Theory of Shadows, page 12
* * *
AT THAT HE woke up. The waves, now higher, crashed against a rocky outcropping. A bit of spray reached Alekhine’s sun-reddened face. Suddenly, the form of a man loomed in front of him, obscuring the sun; backlit, his face was dark. The indistinct figure, appearing out of the blue, struck Alekhine as ominous, and when the man bent over him, he feared for his life and raised his hands to his chest, palms out, in a defensive gesture. Only then did he hear the sound of a familiar, reassuring voice.
“Alexandre, what’s happened to you?”
“It’s you, David, thank God.”
Neumann reached down and helped him up.
“Did you feel ill?”
“I have a bad heart, David.”
Alekhine was confused and embarrassed. He looked into his friend’s face and thought he saw a look of reproach and pity. That was enough. He didn’t need to add anything more. Alekhine knew all too well that he needed to put an end to his intemperances.
They returned to the hotel in silence. He was relieved to see that the boys were gone, and that the ocean had sucked the marine monster back into its belly. Alekhine leaned on his friend’s shoulder. He who abhorred any physical contact, even a handshake, at that moment of utter depletion took a vague comfort in it. As they climbed back up the stairs, he stopped several times to catch his breath.
As soon as they reached the lobby, the chef came to meet them. It was the first time he’d made an appearance. He was short, plump enough to represent his profession credibly, and wore a starched white toque on his head.
“Dr. Alekhine,” he exclaimed, waving his hands about excitedly, “tonight there will be a dinner in your honor. Such exquisite delights, you’ll see! And such wines!”
Recalling the putrid remains of the marine monster, Alekhine could not suppress a look of revulsion, and the chef, who had not missed it, hastened to add: “Of course, I am aware of your tastes. You’ll sample cuts of select prime meats, savor my filet of beef Stroganoff, and then the desserts: crema catalana, and even a rich torte.”
“Don’t say another word,” Alekhine cut in, “don’t ruin the whole surprise for me.” In fact, one more word would have been enough to turn his stomach.
Neumann accompanied him up to his room. He insisted on staying with his friend long enough to make sure Alekhine was completely recovered.
“So they’ve decided to throw me a party,” Alekhine said. Then, in silence, he took the envelopes with the newspaper clippings from the shelf and emptied their contents on the table.
“Someone slipped these under my door.”
Neumann glanced at the articles. Finally, his attention lingered on the cover of the Deutsche Schachzeitung portraying Alekhine with Goebbels and Frank. The photo must have made a deep impression on him: he couldn’t take his eyes off it.
“So it’s all true, what they say about you,” he murmured.
Alekhine lowered his head in a gesture of infinite despair. Neumann seemed to have turned to stone. Something remote, like the mark of an ancient, noble lineage, showed in his features. That expression, hurt and stunned at the same time, reminded Alekhine of the face of an old man he had seen in Warsaw five years before, a sight that left an indelible impression in his mind. He had run across the man along a bridge over the Vistula, being forcibly dragged off by two young men in uniform, little more than adolescents: a small Jew with a long gray beard, the collar of his jacket tattered, his glasses, with their thick, convex lenses, hanging crookedly on his face. As the old man tried to free an arm to straighten them, the younger of the two boys, with a punch to the back of his neck, sent his hat and glasses flying into the murky waters below. Seeing a boy strike a defenseless old man—an act so abominable, so contrary to human nature—Alekhine had wanted to intervene, but at the last moment his courage failed him and he stepped aside, raising his outstretched arm in a salute. It was a memory of which he was not proud; it epitomized the extreme weakness of his character.
“Believe me, David, I had to do it: my wife’s life was at stake, and mine as well. As for me, I did nothing wrong, all I did was play chess.”
“For their glory…” Neumann said, a profound bitterness in his voice.
“Those games are still my games, even though I was forced to play under their flag.”
Neumann put the photograph back on the table and walked to the window, where he looked out into the distance.
“What are you thinking, David?”
Neumann hesitated. Then he began speaking in a low voice, barely audible.
“I was on tour in America when I learned of the deportations in Belgium. At the time, I had to direct an orchestral piece for wind and string instruments. It was one of my own compositions, inspired by Schumann’s Davidsbündler, music that I have lost all interest in performing since then. While I was directing David’s march against the Philistines, the Hitlerjugend was marching on Europe. At night, though I woke up gripped by anxiety, it was not the fate of my family that concerned me, but that of my work, which was about to be performed for the first time. It didn’t occur to me that at that moment those dear to me might already have been arrested. Instead, my concern was that the entry of the flute be perfectly executed, and that the bassoon’s response be in sync with the oboe…”
He turned back to Alekhine, pale, his face suffused with grief.
“I believe that art has the power to make us forget everything, to turn us away from affections, from obligations, to make us exceedingly egoistic, obliterating any trace of love in us.” He rubbed his forehead. “I wonder,” Neumann continued, “if talent is a gift or a curse. I wonder why we have not been granted the prospect of reconciling art with life, why the two paths diverge to such an extent. But it is art and not life that fulfills our deepest desires. And we succumb to its lure. That is why, at times, I fear that there will be no redemption for us.” He waved a hand as if to chase away a troubling thought. “I think you should leave this place, Alexandre. There is a ship about to set sail from Lisbon for England.”
“I can’t leave yet,” Alekhine said. “I’m waiting for the official telegram from London.” He wanted to add that he didn’t have the money to pay for a ticket, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it.
“I’m sorry not to be able to attend your party. Tonight I’m busy with rehearsals for tomorrow’s concert. But I have already reserved an orchestra seat for you at the Teatro Nacional.”
“I will do everything I can to be there, I promise.”
“Now I really must go,” Neumann said. “They’ve already come to take my bags—they’re waiting down below. After the concert, I will embark on that ship.”
“You mean we won’t see each other again?”
“I’m counting on seeing you tomorrow night, sitting in the front row.”
Alekhine walked him to the door. In the doorway, they both hesitated for a moment, then embraced awkwardly, like two people unaccustomed to such effusions.
“I will miss the music of your violin.”
“Take care of yourself, Alexandre,” Neumann said. It sounded like a farewell.
As soon as he closed the door, Alekhine felt the full weight of loneliness fall upon him. He returned to his armchair, to his chessboard. It felt as if a century had passed since the last time he had performed that ritual. The chess pieces seemed distant to him. Divested of their function, they were merely a jumble of useless figurines in carved wood. He could hardly bear to look at them. What strange evil spell had been cast over him? To counter this unusual apathy, he had to resort to his talisman: the Sèvres vase that had accompanied him throughout his life. He stood up, took it very carefully from its case, and for a long time held it in his hands—but he realized, to his dismay, that he felt no benefit from this contact. He still remembered the time when he had found it damaged, and how he had carefully saved the tiny fragment of porcelain, no bigger than the nail of his little finger, finally to entrust it to the hands of the finest ceramicist. Now not even the eye of an expert would notice the restoration. He walked over to the window to look at the vase in full light. For him, it represented the only real possibility of salvation.
But the moment always comes, he thought, when all our illusions fail, and with them every amulet that might protect us, that might still prove auspicious: talismans, formulas, prayers, sacred images … all of them. Death must be faced by ridding yourself of all this panoply: going without weapons, without shields or armor. Approaching death as naked as you were at birth.
After contemplating his Sèvres vase for the last time, Alekhine threw it firmly out the window.
XVIII.
IT IS NINE o’clock in the evening when Alekhine leaves his room. The dinner in his honor will be held in a private room, with a small number of guests, well apart from the noisy dance floor. The space has been decorated for the occasion: There are even festoons of colored paper suspended from the central chandelier. Flickering candelabras illuminate the table, laden with elegant blue porcelain plates and solid silver cutlery. A battery of crystal glasses of every shape and size heralds a satisfying tasting of fine wines.
His entry is greeted by applause. Seated at the table, in addition to the Correiras, Dom Enríquez, and Count De Carvajo, are several new faces, and some old acquaintances as well: Carlos Peres, Castaldo Branco, Virgilio Suares, Portuguese chess players he met several years before in Lisbon. Only Betty, the starlet, is missing, apparently stricken by a migraine. The unexpected welcome flatters him and fills him with pride. Senhor Correira makes a first toast, singing the praises of Alekhine’s eminence as a chess player. In the glow of the candelabras, the guests’ eyes light up with a strange gleam, as if in expectation of something more. In due time, Alekhine notices that Miss Ocampo is also among the guests, barely recognizable in an evening dress and elaborate hairdo.
The bombastic panegyric ends, and he realizes that they’re expecting a response from him. Alekhine abhors public speaking, and the only topic that he enjoys addressing is chess; he therefore responds briefly, thanking Correira for his words and urging everyone not to keep the waiters, who are ready to serve, waiting any longer.
* * *
THE TROLLEYS WITH the dishes are brought in: compliments must be paid to the chef’s inventiveness. These are truly artistic creations, fanciful structures composed of tangles of tentacles, slimy mollusks, and fish in a rainbow of colors. For Alekhine, however—as for a spoiled, picky child—only small morsels of steak tartare and carpaccio, accompanied by a fine selection of red wines—Aragonês, Touriga, Baga—flavorful, as strong as liqueurs. Behind him, a waiter stands ready to fill his glass as needed.
The sumptuous appetizer is savored in an almost ritual silence; then, as the waiters remove the dishes, someone from the end of the table asks him: “Dr. Alekhine, how many games have you played in your life?”
“I estimate having played more than fifty thousand.”
“Do you believe that to play chess well one must have a penchant for mathematics?”
“I don’t think a knowledge of mathematics is useful. Personally, I’m not at all inclined toward numbers.”
“And yet it is always a matter of exercising a capacity for calculation. How many moves do you have to be able to predict in advance?”
“Sometimes, in response to one of our moves, the opponent may be faced with a number of different possibilities, and we can, in turn, respond to each of these likely moves with a number of further moves … In which case, the combinations are too numerous and would require an infinite amount of time to be able to analyze one by one. So we must rely on our general sense of the position, and on instinct. When, however, instead of multiple options, the possibilities are reduced, then calculation becomes easier.”
“And how important is memory?”
“I remember thousands of games, from the first move to the last.”
Questions start pouring in from all sides. But he doesn’t feel at all uncomfortable: indeed, he’s found himself in similar situations many times, and even enjoys it.
Miss Ocampo, sitting not far from him on the other side of the table, also chimes in. “Dr. Alekhine, during our recent meeting I neglected to ask you if you’ve played with many women over the course of your career.”
“I have played with a number of women, including, of course, my last wife.”
“And do you think women have a proclivity for the game of chess?”
“I wouldn’t say so. I can say that my mother was a good player, but, generally speaking, no, they do not, and during my career I have known only one woman capable of competing at the highest levels: Vera Menchik.”
“How do you explain that? Maybe because chess is a simulation of war, and therefore of primarily masculine interest? Or is it perhaps a question of intelligence?”
“Of intelligence? Oh, not really. I think it is simply a matter of forma mentis.”
“Very interesting,” Correira joins in. “A biological view of chess, which could be extended to a broader field: the anthropological sphere. One may wonder why chess is more prevalent in the North than in the South, and why it arouses so much interest among certain peoples, and among others is completely ignored.”
“The cradle of chess was Russia,” Alekhine says without hesitation.
“There are some who say,” Correira goes on in an insinuating tone, “that the best chess players are Russian Jews. In second place would be non-Jewish Russians, then non-Russian Jews, and lastly everyone else, neither Russians nor Jews.”
“I could give you a long list of non-Jewish Russians who were true masters of our time.”
“Nevertheless, it’s thanks to the Jews who were persecuted and driven out of Russia, or forced into exile, that chess later became widespread in Central Europe and over the rest of the world. And over the course of your career, you’ve had occasion to encounter many Jews.”
“A great many.”
“In your opinion, do Jews therefore have a predisposition for chess?”
“That’s a thorny question,” Alekhine replies, unfazed. “After more than thirty years of experience, I can say that, yes, Jews have the practical skill to exploit the game, but up till now there hasn’t been a single Jew who has shown any artistic qualities.”
“Not even one?” Correira presses him.
Alekhine conceals a surge of impatience by asking the waiter to pour him some more wine, and then, looking directly at his questioner, says, “Lasker, perhaps, with his concept of ‘struggle.’ As a boy, I had boundless admiration for him. His comments on the games played at the St. Petersburg tournament in 1908 are a clear example of the profundity of his thinking. The tournament book was truly invaluable to me. Then, too, unlike some others, he had the decency not to come up with any outlandish theories, the way certain people did…”
“Dr. Alekhine,” Correira interrupts with cold determination in his voice, “several of your articles appeared in Nazi newspapers, in particular the Pariser Zeitung, in a series entitled ‘Aryan and Jewish Chess,’ whose subtitle implies that Jews lack courage and creativity.”
So, Alekhine thinks, here we go: the past is coming back.
“In those articles,” Correira continues, his tone increasingly sharp, “you claimed to demonstrate the superiority of the Aryan race over the Jews, and behind your words was an indisputable apologia for Nazism: no Jew is spared by you, not even Lasker. It is difficult to see how your supposedly genuine adoration for him could so suddenly have changed into an attitude of superiority, if not contempt. At one time you wrote: ‘Lasker was my teacher, the concept of chess as art would have been unthinkable without him.’ Then, overnight, you changed your mind. In the articles in question, you in fact maintained that with Lasker’s defeat the chess world was finally rid of the Jewish specter, and that this was to Capablanca’s credit.
“Now that the war is over, those same ideas have precluded the possibility of your participating in major international tournaments. A number of chess players—not all of them Jewish—have even threatened to withdraw should you enter a competition. And yet you admit that you wrote those articles yourself, isn’t that so? In your own words?”
“This is not the first time I’ve had to answer that question,” Alekhine replies, his voice firm. “I did not write them myself. Or, rather, I wrote them only in part. Later, without my knowledge, phrases and thoughts were inserted that were not mine, transforming a purely theoretical opinion into a highly defamatory statement, and completely distorting my thinking. I should point out that there was nothing offensive about the Jewish people in those original pages, and that my criticisms were instead directed against certain ideas spread by a small group of Jewish theoreticians who debased the art of chess, reducing it to mere theoretical exercise.”
