The rottenness of it stuck in my throat. I tried as best I could to dismiss my black thoughts, but anger kept gaining the upper hand. I was punching now to hurt. My opponent reacted in a surprising way. When my blows hit home, he deliberately staggered from one rope to the other or else bent double, waggling his behind and pretending to throw up over the referee. Clearly he was just playing to the gallery. There was no tension in his face, no doubt in his eyes, just a theatrical, grotesque, ridiculous aggressiveness. Only one thing mattered to me: I wanted this nonsense to stop! This wasn’t my day; there was nothing historic about this damned Sunday. And to think that the night before, I had been so worried about my first fight that I hadn’t slept a wink! I was so incensed that I found myself popping out my left, which stopped my opponent’s clownish kicks dead in their tracks. He again had a few seconds of confusion, as if he suddenly couldn’t place me, then resumed his attacks, hitting any old how before retreating, pleased with himself, and monkeying around for the audience. He was playing the clown, concerned more about the amusement of the crowd than my retaliation.
This farce went on until the sixth round. Against all expectation, the referee decided to stop the match and officially declare my opponent the winner. The crowd went wild. I looked for De Stefano. He had retreated behind our corner. My opponent swaggered around the ring, arms raised, eyes popping out of his head in childish joy … It was only on the way back, on the bus, that I learnt that the hero of the day was called Gaston, that he was the eldest son of the mayor of Aïn Témouchent, and that he wasn’t a boxer at all but had fought this, his first fight, as a way of celebrating his father’s birthday. Next year, he might pay for a swimming contest, or else a football match during which his teammates would make sure that he scored the winning goal after the referee had rejected those of the opposing team.
De Stefano tried to talk me round. I changed seats every time he came and sat down next to me. Tiring of it, he went and sat at the back of the bus. I felt his eyes on the back of my neck all the way to Oran.
‘I told you I’m sorry, damn it!’ he exploded when we got off the bus. ‘You want me to go down on my knees or what? I swear I didn’t know. I genuinely thought the boxer was a local champion. The organisers assured me he was.’
‘Boxing isn’t a church service,’ Francis the pianist said, anxious to see De Stefano take out the envelope the official had slipped into his pocket. ‘The paths of glory are paved with trapdoors and banana skins. When money’s involved, the devil is never very far away. There are sponsored fights, fixed fights, fights lost in advance, and when you’re an Arab, the only way to deal with biased referees is to drop your opponent so that he doesn’t get up again.’
‘This is between me and my champion,’ De Stefano cut in. ‘We don’t need an interpreter.’
‘Understood,’ Francis said, looking significantly at De Stefano’s pocket.
De Stefano took out the envelope, extracted a wad of banknotes, counted it and gave each person his share. Tobias and Salvo took theirs and left, pleased that they hadn’t come back empty-handed in spite of my ‘defeat’. Francis remained where he was, not happy with his cut.
‘What do you want, my photograph?’ De Stefano said.
Francis immediately beat a retreat.
‘His eyes are bigger than his belly, that Francis,’ De Stefano grunted. ‘I’ve divided it equally, but because he knows how to sort out the paperwork and do the typing, he thinks he deserves more than the rest of us.’
‘I don’t want your money, De Stefano. You can give it to Francis.’
‘Why? It’s fifty francs, damn it. Some people would sell their mother-in-law for less than that.’
‘Not me. I don’t want money that’s haram.’
‘What do you mean, haram? You didn’t steal it.’
‘I didn’t earn it either. I’m a boxer, not a comedian.’
I left him standing there in the middle of the street and ran to join Gino on Boulevard Mascara.
*
Gino wasn’t in a good mood. He didn’t look up when he heard me come in. He was sitting barefoot at the table in the kitchen in his vest, dipping a piece of bread into an omelette he had just taken off the stove. Since the death of his mother, he had been unusually moody and no longer turned a deaf ear when he was provoked. His language had grown harsher, and so had his look. At times, I had the feeling I was disturbing him, that he didn’t want me in his home. Whenever I slammed the door to go back to my mother’s, he wouldn’t try to run after me. The next day, he would waylay me on my way out of the gym. He wouldn’t apologise for his behaviour the day before and would act as if nothing had happened.
‘Aren’t you going to ask me how it went in Aïn Témouchent?’
Gino shrugged.
‘The only things missing were Buster Keaton and a pianist in the hall.’
‘I don’t care,’ he said, wiping his mouth with a napkin.
‘Are you angry with me?’
He pounded furiously on the table. ‘How dare you let that imbecile treat me that way? I’m not a dog. You should have shut his mouth and demanded that I go with you.’
‘He’s the boss, Gino. What could I do? You saw I wasn’t pleased.’
‘I didn’t see anything of the sort. That shit stood in my way and you just stared at your feet. You should have insisted he let me go with you to Aïn Témouchent.’
‘I didn’t know how these things work. It was the first time I’ve had a fight. I thought De Stefano was within his rights.’
Gino was about to protest, but changed his mind and pushed away his plate.
I was sufficiently angry not to put up with Gino’s complaints. I turned on my heel and ran down the stairs. I needed to clean myself at the hammam and put my thoughts in order. I spent that night at my mother’s.
I skipped training for three days running.
De Stefano gave Tobias the job of reasoning with me, but Tobias didn’t really need to do much; on the contrary, I was glad of the opportunity not to lose face, because I was starting to find the days long and monotonous. I went to the gym and got back in the ring like a dunce approaching the blackboard, not really applying myself, out of revenge for the dirty trick played on me in Aïn Témouchent. De Stefano realised how much his casual attitude had hurt me. He didn’t like the fact that I was behaving like an idiot but, not wanting to complicate things, he kept quiet about his feelings. To redeem himself, he did a lot of negotiating and managed to find me a serious opponent, a guy from Saint-Cloud who was starting to make a name for himself. The fight took place in a little town, in the middle of a stony field. It was such a hot day that there wasn’t much of a crowd, but my opponent had brought most of his home village with him. His name was Gomez and he knocked me out in the third round. When the referee finished the count, De Stefano threw his straw boater on the ground and stamped on it. It was Tobias who offered to give me a talking-to. He came and found me in the hut where Gino was helping me get dressed.
‘Are you happy now?’ he said, his hands on his hips. ‘That’s what happens when you skip training. De Stefano paid you more attention than you deserve. If he’d set his sights on Mario, we wouldn’t be in this position.’