To Oslovski, too, the rhythm of a combination was important. It might be a march rhythm, a concerto, a minuet, or a rondo, not to mention the effect of the silences, that beautiful instrument called silence, which means so much in both music and chess.
Oslovski recalled the epitaph of the composer Alfred Schnittke in Novodevichy cemetery in Moscow, a pentagram carved in marble with the words silencio fortissimo prolongado, equivalent to the moment when a player moves away from the chessboard and comes out of himself so rapidly that he is left depressed and alone, feeling lost in the world, and longing desperately, as Spassky used to say, “for another chess player.” And so it was with Oslovski.
But let us continue with the story.
Oslovski and Flø had met in difficult circumstances, behind a wall riddled with bullets and shrapnel. Oslovski was a lieutenant and Flø a captain, although in different companies, and both had been involved in an operation to take a refugee camp where the ringleaders of a rebel group were apparently hiding, an operation that had meant advancing a few feet at a time, knocking down houses as they went, under covering fire from their own tanks and artillery.
During the advance, Oslovski had jumped through a window and fallen into a courtyard filled with broken glass. Blinded by the smoke of the artillery fire, he ran toward a doorway and did not see a huge hole right in the middle of the courtyard. He stumbled, tried in vain to hold on to the sides, and fell some fifteen or twenty feet, making a great deal of noise as he did so. It was a clandestine well, quite small in diameter, which was why when he fell in the water at the bottom, which did not cover him, he found it difficult to turn and aim the barrel of his rifle upwards.
He crouched and waited a few seconds, cursing his luck or his lack of foresight, until he saw a head appear at the top, wrapped in one of those colorful cloths that made the enemy so easy to recognize, so he fired several shots, then said to himself, I’m defenseless, in a few seconds I’m going to join my ancestors. He took out his torch and shone it at the walls of the well, and his spirits lifted when he saw that there was a side gallery. He retreated into it, the water around his waist. As he did so, he heard voices at the mouth of the well. Seeing some rocks and bricks, he piled them in front of him to protect himself. As he finished, he heard a whistle, followed by a gurgling sound. They had thrown a grenade down, but it had fallen in the water and the fuse had not exploded.
What luck, he thought, but it would not last, they would soon think of something, so he retreated farther into the side channel, realizing after a while, to his horror, that it was getting ever narrower. It doesn’t lead anywhere, I’m a dead man. He heard a loud explosion, and the gallery filled with gunpowder and smoke. To protect himself, he got down on his knees and put his head in the water, but was unable to keep it under for long without breathing. He was getting very anxious now. On the other side of the stones, he saw beams of light and heard voices. The echo of voices he could not understand. The air was full of smoke and brick dust, provoking a coughing fit that must have been heard by those above, because a hail of bullets immediately lashed the water.
He retreated, and saw this time that, a few feet farther along, the passage widened again and the water was colder, which might mean something. He washed his face and tried to think. He remembered that before he had fallen he had been walking ahead of a group of men, but had advanced very rapidly and had found himself alone. The enemy were here, but it was possible his own side would arrive soon. He just had to hold out. There was another huge explosion, and he felt the earth tremble. The stones that had fallen with the first explosion, plus those he had piled up, protected him, but then it occurred to him that the enemy were trying to bury him alive. Would they do that? In wondering this, he was not thinking about whether they could bury a human being alive, everybody did that kind of thing in war, but whether they would fill in a well from which they drew water, which was one of the most precious commodities in the region.
Where the hell were his comrades? Even way down here, he could hear the sounds of fighting. According to his calculations, they should not be long now.
With luck, he might be able to survive, so he tried to retreat along the channel, and found that he could, except that as he moved the level of the water kept rising and was already up to his chest. In a strange way, he felt safe, even though he was in the bowels of the earth, and in complete darkness. Another explosion made him think that they were indeed preparing to fill in the well. Too bad for him.
After all, they could always clear it later, if there was a “later.” His legs were numb, but he tried to walk as best he could, because the last explosion had again filled the narrow chamber with dust and smoke.
There won’t be a “later” for me, that’s for sure. He recalled a chess position that had no way out, and concentrated on that. As he did so, he had to touch his eyes to be sure if they were open or closed, such was the state he was in. He did not think he was seriously wounded. All he had was a graze he had received when he had knocked down a wall to enter a house, and the blow to his shoulder when he had fallen in the well. Not much if you took into account the magnitude of this war and all the bullets fired and all the bodies he had seen fall since he had first pressed the trigger.
He heard cries again, and it seemed to him that he could understand a few words. Somebody was saying something in Russian or Hebrew or even Polish. He went back along the passage, groping his way, and when he reached the open part he noticed that the cave-in had raised the level of the ground and the water. He saw the gleam of a torch, and a rope hanging down in the middle, and again heard the voice. He realized they were saying to him, grab the rope, and that was what he did. As they hoisted him up, he could not see what was happening, as not only was he blinded by the light, but his pupils were also filled with dust.
When he got to the top, he had an unpleasant surprise. Instead of his comrades, he found the courtyard filled with the enemy and a man speaking to him in broken Hebrew. They tied his hands, threatening him with rifles pressed to the back of his neck. Then they took him into a room off the courtyard, and he asked himself, why don’t they execute me immediately? and also, where are my men? The fighting seemed to have moved farther east, and he was alone. He was a prisoner. He said to himself: I was better off down there, in the darkness and the cold water and the all-embracing earth. That was the way he was.
They laid him naked on a rusty, rickety table full of holes, and started asking him questions. How many of you are there? What’s your objective? Which rebel chief are you after? What are your plans of deployment? How far are you planning to go?
The man who was asking the questions spoke Hebrew, and the first thing he did was to put out his cigarette on Oslovski’s stomach. Oslovski screamed in pain. Then came something rather more unpleasant with his nails. They removed the nail from his little finger with wooden splinters. Then from his ring finger and index finger. Oslovski writhed and twisted, but did not answer their questions, partly out of pride and partly because most of the things they asked him about he did not know. As long as he did not answer, he would stay alive. If he told them what they wanted, they would shoot him in the back of the head and throw him down a well. Not his nice, cool, maternal well, but a dry one full of dust.