The Flanders Panel

She switched off the light and sat on the carpet in front of the Van Huys, seeing the people in the picture in her imagination and hearing the distant rumble of the tides of their lives washing around the game of chess that had lasted throughout time and space and still continued to be played – like the slow, implacable mechanism of a clock that has defied the centuries – a game whose outcome no one could foresee. Then she forgot about everything – about Menchu, about her nostalgia for time past – and instead felt a now familiar shiver run through her, a shiver of fear, which was also obscurely, unexpectedly consoling. A kind of morbid expectancy. Like when she was a child and sat curled up against Cesar to hear a new story. Perhaps Captain Hook had nor disappeared into the mists of the past after all. Perhaps now he was simply playing chess instead.

When she woke up, Menchu was still asleep. She dressed with a minimum of noise, left a set of keys on the table and went out, carefully locking the door behind her. It was almost ten o’clock, and the rain had given way to a murky mix of fog and smog that blurred the grey outlines of the buildings and made the cars driving along seem ghostly, the reflections from their headlights fragmenting on the asphalt into infinite points of light that wove an atmosphere of luminous unreality about her as she walked along with her hands in the pockets of her raincoat.

Belmonte received her in his wheelchair, in the room with the mark left by the Van Huys. The inevitable Bach was playing on the gramophone and Julia wondered, as she took the dossier out of her bag, if the old man put it on deliberately each time she visited. He expressed regret at the absence of Munoz, the mathematician-cum-chess-player, as he called him with an irony that did not go unnoticed, and carefully read the report Julia had brought, which gave ail the historical facts about the painting, Munoz’s final conclusions regarding the enigma of Roger de Arras, photographs of the different phases of the restoration work and the colour brochure, just printed by Claymore’s, giving details of the painting and the auction. He gave occasional satisfied nods and sometimes glanced up at Julia before immersing himself once more in the report.

“Excellent,” he said when he’d finished and closed the dossier. “You’re a remarkable young woman.”

“It wasn’t just me. As you know, a lot of people have worked on this… Paco Montegrifo, Menchu Roch, Munoz…” She hesitated. “We also consulted art experts.”

“You mean the late Professor Ortega?”

Julia looked at him, disconcerted.

“I didn’t know you knew about that.”

The old man gave a sly smile.

“Well, as you see, I do. When his body was found, the police got in touch with my niece, her husband and me. An inspector came to see me; I don’t remember his name… He had a big moustache and he was fat.”

“His name is Feijoo, Inspector Feijoo.” Julia looked away, embarrassed. Damn, she thought, useless bloody police. “But you didn’t say anything about this last time I was here.”

“I was waiting for you to tell me. If you didn’t, I assumed you must have your reasons.”

There was a note of reserve in his voice, and Julia understood that she was on the point of losing an ally.

“I thought… I mean, I’m sorry, really I am… I was afraid I might upset you with such news. After all, you…”

“Do you mean because of my age and my state of health?” Belmonte clasped his bony freckled hands over his stomach. “Or were you concerned that it might influence the fate of the painting?”

Julia shook her head, not knowing what to say. Then she smiled and shrugged, with an air of confused sincerity which, as she perfectly well knew, was the only response that would satisfy the old man.

“What can I say?” she murmured, sure that she’d hit the target when Belmonte also smiled, accepting the climate of complicity she was offering him.

“Don’t worry. Life is difficult and human relationships even more so.”

“I can assure you mat…”

“You don’t have to assure me about anything. We were talking about Professor Ortega. Was it an accident?”

“I think so,” Julia lied. “At least, so I understand.”

The old man looked at his hands. It was impossible to know whether he believed her or not.

“It’s still terrible… don’t you think?” He gave her a long, serious look in which vague disquiet was apparent. “That sort of thing, by which I mean death, always shocks me a little. And at my age it ought to be the other way round. It’s odd how, against all logic, one clings to life in inverse proportion to the quantity of life one has left to look forward to.”