Linares! Linares!

Translated by Richard de Weger

Dirk Jan ten Geuzendam

Linares! Linares!
A Journey into the Heart of Chess

2001 New in Chess Alkmaar

To my father and my mother

© 200 1 Dirk Jan ten Geuzendam

All rights reserved

Published by New In Chess, Alkmaar , The Netherlands

www.newinchess.com

Originally published as Het Geheime Wonder

by Uitgeverij L.J. Veen Amsterdam/ Antwerpen

Cover design and lay-out: Rudo Hartman, The Hague

Production: Huib Roest

Cover photo: Rosa de las Nieves

Photo back cover: Arvind Aaron

Printed in the Netherlands

ISBN 90-5691-1077-9
Contents

Prologue
7

Linares
9

Anibal
18

Gazza
28

Mauricio
38

Ricardo
48

Gata
60

La Niiia
70

The secret miracle

81

1-van-chuk!
90

Manolete
99

Rentero
110

Farewell
119
 Prolo gue

It was hard t o s a y what time it was. Before we sat down for

our meal, Mauricio had lowered the blinds and there was
barely any light coming into the room. For a digestif, he
poured an o rujo de herbas from an unlabelled bottle, a mild herb
bitter, which he had bought at a farm nearby. As he poured it,
the drink clung like oil to the insides of the small shot
glasses. Mauricio put the bottle back and sat down ag ain. As if
something crossed his mind, h e suddenly began: "Two nights
ago I had a dream. I wrote it down the next m orning in my
study. I dreamt it was a windless day. A lovely blue sea
stretched out without so much as a ripple under a radiant sky.
The sun was delightfully warm and caressed everyone who
was willing to enjoy it. The pavement cafes were full of
people sitting peacefully under colourful parasols. Smiling,
talking women kept an eye on children playing with
boundless energy in the sand. The men were playing chess,
engrossed in their game. All of a sudden, without any
previous warning, a tidal wave rose up out of the sea,
shatterin.g the idyllic scene at one grim stroke. The p arasols
toppled, the tables were pushed aside and sucked away, and
the chess board squares melted together into a sinister,
blue-green plane. Heads with terrified, wide-open eyes were
trying to remain above the water.
"But not for long. As suddenly as it had arisen, the
enormous w ave withdrew and peace was restored to the
beach, just like in a film running in reverse. The women were
talking again, the children, unworried and self-absorbed,
returned to their play, and the men we· r e playing chess again.
And yet, it was not as it had been before. Something essential
had changed. It was clear to everyone now that this serene
calm could be disturbed at any moment by a violent wave. "
Mauricio looked at his hands for a moment and said:
" Underneath it I wrote: This is Linares. "

7
 Linar e s

When you get to Linares you are not there yet. After descending
from Madrid through the Spanish interior for more than three hours,
the train delivers you at a small station in the village of Baeza. Outside
the low, white station building this is not immediately clear. On the
small square a rural liveliness prevails, easy-going and unassuming.
There is nothing to indicate whether you are in Linares or not. A few
teenagers sit on their scooters, smoking cigarettes with an experienced
look on their faces. They are watching, without interest, two tired
looking young mothers pushing prams. A bit further on, an old man
with dark glasses, who is gesticulating emphatically, is telling a story to
one of his contemporaries. I have been coming here for some ten years.
I know that I will have to take a taxi for the last few miles in order to
arrive at my fmal destination: Hotel Anibal, named after the Carthagin­
ian general. Hannibal crossed the Alps but in Linares he conquered his
beloved Himilce.
When I came here for the fust time, I had fortunately been fore­
warned. "Don't be alarmed when you take a taxi," the wife of one of
the chess players told me, "because before you know it, this taxi will
leave the built-up area and you'll think you're being robbed." That was
what it felt like that first time, despite the warning. And that is what it
still feels like even now, with the silver-grey haired driver with his
grandson sitting next to him, who moments before with modest help­
fulness lifted my suitcase into the boot. At my request, "Hotel Anibal,
please, " the cab driver manoeuvres his car through three straight streets
out of Baeza and then, after a sharp bend, suddenly takes it uphill to a
junction, which reveals only at the last moment what is hidden behind
the abrupt, short incline. I know full well by now that the world does
not end after this unexpected climb but that the junction marks the
start of the short motorway connecting Baeza and Linares. Even so,
there is once again the feeling of relief that the road continues and
doesn't suddenly end up in some remote spot surrounded by bushes,
where I am to be left without my luggage and my money.
The taxi picks up speed and through the driver's half-opened win­
dow a pungent smell of olives enters the car. The olive groves stretch
away to the left and the right of the road. Behind us, sharply silhouet­
ted against the dusky evening sky, is a row of tall olive-oil tanks. A few

9
minutes later we enter Linares by way of an industrial area, irregularly
interspersed with show rooms, storage depots and work shops. Not the
best part by which to drive into town, but why mention the best part
when many people will agree that no such part exists at all. Look it up
in a travel guide: the author will tell you in a short chapter that this
small town of sixty-five thousand inhabitants is predominantly ugly. It
is hard to say when this story began doing the rounds but it certainly
has turned into a mantra by now. Linares is an ugly town, as everyone
is fond of repeating. Perhaps Linares is irreparably ugly because for a
long time it owed its existence to the mining industry.
According to Mauricio, the history of Linares is quickly told. When I
asked him about it once, he wrapped it up in a few sentences with the
venom and irony he is inclined to display when the history of his
country is brought up : "The Romans discovered some ores, and as a re­
sult there were mines here until the beginning of the century. The
prosperity that derived from these mines vanished when they were
closed one after the other. At present, Linares' economy depends on the
olive industry. "
These olives are big , green, fleshy and have a strong taste. With
every meal, a small plate of olives is put next to the bread basket for
starters. A similar plate, but now with some toothpicks added, is served
when you order a glass of beer in a �ar at cocktail hour. The oil made
from them is among the best in Spain.
Another important employer is the Suzuki car plant, which, under
the name of Santana, provides work for some two thousand people.
There used to be more but the 1 994 crisis did for a lot of j obs. At first,
a complete closure was threatened but this caused such emotions and
resistance that the plan was hastily withdrawn. It was one of the few
moments when the chess players discovered that there were other con­
cerns here than their tournament. A group of demonstrators forced
their way into the hotel and threatened to bring the tou rnament to a
halt. The chess players opted for a well considered reaction that gained
them a lot of sympathy. Led by Spanish grandmaster Miguel Illescas
they signed a petition declaring their solidarity with the threatened
workers . They could not have reacted in a better way . The demonstra­
tors proudly posed with the chess players behind a gigantic banner and
after that they all went to fight their own fight again.
Luis Rentero, the director of the chess tournament and active in local
politics, also expressed an interest. He told a baffled journalist that he

10
would know what to do with the Japanese factory owners. He would
line them up in front of the town hall and then feed them one after the
other to the angry mob. The journalist's pen hesitated at the bellicose
words. Just long enough for Don Luis to tell him with an authoritative
gesture: "Yes, yes, go ahead. You can quote me on that."

When the taxi stops at the Hotel Anibal, I look at the Chinese restaurant
next to it. Ciudad Feliz, happy town or lucky town. It is one of the few
spots in Linares that still evokes memories of the unrest over the threat­
ened closure of the car plant. The growing anger of the locals made the
owner so nervous that out of pure self-defence he stuck signs to his
windows proclaiming: "We are not Japanese!"
The spacious hotel lobby is virtually empty when I enter. The long
reception desk is untended and in the deep, brown settees there is just
one lonely Spaniard reading a newspaper under the bas-relief of the
two chess players. On either side of these stone-carved, nude players
pondering a four-by-four-square position with their fists pressed
against their heads are the portraits of the grandmasters who competed
here in 1 99 1 . A year after Kasparov first won the tournament and
called Linares the Wimbledon of chess, Rentero initiated a new tradi­
tion. Each time the tournament was held he erected a memorial in the
lobby. �hese are monuments of a striking simplicity. Separately photo­
graphed colour portraits of all participants are grouped together on a
section of wall reserved for a particular year. There is no more room
for them in the lobby by now. The portraits of the players who wrote
history here in the past few years are hanging in the bar, in between
the lobby and the restaurant. These portraits must be an overwhelming
experience for any chess lover entering the hotel for the first time: the
best players the world has to offer so often together in a provincial
town in Andalusia. To me, they are welcome reminders of games, sto­
ries, events, whirling around in a hazy notion of time - memories that
make you feel somehow that chess is nowhere better than here. Not
because the games are always better but because there is no better place
to experience the inexplicable allure of the game.
Kasparov once described Linares as an annual retreat, a secret coun­
cil. It is here that the strongest players meet to prove in direct battle
who is who at the moment. It is here that they draw up the annual bal­
ance for themselves and each other, and decide in curious isolation
what the balance of powers will be for the time being. True, Kasparov

11
is the best and he has often won here. More curious is the fact that the
chess players are virtually on their own here. The annual ritual draws
no more than a handful of Spanish j ournalists and a comparable
number of representatives from the foreign press but hardly any public.
Occasionally there may be a reasonable crowd but then the two hun­
dred or so seats in the playing hall are mostly taken by local youngsters
or by families who regard the supertorneo as a nice stopover on their daily
stroll.
Apart from a sporadic American backpack tourist who wants to see
this phenomenon with his own eyes or a lone devotee prepared to
make the rail j ourney from Madrid, no one comes to watch here. The
chess players could not care less; they are used to it. So am I, and if it
stays that way , it is fine with me.

The greatest emptiness in the lobby is caused by Luis Rentero' s ab­

sence. A few months ago, a moment of false modesty almost proved fa­
tal to him. As he had to go shopping in town, he took his wife ' s car
instead of his Rolls Royce. Whether the Rolls would have kept its end
up we can ' t say but the wife's car offered little resistance when a heavy
lorry hit it at a junction. Don Luis remained unconscious for quite
some time and even now that he is on the mend, his doctors say that
his rehabilitation may take as long as two years.
Here, centrally positioned in front of the reception desk, he used to
have his regular place from which to keep an eye on the comings and
goings in his hotel. While giving instructions to receptionists or going
through the mail, he looked out for guests to buttonhole, some with a
warm embrace, others with a polite handshake. The rare foreign guest
could count on a special welcome. Rentero would first address him
proudly in Spanish and then politely coax him along to someone who
was able to translate into English the sentiment that �thout this par­
ticular guest the tournament would be pointless.
Rentero tak�s pride in having turned Linares into the Mecca of chess.
Not j ust because he invested money in chess and invited the best play­
ers but most of all because he used his philosophy like a lash to whip
the tournament into shape. Players prepared to settle for a quick draw
are welcome to do so at home, for their own money. Here they fight
until the board is bare and swept empty. Rentero regards chess, as he
does life , as a relentless struggle. If you don't give as good as you get,
you get eaten alive. With bewilderment in his eyes he once told me

12
about a tournament he visited in Barcelona: "The players were staying
at the Ritz and every afternoon, before the games started, I saw them
gobble down the most exquisite food by the plateful. When I entered
the playing hall myself after lunch, I noticed that some of the tables
were no longer occupied because those games were drawn in no time.
This was an insult that was beyond me. Was this their way to thank the
organizers for their efforts to stage the tournament? I went to the press
room and there I declared that the people of Linares would lynch play­
ers who refused to fight . "
Rentero wanted t o b e proud o f his players, wanted t o be able to
praise them at tournament closing ceremonies as lions who wrote a
new golden page in the Great Book of Linares. And it was not only
words that Rentero used as an encouragement. Inextricably bound up
with the most bloodthirsty tournaments in chess history were his bo­
nuses. Rentero knew man to be a simple being and drew his conclu­
sions. "I'd offer them women or a Caribbean cruise, " he would
exclaim theatrically , " but those I haven' t got. What I have got is
money. " This he offered as a reward with pinpoint precision. At a time
when it was usual for no more than about one third of the games in a
chess tournament to end in a decision, Rentero managed to direct tour­
naments where two thirds of the games were decided. When he sus­
pected �hat a player did not have particularly great expectations of a
game , he would take him aside and allow him a peek at an envelope in
the inside pocket of his jacket. The envelope would be duly filled with
pesetas and these, he would tell the chess player in need of a pep-up,
would be his that night provided he won his game. He showed quite a
number of envelopes in this way, and his players played as they played
nowhere else.
When he had the impression that the envelopes failed to provide the
desired amount of fighting spirit, there were the letters that he would
fall back on. Players who he felt lacked ardour would receive a letter
describing the tournament director' s feelings about their attitude. Was
it their intention to insult the sacrifices this small community made to
see the world's best players at work? Or were they perhaps scoffmg at
the admiration with which they were welcomed here?
Encouraged by the results thus vigorously achieved, Rentero also de­
vised measures that the players found harder to accept. Their strongest
feelings were directed against the contracts in which they were sup­
posed to commit themselves under no circumstances to agree to a draw

13
before the fortieth move. This idea was born when Boris Spassky ap­
proached him before the 1 9 90 tournament with the request that he be
allowed to compete. In general, Rentero had no objection to the par­
ticipation of this living legend, who in 1 9 83 had been victorious in
one of the early versions of the Linares tournament. What did worry
him, however, was the former world champion's motivation. Wasn't
he showing more and more that he was over the hill and that he was a
stranger to any ambition? Didn't he appear at the board somewhere re­
cently in tennis gear, leaving his opponent in no doubt as to where he
preferred to find himself as quickly as possible t�at afternoon? Rentero
made no secret of his doubts and admitted Spassky only on the condi­
tion that he would make at least forty moves in each of his games.
Spassky had little choice but to agree to this unusual proviso, which
was to bring him near to exhaustion. Towards the end of the tourna­
ment he went down on his knees in front of Rentero in the bar and
begged him: "What is it you want? Do you want me to die?"
Spassky kept going but other players confronted with Rentero's wish
- written or unwritten - that they play at least forty moves were less
compliant. This led to predictable conflicts, which gradually came to be
considered primarily as a nuisance. Rentero would produce one of his
letters slapping a fine on some of the players for agreeing to a quick
draw, after which the players, insulted, would threaten to leave the
tournament, while in the end matters would invariably be patched up
again. There is an end to the effectiveness of even the most original
way of running a tournament.
Rentero's desire to stage the world's strongest chess tournament was
not just the ambition of a wealthy man. Chess was a passion of his be­
fore his supermarket chain turned him into a tycoon, even long before
1 960, when he began his career delivering groceries in and around Li­
nares on a bicycle. In1947, the year when Manolete was gored and
killed by a bull in the Linares arena, fifteen-year-old Rentero invited
one of Spain's strongest chess players, Roman Toran, to give a simulta­
neous exhibition in his home town. His own achievements at the board
extended no further than a one-off appearance in the Spanish champi­
onship semi-finals at Seville. Playing made him unable to sleep, as his
games would not leave him alone. So he stopped and hoped for a
comeback as an organizer - a wish that in 1 9 7 8 led to the start of what
was to grow into a unique phenomenon.

14
The lobby remains empty without Rentero. He is not here to write let­
ters handing out fines for the remarkable number of draws some play­
ers have permitted themselves so far. He is not here either to tell me
the tournament could not have gone on without me. It has, in fact,
been going on for two weeks, and without him, too.
While the girl at the reception desk, who wasn't working here last
year, is registering me and looking for a key, I glance at the topmost
copy of a stack of bulletins in between the tourist leaflets. With five
rounds to go, first place seems a foregone conclusion. Kasparov is on
the rampage again. At the halfway mark, he was already a full point
ahead of Viswanathan Anand, the winner of last year's tournament.
Kasparov moreover staged a unique coup winning the three games he
played with Black. He also came out on top in his first black game in
the second half of the tournament. Peter Svidler, who won his first
game ever against the world champion with White at Tilburg two years
ago, now remarked ahead of his encounter with Kasparov that he had
the feeling of starting with the disadvantage of the white pieces.
The next day, Kasparov won again, now beating Vassili Ivanchuk,
the fickle genius from the Ukraine, who is more popular with the lo­
cals than anyone else. While I am reading in the bulletin that Kaspa­
rov' s lead on Anand has increased to two points and that he is
one-and-a-half point ahead of the new runner-up, Vladimir Kramnik,
someo�e jabs me in the back.
"Arvind!"
"I thought you'd have arrived by now. The 4:2 0 from Madrid,
wasn't it?"
"Yes. I was looking to see if there's any excitement coming up
here."
"Maybe tomorrow."
"Against Garry baby."
"Yep. Against Gazza."
He pronounces it with an articulation that clearly indicates he would
never use the nickname off his own bat. Tomorrow Anand will be
playing Kasparov. With White. Arvind covers every tournament the
Indian grandmaster competes in. Whenever Anand makes a move
somewhere, Arvind files daily reams of print for The Hinduh, the
largest-circulation newspaper in his hometown of Chennai, the former
Madras.
"Do you think your boy stands a chance tomorrow?"

IS
 Arvind moves his head backwards and raises his eyebrows, and says
nothing, as he always does when he wants to avoid a subject. He
doesn't like talking about the relative strengths of Kasparov and Anand.
"Do you have any plans for tonight?"
"No, when I've got my key, I'll go and unpack my bags. Then eve­
rything's fine with me. Are you having dinner?"
Arvind has had Pizza Express deliver a pizza in his room towards the
end of the afternoon and can do without food for a while. It always
takes some mental acrobatics to find out what part of the day it is to
Arvind, as he has his own peculiar way of stepping outside of time in
Europe. In view of his deadlines, his watch is set for Chennai local
time. By his watch, it is midnight now, although this doesn't mean that
he plans to go to bed soon. On the contrary. Round about midnight he
usually gets back to work here, only to go to sleep at around six in the
morning. We decide to go for a short walk together around eleven.
At eleven sharp, Arvind knocks on my door, and when I open it, I
find him inspecting my room number.
"Ah, room 1 60 , a familiar number. I was in this room in 1 9 94. "
"How come you remember?"
"How could I forget? The day after I arrived, it was announced that
the plague had broken out in the Northwest of India. The spectacular
news was widely reported in Spain, even in Linares. One night, I re­
turned to my room and I could hardly breathe. My breath was cut off
by the smell of the chemicals in it. I think they'd set to my room with
the most aggressive cleansing agents they could find in Linares. It was
truly awful. I felt like an insect."
"What did you do about it?"
"At one point, Mauricio came to bring me something and was taken
aback by the smell. Overwhelmed, he asked me what had happened to
my room and when I told him, he made them stop. "
"Do you think it was Rentero's idea?"
"I don't know but I wouldn't be surprised. There was an Indian or­
ganiser on his way over here at the time. Wanted to find out how they
arranged things in Linares. Because I'd been expecting him for some
time, I asked Rentero if he'd heard anything. Now, that was a question
he.liked. Gleefully, he told me they put the man in quarantine in
Frankfurt."
I look at Arvind with my eyebrows frowned, but then we both start
to laugh. It was sad but at the same time typical of Linaresque prompt-

16
ness of action. One of the members of the local chess club, which
meets at the hotel in the room serving as a press room during the tour­
nament, told me once that people in Linares are different. Different
from people in the surrounding towns. "It's a matter of character," he
said, "this doggedness. It's why chess is only played in Linares. Every­
where else around here, they play cards. "
When we leave the hotel, the streets are quiet. We talk a bit but my
words have a heavy and unwilling feeling to them at the end of the
long travelling day. We turn right at the roundabout and continue
along the pavement of the Avenida de Andalucia, which is going up
here towards the Plaza del Ayuntamiento. The nearer we get to the
town hall, the more pronounced the calm becomes. There is no one
about and it seems as if we are walking through a ghost town. The only
things we hear are our own footsteps and the chafing noises our
clothes make as we walk. Having reached the small square we stop for a
while to catch our breath but also to look around. The town hall is
bathing in dark yellow floodlight and makes an unreal impression. Like
a film set where they've forgotten to turn off the lights. Shooting will
probably continue tomorrow. But for what film or what kind of film?
When I begin to think about it I cannot even decide for myself on the
period in which the film might be set.

17
 Anibal

The breakfast buffet at the Hotel Anibal does not attract many chess
players. Decked with immaculate linen, the Himilce restaurant at ten in
the morning appears almost deserted. Apart from two businessmen
reading the paper, only Veselin Topalov and his regular companion,
Silvio Danailov, are having breakfast at one of the large round tables.
We greet each other with a nod from a distance, without shaking
hands. The buffet offers the dull international fare to be found in every
hotel nowadays. Yoghurt, fruit, a panoply of bread, meat and cheese,
and, for the serious breakfasters, the bins with sausages, bacon and
scrambled eggs. Anibal has kept up with the times. When I first came
here, breakfast was still in Spanish style. You had a cafe con leche and a
churro in the bar, a coffee with lots of milk and a sort of croissant. It was
all you needed after you had been in the restaurant until about eleven
the night before.
As I sit at a table nearby, Topalov asks with neutral interest: "Just ar-
rived, have you?"
"Last night."
"And you're staying till the end?"
"Yes, until the day after the closing ceremony."
In the coming hours I'll have to repeat this conversation time and
again. It is the "How are you?, I'm fine" of the chess tournament. You
weren't here but now you are and your presence will end as soon as
the tournament is over. For chess players, the tournament is the over­
riding unit of time. A year is not measured in months but in tourna­
ments. The first day of a tournament offers new chances; on the last,
you are held to account for your performance.
Topalov has finished his breakfast and stops by. "Any news from the
.
world of chess?"
"You'd expect the news to be made here. I hear you've moved to
Salamanca?"
"Yes, we got fed up with the travelling. Whenever you wanted to go
somewhere from Gran Canaria, you first had to fly for more than two
hours before you could start your trip in earnest from Madrid."
"Won't you be missing the sea?"
"I've had enough sea to last me for the rest of my life."

18
 "How are things here? Isn't it discouraging for you and the others
me way Kasparov comes on like a ferocious beast?"
Topalov thinks for a minute and then launches into his answer on a
sustained high note, as many Eastern Europeans do: "I don't know.
Discouraging? No. He's playing his own tournament and we're playing
our tournament. He's·having his problems and we're having our prob­
lems. The differences in strength between the rest of us are small, so
mere's enough to fight for."
He nods, more to himself than to me. Silvio has joined him and taps
him on the shoulder with his newspaper. It is time for preparation.
With the help of the database in their computer, they will examine his
next opponent's games systematically, looking for a line or a position
they would like to see on the board this afternoon. Topalov nods, says
goodbye and they leave together..
The two Bulgarians have been getting along like this for some eight
years. Silvio calls himself Topalov's manager and says he doesn't under­
stand why hardly any of the other players have a manager. How can
they concentrate on their games for the full one hundred per cent
when they have to deal with all sorts of trifles besides? Together they
settled in Gran Canaria some five years ago and together they have now
moved to Salamanca, the old university town from where Silvio's wife
comes.
Topalov met Silvio in the early nineties at a tournament in Sofia. To­
palov was a great talent who had scored a grandmaster norm when he
was only sixteen. His play was promising but he was worrying about
his future, because he was never invited for tournaments abroad. He
asked Silvio, who was older and more experienced, if he could help.
Silvio understood what he meant and told Topalov to bring his passport
the next time he came to the capital from his home town of Ruse. So
Topalov did. Silvio made a copy of the passport and wrote down his
details. Then nothing happened for a while. Friends began to tease the
hopeful Topalov. He shouldn't have trusted this big-mouth. But then,
Silvio suddenly called to announce that they were to go to Spain for
three or four months. He had arranged for Topalov to compete in an
attractive invitational tournament and after that they would try their
luck in a few opens. The trip was to change their lives. It was not easy
at first, because they didn't speak Spanish, but Topalov's play turned
out to be a great interpreter. His first triumphs were like a fairytale and
the wonderful experience made him decide to return to Spain as soon

19
as he could. In 1 9 9 2, Topalov developed into the king of the Spanish
open tournaments, winning no less than twenty with his aggressive
style of play. He met no really strong grandmasters so far in this trium­
phal procession but he polished off the second-rankers he met so
ruthlessly that he emerged out of the blue among the top twenty of the
world rating list.
Aggressiveness, irrepressible pugnacity and an objective view of his
own shortcomings remained Topalov's trademark after he gained a
regular place among the best of the best in the great classical tourna­
ments. He preferred to lose five games and offset these with five victo­
ries rather than playing ten draws. He was hardly ever really satisfied
with a victory. There was always a moment in the game he could point
to where he could have done better.
This professionalism determines their daily schedule. While most
other players stick to being traditional late-risers, even during a tourna­
ment, Topalov keeps his normal rhythm. He gets up early and goes to
bed early. Round about noon, he takes a nap for an hour in order to be
as fresh as possible when he takes his seat at the board at three in the
afternoon.

After a quick breakfast of coffee and sweets, I go into the lobby, hoping
for a meeting that I have been looking forward to. Arvind told me that
Mauricio and Nieves arrived last night as well. If all is as it should be,
they have had breakfast shortly before me and are now sitting in the
large, brown settees watching life in the hotel getting slowly under­
way. I am not disappointed. They are in the middle sitting area, both
absorbed in a section of the paper. Despite the fact that she has been
living in Spain for twenty years, I cannot help but notice once again
how American-looking Nieves still is with her permanent wave and her
huge glasses. Mauricio may still have an American passport but he
looks as dignifiedly Iberian and aristocratic as ever. If you didn't know
that he was the son of a general, you might think that he was the gen­
eral himself. Almost at the same time, they look up from their newspa­
per. As a smile appears on Mauricio's face and he makes to get up,
Nieves is the first to react: "Look who's here, Maurice. How are you,
dear? Watch it, be careful with this old lady. Ever since they've operated
on my shoulder, I'm a bit fragile."

20
 Mauricio gets up with an affectionate "Hombre!" and warmly grasps
my hand. Energetically as ever, Nieves takes control and motions for
me to sit down.
"Well, dear, tell me, what's the latest gossip?"
"Does that have to come from me? I take it you've met with a few
insiders last night?"
With Nieves, you don't mince words.
"That's true. Have you heard that Kasparov is far from happy?"
"Why? He's doing fine, isn't he?"
"Yes, but you know ever since Rentero's accident it's his son who
runs the place and he has a mind of his own. Kasparov's got a room for
himself and for his second, Dokhoian, but they hadn't expected his
mother to turn up, too, and now she has to pay for her room."
"They'll soon sort that out, won't they?"
"Maybe, but mother Kasparov was in a frenzy and called a news
conference complaining to reporters that this amounted to downright
discrimination against women. So you see, you can get to work right
away."
"Doesn't seem very clever, the way this son of Rentero's went about
it.,
Mauricio shakes his head: "Well, you know, they think they can
manage �verything here, but they're such idiots. We've just arrived but
you'd just as soon leave again."
"I do think you'd like to know how Vishy will do against the Big
Boss today."
"Ah, Kasparov? Yes, of course. But it won't be easy. Incredible, how
well he's playing. It seems as if he's had a look at everything in his
preparation. I hope Vishy gets a position on the board where he feels at
home, so he may stand a chance."
It was in Linares, when Viswanathan Anand made his debut here in
1991 , that the Pereas got to know him. The unusually fast moving
youngster from Madras played with varying results but Mauricio had
seen enough. This was a natural talent as you might come across just
once in a century. The speed with which Anand uncovered the secrets
of a position, the ease with which he calculated tricky combinations,
the effortlessness with which he saw deeper in mere seconds than his
opponents did after a long thought, Mauricio couldn't get enough of it.
Chess was Mauricio's lifelong passion, a passion that opened doors for
him everywhere, which otherwise might have remained closed. A pas-

21
sion which he had not been able to pass on to his three sons or his
daughter but which was now revived upon his seeing this inspired
young chess player from India, who also turned out to have a lively
character, a good sense of humour and a lucid mind.
Astonished, Mauricio watched as Anand used no more than twenty
minutes of his thinking time to shove the American phenomenon, Gata
Kamsky, off the board in the first round. Twenty minutes for a game
that he was allowed to think about for three hours. To his even greater
astonishment, Anand confided to him after the game: "Actually, I
needed only ten minutes. But I was afraid that the audience would find
me overweening. That's why I kept the clock running for a bit longer. "
Laughing in disbelief, Mauricio asked him if he planned to use only
twenty minutes for his second-round game, against Karpov, too. Anand
pretended to think and replied: "Karpov? Let' s say sixteen minutes
should do the job . " And added: "You know what? If I win tomorrow,
I'll invite the two of you for supper at the Chinese restaurant next
door." The next day , Mauricio looked on as Karpov was j ust as effort­
lessly outclassed. Proud and glad, he stood waiting after the game, and
he was delighted when a jubilant Anand stepped up to him yelling :
"We're going to the Chinese! We're going to the Chinese!"
From that moment on, Mauricio knew that the spontaneous young
man with his leather jacket and his large sports shoes had stolen his
heart. He knew that he had met a future world champion and he
decided to do all he could to help him get there. Tactfully, he began to
give the restless Anand small hints and food for thought. When he had
thought of a good move, why didn't he use a few extra minutes to see
if there might not be an even better one? What good was it to him if he
had half his time or even more left at the end of a game? It was mostly
advice that Anand had heard before but from Mauricio it sounded dif­
ferent, as it came from someone who had seen the world and held top
positions in international pharmaceutical concerns. Gradually, a true
friendship developed between them, and also between Anand and
Nieves, who could take action like no one else when something practi­
cal had to be arranged for him. He went to stay more and more often
with the Pereas in Collado Mediano, a suburban village in the hills
overlooking Madrid. He bought a house there himself in the end, and
now lives there for the greater part of the year with his wife, Aruna.
With fatherly pride, Mauricio saw him grow as a personality and as
a chess player. As a result of his success, Anand became a star sports-

22
man in his own country, second in popularity only to the cricket
player, Sachin Tendulkar. No less than three thousand well-wishers
were at hand to congratulate him on his wedding day. Whenever he
oiumphs in some important event, his parents' home is flooded with
fan mail, because the Indian press are afraid to report that the beloved
sports star is in fact living abroad.
Anand closed in on the unassailable Kasparov and, in a period when
the latter hardly ever played while Anand triumphed wherever he ap­
peared, it began to be said that he might even justifiably call himself
the world's best player. It is a point of view that is being heard less of­
ten at the moment. Even Mauricio is impressed by Kasparov's tremen­
dous performance and he knows that Anand will have to show more
than his usual mettle if he is to stand a chance against the monster. Or
perhaps he should just wait until Kasparov's present top form passes, I
suggest.
"Who knows? I'm curious how he's feeling. I haven 't seen Vishy to­
day, not yet, it' s a bit early for him. He'll be having breakfast across the
street any time now, I expect. We'll see . "
Mauricio manages t o hide the excitement h e must already b e feeling.
He will be in the press room on time this afternoon, put board and
pieces in front of him and then rack his brain over the position in that
one game. A game he has already started in his head. He nods absent­
.
mindedly as I get up and say I am off to see how things are in Linares
before then.

The glaring sun hurts my eyes as I leave the hotel and submit to the
overwhelming change from the dark lobby with its chilly tiles to the
heat outside. Everything here is built with an eye to the blistering heat
of the summer months. You try to preserve what coolness there is in
the house. The metal blinds of the apartment blocks across the street
are down for the most part, even though the sun has not yet com­
pletely dispelled the morning cool. The blinds indicate what it must be
like here in the summer, when they are all down, and the residents
flock to the seaside as often they can to escape the heat.
Automatically, I walk in the direction of the town hall. I am taking
the chess player' s constitutional, an established, predictable route lead­
ing on from the Plaza del Ayuntamiento through the shopping mall and
then upward through two busy streets , where motorized traffic is al­
lowed, finally to join the paseo, the favourite Sunday promenade for all

23
of Linares. At the end of the paseo is the statue of Andres Segovia. A huge
bronze statue of a gruff, bespectacled man in a wide cloak wearing re­
markably large, black shoes. There, at the statue of this famous son of
Linares, is the turning point. A good question to ask when you meet a
chess player strolling through the town is if he 's been to see Segovia.
While the streets were deserted last night, now they are bustling and
noisy. It seems as if an inordinate number of extras has been thrown in.
There are small groups of people talking everywhere. Mothers with
prams with mothers with prams, old men with olive green cardigans
with old men with olive green sweaters. There is a lot to be discussed,
..
and what can't be put into words is explained with gestures. Every
other few metres, there is someone crying that he or she has got lottery
tickets for sale. And there are career differences even in this line of
work. Some vendors, blind or leaning on crutches, have strips of tickets
hanging on their breasts, others have them in trays in front of their bel­
lies. The most successful vendors are in small booths. Everyone here is
buying tickets. The largest organization is Once , which devotes its large
earnings to relieve the plight of the blind and visually handicapped.
Best to live in Spain when you are blind.
The bustle subsides only when you get to the paseo, the wide prome­
nade lined with tall palm trees on either side and located just outside
the town centre, like a landing-strip for small airplanes. It comes from
nowhere and leads nowhere either. Here, you stroll about in the early
evening or on Sundays. The Linarese are proud of their paseo, built
originally at the end of the nineteenth century. In the late twenties, the
paseo underwent its most drastic change. Every other ten metres, stone
benches were put under the palm trees, decorated from top to bottom
with brightly-coloured Andalusian tiles, baked for the purpose in
Seville. On the back of these benches Linarese shopkeepers could - and
still can - advertise their trade.
Linares is perhaps so often said to be ugly because there is a con­
spicuous lack of cheerful Andalusian architecture. Houses and buildings
almost everywhere radiate the indifference with which they have been
constructed. At an angle off the paseo is one of the few exceptions: the
arena, which demonstrates, with its brightly whitewashed walls and
the wide yellow ochre bands marking gates, windows and eaves, that it
doesn' t have to be that way. Located in all its splendour in the midst of
a number of drab apartment buildings, it seems to accentuate how
deeply bull fighting is still entrenched in Spanish daily life. Jam-packed

24
corridas are still being held here. But more than a symbol for the pres­
ent, the arena is a monument for a cherished myth. It was here, on
August 2 8th, 1 94 7 , that the idol of all aficionados, Manolete, was fatally
injured by a bull. Even today almost
. everyone can tell you that this
bull's name was Islero.
It remains odd how present and past are intermingled. As I walk
back, my eyes scan the shop windows. The latest of the latest novelties,
they are all there. Superfast computers, DVD-disks, everything you read
about in magazines is available in Linares. But there are also shop win­
dows advertising package deals for trips to various places of pilgrimage
during the Semana Santa. Or shop windows with everything you might
possibly need for a traditional Communion party. Little princely dresses
for the girls, sailor suits or small admiral's uniforms for the boys. But
perhaps these are contrasts only to outsiders, while the Linarese know
exactly what they are doing when they are moving backwards and for­
wards in time, taking both from tradition and progress as they please.

In the hotel lobby, in front of the reception desk, is Garry Kasparov.

From the look of it, he has come to see if any faxes have arrived for
him. He is wearing a dark blue T-shirt, probably the shirt he slept in,
and over it a dark pullover and over that a brownish tweed jacket. He is
unshavt;n and his eyes are still a bit sleepy. He shaves and dresses as
shortly before his games as possible. He is about to go back to his
room, reading, when he notices me: "Oh , hi. Just arrived, have you?"
His voice sounds flat. He tries to produce a smile but there is not much
life in his face yet. "Have those phone numbers been of any use ?" I
called him a week before the tournament to ask if he could help me
find the moves of one of his youth games. He didn't have the game
himself but gave me two telephone numbers in Yerevan where I should
be able to reach his opponent in that game. Maybe he could help me
on. It was the beginning of a search that finally had the desired result. I
don't intend to bother him with the details of that search now. "Yes,
I've found the game. I 'll give you a copy one of these days. How's life
here?"
"Life is fine. So far, everything is fine . " Offhand, I can 't think of
anything else other than to repeat that, yes, indeed, the tournament is
going great for him. Kasparov prefers not to either. He had been with­
drawn into himself and makes no secret of his intention to return there
as soon as possible. He mumbles once again that everything is fine so

25
far, squeezes his lips together in another attempted smile, says goodbye
and walks off.

Towards one thirty, most chess players are having lunch in the restau­
rant, each with his own second. The most important change from last
year is that the chairs have been provided with cream coloured covers
with huge 'H 's and 'A's, for Hotel Anibal, embroidered in gold on the
backs. The waiters are still wearing the same uniform. Black pants, pale
blue jacket, white shirt and black bow tie. Familiar faces. Diego, the
veteran, rushes over to point out that the table where I am about to sit
happens to be senor Adams' table. It is an old rule of the house. Where
the players sit on the first day is where they will have their meals at
noon and at night for the next three weeks. At this stage of the tourna­
ment, little that is distinct radiates from Adams, it appears. The first
time I ever entered this restaurant, I felt that there was one particular
table at the window where I should definitely not sit. An unapproach­
able table it was , although it was empty and unoccupied at the time. It
turned out to he Kasparov' s regular table.
After I have taken my seat at a smaller table with no claim on it, Di­
ego brings the menu and hands it to me with an emphatic: "Caballero!"
Diego is popular with the chess players. When it is very busy, he may
begin to deliver the dishes reaching him from the kitchen at random
tables. Arvind is not so certain whether he likes Diego all that much.
Waiting for the lift once, he saw the door slide open and looked
straight in the face of an agitated waitress who was desperately trying
to keep Diego off her. As I go over the menu, Michael Adams and his
second, Peter Wells, who have entered shortly after me , are having a
laugh at the English on it. For the benefit of the chess players, someone
in the kitchen every year cooks up translations which unfortunately do
not make the menu any the more accessible. Classics still often men­
tioned include "Roman Cork Float" and "Cook Dish with Tur. "
As I glance around, I notice that only one of the eight players is not
present. At the regular Kasparov table of the past few years, near the
swing doors to the kitchen, only mother Klara Kasparova is having her
meal , with her back to the restaurant. The other seats around the table
seem emptier than empty. Everyone understands that Kasparov has had
his meal and that for his second, Yuri Dokhoian, brought up to his
two-room suite on the first floor. He is checking the dizzying
variation-trees that he intends to confront Anand with until the very

26
last moment. He cannot afford and. doesn't want to lose this game. Par­
ticularly not now he has stated publicly that Anand is the obvious man
to challenge him to a match for the world championship. Losing is out
of the question. And winning? A victory would mean that he would
win five consecutive games in the strongest tournament of the year de­
spite the disadvantage of the black pieces. But Anand does not lose very
often. In the past year. he lost only twice. With White he did not lose
��all.

27
 Gazza

The playing hall is full of the nervous confusion that goes with the
start of a new round. Spectators are exchanging ideas, speaking just
above a whisper, players who have arrived a bit early are looking for
their seats on the stage. Photographers are shooting their first pictures
or are rummaging frantically in their bags for another film. At three
o' clock on the dot, the arbiter quells the buzz with a bang on a small
gong. He rushes from table to table to set the clocks in motion. The
white players can make their first move.
The clocks have barely started running when the curtains at the side
of the stage split to let through Kasparov, who is entering in a hurry.
Usually he is a few minutes late. Curiosity about Anand's plans has
drawn him to the board early, it seems. Yuri Dokhoian, with Kaspa­
rov's cellular telephone in his hand, takes his usual seat on the first
row. Triumphantly smiling, he turns around as I shuffle into the sec­
ond row: "Did you know that this is the only seat from which you can
follow all four of the games?"
"Ah, you've tested it, have you ? "
H e nods contentedly: "Yes, really, the only one in the entire hall. "
And quickly he turns back again. Klara Kasparova will take her seat on
the empty chair next to him at any moment. His attention should then
be directed at the game her son is playing. There are two Dokhoians.
Dokhoian on his own and Dokhoian within Kasparov or his mother's
field of tension. When he is on his own, Dokhoian does not mind a
chat, but he isn' t often on his own. He spends most of the day in Kas­
parov's company. Analysing together or talking together about what
they have analysed. When you meet Dokhoian together with Kasparov,
he has a commendable knack of knowing his place. Unsmiling and se­
rious, he looks ahead of himself in silence, absent-mindedly, as if he
doesn't notice when people are talking next to him. Why put in a word
if you risk it being the wrong one ? What is to be done or what is to be
discussed is determined by Kasparov. When they go to a restaurant
together, Kasparov decides what Dokhoian will have.
On the stage, the photographers are converging like a swarm of flies
on the table where Anand and Kasparov will be playing their game.
Their greeting handshake is indicative of the balance of power between
the two. Kasparov seems to reach out downwards from above with his

28
hand, full of confidence and strength, and broadly smiling at his oppo­
nent. Anand rises halfway from the chair where he had already taken
pla.ce and tries equally to produce a smile. He succeeds only partially.
Anand doesn't like not knowing what he is up against. Faced with this
Ka.sparov, he is not entirely confident. No matter how well prepared
)'OU are, there is always the fear that Kasparov has searched deeper and
found more.
While the photographers are making the most of the five minutes
they have got to do their work, I find that from this chair it is impossi­
ble to follow all four games at the same time without stretching your
neck and shifting to and fro. That Yuri! Once you are under the spell of
perfection, there is no end to it. The view is obstructed on the edges by
the two rows of tall, square columns cutting the length of the playing
hall in three. Rentero sent for an architect from Madrid once to see if
they could not be removed without causing too many problems. They
could not. These pillars are the only blemish on the hotel he bought in
rhe late eighties as the venue for his tournament. The players could be
lodged here, have their meals and could go for one another at the chess
board in the afternoon. Before Rentero acquired the Hotel Anibal, the
chess players used to stay at the bland Hotel Cervantes, located on a
busy arterial road in the town centre. They played their games in an
uncomfortable sports hall. When the weather failed to cooperate, it
used to be so cold there in the evening that people were forced to wear
\\inter coats.
When after exactly five minutes the arbiter tells the photographers to
desist, it becomes very quiet all of a sudden. Now they are no longer
gawked at, the chess players can adopt their preferred postures in
which to ponder their next move. The playing hall plunges into its
thinking state. Topalov puts his hands on his head and plugs his ears
\\ith his thumbs. Ivanchuk pushes his index and his middle finger onto
the bridge of his nose and stares mistily into the hall. Kramnik is pen­
sively stirring the coffee he ordered from one of the hostesses.
Calm fails only to descend over Anand and Kasparov' s board. Barely
has the one made his move when the other is stretching out his hand
for the reply. What are they rushing each other for? Is Kasparov trying
to demonstrate that he is no less quick than Anand? They leave the
spectators guessing as to the reason for their unusual speed. Their ac­
tions seem dictated by reflexes. Each in his turn making a move, writ­
ing it down, looking shortly, giving a quick glance, at what the other

29
has done , writing that move down , and then , without hesitating , mak­
ing the next move .
The insiders , meanwhile, know exactly what is going on. The two
players are following the game that Leko and Topalov played in the
third round. This is understandable from Anand ' s point of view , as
Leko obtained a favourable position. Kasparov can be expected to have
found some way of improving on Topalov ' s play. But where ? The gen­
eral feeling in the press room was that this line had to be too promising
for White. This is the way a chess player looks at a position . Occasion­
ally he will work out something but more often he will feel out the po­
sition of his pieces mentally and have faith in it or not. This black line
seemed not to be trusted , although Topalov did come away with a
draw in the end.
Anand and Kasparov pelt along until the sixteenth move. Then Kas­
parov slows down for a moment , picks up his Queen and places it with
a slight screwlike movement on the b 6-square. It seems as if time skips
a second over the board. As Kasparov writes down his move, Anand
picks up his pen too. Without writing he sits looking at the Queen on
b 6 , his pen at the ready . Kasparov gets up , stands behind his chair and
puts his hands on the back. With a fixed look, he is staring Anand
straight in the face. Kasparov once said in an interview with Playboy that
chess is the cruellest of all sports. Once again I am looking at it. Anand
is staring aimlessly. I t is not clear whether his eyes are registering any­
thing at all or whether he is j ust waiting for the moment that he will
recover himself. I am imagining that I saw him flinch for a moment at
the sight of Kasparov' s new move. It is only after Kasparov has turned
away with an inaudible snort and has disappeared behind the curtains
that Anand writes the move down. Then he puts his chin in his left
hand, bends forward and immerses himself in this changed reality. The
game has started . He is still playing White. But he is not sure whether
this is an advantage any longer.

In the press rqom , Mauricio sits silently poring over the position that
the apple of his eye is facing . Elizbar Ubilava has j oined him across the
board. They don ' t speak a word. From time to time, they move a piece ,
have a quick look and then put it back again. The Georgian grandmas­
ter is a regular member of the Anand team. Like Anand, he settled in
Mauricio and Nieves' home town a few years ago.

30
 The way from the playing hall to the press room is such that you
prefer to make the trip as few times as you can. If you avoid the short
rut through the kitchen, you have to go outside first and reenter the
hotel by way of a side entrance in order to reach the lift. This will take
rou to the second floor, from where you go on climbing the stairs;
mere is no lift because there are no hotel rooms on the top floor.
The press room provides sound to the silent thoughts of the chess
players. Everyone is watching the eight monitors on which the games
can be followed live, and is offering comment, whether asked for or
not. Half of the monitors are showing the actual positions in the four
encounters. Similar monitors have been set up against the back wall of
me playing hall for the public and in the players' rest room behind the
runains on the side of the stage. On the four other screens, the players
iliemselves are closely monitored. Zooming in is one of the favourite
directing techniques. It isn't always very spectacular. You may find
,-ourself watching Ivanchuk for five minutes absent-mindedly picking
his nose.
The regular guests are doing preparatory work on their laptops. A
handful of Spaniards and Arvind. There is a centrally positioned, unoc­
cupied chair next to Arvind. When I sit down, he removes his head­
phones. While writing , he was watching an Indian video clip in a
comer of his screen. A lively group of his compatriots, singing and
dancing in colourful dress. He sees I've noticed.
"Yes, it's one of the advantages of Windows. "
"You're early. You didn't want to miss the big fight, I guess?
"I had to do a curtain-raiser first. Just sent it. I can ' t get the whole
game in anyway. I have a very early deadline today. "
"How do you think your boy is doing?"
"Don ' t know. Haven' t watched yet. "
"It seems Kasparov has dropped one of his smart bombs on the
board again. Right after he moved Queen to b 6 , he got up and looked
at Vishy defiantly, as if he was saying: now it' s your turn. "
"You can hardly imagine Kasparov not having anything up his
sleeve. We'll see. Perhaps Vishy's been looking at this as well. He may
be checking now whether what he's seen still holds. I hope he hasn't
forgotten anything. Have I told you that Anand is doing a commercial
now in India for Memory Plus, a popular pharmaceutical mnemonic?
Every time he forgets something, Aruna calls after him: 'You haven't
forgotten to take your pills, have you?"'

31
 Arvind is tickled pink about it himself. He is silently rocking with
laughter. You won't get him worked up. No way. From Europe, he is
always working with unpleasantly strict deadlines because of the time
difference. But when you see him working you don ' t get the impres­
sion he is ever bothered by any deadline whatsoever.
Arvind is the son of Manuel Aaron, the first Indian chess player ever
to be named an international master by the world chess federation. Be­
ing the best player in his country, Manuel Aaron competed all over the
world but without ever winning any big prizes. He is renowned for the
victory he scored against Lajos Portisch in the Interzonal tournament at
Stockholm in 1 9 6 2 . What ought to have been a formality became a
tragedy. Portisch was about to qualify for the Candidates ' tournament,
the next step on the way to the world championship, while Aaron was
dismally tagging along at the bottom of the standings. Before the game,
Portisch had lunch with Bobby Fischer and Pal Benko. This lunch was
to be the reason that Portisch became a withdrawn sphinx for the rest
of his career , carefully avoidin g the company of other chess players
during tournaments even nowadays. Fischer and Benko were in high .
spirits and the two Americans tried to wind up Portisch. "You know,
Lajos, if I were you I ' d be careful with that Aaron, " the one began, at
which the other agreed, warning: "Yeah, don't underestimate him.
He's much more dangerous than you ' d think . " Portisch looked help­
lessly from the one to the other. That afternoon, he was fumbling un­
recognisably and wasted his qualification with a stupid blunder.
Arvind and his father have a lot in common despite the fact that they
don't look very much alike. It is impossible to trace the chubby son in
the ascetic appearance of the father. That may change. According to
Arvind, his father was just as heavy-set at his age and the pounds disap­
peared only later. In their sense of humour the similarity is obvious
even now. Manuel Aaron shone at the news conference that Anand and
Kasparov gave after their match in New York in 1 9 9 5 . Surmounting the
difficulties of the first two weeks, Kasparov had convincingly decided
the match in his favour with an overwhelming final offensive. The Rus­
sian reporters were jubilant and so was Kasparov. Before he knew it, he
started answering their questions directly in Russian without paying at­
tention to the funny foreigners who were unable to understand their
language. Kasparov's inconsiderate attitude caused widespread resent­
ment until Manuel Aaron raised his hand and asked Anand an ex­
tremely elaborate question in gurgling Tamil. Anand listened

32
anentively and played along perfectly. Using the most beautiful guttur­
als. he set out cheerily on an answer that to Kasparov's bewilderment
seemed to go on forever.

:\s the games are beginning to take form, the press room is getting bus­
ier. The atmosphere is one of excitement. Anand and Kasparov have
progressed a few moves. No one ventures to say which of them is bet­
ter or whether either is better at all. At a loss, the experts are trying to
plumb the depths of the position. Uncertainty reigns. In between the
,-arious opinions a frequent question being heard is what the computer
is thinking about it. While a few years ago journalists in this room
were still grabbing at pieces on chess boards to obtain the correct
judgement, they now blindly ask for the opinion of the oracle that
knows no emotions. The emphatic slaps of pieces being thrown onto
the board have been replaced by endless series of variations flashing si­
lently across the lower end of computer screens.
Leontxo Garcia is studying the calculations of his chess program on
the screen of his laptop at the table in the middle of the room. Seeing
its frrst findings, he holds his breath for a moment before expressing
himself: "It seems Anand is completely winning. " His words cause un­
rest as they are hard to reconcile with Kasparov' s provocative arrogance
when he played his opening moves. Confused, his Spanish colleagues
look at Leontxo. "Are you sure? , " asks Angel Asensio, who has been
·covering chess for the Spanish news agency EFE for many years without
making any noticeable progress in fathoming the secrets of the game. It
is different with Leontxo. He used to compete in tournaments at master
level. Moreover. he now works for the authoritative El Pais and for the
radio. And is relying on the opinion of his computer. Angel repeats his
question in disbelief: "Are you sure, Leontxo?" Leontxo is staring at his
screen, gropes for a cigarette and says almost apologetically : "It ' s what
the computer says. According to the computer, Anand has a 1 . 8 advan­
tage. " An advantage of 1 . 8 points. That means an advantage almost
equal to a two-pawn superiority. At this level, one pawn is usually
more than enough for a win.
Discreetly, I lean towards Arvind, who is consulting the same com­
puter program as Leontxo. "What do you think? It can't be that easy,
surely?" Arvind compresses his lips in thought before a smile spreads
across his face: "But I wouldn't mind either. "

33
 As we laugh at the obviousness of his remark, a new opinion is be­
ing aired behind us. The Spanish grandmaster Miguel Illescas has
checked the attack proposed by the computer and found that Black has
a better defence. He rattles off the moves he has found and, as if to take
the computer down a peg or two, states confidently : "It's a draw. It
looks dangerous for Black, but it' s a draw. " And to make things per­
fectly clear he adds: "No, it's not that easy to beat Kasparov. "
Illescas has seen correctly, as it turns out. The moves show up on the
board exactly as he predicted. Only, Anand does not force a draw with
the sacrificial combination that Illescas proposed. Anand is looking for
a way to prove his advantage after all. His will to soldier on meets with
general approval among the spectators in the press room but doubt
soon replaces that feeling. A few moves by Kasparov, subtly combining
defence and attack, suddenly put an unpleasant pressure on Anand's
position. It takes a while before this sinks in but then it is all too clear.
If there is someone who can play for a win, it is Kasparov. Undamaged
and strengthened he has emerged from the storm that seemed to break
over him.

Compared to the sweltering bustle of the press room, the playing hall is
utterly quiet. Some fifty, virtually immobile spectators are respectfully
watching the players on the stage. I am looking for a strategic seat in
the left front row. I don't need to see the three other games. As long as
I have a good view of Anand and Kasparov' s table and the monitor
showing their game. Up front, some ten metres from their table, Klara
Kasparova and Yuri Dokhoian are still following the developments with
tense faces. Their seriousness underlines the importance of every game
that Kasparov is playing. Yuri's eyes are nailed to the podium in deep
earnest so as not to allow for any misunderstanding. Klara is looking
somewhat worried, as if she wants to heave a deep sigh. By the look of
·
it, more to contain her own anxiety than in anguish over that of her
son. Turned in upon himself, Kasparov is pacing the stage in a slightly
rolling gait and contently looking at the floor, his hands loosely on his
back. He is radiating calm and control in every respect. When he sits
down again, he folds his hands in front of himself, purses his lips and
ponders the move that Anand has made with an approving nod. He
seems primarily satisfied with having proven himself right with his bal­
ancing act in the opening stage of the game. The ending now on the
board seems to offer him few chances of scoring a win. Anand has

34
patched up his defence with inventive and uncompromising play, and
the number of pieces has been considerably depleted. Kasparov, how­
e\'er , will play on for a while. He is still slightly better after all and it
never hurts to rub this in on your opponent for as long as possible. An
old piece of chess lore says never to forget that the end of a game is the
5Lllt of a new one against the same opponent. Even if the result seems a
foregone conclusion, you should realise that the opponent will be re­
membering every unpleasant minute he lived through in this game
during the first few moves of the next one.
That Kasparov intends to continue playing is clear from his j acket,
which is hanging on the back of his chair, and from his Audemars­
Piguet watch, which is next to the board, both unmistakable indica­
tions that work is still in progress. Anand makes a move and, after a
slight delay, the monitor against the back wall also shows the Knight he
lYs played moving towards the upper left corner of the board. As I try
to work out the sequel, I notice j ust by looking at Kasparov that some­
thing has happened which he didn't expect. His eyes wide open, he
looks at Anand ' s Knight; bends forward and delivers his reply with a
mort movement of his hand. From Kasparov' s body language I can
only infer that Anand has blundered after all. Otherwise, he'd never
have played his move with the total control of a soccer player scoring
from the penalty spot standing still, without a run-up. The next few
moves are obvious, don' t take long and are all preparatory to the
bishop sally that Kasparov launches across the board with a restrained
movement at the end of this exchange of moves. When the Bishop
comes to rest and is released, it visibly dawns on Anand as well that he
has been had. In a flash, he sees the tiny nuance which Kasparov ' s
bishop move has magnified into a blunder for which h e won't b e able
to forgive himself. Anand feels himself falling into the abyss of defeat.
Petrified he sits at the board, hoping against hope that there still is a
move that would prove it isn't all true.
The denouement hasn't come any less unexpected for Kasparov. He
doesn't know what to do with his body and his feelings, and has
stepped up to the edge of the stage immediately after making his fifti­
eth move. There he stands, looking at his mother and Yuri with wide
open eyes, floating between pure bliss and utter amazement. He puts
on his jacket, which he grabbed from his chair when he got up, and
barely succeeds in repressing the laugh moving under the skin of his
face. Then he turns abruptly and disappears behind the curtains. But he

35
doesn't know what to do with himself there either and, laughing awk­
wardly, he returns onto the podium a few seconds later. He' d prefer to
say something to Anand. What a strange game it has been. What luck
for him that Anand missed such a nasty detail in a moment's loss of
concentration. Anything. But Anand isn't ready to be spoken to yet,
and remains sitting as he was. Chess is a waiting game but every second
he has to wait now is too much for Kasparov. He takes his watch from
the table and, putting it on his wrist, disappears behind the curtains
once again. But what should he be doing there? He returns, broadly
smiling this time, his hands stretched out in fro�t of himself apologeti­
cally, the kindliest man in the world. He doesn' t have to wait any
longer. Anand puts his pen down, nods and briefly shakes his hand to
indicate he resigns the game. The audience reacts with an admiring ap­
plause, which stops quickly when the arbiter looks into the hall with
startled eyes and brings his raised index finger in front of his mouth in
order to demand silence.

In the annexe of the rest room next to the stage, there are a number of
tables with boards and pieces, where the players can analyse their
games together after they've finished. Such a joint post-mortem is an
essential part of chess etiquette, which you can't very well avoid. It is a
bizarre event. Players who have been racking their brains for hours on
end in an effort to outsmart each other are calmly and ostensibly with­
out emotion explaining what they have been thinking about all the
time. It seems like a lock sometimes, there to smooth the transition
from the intensity of the game to the more diffuse reality of every day.
A safety valve that has been put in unintentionally and allows the play­
ers to retain their humanity. Victory and defeat are wider apart in chess
than in the more physical sports. The joy of victory may be less ecstatic,
the grief of defeat is almost always more abysmal. Bobby Fischer used
to say in his younger years that he wanted to crush the other guy ' s ego.
This is something not many chess players will say after him but in his
inimitable way, the American did make clear how deep the suffering of
defeat can be. When you lose, someone has touched your ego.
Kasparov and Anand first exchange a few variations with their sec­
onds before they sit down to go over their game. Kasparov is still
elated. While quickly repeating the first few moves on the board he ex­
plains how his opening idea came into being: "I felt it had to be good
for Black, but I couldn't get my idea right. Time and time again the

36
computer told me I was lost. Until I found this move. " With a broad
grin, he picks up his King's Bishop and, with an emphatic slap, puts it
once again on the square he was so satisfied about. "The computer still
said Black was lost but when it began to look a bit deeper it soon
changed its mind . " He is looking alternately at the journalists milling
around the table and at Anand, who has had little to say so far. But now
he, too, begins to give his opinion about the position, rapidly moving
a. few pieces first and then talking a mile a minute while indicating an
imaginary route for them with his fmger. With a few sparkling varia­
tions he tries to counterbalance the amazingly long series of moves full
of pointed surprises that Kasparov has shown. The atmosphere is re­
la.."<ed but it is also clear that this analysis will not take long. Too much
pain has been inflicted. Chess players sometimes continue looking end­
lessly for the deeper layers of a game. But there is little chance for that
now. After about a quarter of an hour Anand nods politely to indicate
he has seen what he wanted to see and gets up from the table. Accom­
panied by Ubilava - or Ubi, as he prefers to call him - he walks to­
wards the exit, where children with programme folders in their hands
are waiting impatiently for his autograph.
Kasparov also gets up. It seems he would rather continue enjoying
the afterglow. " Did you expect him to avoid that drawing combina­
tion?" , I ask. He blows air behind his lips and raises his shoulders: "Of
course, if it's a draw he's out for, he can do it. But if he doesn't trust
the sacrifice and tries something else, it is a very dangerous position for
White. Very dangerous. " Intensely satisfied, he is ready to answer fur­
ther questions but then Yuri steps in and indicates with a short move­
ment of the eyes that this is enough. Enough enjoyment. It is time for
him to put this game out of his head and start thinking about the next
round. All the beautiful things he has seen and shown today will not
help him when the pieces are lined up for the next game. Yuri hands
back his telephone and without paying attention to anyone else they
are off.

37
 Mauricio

When I come into the hotel lobby after breakfast, Mauricio and
Nieves are sitting in their usual spot. There is nobody else in the hall.
Mauricio seems to be daydreaming. Nieves has a folded newspaper on
her lap.
"What's in the news today?"
She gives a scornful laugh and says belligerently: "I don' t even want
to know. "
Mauricio makes a slight movement with his hand as if h e were toss­
ing something away, and asks how I am doing. He seems cold despite
the thick flannel shirt and the vest he is wearing.
"Have you been able to get some sleep?"
He raises a corner of his mouth in disapproval : "It was pretty hope­
less. I had trouble getting to sleep. The positions kept churning around
in my mind. I couldn ' t stop thinking about that game. "
"How was Vishy taking it last night?"
" We hardly talked about it, actually. We had dinner together and
then he went for a walk with Ubilava. That is to say, they had dinner. I
already had the feeling that sleeping would be difficult. If I ' d started
eating under the circumstances, I might as well have forgotten sleeping
altogether. "
"What' s your opinion o f yesterday' s game ? "
Mauricio thinks for a while, then settles himself more comfortably.
" You know, I didn 't like that opening at all. This retreat of the Knight
to the back rank. There may be all sorts of subtle thoughts behind it,
but it goes against my feelings as a chess player. The Knight doesn' t
belong there. " A smile appears o n his face. " Do you realize I had this
position against my computer in my room the day before yesterday?
No kidding. This very same position. I can show you , I saved the
game. I didn' t withdraw the Knight at all hut moved it ahead aggres­
sively and won with a beautiful sacrifice. Bang , bang. No Knight ' s
retreat. Attack . "
As he falls silent, a blank look returns to his eyes.
"Do you think Vishy gave himself enough of a chance before the
game? Did he actually believe he could win?"
Mauricio turns up his nose with a sigh. "That's a completely differ­
ent story, something that I ' ll have to discuss with him again soon.

38
There' s no harm in pepping yourself up real good once in a while. I re­
member playing in the New Jersey open championship of 1 9 6 8 . The
winner of the tournament was a fellow called Eugene Mayer. His
brother, John Mayer, was a strong player too, of master strength. But
he was also a Republican and I was a Democrat. He showed up at the
board with one of those huge buttons pinned on him that said he was a
Republican. I didn' t like it one bit. I was White and I kept thinking : I'm
going to finish you off. With every move I made, I saw this button in
front of me. I set up an attack, sacrificed a Rook and mated him in
£wenty-seven moves. "
He looks at me with a triumphant gleam in his eyes.
"And that from someone as civilized as you. "
"For sure. Look, I told Vishy several times how I used to give simuls
:irn the United States. I ' ve done that quite often, always against thirty or
fony opponents. Whenever I'd arrive somewhere these people would
be waiting at their boards and the president of their club would intro­
duce me as the Spanish master Perea who blah blah blah . . . well, you
know. While this man would be giving his speech, I'd be standing
iliere quietly cleaning my glasses with my handkerchief. But on the in­
'iide I'd be raging and telling myself: I've got thirty Americans in front
of me here and I ' m going to chop their livers. I ' m going to crush them.
That wou,ld be the inside, on the outside I ' d be perfectly calm. I ' ve of­
len told Vishy: Sometimes you have to clean your glasses and decide
for yourself that you're going to give your opponent hell. "

Mauricio was born in 1 9 2 3 in Tangier, where his father served in the

HillY occupying the Spanish part of Morocco. His father' s is not the
only military blood in his veins. His grandfather on his mother's side,
_\lbert Lacey, was an officer with the British Royal Navy in Gibraltar.
He was killed seven years before Mauricio was born when HMS Hamp­
shire struck a mine - the ship with which Lord Kitchener sailed to Saint
Petersburg on a mission to Russia. His other grandfather also saw a
great deal of the world , serving with the Spanish army. He arrived in
Cuba in 1 8 9 8 , j ust in time to take part in the war that broke out after
the American ship, USS Maine, was blown up by mines in Havana har­
bour.
Mauricio ' s father, Juan Perea Capulino, was a tall, strong man, who
joined the army when he was only fourteen. According to Mauricio,
iliat was because in those years you had little choice in Spain; you ei-

39
ther became a priest or you set out on a military career. After a few
years training, his father was posted to Morocco. There he rose rapidly
through the ranks, collecting some twenty medals for bravery along the
way. He was awarded his last medal, the order of Saint Hermegildo, for
one of his finest acts of valour. Swathed in bandages, he rose from the
hospital bed where he was being nursed for a bullet that had punctured
his lung to lead a successful defence against a new Moroccan attack.
Thanks to that bullet, the Perea family could return to Madrid for fa­
ther Juan to continue his convalescence. It was the first big move for
three-months-old Mauricio. There would be many more to follow.
Listening to Mauricio's stories, I range them in my mind in the peri­
ods into which his life can be divided. The first sixteen years in Madrid
ended in I 9 3 9 with Franco's victory in the Spanish civil war and the
Pereas' inevitable exile. First to Nice and then, in the hope of building a
new life, to Mexico in 1 94 2 . It was in Mexico that Mauricio finished
his studies, met Nieves and had his first experience of working in the
bio-medical industry. The next, long period begins in 1 9 57, whe!l he
moves to the United States with a family of his own and subsequently
works for the pharmaceutical giants Schering, Union Carbide and
Rorer. With the first two, he is responsible for Central and South Amer­
ica, with the third, he makes the changeover to Europe and Africa.
What remains the same is the endless air travelling and being away
from home. This only ends in 1 972 , when Rorer offers him the oppor-
tunity to return to Spain.
,
Mauricio 's youth in Madrid coincides with the most tumultuous
years of his father' s life. Back in the capital, his father feels frustrated
about many things. Juan Perea airs his dissatisfaction with the way the
war in Morocco is being conducted and he is critical of the monarchy
and the church. Carried away by his feelings, he takes part in a conspir­
acy in 1 9 26, which will enter the history l;>ooks as the Sanjuanada. Eve­
rything that could go wrong, did go wrong. Or, as Mauricio puts it
derisively : " Because Spaniards do everything so thoroughly, they got
caught. A lack of coordination caused the conspiracy to be discovered.
One of the conspirators was enjoying his siesta and forgot to pass on a
decision calling for a delay of a few days.. Or something like that. "
His father is court-martialled and given a prison sentence of six years
and a day. He is to serve his term in Barcelona, in the prison on Mont­
juich. He is released in 1 9 3 0 , when the government of the new repub­
lic declares an amnesty after the flight of the Spanish king. For the

40
moment, he has his fill of the army. He and his brother become entre­
preneurs. One of the firms they set up is Cinearte, the first Spanish film
production company, for which Luis Buiiuel will make his Perro Andalus.
But it is not long before his military qualities are called for again. When
the civil war breaks out in 1 9 3 6 , the government asks him to form his
own Perea-column, with which he fights for the defence of Madrid in
the Sierra de Guadarrama, north of the capital. In the end, he is ap­
pointed commander-in-chief of the eastern army, which, badly sup­
plied and weakened, will prove to be no match for the fascists. Franco's
victory leaves General Perea little choice. To remain would mean the
firing squad. Unhesitatingly, he flees to the Cote d'Azur, where he and
his family move into a villa in Nice.
It is to his father that Mauricio owes his love-hate relationship with
Spain. Like his father, he has an ineradicable soft spot for the country,
for the Spanish way of life and even for sentimentalities like the
ZMZU ela, the Spanish operetta, which appeals more to the heart than to
the mind. But he also shares his father' s aversion toward the church
and the arrogance of a power that willingly kept the majority of the
population in ignorance for hundreds of years. He can still get steamed
up about his country, where in the seventeenth and eighteenth centu­
ries science fell behind by a hundred years or so because the Inquisition
systematically banned all books propagating the new insights. A coun­
try where, as late as the year of his birth, between sixty and seventy per
cent of the population were unable to read or write. For the simple rea­
son that the church, which owned one-third of the country, and not
the worst part at that, had no interest in having the people acquire an
education at all.
It is his country and then again it is not. His passport is American,
but not because he wanted it that way. In the United States he had to
wait for five years before qualifying for an American passport. A long
time for a document of which he wasn ' t even sure whether he
wanted it at all. During that qualifying period he went to the Spanish
consulate in New York to inquire whether he might be eligible for a
Spanish passport. He was , the official in charge told him, but it would
help if he first wrote a letter of apology to the ministry of defence for
not having served his time in the conscription army. The man
couldn' t have thought up anything that would have infuriated Mauri­
cio more. Roaring with anger, he told the consulate official he wasn 't
planning to write any letter whatsoever. Certainly not after the mess

41
people like him had made of his native country. Once outside , he
knew it would only be a matter of time before he ' d have an American
passport.

" My life has been a string of lucky coincidences, of chess and of mu­
sic . " We were at Mauricio's home in Collado. This was how, without
any inhibition, he summed up the feeling already conveyed by the sto­
ries he' d been telling. It was an elegant conclusion, impressive in its
honesty. One doesn ' t often meet people who are aware of their luck.
Much of what he told me kept going round in my mind for a long time
afterwards. Because of the evocation of a worid that seems timeless de­
spite its transience. But also because of the chess.
Mauricio related: "Since I keep reading that mythical story of how
young Capablanca learned to play chess by quietly watching his father
when he played, I 'll confess I also learned the game by watching my fa­
ther play. He played with a journalist, a deaf-mute, who was called Es­
cobar. To me , it was fascinating to see my parents speak with him in
sign language. This Escobar had a little daughter, who actually inter­
ested me more than the chess. We were about nine, ten years old . But
gradually I was attracted more and more by those moving pieces on the
chess board. I followed their games attentively and, of course, it would
have been wonderful if, like Capablanca, I ' d have said one day : "Can I
play too? " and had then beaten my father. But that wasn' t how it went.
There were a few rules I didn' t quite understand. I asked my father to
explain them and from that moment on I began playing myself. It
didn' t amount to much at first. It only began to look like something af­
ter we moved to Nice , which was extremely fortunate for me. I was
very eager to learn, I loved to study and I felt liberated when I was able
to turn my back on the church-dominated Spanish educational system.
From one day to the next, I came into contact with a version of the his­
tory of the past few centuries which differed markedly from what I had
been told so far.
"Thanks to chess, my passion for music also grew in Nice. Our
neighbours were the Bergs , rich Jewish industrialists from Berlin,
who 'd fled from the Nazis. Monsieur Berg regularly invited me to
come and play chess. He wasn' t very strong but he was a passionate
player. His wife begged me to lose a game once in a while, because he
had a heart condition. Whenever I came by , there 'd be chocolate or
cakes, delicacies one was hardly ever offered at the time. Madame Berg

42
had been a Wagnerian soprano with the Berlin Opera. One day, she
asked me if I could help her with her accent. She was to sing an aria es­
pecially for my parents at a private recital, a song about Granada, l b e­
lieve, and she wanted it to be perfect in every detail. So far, I had
known music only from gramophone records. I had no idea what the
human voice could sound like from up close. Madame Berg was a ro­
bust woman, she weighed two-hundred-and-twenty pounds, if not
more. When she opened her mouth standing next to me and started
singing, I couldn' t believe my ears. It was the first time I realized how
powerful the human voice can be. "
It was in Mexico that Mauricio became a really strong chess player.
\Vhile his mother provided the income for the family and made a repu­
tation for herself as a fashion designer with customers such as Dolores
del Rio, Maria Felix and Barbara Stanwyck, he was at university, think­
ing mainly of chess. This was no coincidence. It turned out that two of
his teachers, Juan Xirau and Isidro Ventosa, were fanatical and experi­
enced chess players. They realized which interests were struggling for
precedence in Mauricio 's mind and they helped him both with his
chess and his studies.
In Mexico he played against prominent players of the time. Against
the Spanish child prodigy Arturo Pomar, the Colombian champion
Gachama Cuellar and the Argentinian Hector Rosetta. In 1 9 5 2 he also
got acquainted with Miguel Najdorf, the self-proclaimed genius who
had become a living legend because of his games and his spellbinding
way of life. He met Najdorf again five years later, in Dallas in the
United States, where he was to take a psychological test for his first im­
portant American job with Schering. Mauricio was bored stiff in Dallas,
a town where the streets were dispiritingly empty after six in the even­
ing. His mood improved considerably when he learned that Najdorf
was in town to play a tournament. Immediately he called his friend Ken
Smith, the multiple former champion of Texas, whom he had beaten
for the title that year. Smith, nicknamed 'the Capablanca of cattle coun­
try , ' got into his car and drove four hundred miles to come knocking
on Najdorfs door that same evening, accompanied by Mauricio and a
bottle of Napoleon Courvoisier. Najdorf didn ' t disappoint his callers.
To begin with, he demonstrated the game he had just won against
Reshevsky. At the critical moment, he stopped and contentedly an­
nounced that at that point he had played a sensational move. Mauricio
didn ' t hesitate, reached for the board and sacrificed Najdorf s Queen.

43
Najdorf was baffied and asked: " But you just lose a Queen that way,
don' t you ? " At which Mauricio made up for everything by declaring :
"When the great Najdorf has found a sensational move, it can't be any­
thing less than a queen sacrifice ! "
The evening ended in style. Najdorf, who had taken care of at least
half the bottle of brandy on his own, proposed a series of blitz games
and won them all.
Mauricio is fond of recalling that evening . Also because the psycho­
logical test turned out well and as a result he was invited for an inter­
view in Newark, near New York. There, he profited from another
remarkable coincidence. Stan Rubint, the marketing manager who con­
ducted the interview, looked at him with a searching glance and asked:
"Excuse me, but you're Mauricio Perea? Are you by any chance related
to General Perea? " Mauricio didn' t believe his ears. "Why yes, I'm his
eldest son. " " Isn' t that great! , " exclaimed Rubint. "I was with the Inter­
national Brigade in Spain and served under your father. " The most im­
portant question to be answered that afternoon was when Mauricio
could start in his new j ob.

In the lobby of the Anibal, hotel life is getting underway. Leontxo is

waiting near the telephone with a stack of newspapers under his arm,
Rentero' s son is discussing something extremely important with a re­
ceptionist and Ubilava has come to j oin us with a paper and a cell
phone in his hands. The playful nickname ' Ubi , ' which Anand and the
others in his circle use to address him , seems ill-fitting for the modest
Georgian. Ubilava is a quiet man, who gives the impression of being
most at ease when he doesn' t have to say anything. It has become his
second nature. He 's been a second long enough to know that every­
thing he says may show up in a newspaper article on Anand. Especially
here in Spain. If he speaks with reporters at all , he prefers to do so in
affable cliches, which fail to provide even the smalle�t peek behind the
scenes of the Anand team.
When Mauricio asks him if he's seen Vishy yet, Nieves interrupts
him with a cry of surprise : "What's this? Aren' t you supposed to be in
bed?" When we all look up, we see Arvind standing there. From the
look of it, he's been on a morning stroll. He is still unshaven and his
hair is dishevelled. He even makes Ubilava laugh. "Arvind, what ' s hap­
pened?" Arvind understands our amazement and gives his explanation
with the patience of a parent telling his child it has to sleep for two

44
more nights before its birthday comes round: "I kept working so late
last night that I decided this morning I might as well have breakfast.
And after I'd had breakfast, I felt I might go out and have a few fllms
developed. But now I'm off to bed, I think. I am getting rather tired. "
"Do you want me to wake you up for the start of the round this af­
ternoon ? , " I ask.
"No , thanks. I can afford to be a few hours late today . "
"Kasparov is playing Kramnik, though. With Black. Maybe we' ll see
a black game of his that he doesn' t win . "
Arvind averts his half-closed eyes and purses his lips i n disapproval
before answering : "I expect very little of that game. Kasparov doesn' t
win with Black against Kramnik. "
"That' s what we thought with Vishy too, yesterday. "
"Hm, that was different. Kramnik has a very solid repertoire. And
he's not likely to take any risks either, now that Kasparov is showing
such great form . That game will be drawn . " He is very decisive and
makes a face as if he's j ust thought of something. "I may not even be in
time to witness the end of that game . " He laughs about it himself.
''I'm not so sure , " remarks Nieves with the look of an expert on her
face, "you never know with Kasparov. I for one wouldn' t be surprised
if he wipes Kramnik off the board as well. "
Now they all begin t o protest. Arvind first : "Forget it, Nieves, trust
me. " And as he walks towards the lift, he adds : "But if you're very sure
you can always wake me up to put your money where your mouth is. "
Nieves is undaunted: "Who knows, but I'll be sure to wait until
you're fast asleep. "
"What do you think? What h e says seems to make sense, " I say to
Mauricio.
"Absolutely. This Kramnik is a tough guy. Not someone you ' d kick
around. "
"I think sometimes he's about the only player who has no psycho­
logical problems when he ' s up against Kasparov. He knows he' s very
good but he also feels that way about himself. When Kramnik is in
form , he' s certain there' s no one who can beat him. He doesn't suffer
from the uncertainty or the respect that seems to be haunting Vishy, or
at least he ' s hardly aware of it. "
Mauricio nods. "That' s precisely what I ' d like to instil into Vishy.
The conviction that it's you who' s going to devour the other. I told you
about the simuls I used to give in the United States. It was usually an

45
elderly fellow club member who'd take me there in his car. His name
was Ridge, if I remember well. He was retired and had all the time in
the world. After one of those nights he told me : " Maurice, the way you
played tonight, I ' ve never seen anything like it. It seemed you were a
snake, the way you threw yourself upon your opponents. " "
"Do you realize you 've been married for fifty years to a beast o f a
man ? , " I ask Nieves, who' s been listening.
" Ha! You 're telling me ! He's a monster, and I 've got my hands full
with him. Do you know what happened last week? Our eldest son,
who doesn't live far off, comes by and starts complaining that his car
has broken down. I tell him: "Get it repaii:-ed or buy a new one . "
Maurice doesn' t say a word. But a few days later, h e comes home and
starts to tell me blithely that he' s seen such a nice new car. "Why did
you have to go and look for a car?, " I ask him. I ' m amazed. And he tells
me he just happened to pass by a car salesman. "And what are we sup­
posed to do with a new car? We've got a car. It ' s onl y a few years old
and it's in perfect condition. What were you planning to do with that
car ? " "Oh, well, " he says , "we could always give it to Manalo. " I was
dumbstruck. What do you think would happen if I said I needed a new
car ? "
Mauricio has been listening t o her tirade with a bored face. H e
shrugs his shoulders and snaps a t her: "You shouldn ' t talk s o much.
You're always yapping. " I ' m listening to them slightly embarrassed but
without being really upset by their snarling . I 've got used to the special
way in which these two people, whom you'll hardly ever see on their
own, get on with one another. Praising and criticizing, they're com­
bined with no trouble at all, especially where Mauricio is concerned. A
few years ago, at a luncheon where Nieves was also present, he told me
without even the slightest trace of irony that their marriage had lasted
all this time because he had rarely been home for longer than six
months a year in the course of his working life. During that same
lunch, he also showed me a picture which he kept on him in his wallet.
A stylish black-and-white portrait of an attractive young woman. I
found it difficult at first to recognize Nieves in the flawless, finely fea­
tured face but once she had begun to coalesce with this woman who
was her junior by some fifty years it gave her present face, the one at
our table, a distinctly girlish quality.
The woman in the picture was the Nieves with whom young Mauri­
cio had fallen in love. It was only for him , who had had this picture on

46
him for all these years, to know whether she was still the same Nieves.
I first looked at the picture, full of curiosity, and then at Mauricio, full
of amazement. How was it possible that after hundreds of thousands of
air miles he could still take this picture from his inside pocket in perfect
condition, without creases or crumples, without even the smallest trace
of the passing of time?

47
 Ricar do

After h e returned t o Spain, Mauricio didn't need t o think long

about which name to give to his new home. 'Chaturanga, ' it says in
large curled letters on the iron garden fence in Collado. An appropriate
choice for the chess playing son of a generaL The Indian war game of
Chaturanga is the earliest known form of chess. The fust reference in
literature dates from the seventh century AD. Chaturanga means 'four­
fold' or 'four-part' in Sanskrit. The word refers to the four divisions of
the Indian army: elephants, cavalry, chariots and infantry. It is possible
that Chaturanga was a game for four players initially but no concrete
evidence has been found for this theory. What historians agree about,
in general, is that the game of chess came to Europe from India, by
way of Persia. Along the way, it underwent minor changes as it was
adapted to the wishes of new players.
The step to Europe was taken by the Moors, who brought the game
with them to Spain. It would be tempting to look for a connection be­
tween the tournaments in Linares and the key role that Spain played in
the propagation of chess in the West. Particularly since it was a Spanish
book in which modem chess was first described. It was called The Art of
Chess and was published in 1 497 by a student of the university of Sala­
manca. The writer of this treatise, who goes by the name of Lucena,
makes a distinction between what he refers to as old chess and Queen's
chess. In Queen's chess, the Queen has turned from a piece with a very
limited range into the strongest piece of all. It is from this moment on
that the Queen commands the entire board in diagonals, ranks and
Hies.
However, there is no connection between this rich past and the pres­
ent of Linares. The golden age of chess in Spain ended in the late Mid­
dle Ages and it was only in this century that the country linked up with
international chess life again. But the fascinating early history may ex­
plain why there are several prominent chess historians in Spain. The
most renowned and, according to many people, the most notorious of
these has taken a seat at a table in the press room just behind me at the
beginning of the eleventh round. Ricardo Calvo is not the kind of man
whose entrance remains unnoticed. Although he has hardly spoken a
word so far, I have recognized his voice. But I have decided to wait be-

48
fore greeting him. First, I want to get an impression of the opening that
Kramnik and Kasparov have chosen.
The game they are playing seems light-years removed from the chess
with which historians are concerned. Millimetres is what this is about,
the smallest nuances, which are meant to upset a tight balance. On one
of the monitors, I can see the two players sitting at the board almost
motionlessly. Only when it is their turn to move, they bend forward
for a moment. The casual way they make their moves indicates that
they are both still relying on their preparation. As I am watching the
beginning of their encounter, I feel a slight disappointment creeping
up on me, which I find annoying. Or rather, I feel caught, because I re­
alize I didn't rule out the possibility beforehand that Kasparov might
also beat Kramnik with the black pieces. Arvind was right, of course. It
is not easy to win with Black at this level. Certainly not against Kram­
nik, who hardly ever loses a game. Not even when you are Kasparov.
Strange, how I got carried away. As if I had forgotten about Kramnik' s
strength. O r about his serenity and his self-confidence when h e told m e
once: "If you think that winning against Kasparov i s something excep­
tional, you have no self-respect as a chess player. "
The position that they have meanwhile brought onto the board is
making me face the facts. By mutual consent, they have embarked upon
a . line which , according to the latest insights , is promising White a
small advantage. Tightening up his defence is all that Black can do in
this line. If he is to even think about winning, he must hope for a few
serious mistakes from his opponent.
It seems a good moment to turn round innocently and be pleasantly
surprised to greet Ricardo.
"Ricardo! I thought I ' d heard your voice. Will you be staying for a
few days?
With a shy gesture, Ricardo flicks the ash from his cigarette. " No , I
have to return to Madrid tonight, unfortunately . "
" D o you still think i t ' s too risky for you here , even with Rentero out
of the way?"
Ricardo gives a smile. " I don ' t think I ' ve ever allowed myself to be
stopped from coming here. Not even by Rentero . "
He is right. He is least likely to allow himself to be stopped by any­
one. I suggest we go downstairs and have a cup of coffee in the bar. Ri­
cardo nods , stubs out his cigarette, and together we quietly leave the

49
press room . When I pass by Nieves, she puts on a conspirational air
and whispers: "Don't believe a word this man is saying. "
I bend towards her for a moment: "Nieves, you know you're the
only one whose every word I believe. " She doesn ' t let go at that: "Are
you poking fun at me? Off with you, go and suit yourself. "
Ricardo has been waiting a bit further on. He has grown old these
past few years. What age would he be now? There is a lot of grey in his
beard, yellowish under his nose from his smoking, and there is a cer­
tain sloppiness about him that seems to have come with his age . The
impression is reinforced by his glasses, which make his eyes_ larger and
give them an air of surprise. It is a pity in a way that he doesn' t live in
Linares. Ricardo was born to conflict like no one else. Controversies, ar­
guments and litigation are a second nature to him. When you speak
with him, there is little evidence of that at first. He is polite and soft­
spoken, and he tells entertaining stories with the authority of someone
who knows a great deal. It is only after you have met him more often,
after you have become more familiar with his way of thinking , that un­
der his soft, open look you will detect a threat that may even be meant
just for you. For the moment, there is no danger, you are having an
agreeable conversation, but if needs be, he will go to war against you
as well. It is a war he keeps fighting to defend the truth. His truth.
His longest war was the one he waged against the world chess fed­
eration, the FIDE. In the mid-eighties, Ricardo decided to j oin the elec­
tion campaign of Lincoln Lucena, a wealthy Brazilian who had
Kasparov' s support in his quest to succeed the controversial FIDE presi­
dent, Florencio Campomanes. In an effort to win delegates' votes, Ri­
cardo went on a tour of Central and South America. To the complete
displeasure of the members of the FIDE board, he had a report of his
tour published in New In Chess. In lurid prose, Ricardo told a tale of brib­
ery and corruption against the likes of which any fair campaign, such
as the one conducted by Lucena, was doomed to fail. In summing up,
he said it was no wonder that the delegates whom he had met could so
easily be bought by Campomanes. What else was to be expected from
countries where many young women were forced to prostitute them­
selves in order to stay alive and young men had no choice but to join
the army or the police if they wanted to earn a living ? It was this con­
clusion in particular that the FIDE seized upon to strike back hard. At its
next congress, it had Ricardo Calvo declared persona non grata. This
was more than a symbolic gesture. To begin with, it meant that Ricardo

50
was prevented from earning anything at all with chess, because not a
single tournament would welcome him any longer. There was nothing
left for him but to take the FIDE to court in a case that was to drag on
for years. Not least because he refused to give up. He even sold his
house to be able to continue paying his lawyer. In the end , a Swiss
court ruled against him.
His historical research continued. Ricardo is an historian with a wide
knowledge and a rich imagination. He often comes up with attractive
theories derived from known, irrefutable facts. He argued convinc­
ingly, for instance, that chess was being played in Cordoba as early as
8 2 2 AD. This was due to the Persian singer Ziryab, of whom he had
found documentary evidence in an old manuscript. This Ziryab was ex­
pelled from Baghdad when he got on the wrong side of the khalif, Ha­
run ar-Rashid, and after long wanderings ended up in Cordoba. Apart
from bringing the elite there up to date with the latest trends in cook­
ery, music and fashion, he also introduced the game of chess. The
sources that Ricardo cited were surprising and often new. His reason­
ing , however, was open to challenge. It could have been that way, but
then again, it might well have been otherwise.

In Linares, Ricardo is not held in particularly high esteem . If it had

been in Rentero ' s power to order the local police to stop him at the
to� boundary and send him back to Madrid, he would have done so
many years ago. The swift rise of the tournament to become the most
important event on the international chess calendar coincided with the
growing friction between Rentero and Ricardo. The initial reason were
the articles that Ricardo published in El Independiente. With his uncompro­
mising sense of j ustice, he argued that Rentero 's methods were con­
trary to fair competition. It was not right for a tournament director to
try and manipulate the results of games by offering the players enve­
lopes with money under the counter. Ricardo's lecture was not appreci­
ated in Linares. Rentero sent him a long letter explaining why it was
better for him not to visit the Linares tournament any longer. This at­
tempted ban had the same effect on Ricardo as a warm invitation. He
was living in a free country, he was paying his taxes and he could go
wherever he pleased, Linares included. He was prepared to put up with
the unpleasant consequences. At one time, he found his car with its
tyres slashed; at another, he was sorely abused in a bar by a business as­
sociate of Rentero's. To make sure that he would not be interrupted in

51
this activity, the man told him beforehand that he had a black belt in
karate.
The next thing was that reactions began to appear in the press to the
critical remarks he had made about the tournament in Linares. The
chess writer, Lincoln Maitzegui, sided with Rentero in El Pais and di­
rected his barbs at Calvo. This in turn led to a severe escalation of the
conflict. Ricardo lashed out at Maitzegui. Without mentioning his
name, he wrote a ruthless riposte saying that he had been subjected to
a lot of criticism in another newspaper lately. That was not so bad in it­
self. What was bad was that this criticism was levelled by a pederast.
Someone like that was free to write anything he liked, as far as he was
concerned, but in view of the vile predilections of the man in question
it seemed unacceptable to him that he be allowed to attack other peo­
ple. I asked Ricardo later how he could have been so certain that Mait­
zegui was a pederast. As if required to explain something quite
obvious, he replied : "Because I tackled him about it once in the com­
pany of others. He launched into a load of rubbish that at one time this
kind of thing used to be common practice and came trotting out the
example of Socrates and what not. To me, it seemed to amount to a
confession. "
"Besides, " h e added i n all earnestness, " I should know. I can spot
something like that, because I ' m a physician, after all . "
S o much was true. Ricardo spent the first part o f his working life a s a
general practitioner on Majorca. He had to give up the job when he di­
vorced his first wife. He left Majorca and settled down in Munich,
where he tried to build up a new life. To earn a living, he played chess
and worked in the pharmaceutical industry. As he put it himself:
"When I had enough of chess, I worked as a clinical pharmacologist for
a while. Until I got fed up with that, and returned to chess. " A terse
rendering of a difficult period, reminiscent of the summary that Mark
Taimanov liked to give of his life. Taimanov was not only a prominent
chess player but also a renowned concert pianist. Asked how he was
able to combine two such demanding occupations, he used to say :
"When I played chess, I had the feeling that I was on vacation, away
from the piano, and when I was playing the piano again, I had the feel­
ing I was on vacation from chess. My life, in short, has been one long
vacation . " That' s what Ricardo' s remark seemed like, although it was
somewhat different.

52
 Maitzegui reacted furiously to Ricardo 's venomous countermove. He
told everyone who wanted to hear that it was wiser for Calvo not to
show up in Linares , because he' d make him pay for his effrontery with
a thorough thrashing. It was not the sort of threat to scare off Ricardo.
On top of that, his newspaper wanted him to interview Miguel Illescas,
the only Spanish entrant in the tournament. On the day when everyone
knew he would be coming, he stepped into the press room with his
head held high. Maitzegui asked him with a snarl what he had come
for and, without waiting for a reply, hit Ricardo smack in the face . Ri­
cardo' s glasses broke but he had enough sense not to hit back. He asked
for someone to call the police. No one reacted. Nor did Nieves, who
regarded him as a troublemaker who had got what he asked for. No
one wanted a scandal, particularly not after Rentero came in. Taking in
the situation at a glance, he said soothingly that there was nothing the
matter. Ricardo realized he couldn' t expect any sympathy here. He first
called his wife to inform her that the damage might have been worse
and then went to the police station to file a complaint. The officer in
charge didn ' t really know what to make of Ricardo 's story but he said
he would make an official report after Ricardo had himself treated at
the hospital 's first-aid post. The next morning Ricardo returned and
filed an official complaint against Maitzegui, who had meanwhile left
Linares. After that, he had to wait. It took two years before the Second
Chamber of the Linares court delivered a verdict. Lincoln Maitzegui was
sentenced to a fine and a few days in j ail. The sentence was never car­
ried out.
The incident caused quite a stir at the Hotel Anibal. Two sympathiz­
ers brought the victim a bowl of fruit and Kasparov' s wife came by to
ask him how he was. Ricardo said that the physical pain was nothing
but that the shame was much harder to bear. The most passionate reac­
tion came from Kasparov himself. He staged a news conference calling
it an outrage that the tournament organisers had failed to take steps
against the attacker of his friend Ricardo Calvo. In a theatrical gesture,
he produced two copies of the contract for next year' s tournament,
which he had received from Rentero, and tore up one of them. If there
would be no suitable apology within twenty-four hours, he would tear
up the other as well.
It was clear to Rentero that something had to be done. According to
Ricardo, he increased Kasparov' s entry fee at a secret meeting of the
tournament committee. What the press got to see was a humble tour-

53
nament director, who , sitting next to Kasparov, publicly expressed his
regret that the world champion had had to witness such a distasteful
incident in his house. Laying great stress on his words, Rentero an­
nounced that from that moment on attention in Linares would once
again be directed at chess alone. Kasparov listened to it all with a radi­
ant face. He also took the floor and expressed the hope that next year,
battle would be waged again on the chess boards in Linares and no­
where else. With a broad smile , he took from his pocket an envelope
which contained the signed contracts for that next tournament. Rentero
gratefully accepted the gift, after which the tournament director and
the world champion embraced one another , both visibly pleased.

When I take two espressos to the table where Ricardo has meanwhile
found a seat , I ' m not quite sure what to say . What I would like to ask is
whether Rentero ' s accident has been a cause for any unholy glee , but
this doesn' t seem a good question. I ask him instead if he has spoken to
Rentero at all in the past few years. Ricardo thoughtfully shakes his
head. "No, that was out of the question. Rentero tended to become
very nervous whenever I was around. One day I came into the lobby
when he was having a word with one of the receptionists. As I was
standing at the desk a bit further on, he started rummaging in his j acket
so nervously that he turned one of his pockets inside out and every­
thing in it fell on the floor. He picked up his things quickly and went
away . But he hadn ' t picked up everything. One of his visiting cards was
left lying on the marble lobby tiles . I stooped, picked it up and read on
the backside: " If you do not make a draw before the fortieth move to­
day, you will receive fifty thousand pesetas. " I showed the card round
in the press room that afternoon to the great amusement of the j ournal­
ists present. It was meant for Bareev . He received another card with the
same message, it seems. Later in the day, his game ended in a draw on
the forty-first move. "
" How does the fact that Rentero is the richest man in Linares tally
with his being a prominent member of the socialist party ? "
Ricardo reacts with a short laugh. "When w e were still o n speaking
terms, I asked him the same question once , and Rentero replied : ' My
papers are for the socialists , my wallet is capitalist. ' He was proudly
pounding the left of his breast and I remember wondering whether it
was his heart he was pounding or his wallet. "

54
 Ricardo takes a deep puff at his cigarette and slowly blows out the
smoke . He enjoys stories of this kind. "Rentero ' s father was a real so­
cialist, who had him registered as a member at a very young age. He
was from a very poor family and everyone in Linares knew Luis be­
cause he used to deliver groceries door to door. When the socialists
saw their power increase after Franco died and it was clear that they'd
be winning the upcoming elections, Rentero grew rich in no time. I
have no proof of any kind , but it remains pretty remarkable. He drove
a Rolls Royce up and down the town. " Ricardo begins to laugh and
adds with a note of disbelief in his voice : " In Linares ! "

When we leave the bar and slowly g o up the stairs, Ricardo' s presence
gives me a familiar feeling. He has come only for a day but he' s here.
Similarly, you hope that everyone who in your view should be in li­
nares will turn up here every year. As I try to work out quickly who is
here this time and who is not, I find that Manuel de Agustin hasn ' t
shown u p this year. Not that I know him well . Far from i t , i n fact. He
would say hello to me each and every year without fail, looking
pleased to recognize me, only to find out after a few questions that I
wasn' t who he thought I was after all. He is a somewhat plump, lively
old man himself, with a moustache and roguish eyes. He prefers to ap­
proach you when he has found something in a game that is still in
g
pro ress and he has set up the position on one of the boards in the
press room. With his hand on your arm or your back, he fires off ques­
tions in French: "What do you think? That White is better? It seems
that way , doesn' t it? But what would you play if I move here ? " Adding ,
with evident pleasure: " Not s o easy, i s it?"
Which is about as far as our rather one-sided conversations ever got,
and yet, I feel that he ought to have been here.
"Why is Manuel de Agustin not here? " I ask Ricardo.
"Because Rentero hasn ' t invited him, I suppose. "
"He hasn' t died, has he ? "
" No , not that I know of. Even though h e must b e i n his late eighties.
But only the good die young . "
"He's no friend of yours. "
Ricardo stops o n the first-floor landing and says without reproof or
irritation: "Manuel de Agustin is an absolute fascist. In the Franco era,
he used to be a reporter for the Spanish radio in Paris. He had a diplo­
matis: passport. He wasn ' t a bad chess player, by the way. He took part

55
in a tournament in Madrid in 1 943 that was won by Keres. " From the
way in which Ricardo takes a breath to continue his story I can tell that
our stop-over will take a while longer. " He wrote a book in which he
advanced the proposition that Jews are cowardly chess players. It was
called Ajedrez Temperamental and appeared in 1 946 in Barcelona. "
" A remarkable year to publish an anti-Semitic book . "
"He had written the book before but he felt the subject was interest­
ing enough to bring it to the attention of the public. He explained that
the hypermodern ideas which became popular in the twenties were
propagated by Jewish masters who were projecting the qualities of
their race onto the game of chess. Their aim to gain an indirect influ­
ence in the centre by means of the fianchetto, instead of boldly advanc­
ing the centre pawns like the classics used to do, was indicative for the
sly and calculating nature of their race, according to him. Mind you, he
doesn' t condemn this style of play but he feels that Spanish chess play­
ers should adopt a style which is more in line with their own nature.
While the Russians are abandoning themselves in their laboratories to
an ever deeper unravelling of the openings and the Jews are relying on
their occult style of play, Spaniards ought to concentrate on the fiery
and temperamental chess that runs in their blood. "
"It's a point o f view, I guess . "
" I told you , a n absolute fascist. "
Gradually, we've begun our ascent of the next flight o f stairs. Ricar­
do's story has shed a bizarre, new light on an old man who has often
j ovially pinched my arm. I have no reason to doubt Ricardo ' s words.
But I still feel it is a pity that Manuel de Agustin isn't here this year.

The press room has become considerably busier. My laptop has kept
my regular place for me, in between Arvind and Rosa de las Nieves.
With her long black hair and her provocative clothes, Rosa is the most
conspicuous presence here. For years she used to travel round the
world ' s great chess tournaments as a photographer, together with Le­
ontxo. Now that she is no longer with Leontxo, she is restricting her­
self to the important tournaments in Spain. Nor does she take her place
next to him as a matter of course any longer. Apart from taking pic­
tures for the various international chess magazines, Rosa also covers
chess for El Mundo, which happens to be the competitor of El Pais, the
newspaper for which Leontxo is working . She doesn' t have much affin­
ity with chess. The emphasis in her stories is on the results, and on the

56
other interests of the chess players. While she continues typing, Rosa
pushes an opened bag of crisps towards me and says: "For Arvind, too ,
if he wants some . "
"Are you sure? They're truly delicious, you know. "
"Don ' t talk rubbish. " She has no time for nonsense.
Arvind dips into the bag and tells me contentedly: "Vishy is win­
ning. He ' s sacrificed a piece; he 'll crush Topalov. "
"And Kasparov ? "
Showing only a moderate interest, Arvind makes a puzzled face. " I
don ' t know. I t seems t o m e that Kramnik has quite a good position . "
A quick look at the monitor confirms this impression. Kramnik has
an advanced pawn applying an unpleasant amount of pressure on Kas­
parov' s position. It doesn ' t take long before it becomes clear what the
others think about it. Telephone in hand, Leontxo urgently asks for a
half minute ' s silence. As an extra, he ' s taken on the j ob last year of
keeping Spain's radio listeners informed of developments a number of
times during each round. His assignment seems to imply that chess
tournaments ought to have a pace not unlike horse-racing. Hardly tak­
ing a breath , Leontxo shouts his sentences into the mouthpiece. Re­
peated stereotyping must enable his audience to keep abreast of this
eruption. Kasparov is virtually always the Beast from Baku j ust as Anand
ca� ' t fail to be the Tiger from Madras. From one fragment, I pick up
that the Beast from Baku is practically in a lost position against the Gi­
ant from Moscow. Amused, Arvind turns to me : "Exciting , these chess
tournaments, aren ' t they? " His computer, meanwhile , has also given
Kasparov ' s position a bad rating. After Leontxo slammed down his re­
ceiver with a loud bang , we try to work out the concrete variations.
Arvind wonders how Kasparov can block Kramnik' s advanced pawn.
We see no way. It seems unstoppable.
Strangely enough, Kasparov doesn 't give the impression that he is
about to suffer his first defeat at all. He sits nodding at his pieces ap­
proving! y. He looks as if this is the position he has been hoping for all
along. Kramnik' s direct threats don 't seem to worry him in the least.
For a short while, he allows his eyes to travel over the board once
more, then with composure he advances his King one square and gets
up. In the press room, they are all looking at each other in amazement.
Has he got the time for that? The answer comes from Miguel Illescas :
"Ah, I see. He ' s not doing anything about the advanced pawn at all but
he ' s securing his King to prepare for a strong counter-attack. " No

57
sooner has he finished speaking when Kasparov proves Illescas' point,
forcing a perpetual check with a rook sacrifice. " Drawn , " says Arvin d.
"Yes, drawn , " I mumble after him . "But how. " Excited, I grasp a pen
and a piece of paper and rush out of the press room.

In the analysis room, Kramnik and Kasparov are already busy talking
and pushing pieces up and down. Kasparov is doing most of the talking
and Kramnik knows there is nothing he can do about it. He has man­
aged a draw against the unchallenged tournament leader without deriv­
ing any pleasure from it. The prevailing feeling is that he has been
shown his shortcomings. When they have arrived at the position where
he began what seemed to be the decisive march of his second advanced
pawn, he says , almost as if he were apologizing : "I had looked at eve­
rything so far . Here my computer indicated that White was winning. I
didn't have the time to go into it any further. " This is Kasparov' s mo­
ment of triumph. Time and again he has maintained that the computer
is no threat at all for the game of chess but rather an enrichment. When
you know how to use your computer for your preparation , you will
profit from it. As long as you don ' t believe its every word. Enthusiasti­
cally, he takes up Kramnik ' s remark: "That ' s what my computer said
but I didn' t believe it. " He looks around proudly. " My instinct is still in
good working order. I kept looking and when I found this king ma­
noeuvre, I knew I was right . "
Carried away by his enthusi asm, he demonstrates a series o f beauti­
ful lines , in which White would have run the risk of losing if he had
been too late to realize what dangers they involved.
After another fifteen minutes, when they return to an earlier stage in
the game, I decide I have had enough. Back upstairs, Arvind is still
writing. He looks up when I start packing away my laptop. "Well, was
Garry happy ? "
"Very happy. Will you b e long ? "
"Another hour and a half, I think. They wanted another piece on
Anand for the Sunday paper . "
"On Anand, for a change. "
"Yes. I don't think they ' d object if I did an extra story on Anand
every day. The readers are anxious to know everything about him.
Have I shown you this article that appeared in an astrology magazine?
By an astrologer who cast his horoscope ? "
" N o , what's h i s future like ? "

58
 "He doesn ' t go into it. But what he does explain is that the position
of the Moon and Mercury at Anand' s birth is the reason why he plays
so fast. People with this combination seem to be fast thinkers. "
"I'd love t o read it. "
" I ' ll make a copy for you. I've shown it to Anand, too, but he wasn' t
impressed. I told him that there were also _ predictions about his love
life in a semi-pornographic Indian magazine. But that article I didn' t
have, unfortunately. H e said he didn ' t need t o see that a t all, because i t
interested him even less. "
"So, there you g o again, a fat lot o f good you are . "
Arvind chuckles merrily. H e says h e has just ordered a pizza i n his
room so he can keep on working. He suggests we go into town later in
the evening . It is Saturday night, after all, the only night in the week
when the youth of Linares turns out en masse to live it up.

59
 Gata

It is the photo portrait of a boy some sixteen years of age. Perhaps

even somewhat younger. Or perhaps somewhat older. His pudding­
basin haircut, the childish stripes in his sweater and the old-fashioned,
large square glasses leave room for doubt. He avoids the eye of the
camera and looks away at the score sheet next to the board. Obviously,
is what comes to my mind as a matter of course.
From one of the deep, leather settees in the lobby, I sit looking at
Gata Kamsky, whose portrait hangs on the wall between those of the
thirteen other participants in the 1 99 1 tournament. Because I am rather
early, it may take some time before Arvind comes down. Despite the
crowd in the restaurant - where in addition to the regular guests, two
large parties were outdoing each other in loud conversation - Diego
served my choice from the daily menu at high speed. And when you
eat alone, you're quickly done with your meal. Apart from the portraits
of the competitors in earlier tournaments, there is little to be seen in
the lobby. I've been looking for a while at a scale-model of the bull­
ring, which has been on display on two tables to the right of the en­
trance since last year. It is a piece of home industry that must have kept
a local aficionado off the street for a considerable time. When you walk
round it, you get a bird ' s-eye view of the arena. The bare inside, with
lots of sand and austere wooden stands, I have seen for real. My atten­
tion was caught by the stables for the bulls and the horses, which are
normally hidden from view.
Opposite the scale-model arena is a large board with the names of a
long list of minor sponsors who have contributed to keeping the chess
tournament in existence. In the year when Gata Kamsky made his de­
but, a shiny car was on show here as a first prize, alluringly glaring at
the chess players going in and out. The money prizes in Linares have
never amounted to much. The first prize in the Wimbledon of chess is
less than five thousand dollars. They are there only for the form, in
fact. Most of the budget is spent on the starting fees with which the
players secure their earnings beforehand. These fees are secret, but it is
no secret that they vary from about five thousand to fifty thousand dol­
lars. After these amounts are shared out, the actual fight is mostly for
the glory of winning. To add lustre to his prize-giving ceremony,
Rentero decided that a car might be an appropriate first prize. A prize

60
which he could put on show in the lobby of his hotel, tempting and
tangible. It became a short, reluctant tradition. The prize seemed un­
willing to match up to the tournament. Kasparov was the first lucky
winner but the car that Rentero put on the train for transportation
never made it to Moscow. The Spanish Suzuki dislodged itself along the
way , fell overboard and was irreparably damaged. Nor did Ivanchuk
have much use for his bonus a year later. He had no driving licence and
whoever wished him well knew that it was better to leave it that way.
Gata Kamsky ' s debut in 1 9 9 1 was a difficult one . He lost all his
games with Black and finished a lonely last. He was not yet the Gata
whose machine-like indomitability was to make him seem invincible
for months on end in the competing world championships of the inter­
national chess federation and the rebel Professional Chess Association.
In fact , he was a player of whom no one knew what to think. He had a
number of fine results to recommend him, but he attracted attention
mainly because of his statements and because of the awe-inspiring de­
votion with which he worked to realize his dream of winning the
world title. And, of course, his name began with the same two letters
as those of Karpov and Kasparov.
Kamsky ' s defection from the Soviet Union, two years before his Li­
nares debut, fitted in well with the last stage of the Cold War. After he
anq his father, Rustam, applied for political asylum at the end of a tour­
nament in New York, Gata used the opportunity of a press conference
to explain in detail how stifling life in Leningrad had been and how
much he was looking forward to developing his talents in the Free
West. His story made the front pages of America' s most important
newspapers. The main reason for the opposition the Kamskys had met
with in the Soviet Union, wrote the reporters, was that according to fa­
ther Kamsky no one in the Soviet Union was prepared to see a cham­
pion of Tartar descent. In the following years, he was to mention a
great number of other reasons why the world had it in for them. It
didn 't take long, however, before the main reason became Garry Kas­
parov, the reigning world champion. Initially, he was only charged
with trying to obstruct and frustrate Gata wherever he could, but
gradually Rustam came to see him as a James-Bond-type of villain, who
as the leader of a worldwide conspiracy had designs on the raw materi­
als of our planet.
Rustam Kamsky was a figure who was not easy to forget. A compact,
angular body and a hardened head , with several large golden teeth glit-

61
tering in it, recalled his years as a prize-fighter. His crude language,
most often interpreted by his son , indicated that he was used to strug­
gle in order to survive. He saw himself as a simple man, who had only
one special gift : Out of every child, he could make a champion in every
sport. All you had to do was to make your choice. Talent was a word
he laughed at. The only thing that counted was working awfully hard
according to his guidelines. Little Gata had been a reasonable piano
player at first, until Rustam started having his doubts. When Gata was
six years old, he told him that music was food for the soul but not for
the mind. For this reason, he put a stop to Gata' s piano lessons and
taught him to play chess. Every day, Gata got up at the crack of dawn to
live in accordance with his father ' s new schedule. As soon as he be­
came world champion, Rustam promised, he would get a day off.

Rentero got his money ' s worth, although he may have expected more
of little K' s first appearance in Linares. The two big K' s chopped him
off the board and they were not the only ones to do so . His son ' s tor­
ment came as no surprise to Rustam. From day one , he complained
that this was not the right setting in which to concentrate on chess.
Why did they have to have their meals three times a day in the hotel
restaurant? Why weren ' t they given their own apartment, where he
could prepare an honest meal himself? Following yet another defeat , he
suggested that Gata' s stomach had been seriously upset after he had a
glass of orange j uice at lunch. Someone must have put something in
the orange j uice. There could be no other explanation. No, it wasn' t
Rentero whom h e suspected. His misgivings concerned Kasparov' s
companion, Dvorkevich. I n a fury over the lack of understanding with
which his complaints were received, Rustam shouted indignantly:
"What ' s this Dvorkevich doing in the kitchen all the time ?'' The other
chess players shrugged their shoulders and most of them poked fun at
the anger of the Kamskys. One afternoon, Gata found a glass of orange
j uice next to his board with a note saying : "Beware! Poison ! "
Rustam might have worried less about the kitchen of the Restaurant
Himilce if it hadn ' t been for something totally different, which hap­
pened on the first day of the tournament. At the end of his game
against Anand, Gata signed his own score-sheet and that of his oppo­
nent, in the traditional confirmation that these were in actual fact the
moves made in their encounter. He must still have been taken up by
the double-quick lesson he received from the Indian blitz player or it

62
 wouldn 't have slipped his mind what he was supposed to have don e.
He only thought of it when he noticed his father making angry ges­
tures down in the hall. "Take your score-sheet back, " he snarled at him
soundlessly, but it was too late. The arbiter, Carlos Falcon, had torn off
the upper page of the double sheet and handed Gata the carbon copy,
as was usual. Gata made a quick recovery and said it was the original he
wanted and not the duplicate. Falcon looked puzzled. Score-sheets, he
explained deliberately, were the property of the tournament according
to a rule that he wasn ' t about to break. Gata tried again but Falcon re­
mained implacable. And puzzled. This problem was new to him .
Seething, Rustam left the hall with Gata and let him have it at full
blast. How could he have been so thoughtless? Where were his brains?
Had he forgotten that they were to sell his combined score-sheets from
this tournament to an American collector for seven hundred dollars ?
That there were people looking at them, amazed and curious, didn ' t
bother Rustam in the least. He was s o angry that h e didn ' t care one bit
for what people might think. No one who saw the raging father had
any doubt that this outburst was soon to be rounded off with a few
nasty thwacks in their room. Rumours that Rustam beat up his son
regularly had been around for as long as the Kamskys themselves.
When they were still living in Leningrad, Gata was tutored for a few
months by Vladimir Zak, the coach who had assisted Boris Spassky in
'
his first steps on the way to his world title. The partnership came to an
end because Zak let it be known that he would continue working with
Gata only if his father stopped beating him . Rustam Kamsky had a dif­
ferent explanation for the break with Zak. The old coach, he said ,
lacked the energy to counsel Gata with the intensity that was required.
This wasn ' t the only break that Rustam ' s fits of anger brought about.
Not long after their arrival in New York, the Kamskys lost a generous
private sponsor who had offered to set them up with a thirty­
thousand-dollar annuity. During a dinner offered by this financial
backer, Rustam caused a stir when he clouted Gata because he felt his
son wasn ' t interpreting fast enough. The host stood up, expressed his
displeasure with Rustam Kamsky ' s behaviour and left the dinner.
The first time that I had the opportunity to speak at length with the
Kamskys, I asked about the rumours of the father terrorizing his son .
Rustam laughed heartily and explained that it was a story which was
unfortunately still haunting them. He knew better than to hit Gata, be­
cause ever since he was thirteen he ' d been as strong as he himself.

63
What was more , Gata was only eleven years old when he broke one of
Rustam ' s ribs because he let down his guard for a moment in karate
training . When I asked about the angry American sponsor, my question
went down less well. While Rustam started counting on his fingers in
an effort to find out who among those present might have given him
away, Gata warned me with a stony face to stay away from that person.
It may very well be that this heavy hand is the cause of Gata ' s un­
questioning love for his father. One seldom meets two people more
closely-knit in thought and action. The father has made the son and the
son would never willingly do anything to displease his father. And so,
one day later, they j oined battle as one man with Carlos Falcon, who
had robbed them of a score-sheet worth more than fifty dollars.
For a moment it seemed that the impending crisis might still be de­
fused. In the morning before the second round, Rustam turned to
Rentero to explain why the original score-sheets were so important to
them. They were relatively quick to strike a compromise. At the end of
his games , Gata was to write down his moves all over again and these
sheets, bearing his signature, would then be handed in to the arbiter.
Whether Rentero really supported the compromise was less clear.
However, as a solution it was not acceptable to Carlos Falcon. He took
offence at the attitude of the Kamskys and saw no reason to change his
mind.
Falcon was the kind of arbiter to whom a chess tournament is a set
ritual of unchangeable routines, which are to be observed with relig­
ious exactitude. Every detail, however insignificant it might seem to the
outside world, deserved his fullest attention in order that from all the
details together a spotless tournament might be erected. For Falcon, the
climax of the day came when in his own peculiar English he could put
the finishing touch to his preliminary report on the completed round
with the sentence: "The present round was celebrated without any in­
cident. " These reports were short and threadbare. They mentioned who
had played against whom, what the results had been , how many moves
had been made in each of the games and how much time in all had
been used by each of the players. Every night, copies were deposited in
the pigeonholes of players and j ournalists at the reception desk. For the
true-blue statistics fans - but in all likelihood mainly for his true-blue,
dutiful own self - Falcon used to compile a completely different report
after the end of the tournament. A few weeks after the last move was
made, the tournament committee and other interested parties would

64
receive from him a bulky logbook full of graphs and charts which shed
light on every possible aspect of numerical interest.
If Rustam Kamsky had seen one of these compilations , he might
have understood that this Carlos Falcon was not intending to give in to
the anarchy of two former Soviets. Preened and impeccably dressed as
ever, the arbiter watched in silence as Gata copied his moves on a clean
sheet after completing his game. He ignored Gata ' s request for the
original score of his previous game but sent him an official warning in­
stead, pointing out what consequences his obstinate behaviour might
entail. Conflict was now unavoidable. Rentero looked the other way
and simply enjoyed the attention the controversy was given in the
press. A threatening letter, which the Kamskys wrote in turn, added
fuel to the fire. Produced on an old typewriter and full of errors and
deletions, the letter opened with the statement that they would leave
the tournament if the arbiter continued to terrorize them. They also
asked the arbiter to stop distracting Gata from his chess and announced
that they would keep all further original score-sheets for themselves.
Falcon waited until the last day of the tournament before striking
back. In a neady paragraphed letter on paper with his own private let­
terhead and with important phrases sternly underlined, he informed
Gata that he had so far refrained from dealing with his unsporting atti­
tude because he didn ' t want to disrupt his play. Citing from the official
rules of the game of chess, he went on to list Gata's many violations of
these rules, summing up with the announcement that he was availing
himself of the possibility to punish him for his wrongdoings. As a pen­
alty , he had decided to deduct one point from the total that Gata had
achieved in Linares.
It never got to that point, however. The day after, Falcon complied
with a written request from ten other participants not to enforce the
penalty. " They appreciated the considerable problems that Falcon had
experienced with Mr Kamsky but asked him in the interest of good
mutual relations and of this splendid tournament to reconsider his de­
cision.
It was the Kamskys who had the last word. In another letter - but
this one handwritten - Gata defended himself against the intended
punishment. Step by step, he gave his version of what had happened
once again, making two observations which go a long way to explain
why he was not included among the entrants in Linares the following
year. Under step six , Gata declared in his inimitable way: "This is a un-

65
precendented historical happening that never had happened before and
which showed the Chief Arbiter' s overuse of his power on penalties
and stands this his stupidity. " And to the final step, he subtly added:
"And in accordance to all this, I want to claim Chief Arbiter to return
all my original scoresheets. I also suspect that Chief Arbiter wants to sell
this originals himself. "

The memory of the Kamskys is still going through my mind, both in

image and in sound, when Arvind comes down the stairs. Tilting back­
wards on his large American sports shoes, he approaches with a smile.
"Am I too late? "
" No, n o , I was early when I sat down here. I was thinking that it's a
bit empty without Kamsky. "
"Without Gata or without Rustam ?"
"Both, really. There was a certain something to the indefmable ten­
sion that used to be about them. I ' m not so sure if we should be glad
that Rustam has carried out his threat. "
"Which threat ? "
"Well, that Gata would stop playing chess and become a doctor. "
"You'd better ask his future patients if they're glad that Gata is
studying to become a doctor. "
"Wouldn ' t you want to be operated upon by Gata? With Rustam as
the operating assistant? "
" No, I ' d rather not. "
"I must say I always enjoyed it when Rustam put in his oar at post­
mortems and suggested moves that lost material on the spot. And when
Gata didn ' t know how to react because he was afraid to say that they
were the moves of a patzer. "
"Shall we go? "
Arvind feels w e have talked enough about the Kamskys. They also
played in India after all, and drove an important sponsor round the
bend with their complaints and protests. In the end the poor man re­
fused to have anything to do with chess any longer. When we leave the
hotel, I try once more.
"Still, I miss them. "
" Congratulations. You're probably the only one . " Arvind laughs to
excuse himself for the vehemence of his words.
"Do you really think so ? Don ' t you remember that fax from Fer­
nando Arrabal, the greatest Kamsky fan in history? The one in which he

66
called upon the world to protect Gata against the lies and slander that
kept being spread about him? The one that was co-signed by celebrities
such as Milan Kundera and Camilo Jose Cela?"
"What do you think, did Rustam know who they were? "
"Did they really know who Rustam and Gata were?"
Now we both burst into laughter and it is clear that the subject is
closed.

When we cross the street, Vladimir Kramnik comes walking down the
other side, together with Miguel Illescas. Kramnik joins us for a chat.
You wouldn' t think he is only twenty-three years old because of his
towering figure. He looks fit and well rested. Before the start of the
tournament , the two of them spent two weeks together on Gran Ca­
naria, studying openings , exercising and playing belot for hours on end,
a card game to which many Russian grandmasters seem to be addicted.
"Vladimir! Miguel! What are your plans for tonight? Playin g cards,
or is it time to go to bed ? "
Kramnik grins: "Well, n o . Actually, w e were planning t o d o some
preparation. I'm playing Black against Vishy tomorrow and preparing
didn ' t seem such a bad idea . "
"Are you sleeping well enough here? Are you getting plenty of
hours? "
"Reasonably well. I only get u p b y lunch-time. But I don' t seem to
manage to get to sleep before five o ' clock. "
When I began talking to Kramnik about his sleeping problems, Arv­
ind has modesdy stepped aside. He has little contact with Kramnik. But
Illescas also went to stand a bit further on, and he is now asking Arvind
politely how he is doing. Because he is a second now, I realize. Kram­
nik and he may be good friends but Kramnik is his employer. Being the
strongest grandmaster in Spain, Illescas has played in Linares several
times himself, but his position is different now.
"Should you work on your preparation so late, when you find it
hard to get to sleep? It doesn't soothe the mind, as far as I know. "
Kramnik thinks for a moment.
"I'm afraid it' s the only way. Even if I don' t really feel like it, I still
think it's my duty to get some work done. If I haven't done all I can to
be prepared right up to the last moment, I don' t feel at ease when the
game starts . "

67
 "Maybe you should bring out the cards around three o ' clock after all
and relax a bit. "
"Who knows, but for the moment I think I ' d better get to work. "
Kramnik gives a friendly smile, nods to Illescas and we all wish each
other good night.

As we walk on, Arvind starts telling me that he has been chatting on

the Internet for half an hour after he sent in his piece.
"You mean you've been talking to people to whom you wouldn' t
want t o say a word if you could see them ? "
"Oh, n o . I think it's very interesting t o exchange views about all
kinds of subj ects . It's also great exercise for the mind, don' t you
think? "
"Perhaps it's because you travel too much. Your thoughts start trav­
elling , too. You're away from home so often that your mind feels out
of place and you start looking for different certainties. Your time is no
longer the same as that of the people who are waiting for you. "
"That' s true. Travelling and being alone has changed me. But it has
also developed me. I also found it increasingly more difficult to speak
with my wife . "
W e fall silent and walk u p towards the town hall, like o n the first
night. It was dead quiet then and we knew the quiet was all over Li­
nares. Now, however, cars and mopeds come by regularly and we
know that after midnight the streets round the popular places of enter­
tainment will be swarming with people. When you have visited La Pa­
paya on a weekday, you will find it hard to imagine how packed it is
on a Saturday evening and particularly on a Saturday night. When you
return a day later in the hope of a repeat experience, it is difficult to
imagine that this spacious bar has ever received more than ten guests at
a time.
When we order our first gin and tonic, La Papaya is still unpleasantly
empty. There are no more than thirty people scattered about, sitting
and standing in the front section, with its long bar and several settees,
and in the roofed-in patio at the back, where some garden furniture
has been placed. Peak time begins only around midnight thirty. They
enter in small groups, mostly boys and girls, who go to schools out of
town during the week. Arvind and I have meanwhile started on our
third gin and tonic and we are looking around while we talk. Arvind is
feeling happy and asks: "Do you think the girls here are pretty? "

68
 "Some. Some are pretty. Most haven't much to offer except their
age. They're fresh, they 've got shiny black hair and pearly-white teeth
but from underneath their young faces the matrons that they' ll be in a
few years time are already looking at you. "
Arvind is listening with a vague smile and slowly turns his glass
round on the bar.
"And you? What do you think of European women? Do you find
them attractive or are they no match for Indian women?"
He rolls his eyes as if I ' ve asked a particularly stupid question.
"Oh, no comparison. My dad says the sari makes Indian women
show to their best advantage because it's a garment that leaves some se­
ductive parts of the body uncovered. " He indicates these parts on his
own body. "A part of the back, the sides, a part of the belly and the
lower arms. "
"But no chance o f watching the girls in a nice bar on a Saturday
night, is there? "
" O h , no , no. The beach used t o b e the best place. That' s where you
went with a group of boys and that' s where groups of girls came too.
You'd be there looking at one another from a distance. "
But he' s keeping his end up.
"There used to be an apartment building not far from where we
lived. If you stood on the roof there, you could look into a woman' s
bedroom and watch her a s she made love. Until she got o n t o u s and
closed the curtains . One day, though, when it was raining very hard,
she thought she didn ' t have to. But we were standing there anyhow
and saw everything, even though we were soaking wet. "
"You were a reporter even then, weren' t you? Standing by and ob­
serving. "
Arvind laughs soundlessly and takes another sip of his gin and tonic.
He' s beaming, as if he's enjoying the thought.
"It's the same with me here in Linares. Much more so than any­
where else, in fact. You're watching how everything around you is
happening without being a part of it yourself. Whatever Rentero may
be cooking up , whatever anyone else may be getting worked up about,
it doesn' t matter. Even more so if you come to think that the chess
players and their tournament are no more than a mirror image of the
real world. It all makes it less obliging. And when you can enjoy a fine
game of chess into the bargain, your stay here can be very pleasant and
comforting . "

69
 La Niiia

Rentero ' s favourite spot in the lobby looks even emptier than it was
now his son is trying to fill it. Uke his father, young Luis is to be found
regularly sauntering up and down halfway along the reception desk.
He, too, prefers to do so with his face turned towards the receptionists,
which allows him to swivel round innocently when someone comes
along whom he wants to accost. The son is a head taller than the father
but for the rest the resemblance is remarkable. Even in his slightly sur­
prised look and his irregular teeth, the manager of the Hotel Anibal dis­
plays the same striking features as the example he will never be able to
live up to. But not all genes have been passed on undamaged. The son
is a stranger to the natural effortlessness with which Rentero used to
take anyone under his wing to whom he wanted to talk for a longer or
a shorter while. The ease with which Rentero irresistibly attracted his
victims has been replaced in the son by an affected self-assuredness
which is repelling rather than charming. When one speaks to the son,
one keeps it factual and short. Talking with his father was a ritual, to
which it was a pleasure to submit. A game, of which the rules were
created as you went along. A sparring match, in which you had to look
for the thoughts and meanings behind his words. Searches through the
mind of an anti-intellectual with a deep respect for intellectual achieve­
ments. Shadow boxing with a pragmatist, who knew how important it
was to be aware of his partner' s strengths but even more so of his
weaknesses . Luis senior commands authority because he knows people;
Luis j unior believes he can gain power if people know him.
Now that Rentero is at home , subjected to a helplessness that is un­
usual for him and learning to exercise the patience required for an ago­
nizingly slow recovery, social intercourse in front of the rec;:eption desk
has all but come to a halt. There always used to be a few people chat­
ting here. When Rentero lounged about, you checked your step for a
formal greeting, which might grow into an interesting exchange of
views or, if you were lucky, into a real conversation, full of bits of
news and useful information. From the leather settees, you would
watch to decide when the right moment had come to step up to the
tournament director and formally inquire after his well-being. Or, re­
turning from a morning stroll, you would walk straight into his arms,

70
abandon yourself to his 'hombre' and his pats on the back, and listen to
his views on the tournament.
I am sitting in one of the leather settees now, watching his son. He
is leaning on the desk and since there is no one else to talk to, he is
pointing out a minor detail to one of the receptionists. It takes no effort
to bring the image of his father back to my mind, in various postures,
at countless occasions. Polite and evasive while talking to chess players.
Conspiratorial while huddling with Spanish reporters. Or asking for ad­
vice from Mauricio and Nieves. And then, all of a sudden, he is there
with Mauricio alone. They are both smartly dressed. Mauricio in a so­
ber suit, which brings out his tall figure, Rentero in an expensive Eng­
lish j acket, with a spotless shirt and a shining silk tie. The tournament is
over and they probably have an appointment with the city council to
dispose of some financial matters. When Rentero greets me and has his
first words interpreted by Mauricio , I realize that this must be the tour­
nament of 1 9 94, a tournament where an incident, which was hardly
given any attention at first, grew into an affair that seemed to absorb
each and everyone, in accordance with the best traditions of Linares.
The civilities out of the way, Rentero takes me by my left elbow and
turns to Mauricio.
"Mauricio, tell him that I should have known better . "
.Mauricio nods and translates: " Mr. Rentero says that h e should have
known better. "
"I should have known better, " Rentero continues dejectedly, "espe­
cially after my experience with Chiburdanidze. "
I don' t need to think long what he i s referring to. I n 1 9 8 8 , Maya
Chiburdanidze was the first woman to play in Linares. The Georgian
was the women' s world champion. Linares was not yet the Wimbledon
of chess but the eleven grandmasters that she was pitted against turned
her stay in the heart of Andalusia into a hell on earth. She lost seven
games , won one , made three draws and finished in last place.
Sadly shaking his head, Rentero recalls her agony : "She lost one
game after another. Ten games, she lost. Ten games. She was in tears
every night. It took her more than a year to recover from the disap­
pointment. I felt sorry for her. And yet, I allowed myself to be per­
suaded to invite another woman this year. Only because I gave in to the
pressure of journalists. The journalists of El Pais, Marca and As, to be pre­
cise. To their unrelenting pressure to allow Judit Polgar to participate.
And look what happened. How often did she lose? Seven times. I regret

71
I let myself be talked round. Seven games, that is something a fighter
such as Timman can bear up to , but a woman is much more vulner­
able . "
A s I listen politely t o Rentero pitying himself, I know that i t i s i n fact
a different story he wants to tell . He wants to bring up the incident that
would never have caused such a stir if it hadn ' t been for the involve­
ment of Judit Polgar. An unfortunate incident , which may put chess in
a bad light and should therefore better be forgotten , so he wants me to
believe. And then again, knowing Rentero , perhaps not , because all at­
tention for his tournament, in whatever form , is more than welcome to
him.
In order to meet him halfway, I ask the question that he undoubt­
edly wants to hear : " Do you really intend to maintain the ban on
showing the video tape of the game between Polgar and Kasparov here
in this hotel? "
Decidedly and with rising indignation , Rentero tries t o remove any
doubt : "That is out of the question. Kasparov is the world champion
and a guest in my house. I will not allow his reputation to be be­
smirched here . "

The fuss arose i n the fifth round , o n the day when seventeen-year-old
Judit Polgar played her first game ever against Kasparov. The Spanish
press had been enj oying the historic moment in their previews for
days. The youngest and most ambitious of the chess-playing Polgar sis­
ters was to prove in a direct confrontation with the world 's strongest
grandmaster that women also could play chess . In actual fact , it was
rather a family matter, because Judit didn ' t think much of women ' s
chess herself. S h e aimed for the top and wanted to test h e r strength
only in men ' s tournaments.
It was an historic moment also for her parents , Laszlo and Klara Pol­
gar, who had both given up their j obs to devote themselves entirely to
the education of their daughters . At the hub of this education was
chess. Laszlo wanted to make chess champions of his daughters to dem­
onstrate in doing so that the mind of every child is an unwritten page
at birth. His method was less forceful than Rustam Kamsky' s but none
the less drastic for that. The girls received their schooling at home and
started the day early, playing table tennis for an hour, because their
physical training was not to be neglected. But even the table tennis was
subservient to chess. As indeed was everything else. When they woke

72
up in the morning, there would be a page with fresh chess problems
hanging over their heads on the wall, put up there by Laszlo to get
their minds going.
Most of the attention in the early years was devoted to Zsuzsa, the
eldest of the sisters. Even at a young age she put strong chess players to
shame with her accurate moves. These players were not pleased and
they all thought of some excuse or other. One had not been paying at­
tention and made a stupid mistake, another had not been feeling too
well. When she was sixteen and had already defeated an impressive
number of grandmasters, she was to say that she had never yet beaten a
healthy man. Laszlo felt that his method improved as he went on ex­
perimenting . As a result, he came to put his highest hopes in the
youngest of the girls. With her, he could avoid the mistakes he had
made with Zsuzsa and Sofia. And indeed, Judit' s remarkable results
were not inconsistent with his ideas. Her brilliant games made her a
star, who was idolized by the press and the public at large. She won a
great deal and often, and was a stronger player than virtually all the
boys of her age. An invitation for Linares seemed a matter of time.
When it came, the first round couldn' t begin soon enough for her
many admirers.

When she shakes Kasparov' s hand at the start of their game, practically
no �eat in the playing hall is left unoccupied. The crowd are anxious to
see how La Nifia - as the press adoringly call her - will stand up to the
world champion. She herself is tense but not exceedingly nervous. The
first four rounds have passed off reasonably well. For a defeat against
Illescas, she made up with a victory over Topalov. In the games with
Black against Gelfand and Ivanchuk that followed, she had good
chances of getting more than the draws she achieved in the end. She
had a good premonition today when she had lunch in the Restaurant
Himilce. But this feeling soon disappears when after some twenty
moves she loses control of the game. Kasparov is teaching her a strategy
lesson in one of his favourite defensive systems. Judit sees the black
pieces getting more and more threatening and gaining the upper hand.
She feels that she has been outplayed to such an extent that towards her
thirtieth move she seriously begins to consider resigning. She puts it off
for a bit longer when Kasparov opts for an other continuation rather
than the deathblow she feared was coming. Then it is Kasparov' s turn
to make his thirty-fifth move. With great composure, he picks up the

73
Knight from the d7 -square and brings it forward, to c5 . Judit feels dis­
belief flushing her heart. This is an impossible move. A downright
blunder. When Kasparov actually lands the Knight on the c 5 - square,
her heart leaps into her mouth. Is she being given the unlikely chance
here to make one simple move and, as if by magic, convert an immi­
nent collapse into a position that may even be winning? Try not to
think of it, she warns herself in a thousandth of a second, but it is too
late. The mistake has entered the field of tension surrounding the
board, and she feels that the far-reaching results of the move that Kas­
parov is executing have now registered with himsel� as well. But she
has also seen that this awareness came too late. For a very short mo­
ment, almost imperceptibly, he released the Knight that he is still keep­
ing on the c5 -square but now firmly gripping it with three fingers
again. Judit is certain. For a very short moment, for a split of a split sec­
ond, his fingers let go of the piece. There is no need for a chess player
to see such a thing clearly. You feel it. It is in your system as a player.
These are the first important rules you learn when you begin to play
competitive chess. To touch is to move, and to release is to have
moved. When you touch a piece or a pawn, you have to move it, even
if it means losing the game. Once you have released a piece or a pawn,
your move has become irrevocable. This goes for all levels of play.
Young Bobby Fischer, for instance, concentrating deeply in a game
against German grandmaster Unzicker, happened to be fiddling with
his h-pawn in the assumption that it had been captured and taken off
the board. When he realized to his dismay what he was doing, he
didn't have to think twice before accepting the consequences of his
mistake. He moved the h-pawn, causing irreparable damage to his po­
sition, and lost quickly. It is a code of honour. Touch a piece and you
will have to move it. Let a piece go, even for the shortest possible mo­
ment, and you will have to resign yourself to the move you have made
You bring down shame on yourself if you break this code of honour.
Not knowing what to do about the situation, Judit raises her eyes to
look at Kasparov. He is holding on to the Knight, which is still on the
c5-square. Showing no feelings whatsoever, he sits there, thinking. His
face, normally so explicit, is impassive . Not the tiniest muscle moves to
betray what his thoughts are. Then, without further ado, he retires the
Knight to the square from where it came and pores over the position.
He is clearly aware that he will have to move the Knight but the expres-

74
sian on his face also indicates that he intends to consider calmly where
it will go.
Judit feels alone. She looks at Rentero, who is following the game
from a few yards away. She looks at Carlos Falcon, who is standing
next to him and who, being the arbiter, should have intervened. Un­
certain, she looks at her mother and her eldest sister, who are sitting on
the front row in the hall. It doesn't help her in the least. Three long
minutes go by before Kasparov makes his move. He picks up the
Knight, moves it back in a flowing movement to the f8-square and
writes his move down. Judit looks around again, knowing that she is
go�g to lose this game after all. For ten more moves she tries to order
her thoughts. It doesn't go too well. When she has resigned and is
handing her score-sheet across the table to Kasparov and he is handing
his to her for signature, she cannot restrain herself. As neutrally as pos­
sible, she asks Kasparov: "Did you let go of the Knight or didn' t you?"
Kasparov is prepared for the question. With a fatherly smile, he reas­
sures her: " Come on, what do you think, with a few hundred specta­
tors as witnesses ? "

Judit i s not convinced, even though she has the paralysing feeling that
there is nothing she can do about it. The next day, when her favourite
sister, Sofia, has arrived in Linares for a brief visit, she pours out her
h�art. At supper, she says she is almost certain that Kasparov released
the Knight. From the faces of Vishy Anand and the American grand­
master Alex Sherzer, who are having dinner with the sisters, she can tell
that they don't want to contradict her but that they can ' t even begin to
believe her. Sofia, at least, shows some understanding. "Why don' t you
j ust ask him again ? " , she suggests. Judit shakes her head and argues that
it is no use. "He ' s only got to say that it's not true and who'll believe
my story then? I can see it. How very unsporting of such a young girl.
You can tell she is very young. She is in time trouble , she is lost and
tries such a cheap trick. And against Kasparov too, who would be the
last to permit himself such a thing . In plain view of the arbiter, of a
whole crowd, and, as if that were not enough, of a camera crew as
well. "
She had thought o f the camera crew before, but i n the wake of the
game she was so downcast that she had mainly been reasoning what
little chance there was of it having had its equipment running at the
right moment, and from the right angle too, for it to shed any light on

75
the matter. Still, she mentions the camera crew when Carlos Falcon
catches a fragment of their conversation and comes over to ask if there
is a problem. Judit doesn ' t beat about the bush : "I have the strong im­
pression that Kasparov released the Knight after he played it to c5 . But
I ' m not certain. Would it be possible for me to see the footage?" Falcon
doesn' t hesitate. Helpfully and correctly, he replies that it doesn't seem
to be a problem at all. He will see what he can do .

It was a problem. If Carlos Falcon thought for a minute that he could

settle the matter smoothly, he was sadly mistaken. It turned out the
next day that the video tape was not available, because the camera crew
had unexpectedly returned to Madrid. And also , the chief arbiter him­
self suddenly began to hold a very strong view of the matter. That
night, Carlos Falcon added a short statement to his daily round report
in an effort to squash any rumours that an irregularity had taken place
in the game between Judit Polgar and Garry Kasparov. For whoever
might still think so , he wanted to stress once again this was not the
case.
If these interventions - in which Rentero had unmistakably had a
hand - were meant to put a stop to the various suspicions and insinua­
tions, they couldn' t have had a more adverse effect. Everyone now be­
gan to have an opinion about the incident. The call to have the camera
crew return from Madrid with their tape grew louder by the hour. The
Knight that Kasparov did or did not let go became the only subject of
discussion at the Hotel Anibal. Released or not released was the ques­
tion upon everyone ' s mind. Who still cared about the protests of the
Santana car factory workers , whose j obs were threatened? Who paid
any attention to the fact that the strikers were blocking roads and rail­
way tracks in the district? Or that six thousand men and women sing­
ing militant songs had staged a sit-down protest on the paseo? Who was
even keeping an eye on developments in the playing hall , where Ana­
toly Karpov was on his way to score the greatest tournament result of
his career? Not as many chess lovers as his play deserved, so much was
clear, for Karpov was at his merciless best. The former world champion
kept winning game after game as if he were bewitching his opponents.
After triumphing in his first three, he had fallen into Rentero ' s arms in
the lobby. Glowing with pride but characteristically lusting after more
blood, the tournament director asked his old friend why he should not
go on and win the first six of his games. He would certainly be pleased

76
if he did. Especially since he had suffered so many setbacks in his
house. Karpov merely laughed, not knowing that he would indeed win
his first six games. On the last day, there were to be nine victories and
four draws behind his name in the tournament cross table. This peak in
Karpov' s performance was to coincide with the final peak in his friend­
ship with Rentero. The ties between the two had become so close that
they even considered going into business together for a while.
Rentero' s idea was to export Linares olive oil to Russia in exchange for
the import of Karpov vodka. Nothing ever came of it. Their relation­
ship would never be better than in 1 9 94. Only worse. In the run-up to
the tournament of 1 9 9 7 , Karpov kept Rentero in uncertainty about his
entry for weeks and then only informed him at the last possible mo­
ment that he declined his invitation. Rentero was bitter and sent Karpov
an angry open letter. Disappointed and insulted, he told his former
friend that he would never play in Linares again. His unforgivable be­
haviour had been a grave insult to himself, the tournament committee
and to the chess lovers in Linares. From that moment on, he would be
on Rentero' s list of "bad people. "

The uproar a t the Hotel Anibal only grew worse when news began to
spread that the game between Polgar and Kasparov had been filmed in
its entirety, and that it was clearly visible that Kasparov had released the
Knight for a fraction of a second. All uncertainty would come to an
end, because a car with the all-revealing video tape on board was on its
way from Madrid to Linares. It had taken the film makers a few busy
days to find the relevant footage and edit the tape. To all this excite­
ment, Rentero reacted once again with a letter. A letter which highly
surprised me. Shortly before it was made public, Mauricio told me that
Rentero himself had been on the telephone to the film people in Ma­
drid. It was true, he told Mauricio, Kasparov had illegally taken back his
move. But this information could not be reconciled with Rentero' s let­
ter. What Rentero was playing at was a mystery to me. It seemed that
he was trying to vindicate Kasparov but if so, what was his intention
with this letter? Had it escaped him that Kasparov had called on the
press to make sure that the video tape turned up if it really existed? And
what had been discussed in the private meeting that Kasparov had de­
manded with Rentero to make clear that he was taking the matter very
seriously indeed?

77
 Rentero 's letter, written in a peculiar kind of English, raised more
questions than it answered. First, it summarized the tournament direc­
tor' s own version of what had taken place and after that, it gave his
verdict:
"Luis Rentero, Technical Director of the Chess Tournament 'Ciudad
de Linares, ' informs of the press media that the comments concerning
the 5 th round game between Mrs. ]. Polgar and Mr. G. Kasparov oc­
curred in the following way: 'I was dose to the mural of said game ,
and right when Mr. Kasparov moved his knight to the c5 square to
leave it there for a few seconds, without releasing his fingers from the
·
piece, he returned the knight back to its original square, d 7 , from
where he moved it to square f8 , I turned to the referee saying, Carlos,
whereupon he answered: He has not released the piece ! '
"The referee has the main responsibility in the Playing Hall and his
decisions are accepted, not only by me, but also by the Organizing
Committee of this Tournament.
"Consequently, as responsible of this Tournament and in the name
of the Organizing Committee I do not admit other versions of the re­
ferred fact and we will not permit speculations or comments of bad
taste towards the Organizing Committee since they have accepted the
referee decision, as main responsible of the Playing Hall.
" Having information that on Tuesday, March 1 5 th , a video of this
case is intended to be projected, I would like to inform that neither in
the Tournament Hall, nor at the Anibal hotel, nobody will be allowed
to make such projection.
"To me, as Technical Director of the Tournament, Mr. Kasparov is
an exemplary sportsman, that has not required of any tricks to be three
years the winner and two years second of this world renowned Chess
Tournament.
"The tournament has been, is and will be a good faith Tournament
and we will not permit that nobody spreads unfounded rumours, that
all they do is to damage the reputation of the players and even of this
Tournament. "

I f Rentero had thought to get Kasparov off the hook with this letter, he
only achieved the opposite. Everyone was now dying to see the video
and the arrival of the car from Madrid was eagerly awaited. At the same
time, tension also mounted over the question whether the video might
be shown anywhere in the hotel at all. In the lobby, people were com-

78
ing and going. Hoping to sound out opinions, I let my eyes wander
round. At the short end of the reception desk, Rosa was leaning on a
stack of newspapers, calmly smoking a Ducado. It was clear she was
amused at the excitement.
"What do you think, are we going to witness the showing of this
video? "
Rosa nodded happily. " O f course, what else did you expect? "
"Who d o you think has asked for the video t o be send over here? It
would be typical of Roman Toran, it seems. To get one over on his en­
emy Kasparov. "
Rosa stubbed out her cigarette. "No, no. They come at the invitation
of Mister Rentero. "
" But hasn't h e . . . ?"
"Ah ! Hombre! Don' t you know Mister Rentero by now? All he' s after
is a bit of commotion. That' s what he was proudly saying here only an
hour ago. "
I had no reason to doubt Rosa's words. Moreover, not much was
done to prevent the video from being shown once it had arrived.
Thronging the hotel room of one of the reporters and craning their
necks, a whole crowd were looking time after time at Kasparov moving
his Knight to cS in slow motion and, yes, releasing his fingers from the
piece for a very short moment. One of the viewers was Carlos Falcon.
'
Even in advance of the closing ceremony, he had a statement go out in
which he frankly admitted that he had been wrong. For the record he
stated: "Played in slow motion, the video clearly shows that Kasparov
released the piece. However, as he was shielding the piece with his
hand, this was impossible for me to see from the position where I was
standing. "

Several years on, Judit Polgar and I reminisced about the heroic feat she
performed on the day of departure. In the middle of the lobby, she
went to stand in Kasparov' s way. He had been hiding himself in his
suite most of the time but now he was legging it at high speed towards
the exit to take a walk outside. Straight out, she asked him: "How
could you do this to me?"
Judit laughed when she thought back to the mettle she showed as a
seventeen-year-old in calling the world champion to account. It had
been brave but not without consequences. "Yes , and then he didn't
speak a word to me for three whole years. "

79
 Something came back to my mind which she perhaps didn' t even
know.
"I remember he wasn' t quite sure himself. When he came to com­
plain to me in the restaurant, I asked him what he thought had hap­
pened himself. Did he let the Knight go or didn ' t he ? He hesitated and
said he wasn' t quite sure. It was j ust a matter of a split second. But he
didn't think so. "
It was n o surprise t o Judit. "That' s what I 've always said. I was con­
vinced he must have felt it. When you've played chess for so long, you
feel this. But he was confused, because he didn ' t know what to do
when there was no reaction. That' s why he sat thinking for three min­
utes. Not about what move to make but about what to do. And then he
took his move back. "
" And felt guilty. "
Judit kept the images running through her mind for a while before
answering : "You know, the problem was that no one was any the bet­
ter for it. It was bad for Garry's reputation. And it spoiled the tourna­
ment for both of us. Everyone kept calling me about the scandal and I
don' t like scandals at all. I should have gone about my games more
calmly after that but I was too eager to prove all sorts of things . "
The tournament became a disappointment for Kasparov as well. The
strength which had enabled him at first to keep up �reasonably well
with Karpov, disappeared from his play later on. A defeat against Kram­
nik meant an early end to his chances of reaching the top position. On
the last day, he lost another game and as a result he had to share the
second position with Shirov. Kasparov' s second defeat was the great tri­
umph of the French newcomer, Joel Lautier. Throughout the tourna­
ment, he had been looking forward to his first encounter with the
world champion. It turned out to be easier than he had expected. Kas­
parov fatally undermined his own position with a remarkable plunder.
Lautier couldn' t have wished for a better debut in Linares. From the
first day, he enjoyed the fighting spirit with which battle was done on
all the boards. For a determined fighter such as Lautier, it was a revela­
tion. This was the way he wanted to play chess, ruthless and without
mercy. Shortly before his return to Paris, I met him in the lobby, which
had become such a familiar place to him. With a gleam in his eyes, he
mused: "There' s no tournament like this tournament. It was great to
play here. On the day I arrived in the hotel, I could feel something was
going to happen. You j ust feel it in the air. "

80
 The s e cret mirac le

The date i s not difficult t o remember. I still know i t exactly. When­

ever I think back, it is just beneath the surface of my thoughts and
without fail it comes to mind quickly. It was the day when time de­
tached itself from the calendar to hover over Linares like a kestrel spy­
ing for prey. It was the day when the feeling of what Linares meant to
me presented itself in words. It was two dates rather, or perhaps even
three.
The first was March 1 4th, 1 9 9 3 , the day when Kasparov was to win
the tournament for the third time. The other chess players had to sub­
mit to him humbly, one after the other. Also Karpov, who had man­
aged to keep pace with him for quite a stretch. But in the tenth round,
he too was beaten back, in one of the most blood-spattered games the
two rivals ever played. Violently sacrificing his way through the posi­
tion that Karpov had hesitantly built up , Kasparov needed only
twenty-seven moves with Black to finish him off. A minor slip-up was
all the black pieces needed to fall on their prey like a pack of hungry
hyenas. The post-mortem was sheer torture to Karpov but a moment of
absolute triumph for Kasparov. Surrounded by a crowd of critical col­
leagues and eager journalists, who were gladly abandoning themselves
t� this special kind of disaster tourism, Karpov desperately suggested
moves that might have improved his position at various points in the
game. Kasparov, who was giving short shrift to all of these improve­
ments in superb form, couldn ' t get enough of it. Anand was silently
looking on and whispered to me : "This is murder. " Meanwhile, Kaspa­
ro_v demonstrated another winning line, gestured with his hands over
the board like a conjurer, and without showing any inhibition declared
triumphantly: "The whole board is black! "

At about noon on March 1 4th, 1 9 9 3 , I leave the hotel for a short walk.
Because it is going to be a long day, I have skipped breakfast. The cafe
con leche I had at the bar has left a pleasantly bitter aftertaste. It is one of
those moments when you feel snugly at ease. Kasparov will play his fi­
nal game against Kamsky this afternoon. If he wins this game as well,
he will equal the impressive final score with which he put his nearest
rivals in their place last year. It would be the appropriate culmination

81
of a fine tournament. Thanks to Rentero' s ambition , the field' s strength
once again exceeded last year ' s tournament by a few Elo points.
Half the street in front of the hotel lies in the shade , the pavement
still wet after a rare shower. The quickly drying asphalt has a strong
smell. The cool vapour spreading upward is reminiscent of the cellar in
an old house. Above the buildings across the street, the last tufts of
cloud are disappearing to make for a sheer blue sky . The transition
from the shade to the sunlit side of the street is a razor-sharp line.
Where the sun doesn' t reach, the chill of the rain can still be felt but as
soon as you step into the blinding light , you are enveloped by a feeling
of warmth.
The sun also stimulates the other senses. In the noise of a rackety
lorry , grinding and clattering to a halt for the traffic light , even the
smallest details are clearly audible. The tyres , the throttling back, which
is like a valve blowing off air, the rattle of the tail board, everything. As
the lorry accelerates again and turns the corner, I hear drums beating
somewhere far off, mingled with occasional shreds of trumpets blaring .
It is hard to make o u t where t h e music is coming from. I t is only when
I get to the Marin Palomares flour mill on the Avenida de Andalucia
that I have the strong suspicion that the music is coming from the bull­
ring. Come to think of it, it may have to do with the strange scene that
took place in the lobby of the hotel last night. Towards the cocktail
hour, a large crowd of people suddenly came in. Guests who were qui­
etly having a drink in the bar left their glasses and came over to have a
look. Spruced up ladies and gentlemen dressed to the nines went to
stand in a row, waiting for something very special to happen . Children
were running about in an agitated fashion , with pens and pieces of pa­
per in their hands . They didn ' t have to wait long. Amidst shouts of de­
light and under loud applause , a procession made its way through the
throng of admirers , the likes of which I had never seen before. Toreros
in tight trousers, picadors with black boots and leggings, and a whole
retinue in similarly garish gear. Stamping with their boots and clatter­
ing with the various sorts of metal they had on them , they went to
their hotel rooms to change for supper. Most of them were caked with
sand. Virtually no one had kept his clothes clean. In the midst of the
procession, I was later told, was the legendary Curro Romero, the
sixty-year-old master who had been the main attraction at the corrida
that afternoon. Mauricio was standing next to me, silently looking at
the craggy, nineteenth-century faces. " Friends of yours ? " I asked him

82
provocatively. Angrily, he shook his head. " Bunch of imbeciles. Look at
them. You can see how backward this country still is. I ' d like to see a
fight where the torero is first wounded with lances and sharp hooks
and then confronted with a healthy bull . " We didn' t stay to watch for
long and the subject was not brought up again when we had dinner.
I notice that I have started to walk faster. The trumpet blares, sup­
ported by the sad beating of the drums, have the effect of a siren' s
song . You are irresistibly drawn towards i t , unable t o withstand the cu­
riosity that has come over you. In the Paseo de Commercia, the sound
disappears momentarily behind the tall fa�ades of the shops with their
prettily decorated row of display-windows on the ground floor. On the
Corredera de San Marcos, which is wider, new alluring fragments reach
my ears. From over the high roofs of the bank buildings, they swirl
down through the noise of the street. There is no longer any doubt in
my mind that the music is coming from the bullring. Especially not
when I turn the corner at the traffic lights at the high end of the street
and I see the white arena with its ornamental ochre borders in front of
me, surrounded by palm trees. The music is loud now, inescapable and
at times downright shrill. Crossing the small park in front of the arena,
I quickly walk on up until I reach one of the imposing gates, painted in
ox-blood red. Huge white letters indicate that this is the Entrada Palcos,
with, underneath it, the important addition: Sombra. This is the en­
trance for the better seats, which are not in the glaring sun towards the
end of the afternoon but comfortably protected in the shade. One of
the two doors in the gate is open. Not knowing whether an outsider is
welcome here, I look in hesitantly. There are two boys in the archway ,
about sixteen years old and both dressed in blue jeans and bright polo
shirts. One of them turns round. He sees that I am interested and with
emphasis beckons me to enter. It is clear from his encouraging look
that he knows that I am not from around here. Reassured, I make my
way into the cool entrance until I have a good view of the arena, which
extends white and bare from the fence guarding the front seats. There ,
with their backs towards me, are the trumpet players who lured me
into coming here. Across the stretch of white sand , another group -
also some ten men strong - are beating their drums in a syncopated
rhythm. They are practising with concentrated, silent faces, in their
everyday clothes. The merging music resounds in the archway and
grabs me in the midriff. It is as if a thin layer has formed all over my
body, of which even the tiniest part contributes to my senses. The brass

83
is wailing, demanding a deep sense of time. The drum beat seems to
want to drive the music on, but is marking even more the here and
now of the moment. I try to order my feelings with reasoned thoughts.
That I should perhaps read Hemingway again, even though I never
liked him all that much. Or that it might be interesting to imagine what
the slow funeral march from Mahler's Fifth Symphony would have
sounded like if the composer had been able to come and iisten here. I
make an effort to keep on thinking , because I realize that I risk ending
up in a trance if I don't.
When I turn round and walk out through the gat�. I have no idea
how long I have been listening. It may have been a quarter of an hour,
but it may j ust as well have been five minutes. Confused, I walk on to
the paseo , without a plan. I see Segovia standing in the distance. But that
is not where I want to go at all . I hover around the news agent' s stall,
without even reading so much as the headlines on the front pages .
Turning around myself, I try to comprehend what it is that the music
has made clear to me. Why I have the feeling that I understand now
what makes me like to come to Linares so much. And then, all of a
sudden, the realization is there in words. Rentero used to say: "Linares
es Linares, " whenever he wanted to explain what was so unique about
his tournament. I now hear my own explanation behind his words. Li­
nares is Linares, because this is where every year time comes to a stop.
Every year there is a new tournament and every year it is also the same.
While commerce is rushing chess, demanding ever faster games, the
players here are given the opportunity to fight their battles at a classical
pace, undisturbed by the obtrusive outside world. Linares hasn't given
in to the illusions of the present time. Not yet. No, here, time has been
sidetracked. Here, time stands still once a year.

The rest of the afternoon, the thought keeps going round aq.d round in
my head. As if I am subconsciously aware that it would be premature
to store it in my memory now as j ust another interesting brain wave. It
is a feeling that will not betray me. The last round passes off as Kaspa­
rov had hoped it would. Even before the first time control, he puts an
end to all tension, leaving Gata Kamsky no chance in a ruthlessly han­
dled game. His ambitious challenger struggles in vain to fmd an answer
to a new opening idea from Kasparov' s rich reserves and meets an in­
glorious end. Obviously, a j oint analysis after the game is out of the
question. Kasparov gives his opinion both of the game and of his oppo-

84
nent in an all-embracing comment when he leaves the stage . Shaking
his head, he looks at me briefly and says, with all the disdain that he
can muster: "pfff, Kamsky . "
Kasparov' s punitive expedition puts a full stop t o the tournament.
The world champion has won again, with a final score that leaves noth­
ing to be said. The other games of the last round have become a mere
formality, overdue pieces, of interest only for the statistics. The press
don' t need to wait any longer; they can file their stories. That includes
Arvind, for Anand agreed to a quick draw and was done even in ad­
vance of Kasparov. The timely conclusion suits me fine. My piece for
the newspaper has been under construction since early in the afternoon
and I manage to send it in to Holland before eight o'clock. I am off for
the rest of the evening and can spend it chatting and looking back on
the tournament. The pressure is off. The official closing ceremony is
scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. I have plenty of time to ask the
players for an analysis of their best games for my magazine and to
speak at greater length with the winner. The day after the last move -
preferably not too long before the closing ceremony - has proved to be
the best moment for an interview with Kasparov these past few years.
But there is something I have to do first. After taking my laptop up
to my room , I make my way through the long hotel corridors, lit by
small, electrified candleholders, to the room where Jan Timman is stay­
g
in . On the day of my arrival, Jan told me that he had brought a be­
lated birthday present for me. But somehow he never got to handing it
over in the past week, although we met in the restaurant and the bar
every day. Now we have decided that it has got to be done. His room is
at the end of a corridor in the front part of the hotel. Jan likes to come
to Linares. This is his seventh tournament. The Spanish mentality and
the uncompromising chess appeal to him. Even when his results leave
to be desired, as was the case this year. He knows that Rentero will not
blame him for it. As far as Rentero is concerned, Timman is one of the
few chess players who can do without a bonus for playing aggressive
chess. Timman is always fighting, the tournament boss likes to declare,
whether he is struggling with his form or whether he wins the tourna­
ment, as happened in 1 9 8 8. Timman takes care of the blaming himself,
as he is doing now when he opens the door and immediately starts to
grumble about the stupidity that cost him his game against Belyavsky
today.

85
 A chess board with one of the key positions from the game is on a
side table in his room. He still cannot keep his eyes off it. He shows
how he could have played better. Muttering, he wonders once again
how he could have been so stupid. After three weeks of tournament,
the room has been taken over completely by its inhabitant. The refer­
ence books on openings and endings that he has brought with him are
randomly spread and fanned out across the bed, the night table and the
floor, in between opened newspapers and magazines. A huge jumble of
dirty linen is bulging out of a large-sized travelling bag in one of the
corners. Next to it are his last fresh clothes, in a small stack. Two
glasses from the bathroom are waiting next to the chess board. Jan
gives me my present and while I tear away the wrapping paper he sets
to work on a bottle of Rioja with his Swiss army knife. The book he has
chosen is no great surprise. It is a collection of short stories in English
by Jan ' s favourite writer, Jorge Luis Borges, entitled Labyrinths. We have
often talked about Borges and because I have read very little of his
work, I am pleased with Jan ' s choice. As Jan is still busy uncorking the
wine, I am slowly leafing through the book. I stop for no apparent rea­
son when I come to a story called The Secret Miracle. I hear the wine gur­
gle into the glasses when I notice that in the first line of the story there
is a date: March 1 4th , I 943 . On that day, or rather in the early morn­
ing , the tail end of the night, the main character in the story, Jaromir
Hladik, is having a dream. Surprised, I look at Jan.
"Believe it or not, but I j ust happened to turn up a story which is
supposed to have taken place exactly fifty years ago today. "
"Really? How remarkable. "
"Even better, " I continue, a s m y eyes glance over the lines, "the
main character is a writer who is having a dream about a game of
chess. It's a game of chess being played not by two people but by two
families. It's been going on for centuries. No one really knows any
longer what is at stake. But there is a rumour that it was an enormous
stake, perhaps even an infinite amount. "
"Yes , I seem t o remember something o f the sort. But I've never paid
any particular attention to the date. It is very convenient, though. This
makes it a very appropriate present. "
He hands me a glass of red wine. We raise our glasses.
"To your birthday and the secret miracle, I ' d say , " concludes Jan.
"And to Linares. "
"Most certainly so. And to Linares. "

86
 " You'll have to write something at the beginning of the book. Pref­
erably referring to the coincidence of the opening sentence of this
story. "
He nods while relishing the wine.
"Of course. That has to be mentioned. Not bad this Rioj a, by the
way, don ' t you think? "
"You haven 't taken any chances, selecting a Marques d e Murrieta . "
"No, I haven ' t , but I didn' t know this vintage. I t seems to me it' s a
good choice for this last day . "
"And for toasting a small secret miracle. " I hand him the book and
take a pen from the table. Jan thinks for a moment and then writes a
dedication on the title page. He returns the book and I read: " Regard­
less of your age, this is a birthday present dated on the 5 0th anniver­
sary of the start of the secret miracle. "
I read i t and, not knowing what else to do, I raise my glass again .
" I'd prefer to go and read the rest of the story right away. I've be­
come really curious now. But I can ' t do that to this Marques de Murri­
eta. And we have to have dinner, don ' t we? "
"Absolutely, and maybe w e can g o somewhere afterwards . "
But Jan ' s mind i s elsewhere. H e moves a few pieces o n the board
and explains what he is thinking about : "It was so silly. I have no idea
what came over me. When I play like this, I have an excellent posi­
tio� . " He executes the moves decisively. I look at it and I know that
we ' ll come back to this position more often in the course of the even­
ing .

Later that evening, i n the early hours o f the night, after a long meal and
a short visit to an almost deserted La Papaya, I begin to read Borges'
story in bed. Hurried, I rush along the lines. Borges gives many facts
and digressing details, which slow down my search. I want to find out
whether it was a coincidence that I turned up a page in the book with
the same date as the day when I was given the book. I read that when
Jaromir Hladik awakes from his chess dream, he hears the first nazi
troops outside marching into Prague. Five days later, he is denounced
to the occupation forces. His betrayer could take his pick from various
accusations. People more Jewish than Hladik would have been hard to
find for the Nazis in Prague. He is sentenced to death. There is no ap­
peal. The execution is to take place on March 2 9th, at nine o 'clock in
the morning.

87
 During his first days in j ail, Hladik is continuously haunted by the
fear of death. He needs all his strength of mind to allay that fear. Then,
one day before his execution, his thoughts take an entirely different di­
rection. He thinks of the books he has written and realizes that none of
them have deserved a place in history. He had pinned all his hopes on a
verse tragedy entitled The Enemies, which has remained unfinished. This
play could have made his life worthwhile. But even that solace is now
denied him . In the darkness, he turns to God and asks him for a year's
grace to allow him to finish the tragedy, which will j ustify himself and
the God to whom he is praying. Shortly afterwards he falls asleep. He
_
dreams that he is in a library. The librarian asks him what he is looking
for. Hladik answers that he is looking for God . The librarian tells him
that God is in one of the letters in the library but that so far no one has
been able to find it. Another visitor then returns an atlas. It's a worth­
less atlas, he says, and he gives it to Hladik. He opens it at random, sees
a map of India and points to a very tiny letter on it. Then he hears a
voice, which says : "You have been granted the time for your work . "
I n the morning, two soldiers come t o get him. They take him t o a
courtyard, where the sentence is to be carried out. While a raindrop is
slowly rolling down his cheek, he hears the sergeant of the execution
squad giving the order to fire.
At that moment, the physical universe comes to a halt. Time stops.
Hladik sees everything around him becoming immobile and freezing
into place. For a moment he thinks that he is dead , but then he realizes
that he has not stopped thinking . He remembers what he asked of God
and he understands that He has worked a secret miracle for him. Hladik
knows that he has got a year in his mind to finish his play. Energeti­
cally, he sets to it. He writes and rewrites, arranges and rearranges. He
never feels rushed. When time has stopped, you have got all the time
you need to get to the heart of the matter. When after 'a year' he has
finished the tragedy, there is still one sentence with which he is not
satisfied. That he polishes up as well. Then the raindrop falls from his
cheek and a volley from four rifle muzzles ends his life.
Frozen, unable to move for a moment, with my bedside lamp shin­
ing on the page, I kept looking at the last line of the story.

I came across the third date only several years later. I happened to look
up the translation of 'The Secret Miracle' in the Dutch edition of
Borges' Collected works. What ought to have been a pleasant recognition

88
actually caused a confusing shock reaction. The frrst line of the story hit
me like a blow in the stomach. From in between the other words in the
opening sentence, the date of Hladik's dream almost jumped right off
the page. No matter how often I looked, it kept saying March 1 4th,
1 9 3 9 . March 1 4th, 1 9 3 9 ? Not March 1 4th, 1 943 ? Had I been mis­
taken? It certainly seemed so, as some reasoning soon made clear. Why
did it dawn on me only now that the Nazis had not entered Prague in
1 943 at all but in 1 9 3 9 ? Why hadn't I thought of that before? Unpleas­
antly surprised, I went to look on the shelves in my study for the edi­
tion that Jan Timman had given to me. I could not possibly have been
mistaken, I kept telling myself. If it said 1 943 at the time, it would still
say so now. But I was not entirely certain. Suppose it did say 1 9 3 9 all
of a sudden? Would that imply that Jan and I had both been hallucinat­
ing in Linares at the time? Or would it rather imply that things could
happen to your books that were beyond your control? Hesitantly, I
leafed to page 1 1 8 . There it was, and, to my great relief, it said: March
1 4th, 1 943 .
That removed my doubts, although it did not answer the question
why the English edition had a wrong date. The most plausible explana­
tion seems to be that Borges wrote 'The Secret Miracle' in 1 943 , which
may very well have misled the translator or the editor. But it would
have been better if dates were able to detach themselves from time oc­
casionally, since it seems that time may come to a standstill from time
to time.

89
 1 - van- chuk !

The table that has become my regular place in the Restaurant

Himilce is an excellent observation post. My back covered by a huge
camouflaging flower-box, I look out on the swing doors that are the
only entrance from the bar into the restaurant. No one enters here un­
seen. To greet someone, all I have to do is to lift my head and catch the
eye of the person entering the restaurant. To avoid a greeting, I only
have to bend over the food on my plate or over the �ook next to it. If I
turn slightly to the left , I have a good view of the door to the kitchen
and the regular table of Kasparov and his entourage.
It is some two hours before the start of the th irteenth round and the
restaurant is still very quiet. The staff are routinely making their last
preparations for the midday peak. I am somewhat early. Only Michael
Adams and Peter Svidler, accompanied by their seconds, are sitting at
their tables behind me to the right. Svidler is quoting from Monty Py­
thon' s Dead-Parrot sketch with a booming voice, while Adams and Pe­
ter Wells are listening to him with polite smiles of recognition. Svidler
is always noisy, even minutes before a game. Adams prefers silence,
trying to live up to the start of the round in a serene manner.
Pedro, dressed like Diego in blue and black uniform, puts a plate of
olives on my table and uses a pair of tongs to put a bread roll on the
plate sticking out halfway from under my book. As he takes out his
note block to write down my order, he uses the opportunity to sniff his
nose as inconspicuously as possible. Pedro has had a bad cold for days
and he' s been sniffling a lot. As he walks back, the door opens and
Vassily lvanchuk enters the restaurant. Drowsily he looks around,
somewhat dazed, as though he has just woken up. He puts his hands
deep into his trouser pockets and yawns without opening his mouth.
What further plans he has is not yet clear. He lets his eyes wander
around mistily, gives a nod in my direction without recognizing me,
and takes a step forward. Behind him , Alexander Sulypa foll ows qui­
etly. The waggish look in his eyes is permanently apologizing for the
behaviour of his friend. lvanchuk gives the impression that he is head­
ing for the section of the restaurant where he has been having his meals
for the past two weeks. But halfway there, he suddenly seems to
change his mind. With an abrupt movement, he swerves off and makes
straight for Kasparov' s table. Approvingly, he looks at this excellent ta-

90
ble, which, strangely enough, he hadn ' t noticed before and with a
second-rate actor's emphatic nod he moves the chair back and sits
down. Sulypa doesn't know very well how to handle the situation. He
has walked on uncertainly to their regular table. Laughing with embar­
rassment, he whispers to Ivanchuk to j oin him. To no avail. The staff
are more resolute. Determinedly, one of the waitresses comes in and
addresses the disobedient guest severely: "Ivanchuk, this is Kasparov' s
table ! " Her words have little effect. Keeping her at bay with a soothing
gesture, Ivanchuk adopts a concentrated attitude suggesting that he in­
tends to experience sitting on Kasparov' s chair to the full. His trance is
interrupted by Diego, who steps up to him with an expression on his
face that indicates this has gone far enough. Authoritatively, he com­
mands: "Come on, Ivanchuk, this is Kasparov' s table. Now go and sit at
your own table . " Ivanchuk realizes that he will have to say something
now and, turning partly to Diego, partly to the guests in the restaurant,
he implores: " Please let me sit here for five minutes to absorb Kaspa­
rov' s spirit. " Diego turns round and goes away, shaking his head. From
their giggling and the looks they' re exchanging , it is clear that the
other guests are enjoying all this. We don ' t have to wait long . The door
swings open and Klara Kasparova comes in, as if she has been waiting
off stage for her cue. She takes in the situation with astonishing speed.
Sh.e has barely set foot in the restaurant before she puts her hand over
her eyes and, peering around as if she were spying like an Indian, she
walks up to Ivanchuk with threatening steps. He looks up at her im­
ploringly and softly repeats his plea. Klara Kasparova listens to him and
then takes an unexpected decision. Putting her hand on his shoulder in
a motherly gesture , she whispers into his ear and then quietly sits at an­
other table.

It soon turns out that she has once again perfectly anticipated her son ' s
state of mind. Kasparov i s hardly surprised when h e finds Ivanchuk sit­
ting on his chair and he joins his mother without further ado. After the
situation is explained to him, he speaks a few words to Ivanchuk,
laughing kindly, and then concentrates on the menu. He should have
been tense and irritable. Today is the thirteenth round. Thirteen has al­
ways been a special number to him. It is also his lucky number. He was
born on April 1 3 th and he is the thirteenth world champion. But it is
different now. The tension is gone. The day before yesterday, he
turned a losing position into a win against Michael Adams in a hard-

91
fought game in the twelfth round. His lead on Kramnik, who settled
for a draw against Anand, increased to two-and-a-half points. Even if
Kasparov were to lose his last two games, he would still win the tour­
nament. Producing a victory in the encounter with Adams to perform
his twelfth unconditional feat of strength in fifteen days forced him to
draw on his last reserves. Pale but happy, he went over a few critical
lines with Adams after the game but that took the last of his energy out
of him. Leaving the analysis room, he stopped in his tracks, because I
wanted to have a chat with him as usual. It was no more than a reflex
action, as it turned out. Hollow-eyed, he looked at m� briefly only to
walk off at a brisk pace, angry for no apparent reason. Baffied, I stared
at Yuri, who was equally surprised at Kasparov' s reaction, but rather
than responding to my puzzled look he quickly went after his boss.
Yesterday, on the last rest day of the tournament, Kasparov was back to
normal. Shrugging his shoulders, he explained to me with an embar­
rassed laugh that he had been too tired, that that had been all. Now,
another day on, he is merrily chatting away, explaining all sorts of
things to his mother and to Yuri. He is in control of himself again.
There is hardly any anxiety over the games awaiting him. Against Leko,
an extremely solid player, he will undoubtedly manage a comfortable
draw with Black this afternoon. That leaves only tomorrow's game
with White against Topalov. If he is able to recharge his batteries one
more time, he will have a good chance of increasing his already
impressive score even further.

When the other chess players are talking about Kasparov, they often re­
fer to him as 'God. ' The sobriquet combines mockery and respect. They
have nothing but the highest praise for his play , but his character is a
different matter. Kasparov's behaviour is too blunt and too forbidding
too often for him to curry favour with his colleagues. He is .well aware .
of it himself. Even when he is in a genial mood and doing his best to
come over as warm and friendly, he knows that he is fighting a losing
battle to win them over. Perhaps he has trodden on their souls too of­
ten in their games.
To Ivanchuk, Kasparov is 'God' too, but without the irony. He has
raised Kasparov onto a higher level out of pure self-defence. He was
put on to the idea by an old friend, who noticed Ivanchuk's intense
suffering after he lost his first game against Kasparov. "Learn to live
with it, " he advised him. "Look upon him as God and make him your

92
touchstone. It is the only way for you ever to be able to defeat him . " It
was a useful piece of advice for the vulnerable Ivanchuk. When losing
against Kasparov, he would know that he was once again shown his in­
evitable shortcomings. But winning, his existence would be justified
anew by the improbable success. The only drawback of this strategy is
that it clashes with his true beliefs. When he goes to church in his
hometown of lvov, it happens that it is Kasparov's face which comes to
his mind while he is praying.
Instability and weak nerves have been playing tricks on Ivanchuk
ever since his youth. If he were able to control himself, many experts
would tip him as a world champion because of his brilliant insight into
the game. Ivanchuk tried everything in his efforts to calm down. The
first time I was in Linares, he used to relax during his meals by softly
singing sweet Ukrainian folk songs. Dreamily humming, he used to sit
there, turned in upon himself, withdrawn into a world of his own. At
another time, he was in the small park next to the hotel around mid­
night, howling like a wolf in an attempt to get over a lost game. He did
not become world champion but his unusual methods had some effect.
Definitively so in Linares. He took the first prize here three times - a
number of triumphs surpassed only by Kasparov, who will win his fifth
title here this year and who, moreover, did not compete in two of the
thr�e tournaments that were won by Ivanchuk.
Ivanchuk' s victories have earned him an unbelievable popularity
with the Linarese. People greet him everywhere with a brief and warm
' Ivanchuk! ' The warmth they feel at his unaffected behaviour out­
weighs their admiration for the distant Kasparov. Ivanchuk doesn't
push his way haughtily through the crowd of noisy children thronging
at the bottom of the hotel stairs every day begging the players for a sig­
nature in their programme booklets. He always stops to sign a few. In
the year of his third tournament victory, he invited these young admir­
ers to join him in eating the cake that the restaurant kitchen had pre­
pared for him.
lvanchuk has developed a special ritual for approaching his games
against Kasparov in Linares. He lunches out before the start of the
round, because he is afraid that his concentration will be upset if the
focus of his every thought is having lunch in person next to him. His
best memory is the one he retains of the tournament that was held two
years ago, when he withdrew to the Chinese restaurant next door. He
had hardly been seated at the Ciudad Feliz when Yuri Vasilyev, a Rus-

93
sian reporter who covers every tournament with Kasparov among the
competitors, came in after him with a prying look on his face. He
wanted to know what Ivanchuk was having for lunch. Ivanchuk told
him that he had ordered mushroom soup - a dish of which the Russian
name sounds like the French 'champignon. ' It seemed the right choice,
he said, because within a few hours he would be playing against the
champion - which in Russian is pronounced as 'sham pion. ' These
'champignons , ' Ivanchuk went on, were after all the only mushrooms
that could be cultivated. The same went for world champions. That was
why, he explained to the baffled Vasilyev, he was having ' champignon'
soup now. The ' shampion' himself he would have for dessert. Rarely
did a prediction prove to be more correct. Kasparov won the tourna­
ment that year, but that afternoon he suffered his only defeat.

The two games which Ivanchuk played against Kasparov this year have
only brought him suffering . Twice his play lacked any order to such an
extent that he resigned before the coup de grace was delivered. Perhaps
because he is in a defeatist mood and seems unable to find the right
form. But perhaps also because Rentero isn't here. It was Rentero after
all , who told him two years ago on the day before he was to face Kas­
parov: "You're the best , but you ' ll have to prove it. "

I am also thinking of Rentero when the round begins and I am in the

hall watching how Juan Hervas, the new tournament director, is trying
to follow Rentero ' s example. As soon as the photographers start doing
their work, he takes up position behind the table where Kasparov is
playing his game, j ust as Rentero used to do. When you take a picture
of Kasparov, chances are you'll get Juan Hervas into the bargain. It is a
sorry sight. Hervas is still a long way from mastering Rentero' s tech­
nique. He looks around in a startled way, fully aware that he doesn' t
really belong there. No , Rentero handled it differently. Roughly speak­
ing , he had two different postures, which he used to adopt with equal
verve. The first was the pontifical one, the one of the tournament di­
rector who j ust happened to be in the camera ' s viewfinder with all his
authority, relaxed and with his hands loosely on his back. The other
was the one of the casual passer-by. He used to be somewhat surprised
when he looked into the camera, as though he hadn't noticed that peo­
ple were taking pictures. I have seen him come into view dozens of
times in this way , and, to be quite honest, I couldn ' t get enough of it.

94
This was no pushy official but a true aficionado, who after all those
years was still enjoying the fact that Kasparov was playing chess in his
hotel.
Kasparov has taken his place at the board smartly dressed as always.
Being the world champion, he feels that he must set an example. He
doesn' t have many followers. Anand also makes a neat impression, but
he prefers the sportier sort of clothes. Only Topalov will always wear a
tie , just like Kasparov. The summer blazer, featherweight trousers and
elegant tie which the Bulgarian is sporting today are in remarkable con­
trast to his opponent ' s choice of clothes. lvanchuk is still wearing the
brown gabardine slacks and dark striped sweater that he had on for
lunch. He feels at home here. Why change clothes when you step into
your living room? A few years ago, he was so lost in thought before his
game that he came onto the stage with his bare feet still in plastic flip­
flops. Amused at the sight, spectators were nudging each other. Ivan­
chuk only noticed when Kasparov gave him a talking-to.

As the games are getting underway, I take my place in between Arvind

and Rosa in the press room. Because there is nothing much happening
for the moment, they are doing all kinds of odd jobs on their laptops. I
follow their example. I make a few notes about the games that have just
started and send replies to the e-mail I received. There is some excite­
ment when Kasparov and Anand, each of whom is playing with Black,
both settle for a draw within minutes of each other. Muttering profani­
ties, Leontxo raises his hands to heaven. Angel bangs his right hand on
the table with a loud curse. Rosa heaves a sigh and asks for the names
of the openings they have used and whether there have been any par­
ticular new moves. I fill in the results in the cross table and have a look
at Ivanchuk's game. He is well on top. Topalov hasn' t been able to
profit from the advantage of playing with the white pieces. He has
been outplayed in the opening. I get up and go to Mauricio, who is still
looking at the final position in Anand' s game.
"You' d better change over to Ivanchuk' s game. "
"Why? What ' s Chukie doing ? "
"Finishing o ff Topalov with Black. "
"Really? Let me see . "
While Mauricio i s looking a t the monitor, I tell him about lvan­
chuk' s caper at lunch time. Mauricio is amused and laughs. " Perfect. I
like lvanchuk. An incredible player. Too bad his nerves are in the way

95
so often. I remember when he was playing here for the second time.
He was so tense. One day, Spassky comes to me and says that Ivanchuk
can' t play. He' s just been seeing him and he' s afraid he may have a
heart attack at any moment. We went to Chukie' s room right off and
there he was , lying on his bed. With his hand on his heart and moan­
ing that he couldn' t possibly play Gelfand because he felt so miserable.
It was clear to me at once what it was all about and I told him: "You
don' t need to be afraid of anyone here, with all your talent. You can
take on anyone and it doesn' t matter whether they're called Gelfind,
Gelfand or Gelfand. " "Honest?" , he asked and after I assured him once
again, he was happy to get up, went to the playing· hall and made an
effortless draw with Black. "
Mauricio ' s story is interrupted by Ljubomir Ljubojevic, who is
shouting : "Bravo, Ivanchuk, bravo! He' s winning. He' s about to win.
His position was much better, but now he' s winning. Bravo! " Ljuboje­
vic , or 'Ljubo' as everyone calls him , usually shows up towards the end
of the afternoon to see what is happening in the games. The Yugoslav
grandmaster has been living here for many years since he married a girl
from Linares. His entrance never remains unnoticed for long. Some­
times he will give his opinion in a few brief sentences. But more often
he will burst into an uninterrupted monologue , mainly addressed to
himself. As is the case now. "Chuk, chuk, chuk, I-van-chuk. Bravo,
very well played. Very fine. Topalov is not going to like this. Ivanchuk
is playing like Kasparov today. Like Kasparov. Like a monster. He's eat­
ing little children alive. Very dangerous today. Ivanchuk. Chuk, chuk. "
It has been six years since Ljubo was playing in Linares himself. After
he finished last, there were no more invitations, although he had given
a much better account of himself on several earlier occasions. Ljubo
kept silent about the fact that no more invitations were forthcoming
and continued to have good relations with Rentero. The same cannot
be said of another grandmaster who settled in Linares. With its two
grandmasters, Linares was the strongest chess town in Spain for a
while. Even Madrid and Barcelona couldn ' t boast more than one grand­
master each. Ljubojevic had Valery Salov for company after Salov
changed Leningrad for Linares with the help and support of Rentero.
Rentero offered him an apartment, paid him a monthly fee and made
several promises. He promised to set up a chess school for talented
young people and he promised to fmd a j ob for Salov' s wife. He should
not have made these promises. Not much headway was made with the

96
chess school and a job for Mrs. Salov wasn ' t easily found either. To Sa­
lov, this breach of promise was unacceptable. That he didn ' t have to
work for his monthly fee gave him no satisfaction whatsoever. He only
asked Rentero to keep his word. To anyone who listened to Salov it was
clear that a break would be inevitable. After three years in Linares and
three years of waiting for his chess school, Salov evacuated his apart­
ment and moved to Madrid. The commemorative plaques which he
had been given in the years when he was taking part in the tourna­
ment, were left standing in the otherwise empty hall as a farewell pres­
ent. Mauricio, who told me the story, remarked: " He shouldn ' t have
done that. It was uncalled for. He not only offended Rentero but he
also hurt everyone else who did their best for him. "

On the monitor screen in front of me , Ivanchuk is staring with a misty

look in his eyes. From under his thick, dark eyebrows - slightly thinner
where they run on across the bridge of his nose - he is gazing into an
indefinable distance. He hardly ever looks at the pieces on the board in
front of him when he is thinking . Occasionally, he turns his head to­
ward the hall to continue calculating with an empty stare. He doesn't
really need a board and pieces. He has taught himself at a young age to
look at the position in his head. Mainly for practical reasons. When you
are constantly thinking about chess, it is better not to rely on things
yoti cannot take with you all the time. It was a habit which caused
much amazement at first but was gradually adopted by other young
players. Tournaments where a handful of players are absent-mindedly
staring into the distance are no rarity nowadays. The series of moves
that Ivanchuk is going over in his mind tell him that he will win
quickly. But he is not in a hurry. He knows that accuracy is always the
quickest way in the end .
"Chuk, chuk. I-van-chuk! , " Ljubo repeats, fixing his gaze on the
monitor. "Topalov may as well resign. He is totally lost. Totally lost. I­
van-chuk. Fu Manchu, Fu Manchu. "
The laughter caused b y Ljubo ' s new association stops when the re­
sult of the game suddenly appears on the electronic demonstration
board. Everyone in the room begins to shout at the same time. Topalov
has resigned. Ivanchuk, who was hopelessly struggling with his form ,
played a game that may come in for the brilliancy prize.
Satisfied, I get up to go downstairs and see whether they are going
to have a post-mortem. It does not seem likely, but you never know. In

97
the back of the press room I come across Peter Svidler, who is standing
there with a thoughtful look on his face. "So Ivanchuk has won . "
"Yes, God can rest easy. His chair i s still working. "
"Yes, God' s power is great. But he ' s not the only one who will be
satisfied. The inhabitants of Villanueva will also uncork a few bottles
tonight. "
"The inhabitants o f Villanueva?"
"Yes. Didn' t I tell you? On the second rest day, I went to a corrida
with Ivanchuk in Villanueva, some fifty miles from here. Hmm,
thoughtless of me, for it is a fine story, even though it made me face
.
the brutal fact that I am still a total unknown in the region. Anyway, at
the moment when the torero, or whatever the man is called, killed the
first bull, we got up from our seats to applaud him. And you know
what? Suddenly someone in the crowd recognizes Vassily and starts
yelling enthusiastically ' I-van-chuk! ' And before we know it, more and
more people take up this yell until the whole arena is cheering him.
What' s more, even the bullfighters joined in. One of them dedicated
his bull to Vassily with due respect.
"A fine story, Peter. A story that is all the more reason for me to go
down and see if they're still analysing. "
"You ' d better b e along then, for there wasn' t much t o analyse, if
you ask me. "

This i s borne out when, rushing down the stairs, I arrive on the first
floor to find Ivanchuk entering the lift. He' s been up to his room and
now intends to go out in order to release the tension he ran up in his
game. When he sees me, he stops in the open lift door. With both
hands, he is holding the pen that he used to write down his moves, and
he is chuckling .
"Have you seen m y game ? I won, for once. Remarkable. Most re­
markable. "
"According to me, you didn ' t just win but you won beautifully. Fine
piece sacrifice. "
"Absolutely. I would even g o so far as to say that it was a highly in­
structive piece sacrifice. Students of the middle game should study it at­
tentively. "
And, a s h e bends over laughing, he disappears into the lift.

98
 Manol e te

The first time I saw Manolete, I had hardly any idea who he was.
Cast in bronze, he suddenly stood in front of me. With his upper legs
rising from a white stone pedestal in an untidy public garden behind
the bullring , he was looking down at me, sympathetical but self­
assured. The trampled patch of grass in front of the statue might lead
one to guess that hordes of admirers were regularly visiting here. But
ice-cream wraps and empty tins carelessly strewn across the ground
were indicative of the actual lack of interest to which he had fallen prey
in this out-of-the-way corner of Linares . Manolete ' s right arm was
hanging loosely along his side, the left hand leaning pertly on the
thigh. It was clear from his tightly fitting costume that he must have
been a bullfighter. In carved letters, with some hurriedly sprayed graf­
fiti underneath, Linares honoured the memory of Manuel Rodriguez
Sanchez, called Manolete. There were two dates on the plinth. August
2 8th, 1 947 and August 2 8 th , 1 9 7 2 . Amazing , I thought in my igno­
rance, he has died here in the arena on his twenty-fifth birthday.
I was wrong, of course. The small monument is in memory of the
twenty-fifth anniversary of the death of the torero, who was a much
greater celebrity than I realized at the time. The day when Manolete
�as carried out of the Linares arena, fatally wounded, was a day
stamped in the memory of countless Spaniards. August 2 8th, 1 947 ,
was a mark in time. A pivotal moment in history. You indicated that
something had happened before or after Manolete ' s death. 'The year
when Manolete died' became a fixed expression, which evoked indeli­
ble images and harrowing details. From Manolete groaning with pain
on the shoulders of his comrades to Manolete lifeless in Linares hospi­
tal. You can ask generations where they were when the news of Mano­
lete' s death plunged the country into mourning. Few will have to think
long how and where they heard the sad news.
It was only gradually that the myth of Manolete took shape for me.
First, I heard a few stories here and there; later, I started to read about
him . This caused me to seize every opportunity, whenever I was in
Spain, to watch corridas on television with increasing fascination.
Strangely enough, I never really asked myself the question whether I
was in favour or against this peculiar pastime. But I got better in telling
middling toreadors apart from the really good ones. In the press room,

99
Angel told me to keep an eye out for Joselito. He was the finest, the
most natural and the most classical of today' s bullfighters. Angel was
right. On May 1 5 th, 1 99 6 , I saw on Spanish television how Joselito
killed a bull with such grace and such perfection that I completely for­
got that he was killing a bull. Joselito dedicated his triumph to Gabriel
Garcia Marquez. Prominently seated in the press gallery of the arena of
Las Ventes in Madrid and in full view of the television audience, Mar­
quez allowed himself to be completely carried away by the toreador' s
mastery. Joselito dedicated the bull t o the Nobel-prize winner and told
him that it was with 'his book' that he had learned to read. Marquez in
tum told J oselito that he had just witnessed the finest faena he had ever
seen in his entire life.
Last year, during the feria in Seville - one of the many holidays in
Spain when corridas add to the festivities - I discovered a stand full of
more or less voluminous works on the history of bullfighting in a local
bookshop. With a strangely satisfying feeling of chauvinism, I noticed
that among the handbooks on technique, the collections of anecdotes
and the biographies of the greatest fighters no one was better repre­
sented than Manolete. There was a huge stack of catalogues of Manolete
and his Time, an exhibition in his honour, which toured Spain fifty years
after he lost his life in Linares. On the cover was an oil painting of the
torero, which gave a pa�ticularly good rendering of his arms. They
were long arms, which enabled him to hold the bullfighter's cloth
lower than anyone else. Among the various works of art that glorified
bullfighting in the catalogue there were pictures of his death mask and
a stylish bronze, portraying his thin face with the long nose and impas­
sive mouth. Manolete was definitively not a handsome man but the
calm and the melancholy that were apparent in his features endowed
them with an aristocratic quality.
The most fascinating work on the book stand was Vida y Tragedia de
Manolete, The Life and Tragedy of Manolete, more than six hundred
pages of pictures and testimonies, which leave nothing unsaid and no­
body unmentioned. Everyone who had anything to do with him, from
his closest friends to his hospital nurses, is given the opportunity to re­
late their memories of the life and death of 'the artist who made Spain
forget the war. ' Pages with reproductions of newspaper headlines re­
veal the dismay that took hold of the country. Funeral marches that
were composed spontaneously blend tribute and incomprehension.
Countless pictures take the reader back to the hours before and after the

1 00
fatal fight. The church where Manolete went to pray on the morning
before the corrida. His death-bed, surrounded by friends and col­
leagues, at the moment when an improvised coffin is brought in. The
twenty thousand people filing past his bier in Linares. The departure of
the Red Cross ambulance taking Manolete's body from Linares to his
hometown of Cordoba. His imposing Buick convertible, following be­
hind. The funeral procession of some ten thousand downcast mourners
accompanying him to his grave in Cordoba.
The core of the book is a unique photo-report of the actual fight it­
self. It opens with a series of pictures illustrating the atmosphere. Spec­
tators around the arena, with small notice boards everywhere saying :
'No more tickets available . ' Impressions of the packed stands. Then
there is Manolete entering the arena. The caption aims at poetry : 'The
last smile. A salute to the public in recognition of their ovation. ' The
first skirmishes, and then, on page 46 7 , the descabello, the fatal thrust,
which will also be his own. As Manolete bends over the bull with his
sword in his right hand to plunge it in between the shoulder blades, Is­
lero sinks his right horn into his attacker ' s thigh. While colleagues and
onrushing friends carry Manolete out of the arena posthaste, Islero is
dragged out with ropes. Out of view of the crowd and the cameras, the
men of the Mesino butcher' s shop, which had a contract with the
arena, took care of the dead bull. Islero' s head was not stuffed like a
h�nting trophy, as was often the case with corrida bulls. The only thing
to remain of the bull today are its horns, which were snapped up and
proudly saved by the owner of the Taberna Lagartijo in Linares . There
was a picture, however, of the stuffed head of Islero ' s mother, Islera.
On the piece of wood with which the head could be hung on the wall,
it said : "Islera. From the breeding farm of Reduardo Miura, twelve
years old, the mother of the bull that caused the death of Manuel
Rodriguez Manolete in the arena of Linares on August 2 8th, 1 94 7 . "

Mauricio and Nieves were married on the day when Manolete lost his
life in the arena of Linares. In accordance with the traditional morning
ritual at the Hotel Anibal, we sit chatting in the lobby , surrounded by
newspapers and with guests coming and going, when Nieves offers this
piece of information, in a dry and businesslike manner. I asked to what
extent the memory of Manolete was still alive among people in Spain.
Even before Mauricio could open his mouth, Nieves came out with her
answer, which briefly strikes me dumb. I had often wondered how

10I
Manolete's story connected to my image of Linares, although I had
never given it much thought. It was too easy to link Rentero ' s hunger
for ruthless , uncompromising fights on the chess board with the
bloody end of a legendary bullfighter in the local arena. That seemed a
forced effort to find a reason why one of the most famous men in the
country had to come to Linares of all places to meet his death. As if he
had not fought here nine times before. But this is something else alto­
gether. Nieves's blunt statement gives rise to a train of thought that I
have so far felt was too predictable. Suddenly, I have the feeling that
Manolete will find his place in the overall picture. All the more so,
when I notice that Mauricio' s eyes lighten up and I hear him mumble,
to my great surprise with admiration in his voice: "Yes, Manolete, he
was something of a different order. "
But first I want t o b e absolutely certain.
" So you were married on August 2 8 th , 1 94 7 ? "
When Nieves hesitates for a moment, Mauricio calmly comes to her
aid. "No. The accident happened on the twenty-eighth, but Manolete
succumbed only in the early hours of the twenty-ninth. We were mar­
ried on the thirtieth, in Mexico, but because of the wave of mourning
after his death, we've always had the feeling that we've been married
for as long as he. s been dead. "
I briefly think o f the ironic manner in which Mauricio once de­
scribed how he met Nieves at a swimming pool j ust outside Mexico
City. By sheer coincidence, he called it at first, before he changed it
jokingly to "by a most unfortunate coincidence , " with which he did
not mean to deride the bond that grew between them as a matter of
course, since Nieves and her family were also living in exile in Mexico,
but rather the whim of fate that brought two such different characters
together.
The subject of Manolete stirs up a hoard of memories with Mauricio.
Enthusiastically, he pushes off.
"Manolete was out of the ordinary. It was not for nothing that peo­
ple used to call him EI Monstruo, the Monster, the greatest of the great. A
year before he died in Linares, I saw him in Mexico. He appeared
twice. His first performance earned him two ears and a tail. Manolete
did something that no one else ever did. It often happens that a bull ap­
proaches a torero with its head somewhat to the side and the torero
then automatically makes a small step backward to give the bull a wide
berth. Manolete never used to do that. He was completely stoical;

1 02
standing still, he tried to manipulate the bull with his cloth in such a
way that it would avoid him . "
H e spreads his hands for a brief digression.
"You know that there are two important schools in Spanish bull­
fighting, the one from Seville, with lots of fuss and hoo-ha, and the
other from Cordoba, modest and stoical. It's not for nothing that peo­
ple say Seneca was born in Cordoba.
"Anyway, that is how I saw Manolete get hurt in his second fight ,
motionlessly directing the bull. The bull didn ' t turn aside and Manolete
was seriously injured in his left thigh. I even remember the name of
the reporter who interviewed him in hospital after the incident. His
name was Pepe Alameda and he asked Manolete why he hadn' t stepped
back. His answer was : Because if I did I wouldn' t be Manolete.
"The name of the bull that gored him was Cachorro, a bull from the
breeders of Torrecillas. There were two great bull farms in Mexico, San
Mateo and Torrecillas, who bred with the famous Miura strain. "
Baffled, I am listening to Mauricio ' s outpouring , which is almost
lyrical.
"Mauricio, this is verging on deep admiration. "
He doesn' t contradict me.
"Manolete was a complete sensation at the time. He is undoubtedly
the greatest bullfighter that ever lived. There were two others at the
time who tried to equal his fame, Carlos Arruca and Luis Miguel Dom­
inguin. The latter also became well-known because he began an affair
with Ava Gardner, much to the annoyance of Frank Sinatra. "
Scornfully, Mauricio blows air through his nose as he continues his
story.
"I believe it was in the year after Manolete' s death that this idiot let
himself in for the anger of the Mexican public. After a technically fine
kill, he started walking round the arena, arrogantly sticking up one fin­
ger. As though he wanted to say that he was number one now. That
wasn' t very smart of him. The public threw everything they could find
at him. He was almost killed. No, there was no need to tell anyone who
was truly the greatest. "
He pauses for a moment.
"Yes, Manolete. The sad thing was that he died because of igno­
rance. Or a lack of knowledge, or whatever you want to call it. He' d .
had a blood transfusion, but there was also a famous doctor from Ma­
drid who got into his car the moment he heard what had happened to

1 03
drive to Linares with the latest thing : gamma-globuline. No one here
had ever heard of it, naturally. Or they didn' t exactly know what to do
with it. It appears that Manolete had some allergy or other, because he
died right after he was given this injection. Which was tragic, because
he was immensely popular. I knew many Mexican families who
brought financial ruin upon themselves, because they' d spend all they
had to get tickets for one of Manolete' s fights. "
Mauricio' s words bring t o m y mind a saying about the earnings of
bullfighters.
"He must have done well out of it. Isn ' t there an expression in Span­
ish that says that a toreador can earn a manor house with a series of
fine pases, those movements with his cloth ? "
Mauricio nods.
"Manolete was paid enormous amounts in Mexico at the time, far
more than anyone else. He would receive one hundred and twenty mil­
lion pesetas for just one appearance. Pesetas of their value at the time,
that is. Yes , you could afford a house with that. With money to spare
for a Rolls Royce. "
The amount has the expected effect o n me. I a m surprised. But what
surprises me even more is the passion with which Mauricio is telling
me all this. I remember all too well how contemptuous he was of the
bullfighters and their entourage here in this same hotel lobby.
"I can' t believe my ears, Mauricio. You loathe bullfighters, don' t
you? "
He squeezes his lips together, as though h e realizes himself that
there is an amusing side to his outpouring.
"But I was different then. My father also was a great aficionado. Just
as he loved everything Andalusian. It was the same with me. With all
sorts of music too. It filled me with melancholy and nostalgia. Years
later, after I had returned from America to Spain, I couldn ' t possibly
understand what I ' d gotten so nostalgic about when I heard these driv­
ellers sing. Those feelings had disappeared entirely. "
"Perhaps you ' d become more thoughtful. You ' d lost some of the ag­
gression that also made you want to kick your opponents off the chess
board. "
He makes nodding movements with his head that look like a tic.
" I ' ve changed, certainly. When I hear Tchaikovsky ' s Sixth Symphony
nowadays, I can hardly listen to it, so to speak. Whereas there used to
be a time when I simply adored it. I prefer chamber music now. "

1 04
 He stares into the distance and thinks of another reason why he is no
longer interested in bullfighting.
"What also played an important part was that I knew someone who
hadn't gotten any further than novillero, an apprentice bullfighter. Noville­
ros are beginners who , at the start of a corrida, are allowed to show
whether they've got it in them ever to become matadors. His name was
Tacho Campos. The first time he went at a bull to give it the death
thrust, he was taken on its horns. It was the end of his career. And not
only that. Tacho wasn 't very bright, and it isn ' t easy to find a job for
someone who is partially paralysed and has no education. He often
called on me to borrow money. He used to tell me stories that made
me change my mind about bullfighting. That they stuff the bulls with
laxatives to make them start the fight shitless and weakened. That the
bulls aren' t brave at all, as the aficionados want us to believe, but that
they're scared stiff. That's why they're kept in this dark tunnel until
they're in the middle of the arena all of a sudden, blinded by the light
of the sun. That's why they start walking in circles. They're looking for
a way out."

I look at Nieves.
"Nieves , were you also impressed by Manolete? "
Nieves reacts with surprise.
'
"Well, Manolete was exceptional, of course. "
"Was he also good to his mother? "
I remember a considerable number o f pictures showing Manolete
together with his mother. A common woman in a flower-patterned
dress, who made me think of Gladys, Elvis's mother, who was adored
by her son. The answer comes from Mauricio.
"He worshipped his mother. He bought a house for her that was
more like a palace. "
The comparison with a palace makes m e think o f the picture o f the
mausoleum at the Cementario de Ia Salud in Cordoba, where Manolete
and his mother were finally reunited in 1 9 8 0 . The mother survived her
dearly beloved son by no less than thirty-three years. The inscription
on that grave gives the correct date of Manolete' s death: August 2 9th.
The palace that Manolete had built for his mother has caused Mauri­
cio to think of the bullfighter's humble origin.
"Manolete was born to a very poor family in Cordoba. His father,
who was also called Manolete, was a bullfighter, like his son. He got as

1 05
far as banderillero, the fighter who sticks the banderillas into the bull,
these large arrows with a sort of plume on top . "
H e understands from the questioning look i n m y eyes what I want
to know.
" No, the name Manolete doesn't mean anything special. It's just a
pet name for Manuel, that's all . "
"Was Manolete married?"
"No, but he had several girl friends. The best known was Lupe Sino,
a very attractive actress, who accompanied him on some of his tours. "
I look at Nieves again.
"This Manolete seems to be like a chess player, wi th his strong
mother fixation. "
Nieves reacts amused.
"Ah , you're referring-to our good friend Kasparov, aren't you?
"Not just to Kasparov. Don ' t you remember when Spassky and
Fischer played their match in Reykjavik? There were quite a few
would-be psychologists at the time who explained the remarkably
good relations between Fischer and Spassky from the fact that they
were both brought up by just their mothers. "
"Yes, but I can 't imagine that their ties with their mothers were as
close as Kasparov's with his mother. Just look at them when they're to­
gether. That shared single-mindedness, or passion, or whatever you
like to call it. Did I tell you that I asked Klara on the evening before the
second rest day if she felt like going out with me? An outing by car to
Ubeda or another sightseeing trip in the area? She looked at me almost
shocked and said: No, Nieves, that's impossible. There is so much at
stake here. We have to fight for chess. "
"Even o n a day off?
"Even on a day off. "
I can only nod my agreement. .
"The remarkable thing is that she's still sharing Kasparov's obses­
sion. I met her on the stairs a few days ago, some ten minutes before
the start of the round. While she was hurrying downstairs, I asked her
how she was doing and whether she was very tense. She looked at me
as though she might have a fainting fit any moment and said with a
tremor in her voice: Oh, don' t speak of it. "
Mauricio nods.

1 06
 "Yes, and meanwhile he was I don' t know how many points ahead
of the others and certain of his final victory unless a miracle were to
happen virtually every day. "

When still in primary school, little Kasparov said in an essay about his
mother: "My mother plays an important role in my life. She taught me
to think independently, she taught me to work and to analyse my own
behaviour. She knows me better than anyone else, because I discuss all
my problems with her - problems at school, problems in chess, prob­
lems in what I read. My mother taught me to appreciate beautiful
things and to be principled, honest and frank. "
These were not just the words of a good pupil. From his earliest
youth, Kasparov lived by these principles. His mother was his help and
stay from the moment when his father died when he was only seven
years old. His father was Jewish, his mother Armenian. Kasparov likes
to describe the union of the blood of his parents - who both held an
engineering degree - as an explosive mix, which determined his char­
acter and helped him at the key moments in his life. If the ties with his
mother hadn't been as close as they were, they certainly would have
become so during his first match for the world championship, which
Kasparov began to play against Anatoly Karpov in 1 9 84. The title
wu�ld go to the player who was the first to win six games. The match
began disastrously for Kasparov, who was the challenger and compara­
tively inexperienced. After nine games, Karpov was 4-0 ahead. Many
draws later, he increased his lead to 5 -0 in the twenty-seventh game.
The match could be over at any moment. One mistake by Kasparov
would mean a humiliating 6-0 defeat - a psychological blow from
which he might never recover. In this desperate, seemingly hopeless
situation, Kasparov and his mother decided that survival would be their
first concern. In order to be able to support her son every minute, day
and night, Klara Kasparova moved into her son 's hotel room. When he
woke up at night and wanted to talk, she would be there. Their battle
plan was clear. Not to lose was the only thing that mattered. To regain
his self-confidence, to wear his opponent down and, somehow, some­
where, whenever an opportunity offered itself, to win a game himself.
Kasparov's first victory came in the thirty-second game, when the
match had been going on for some three months. Several weeks with
nothing but draws followed, until Kasparov narrowed the gap to 5 - 3 in
the forty-seventh and forty-eighth games. Was the challenger about to

1 07
overcome Karpov from what had seemed a lost position? Or was it the
defending world champion who had the better chances, because one
mistake by Kasparov would still be fatal? These questions were never
answered. In a confused, unprecedented climax, Florencio Campo­
manes, the president of the world chess federation, put an end to the
match after five months and five days in view of " the exhaustion of the
two competitors. " Six months later, the replay started, not an unlimited
match this time, but one over twenty-four games. Kasparov won 1 3 - 1 1
and, on November 1 Oth, 1 9 8 5 , he became the youngest world cham­
pion in history, twenty-two years old. The ties with hi� mother had be­
come unbreakable. She accompanies him to his most important
matches and tournaments. When she is not present, they are in con­
stant contact by telephone. The first thing Kasparov will do after going
over a game with his opponent is to call his mother. And in special
cases, he will not even wait that long; he will be selecting the pre­
dialled number on his cell phone when he leaves the playing hall.

As if we have been talking of the devil, the subject of our conversation

comes into the lobby accompanied by Yuri Dokhoian. By the looks of it
they are on their way out for a stroll. Kasparov is wearing a cap. They
are early. It appears he can do with some fresh air in preparation for his
final game, which he will play against Topalov this afternoon. We
know that there are two possibilities now. He will either ignore us and
walk by with a blank look in his eyes or he will briefly speak to us . It
turns out to be the latter. He stops, produces his most charming smile,
and nods in greeting.
"Senor Kasparov, " Mauricio meets him with the right amount of
irony, "how are you?"
"Not too bad. Not too bad. "
Because the conversation threatens to falter at this point, . I hasten to
ask whether he has enough energy left to go all out for a last time. It
turns out to be the right question. He can now say what he intended to
say all along. His reply is addressed to a point in the air somewhere be­
tween Mauricio and myself.
"I actually see this final round as a bonus round. After thirteen
rounds I now have ten points. That is the same score with which I won
here in 1 99 2 and 1 99 3 . But okay, we were playing with fourteen com­
petitors then, a single round robin. Now that there are eight of us and
we are playing a double round robin, I 've got the chance to improve

1 08
my score, because I've still got -this game against Topalov left. " He
laughs about this reasoning himself. It is also a sign that we may j oin
him in his laughter. It is typical of Kasparov that in comparing these
different tournaments he has managed to find an added reason for
himself to give his best against Topalov this afternoon. There is no need
to do so in order to take the first prize, but he may still improve the
statistics with which this tournament will be entered into Rentero' s
imaginary Golden Book of Linares. Kasparov is happy when he notices
from our approval that Mauricio and I like his attitude. Nothing more
needs to be said. The impromptu audience is over. Kasparov briefly
sucks his teeth, mutters that we will see how it goes and turns away. As
he leaves the hotel through the swing doors at the front, he is gesticu­
lating wildly while explaining something to Yuri.

1 09
 Rente r o

The handful o f journalists standing uneasily i n front o f the stage

were having trouble following the improvised news conference and
needed a little while to understand precisely what it was that Garry Kas­
parov had embarked upon suddenly with a flushed face. Arvind, who
had asked the question, stared at the stage, thinking of a possible
follow-up question. Motionless, he held up his tape recorder in his left
hand. The other hand moved to the camera hanging from his neck, so
he would not forget to take a picture of the angry world champion. Le­
onuco turned his left ear to the stage, his eyes squinting and his face
contorted, doubting whether he heard correctly what had just been
said. If he did , this was the sort of news he preferred not to hear. In a
reflex, he stamped his right foot on the floor. Yuri Vasilyev had a blank
look on his face. Hindered by the scraping of chairs and the hubbub
from guests still leaving behind us after the end of the prize-giving
ceremony, and with only a few words of English at his command, he
could make neither head nor tail of Kasparov' s angry eruption.
I was standing some five yards to the right myself, close enough to
one of the muffled sounding loudspeakers to be able to hear every
word. I watched Kasparov's mouth moving, listened to his words and
thought of Mauricio' s dream. It all came back to me. For weeks the sea
had been peaceful and without so much as a ripple. Not a cloud had
disfigured the sky. The women had been talking, languidly basking in
the sun. The children had been playing endlessly in the sand. The men
had been playing chess with abandon. Nothing had indicated that this
peace should ever be disturbed.

If there was anything to be feared on this last day, it was th�t the tour­
nament would fizzle out like a damp squib. After a few hours of chess
in the fourteenth round, you could feel the enthusiasm slipping out of
the tournament. Disappointed, or rather exasperated, the representa­
tives of the daily newspapers in the press room were looking at Kaspa­
rov' s position. Their hopes for an easy-to-write, superlative-studded
wrapping-up story were being wrecked for all to see. The overwhelm­
ing attack they had been waiting for failed to come off. Kasparov was
biding his chances against Topalov in a quietly orchestrated positional
game - a reliable strategy if your opponent is nervously trying to over-

1 10
 come the tension and is desperately looking for counterplay, but not
very promising when this is not the case. Undaunted, Topalov devel­
oped his play, moving his pieces to squares which even seemed to offer
better prospects than mere equality.
If you were still wondering about the merit of Kasparov' s position,
all you had to do was to open your ears and listen to Lj ubo's news
flashes. His staccato sentences let everyone join in his glee over the
world champion's plodding play. " Kasparov's got nothing out of the
opening. Nothing at all ! " he chattered. "Nothing, nothing, nothing. If
one of them is better, it' s Black. Toppy is on top . Toppy, Toppy. Very
much on top. The little fish has got the big shark by the tail. Clearly,
Black is slightly better. Perhaps even much better. Much better. "
And so on, further strengthening the feeling that we might as well
start packing in . The laptops could be put back into their covers, the
lights could be switched off. And, as if our concentration wasn't being
sorely put to the test as it was , one of the hostesses came in to hand out
two press releases from the tournament organisers. To begin with,
there was the announcement that the closing ceremony and the prize
giving were to take place in the playing hall at ten o'clock that same
night. With resignation, I passed a copy to Arvind.
"This seems to have become an interesting new tradition here. They
keep telling us for a year that the closing ceremony will be on the day
'
after the last round. That is what they put on their posters and in the
programme, and when the last moves are being made, they suddenly
announce that the closing ceremony can be dashed off on the night af­
ter the last round. That the players and people like myself - not to men­
tion some others - have booked their return flights for the day after
tomorrow for that precise reason, doesn ' t seem to worry them in the
least. "
Arvind shrugs his shoulders.
"So what else is new? You know how it is. They just do whatever
happens to come to their minds here. It' s got nothing to do with plan­
ning. "
H e accepted the second release with a nod o f approval . The press
were informed that Garry Kasparov would give a press conference im­
mediately after the end of the prize-giving ceremony. Arvind' s urgent
request that the tournament winner should answer a few questions had
paid off.
"Well, look at this; you've had your way."

111
 Arvind smiled contentedly.
"It seemed nothing out of the ordinary to me. I didn't much fancy
chasing Kasparov all of tonight and tomorrow merely to drag a few
quotes out of him. He isn ' t all that helpful this year to begin with. He
may be trying to avoid me, for all I know. "
"You don't seem to give a hoot that this suggestion of yours will
mean that we won't be able to have supper until round about mid­
night, do you?"
Arvind couldn' t care less.
"So what? You can always order a pizza up to your room, can't
you?"

If I had been willing to follow Arvind 's advice, I would have found lit­
tle time for it. Kasparov and Topalov soldiered on until half past nine in
the evening. Kasparov gave it his best. First, he dug in his heels to pre­
vent the game from slipping further from his grasp. Then, he probed
Topalov's defence bit by bit and began to direct his pieces at the weak­
est spots in the enemy camp. The material on the board thinned out
gradually but the tension remained. It became increasingly clear that
Topalov' s fate was hanging by a thread. With subtle moves, Kasparov
managed to increase his advantage even further. Ljubo, after falling si­
lent for a moment, began to suggest ever so carefully that Kasparov
might have a winning position. But he wasn't entirely certain. In fact,
no one was , who was watching the game. In the end, this same doubt
also took hold of Kasparov himself. With one small mistake, he undid
more than six hours of toil. Imperceptibly, he went off the narrow path
to victory and, at the end of the line for which he opted, he had to
content himself with a draw. The result led to confusion and incompre­
hension in the press room. Kasparov had fought in accordance with the
best tradition of the tournament but his efforts were no relief for the
suffering caused by the draw that appeared in the tournament cross ta­
ble in the end. The newspaper writers were unhappily looking at their
screens. That Kasparov had won the tournament was hardly news. They
had reported that two days ago. What they faced now was the unre­
warding task of convincing their readers that this splitting of the point
in the final round was the result not of a prearranged bargain or of a bit
of uninspired wood-pushing but of a hard struggle, in which both
players had given their utmost.

1 12
 If they were in need of a few striking quotes from Kasparov. they
didn't get any help from him. In the analysis room, the tournament
winner was looking dispiritedly at the win he had missed far into the
endgame. It seemed to leave him cold. He was too tired to get worked
up about it. He might have won yet another game, but what difference
would that have made for the final outcome of the tournament? It had
been enough. When someone reminded him that he had been explain­
ing only the day before how much he wanted to win this final game as
well, he did not react. He had done his best. And that was the end of it.

Half an hour later, Kasparov, his face pale from tiredness, takes his seat
among the other players in the front row in the playing hall. On the
stage , where chess has been played for three weeks, the prizes have
now been put on display for the closing ceremony. In the middle is the
winner's trophy, a silver-plate mine tower, which is to keep the mem­
ory of the past of Linares alive. Now that it has been rescheduled for
late in the evening, the closing ceremony seems even more of an
obligatory event than ever. The amiable atmosphere of the cocktail par­
ties and the lengthy dinners of a few years ago has been replaced by an
almost mechanical pragmatism. A sharp, peroxide blonde, who seems
to have walked right out of one of the innumerable game shows on
Spanish television, introduces the innumerable speakers virtually with­
out stopping for breath. Once they have taken up position behind the
microphone, these speakers turn out to be no less efficient. In strong
words, they praise Linares, the players, everyone who have made the
tournament possible, and, directly or indirectly, themselves as well.
They give way to yet another series of local officials and sponsors who
hand out the prizes at a brisk pace. The people in the audience applaud
at the right moments, without there being anything really to applaud.
Unless it should be the full trot with which Ivanchuk, absent-mindedly
nodding his head, storms onto the stage, grabs the beauty prize for his
victory over Topalov and then, without halting for even a moment,
hurries back to his chair. For the rest , the scenario is followed obedi­
ently until the end. Kasparov accepts his first prize and the special prize
for his fighting spirit with his best Pepsodent smile. This smile, pro­
duced with difficulty, doesn't last long. As soon as he is out of reach of
the photographers' viewfinders and on his way back to his chair, he
pulls a taut face again. It is not just that he is tired, he is clearly an­
noyed as well. Is something bothering him ? Is something brewing that

1 13
 will upset the unusually idyllic peace of this tournament at the very last
moment? I cannot think of anything. Nor can I when the peroxide
hostess has officially closed the tournament and Kasparov has unwill­
ingly returned to the stage for the promised news conference. It will
not be the first time that he is in a bad mood.
Kasparov's annoyance seems to be mainly directed at the fidgeting of
the hostess who is to translate his words into Spanish. She stares nerv­
ously into the emptying hall, fiddles aimlessly with the microphone
and puts an unruly lock of hair behind her ear. It is only after Kasparov
has briefly and urgently whispered something into her ear that she
hesitantly addresses the waiting journalists and the· people who have
joined them. Whoever wants to ask the first question, may do so now.
When it comes, it seems to spoil Kasparov's mood even further, if that
were possible. A man with his legs crossed in a relaxed fashion on his
chair embarks at all ease upon a lengthy question in Spanish. Even be­
fore he has arrived at his second subordinate clause, Kasparov reso­
lutely interrupts him with the counter-question whether he is in fact a
journalist, adding straightaway that only journalists are allowed to ask
any questions. Upset at the outburst, the man shuts up, but then the
hostess also needs a moment before she is able to convey Kasparov's
words in Spanish.
The shallow questions and replies that follow seem to confirm once
again that it is the chaotic organisation which is the cause of Kasparov' s
irritable mood. Until Arvind feels the time has come to ask a question
which relates to the man about whom his readers are anxious to know
all there is to know. In a few months' time, Kasparov is to play a match
in Leon against Anand. Not an ordinary match, but six games of Ad­
vanced Chess, a new form of chess, invented by Kasparov, in which the
players are allowed to consult their computers. Calmly speaking as al­
ways, Arvind asks how important this match will be to Kasparov. This
is the moment when a grim, churning wave suddenly sweeps over the
unsuspecting audience. As if this is the question for which, swollen
with pent-up anger, he has been waiting all day, Kasparov answers de­
liberately and with a fiery look in his eyes: "I will not play in Leon . "
He is silent for a moment. Then h e begins t o clarify his decision with a
rambling series of caustic sentences, in which it takes me some active
mental puzzling to detect any coherence. He feels insulted, I under­
stand, by a fax from Marcelino Sion, the organiser of the match in
Leon. In an exchange of faxes about the precise terms of the contract,

1 14
Sion used the words " totally unacceptable" to rej ect a clause that was
proposed by Kasparov and his manager. The blunt rej ection didn ' t go
down too well with Kasparov. He is furious about the lack of respect
and feels that the time has come to make clear to organisers once and
for all that this is not the way to treat the world champion .
Leontxo asks him to expand on his decision but the reply he receives
is no more than a repetition of the original diatribe. With great circum­
spection , a j ournalist of a regional newspaper tries to change the sub­
j ect. He asks nervously whether Kasparov will regard the next
tournament in Linares as the unofficial world championship if he
doesn ' t defend his title in a match next year. It is a stupid question ,
which would normally cause Kasparov to throw a fit of temper, but
now he uses the opportunity to explain once again that the world
championship can only be decided in a match. The next few questions
fail to produce any news either. After replying to them perfunctorily,
Kasparov gives a short nod to the hostess to indicate that the press con­
ference is over. When he leaves the stage, he is waylaid by a group of
reporters, who want to know more about his refusal to play in Leon . I
have had enough. It seems clear to me why he doesn ' t want to play .
What I am really curious about now is Anand ' s reaction. It is likely,
moreover, that he will be having supper in the restaurant. I feel like
? aving supper too. By now , it is getting on for half past eleven.

With Aruna, Mauricio and Nieves , Anand is sitting at a table that has al­
most been cleared. When I enter the restauran t , he raises his eyebrows
to indicate that he is curious to know what has been said at the news
conference. He looks bright and fresh , glad that the tension of the
tournament is gone. In a welcoming gesture , he draws a chair back and
motions for me to sit down. Mauricio asks me whether I will have
something to eat. When I tell him that some fish and vegetables and a
glass of wine would be most welcome , he nods and beckons to Diego
to see to this late order.
Anand is growing impatient.
" And? What did Gazza have to say ? "
" Umm . . . what would you think i f he doesn ' t feel like playing you
in Leon?
" What?"
" He j ust said that he shall not play in Leon . "
" Whow. Why ? "

1 15
 Anand looks at me as though he doesn't understand what I am say­
ing and Mauricio now also bends over the table.
"What's happened? "
" It seems Garry has said he' s not playing i n Leon. But why?" Anand
is not upset, but he is very surprised.
"Marcelino Sian seems to have insulted him. In negotiating, he re­
jected one of Kasparov's terms as being 'totally unacceptable. ' The
phrasing wasn't appreciated. "
Anand shakes his head.
"Marcelino. Unbelievable. When he played that first match against
.
Toppy last year, they were still the best of friends, unless I am very
much mistaken. "
"Oh yes, they were, definitely. There must still be some film footage
somewhere of Kasparov saying how glad he was to have to deal with a
professional organiser for once. "
And then I say out loud what I have been thinking all along.
"It seems to me that Kasparov' s fuss about this insult is only a pre­
text. "
"That's what I think, " agrees Nieves. " It sounds typical of Kaspa­
rov. "
"A pretext for what? " Anand looks at me inquisitively.
"It seems to me that he doesn't have a need for that match in Leon
any more. If he wants to play a real match for the world title against
·
you , what good would a warm-up be to him ? There is no result imag-
inable that might add to the interest for the real thing. If you look at it
that way, it is perfectly understandable that he wants to get out of this
match in Leon. The only thing is that he might have thought of this be­
fore. "
Mauricio nods.
"You may be right. But perhaps he'll change his mind. "
"It certainly didn't look like it, i f I read his body language cor­
rectly. "
Anand has to laugh about it. He i s clearly not in the mood to get
worked up about the news. Not even when Nieves points out that it is
all very confusing. The day after tomorrow, there will be a press con­
ference in Madrid about the second Advanced Chess match, and Anand and
Kasparov are both expected to be present. Mauricio brushes her objec­
tions aside: "It is all very simple. We'll j ust go there and leave it to Kas-

1 16
parov to make up his mind about what he wants to do. We 'll find out
when we get there. "
Anand agrees wholeheartedly. He is not going to let this unexpected
development spoil his good humour. When Diego has put a dish of
grilled swordfish and a bottle of wine in front of me , and Mauricio and
Nieves have left to go to bed, I bring up the subject.
"You look very relaxed. Are you glad that the tournament is over?''
"Yes, I'm glad the tension is gone for a while. It wasn't a good tour­
nament for me, but then again, I can' t call it a bad one either. That
blunder against Gazza hurt, of course, but on the other hand, the three
games which I won all had something special. And in the end, I shared
second place with Vladi. You've got to look at the bright side. I had
trouble getting into my play. But if you finish second all the same, I
don' t think you should complain. "
"Wasn' t it strange in a way that Rentero wasn't there?"
Anand bursts into laughter, which is contagious, because I can see
straightaway what he is thinking of. Last year, Rentero sent Anand a let­
ter, because according to him he didn't keep on fighting long enough
in a position from which objectively all potential had disappeared. In
his anger, the tournament director told every Spanish reporter who
cared to listen that the Indian would no longer be welcome at his tour­
nament. At breakfast the next morning, Anand noticed a man looking
�ervously up and down from the paper he was reading to the living
version of the picture which was staring at him from the page. Anand
kindly helped him to overcome his doubt by telling him in fluent
Spanish: "Yes, yes, that' s me, the one who is no longer welcome here. "
The threat wasn' t maintained for long. After Anand won the tourna­
ment, it was never brought up again.
"You gave a great description of the man who couldn 't believe it
was you in that newspaper. "
"It was s o typical o f Rentero. I t made m e think o f that fine statement
of his in one of the first years I took part in the tournament. Because I
had accepted a draw in a position with only two pawns on the board,
apart from the Kings, he went on record saying that Gandhi's philoso­
phy of peace may have had its importance in Indian history but that it
didn' t help you much on the chess board. "
"Is that really what he said?"
"Yes, don 't you remember?"
"No, not really. "

1 17
 Satisfied, I look at what is left from my late supper.
"But haven't you missed him? "
As Anand doesn't reply, I continue.
"He hasn' t always behaved well towards you. Take last year, for in­
stance; that promise of his, that there would be a Mercedes as an extra
prize for the winner. When he had to admit afterwards, after you in­
sisted, that he had known even before the start of the tournament that
he wouldn't be able to keep his promise. "
I t i s a reminder that Anand can do without. H e doesn't like to speak
ill of people.
.
"That was something I didn't give much thought to. But this year . . .
It was a bit strange. I had the feeling that there was a lot of hard fight­
ing going on every day, even though not everybody noticed. The Span­
ish press were hopeless as ever. When a game ended in a draw, they
could think of nothing better to say than that we were afraid to put up
a fight, blah blah blah. Those were the moments when you were invol­
untarily expecting one of those letters of Rentero's. When you
wouldn't have been surprised if he had walked in all of a sudden to
hand out his envelopes with a grave look on his face. "
Anand falls silent and looks at Aruna, who has been listening quietly.
"Yes, I've been missing that. In some way or other, the hotel is
strangely empty without him. You keep having the feeling that he
ought to be around here. I certainly hope he'll be back next year. "

1 18
 Far e w ell

The first chess players are to leave at ten o'clock in the morning. Af­
ter three long weeks, a small party will end their isolation in Linares to
depart in a bus chartered by the tournament organisation. A few man­
aged to change their tickets, the rest of them prefer an overnight stay in
Madrid to wait for their flights. At breakfast, they once again say good­
bye to colleagues and friends who have also turned out early. Not
much is being said. Your emotions tend to be ambivalent at the end of
a tournament. It became an increasingly heavy burden as it went along.
You feel relieved now this burden has been lifted, but at the same time
you begin to feel the irrevocable lack of the intense experience of the
past few weeks. You will meet some of the players and journalists again
before long, but of some others you have no idea when you will see
them again. There is no such ambivalence in Arvind's farewell. He is
taking the bus to Madrid, where he will stay with Anand for a few
days. Towards the end of the week, they will travel to Monaco together
for their next tournament. I will soon meet him there. We agree to
keep in touch by e-mail.
After everyone who is taking the bus has left the restaurant, I have
another cafe con leche. Today is going to be a quiet, contemplative day. I
will be watching who else is leaving and have a chat or a conversation
here and there. After dawdling long enough over my coffee for the bus
to have left, I amble to the empty lobby. Aimlessly, I make for the exit
and then go back again along the reception desk towards the bar. I have
brought a book, because I have decided to go sit and read in one of the
leather settees. Before noon, Mauricio and Nieves will also set out on
their return to the North with their car. When they leave, I will go out­
side with them to wish them a safe trip back home. For the moment, I
am not calm enough to sit down. It is a strange kind of tension that
makes me restless. I am looking forward to going home but I am also
sadly aware that I am leaving from where I have been so often before.
From the scale-model bullring I amble back to the bar. I stop in front
of the swing doors and look at the framed pictures of the chess players
whom I saw in action here in 1 9 9 2 . Actually, I am not really looking. I
am rather striking the pose of someone who is attentively taking the
portraits in.

1 19
 Behind me, a voice I know begins to speak.
"My hair was visibly thicker then. And a lot less grey. "
"Garry . "
With a broad grin, Garry Kasparov takes another close look a t his
picture, which was made here eight years ago. Now that he is come to
stand a bit closer, the contrast is striking indeed. A month before his
thirty-sixth birthday, practically half of the short, neatly coiffed black
hair in the picture has turned a silver grey. He doesn't seem to grieve
over it. Not for the moment, at least. He has got up in a sunny mood,
has had a shave and looks fresh and lively in his jeans and Ralph Lauren
_
shirt.
We turn away from the pictures and walk some way into the lobby
together. When we get to the lift, I reopen the conversation.
"I was j ust thinking how many days I have spent in Linares in the
course of the years. For you, it must be quite a while, if you take it all
together. Which was this? Your eighth tournament?"
"Yes, my eighth. And not my worst. "
He is beaming.
"No one said it was. Just imagine, eight tournaments. You must
have spent almost half a year of your life in Linares. "
"Yes, it' s a long time. "
"Isn't i t hard for you to tell all these tournaments apart? D o you re­
member clearly what happened when?"
"Umm, some of the things I do remember, of course, but a lot I
don ' t. Of the most important games and events you know exactly
which tournament they belong to, but much of what belongs to the
daily hotel life is part of a continuous background memory that is not
linked to a specific point in time. "
"When I gave you a print-out of that youth game of yours last week,
I thought that it would be your five victories with Black which I would
remember of this tournament most of all. But after last night, I have the
feeling that something was added to that. "
This is a change of subject which h e had expected.
"It was about time I taught them a lesson. They think they can get
away with anything they like. "
"Are you a s determined a s you wanted u s t o believe last night? "
"Absolutely. Absolutely. I t could all b e ironed out, o f course, i f I
really wanted it to, but for the moment, I don' t feel like that at all. "

1 20
 "That' s what more people will think, that the problem could easily
be solved if you only made an effort. Aren't you afraid that they'll say
you were only looking for an excuse not to play against Anand, because
you're bent on a real match against him?"
"If they want to think so, I'm not going to stop them. What I think
is important is that it should be made clear in this country, where or­
ganisers seem to think they can do whatever they like, that this is not
the way to treat the world champion . "
"Do you think they'll understand? "
"Let's hope so. It's too bad for Advanced Chess , but that i s interesting
enough in itself to survive this setback. Even though you may hope it
doesn't. "
"What do you mean?''
"Well, you haven' t written much good about it, have you?"
"All I said was that this match last year could hardly b e regarded as
promotion for Advanced Chess . I felt you were badly prepared. In the deci­
sive stage of the games, where you might have profited from the brute
calculating strength of the computer, you were so often short of time
that you couldn't even look at the thing. "
"True, experience needs t o be gained, but then you'll find that Ad­
vanced Chess will lead to chess at an exceptionally high level. "
"\;Ve'll wait and see . I ' d be more interested in a match between you
and Vishy for the moment. "
"That will b e up to him for a large part. I have clearly stated my
wish to play. The situation seems simple enough. He is the only player
at the moment who could create some excitement in a match against
me. But I see no reason why I should go down on my knees for him.
He's got more to gain from such a match than I do. It seems to me that
I've made it sufficiently clear here what the balance of power is like for
the time being . "
"Do you remember saying last year that you'd been talking with
Yuri about how far you were ahead of the rest in opening preparation?
That there were enough new ideas stored in your computer to keep the
other participants in Linares going for another ten years? Do you still
feel that way? "
This i s a subject h e likes.
"Ten years is a bit much, perhaps, but it should be enough for five . "
The grin which accompanies these words disappears when some-
thing else crosses his mind.

121
 "That is something, by the way, that you ought to do something
about in your magazine. Why should they all be allowed to complain
with impunity that Kasparov is so well prepared because he's got such a
huge team working for him? Why don't you write that they might be a
lot better prepared themselves if they weren't so lazy? It doesn' t take
long to tell you who my huge team are . It's Yuri and me. Who happen
to work hard. And we do so with a very ordinary computer, which is
for sale everywhere. "
"It's not all that often that people complain, i s it?"
"Often enough for me to notice . "
" I t won' t b e news to you that your dominance i s a cause for quite a
lot of jealousy. You can hardly expect them to say that you always win
because you're better. "
With a slight movement of the head, he looks briefly to his side,
where his mother has appeared, almost without making a sound. She
reminds him in Russian that he can't stay talking here for ever. Kaspa­
rov nods.
"We have to go to the bank. "
"That's also very important. When do I see you again? In Sarajevo ?"
"You're coming to Sarajevo? Good. "
"I'll give you a call before then to see how your life is getting on. "
He nods again, absent-mindedly now. His eyes search for the eyes of
his mother, and while he is nodding into empty space once more, he
walks out of the lobby with her.

Mauricio and Nieves are waiting in the leather settees. Surprised, I go

to them.
"How long have you been sitting here? I haven't seen you come in
at all. "
Nieves gives a short, scornful laugh.
"You didn't want to see us, because you were talking so animatedly
with the Big Boss. Did he have anything interesting to say? Will he be
playing in Leon or not? "
"He says h e will not and a s far a s I can see there i s little reason to
think he's not serious. "
"It won' t do his popularity in Spain any good. "
"Perhaps not, but perhaps it will. It's hard to say. "
Mauricio doesn't give the impression that he wants to go on about
the subject.

1 22
 "How are you Mauricio? Ready to go home and lock yourself up in
your study with Die Winterreise ? "
His face brightens up.
"You bet. Only, I must make up my mind which singer to choose. "
"You 're not sad to leave Linares? "
"Not really. I'll b e glad when we get home. They're s o gauche here.
You won't believe what happened just now, when we were checking
out. Because Rentero was unable to invite us this year, we came at our
own expense. We didn 't mind, because this way they don 't trouble us
so often with all kinds of requests. As I'm waiting for one of the girls to
print out the bill, Rentero' s son steps up to me, waving excitedly. Are
you checking out, Mauricio? he asks, surprised. You do understand, I
hope, that you don't have to pay the full rate? I was planning to give
you a five-percent discount! "
Mauricio looks at me, disbelief about what he heard still showing on
his face.
"What did you reply? But my dear Luis, four-and-a-half per cent
should be more than enough?"
"Oh well, I chose not to say anything and waved his generous offer
aside. "
He shakes his head again in disbelief.
"The thing is that he means well. Shortly afterwards, he turned up
with a huge bottle of olive oil, which he went to get from the cellar.
He wanted us to have it as a present instead. I must admit that the oil
was so good that I decided to accept it. "
"And now you're enjoying the memory of your own weakness. "
"Right. Exactly. "
"And you've decided to have a heart and come back next year. "
"Hmm, yes, next year. You've heard what wild plans they have.
They don't want to play in the hotel any longer but in the theatre
they've renovated here in town. And no more starting fees but higher
prizes. No one will be certain of his earnings in advance. You'll be paid
according to your score. Not a bad plan in itself. But I'm not so sure
whether they've really thought it out all that well. Last night, someone
from the Ayuntamiento showed me a list with the prizes they had in
mind. I added them, added the rent of the theatre to the total and asked
him if they ' d realized that they would need twice as much money for
their new plan as for this year's tournament. That gave him a scare for
they had certainly not meant to spend that much. It turned out that

1 23
they hadn 't gotten round to figuring out the total yet. So , about next
year . . . Let' s just wait and see. "
"As long as you'll be there. That seems to me to be the least I may
hope for. "
Nieves doesn't give Mauricio the chance to reply. She feels she has
been waiting long enough. She grabs her bag and while she gets out of
the settee, she says resolutely: "Mauricio, if you don' t go and tell Vishy
and Aruna that we really have to leave now, we don' t need to bother
about coming back at all. We 'll still be sitting here. "

When, after the usual delay, the Pereas and the Anands have left shortly
after one , I give Vladimir Kramnik a wake-up call to have lunch to­
gether. That is what we agreed upon last night in the bar, while I was
watching as he was playing his last games of bdot with Miguel Illescas.
Illescas returned to Barcelona in his car early this morning. The restau­
rant is virtually deserted when, at half past one , Kramnik and I sit at the
table which has been the territory of Kramnik and Illescas for the past
three weeks. Only Michael Adams and Peter Wells are having their last
lunch, also at their regular table. The two Englishmen will take the
morning train for Madrid tomorrow, as shall we. Vassily Ivanchuk will
be the only one then to remain in the Hotel Anibal.
Kramnik will fly from Madrid to Paris, where he is to spend two
days before he too will travel on to Monaco. He intends to devote the
first day in Paris to a visit to Aqua Boulevard, a modern sauna centre
with a massage parlour for which his tired body is longing already. On
the second day, he is scheduled to give a simultaneous display.
During lunch, Kramnik regularly takes of his glasses to rub his eyes.
He looks exhausted.
"I think you'd have been less tired if you had finished an unshared
second and Vishy hadn't come alongside in the final round. "
He puts his glasses back on and looks as though he is thinking about
what I said.
"Perhaps. I don' t know. What matters to me are my own games, not
someone else's performance . "
But then h e lets o n that the endless discussions about a match be­
tween Kasparov and Anand have upset him. No one still seems to re­
gard him as a possible opponent for Kasparov. Kramnik is no show-off,
but all the same he doesn't like being overlooked.

1 24
 "I wanted to prove here that I can still manage quite well against
these geniuses. Maybe I didn ' t play at my very best , but the level of my
games was pretty high. Perhaps I lacked the energy, or maybe even the
guts, to seize the three or four opportunities I got to win more games. "
"You can hardly b e unsatisfied. You've become invulnerable. You
were never in danger of losing. "
"That's true. I ' m very solid. I n none o f my games, I had the worse
position out of the opening. Not with White, obviously, but not with
Black either. It's a good feeling when you know that they can't knock
you over that easily. And there are always a few games that I'll win.
Even though there could have been more . "
A t that moment, the door swings open and Vassily Ivanchuk enters
the restaurant. He is alone. Alexander Sulypa has left with the bus for
Madrid. Ivanchuk will also be playing in Monaco. But he is · the only
one to spent the five days between the two tournaments in his beloved
Linares. He casts a misty look at our table. He has probably seen us but
he doesn't show it. He walks on , lumbering, with his hands deep in his
pockets. He stretches himself and then sits in the quietest part of the
restaurant, in a corner where none of the chess players have had their
meals in the past weeks.
Kramnik follows Ivanchuk' s movements with his eyes, while he
calmly goes on eating his lunch.
'
"My problems fortunately don 't seem to be as far-reaching as his. I
heard last night that he said in an interview that he wasn ' t at all sur­
prised that he played so badly this year. He had noticed early in the
tournament that something was amiss with his form because he had
lost badly playing dominoes against Sulypa a few nights in a row."
"Well, yes, that ' s the end of everything , o f course . "
"It has its advantages i f you can find such a simple reason for your
failures. "
I make a careful quarter turn with my chair t o see what Ivanchuk is
up to in his corner. He is perfectly happy. He laughs to himself and in
his mood of bliss he is gently rocking the upper part of his body up
and down. Backward and forward and from left to right. At times he
opens his eyes wide with surprise, extremely satisfied with the silent
conversation he is having with himself. He feels happy here in Linares.
He is at home here.
That is how I will see him with my mind 's eye the following day,
while the train is clattering away the miles to Madrid. And in the days

1 25
to follow, when I am back home again and my thoughts return to
Unares. How he is sitting here, carefree, in the soft bedding of his
memory. Enjoying the images that Unares is providing for him, with a
feeling of familiarity. Rocking backward and forward in his thoughts,
detached from time.

1 26