The Flanders Panel (14 page)

“No? Alvaro dies, the police interrogate me, I think someone interested in my work on
The Game of Chess
may be following me… and you wonder why I keep going over it again and again. What else can I do?”

“It’s very simple, my dear. If it’s really getting to you, you can give the painting back to Menchu. If you believe Alvaro’s death wasn’t an accident, then go away somewhere. We could spend two or three weeks in Paris; I’ve got loads to do there. The important thing is to go away until it’s all over.”

“But what’s going on?”

“I don’t know, and that’s the worst of it… not having the slightest idea what’s happening, I mean. Like you, I wouldn’t be so worried about what happened to Alvaro if it wasn’t for this business with the documents.” He looked at her, smiling awkwardly. “And I have to admit that I’m worried, because I’m not the hero type… It may be that one of us unwittingly opened some sort of Pandora’s box.”

“The painting,” said Julia, shuddering. “The hidden inscription.”

“I’m afraid so. That, it would seem, is where it all began.”

She turned towards her reflection in the mirror and looked at herself long and hard, as if she didn’t recognise the dark-haired young woman looking silently back at her from large, dark eyes, the pale skin over her cheekbones bearing the faint, shadowy traces of sleepless nights.

“Perhaps they want to kill me too, Cesar.”

His fingers gripped the ivory cigarette holder.

“Not while I’m alive,” he said, revealing an aggressive determination behind the exquisite, ambivalent exterior. His voice had a sharp, almost feminine edge to it. “I might be frightened out of my wits, or even worse than that, but nobody’s going to hurt you if I have anything to do with it.”

Julia couldn’t help but smile, touched by his concern.

“But what can we do?” she asked, after a silence.

Cesar bowed his head, seriously considering the problem.

“It seems a bit premature to do anything. We still don’t know if Alvaro’s death was an accident or not.”

“And the documents?”

“I’m sure that someone, somewhere, has the answer to that. The question, I suppose, is whether the person who sent them to you is the same one who was responsible for Alvaro’s death, or if the two things are entirely unrelated.”

“What if our worst suspicions are confirmed?”

It was a while before Cesar replied.

“In that case, I see only two options, the classic ones, Princess: you either run away or you stay and face the music. If I was in that situation, »suppose I’d vote in favour of running away; not that that means much.

If I put my mind to it, I can be a terrible coward, as you know.“

Julia clasped her hands behind her head.

“Would you really run away, without waiting to find out what it’s all about?”

“Of course I would. Remember, it was curiosity that killed the cat.”

“What about what you taught me when I was a child? Never leave a room without looking in all the drawers.”

“Ah, yes. But then people weren’t falling over in bathtubs.”

“Hypocrite. Deep down you’re dying to know what this is all about.”

Cesar looked reproachful.

“To say that I’m
dying
to do so, my dear, is in the worst possible taste, given the circumstances. Dying is exactly what I don’t want to do, now that I’m nearly an old man and have all these adorable young men to comfort me in my old age. And I don’t want you to die either.”

“What if I decide to go ahead and find out what’s really behind this business with the picture?”

Cesar pursed his lips and let his gaze drift as if he’d never even considered the possibility.

“Why would you do that? Give me one good reason.”

“For Alvaro’s sake.”

“That’s not enough reason for me. I know you well enough to know that Alvaro wasn’t important any more. Besides, according to what you’ve told me, he wasn’t entirely honest with you about the matter.”

“All right then, I’d do it for my own sake.” Julia crossed her arms defiantly. “After all, it is my painting.”

“Listen, I thought you were afraid. That’s what you said before.”

“I still am. I’m truly terrified.”

“I understand,” said Cesar, resting his chin on his clasped hands, on one of which gleamed the topaz ring. “In practice,” he added, after a brief pause for reflection, “it’s like a treasure hunt. Isn’t that what you’re trying to say? Just like the old days, when you were a stubborn little girl.”

“Just like the old days.”

“How awful! You mean, you and me?”

“You and me.”

“You’re forgetting Munoz. We’ve enlisted him now.”

“You’re right. Of course, Munoz, you and me.”

Cesar frowned, but there was an amused gleam in his eyes.

“We’d better teach him the pirates’ song then. I doubt very much if he knows it.”

“I shouldn’t think so.”

“We’re mad, my girl” Cesar was looking hard at Julia. “You do know that, don’t you.”

“So?”

“This isn’t a game, my dear. Not this time.”

She held his gaze, unperturbed. She really was very beautiful with that gleam of resolve that the mirror reflected in her dark eyes.

“So?” she repeated in a low voice.

Cesar shook his head indulgently. Then he got up, and the diamonds of coloured light slid down his back to the floor and spread themselves at Julia’s feet. He went to the corner where his office was and for some minutes fiddled about in the safe built into the wall, concealed behind an old tapestry of little value, a bad copy of
The Lady and the Unicorn.
When he came back, he was carrying a bundle in his hands.

“Here, Princess, this is for you. A present.”

“A present?”

“That’s what I said. Happy unbirthday.”

Surprised, Julia removed the plastic wrapping and the oily cloth and weighed in her hand a small pistol of chromium-plated metal with a mother-of-pearl handle.

“It’s an antique derringer, so you won’t need a licence,” Cesar explained. “But it’s as good as new, and it takes .45-calibre bullets. It’s not at all bulky, so you can carry it around in your pocket. If anyone approaches you or comes snooping round your building in the next few days,” he said, looking at her fixedly, without the least trace of humour in his weary eyes, “I’d be most grateful if you would pick up this little thing and blow his head off. Remember? As if it was Captain Hook himself.”

Julia had three phone calls within half an hour of getting home. The first was from Menchu, who’d read the news in the papers and was worried. According to her, no one had suggested it might have been anything other than an accident. Julia realised that her friend cared nothing about Alvaro’s death, what concerned her were possible complications affecting her agreement with Belmonte.

The second call surprised her. It was an invitation from Paco Montegrifo to have dinner that night to talk about business. Julia accepted, and they arranged to meet at nine at Sabatini’s. After hanging up, she remained thoughtful for a while, searching for some reason for his sudden interest. If it had to do with the Van Huys, the correct thing would have been for him to talk to Menchu, or to meet them both. She’d said as much during the conversation, but Montegrifo made it quite clear that it was something of interest to her alone.

She sat down in front of the painting to continue her work of removing the old varnish. Just as she was applying the first dabs of solvent with the cotton wool the phone rang for the third time.

She tugged at the cable to pull the phone, which was on the floor, towards her and picked up the receiver. For the next fifteen or twenty seconds she heard absolutely nothing, despite the vain “Hello’s” she uttered with growing exasperation. Intimidated, she kept quiet, holding her breath, for a few seconds longer, and then hung up, as a feeling of dark, irrational panic washed over her like an unexpected wave. She looked at the phone, sitting on the carpet as if it were a poisonous beast, black and shining, and she shuddered involuntarily, knocking over the bottle of turpentine with her elbow.

This call did nothing to calm her spirits. So when the doorbell rang, she remained quite still, staring at the closed door until the third ring forced her to pull herself together. Several times since leaving the antiques shop that morning, Julia had smiled wryly whenever she imagined herself making the movement she now made. But she felt not the slightest desire to laugh when she stopped before going to open the door, long enough to take the small derringer out of her bag, cock it and slip it into her pocket. No one was going to leave her to soak in a bathtub.

Munoz shook the rain off his coat and stood awkwardly in the hallway. The rain had plastered his hair to his skull and was still dripping down his forehead and off the tip of his nose. In his pocket, wrapped in a bag from one of the big stores, he was carrying a chess set.

“Have you solved it?” asked Julia as soon as she’d closed the door.

Munoz hung his head, half-apologetic and half-timid. He was clearly still uncomfortable in someone else’s, especially Julia’s, apartment.

“Not yet,” he said, looking apologetically at the little pool of water forming at his feet. “I’ve just got out of work and we arranged yesterday to meet here now.” He took two steps and stopped, as if wondering whether to remove his raincoat. He did so when Julia reached out a hand to take it, and he followed her through to the studio.

“What’s the problem?” she asked.

“There’s none in principle.” As before, Munoz showed no curiosity when he looked around the studio. He seemed instead to be searching for some hint about how to behave. “It’s just a question of investing thought and time. And all I do is think about it.”

He was standing in the middle of the room with the chess set in his hands. Julia didn’t need to follow the direction of his gaze to know what he was looking at. His expression had changed, switching from elusive to fascinated intensity, like a hypnotist surprised by his own eyes in the mirror.

Munoz left the chess set on the table and went nearer to the painting, focusing only on the part depicting the chessboard and the chess pieces. He leaned closer to look much more intensely than he had the previous day. And Julia realised that he was not exaggerating in the least when he said, “All I do is think about it.” He was a man intent on resolving something more than just her problem.

He studied the painting for a long time before turning to Julia.

“This morning I reconstructed the two previous moves,” he said, without a trace of boastfulness. “Then I ran into a problem. Something to do with the unusual position of the pawns.” He pointed to the chess pieces in the picture. “We’re not dealing with a conventional game here.”

Julia was disappointed. When she’d opened the door and seen Munoz standing there, she’d almost believed that the answer was within reach. Naturally, Munoz had no idea of the urgency of the matter, nor of the implications the story now had. But she was not the person to explain it to him, at least not yet.

“The other moves don’t matter,” she said. “We just have to find out who took the white knight.”

Munoz shook his head.

“I’m spending all the time I can on it.” He hesitated, as if his next remark were almost a confidence. “I’ve got the moves in my head, and I play them backwards and forwards.” He paused again and curved his lips into a pained, distant half-smile. “But there’s something odd about this game.”

“It’s not only the game,” she said. “The thing is, Cesar and I saw it as the central part of the painting, because we couldn’t see anything else.” Julia reflected on what she’d just said. “But it may be that the rest of the painting simply complements the game.”

Munoz nodded slightly, and Julia had the impression that he took for ever to do so. Those slow movements, as if he spent much more time on them than was strictly necessary, seemed to be an extension of his mode of reasoning.

“You’re wrong to say that you see nothing else. You see everything, although you may not be able to interpret it.” Munoz didn’t budge from where he was; he merely indicated the painting with a movement of his chin. “I think it comes down to points of view. What we have here are different levels, which are contained within each other: the painting contains a floor that is a chessboard which, in turn, contains people. Those people are sitting at a chessboard that contains chess pieces. The whole thing is contained in that round mirror to the left. And to complicate things further, another level can be added: ours, where we stand to contemplate the scene or the successive scenes. And beyond that there’s the level on which the painter imagined us, the spectators of his work.”

He’d spoken without passion, an absent look on his face, as if he were reciting a monotonous description whose importance he considered to be, at best, relative and over which he lingered only to please others. Dazed, Julia gave a low whistle.

“It’s odd you should see it like that.”

Impassive, Munoz again shook his head, without taking his eyes off the painting.

“I don’t know why you find it odd. I see a chess game. Not just one game, but several, which are all basically the same one.”

“That’s too complex for me.”

“Not at all. At the moment, we’re operating on a level from which we can obtain a lot of information: the level of the chess game. Once that’s resolved, we can apply any conclusions we reach to the rest of the painting. It’s simply a question of logic, of mathematical logic.”

“I never thought mathematics would have anything to do with this.”

“It has to do with everything. Any imaginable world, like this picture, for example, is governed by the same rules as the real world.”

“Even chess?”

“Especially chess. But a real chess player’s thoughts move on a different plane from those of the amateur. His logic doesn’t allow him to see possible but inappropriate moves, because he discounts them automatically. The same way a talented mathematician never studies the false pathways to the theorem he’s seeking, whereas that’s exactly what less gifted people have to do, plodding forwards from error to error.”

“Don’t you ever make mistakes?”