‘Not yet,’ Gino said. ‘Why?’
‘Those bastards on Le Petit Oranais didn’t pull their punches.’
Without taking a seat, preferring to remain standing to dominate us with his fury, Francis opened the newspaper with a peremptory gesture and spread it in front of him. ‘It’s the most disgusting article I’ve ever read in my life.’
‘It’s just an article, Francis,’ De Stefano said, trying to calm him. ‘Don’t have a fit.’
‘It isn’t an article, it’s a hatchet job.’
‘Someone from the editorial board told me about it this morning,’ De Stefano said calmly. ‘I know pretty much what it says. Sit down and have a beer. And don’t spoil our day, please. Look around you. Everything’s going well.’
‘What’s in it?’ Tobias asked.
‘Crap,’ De Stefano said wearily.
‘Yeah, but we want to know what,’ Tobias insisted.
Francis, who had just been waiting for permission to start, cleared his throat, took a deep breath and began reading so feverishly that his nostrils dilated even more.
‘THE SHOCK OF EXTREMES.’
‘What a headline!’
‘Spare us your comments and let’s hear what’s in the damned article,’ Tobias said.
‘Here we go then!’ His voice throbbing, Francis read:
‘Our dear city of Oran invited us to a truly dismal spectacle at the Salle Criot yesterday. We were expecting a boxing match and we were treated to a fairground attraction in very bad taste. In a ring transformed into a Roman arena, we were forced to witness a display of absurd sacrilege. On one side there was a fine athlete who practises boxing in order to contribute to the development of our national sport and who had come to impress the audience with his technique, his panache and his talent. Opposing him was a fighter like a wild beast who should never have been released from its cage. He was devoid of ethics. What can we say about this terrible farce other than express our intense indignation at seeing two conflicting worlds confront each other in defiance of the most elementary rules of decorum? Is it right to set the noble art up against the most primitive barbarity? Is it right to apply the word “match” to the obscene confrontation of two diametrically opposed conceptions of competition, one athletic, beautiful, generous, the other animalistic, brutal and irreverent? Yesterday, in the Salle Criot, we witnessed a vile attack on our civilisation. How can we not consider it as such when a good Christian is placed at the mercy of a troglodyte barely escaped from the dawn of time? How can we not cry scandal when an Arab is allowed to raise his hand to the very person who taught him to look at the moon rather than his own finger, to come down out of his tree and walk among men? Boxing is an art reserved for the world of the enlightened. To allow a primate access to it is a grave mistake, a false move, an unnatural act …’
‘What’s a troglodyte?’ I asked.
‘A prehistoric man,’ Francis said, eager to continue reading out the article.
‘Let us be under no illusion. To treat Arabs as our equals is to make them believe that we are no longer much use for anything. To allow them to face us in a boxing ring implies that they will one day be granted the opportunity to face us on a battlefield. Arabs are genetically destined for the fields, the mines, the pastures and, for those able to take advantage of our vast Christian charity, for the signal honour of serving us with loyalty and gratitude by doing our washing, sweeping our streets and looking after our houses as devoted and obedient servants …’
‘What prehistoric man are they talking about?’ I asked.
‘Don’t you get it?’ Francis cried, annoyed at being forced to interrupt his reading. ‘He’s talking about you.’
‘Do I look as old as that?’
‘Let me finish the article and I’ll explain.’
‘You don’t have to explain anything,’ Gino cut in. ‘We’ve heard enough. That article is just like its author: only good for wiping your arse on. We know the journalists who work on Le Petit Oranais. Fanatical racists, with as much restraint as a bout of diarrhoea. They don’t even deserve to be spat at. Remember the anti-Semitic massacre they caused in the Derb a few years ago. In my opinion, we should ignore them. They’re just low-grade provocateurs who prove, through their editorial line, that the civilised world isn’t always where we think it is.’
‘I don’t agree,’ Francis yelled, spittle showing at the corner of his mouth. ‘The man who wrote this rubbish has to pay for it. I know him. He used to go to the Eldorado cinema when I worked there as a pianist. He wrote film reviews for his paper. A pathetic nobody with a face like a barn owl, as thin as a pauper’s wages, ugly and untrustworthy. He lives not far from here. I suggest we go and have words with the bastard.’
‘Calm down, my boy,’ De Stefano grunted.
‘No Algerian can keep calm without forcing himself. If we give in, we lose face.’
‘Shut up, Francis!’ Tobias roared. ‘You can’t fight journalists. They’ll always have the last word because they’re what counts as public opinion.’
‘Tobias is right,’ De Stefano said. ‘Remember how those bastards on Le Petit Oranais treated Bad-Arsed Bob, or Angel Face, or Gustave Mercier. They lifted them up only to dump them. Bob ended up in an asylum. Angel Face killed his poor wife and ended his career in jail. Gusgus works as a bouncer … Fame is also paid in kind. What matters isn’t the occasional blows we take, but the nature of the marks they leave on us.’
All eyes turned to me.
I raised my glass of lemonade to my lips. The jibes, the filthy names, the vulgar insults: I’d hear them again and again every time I climbed into a ring. They were part of the atmosphere. There is no fight without abuse. At first, the jeers and the racist remarks hurt me. With time, I learnt to handle them. The Mozabite, my uncle’s partner, would say to me, ‘Fame can be measured by the hatred it arouses in its detractors. Where you are praised to the skies, others trip you up; such is the balance of things. If you want to see things through to the end, don’t linger over the droppings you crush beneath your feet, because there will always be some on the path of the brave.’
‘Are you going to let this go?’ Francis said.
‘It’s the only way to move on to serious things, don’t you think?’ I said, meeting his indignant gaze.
Francis slammed the paper down on the table and walked away, giving us the finger and telling us to go to hell. We watched him until he had disappeared round the corner. Calm returned to our table, without the open camaraderie that had prevailed a few minutes earlier. Hands grasped glasses and tankards; only Salvo had the courage to go further. De Stefano heaved a big sigh and sank into his chair, visibly annoyed by Francis’s intrusion. Gino picked up the paper, opened it at the offending page and read the article to the end in an unsettling silence. To dispel the unease that was starting to affect all of us, Tobias hailed the waiter, but then didn’t know what to order.
For my part, I had found Francis’s anger excessive, even unlikely. He himself had no qualms about kicking the backsides of Arab boys who tried to sell us snacks. Seeing him defend my honour so ferociously made me sceptical. It really wasn’t like him. I had often caught him complaining that I behaved ‘like an unpredictable, narrow-minded country bumpkin’. Whenever I disagreed with him about something, he’d raise his eyes to heaven as a sign of irritation, as if I wasn’t entitled to express an opinion. He had never really taken me to his heart. Even though he did his best to hide it, I knew he hated me for preferring Gino to him. According to him, I had pulled the rug out from under him … This business of the newspaper article was only a way of driving me to do something wrong, with, as a bonus, a long stay in prison that would put a definite end to my career as a boxer. Francis was quite capable of going that far; he was cunning and resentful.