The Flanders Panel

The headlights of a car lit up a telephone booth. Julia scrabbled for some coins in her bag, moving as if in a dream. Mechanically, her drenched hair dripping into the earpiece, she dialled the numbers of Cesar and Munoz without getting a reply. She leaned her head against the glass and placed between her lips, numb with cold, a damp cigarette. Standing with her eyes closed, she let the smoke curl about her until the tip began to burn the skin between her fingers and she dropped it. As the rain beat down monotonously, she knew, with a disconsolate feeling of infinite tiredness, that this was only a fragile truce, which could not protect her from the cold, the lights and the shadows.

She had no idea how long she stood there. At one point she put the coins in the telephone again and dialled a number, Munoz’s this time. When she heard his voice, she seemed to come slowly to her senses, as if returning from a long journey, a journey through time and herself. With a serenity that grew as she spoke, she explained what had happened. Munoz asked what the card said, and she told him: B x P, bishop takes pawn. There was silence at the other end of the line. Then Munoz, in a strange voice she’d never heard before, asked where she was. When she told him, he said she was not to move; he’d be there as soon as possible.

Fifteen minutes later, a taxi drew up by the telephone booth, and Munoz opened the door and told her to get in. Julia ran out into the rain and dived into the car. As the taxi drove off, Munoz removed her soaked raincoat and placed his own around her shoulders.

“What’s going on?” she asked, shivering.

“You’ll find out soon enough.”

“What does bishop takes pawn mean?”

The fleeting lights outside slid across Munoz’s frowning face.

“It means,” he said, “that the black queen is about to take another piece.”

Julia blinked, stunned by this news. She grasped Munoz’s hand with her two frozen hands and looked at him in alarm.

“We must warn Cesar.”

“We’ve still got time,” replied Munoz.

“Where are we going?”

“To Penjamo. One j two aitches.”

It was still raining heavily when the taxi pulled up outside the chess club. Munoz opened the door without letting go of Julia’s hand.

“Come on,” he said.

She followed him meekly up the steps to the hall. There were still a few players at the tables, but Cifuentes, the director, was nowhere in sight. Munoz led her straight to the library. There, amongst trophies and diplomas, were glass-fronted shelves lined with a few hundred books. Letting go of Julia’s hand, he slid open one of the glass doors and took down a fat leatherbound volume. On the spine, in gold letters darkened by use and time, a puzzled Julia read: Chess Weekly. Fourth quarter. The year was illegible.

Munoz put the book on the table and turned the yellowing pages of cheap paper. Chess problems, analyses of games, information about tournaments, old photographs of smiling winners in white shirt, tie and suits and haircuts of the period. He stopped at a double-page spread of photographs.

“Look at them carefully,” he told Julia.

She bent over the photos. They were of poor quality and all showed groups of chess players posed for the camera. Some held cups or certificates. She read the headline: SECOND JOSE RAUL CAPABLANCA NATIONAL TROPHY.

“I don’t understand,” she murmured.

Munoz pointed at one of the photos. In the group of boys, two were holding small trophies; the other four were staring solemnly at the camera. At the bottom of the photo were the words: FINALISTS IN THE JUNIOR LEAGUE.

“Do you recognise anyone?” asked Munoz.

Julia studied the faces one by one. Only a face on the far right seemed faintly familiar. It belonged to a boy of fifteen or sixteen. His hair was brushed back and he was wearing a jacket and tie and a black armband on his left arm. He was looking at the camera with calm, intelligent eyes, in which she thought she could see a glint of defiance. Then she recognised him. When she pointed at him with her finger, her hand was shaking, and when she looked up at Munoz, he nodded.

“Yes,” he said, “that’s our invisible player.”

XIV Drawing-room Conversation

“I found it only because I was looking for it.”

“What? You mean you were expecting to find it?”

“I thought it not unlikely.”

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

The light on the stairs wasn’t working, and they went up in the dark, Munoz first, guiding himself with his hand on the banister. When they reached the landing, they stood in silence, listening. They heard no sound inside, but there was a line of light beneath the door. Julia couldn’t see her companion’s face in the darkness, but she knew Munoz was looking at her.