it was the first time, which is why I remember her.’

  ‘Did you see your grandmother again after the trip? Did she come to St Petersburg? Did you go again to Kazan?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What happened to your grandmother?’

  ‘She died.’

  ‘When?’

  She reached over and took hold of my cock. It was limp but still thick. She thickened it some more.

  ‘When did your grandmother die?’ I asked again.

  ‘I don’t remember,’ she said with a grin.

  ‘What about your mother?’

  She propped herself up on her side the better to work on me. She laughed dirtily and, admiring her handiwork, said, ‘What are you going to do with this?’

  ‘You told me your mother died when you were fifteen.’

  ‘If someone were doing this to me,’ she said, ‘I wouldn’t want to talk about ancient history.’

  I put my hand on hers, stopping the movement.

  ‘You were fifteen, is that right?’

  She snatched her hand away and gave me a peevish look. ‘Yes, I was fifteen.’ She sat up and pulled the sheet around her in a show of petulance. ‘Why are we talking about this? First my grandmother, then my mother.’

  ‘I’m trying to help you.’

  ‘You were helping me,’ she said, ‘a few minutes ago.’

  ‘Your mother died of pneumonia?’

  ‘She killed herself,’ she said brutally.

  ‘You told me in our first or second session that she died of pneumonia when you were fifteen.’

  Her attitude was defensive and fixed. She pursed her lips in annoyance. ‘I didn’t tell you because I hardly knew you. It’s not something one tells a stranger.’

  ‘But later, when you’d got to know me, why didn’t you tell me then?’

  ‘I didn’t want you to think that I’d deceived you,’ she said. She stretched out a hand to take mine. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I should have, I know. But I didn’t want you to think badly of me.’

  I wanted to continue but her patience was exhausted and my resistance was low. She leaned forward and took my cock in her mouth.

  Semevsky entered the room. His hair was matted, his clothes sodden. He leaned over the bed on which Anna and I lay. Freezing foul water gushed from his nose and mouth. It would not stop. Anna got up and said she had to go back to her husband. The bed started to rise up until it was perpendicular to the floor. I grabbed for something to hold but all I found were pillows and bolsters, which tumbled down with me into the night-dark sea. Elena rowed by in a boat. She wore a straw hat and was singing an aria from Manon. She waved at me and blew me kisses. She sang, No! pazzo son! as I drowned.

  It was still dark when we left the house. I half hoped Catherine would find us together when I would have had the opportunity to tell her it was only sex. Except of course it was more than that. I had not just fallen in love, but fallen in love with the woman she hated.

  ‘Your father warned me not to try to see you again,’ I said as we walked in search of a taxi.

  ‘I think you already know how pleased I am that you ignored him,’ she said lightly, seemingly unconcerned.

  ‘He says there was no trip to Kazan.’

  She bit her lip. ‘It’s not true. He took me there. We went on the train.’

  ‘Why does he say the trip never took place?’

  ‘There are many things my father would prefer to keep hidden.’

  ‘He says you never met your grandmother, that she died two years before the trip.’

  ‘He’s lying,’ she said, her eyes ablaze. ‘He doesn’t want anyone to know.’

  ‘Know what?’

  She was becoming agitated. ‘During the visit. He doesn’t want people to know what happened.’

  ‘How much do you remember about Kazan?’ I said, suddenly uneasy about what she was saying.

  She put a hand to her forehead. ‘I really can hardly think. I’m so tired. I don’t think I slept at all.’

  I took her by the arm. ‘What happened?’ I repeated.

  She looked at me in alarm. This was not the gentle, patient psychoanalyst she was used to. She tried to pull away from me.

  ‘Anna?’ I said. ‘Tell me what happened.’

  ‘There was an argument,’ she said. ‘My father and my grandmother started screaming at each other. It was horrible. They had both been drinking. Then my father …’

  She hung her head.

  ‘Your father? What happened, Anna, tell me?’

  ‘He hit her. He picked up a knife and … ’ She was sobbing, unable to go on.

  ‘He killed her?’ I said. She nodded. ‘You saw your father kill your grandmother?’

  She nodded again.

  ‘You saw it with your own eyes?’

  She looked up at me sharply. ‘Yes! I saw him kill her. I saw him do it with my own eyes.’

  I could not say anything for a minute or more. Eventually I managed: ‘Why did you not tell me this before?’

  She didn’t reply, but dabbed her eyes with a white lace handkerchief. ‘I tried to forget it, I tried for so long,’ she said. ‘But then, once you’d started asking me about Kazan, it all came back to me. It was horrible, so horrible.’

  She put her head to my chest and I held her. After a while, when she had recovered herself, we walked on.

  She said quietly, ‘Am I going to see you again?’

  ‘What do you think?’ I said with a smile.

  ‘When?’

  ‘I don’t think you should come to my office again. Or here. Your father may
be having us watched.’

  She thought for a moment. ‘I think I know somewhere we can go,’ she said with a smile.

  We found a taxi. We kissed as she got inside. I waved as the car pulled away.

  Imagine yourself a hermit. You emerge from your cave only to discover that during the twenty years of your isolation a huge metropolis has been built on your doorstep. Instead of the loneliness of the mountains you are confronted by the helter-skelter of a great modern city. So it was that morning for me. I was suddenly exposed to the assault that life makes on the senses. Motor cars flew past. Satin horses, with battery lights on the carriages, liveried servants, soldiers in uniform, cavalry officers, civil servants, students, and well-to-do young men walking past well-to-do young women, flirting with them, turning to look at the faces of the objects they fancied from behind. The noise, the colour, the smells of the street. Flurries of wet snow blowing up every now and then and vanishing as quickly as though a tap had been turned off.

  I was beginning to see clearly again. And one thing I saw was that Anna was not telling me the truth, or at least not the whole truth. I had worked with patients who had buried traumatic experiences, some for the best part of a long lifetime. But none recovered their memories as readily as Anna had.

  Seventeen

  Returning to the house, I telephoned Minna to say I would not be in until midday.

  ‘Telephone Rozental to confirm our appointment. He may be reluctant to keep it, in which case, Minna, try to persuade him.’

  ‘I will do my best,’ she said, sounding slightly puzzled. ‘Mr “Grischuk” called twice this morning already. He wants to see you today.’

  Petrov. It was highly unusual for him to ask for an appointment.

  ‘Does he want to come to the office?’ I asked, remembering what he had said about the Okhrana.

  ‘No,’ Minna said, sounding even more puzzled. ‘In fact he was quite vague about where he wanted to meet. He said to tell you he would see you at four o’clock “where the pigs are”. He said you would understand.’

  ‘See that I can get away for two o’clock,’ I said, ‘even if it means moving another patient.’