Grandmaster (37 page)

He turned toward the door, then stopped and pulled the dirty brown paper from his jacket. "I nearly forgot. Here's something that belongs to you." He held it out at arm's length. Justin made no move to take it. Starcher unwrapped the package gingerly and spilled the contents into Justin's lap. For the first time, Justin's head moved.

He stared at the glittering thing nestled in the space between his chest and his indrawn legs. Finally, his thin arms moving as awkwardly as the wings of a newly hatched bird, he picked it up and put the chain around his neck.

"Well, that's something, anyhow," Starcher said. "Good luck to you, Justin." He closed the door behind him gently and walked off the boat, nodding silently to Dr. Tauber as he passed.

Justin Gilead coughed. For a moment, the dim half-light that had surrounded him for as long as he could remember exploded in a frenzy of color and motion. His breath came in violent, ragged gasps. Sweat poured off him, trembling at the tips of his shaking fingers. His eyes opened wide in horror. The pain was horrible, a searing, powerful force that hollowed his body and set his senses on fire.

Hail to thee, O Wearer of the Blue Hat

He was floating. He was somewhere long ago, in a faraway mountain lake, guided by a strong hand to a sacred mountain, and in his soul surged the power of a thousand generations, calling to him amid the sweet scent of almonds.

Hail to Thee

O Patanjali, the pain of this body is too great

Wearer of the Blue Hat

I am not worthy

Hail to thee

Not worthy

Not worthy

And past was present and present was future and what had been was what now was and would always be. The circle was forming again, and Justin screamed with the agony of it.

"Help me," he whispered.

Hail to thee ...

"Help me, Tagore!"

I warned you that you, above all others, would suffer,
came a voice from deep within him
. That among all men, only you would find no solace in this world.

"I am not the one you sought!" Justin cried out. "I have failed again and again. I have destroyed myself and everyone who was dear to me. I have even killed you, my father." He sobbed. "I am finished. I cannot live in this place. Let me die. Let me go to the fires of hell, but let me die now."

You are not finished. You have not yet begun
, the voice said
. Follow him who awakens you, for it is he who shows you the path toward your destiny.

"I have no destiny!" Justin screamed. "I have lost my youth. I have lost my health, my strength, my will. I cannot do anything now."

You have waited, O Patanjali. You have waited for the moment when you could face again the Prince of Death, for the moment when you alone could save mankind from his evil.

"I can save no one," Justin said weakly. "It is too late for me."

It is not too late.
And then the voice came again, Tagore's voice coming to him through the thick film of death and despair:

It is not too late. It is time.

It is time.

It is time.

 

J
ustin became aware that his face was pressed
to the wood floor. His fingernails, broken and bloody, left long streaks where they had scrabbled in Justin's pain.

Had he spoken? Or was this just another madness in a life filled with insanity?

He sat up. The darkness beckoned to him. Like a woman, it caressed him in its soft, forgetful embrace.

Come back, Justin, You're safe here. Pick up your terrors, your old friends, and come back…

But he could never go back. The scent of almonds was too strong, and the medallion, burning like a sun against his chest, filled him with light.

Starcher turned when he heard the old woman scream.

"Justin! Come back! Stop him, somebody. He doesn't know what he's doing!"

Starcher's face contorted in pity at the sight of Justin, withered to skin and bone, walking stiff-legged and bent up the pier. Some men abandoned their work on their boats to stop him.

"Starcher," he shouted, his voice thin and weak.

Starcher ran toward him. "Leave him alone," he said, disentangling Justin from strange hands that held him. Dr. Tauber came running forward, but Starcher silenced her with a glance.

"What is it?" Starcher asked.

Gilead struggled to speak. "Take me with you." Painfully he pulled himself up to his full height. "You owe me a favor, remember?" His voice was soft, almost inaudible. "I told you long ago I would ask for it."

Starcher looked the man over. From what he could see, Gilead wouldn't last out the week. But a promise was a promise. "Zharkov's going to Cuba to play chess," Starcher said.

A look of profound relief passed over Justin's face. "So am I."

Dr. Tauber could restrain herself no longer. She blurted out, "But why, Justin? It's been so long."

"Yes. Why?" echoed Starcher.

Justin Gilead raised his head slowly. His face was far older than its years, the skin ravaged and gray, the thick black hair now matted and long and streaked with white at the temples. But the clear, cold eyes held Starcher's with the same inexplicable authority they had possessed a decade and a half ago.

"Because it is time," he said.

 

 

S
tarcher drove southward until the megalithic
skyline of New York City was well behind him before he spoke.

"We'll get you to a doctor."

The dirty, half-conscious passenger next to him lifted his head weakly. "No doctor," Justin said.

"Don't be ridiculous. You need—"

"No doctor. You can get me ready."

Starcher took out a cigar. He smiled as he crackled the cellophane wrapper between his fingers. "For what?"

"For Cuba."

"Now? In the condition you're in?" Starcher lit the cigar. "You've got to be joking."

Justin leaned back in the seat. His eyes closed slowly, then opened again. "Stop."

"What's the matter?" Starcher asked, pulling off the road in a skid.

"I need water."

"Oh, Jesus." Starcher sighed. "Look, just hold still, all right? I'll pull over at a gas station somewhere."

Justin wrapped his bony hand around Starcher's. "Here," he said quietly. He got out of the car and walked stiffly over a debris-covered embankment toward a river.

Starcher puffed angrily on his cigar, thinking that Justin would come back even filthier than he already was. He checked his watch. It was 3:15. He found a station on the radio that played big band music from the forties.

Those were the days. Before the infirmities of age and guilt. Before the Grandmaster came into his life.

Justin Gilead had come back to Starcher, the son he had fed to the dogs. He had come back to show Starcher what he had done to him. He came back dead, in order to rot in Starcher's arms. It all ends badly, he thought. There's no good way to get old, any more than there's a good way to die. But at least Kael and the other idiots at Langley didn't know about Justin, couldn't arrest him as a Communist agent. "Ruby" was playing on the radio, and Starcher closed his eyes and remembered Jennifer Jones.

A horn blew, and a wave of thunder seemed to roll over Starcher. He awoke, terrified, to see one sixteen-wheeler passing another and blaring its horn in salute. "Ruby" was no longer playing. He checked his watch. It was nearly 3:30. Justin had not returned.

He got out of the car and walked hastily toward the river. The embankment was a disgusting sight, with broken bottles and scraps of paper and fly-covered food everywhere. The river itself was a slick, filthy mess, its Plasticene surface broken only by a few soda cans bobbing in the foamy scum near the water's edge. Justin was nowhere in sight.

"Gilead!" he called. "Justin!" He walked downstream, picking his way through the trash and the trees with their blackened, soot-heavy leaves. "Justin!"

There was no answer. It was 3:36.

Some children trying to set fire to some rags in a bottle whispered excitedly to one another when he approached.

"Did you see another man come by here?" Starcher asked. "Or in the water? Did you see anyone swimming?"

The boys quickly pulled down their pants, waved their exposed cheeks, and darted off, giggling. One waited long enough to say, "A man went in. But he didn't come out. I watched."

It was 3:41.

Starcher felt his heart thumping. "Justin!" he shouted. But he knew it was no use shouting anymore. The man had come back to life only to drown before the day's end. Starcher climbed, wheezing, back to the car, put on his hazard lights, and waited for the police.

From the top of the embankment, he saw something emerge from the river. "Jesus Christ," he muttered and clambered out of the car.

It was 3:47.

"Where in hell were you?" he shouted, stumbling toward Gilead.

"I was underwater."

"For half a fucking hour?"

"Was it so long?" Justin smiled. "I missed it."

Starcher gaped. "You didn't stay under all that time." He turned away, then turned back to face Justin. "Did you?"

Justin took a deep breath. His eyes were sparkling.

"What are you so happy about? I almost had heart failure looking for you, you crazy middle-aged fool."

"I thought it was all gone," Justin said quietly.

"What was? What are you talking about?"

Justin looked at him for a moment as if appraising the old man. Finally he picked up two rocks the size of baseballs and held one in each hand, weighing them, flexing his fingers around them.

"Come on, let's get back to the car," Starcher said. "We've still got a long..."

But Justin's eyes were turned inward. His breathing was deep and fast. The rocks trembled in his hands.

"Justin..."

He brought his hands together. The motion was so swift that a sound like a thunderclap issued from them. The cars on the roadway slowed down. One swerved, grazed a guardrail, and lumbered on.

As Justin released his hands, a fine spray of dust shot upward into the air like a fountain.

Starcher's mouth hung open in astonishment.

"That's what I have inside me," Justin said.

Starcher tossed away his long-extinguished cigar. He felt as if he were seeing Justin Gilead for the first time. "You did stay underwater all that time."

"I did."

Starcher sighed and got into the car. "You're not anything like the rest of us, are you ?"

Justin looked over, his eyes weary and sad. "No," he said.

 

 

T
here were seven weeks remaining until the chess match in Havana.

Justin's transformation began immediately. He exercised from five in the morning until noon, ate ravenously, then ran. Within two weeks, he increased his distance from a quarter-mile to fifteen miles. In the evenings, he lifted weights in Starcher's basement, devoured the books in Starcher's library, and played chess until the small hours of the morning. He slept little, and was up at five the next morning.

Starcher often watched him from the kitchen window. The house was small, in contrast to his family's other holdings, sparsely furnished and with the vaguely shabby air of a bachelor's quarters. He had never thought of it as anything but a place to sleep at night when he worked at Langley, but now, with Justin's presence, things changed. The strange young man who shared Starcher's days was inexplicably coming to life again, like a dead plant suddenly blossoming through its withered brown husk. Justin was still bone thin, still uncommunicative and alien, but the bones were being strapped over with hard flesh, and something inside him seemed to be expanding, releasing, energizing.

What is he?
Starcher wondered for the thousandth time. The Company had missed the opportunity of a lifetime in not training Gilead while he was still young. Even now, at forty-one, after four full years of privation and suffering, he was astonishing. The hollowed sockets around his joints had begun to fill out, and the wasted appearance of his face had changed, focused, intensified.

Maybe this is enough, Starcher thought. A man who had been ready to give in to whatever strange demons possessed him was healthy again. This had been Starcher's gift to the young man who had once come, earnest and gifted, to him, and whom he had sent to be slaughtered in Poland.

But there was more. Justin Gilead was more of a man than most, but somehow also less. He had no concept of casual conversation. He evinced no desire to leave the small house near Langley to seek more stimulating company. Yet he could crush rocks in his bare hands. Starcher had seen him swim underwater for thirty minutes without coming up for air. He always slept out of doors, on a path of gravel. He could catch butterflies in his hands. When he walked, he made no sound.

He was, Starcher imagined, like a sleeping giant now awake, his body aged inexorably into middle age, but with some extraordinary spirit within him just beginning to kindle to youthful life.

And when that spark was in full blaze, Starcher knew, its light would be dazzling.

Starcher got the impression that Gilead was merely tolerating him, putting up with him as a means to an end. That end was Zharkov. Justin seemed to give his total attention to the retired CIA officer only when they talked about the trip to Cuba.

Gilead's air was cool, as if Starcher and not he were the houseguest, and during their conversations Starcher usually wound up displaying his annoyance.

"Have you figured out how I'm getting to Cuba?" Justin asked matter-of-factly, as he did every morning.

"Have you figured out how you're getting on the American chess team?" Starcher countered.

"Don't worry about that. I'll get on the team."

"Why aren't you doing anything about it now?" Starcher asked.

"You know why. If I do anything too soon, your friends at Langley will get wind of it and find out that I'm still alive. Since they've decided that everybody who ever lived is a Russian spy, they'd be coming after me with an armed posse. I've got to do it at the last minute. How will I get into Cuba?"