The Flanders Panel

She looked at him out of the corner of her eye before replying. He seemed interested, in a vague way, but not offended. He was gazing absently at the empty street ahead of them, his hands in his raincoat pockets and his collar turned up.

“I thought you might prefer not to get involved.”

“I see.”

As they turned the corner they were greeted by a noisily churning refuse collector, and Munoz helped her squeeze past the empty bins.

“What do you think you’ll do now?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Finish the restoration work, I suppose. And write a long report about its history. Thanks to you, I might even get to be a bit famous.”

Munoz was listening distractedly, as if his thoughts were elsewhere.

“What’s happening with the police investigation?”

“Assuming there was a murderer, they’ll find him eventually. They always do.”

“Do you suspect anyone?”

Julia burst out laughing.

“Good heavens, no!” She frowned as she considered the possibility. “At least I hope not.” She looked at Munoz. “I imagine that investigating a crime that might not be a crime is very like what you did with the picture.”

Munoz’s lips curved into a half-smile.

“It’s all a question of logic, I suppose,” he replied. “And that might be something that’s common to both chess players and detectives.” Julia couldn’t tell if he was serious or only joking. “Apparently Sherlock Holmes played chess.”

“Do you read detective novels?”

“No. Although the books I do read are somewhat like that.”

“What for example?”

“Books on chess, of course. As well as books on mathematical puzzles, logic problems, things like that.”

They crossed the deserted avenue. When they reached the opposite pavement, Julia gave her companion another furtive glance. He didn’t look like a man of extraordinary intelligence, and she doubted that things had gone well for him in life. Walking along with his hands in his pockets, his rumpled shirt collar showing and his large ears protruding above his old raincoat, he looked exactly like what he was, an obscure office worker, whose only escape from mediocrity was what chess offered him, a world of combinations, problems and solutions. The oddest thing about him was the gleam in his eyes that was quite simply extinguished the moment he looked away from a chessboard, and his way of bowing his head as if he had a heavy weight on the back of his neck, tilting his head forwards, perhaps to allow the outside world to slip by without encroaching on him any more than was absolutely necessary. He reminded her a little of the pictures of prisoners of war she’d seen in old documentaries, trudging along with their heads down. He had the unmistakable air of someone defeated before the battle has even started, of someone who, when he opens his eyes each morning, awakens only to failure.

Yet there was something else. When Munoz was explaining a move, following the twisted thread of the plot, there was in him a fleeting spark of something solid, even brilliant. As if, appearances to the contrary, there was in him the pulse of some extraordinary talent, logical, mathematical or whatever, that lent a certain assurance and undeniable authority to his words and gestures.

She realised that she knew nothing about him except that he played chess and was an accounts clerk. But it was too late now to get to know him better. His task was over and they would be unlikely to meet again.

“We’ve had an odd sort of relationship,” she said.

“In chess terms, it’s been a perfectly normal relationship,” he replied. “Two people, you and me, brought together for the duration of a game.” He smiled again in that diffuse way that meant nothing. “Call me if you ever want another game.”

“You baffle me,” she said spontaneously, “you really do.”

He looked at her, surprised, not smiling any more.

“I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I.” Julia hesitated slightly, unsure of her ground. “You seem to be two different people, so shy and withdrawn sometimes, with a kind of touching awkwardness. But as soon as anything to do with chess comes up, you’re astonishingly assured.”

“So?” His face inexpressive, Munoz seemed to be waiting for the rest of her argument.

“Well, that’s it really,” she stammered, a bit embarrassed by her lack of discretion. “I suppose all this is slightly absurd at this hour of the morning. I’m sorry.”

He had a prominent Adam’s apple, visible above the unbuttoned neck of his shirt, and he was in need of a good shave. His head was tilted slightly to the left, as if he were considering what she’d just said. But he didn’t seem in the least bewildered.