Silence in the Hall

The Fifth Round

A quinta rodada

For thirty years Davit Kapanadze had been running chess tournaments, and in thirty years he had learned that you do not recognise a cheat by his moves, but by his hands. Someone with something to hide touches his face, his ear, his pocket; he gets up too often, and he comes back too quickly. Davit had fetched players out of toilets with telephones in the cisterns, he had confiscated a shoe with a vibration motor in its sole, and once, in Tbilisi, he had sent a grandfather out of the hall who was giving his grandson signals from the audience with a handkerchief. He was not proud of it. He was only thorough.

Havia trinta anos que Davit Kapanadze arbitrava torneios de xadrez e, em trinta anos, aprendera que não se reconhece um trapaceiro pelos seus lances, mas sim pelas suas mãos. Quem tem algo a esconder toca o rosto, a orelha, o bolso; levanta-se vezes demais e volta rápido demais. Davit já havia tirado jogadores de banheiros em cujas caixas de descarga havia celulares escondidos, confiscara um sapato em cuja sola havia um pequeno motor de vibração e certa vez, em Tbilisi, expulsara do salão um avô que, da plateia, fazia sinais ao neto com um lenço. Não sentia orgulho daquilo. Era apenas minucioso.

The Batumi Open was to be his last tournament. He had informed the federation in the spring, in a short letter without giving a reason, because he did not know himself exactly which one he should have given. He was sixty-three, his knees no longer liked the long days, and every Sunday his daughter called from Berlin to ask whether he did not finally want to do something else. What that was supposed to be, however, she could not tell him either.

O Aberto de Batumi deveria ser o seu último torneio. Ele comunicara sua decisão à federação na primavera, por meio de uma carta curta, sem justificativas, porque ele próprio não sabia ao certo quais deveria citar. Estava com sessenta e três anos, seus joelhos já não toleravam as longas jornadas e a filha ligava de Berlim todo domingo para perguntar se ele não queria finalmente fazer outra coisa. O que seria essa outra coisa, no entanto, nem ela sabia lhe dizer.