全场肃静

第五轮

The Fifth Round

三十年来，达维特·卡帕纳泽一直在主持国际象棋锦标赛；而在这三十年里，他懂得了一个道理：看一个人是否作弊，不能看他的走法，而要看他的双手。凡是心里有鬼的人，总会摸自己的脸、耳朵或是口袋；他起身的次数过于频繁，返回的速度又过于迅捷。达维特曾把选手从洗手间里揪出来，那些抽水马桶的水箱里藏着手机；他曾没收过一只鞋子，鞋底内嵌着微型振动马达；甚至有一次，在第比利斯，他把一位祖父驱逐出了赛场——那老头在看台上用手帕给孙子打暗号。对此他并不感到自豪。他只是做事一丝不苟罢了。

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.

巴统公开赛本该是他职业生涯的最后一役。今年春天，他已向棋协递交了辞呈，信写得很短，未附任何理由，因为连他自己也说不清楚究竟该给出一个怎样的由头。他六十三岁了，膝盖已受不住整日整日的站立与巡视，女儿每个星期天都会从柏林打电话来，问他怎么还不退下来干点别的。然而到底该干点什么，她自己也说不出个所以然来。

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.

比赛在海滨大道旁的科尔基斯饭店宴会厅举行。厅内挂着三盏枝形吊灯，每逢海风掠过便会发出轻微的碰撞叮当声；一台产自苏联时期的老旧空调，至今仍喘息般吐着数十年不变的哮喘声。一百六十名选手端坐在八十张棋桌前。舞台上方悬挂着一面大屏幕，以十五分钟的延迟转播前十台的对局，屏幕下方正以白色小字滚动播放着网络观众的实时弹幕留言。

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.

达维特从不看弹幕。多年以前他就戒掉了这个习惯。然而到了周三傍晚第五轮对局结束后，吉奥尔吉·阿巴希泽手里攥着手机径直朝裁判席走来；达维特一瞧他拿手机的那副架势——简直就像端着一件呈堂证供——心里便明白，今天这弹幕是非看不可了。

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.

吉奥尔吉是赞助商的代表，那是一家移动运营商，其标志贴满了每张桌签、每支圆珠笔以及棋盘之间摆放的每一瓶矿泉水。他四十来岁，哪怕气温高达三十度也始终穿着西装外套，谈起这届锦标赛的口吻，倒像是操办一场新产品发布会。“您瞧见这个了吗？”他问道。

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.

达维特自然心知肚明他所指为何。从周日开赛起，这个大厅里就坐着一位女士：若单论等级分数据，她绝无可能跻身前列台次，可如今她却一天天稳步向前移席——塔玛尔·格拉什维利，七十四岁，来自第比利斯，等级分仅有1712分，在一百六十名选手的初始种子排名中屈居第143位。然而五轮战罢，她竟五战全胜，积满五分。首轮她便斩落了来自埃里温的国际大师，第三轮掀翻了一位年轻的伊朗选手，而今天在第七台，她更是击败了一位乌克兰女子特级大师——后者终局后在棋盘前呆坐了许久，仿佛在黑白格间寻找自己不知遗落何处的物什。

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.

“大伙儿全在刷屏，说她身上带了电脑，”吉奥尔吉说道，“藏在耳朵里，或是鞋底里，天晓得藏在哪儿。直播间里挤了整整三千名观众，卡帕纳泽先生。整整三千人啊！咱们历届比赛还从没见过这么多人。而且有一半人都在发那个词： Engine 。”他念出这个英文词时带着一丝嫌恶，仿佛那是被别人偷偷塞进他口袋里的脏东西似的。

“People are writing that she has a computer,” said Giorgi. “In her ear, in her shoe, I don’t know where. There are three thousand viewers on the stream, Mr Kapanadze. Three thousand. We’ve never had that many. And half of them are writing the word engine .” He pronounced the English word with a certain reluctance, as if someone had slipped it into his pocket.

达维特接过手机读了起来。评论里有人声称，第七台的老太太整整四十步棋没有犯哪怕一次失误——这纯属无稽之谈；她在第十二步时丢了一个兵，只不过后来又设法捞了回来。还有人说，她的手指一直在敲击桌沿，旁边有人跟帖断言：这是摩尔斯电码。他还看到，年仅十九岁、赛会头号种子特级大师桑德罗·洛米泽——在这片国土上他甚至比绝大多数部长还要出名——刚刚发布了一段视频。视频标题赫然写着 《带遥控器的老奶奶》 ，短短两个小时播放量便突破了十二万次。

Davit took the telephone and read. He read that the woman on board seven had not made a single mistake in forty moves, which was not true; she had lost a pawn on the twelfth move and won it back later. He read that she tapped on the edge of the table with her fingers, and next to it someone had written: Morse. He read that Sandro Lomidze, nineteen years old, grandmaster, seeded number one and more famous in this country than most ministers, had posted a video. It was called Granny with the Remote Control and after two hours it had a hundred and twenty thousand views.

“她都七十四岁了。”达维特说道。“可不是嘛！”吉奥尔吉接话道，“一个七十四岁的老太太凭什么能下出这等水平？”达维特把手机还给了他。他本想反驳说下棋又不是靠膝盖，但他隐隐觉得，吉奥尔吉多半会把这话当作敷衍的托辞，而且平心而论，人家这么想倒也并非全无道理。

“She’s seventy-four,” said Davit. “Exactly,” said Giorgi. “How is a seventy-four-year-old supposed to be able to play like that?” Davit gave him back the telephone. He could have answered that you do not play chess with your knees, but he had the feeling that Giorgi would take the sentence for an excuse, and not entirely without reason.

因为达维特自己也一直在暗中留心。每一轮比赛他都观察过她，以一个双手背在身后穿梭于各张棋桌间的裁判所能做到的最隐蔽的方式。她身材瘦小，身姿却极为挺拔，留着一头花白短发，尽管天气闷热，却依然套着一件灰色针织开衫，棋盘旁总立着一只装着椴树花茶的保温杯。她从不离席。她从不伸手摸脸。她也从不抬头看对手，似乎并非出于傲慢，而纯粹是因为在棋盘之外，她对对手的任何信息都毫无探究之意。她落子极快，往往快到对手还在苦思上一手棋时，她早已应声落子。而当对手沉思之际，她的手指总在桌沿边起伏摆动，悄无声息，呈现出细微而极有韵律的起落节律。

For he had been watching too. He had observed her in every round, as inconspicuously as is possible for an arbiter who walks between the tables with his hands behind his back. She was a small, very upright woman with short white hair who wore a grey cardigan despite the heat and put a thermos of lime-blossom tea next to her board. She never got up. She never touched her face. She did not look at her opponents, not out of arrogance, it seemed, but because she did not want to know anything about them that was not on the board. She played quickly, often so quickly that her opponents were still thinking about their own move when she had long since replied. And while her opponent was thinking, her fingers moved on the edge of the table, soundlessly, in small, even patterns.

她的左耳后别着一只米黄色的助听器。第一天达维特就注意到了，当时并未多想。可如今他却不得不多想了，这让他心里颇为懊恼。

Behind her left ear sat a beige hearing aid. Davit had noticed it on the first day and thought nothing of it. Now he did think something of it, and that annoyed him.

“我要求明天对她进行搜身检查，”吉奥尔吉说道，“在开赛前进行。如果可能的话，最好在摄像机镜头前公开查。”“镜头前绝对不行，”达维特断然拒绝，“只有在我认为有必要时才会进行检查，而且要和抽查的其他选手一起查，一视同仁。”“那您就认为‘有必要’好了。”吉奥尔吉冷冷抛下这一句，听起来绝非商量的口吻。

“I want her checked tomorrow,” said Giorgi. “Before the round. On camera, if possible.” “Not on camera,” said Davit. “She will be checked when I consider it necessary, and then together with others, like everyone here.” “Then consider it necessary,” said Giorgi, and it did not sound like a request.

当天深夜，达维特坐在朝向内院的饭店客房里，在自己的小型旅行折叠棋盘上，将格拉什维利太太的五盘对局逐一复盘。他从不曾是位顶尖棋手，但眼力还是有的。他看得出来，她的下法绝不像机器。机器落子毫无趣味，透着一种冷酷的精确，时间一长，人们便能从那些古怪别扭的微小退子步法中辨认出来。而这位老妇人的行棋极具品味。她的棋风复古，甚至带着某种俏皮，动辄弃兵争先抢节奏，俨然六十年代经典教科书上的风骨；其间她偶有丢子，随后又以极大的耐性从容扳回。达维特不禁暗想，这情形恰如某人弹奏一首久未碰过的乐曲，虽久疏战阵，指尖的肌肉记忆却依然分毫不差。

In the evening Davit sat in his hotel room, which looked out onto the courtyard, and replayed Mrs Gelashvili’s five games on his small travel board. He had never been a strong player, but he saw enough. He saw that she did not play like a machine. Machines play without taste, with a cold precision that after a while you recognise by their strange little retreats. This woman played with taste. She played in an old-fashioned way, almost coquettishly, she sacrificed pawns for time, as people did in the textbooks of the sixties, and in doing so she sometimes lost something that she afterwards fetched back with great patience. It was, he thought, as if someone were playing a piece they had not played for a long time and which had nevertheless stayed in their fingers.