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much older than himself. The most recent one is from that day’s edition of a local paper: Keller is posing in the hotel lobby at the Vittoria in the same jacket he was wearing when Max saw him strolling through Sorrento that morning with the two women.

    â€œBorn in London in 1938, the son of a Chilean diplomat, Keller astounded the chess world when he maneuvered the American Reshevsky into a tight spot during a simultaneous exhibition in the Plaza de Armas in Santiago: he was fourteen years old a t the time, and in the ten years that followed, he went on to become one of the most talented players of all time . . .”
    Despite Jorge Keller’s meteoric rise to fame, Max is less interested in his professional biography than in other aspects of his family history, and he has finally unearthed some informationabout that. Both Scacco Matto and the newspapers covering the Campanella Cup agree on the influence which, after her divorce from her Chilean husband, the young chess player’s mother has had on her son’s career.

    â€œThe Kellers separated when their son was seven years old. Wealthy in her own right following the death of her first husband during the Spanish civil war, Mercedes Keller found herself ideally situated to offer her son the finest education. When she discovered his talent for chess, she sought out the best teachers, took the boy to every tournament both inside and outside Chile, and persuaded the Chilean-Armenian grand master, Emil Karapetian, to oversee his instruction. The young Keller did not disappoint her. He had no difficulty beating his peers, and under the supervision of his mother and Karapetian, both of whom still accompany him today, he progressed rapidly . . .”

    After leaving the archive Max returns to the car and drives down to the Marina Grande, parking near the church. Then he makes his way to the Trattoria Stéfano, which is still closed to the public at that time of day. He has gone out in his shirtsleeves, cuffs turned up twice to expose his forearms, jacket slung over his shoulder, pleasurably inhaling the easterly breeze with a tang of salt and the shores of a calm sea. On the terrace of the small restaurant, beneath a bamboo canopy, a waiter is laying tablecloths and cutlery on four tables situated close to the water’s edge and the fishermen’s boats, beached amid piled-up nets and coils of fishing line.
    Without looking up from the chessboard, Lambertucci, the restaurant owner, grunts in response to Max’s greeting. With the familiarity of a regular customer, Max strolls behind the little bar where the cash register is, sets his jacket on the counter, pours himself some wine, and approaches the table where Lambertucciis busy concentrating on one of the two chess games, which at the same time every day for the past twenty years he has been accustomed to playing with Captain Tedesco. Antonio Lambertucci, a lanky fellow in his midfifties, is wearing a none-too-clean T-shirt that reveals an army tattoo, a souvenir from when he was a soldier in Abyssinia before being sent to a prisoner-of-war camp in South Africa and later marrying the daughter of Stéfano, the previous owner of the trattoria. Lambertucci’s opponent, a black patch over the left eye he lost in Benghazi, gives him a somewhat scowling look. Being called Captain is not a joke: on the contrary, like Lambertucci a native of Sorrento, Tedesco won his promotion during the war, although the difference in rank between the two men lost significance over the three years of captivity both men endured, with nothing to do but play chess. Besides the basic moves, Max knows little about this game (he has learned more that day in the archive than during his entire lifetime), but these two seem like genuine chess lovers. They are regulars at the local chess club and know all about international tournaments, who the grand masters are, and lots more besides.
    â€œSo, how good is