The Flanders Panel

“Inside, I believe that I can win, that if I decided to win, I wouldn’t lose a single game. But I’m my own worst enemy.” He touched the end of his nose, tilting his head slightly to one side. “I read something once: man was not born to solve the problem of the world, merely to discover where the problem lies. Perhaps that’s why I don’t attempt to solve anything. I immerse myself in the game for the game’s sake and sometimes when I look as if I were studying the board, I’m actually daydreaming. I’m pondering different moves, with different pieces, or I go six, seven or more moves ahead of the move my opponent is considering.”

“Chess in its purest state,” said Cesar, who seemed genuinely, albeit reluctantly, impressed.

“I don’t know about that,” Munoz said. “But the same thing happens to many other people I know. The games can last for hours, during which time, family, problems, work, all get left behind, pushed to one side. That’s common to everyone. What happens is that while some see it as a battle they have to win, others, like myself, see it as an arena rich in fantasy and spatial combinations, where victory and defeat are meaningless words.”

“But before, when you were talking to us about a battle between two philosophies, you were talking about the murderer, about our mystery player,” said Julia. “This time it seems that you are interested in winning. Is that right?”

Munoz’s gaze again drifted off to some indeterminate point in space.

“I suppose it is. Yes, this time I do want to win.”

“Why?”

“Instinct. I’m a chess player, a good one. Someone is trying to provoke me, and that forces me to pay close attention to the moves he makes. The truth is, I have no choice.”

Cesar smiled mockingly, lighting one of his special gold-filter cigarettes.

“Sing, O Muse,” he recited, in a tone of festive parody, “of the fury of our grieving Munoz, who, at last, has resolved to leave his tent. Our friend is finally going to war. Until now he has acted only as an outside observer, so I’m pleased at last to see him swear allegiance to the flag. A hero malgre lui, but a hero for all that. It’s just a shame,” a shadow crossed his smooth, pale brow, “that it’s such a devilishly subtle war.”

Munoz looked at Cesar with interest.

“It’s odd you should say that.”

“Why?”

“Because chess is, in fact, a substitute for war and for something else as well. I mean for patricide.” He looked at them uncertainly, as if asking them not to take his words too seriously. “Chess is all about getting the king into check, you see. It’s about killing the father. I would say that chess has more to do with the art of murder than it does with the art of war.”

An icy silence chilled the air around the table. Cesar was looking at Munoz’s now sealed lips, screwing up his eyes a little, as if troubled by the smoke from his cigarette. His look was one of frank admiration, as if Munoz had just opened a door that hinted at unfathomable mysteries contained within.

“Amazing,” he murmured.

Julia seemed equally mesmerised by Munoz. However mediocre and insignificant he might appear, this man with his large ears and his timid, rumpled air knew exactly what he was talking about. In the mysterious labyrinth, even the idea of which made men tremble with impotence and fear, Munoz was the only one who knew how to interpret the signs, the only one who possessed the keys that allowed him to come and go without being devoured by the Minotaur. And there, sitting before the remains of her barely touched lasagne, Julia knew with a mathematical, almost a chess player’s certainty that, in his way, this man was the strongest of the three of them. His judgment was not dimmed by prejudices about his opponent, the mystery player and potential murderer. He considered the enigma with the same egotistical, scientific coldness that Sherlock Holmes used to solve the problems set him by the sinister Professor Moriarty. Munoz would not play that game to the end out of a sense of justice; his motive was not ethical, but logical. He would do it simply because h: was a player whom chance had placed on this side of the chessboard, just as – and Julia shuddered at the thought -it could have placed him on the other side. Whether he played White or Black, she realised, was a matter of complete indifference to him. All that mattered to him was that, for the first time in his life, he was interested in playing a game to the end.

Her eyes met Cesar’s and she knew he was thinking the same thing. It was he who spoke first, in a low voice, as if fearing, as she did, to extinguish the light in Munoz’s eyes.

“Killing the king…” Cesar put the cigarette holder slowly to his lips and inhaled a precise amount of smoke. “That’s very interesting. I mean the Freudian interpretation of the game. I had no idea chess had anything to do with such unpleasant things.”

Munoz, his head slightly to one side, seemed absorbed in his own thoughts.