Necropolis (19 page)

He was surprised when he heard that, of course, and drew back a bit. I had already realized that the doctor wanted to fuck me, I told you I can smell pheromones, didn't I? and in fact, there was frustration all over his face, but he pulled himself together and said, I don't know if I can do that, remember this is a military hospital and the deaths are confidential, but I moved again and my mound of Venus sent him a signal, so he said, I could try, I'd do anything to ease the pain of a beautiful Icelandic woman; we went back out into the corridor and walked for a while, up and down stairs, until we came to an iron door. It's through here. We entered a dark, damp room, with a kind of spooky atmosphere, all tiled, and with a slight smell of formaldehyde. He gave me a mask and said, put this on, you're going to need it, and it's compulsory anyway. We came to another door, and there was a fat male nurse there who must have been guarding it, reading a magazine. They said something to each other and we went through. There were huge concrete tables and other tables of iron where they did autopsies.

That was when I saw him, from a distance. They'd pulled back the cloth covering him and I recognized his face, his white beard; we had to wait so as not to bother the people who were with him, but they soon left, so we went closer. I saw his open forearms, two violet colored wounds, his expression of calm or indifference, anyway, it was heavy, really heavy, that's the only word I can find to describe it.

Marta fell silent, looking at the wall. And what about the doctor? Ah, the doctor, his name is Amos Roth, he's a very well-mannered and attractive man. He's invited me to dinner tonight.

Then she asked, were you writing? Yes, I said. She seemed a bit disconcerted. I'm sorry, she said, I was thinking to ask you the same favor as yesterday, that you let me work here, to tell the truth, I prefer to be close to the conference and the people in it, I may have to go out and check some information, you don't mind, do you? I could put my laptop under the bed, but I said, it's no problem, I can go out and work on the balcony, I write by hand. By hand? she cried, wow, I'll never understand you writers, all that spiel about the manuscript and being close to the text, my God, I'll never understand it, and she took out her Dell Inspiron, switched it on, and started typing.

I went out on the terrace, thinking about Marta's visit to the morgue, and suddenly something occurred to me, so I went back and asked: you said there was somebody with the body, who was it? I don't know, she said, two people, maybe three, it was very dark, the only light was over Maturana's body and I was concentrating on that, why do you ask? It just seems odd to me, did they look like people from the hospital, from the police or something like that? but she said, I couldn't say, they were wearing masks. Would you say they were a woman and a man? two women? two men? Let me see, wait, I need to concentrate, she said, and closed her eyes. One of them was definitely a woman, I remember the noise of high heels, I heard them long after she'd gone out, they were echoing in the distance, what are you thinking? Well, I said, it's odd that José Maturana should have visitors in the morgue, don't you think? It could have been somebody from the hotel, said Marta, or from his embassy, or the police, or from the conference. Did you notice what language they spoke? They didn't speak, said Marta, they were just looking at him in silence. Would you say it was a sad scene? Yes, it was: a dead body, not much light, the smell of formaldehyde, that's a pretty sad scene, wouldn't you say?

I went back out on the balcony, thinking, it's them, they're here. My head was seething with ideas and I started writing again. They're in Jerusalem, they came for him, perhaps they heard his talk at the conference, but the reason they left him that message is that they preferred not to approach him, they must have been waiting for the right moment, they wanted to announce themselves through a message to see his reaction, and he was unable to bear it. Perhaps he did kill himself after all.

I heard the telephone and went back in the room. Marta was lying on the bed, smoking. She had taken her clothes off. I'm sorry, she said, it's hot and I feel more comfortable like this, I wouldn't do it if things weren't so clear between you and me. Don't worry, I said, and I lifted the receiver. It was Momo. I have news, sir, the woman who left the message has just called the hotel again, to Room 1209, just above yours, and something more, sir, the caller ID gives me a number in Tel Aviv, would you like it? He dictated it to me. Then I said, Momo, please, can you check if the call yesterday was from the same number, and he said, yes, sir, exactly the same, I already looked. I hesitated, then asked him, in whose name is Room 1209 registered? William Cummings, he said.

Momo, I'm sorry to ask this, but . . . do you know if Cum­mings is black? That's hard to say, sir, the register with the photocopy of his passport is in reception, and I don't have access to it. Thanks, Momo, anything else you hear, let me know immediately. Of course, sir, how's the young lady? Fine, Momo, she's working. Give her my regards. I will.

I dialed the Tel Aviv number, with my hand shaking, and to my surprise it turned out to be a branch of the Universal Coptic Church. I had never even imagined an eventuality like that, so I decided to ask, is Miss Jessica there? There was a silence and then they said, there's nobody here of that name, Jessica who? I thanked them and asked for their address, because I wanted to visit them. Aaron Pater Street, number 19, near Allenby Street, sir, we're open from eight in the morning to seven-thirty in the evening. Then I dialed the number of Room 1209 but nobody replied. I had an idea. I went down to reception and asked the receptionist if it was possible to be moved to the room directly above mine, Number 1209, is it occupied? The man typed on his keyboard and said, yes, it's occupied until Tuesday of next week, sir, I'm sorry, by that date you'll already have left the hotel, won't you? Yes, I said, it's a pity, is the person occupying it at the conference? No, sir, no.

I walked away, thinking that I had to go to Tel Aviv to pay a visit to the Coptic Church. At six there was Supervielle's lecture, and early the next day the much-awaited talk by Sabina Vedovelli, one of the high points of the ICBM, because according to gossip she was going to tell her life story. I had just over an hour to rest.

With all the demands of this conference, my recovery was taking longer than expected.

Going back to my room I found Marta in the same position, wearing nothing but a white G-string. I asked her about her work and she said, I haven't been able to start, I checked my e-mail and then I started chatting with an old friend, and the time just went, my God, and how about you? I'm tired, I said, I'd like to sleep a while before Supervielle's talk. Good idea, she said, I'll do the same, yesterday I drank like a prostitute from Minsk. I could really do with a nap.

She closed the curtains and lay down beside me. Her closeness and her smell gave me an erection, which I tried to conceal, but she put her arm on my hip and finally noticed it. What about this? I was silent at first and then said, it's only an erection, leave it, it'll pass. Is it me who's causing it or are you thinking of somebody? I told her it didn't matter. It had not happened to me in a while, and it was like meeting an old friend; but she insisted: you won't be able to rest, let me help you. She lowered the zipper of my pants and took out my penis, which grew even harder at the touch of her hand. Yes, you're very hard, you must really like the woman you're thinking about, let me help you, I think you need it. She started caressing it and squeezing it in her hand. Close your eyes, she said, I'm good at this. Imagine someone you like, a naked woman you'd like to fuck, O.K.? I looked at her out of the corner of my eye. She had gotten on her knees, with her legs half open; where the pubic hair should have been there was a soft furrow of golden dots, on the verge of sprouting. She moved her arm rhythmically and I felt I was about to ejaculate; she also must have felt it, because she said, wait a moment. She got up and ran to the bathroom. Her ass and breasts bounced up and down and I had to make an effort to contain myself. A second later she came back with a towel and said, leave it to me, just tell me when, O.K.? She continued rubbing my penis with increasing force until I felt myself coming, and I told her, so, still rubbing, she put the towel around it. When I had come, she got up and went and left it in the bathroom. I heard her sitting on the toilet and tearing off pieces of paper, had she become aroused? It was quite likely.

When she came back she said, all right, now you can rest, and she lay down again by my side. You didn't have to do that, I said, by the way, there's a drop left on your arm, clean it off. Instead of which, she raised her arm to her mouth and licked it. Your semen tastes of iron, I like it. Then she knocked back what was left of the vodka and said, don't talk anymore, we only have an hour's sleep.

 

 

This story begins one night in a bar in Tel Aviv, the Blue Parrot, and its main characters are two elderly immigrants, one from Wadowice, Poland, and the other from Gothenburg in Sweden. Their names are Ferenck Oslovski and Gunard Flø. I shan't say which is which, as I assume a certain degree of education in my listeners and have no wish to insult them. As I was saying, Oslovski and Flø were in the Blue Parrot, it was already very late, and between them on the table was a chessboard.

The Pole was drinking Smirnoff vodka and the Swede a nauseating apricot schnapps, one of those Nordic digestives that is sure to rot your stomach if you were not born somewhere several degrees below freezing point. The two men were both staring into the distance, and neither said a word, which means that they were good friends, friends who did not need to talk in order to feel together.

Suddenly Flø struck the table with his hand and said, I have it, I think I have it!

Oslovski, who was familiar with these outbursts, looked at him and said: All right, show me.

Flø arranged the pieces with three pawns on either side, king, knight, and bishop. Look, he said: pawn advances and blocks the king behind the rook. Oslovski sat looking at the chessboard for a while. He looked up and cried, waitress, another round! Then he looked down at the chessboard again, silent once more. The drinks were brought, he took a sip, then continued sitting there with his nose very close to the pieces. After two more sips of his vodka, he at last looked up again and said, no, Gunard: there's a way out in bishop four, and no way to stop it.

Flø stared at the board and took his head in his hands. It's true, he murmured, it's true.

It was a position from the 1971 Interzonal in Buenos Aires, in which Petrosian and Fischer had drawn. Flø always maintained that Fischer could have won and had been trying to demonstrate that for some time now. It was not a totally irrational belief, but he felt it in the way that grand masters are aware of positions: as a series of luminous lines traced across the chessboard, like the routes of bombers flying across the Atlantic, trajectories that at first are merely flashing lights but then take on a shape and turn into known positions that have previously been played or studied.

To Oslovski, too, the rhythm of a combination was important. It might be a march rhythm, a concerto, a minuet, or a rondo, not to mention the effect of the silences, that beautiful instrument called silence, which means so much in both music and chess.

Oslovski recalled the epitaph of the composer Alfred Schnittke in Novodevichy cemetery in Moscow, a pentagram carved in marble with the words
silencio fortissimo prolongado
, equivalent to the moment when a player moves away from the chessboard and comes out of himself so rapidly that he is left depressed and alone, feeling lost in the world, and longing desperately, as Spassky used to say, “for another chess player.” And so it was with Oslovski.

But let us continue with the story.

Oslovski and Flø had met in difficult circumstances, behind a wall riddled with bullets and shrapnel. Oslovski was a lieutenant and Flø a captain, although in different companies, and both had been involved in an operation to take a refugee camp where the ringleaders of a rebel group were apparently hiding, an operation that had meant advancing a few feet at a time, knocking down houses as they went, under covering fire from their own tanks and artillery.

During the advance, Oslovski had jumped through a window and fallen into a courtyard filled with broken glass. Blinded by the smoke of the artillery fire, he ran toward a doorway and did not see a huge hole right in the middle of the courtyard. He stumbled, tried in vain to hold on to the sides, and fell some fifteen or twenty feet, making a great deal of noise as he did so. It was a clandestine well, quite small in diameter, which was why when he fell in the water at the bottom, which did not cover him, he found it difficult to turn and aim the barrel of his rifle upwards.

He crouched and waited a few seconds, cursing his luck or his lack of foresight, until he saw a head appear at the top, wrapped in one of those colorful cloths that made the enemy so easy to recognize, so he fired several shots, then said to himself, I'm defenseless, in a few seconds I'm going to join my ancestors. He took out his torch and shone it at the walls of the well, and his spirits lifted when he saw that there was a side gallery. He retreated into it, the water around his waist. As he did so, he heard voices at the mouth of the well. Seeing some rocks and bricks, he piled them in front of him to protect himself. As he finished, he heard a whistle, followed by a gurgling sound. They had thrown a grenade down, but it had fallen in the water and the fuse had not exploded.

What luck, he thought, but it would not last, they would soon think of something, so he retreated farther into the side channel, realizing after a while, to his horror, that it was getting ever narrower. It doesn't lead anywhere, I'm a dead man. He heard a loud explosion, and the gallery filled with gunpowder and smoke. To protect himself, he got down on his knees and put his head in the water, but was unable to keep it under for long without breathing. He was getting very anxious now. On the other side of the stones, he saw beams of light and heard voices. The echo of voices he could not understand. The air was full of smoke and brick dust, provoking a coughing fit that must have been heard by those above, because a hail of bullets immediately lashed the water.

He retreated, and saw this time that, a few feet farther along, the passage widened again and the water was colder, which might mean something. He washed his face and tried to think. He remembered that before he had fallen he had been walking ahead of a group of men, but had advanced very rapidly and had found himself alone. The enemy were here, but it was possible his own side would arrive soon. He just had to hold out. There was another huge explosion, and he felt the earth tremble. The stones that had fallen with the first explosion, plus those he had piled up, protected him, but then it occurred to him that the enemy were trying to bury him alive. Would they do that? In wondering this, he was not thinking about whether they could bury a human being alive, everybody did that kind of thing in war, but whether they would fill in a well from which they drew water, which was one of the most precious commodities in the region.

Where the hell were his comrades? Even way down here, he could hear the sounds of fighting. According to his calculations, they should not be long now.

With luck, he might be able to survive, so he tried to retreat along the channel, and found that he could, except that as he moved the level of the water kept rising and was already up to his chest. In a strange way, he felt safe, even though he was in the bowels of the earth, and in complete darkness. Another explosion made him think that they were indeed preparing to fill in the well. Too bad for him.

After all, they could always clear it later, if there was a “later.” His legs were numb, but he tried to walk as best he could, because the last explosion had again filled the narrow chamber with dust and smoke.

There won't be a “later” for me, that's for sure. He recalled a chess position that had no way out, and concentrated on that. As he did so, he had to touch his eyes to be sure if they were open or closed, such was the state he was in. He did not think he was seriously wounded. All he had was a graze he had received when he had knocked down a wall to enter a house, and the blow to his shoulder when he had fallen in the well. Not much if you took into account the magnitude of this war and all the bullets fired and all the bodies he had seen fall since he had first pressed the trigger.

He heard cries again, and it seemed to him that he could understand a few words. Somebody was saying something in Russian or Hebrew or even Polish. He went back along the passage, groping his way, and when he reached the open part he noticed that the cave-in had raised the level of the ground and the water. He saw the gleam of a torch, and a rope hanging down in the middle, and again heard the voice. He realized they were saying to him, grab the rope, and that was what he did. As they hoisted him up, he could not see what was happening, as not only was he blinded by the light, but his pupils were also filled with dust.

When he got to the top, he had an unpleasant surprise. Instead of his comrades, he found the courtyard filled with the enemy and a man speaking to him in broken Hebrew. They tied his hands, threatening him with rifles pressed to the back of his neck. Then they took him into a room off the courtyard, and he asked himself, why don't they execute me immediately? and also, where are my men? The fighting seemed to have moved farther east, and he was alone. He was a prisoner. He said to himself: I was better off down there, in the darkness and the cold water and the all-embracing earth. That was the way he was.

They laid him naked on a rusty, rickety table full of holes, and started asking him questions. How many of you are there? What's your objective? Which rebel chief are you after? What are your plans of deployment? How far are you planning to go?

The man who was asking the questions spoke Hebrew, and the first thing he did was to put out his cigarette on Oslovski's stomach. Oslovski screamed in pain. Then came something rather more unpleasant with his nails. They removed the nail from his little finger with wooden splinters. Then from his ring finger and index finger. Oslovski writhed and twisted, but did not answer their questions, partly out of pride and partly because most of the things they asked him about he did not know. As long as he did not answer, he would stay alive. If he told them what they wanted, they would shoot him in the back of the head and throw him down a well. Not his nice, cool, maternal well, but a dry one full of dust.

One of the men stared at his testicles, then grabbed them with his hand and seemed for a moment to be weighing them. What was he going to do? The light glinted on a razor, black with dried blood, and Oslovski thought, the end is near, my comrades aren't coming and it's all over for me, and he felt a pain in his thigh.

Still holding his testicles, the torturer had made the first cut, a clean deep fissure in the thigh that made Oslovski see stars, although he was so tired, his body forgot it immediately. He was still alive, still had a few seconds left. He did not understand what they were saying around him, only what the man asking him questions said. He wanted to pee, but contained himself. He did not want to call attention to his member. What was coming next? The man with the razor let go of his testicles and a hand pulled his head back. The same man as before was now holding a pair of garden shears and moving them closer to his toes. The man asking the questions said: I'm going to repeat what I want to know and if you don't tell me you're going to lose your toes.

A young man who had been watching all this with a certain horror put a plastic bag under his feet. Oslovski made a calculation, if they're going to cut off my toes one by one, that means they're in no hurry. Where the hell were his comrades? They must have been repulsed and now he was alone. That was the situation.

At the far end of the room, a pregnant young woman was knitting a sweater. The image seemed completely out of place here, but he looked at the wool and remembered something. What was it? His grandmother had used the same stitch, three knits with one of the needles and six with the other, knitted back to front, and then, with his forehead bathed in sweat and his body anesthetized by the pain, he noticed that the woman was getting the sequence wrong, she wasn't knitting the complete series and one of the sides would come out too long.

Without thinking, he said in a thin voice: you're getting it wrong, it should be six with the right needle, otherwise one of the sides will be too long and your son will be uncomfortable. She stopped her knitting. One of the men hit him in the mouth but she made a placatory gesture, came toward him with her huge belly, and said, how do you know it's a boy? Because of the color blue, he replied. Then she said, you think the knitting is wrong? He told her what he remembered and the woman compared the sides. You're right, this one's turning out narrower. I can still undo it and save the wool. Thank you. She turned and walked out.

They let him rest and gave him water, and later, with the sounds of fighting apparently getting closer, a man came into the room, untied him and said, your things are over there, your weapons stay here, now go.

Oslovski went out, feeling very confused. He walked through the shadows, one more shadow himself, lingering in the ruined houses and foul-smelling trenches, and thinking, trying to understand what had happened, afraid of advancing and being seen. He had no weapons. He decided to wait until nightfall, and when it came started retracing his steps. As he passed the well, he considered hiding in it, because they had left the rope, but it was better to take a risk, so he continued walking, treading carefully over the broken glass and the rubble, and was wandering through part of a field when he saw a tank coming. He fell to his knees, took off his combat jacket and waved it above his head, crying: save me.

The hatch opened and a fair-haired man emerged and said, come on, get in, you must be wounded.

It was Gunard Flø.

Later, in the mobile hospital behind the lines, after they had sewed Oslovski's wounds and told him he would have to be immobile for a while, Flø said to him, I know what to do when we can't sleep at night, and took out a chess set. They hit it off, and after a few games realized that they already knew each other. They had taken part in some of the same tournaments, and although they had never played against one another, they remembered each other's names.

That was how the heroes of my story met.

I will add one more thing, which is that Oslovski had a curious experience some years later, in Berlin,. He was at a crossing, waiting for the lights to turn green, when he saw on the other side of the street the woman from the torture room. She had an absent look on her face, and of course she was a bit older. She was holding a little boy by the hand. When the lights changed, they met in the middle of the street and he said to her, do you remember me? you saved my life in the refugee camp. She looked at him in surprise, uncomprehendingly. He insisted, remember, the knitting stitches that were wrong, it's me, I owe you my life! The woman looked at him in terror, picked up the little boy, and broke into a run. Both of them disappeared into the crowd.