Zugzwang

by Ronan Bennett

  Kavi broke open a large revolver in front of us and carefully loaded each chamber before snapping it together again.

  ‘Make yourself some tea,’ Lychev said. ‘I’ll be back soon.’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ I said. ‘Was Yuratev’s mother also in the house in Kazan the night the intruder broke in?’

  ‘No,’ Lychev said. ‘According to the police reports she had died two years earlier.’

  So Zinnurov had been telling the truth, about this at least. Anna must have conflated her passing with the brutal assault she witnessed as a thirteen-year-old girl.

  ‘How did she die?’

  ‘After a fall. The death was recorded as accidental.’

  ‘Was there some doubt?’

  ‘As a policeman reading between the lines, yes, a lot of doubt.’

  Had Anna been right, after all? ‘Do you think Zinnurov killed her?’

  ‘Not according to the detective who investigated the case. He thought Zinnurov was protecting the real killer.’

  ‘Who was the real killer?’

  ‘Are you sure you want to know?’

  I said nothing.

  Lychev said, ‘Irina Yuratev was not some child’s beloved babushka. She was a drunken, foul-mouthed, coarse old woman.’

  It may or may not have been true. Who was I to know? But even had she been this and worse, it hardly excused murder.

  Lychev and Kavi checked their weapons one last time. Lychev pulled back the slide of his automatic, slamming a bullet into the firing chamber.

  ‘Oh, Spethmann, I meant to ask,’ Kavi said. ‘How did your game with Kopelzon go?’

  It took me a moment to realise what he was talking about. ‘We never got to finish it,’ I said.

  ‘You mean the move I gave you was all for nothing?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  He laughed as he pulled the door closed after him.

  All for nothing.

  I went to the window at the front of the apartment. A minute or two later, I saw Kavi and Lychev, hands stuffed in the pockets of their overcoats, start across the street for the house at number 19.

  In a few hours all this would be over. The guests would arrive at the Mariinsky and make their way to the White Hall. Kopelzon would be more nervous than usual. He would scan the faces, expecting at any moment to see Rozental’s double turn up. And then everyone would rise and bow as the tsar and tsarina came to take their seats. Where was the double? Kopelzon would be sweating now. Where was the double?

  I would be on a train to Paris with Anna.

  Lychev and Kavi were approaching the door of number 19. They took a quick look around. Lychev nodded and took out his pistol. The huge Cossack kicked at the door, once, twice. The sound of the shattering frame carried all the way across the street. The top hinge broke and the door swung open.

  Lychev and Kavi dashed inside.

  I knew they would kill him but even so I flinched at the first shot. I was about to turn away when I saw someone stumble backwards through the broken door.

  Kavi still had his gun in his hand but there was nothing he could do with it. He collapsed heavily on the pavement.

  A moment later, Lychev emerged, hands above his head, surrounded by half a dozen men armed with pistols and carbines. They were followed by Colonel Gan, impeccable in his Household Cavalry uniform. With him was the man I had once briefly mistaken for Rozental. A motor carriage pulled up and the double got inside. As it drove away, Gan turned to Lychev and offered him a cigarette. Lychev shook his head.

  It was only then that I noticed two of Gan’s men hurrying across the street. They were coming to get me.

  I was on the landing before I realised that if I tried to escape from the front of the house I would run into Gan’s men. I ran back into the apartment, slamming the door behind me. There was a gun in my pocket but I knew I would never use it.

  I raced into a bedroom at the back and went to the window. It would not open. I went to the bathroom where the window was already open. I looked out. Below was a garden. It was a long way down.

  They were at the door.

  I looked out again. There was a tree but I would never be able to reach its branches.

  They were kicking in the door, just as Kavi had.

  I climbed onto the ledge. There was a pergola with a thin, insubstantial plant growing over it. I heard the door shatter. I leaped into the air, pushing out as far as I could.

  Two faces looked down at me. For a moment I was not sure where I was or why they were interested in me. One of the faces ducked inside, the other shouted at me to stay where I was.

  I got to my feet, struggling out of the trailing branches of the plant and the broken wood of the pergola. A bewildered child in a sailor’s suit was staring open-mouthed from a window on the ground floor. I turned and ran the length of the garden. My right hip hurt and by the time I reached the gate in the far wall I was already hobbling. Glancing back, I saw the man in the window take aim with his pistol. He fired three or four shots.

  I ducked through the side streets. I ran through pain. I ran from fear. After ten minutes or so I could go no further. Had I turned then to find my pursuer, gun in hand, but a pace away, there would have been nothing I could have done. My breath had given out. My heart was pounding. I put my hands on my knees, bent over and retched. I wiped my mouth, gulped for air and went on.

  Even with the most detailed map I would not now be able to reproduce the course of my flight. I don’t remember crossing the Nevsky, I don’t know how I got to Minsky Street. I don’t remember that at any point in my flight I took a decision to go there, but of course I must have. It could not have been by chance. I do remember seeing in the streets the pitiful detritus of the strikers’ procession – the abandoned placards, umbrellas, boaters and shoes. From time to time I heard the dry crack of a rifle shot but for the most part there was silence. Shop windows had been smashed, but not many. Near the Yusupov Palace I passed what looked at first like a collection of rags lying on the pavement. It turned out to be a dead body, around which a small group of bored policemen had gathered.

  Minsky Street.

  I had arrived. I looked at my watch. It was 6.18 p.m. The recital was for 7.30 p.m. Kopelzon might well have left for the theatre already.

  Twenty-Nine

  My appearance at his door took him by surprise. He tried to push it shut but I barged through to the small, over-furnished room. There were turkey-work cloths and cushions scattered over the furniture, photographs of himself in Paris and Moscow, posters for his concerts, a phonograph, sheet music, books and, on a little table in the centre of the room, a chessboard.

  He was already in his dress suit. He looked lined, haggard and oppressed. He smelt musky and sour.

  ‘You look as though you didn’t expect to see me,’ I said, going to the chessboard.

  ‘I’m warning you, Otto,’ he said, ‘I have a gun. I will use it if I have to.’

  ‘You won’t have to,’ I said. ‘I just want to finish our game.’

  ‘I don’t have time for this,’ he said, glancing anxiously in the direction of the bedroom.

  ‘Do you have company?’ I said.

  ‘That’s none of your business.’

  ‘Is it your friend Berek Medem?’

  ‘It’s a woman, actually.’

  ‘I’m sure she won’t mind. It’ll only take a minute,’ I said, setting up the position from our game. In spite of himself he was watching with interest. ‘I have the win. I have it all worked out.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ he said dismissively. ‘It’s a dead draw.’

  ‘No, Reuven,’ I said. ‘It’s a forced win.’

  ‘You’re deluding yourself,’ he said. ‘You’re attacking my f-pawn with queen and king, I’m defending with equal forces. You can’t win.’

  Spethmann–Kopelzon

  After 46 … Qc7. Spethmann claims to have found

  a forced win. Is he right?

  I put my hand out to the queen.
This much Kopelzon expected. He also expected me to play it to g7. Instead I moved it to h6. He squinted at the board. I do not think he yet realised that the position was fatal, but I could see he was beginning to have doubts.

  ‘Who’s in the bedroom?’ I asked. ‘Anyone I know?’

  ‘Someone I happen to be deeply in love with,’ he said, looking up from the board, ‘if you must know.’

  ‘Really?’ I said. ‘That’s new for you, isn’t it?’

  ‘We’re going to get married, actually,’ he said sharply.

  ‘Congratulations. Is she coming to hear you tonight?’

  He looked at me with suspicion. ‘You won’t stop us, Otto,’ he said. He opened the drawer of the table and brought out a revolver.

  ‘We’re playing chess, Reuven,’ I said. ‘There’s no need for that.’

  ‘Are you alone?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where’s Lychev?’

  ‘He was arrested an hour ago,’ I said, ‘by Colonel Gan.’

  He searched my face and, satisfied I was telling the truth, he placed the gun on the table beside the taken pieces, though still within reach. I was no threat to him.

  He played his queen to e7. ‘I’m still guarding the pawn with queen and king,’ he said with a thin smile of satisfaction. ‘You won’t get it.’

  I played my queen to g7. Kopelzon narrowed his eyes. Now he apprehended something of the danger.

  ‘How did you ever come to meet Berek Medem?’ I said.

  ‘You’ve heard of the recital I gave at the Paris Opera? Two years ago this August? Do you know, Otto, people boast of having been present. When they talk about it, it’s with awe. They don’t talk about me as a musician – no! That night they heard a messiah who touched their souls.’

  He looked down at the chessboard.

  ‘You’re running out of moves, Reuven,’ I said.

  He played his pawn to a6. I played mine to a3.

  ‘Berek was there that night. He heard me. He came backstage. There were the usual women, old and young, all of them begging to have the opportunity to entertain me privately. I would have obliged, the prettiest at least.’ He smiled; his carnality had always been plain. ‘But I saw this man and for the first time in my life I sensed a power greater than my own.’

  He moved his a-pawn another square forward. I did the same. He sat back, regarding the pieces almost as enemies.

  ‘You’re in zugzwang, Reuven,’ I said.

  Spethmann–Kopelzon

  After 50 a4. Zugzwang. Black is running out of moves.

  He stared at the board, not wanting to believe what he was seeing. He had no choice but to move the king away from the defence of the f-pawn. His hand trembled as he moved the king to d8. I played at once, moving my queen to f8.

  ‘Check,’ I said quietly.

  He played his queen to e8, a forlorn blocking of the check; it would change nothing. I played my king to g7. The f-pawn would fall after the exchange on f8. The game was mine.

  Spethmann–Kopelzon

  After 52 Kg7. Black is in zugzwang. Whatever Kopelzon does,

  he will lose the f7-pawn, and with it the game.

  It was not in Kopelzon’s nature to be a good loser. He did not formally resign. He did not turn his king over. He did not offer to shake hands. He got to his feet.

  ‘You look very pleased with yourself,’ he said.

  ‘You can have no idea how unhappy I am,’ I said.

  I got up. I said, ‘Don’t go to the recital, Reuven. You’ve already ruined Rozental. Don’t destroy still more lives.’

  ‘Are you pleading for the tsar?’ he said with a sneer. ‘After all he has done?’ He picked up the gun from the table. ‘Just this afternoon he set the Cossacks on a demonstration of workers. They’re saying more than thirty people were killed – and that’s just today, here in St Petersburg!’

  ‘I beg you, Reuven, for pity’s sake.’

  ‘Pity? Pity?’ he spat back. ‘And where is your pity, Otto? Where are your tears? You are Dr Otto Spethmann’ – he made the name sound utterly distasteful – ‘you have made your own way in the world. Good for you. You have left the shtetl and the Pale behind. Why not? It’s nicer to live in a big house on Furshtatskaya Street than in a stinking wooden shack next to a cattle market. But, Otto, the men and women and children you left behind cannot follow you to a better life. In Dvinsk, your father’s brothers are still alive. You have cousins and aunts and nieces and nephews. They have lice in their hair and holes in their teeth, and they live entirely without hope that tomorrow will be better than today. If you’re so overflowing with pity, go to your uncles. Go to your nephews. Lavish your pity on them. And then, when you’ve looked in the faces of the children who will never know anything but squalor and violence, ask yourself this question: now that I have seen what I have seen, am I going to turn my eyes away?’

  He stared at me with contempt. He had always held me in contempt. This was the truth of it. It was not incompatible with his love for me, which I believed even at that moment was genuine.

  ‘Get out, Otto! Go and bury your head in the sand,’ he said, marching to the door. ‘That way you won’t have to see the suffering all around you.’

  ‘By killing the tsar you will end the suffering?’ I asked.

  He transferred the gun to his left hand so as to unlock the door. ‘I know that if we do nothing, nothing will change.’

  I started to laugh.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ he said suspiciously.

  ‘You play the part so convincingly.’

  ‘What part?’

  ‘Spare me the lines you used on the poor souls you duped when you were in Paris and London. Spare me the tears, Reuven.’

  He did not move as I withdrew the Mauser. He had not expected this.

  ‘How long have you been in the pay of Colonel Gan?’ I said.

  He blanched. I did not wait for an answer. I am not sure that he had one. Even as the bullet struck him he did not believe it.

  ‘Oh,’ he gasped, staring into my eyes.

  I heard movement coming from the bedroom and swivelled round, ready to shoot again.

  A woman, flushed and still sweaty, ran into the room and let out a cry. Her silk robe came open. She was naked underneath, her body as shiny as an egg yolk.

  Minna did not even glance at me. She went forward to Kopelzon. Blood was blooming over his white dress shirt. His face had drained of colour. She helped him into a chair.

  I picked up the telephone and asked to be put through to the artistic director of the Mariinsky Theatre. I told him that Reuven Moiseyevich Kopelzon was sadly indisposed and would not be able to play that night.

  I put the phone down.

  ‘I’m sorry, Minna,’ I said.

  Minna buried her head in Kopelzon’s lap and started to weep. I waited with her until Kopelzon took his final breath. She did not believe me. But I was sorry.

  I crossed Krukov’s Canal and made my way to the Mariinsky Theatre. I saw a troop of Cossack guards with long hair and in scarlet tunics trot out of the square, their sabres flashing and their horses glistening with health and sweat. They were escorting a four-horse calèche away from the theatre. In it I glimpsed the tsar in an admiral’s uniform and the tsarina in a brocade dress and diamond tiara. Other carriages were following the tsar’s. Forty or fifty curious onlookers, held back by white-coated gendarmes on either side of the main entrance, watched as the guests departed from the recital that would never take place.

  It was 9.10 p.m. I had less than an hour to get to the Finland Station. Gendarmes, soldiers and Cossacks were still roaming the near-empty streets, swinging their clubs and rifle butts at anyone who ventured out. None of the taxi drivers in the square was prepared to take me across the Neva, saying it was still too dangerous after the riot in the afternoon. Eventually I found a droshky. The driver agreed to take me as far as the Alexandrovski Bridge. From there I walked to the station. Catherine and Anna were standing togeth
er at the ticket barrier, looking anxiously about. Catherine was the first to see me and she ran into my arms.

  Thirty

  It was the first time we had spent the night together and not made love. This is the real world. This is what love in the real world is like. I tried to recall the last time Elena and I had made love but could not. What a thing to forget. The real world.

  The attendant had insisted on lighting the stove in the sleeping car even though the night was mild. I had a terrible headache. I slipped out of the bunk and dressed as quietly as I could. My right hip had all but seized up.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Anna said sleepily.

  ‘Nothing,’ I said, stroking her hair and kissing her. ‘Go back to sleep.’

  ‘I don’t want to stay in Paris.’

  ‘Let’s see how we feel when we get there,’ I said. ‘We can rest for a day or two and then decide where to go.’

  ‘I would like to see London.’

  ‘Sleep,’ I whispered, ‘sleep.’

  ‘My mother had a half-sister – Ivana,’ she said. ‘She was quite a bit older. She married a lovely man when she was twenty-six. She and her husband never spent a single night apart in all the time they were married. They died within three months of each other.’ She smiled sadly. ‘I don’t know why I told you that.’

  I kissed her. ‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I won’t be long.’

  I walked the length of the corridor, limping as I went, and passed through the door at the end of the carriage. An attendant in a black blouse and belt, with wide trousers tucked into his polished boots and a round fur cap, asked if he could be of assistance.

  ‘Is the restaurant car still open?’ I asked.

  ‘If his honour continues for two more carriages he will find it.’

  The car was empty. I took a seat and ordered a brandy.

  ‘Where are we?’ I asked the attendant.

  ‘We’ll soon be in Wirballen,’ he said. ‘His honour has his passport ready? The guards will check his papers and baggage there. Is there anything else his honour needs?’

  ‘Do you think you could find me a pen and some writing paper?’

  He returned a minute or two later with pen and paper. I wrote the date, 27 April 1914, ‘near Wirballen’ and ‘My darling daughter …’ Everything at the station had been so fraught. I had a thousand things to say to her yet I could not find a way to say any of them.