Rubem Fonseca - Winning the Game and Other Stories

“Why’re you listening to that awful noise? You look like you’re crazy,” Berta said. “Shall we continue the game?”

“I’m going to read the papers now,” I said.

“Shit,” Berta said, knocking the chessboard and pieces to the floor. An impulsive woman.

All the newspapers were on the night table. Young secretary killed in her car in the Barra. A bullet in the head. The victim still had her jewelry and documents. The police ruled out robbery. The victim was in the habit of going straight to work from her house and returning early. She didn’t go out much at night. No boyfriend. The neighbors said she was friendly and shy. Her parents said she would go to her room to read after coming home from work. She read a lot, her mother said, she liked poetry and novels, she was gentle and obedient, without her our life is empty, meaningless. The papers ran several photos of Marly, tall and thin, with long hair. Her expression seemed sad, or was that my imagination? I’m an incurable romantic.

Finally I went back to play with Berta. Playing Black, I opened with king’s pawn. Berta copied my move. I moved my knights, Berta following me, creating symmetrical positions that would bring victory to the more patient player, the one who made fewer mistakes, in other words Berta. I’m very nervous. I play chess to irritate myself, to blow up in camera; on the outside it’s too dangerous, I have to stay calm.

I tried to recall Capablanca’s game with Tarrash, St. Petersburg, 1914, which featured a four-knight opening and the springing of a terrible trap, but what trap was it? I couldn’t remember; my head was full of the biker at Gordon’s.

“It’s no use giving me that victorious gloating look,” I said, “I’m going to have to leave now.”

“Now? In the middle of the game? Again? You’re a coward, you know you’re going to lose so you run away.”

“That’s true. But besides that I have to see a client.”

Berta raised her arms and began to pin back her hair. A woman’s armpit is a masterpiece, especially when she’s thin and muscular like Berta. Her armpit also smells very nice, when she doesn’t use deodorant, that is. A sweet-and-sour odor that turns me on. She knows it.

“I’m meeting a motorcyclist at Gordon’s.”

“Ah, a motorcyclist.”

“There’s a Hitchcock at eleven on TV.”

“I don’t like television; I detest dubbed films,” Berta said in ill humor.

“Then study the Nimzovitch opening; it offers some good positional traps. I’ll be back soon.”

Berta said she’d wait for me, adding that I had no consideration for her, no respect.

When I stopped in front of Gordon’s, still in the car, I saw the biker. He was a short, husky young man with dark brown hair. He was arguing, insolently, with a girl. Her hair was so dark it looked dyed. Her face was very pale, unlike the suntanned girls who hung out at Gordon’s. Perhaps her pallor made her hair look darker and her hair in turn made her face look paler, which in turn—

While I amused myself with this proposition, thinking about the Quaker Oats I used to eat when I was a child—a Quaker holding a box of oatmeal that showed another Quaker holding a box of oatmeal, etc., ad infinitum—the girl got on the back of the motorcycle and they left quickly down Visconde de Pirajá. I couldn’t follow them; my car was blocked. I got out, went to the counter in Gordon’s, and ordered a coke and sandwich. I ate—slowly. I waited an hour. They didn’t return.

Berta was in bed asleep, the television on.

I called Cavalcante Meier.

“The apostle didn’t show up,” I said. There was no point telling what had happened.

“What are you going to do?” He spoke in a low voice, his mouth close to the phone. My clients always talk that way. It bothers me.

“Nothing. I’m going to bed. We’ll talk tomorrow.” I hung up.

I kissed Berta lightly on the lips. She woke up.

“Tell me you love me,” Berta said.

I woke up in the morning with an urge to have some Faísca. Berta didn’t like me to drink so early, but Portuguese wine does no harm at any time of day or night. I turned on the answering machine and found a message from Cavalcante Meier.

I called.

“Have you seen the papers?” Cavalcante Meier asked.

“I just got up,” I lied. “What time is it?”

“Noon. Have you read the papers? No, of course you haven’t yet. The police say they have a suspect.”

“They always have a suspect, who’s usually innocent.”

“Since I’m innocent, I may be the suspect, following your logic. Another thing. That guy Márcio called. He says he’s coming to my house this afternoon.”

“I’ll be there. Introduce me as your personal secretary.”

“What time did you start in on the wine?” Berta asked, coming into the living room.

I explained to her that Churchill used to get out of bed, have some champagne, smoke a few cigars, and win the war.

I read the papers, smoking a dark Suerdieck panatela. Marly’s death got a lot of space, but there was nothing new. No mention of a suspect.

I called Raul.

“That crime with the girl in the Barra. What’s the word on it?”

“Which girl? The one who was strangled, the one who got run over, the one shot in the head, the one—”

“Shot in the head.”

“Marly Moreira, the secretary at Cordovil Meier. My boys are on the case.”

“They say there’s a suspect. Know anything about it?”

“I’ll check it out.”

Cavalcante Meier lived in Gávea Pequena. I stopped the car at the gate and blew the horn. A private guard came out of the gatehouse. He wore a pistol in his belt and the look of someone who didn’t know how to use it. He opened the gate.

“Are you Dr. Paulo Mendes?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Go on in.”

“You ought to ask for some identification.”

Disconcerted, he fingered his kepi, then asked for my ID. These false professionals are everywhere these days.

I went up a tree-lined drive with bushes on both sides, over a well-kept lawn. English grass, without a doubt. The butler opened the door. He was as old as I had expected, with hate in his expression and a back bent from long years of licking boots. In his reverential voice he inquired my name and asked me to wait.

I paced back and forth in the marble vestibule. A large staircase led to the second floor. A young woman came down the stairs, a Dalmatian at her side. She had blond hair and was wearing jeans and a tight-fitting knit blouse. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. As she came up to me, she asked impersonally, “Are you waiting for someone?” Blue eyes.

“Mr. Cavalcante Meier.”

“Does Daddy know you’re here?” She looked through me as if I were made of glass.

“The butler went to tell him.”

Without another word, she turned her back, opened the door, and left, with the dog.

Once when I was a teenager I saw a beautiful woman walking down the street and fell instantly and overpoweringly in love. She came past me and we continued in opposite directions, me with my head turned, watching her walk away agile et noble, avec sa jambe de statue, until she was lost in the crowd. Then, on a despondent impulse, I turned around, away from that passerby, and banged my head against a lamppost.

I stood there looking at the door the girl had gone through, fingering the scar on my forehead, which time had not erased.

“Please come with me,” the butler said.

We went through an enormous room with a large round table in its center, surrounded by velvet chairs. Then another, with armchairs and large paintings on the walls.

Cavalcante Meier was waiting for me in his book-lined office.

“Who’s the girl with the dog?” I asked. “The pretty blonde.”