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imagine. . . . The fact is there is plenty at stake. The prize money, of course. But politics as well.”
    Lambertucci gives a shrill laugh.
    â€œThey say Sokolov has rented an entire apartment house next to the Vittoria, and is surrounded by advisers and KGB agents.”
    â€œWhat do you know about the mother?”
    â€œWhose mother?”
    â€œKeller’s. She’s mentioned in all the magazine and newspaper articles.”
    Tedesco remains pensive for a moment.
    â€œWell, only what I’ve heard: that she is his manager. That when she saw her son’s talent she got the best teachers for him. Chess is an expensive sport until you make a name for yourself. All thattraveling, hotels, inscription fees . . . You need to have money, or to obtain money. It seems she had some. I believe she is in charge of everything: his team of trainers, his physical fitness. She even keeps his accounts. . . . People say he is her creation, but I think they exaggerate. Regardless of any help they get, players of genius like Keller create themselves.”

    Their next encounter on the Cap Polonio took place on the sixth day at sea, before dinner. Max Costa had been dancing for half an hour with female passengers of various ages, including the American woman who tipped him five dollars, and Miss Honeybee, when the headwaiter Schmöcker led Mrs. de Troeye to her usual table. She was alone, as she had been on the first evening. When Max passed close by (at that moment he was dancing with one of the young Brazilian girls to “La Canción del Ukelele”), he saw a waiter bringing her a champagne cocktail while she lit a cigarette in a short ivory holder. She wasn’t wearing the pearl necklace this time, but one made of amber. Her black satin dress was cut away at the back, and her hair, smoothed down like a boy’s, sleek with brilliantine, a thin line of kohl slanting her eyes. Max glanced at her several times, unable to catch her eye. He exchanged a few words with the musicians as he went by, and when they obligingly struck up a tango that was all the rage (“Adiós Muchachos”), Max took his leave of the young Brazilian girl and walked up to her table during the opening bars. Bowing his head briefly, he smiled and stood there motionless as a few other couples got to their feet. Mecha Inzunza de Troeye looked up at him, and for an instant he feared she would turn him down. But a moment later he saw her deposit her cigarette in the ashtray and stand up. It took her an eternity to do so, and the action of placing her left hand on his right shoulder seemed unbearably languorous. Then the tango, already in full swing, swept them both up, and Max knew instantly that the music was on his side.
    He realized yet again that she danced outstandingly. The tango did not demand spontaneity, but rather implicit intentions carried out swiftly, in sullen, almost resentful silence. And that was the way they moved, embracing and separating, performing calculated quebrados , and following a shared instinct that allowed them to glide effortlessly around the floor, amid couples tangoing with the obvious clumsiness of novices. As a professional, Max knew it was impossible to perform the tango without a skilled partner capable of following a dance whose flow would suddenly stop, the man slowing the rhythm, reenacting a struggle, in which, entwined around him, the woman would continually attempt to flee, only to yield each time, proud and defiant in her submission. Mecha Inzunza de Troeye proved to be that sort of partner.
    They danced two tangos in a row (the second was called “Champagne Tango”), during which neither of them uttered a word, surrendering completely to the music and the pleasure of the dance, to the occasional brush of her satin against his flannel and to the heat Max could feel coming from his companion’s youthful body, the outline of her face and combed-back hair