Ketenangan di Dalam Aula

Babak Kelima

The Fifth Round

Selama tiga puluh tahun Davit Kapanadze memimpin turnamen catur, dan selama tiga puluh tahun itu pula ia belajar bahwa seseorang mengenali pencurang bukan dari langkah caturnya, melainkan dari tangannya. Orang yang menyembunyikan sesuatu menyentuh wajahnya, telinganya, sakunya; ia terlalu sering bangkit, dan ia kembali terlalu cepat. Davit pernah menyeret pemain keluar dari toilet yang tangki bilasnya berisi ponsel, ia pernah menyita sepatu yang solnya ditanami motor getar, dan suatu kali, di Tbilisi, mengeluarkan seorang kakek dari aula karena memberi isyarat saputangan kepada cucunya dari barisan penonton. Ia sama sekali tidak bangga akan hal itu. Ia hanya bekerja dengan saksama.

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.

Batumi Terbuka sedianya menjadi turnamen terakhirnya. Ia telah memberitahukannya kepada federasi pada musim semi, lewat surat singkat tanpa alasan, karena ia sendiri tidak tahu pasti alasan apa yang semestinya ia kemukakan. Usianya enam puluh tiga tahun, lututnya tak lagi menyukai hari-hari yang panjang, dan putrinya menelepon setiap hari Minggu dari Berlin untuk menanyakan apakah ia tidak ingin beralih melakukan hal lain. Kendati demikian, apa hal lain itu pun putrinya tak mampu mengatakannya.

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.

Pertandingan dilangsungkan di aula dansa Hotel Kolkhis di tepi jalan setapak pantai, sebuah ruangan dengan tiga lampu kristal yang bergemerincing lirih setiap kali diterpa embusan angin laut, dan pendingin ruangan yang sejak era Soviet mengeluarkan dengung asmatis yang sama persis. Seratus enam puluh pemain duduk di delapan puluh meja. Di atas panggung tergantung layar yang menyiarkan partai-partai dari sepuluh papan teratas dengan penundaan lima belas menit, dan di bawahnya bergulir obrolan para penonton dalam huruf-huruf putih kecil.

The games were played in the ballroom of the Hotel Kolkhis on the seafront promenade, a hall with three chandeliers that tinkled softly at every gust of wind from the sea, and an air-conditioning system that had been making the same asthmatic noise since Soviet times. A hundred and sixty players sat at eighty tables. Above the stage hung a screen on which the games of the first ten boards were broadcast, with a fifteen-minute delay, and beneath it, in small white letters, ran the viewers’ chat.

Davit tidak membaca obrolan itu. Ia sudah menghentikan kebiasaan itu bertahun-tahun yang lalu. Namun pada Rabu malam, seusai babak kelima, Giorgi Abashidze menghampiri meja arbiter dengan ponsel di tangannya, dan Davit menyadari dari caranya menggenggam ponsel itu—tepatnya bagaikan barang bukti—bahwa malam ini ia terpaksa harus membacanya.

Davit did not read the chat. He had broken himself of the habit years ago. But on Wednesday evening, after the fifth round, Giorgi Abashidze came to the arbiters’ table with his telephone in his hand, and Davit understood from the way he held it, namely like a piece of evidence, that today he would have to read it.

Giorgi adalah perwakilan pihak sponsor, penyedia jaringan telekomunikasi seluler yang logonya tertera di setiap plakat meja, di setiap pulpen, dan di setiap botol air minum kecil yang berdiri di antara papan-papan catur. Usianya pertengahan empat puluhan, mengenakan jas bahkan pada suhu tiga puluh derajat, dan berbicara perihal turnamen ini seolah-olah sedang menggelar peluncuran produk. “Apakah Anda melihat ini?” tanyanya.

Giorgi was the sponsor’s man. The sponsor was a mobile phone company whose logo was stuck on every table sign, on every ballpoint pen and on every one of the little water bottles that stood between the boards. He was in his mid-forties, wore a jacket even at thirty degrees and spoke about the tournament as if it were a product launch. “Have you seen this?” he asked.

Davit tahu apa yang sedang ia bicarakan. Di aula ini, sejak hari Minggu, duduk seorang wanita yang jika dinilai berdasarkan angka-angka tidaklah pantas berada di meja-meja terdepan, namun setiap hari kian bergeser maju ke depan: Tamar Gelashvili, berusia tujuh puluh empat tahun, dari Tbilisi, rating Elo 1712, menempati unggulan ke-143 dari 160 dalam daftar peringkat awal. Setelah lima babak, ia mengantongi lima poin. Ia menumbangkan seorang Master Internasional dari Yerevan di babak pertama, seorang pemuda Iran di babak ketiga, dan hari ini, di papan tujuh, seorang grandmaster perempuan asal Ukraina yang seusai partai itu termenung lama di depan papan catur, seolah-olah sedang mencari sesuatu di sana yang telah hilang darinya.

Davit knew what he was talking about. Since Sunday a woman had been sitting in this hall who, if you went by the numbers, did not belong at the front tables and who had nevertheless moved a little further forward every day: Tamar Gelashvili, seventy-four years old, from Tbilisi, rating 1712, ranked 143rd of 160 on the starting list. After five rounds she had five points. In the first round she had beaten an International Master from Yerevan, in the third a young Iranian and today, on board seven, a Ukrainian grandmaster who had stayed sitting in front of the board for a long time after the game, as if she were looking on it for something she had lost.