What We Become (43 page)

10

T
he Click of Ivory

M
AX HASN'T HAD
a good night. I've certainly known better ones, he thought to himself in the morning as he emerged from an uneasy sleep. He was still thinking about this as he ran the Braun electric razor over his chin, contemplating his tired face in the mirror of the hotel bathroom, the bags under his eyes, the signs of recent anxiety added to the ravages of time and life, not to mention last-minute failures and fresh doubts, just when he thought everything was almost settled, or he had settled everything, when it was too late to start applying new labels to old experiences. Several times during his fretful night, tossing and turning between sleep and wakefulness, he imagined he could hear his old certainties plummet like a pile of plates crashing noisily to the floor. The sum of his eventful life, which until only a few hours before, he thought he had salvaged from his successive misadventures, was a kind of worldly indifference, which he assumed with
gallant serenity. And now this last bastion of calm fatalism, a mind-set that until the previous day was his sole asset, has been smashed to smithereens. Sleeping peacefully, with the serenity of a tired old marathon runner, has been the one remaining privilege that, prior to his last conversation with Mecha Inzunza, Max believed he could still enjoy at his age, without life snatching it away from him.

His first impulse, the old instinct when faced with the smell of danger, was to flee: to put an immediate end to that absurd, meaningless affair (he detests the word
romance
and refuses to call it that) and return to his duties at Villa Oriana before things become too complicated and the ground gives way beneath his feet. To put on the face of a good loser and forget what went before, acknowledge what is, and accept what can never be. And yet, there are impulses, he concludes. Instincts and interests that in some cases lead men astray but in others cause the ball to land in the appropriate slot on the roulette wheel. Paths that, contrary to what elementary prudence might suggest, are impossible to avoid when they present themselves. When they beckon with answers to questions that have never been posed.

One such answer could lie in the billiard room at the Hotel Vittoria. Max has been looking for it for a while, and is surprised to find it there of all places. Emil Karapetian directed him to it when Max asked if he had seen Jorge Keller. They met a moment ago on the terrace: Karapetian and Irina were having breakfast together so normally (she greeted Max with a friendly smile) that it is obvious the young analyst has no idea her connection to the Russians has been discovered.

“Billiards?” Max was surprised. Somehow this didn't fit with the image he had of a chess player.

“It's part of his training,” Karapetian explained. “Sometimes he runs, or goes for a swim. Other times he shuts himself away and practices cannon shots.”

“I'd never have thought it.”

“Neither did we,” replied Karapetian, shrugging his broad shoulders with a sour expression. “But that's Jorge for you.”

“And he plays by himself?”

“Nearly always.”

The billiard room is on the main floor, past the reading room: a mirror duplicates the light from a window overlooking the terrace; there is a scoreboard with a cue rack, and a long, narrow metal lamp hangs above the billiard table. Hunched over it, Jorge Keller is playing one cannon shot after another, accompanied only by the soft sound of the cue's cushioned tip and the balls clicking against each other with almost monotonous precision. Standing in the doorway, Max watches the chess player: he is completely focused, and scores a perfect cannon each time, stringing them together mechanically, as though each triple cannon of the ivory balls set up the next shot on the green baize, in a sequence that, if he so wished, could last forever.

Max scrutinizes the young man, intent upon taking in every last detail, noticing anything he might have missed on earlier occasions. At first, simply out of an innate self-preservation, he rummages in his memory for the long-distant, hazy features of Ernesto Keller, the Chilean diplomat he had met in the autumn of 1937 at Susana Ferriol's dinner party. He recalls a fair-haired, distinguished-­looking, affable fellow, and tries to make the image fit with the appearance of the young man who, for all official purposes, is his son. Then he tries to match this memory with that of Mecha Inzunza, the way she looked twenty-nine years ago, the part of her that has been genetically passed down to her son, who is now standing still beside the table, studying the position of the balls and chalking his cue. Slender, tall, and upright. Like his mother, of course. But like Max too, in his youth. They resemble each other in looks and build. And it's true, Max concludes with a sudden sinking feeling, that the mop of thick, black hair falling across Jorge's brow as he leans over the rail is as unlike that of his mother (from the
Cap
Polonio
Max remembers hers as light brown, almost dark blonde) as it is that of the man whose name he bears. If Jorge wore his hair slicked back the way Max did when his was still as luxuriant and dark, it would be identical to the hair he used to run his hand over, when he was Jorge's age, smoothing it before walking slowly in time with the rhythms of the orchestra, gently clicking his heels, and, with a smile on his lips, inviting a woman onto the dance floor.

It can't be true, he decides irritably, thrusting the idea aside. He doesn't even know how to play chess. He is furious with himself for remaining there, lurking in the doorway, searching for himself in the young man's features. That sort of thing only happens in movies, plays, and radio soap operas. If it were true, surely he would have felt something the first time he saw him, or spoke to him, some inner vibration, a sign, a tremor. An affinity, perhaps. Or a simple memory. How could a man's natural instinct remain oblivious to such an important truth? To these supposed facts. “The call of the blood,” as they used to refer to it in old melodramas about millionaires and orphans. Only Max has never heard such a call. Not even now, blinded by a painful belief in some inexplicable mistake, an uneasy foreboding that troubles him as nothing ever has before. None of this can be true. Regardless of whether Mecha is lying or not (and she most likely is), this is sheer, dangerous nonsense.

“Good morning.”

He easily engages Jorge in conversation, despite everything. He has never found that difficult in any situation, and billiards isn't a bad topic. Max can play reasonably well from his days in Barcelona, when as a bellhop he would gamble his three-peseta tips on a game of thirty-one and on Spanish pool in the billiard room of a dive bar in the Barrio Chino. Women hovering in the doorway; pimps with tie pins and braces, skin gleaming with sweat and cigarette smoke beneath the greenish light projected onto the baize by lampshades soiled with flies, holding lighted cigarettes as they cued up; the
sound of cannon shots and an occasional entreaty or curse, which often had more to do with what was going on outside: the players would fall silent as they listened for the sound of feet running in rope sandals, police whistles, stray shots from a union man's pistol, the noise of rifle butts slamming against the ground.

“Do you play billiards, Max?”

“A little.”

Jorge has a good face in profile, accentuated by the lock of hair falling across his brow that gives him an even more relaxed, easygoing air. And yet the smile with which he greets the new arrival is at odds with his distant look, concentrated on his next shot and the successive combinations of the three ivory balls.

“Grab a cue, if you want.”

He's a good player, Max decides. Systematic and sure of himself. Perhaps being a chess player is about that: the ability to see the whole or the space, the concentration. The fact is, Jorge can play a sequence of cannons with astonishing ease, as if he were able to calculate several shots in advance.

“I didn't know you were good at billiards as well.”

“Actually I'm not. Doing this isn't the same as playing against an opponent, off three cushions.”

Max walks over to the rack and chooses a cue.

“Shall we keep going for the highest run?” the young man suggests.

“If you want.”

Jorge nods and continues playing. With a series of smooth cue actions he shoots one cannon after another off one cushion, always contriving to leave the balls as close to each other as possible.

“It's a way of concentrating,” he says, without looking up from the table. “Of thinking.”

Max watches him, intrigued.

“How many shots can you see in advance?”

“How funny you should ask.” Keller smiles. “Is it that obvious?”

“I know nothing about chess, but I imagine it must be similar. Seeing moves or seeing cannons.”

“I can see at least three.” He points at the balls, the angles, and the cushions. “There and there, perhaps five.”

“Is billiards really similar to chess?”

“Not similar. But they do have things in common. Faced with each situation there are several possibilities. I try to determine how the balls will move, and make that happen. As with chess, it's a question of logic.”

“Is this how you train?”

“Training is too big a word for it. It helps me exercise my brain with the least amount of effort.”

Jorge stops after missing an easy cannon. It's clear he has done so out of politeness: the balls aren't very far apart. Max levels his cue and leans over the table; he shoots and the ivory balls gently collide. Five times the red ball rolls to and from the cushion, tracing a precise angle with each contact.

“You aren't bad yourself,” Jorge comments. “Have you played much?”

“A bit. More when I was young than now.”

Max has missed the sixth cannon. Keller chalks his cue and hunches over the table.

“Shall we play off three cushions?”

“All right.”

The balls collide more forcefully. Keller plays four cannons in a row. With the last, he deliberately places Max's cue ball in a difficult position.

“I knew your father.” Max studies the three balls carefully. “A long time ago. On the Riviera.”

“We didn't live with him for long. My mother got divorced quickly.”

Max gives the cue ball a sharp tap, sending it in the opposite direction to the others.

“When I met him you weren't born yet.”

Keller doesn't answer. He remains silent while Max makes a second cannon, and, faced with the difficulty of a third, chooses instead to leave his opponent's cue ball in an awkward position in a corner.

“Irina . . .” Max starts to say.

Keller, who is raising the butt of his cue for a piqué shot, pauses and looks at Max as though wondering how much he knows.

“Your mother and I go back a long way,” Max explains.

Keller moves his cue back and forth a few times, nearly touching the ball, as though hesitating to take the shot.

“I know,” he says. “Since Buenos Aires, with her previous husband.”

Finally he shoots, shakily, and misses. He gazes at the table for a moment before turning toward Max, sullenly. As though holding him responsible for his blunder.

“I don't know what my mother has told you about Irina.”

“Very little . . . or just enough.”

“She must have her reasons. But as far as I'm concerned, it's none of her business. Just as your conversations with my mother are no concern of mine.”

“I didn't mean to . . .”

“Of course. I know you didn't mean to.”

Max studies Keller's hands: long, slender fingers. The nail on his index fingers slightly rounded like his.

“When you were a boy, did she . . .”

Keller raises his cue, interrupting him.

“May I be frank with you, Max? My whole future is in the balance here. I have problems of my own, both professional and personal. And suddenly you come on the scene, someone my mother had never spoken to me about. And with whom, for reasons I'm unaware of, she has an unexpected rapport.”

Keller leaves his last words hanging in the air, and looks at the
billiard table as if he has just remembered it is there. Max picks up the red ball, absentmindedly feeling the weight of in his hand, before replacing it where it was.

“Has she told you nothing about me?”

“Very little: an old friend, from the tango days . . . that sort of thing. I have no idea whether you were lovers or not back then. But I know her, and I know when someone is special to her. It doesn't happen often.” Although it isn't his turn, Keller leans over the table and strikes the cue ball. It rebounds off three cushions before producing a perfect cannon. “The day my mother bumped into you, she was awake all night. I could hear her pacing up and down. . . . The next morning, her bedroom reeked of tobacco, and the ashtrays were full of cigarette ends.”

The ivory balls kiss gently. Concentrating, Keller tosses his hair back, slides the cue along his hand on the baize, then shoots again. He never gets agitated, Mecha told Max the last time they spoke about him. He has no negative emotions and doesn't know what it is to feel sad. All he does is play chess. And that he gets from you, Max, not from me.

“You can understand my misgivings,” the young man says. “I've got more than enough on my plate at the moment.”

“Listen. I never meant to . . . I'm simply a guest here. This is an extraordinary coincidence.”

Keller appears not to be listening. He is studying the cue ball, which has ended up in an awkward position.

“I don't mean to be rude. You're a nice enough guy. Everybody likes you. And as I said, albeit in a roundabout way, my mother seems very fond of you. But there's something that doesn't convince me. Something I don't like.”

The shot, hard this time, gives Max a start. The balls scatter all over the place, striking the cushions and ending up in an impossible position.