I Kill (4 page)

‘The loveliest joker I’ve ever met.’

‘Exactly! That’s why I’m so good at chess. I don’t take it seriously.’ And she disappeared again.

Jochen watched the reflection of the light on the deck as he heard the splash of the shower. He couldn’t wipe the smile off his face.

He’d met Arianna a few months earlier during the Brazilian Grand Prix, at a reception organized by one of the team’s sponsors, a sportswear manufacturer. He generally tried to avoid
those kinds of parties, especially just before a race, but this time it was a UNICEF benefit and he couldn’t refuse.

He had wandered through the rooms full of people, feeling uncomfortably elegant in a tuxedo so perfect you couldn’t tell it was just rented for the occasion. He was carrying a glass of
champagne that he couldn’t drink, with an expression of boredom that he couldn’t hide.

‘Do you always have so much fun, or are you exerting yourself?’

He had turned at the sound of the voice and found himself looking into Arianna’s green eyes. She was wearing a man’s tuxedo with the shirt open and no tie. There were white sneakers
on her feet. With her short dark hair she looked like an elegant Peter Pan. He’d seen her picture in the paper several times and immediately recognized Arianna Parker, the eccentric girl from
Boston who became famous by wiping the floor with the world’s greatest chess players. She had spoken to him in German and Jochen answered in the same language.

‘They offered to put me in front of a firing squad, but I had plans for the weekend so I chose this instead.’

He had nodded towards the room full of people. The girl’s smile widened and her amused look made Jochen feel like he’d just passed a test. She had held out her hand. ‘Arianna
Parker.’

‘Jochen Welder.’

He had wrapped his hand around hers and had known that the gesture had special meaning, that there was already something being said in the look they were exchanging. Only later would it be
explained in words. They were now outside on the large terrace, suspended over the quiet pulse of the Brazilian night.

‘How come you speak such good German?’

‘My father’s second wife, who happens to be my mother, is from Berlin. Luckily for me, she stayed married to him long enough to teach me,’ said Arianna

‘Why would a girl with such a beautiful face keep it bent over a chessboard for so many hours?’

‘Why,’ Arianna had retorted, raising an eyebrow and throwing the ball back at him, ‘would a man with such an interesting face keep it hidden in those soup pots you racing
drivers wear on your heads?’

Just then the big cheese from UNICEF who had organized the event had come over to request Jochen’s presence in the ballroom. He had left Arianna reluctantly and followed, determined to
answer her last question as soon as he could. Just before entering the room, he had turned back to look at her. She was standing near the balustrade watching him, one hand in her pocket. With a
complicit smile, she had raised her glass of champagne in his direction.

The next day, after the practice session at the circuit, he had gone to watch her in a tournament. His arrival had excited the audience and media people. The presence of Jochen Welder, a
two-time Formula 1 world champion, at a chess competition with Arianna Parker was no accident. No one had heard of his interest in chess before.

She was seated at the tournament table, separated from the judges and the public by a wooden barrier. She had turned her head in the direction of the disturbance caused by Jochen’s
entrance and, when she saw him, there was no change in her expression, as if she hadn’t recognized him. She had gone back to staring at the chessboard in front of her. Jochen admired her
intense concentration, her head bent low to study the arrangement of the pieces. That slight female figure was strange in a milieu that usually spoke the language of men. After that, Arianna had
made some inexplicable mistakes. He knew nothing about chess, but he could sense it from the remarks of the chess devotees crowded into the room. Suddenly, she had stood up and leaned her king on
the chessboard as a sign that she was conceding defeat. Without catching anyone’s eye, she had walked to the door at the back of the room. Jochen had tried to follow her, but she was already
gone.

The hectic hours of qualifying his car for Sunday’s Grand Prix kept him from seeking her out again. But he had spotted her in the pits, the morning of the race, right after the
drivers’ briefing. He was checking the changes in the car that he’d suggested to the mechanics right after the warm-up and her voice had surprised him, as it had at their first
meeting.

‘Well, I have to admit, your jumpsuit doesn’t look as good as your tux, but it’s certainly more colourful.’

He had turned and there she was in front of him, her huge green eyes shining, her hair half hidden by a beret. She was wearing a lightweight T-shirt with no bra and, like almost everyone else
around them, low-slung cargo shorts. A VIP pass was hanging around her neck, along with her sunglasses. He was so surprised that Alberto Regosa, his track engineer, had started teasing him.
‘Hey, Jochen, if you don’t close your mouth, you won’t be able to get your helmet on.’

‘Come on, let’s get out of here,’ he had said, and placed his hand on Arianna’s shoulder, answering her and his friend at the same time. ‘I’d introduce you
but there’s no point. He’ll be looking for a new job tomorrow anyway, so you won’t see him again.’

He had escorted the girl outside, and replied to the engineer’s wisecrack with his middle finger behind his back, as Alberto shamelessly stared at the girl’s legs in her shorts.

‘Honestly, you didn’t look so bad in a tux yourself, but I prefer this. There’s always a little doubt when a girl’s legs are hidden by pants.’

They had laughed, and then Jochen had given her a brief tour of the organized confusion that was the world of motor racing, all so unfamiliar to Arianna. He had explained who was who and what
was what, sometimes having to shout above the scream of the revving engines. When it was time to line up on the starting grid, he had asked her if she wanted to watch the race from the pits.
‘I’m afraid I have to put my soup pot on now, as you put it.’ He had said goodbye and left her in the care of Greta, the team’s PR rep.

He had slid into his seat and, as the mechanics strapped him in, he had looked up at her. Their eyes had spoken again through the slit in his helmet and it was a language that went far beyond
the emotion of the race. He was out of the race almost immediately, after only ten laps. He’d started well but then, when he was in fourth place, the rear suspension, the car’s weak
point, had suddenly given out, sending him into a spin at the end of a sharp curve to the left. He’d crashed into the armco, bouncing into the centre of the track and half destroying his
Klover Formula 109. He’d informed the team by radio that he was unscathed and returned on foot. As he got back to the pits he’d looked for Arianna but couldn’t find her. Only
after describing the accident to the team manager and technicians could he look for her again. He’d eventually found her in the motorhome, sitting next to Greta, who’d discreetly left
when he arrived. Arianna had stood up and put her arms around his neck.

‘I’ll accept the fact that your presence can make me lose a crucial game of an important tournament, but I think it’ll be harder to lose a year of my life every time you risk
yours.’ She looked gravely into his eyes. ‘But you can kiss me now, if you’d like . . .’

They had been together ever since.

Jochen lit a cigarette and stood on the deck alone in the twilight. As he smoked, he observed the lights along the coast. He’d dropped anchor not far from Cap Martin, at Roquebrune, to the
right of the large blue ‘V’ of the Vista Palace, the large hotel built on the peak of the mountain. It was three days after the Monaco Grand Prix, with its crowds of people, but the
city had quickly returned to normal. The lazy, orderly traffic of a sunny day in May had replaced the blur of the racing cars. This summer promised to be different, for him and for everyone
else.

At thirty-four, Jochen Welder felt old, and he was afraid.

He knew about fear: it was a Formula 1 driver’s regular companion. He’d gone to bed with it for years, every Saturday night before a race, no matter which woman was sharing his life
and his bed at the time. He’d learned to recognize the smell of it in his jumpsuits soaked with sweat, hanging up to dry in the pits. He’d faced and battled his fear for a long time,
forgetting it whenever he fastened his helmet or buckled up in the car, waiting for the strong rush of adrenalin to course through his veins. But now it was different. Now he was afraid of the
fear. The fear that substitutes reason for instinct, that makes you take your foot off the accelerator or feel for the brake an instant before you need to. The fear that suddenly strikes you dumb
and speaks only through the chronometer, which shows how fast a second is for ordinary mortals and how slow for racing drivers.

His mobile rang. He was sure he’d turned it off and was tempted to do so now. He took it out with a sigh and answered.

‘Where the hell have you been?’

It was the voice of Roland Shatz, his manager, bursting forth like a TV gameshow host, except that gameshow hosts weren’t usually so angry with their contestants. Jochen had expected it,
but was still caught unaware. ‘Around,’ he answered evasively.

‘Around? Like hell. Do you have any idea what kind of shit is going on?’

He didn’t know, but could very well imagine. After all, a driver who loses a race he had all but won – because of an error on one the final lap – was great fodder for sports
pages all over the world. Roland did not wait for him to reply.

‘The team did all it could to cover you with the press, but Ferguson is fucking furious. You didn’t overtake once – for the whole Grand Prix you were only in the lead because
you started in pole position and most of the others had dropped out or crashed, and then you threw away a race like that. The kindest headline was “Jochen Welder at Monte Carlo: Loses the
Race and Loses Face!”’

Jochen half-heartedly tried to protest. ‘I told you, there was something wrong with the seat—’

His manager cut him off. ‘Bullshit! The range finders were there and they sing better than Pavarotti. The car was perfect but Malot was going to beat you as long as his engine held out,
and he started behind you on the grid.’

François Malot was the team’s second driver, a fresh young talent that Ferguson, the Klover Formula 1 Racing Team manager, was developing and pampering. He didn’t have the
experience yet, but he was great in testing and had guts and courage to spare. It was no accident that the Circus experts had had their eyes on him from back when he was racing in Formula 3.
Ferguson had beaten everyone to the punch and signed him for two years. Even Shatz had plotted and schemed to become his agent. That was the rule of the sport, Formula 1 in particular – a
small planet where the sun rose and set with cruel speed.

Roland’s tone of voice suddenly changed and revealed a hint of friendship, something they shared beyond a normal business relationship. Yet he was still playing good cop, bad cop.
‘Jochen, there are problems. There’s a session of private tests at Silverstone with Williams and Jordan. If I understand correctly, they’re not calling you. They’d rather
have Malot and Barendson, the test driver, to check the new suspension. You know what this means?’

Of course he did. He knew the racing world too well not to. When a driver wasn’t informed of a team’s technical improvements, it was very likely that the boss didn’t want him
to be able to give another team precious information. It was practically an announcement that they weren’t renewing his contract.

‘What do you expect me to say, Roland?’

‘Nothing. I don’t expect you to say anything. I just want you to use your brain and your foot like you’ve always done when you race.’ Roland paused before adding,
‘You’re with her, aren’t you?’

Jochen smiled in spite of himself.

Roland disliked Arianna and wouldn’t even call her by name. Just ‘her’. But no manager liked a woman if he thought she was the reason his driver was going soft. Jochen had had
dozens of women before and Shatz had always judged them for what they were: the inevitable perks of someone constantly in the limelight, pretty objects that shone in the reflection of the
champion’s sun. But Shatz went on high alert when Arianna entered Jochen’s life, like someone trying to convince a stubborn child to wash behind his ears. It was time for Jochen to
explain that Arianna was just a symptom, not the disease.

‘Roland, hasn’t it occurred to you that it might be over? I’m thirty-four and most drivers my age have already retired. The ones who are still around are just caricatures of
what they once were.’

He carefully avoided mentioning those who were dead. The names and faces and laughter of men who suddenly became corpses in the twisted bodywork of a single-seater, a bright-coloured helmet
thrown aside, an ambulance that never came fast enough, a doctor who couldn’t save them.

‘What are you saying?’ blurted Roland with a flash of rebellion at his words. ‘We both know what Formula 1 is like, but I have a bunch of offers from America for the CART. You
still have some time left to enjoy yourself and make piles of money without any risk.’

Jochen didn’t have the heart to dampen Roland’s managerial hopes. Money certainly wouldn’t change his mind. He had enough money to last him several lifetimes. He had earned it
by risking his hide all those years and, unlike many of his fellow drivers, he hadn’t been tempted to get a personal jet or helicopter or houses all over the world. He didn’t feel like
telling Shatz that it was something else, that he wasn’t enjoying it any more. The thread had snapped for some reason and he was just lucky it hadn’t happened while he was still hanging
by it.

‘All right, we’ll talk about it,’ he said instead.

For now, Shatz realized, there was no use insisting. ‘Okay. Get in shape for Spain. The season’s not over yet and all you need is a couple of good races and you’ll be riding
high. Meanwhile, enjoy yourself, man.’