Zugzwang

by Ronan Bennett

  He buried his head in his hands and mumbled, ‘Is everything all right with you? You haven’t had any more trouble with Lychev and the police?’

  ‘Thank you for asking,’ I said, ‘but we’re here to talk about you. Has something happened?’

  ‘You mean, has something worse than usual happened? Is my life even more hellish?’ He looked up at me blearily. ‘You can’t tell anyone about any of this.’

  ‘Of course not.’

  He had said he needed to talk to someone, but that did not mean he got straight to the point. Instead he treated me to a polemic on the growing anger of the workers in the factories and naval yards, and the crisis with Berlin. He talked about his stomach, which he feared was getting flabby, and his children’s pet cat which had gone missing. His wife’s mother was in poor health. I listened without interrupting him or seeking to lead him. He would get to where he needed to arrive when he was ready.

  He took out a silver cigarette box. I declined his offer of a cigarette. He lit one, drawing the smoke deeply into his lungs, and ran a hand through his uncombed hair.

  ‘Have you ever heard of a man named Sverdlov?’ he asked.

  ‘I read something in the newspapers – wasn’t he arrested recently?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, swallowing more smoke. ‘An important comrade. He had been sentenced to ten years’ exile but he escaped in January. He made his way across Russia and arrived in St Petersburg a week ago. I found him somewhere to stay in the apartment of a friend, someone not connected with the Party and in whom the police have no interest. He was going to rest for a few days before continuing to Krakow to join Lenin.’

  He stubbed out the cigarette and lit another. He pinched a stained trouser leg from his thigh as though it were unpleasantly damp. Perhaps it was.

  ‘Somehow the police found out where Sverdlov was hiding,’ he continued. ‘They raided the apartment and arrested him. He’s on his way back to Siberia. It was King – the spy. He’s betrayed us yet again.’

  Petrov scratched at his unshaven chin and neck and tore at the stud in his collar as though he were being choked. Loosening his tie, he threw his head back and gazed at the ceiling.

  ‘I don’t know if I can keep going,’ he said.

  ‘Because of the constant risk of betrayal?’

  ‘Because of everything.’ His hand trembled as he brought the cigarette again to his lips. ‘The Party leadership has ordered an investigation. They want to know how and why Sverdlov was arrested,’ he said slowly. ‘Only three other people knew where I had hidden Sverdlov. They will be interrogated by the Party’s security department. Believe me, you do not want to cross those people. By comparison, the Okhrana are gentlemen.’

  ‘Are you saying you are one of those under suspicion?’

  ‘I was one of those who knew where Sverdlov was hiding. I have to be investigated. But if I’m the traitor then the Party might as well give up now. I’m Lenin’s deputy in Russia. I’m the leader of the Bolshevik delegation in the Duma.’ He shook his head at the absurdity of it all, then sighed with exhaustion. ‘Anyway, it seems the Party’s security department have their man.’ He looked at me with rheumy eyes. ‘A friend of mine, a good friend – Delyanov. No one suspected him. He’s a bit of a plodder but he was a good comrade. The Party was all he lived for, or so he led us to believe.’

  ‘What will happen to Delyanov?’

  ‘He’s still denying everything but there seems little doubt. And when the case against him is proved …’

  He blew a smoke ring and let the conclusion of his sentence hang in the air with it.

  ‘Are you saying he will be murdered?’

  Petrov threw me an aggressive glance. ‘Have you ever done anything, Spethmann, of which you were deeply ashamed?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I mean, utterly, profoundly ashamed? Ashamed to the depths of your soul?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How did you live with yourself afterwards?’

  ‘There is always guilt. But we can resolve to avoid repeating the act that gave rise to the shame.’

  ‘It’s that easy?’

  ‘On the contrary.’

  He ran his hand over his moustache and mouth. ‘What if you cannot avoid repeating the act?’

  ‘Are you saying we are without choice?’

  ‘We go around in chains – chains of debt, of need, responsibility, dreams. All of us. Choice is only ever a chimera.’

  ‘Are you talking about your complicity in Delyanov’s murder, when he is killed?’

  ‘I haven’t said I will be complicit in anything,’ he snapped as if I were a policeman or a journalist trying to trap him into a damaging admission. He eyed me knowingly. ‘You were an adulterer, weren’t you, Spethmann? That’s your guilty little secret, the deed of which you are so ashamed, isn’t it?’

  ‘I have not come here to discuss my deeds or my shame.’

  ‘Do you think I am remotely interested in discussing them?’ he said with a dismissive wave of the hand. ‘Your boring, petty deeds? I’m talking about real shame, the enormity of which you cannot imagine.’

  ‘I think I can imagine what complicity in murder means.’

  ‘Stop calling it that!’

  ‘Why do you object to the word?’

  ‘It’s not what I’m talking about now.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  He stubbed out the cigarette and lifted his gaze again to the ceiling. Tears welled up in his eyes and were soon streaming down his broad face.

  ‘Why can you not tell me?’ I said.

  He shook his head and began to sob. His whole body was soon convulsed. ‘Help me, Spethmann, help me,’ he cried. ‘I can’t go on like this.’

  I stretched out my hand and put it on his shoulder. His coat gave a false impression of bulkiness for all I felt was skin and bone. Inconsolable, he wept like a child. At one point, he clutched my hand and held it fast, lowering his head to it; hot tears ran over my fingers. I could do nothing but wait for his sobs to subside.

  ‘I want nothing more than to help you, Gregory,’ I said when the worst was over, ‘but I can do nothing until you are honest with me.’

  He wiped his eyes roughly with the palms of his hands. ‘I want to be honest. Believe me, Spethmann, that’s exactly what I want.’

  ‘Perhaps the thing of which you are ashamed is not as despicable as you think.’

  ‘Oh, it is. It is every bit as despicable.’

  He stood up.

  ‘Are you going?’ I said.

  ‘I have a meeting.’

  ‘Please, a moment longer. Tell me more about this shame you feel.’

  Tears sprang again into his eyes but this time he succeeded in getting himself under control.

  ‘I’ve said too much already.’

  ‘Where is Delyanov now?’ I asked.

  ‘At home.’

  ‘Aren’t you afraid he will go to the police?’

  ‘He’s so ashamed of what he’s done he will wait at home until the time comes.’

  ‘The time for his own murder?’ I said.

  Petrov made no answer but went to a small, cloudy mirror which hung from a nail on the wooden planks. He scrutinised his features with the despairing objectivity of an ageing actor.

  ‘I would like to change this face,’ he said. ‘I can’t bear to see it any more.’

  ‘There are many who admire you, Gregory Vasilyevich,’ I said, ‘for all your self-loathing. Try to remember that.’

  ‘My God,’ he said, summoning a grin, ‘I haven’t turned you into a Bolshevik, have I, Spethmann?’

  ‘After what you have just told me about Delyanov?’ I said. ‘No.’

  ‘When the stakes are so high,’ he said, taking his hat and coat and going to the door, ‘such things are unavoidable.’

  ‘What happened to your brother?’ I asked as he was about to leave.

  ‘Which brother?’

  ‘The one who was arrested with you – Iva
n.’

  ‘Oh that?’ he said, attempting to laugh it off. ‘I made that story up. I’m surprised you took it seriously.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Just talking like this – believe it or not, it helps.’

  ‘If I doubted that I would close my office tonight and find a new profession.’

  I took the direct route back to my office along Sadovaya Street and was there in fifteen minutes. Minna made me some tea and I went to the window and stared out to the street. When Catherine was ten I met a woman. She was unmarried, pretty, lively and flirtatious. On social occasions, she always sought out my company. One day I asked her to go for a walk on the French Embankment. In the Tavricheski Gardens I kissed her. We met again the following day. There were more kisses.

  And then there was shame.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ she said when we bumped into each other at a party some weeks later. ‘When you asked to see me – why did you do that? Be honest with me. Why did you ask to see me?’

  ‘I cannot continue with this,’ I said.

  ‘Then you are not being honest – to me, or to yourself.’

  ‘I do not dispute you.’

  ‘You pull and you push. Is that a trick you use when you want to ensnare a woman? You pull her to you and, just when she thinks she is close, you push her away again.’

  ‘That was not my intention.’

  ‘Wasn’t it?’

  ‘I assure you.’

  She fixed me with a look. ‘I am going to ask you something now and I want you to be completely honest in your reply.’ She paused, waiting if not for my assent then at least for a confirmatory silence. ‘Imagine a dacha. It is in the forest, far from the city. No one will see you arrive, no one will see you leave. You come to the door and it is open. You go inside. The dacha is not large but there is a fire to keep you warm and there is good, simple food to eat. You become sleepy. You undress and go to bed. The bed is big and comfortable, the linen is fresh. There is a telephone beside the bed. It starts to ring. You hear a voice at the other end of the line. Are you following this?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘It is my voice,’ she said. ‘I tell you that I am free of all engagements and can come to the dacha. This is my question to you: Do you want me to come to you in your dacha?’

  ‘To my dacha in the forest?’

  ‘Do you want me to come to you – yes or no?’

  ‘There is no such place.’

  ‘There is,’ she said.

  ‘We can all have dreams,’ I said. ‘We can imagine ourselves alone in the forest. But there is a reality in which we must live. I am a husband and a father.’

  ‘The dacha in the forest exists –’

  ‘It does not.’

  ‘– if you want it to, and since you seem unable to find your way I shall have to help you to it.’

  I went to the dacha. I should have known better, for there was no such place. However much we dream, there is always a reality.

  I telephoned Kopelzon at home.

  ‘Are you resigning?’ I said.

  ‘Don’t be conceited, Otto. And be very careful you don’t fall flat on your face,’ he said. ‘You still have a long way to go: 42 … Ke8.’

  Spethmann–Kopelzon

  After 42 … Ke8. Spethmann is clearly better but to win

  he needs to capture the pawn at f7. How can he do this?

  I played 43 Kh7.

  ‘You’re going after my f-pawn, aren’t you? You can attack with two pieces, I can defend with two pieces. You won’t win it. And if you can’t win it, your extra pawn means nothing. You won’t win the game.’

  ‘Are you going to move?’ I said. ‘Or do you need more time to think?’

  He played, as I had expected, 43 … Qc5. I responded with 44 Qg7.

  ‘I’ll give you my reply at the opening ceremony,’ he said.

  ‘Reuven,’ I said before he put down the telephone.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I just wanted to say how much I value your friendship. I would hate to think something has come between us.’

  ‘Despite the boorishness you have displayed during this game,’ Kopelzon said with a laugh, ‘I send you a thousand kisses.’

  I went to the outer office where Minna was getting ready to go home. As she pulled on her coat, I saw a red-brown bruise on the left side of her neck which her high collar could not quite conceal. A love bite? I saw too that she was not wearing one of her usual, rather shapeless, blouses but something altogether more fashionable and expensive, and very flattering to her figure. Her hair was still pinned back, but she had allowed golden ringlets to fall by her ears.

  ‘You look different,’ I said.

  ‘Oh?’ she said, a little warily.

  ‘Is that a new blouse?’

  She pulled the coat to. ‘I’ve had it a while,’ she said.

  ‘It’s very nice.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘A present?’

  Her cheeks flushed. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I bought it myself.’

  Turning from me, she did up her coat buttons. I glimpsed again the bruise on her neck. Seeing that I was still looking at her, she smiled awkwardly.

  ‘Well, it’s very nice,’ I said. ‘Goodnight.’

  ‘Goodnight.’

  As I was leaving the building, the new doorman handed me an envelope. Usually messages were delivered directly to my office and, suspicious of the man, I asked why he had kept it.

  ‘The messenger was very insistent it be held here for his honour,’ he said.

  ‘Where is Semevsky?’ I said, taking the envelope.

  ‘He did not report for work this morning.’ The note was in Anna’s hand. It gave an address on Bolshoy Prospect and a telephone number. I slipped it into my pocket, stepped out to the street and made for the Neva Quays.

  An ice-breaker was coming in to harbour, passing a French warship under way for Kronstadt. I pulled up my collar against the wind coming off the river and walked the length of the huge gallery looking for Lychev.

  ‘Keep walking,’ he said, materialising out of nowhere and falling into step beside me. ‘You said you have Yastrebov’s real name?’

  ‘Did you find out anything about Kazan?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You go first.’

  I hesitated; even after calculating the variations several moves deep, the chess player always reviews the position one last time before committing himself to the actual move. Was I doing the right thing? I could see no alternative.

  ‘Yastrebov’s real name was Leon Pikser.’

  ‘So Catherine knew all the time,’ he said, ‘and she didn’t reveal it, even in prison.’ He sounded more impressed than angry. ‘Pikser,’ he repeated. ‘Where was he from?’

  ‘Somewhere beyond the Urals – Catherine doesn’t know exactly. He moved to Moscow to write poetry. While he was there he met a man who persuaded him to come to St Petersburg – to do something very important, so the man told him. Yastrebov didn’t say who the man was, nor did he say what they were going to do.’

  ‘It has to be Berek Medem,’ Lychev said.

  I laughed. ‘So you’re another of these people who sees Berek Medem everywhere?’

  Lychev ignored this. ‘What else did Catherine tell you?’

  ‘Yastrebov was supposed to go to a contact. But he got cold feet and never went.’

  ‘You said you had an address?’

  I had made my move; there was nothing for it but to follow through. ‘19 Kirochny Street,’ I said.

  Lychev fell silent as he thought things through, then said, ‘How is Rozental?’

  ‘He cancelled his appointment.’

  ‘You like Rozental, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ I said. ‘Away from the chessboard, he’s an innocent. He doesn’t understand the world he lives in. I can’t help feeling that he is always in danger of being harmed by it.’

  ‘If I were you I would keep a f
riendly eye on him,’ Lychev said. ‘The world Rozental inhabits is more dangerous than he knows.’

  ‘What did you find out about Kazan?’ I said.

  ‘I telegraphed my colleagues in Kazan, asking them to check their files for a murder committed in August 1889. A detective responded this afternoon.’

  ‘That was quick.’

  ‘My name has a certain cachet,’ he said bluntly, ‘in certain quarters. There were five murders that month. Four victims were male. Two were killed during drunken arguments. Their killers – family members or friends in both cases – were apprehended and convicted. The third was a railway clerk strangled by his father, who then committed suicide. The fourth victim was an intruder who broke into a house during the night, presumably with robbery in mind. He attacked the occupants, seriously wounding two of them, before he was himself overpowered and killed. A rather curious case.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘The intruder was never identified and the house he broke into was apparently quite humble. If robbery was the motive, he should have been quite desperate. And yet he was, according to the police report, well dressed and had in his pocket a first-class railway ticket for Moscow. Curious, as I say, but nothing to do with your supposed murder.’

  ‘And the fifth victim – the woman?’

  ‘A female, yes,’ Lychev said, ‘but her name was not Zinnurov.’

  ‘That means nothing. No one knows if Zinnurov is the Mountain’s real name.’

  ‘Of course. But the victim was aged forty-four.’

  Too young to be Zinnurov’s mother at the time of Anna’s visit.

  Lychev stared at me with pale eyes. ‘Whoever told you Zinnurov murdered his mother was having you on.’

  I suspected he knew only too well the source of my information and was trying to provoke me. I struggled to fight them down but I could not prevent doubts about Anna surfacing again. She had been so certain: I saw him kill her. I saw him do it with my own eyes.

  We walked on in silence, each digesting the information he had received. Lychev was by far the more satisfied.

  At length he said, ‘I hope you have your alibi ready.’

  ‘Do you think I will be questioned?’

  ‘About Semevsky? You will certainly be questioned. Do you think when one of Gan’s agents disappears the colonel simply shrugs and hires someone else?’