But Jimmie immediately chose the higher path, and flushed with the thrill of his escape, he raced over the rocks, iguana skins exploding loudly under his feet; now he was supreme and refused to be surprised when he found that the path over the rocks, covered in sharp stones, caused him no pain at all; the iguanas scuttled quickly out of his way, beating their long tails against the stones with sharp cracks.
Why was he running away? Well, why does one run away? Jimmie Baaz had a painful memory he always ran away from. He had been chased up long ladders and dreamt of being rescued on the last rung, but in his dream the ladder had always fallen over pitifully and the swamp had once more wrapped its sticky arms around him. In other dreams he was running down the long road leading away from there, but just like at a fairground, the pavements were rolling in the opposite direction and so he was drawn inexorably back again. He would tense his body in readiness for an enormous thrust which would free him from the iron grip of the road, but everything just seized up. A helpless bundle lashed together with the red threads of his own terror, he would wake up in a cold sweat, and it was hours before he could straighten his twisted limbs properly again. His muscles ached for a long time afterwards, his punches became dull and half-hearted, especially the left one which bounced back ineffectively before it had reached its target. For fear of tightening up in his dream, he would take strong injections the night before every important bout, and sink quickly down into the depths of unconsciousness. But although he was rescued temporarily from his dream, he would be hounded all the more relentlessly while awake by his pursuer; a certain type of person passing him by in the street would give rise to remarkable feelings of alarm inside him, certain streets exuded a certain type of smell which affected him just as badly, and if he therefore chose the wide, pearl-studded boulevards where people hurrying past thrust visiting cards into his famous fists, he might come across some annoying vehicle or an unattended dog which would jump up at him, panting — and the ground would give way under his feet as he sank back once more into this bottomless well.
At the peak of his career, the supreme pinnacle, he was always being exposed just as painfully to his pursuer’s arrogance; he had conquered almost everything: the nation had presented him with a house by a lake teeming with salmon, a dazzling white villa surmounted by a cupola bearing the national coat of arms, and moreover surrounded by just as many yards of barbed-wire fencing when the top men of his country came to visit him; but what was the point of it all when he ended up by barely daring to set foot outside the front door? Every little breeze blowing over the great lake carried with it his merciless pursuer. The first time he tried out his new boat, he was whipped up into a state of fury, ran aground and sank. It might well have been easy to die, but even so he allowed himself to be rescued because during the few seconds he’d been fighting against death he realized that for someone who’s running away, it’s just as pointless to die as it is to live, and his desperation held him up like a giant float.
Then came the period when he was evidently so great that no one expected anything of him any more; like a star, he was firmly fixed in the firmament and he no longer needed to box — indeed, to do so could be harmful to his fame; he was only allowed to perform at big events staged for the imperial family, fighting against famous, but not too famous boxers, young bulls who had been prepared before the match like noblemen’s shields that are to be broken at a funeral, and suddenly they would collapse under his punches after the stipulated time, But as he crouched in the cave into which his long flight had banished him, he realized he was in fact less protected than ever and this would be the end of his flight even so; in the innermost of the eighteen caves forming his escape route, he beat like a madman against the stone walls in an attempt to pass further, but in vain; and when he tried to withdraw he found the entrance door to the final cave had closed as well. Locked in the vault where the nation kept its heroes, he ran around ceaselessly like a squirrel in a wheel, while the applause from the stalls and the dress circle bored its way like drills into his brain, heart, kidneys. Now he longed for the trapdoor to open, and then the rapid fall to the source of his agony, the green swamp of his memories, oh, let the sticky wave of decay break over him, flow into his throat and lap around his lungs, rock him like a swollen corpse in all eternity; even the harshest of possibilities now seemed to him almost like paradise — anything but the torture he was now subjected to. Salvation through ignominy was the only possibility, but how could he humiliate himself when even the slightest error on his part was immediately excused with reference to his greatness?
Then he made a terrible attempt to prise open the trapdoor himself. During a gala performance, as the imperial family were scattering flakes of silver over the stage from their box, he suddenly fell headlong and stayed down with his head in his hands; indeed, he was almost holding it in his hands like a fruit. Pale with emotion, the young boxer who had felled him staggered over to the ropes, all the time staring wide-eyed at his hands as if they were splashed with the blood of an unknown person. The red lamp over the stage was suddenly extinguished, and subdued grey-green light filtered down on to the sacrifice that had been accomplished. As he waited for the furious yells of disappointed hope to ensue, Jimmie lay prone, although the back of his neck probably trembled a moment in expectation of the sharp blade; but otherwise he awaited the trapdoor with the calm only extreme desperation can give. There was a subdued rustling like the sound of thousands of sweet-bags falling, then nothing but a transparent, crystal-clear membrane of silence as the man in the white coat emerged from the wings and announced quietly, like a priest at a funeraclass="underline" he’s ill, he had a sudden attack; I suggest we rise to our feet and give the unfortunate man an indication of our appreciation. The orchestra struck up a patriotic tune, and men picked him up carefully by his limbs, made sure his head was still attached, and then carried him off the stage in time with the music.
He lay there helplessly in their arms, more cut off than ever before from any possibility of running away from flight. Then just as the curtains were closing behind him, he heard them giving three cheers for him, the eternal victor who can win everything but defeat. Oh, how he would have loved to tear himself loose from those sixteen sticky hands and run out on to the stage, screaming out his agony, spraying his angst like an untamed fountain until it swamped the whole world; but all he was still capable of was to twitch a little, a pitiful death-throe which merely served to make his bearers tighten their firm grip.