Zugzwang Read Free Page A

‘my late wife Elena.’
    â€˜And this would be your daughter Catherine?’ he said, tapping the second photograph.
    The thought of this odious and slyly menacing man being aware of Catherine’s existence induced in me a sensation of sinking.
    â€˜Yes,’ I said quietly, as though hoping he would not hear my admission.
    â€˜Bring your daughter with you tomorrow.’
    I do not think I uttered a single word for a minute or more but stared uncomprehendingly at my unwelcome visitor, and he back at me. Even when the shock subsided I did not ask why he wanted to see Catherine, or what he thought Catherine had to do with Gulko or Yastrebov or this business of the accident or murder, or whatever it was.
    Lychev glanced back at the chessboard. ‘You are not losing,’ he said. ‘At least not yet.’
    I turned to follow his gaze. When I turned back he was sweeping his lank fringe out of his eyes. He carefully patted his hair and put on his hat.
    â€˜I will see you tomorrow, Dr Spethmann,’ he said, and with that he was gone from the office.

Three
    With my patients I am the good father: attentive, kind, calm, fair, strict, unreproachful and present. It would dismay them to discover that the man to whom they impute almost preternatural wisdom and serenity is, in reality, no more immune than they to anxiety or excitement, or other more turbulent and dangerous emotions. But this is the truth of me.
    My most intriguing patient at that time – and here I include Rozental – was Anna Petrovna Ziatdinov. I was first introduced to her in the spring of 1913, at a levee for the German ambassador. Thirty-seven years old, she was one of St Petersburg’s most famous beauties.
    I had gone only at Kopelzon’s urging.
    â€˜You must get out more, Otto,’ he had said in his brisk, no-nonsense way. ‘I know you are still mourning but it’s been a year. No one will think ill of you – and besides, there’s a woman I’m on the point of seducing and I want your opinion of her.’
    â€˜I should stay in with Catherine. She’ll be lonely without me.’
    â€˜Catherine has battalions of young friends. Whole armies. Get your coat!’
    The embassy building was colossal and monolithic, carved, it almost appeared, out of a single block of Finland granite. Everything was about scale, power and domination: themassive architraves, the gigantic walls and, on the roof, the bronze giants holding the bridles of two huge horses, their manes long and flowing, their nostrils flared. War was on the horizon and tensions ran high.
    â€˜How can you bear to be in such a place?’ I whispered to Kopelzon as we accepted our first drinks.
    â€˜Because only here can I speak to my true love,’ he said airily, casting his eye about the room. ‘There she is. Come. If her husband sees her alone with me, the game will be up.’ He took me by the elbow and steered me in her direction. ‘Isn’t she the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen?’
    Anna Petrovna was of average height, with a fair complexion, full lips and large, honey-coloured eyes, the whites of which were very bright. Her black hair was lustrous but the hairline was low, making for a rather paradoxical beauty, an effect accentuated by an upper middle tooth that seemed to come from the gum slightly at an angle, the single rogue in what was otherwise a perfectly symmetrical arrangement. I was taken with the imperfection of hairline and tooth; they suggested another, faintly piratical side to her, as though behind the decorousness there was something secret and knowing. Or perhaps it was simply that I was generally relieved to find flaws in others, being so conscious of my own.
    She seemed pleased enough to see Kopelzon but, to my eye, was more bemused than flattered by his attentions. He brought the same dedication to his seductions as he did to his recitals; his playing, however, was