1
Filippi asked me when I was planning to unlock my chastity belt; I told him I’d lost the key.
A year after being rejected by Aïda, I was practising abstinence and devoting myself to my training. I hadn’t gone up onto the cliff of the Cueva del Agua to watch the drunks squabbling; I hadn’t clung to the walls or cursed the saints; at last, I had grown up.
There is always life after failure; only death is final.
According to the Mozabite, love can’t be tamed, can’t be improvised, can’t be imposed; it takes two to build it equally. If it were up to just one, the other would be his potential ruin. When you chase it, you scare it and it runs away, and you never catch up with it.
Love is a matter of chance and luck. You turn a corner and there it is, an offering on your path. If it’s genuine, it gets better with time. And if it doesn’t last, it’s because you haven’t understood how to handle it.
It wasn’t that I hadn’t understood how to handle it. I hadn’t understood anything at all.
So I’d locked my heart away and listened to nothing but De Stefano’s instructions.
Nine fights, nine victories.
In the souks, the troubadours spiced up my story to dazzled audiences. The barbers of Medina Jedida adorned the front of their shops with my posters. Apparently, a famous cheikha sang about my victories at weddings.
One night, a carriage came for me in Rue du Général-Cérez. The coachman seemed straight out of an Eastern tale, with his red, brass-buttoned waistcoat, his smock shining with adornments and his tarboosh tilted over his ear. Some kind of pasha was with him, a man with a moustache like rams’ horns. They drove me to a large farm to the south of the city. In a courtyard garlanded with lanterns, a hundred guests were waiting for me. As soon as the carriage crossed the threshold of the property, tambourines, cymbals and darbukas launched into a frenzied cacophony. Black dancers bounced about in a trance. And She came towards me, ethereal, stately, regal, the legendary Caïda Halima, who was said to be as rich as ten dowagers and as powerful as the Queen of Sheba. ‘We’re proud of you, Turambo,’ said the woman who had subdued the Terras and was respected by prefects and powerful colonists. ‘This party’s for you. As well as celebrating your victories, it reminds us we’re not dead and buried.’
Aïda hadn’t led me astray: she had given me back to my people …
I was at my mother’s, enduring her neighbour’s screams. Since midday, the woman had been calling down curses on her brood of kids, who were making sleep impossible. The children would quieten for a moment then, blaming each other, resume their din. I’d had enough of putting the pillow over my face to muffle their cries. Wearily, I got dressed again and went out into the blazing heat of the city.
Gino was at home. He was waiting for Filippi, dressed like a young nabob in a shirt and tie, dark glasses on his handsome face, his forehead sporting a sophisticated fringe. Gino only ever wore made-to-measure suits from Storto and brand-name shoes. We hardly saw each other these days. Our nightly jaunts, the cafés-concerts, the cinema trips — all that was over. Gino had other priorities. In the street, the girls devoured him with their eyes. With his dashing looks and devastating smile, he just had to click his fingers to arouse passions. And yet nothing ever happened. Gino barely looked at them. Ever since the Duke had given him a little office on the second floor of his establishment, with a view of the plane tree, Gino had kept his tie on even on the hottest days and talked about nothing but business. Of course, he was fiercely defending my interests, but I missed him, and I didn’t know what to do with myself when he was busy elsewhere.
‘I suppose you have another urgent meeting to go to?’ I asked as he admired himself in the mirror.
‘I’m sorry, I can’t put it off.’
‘When will you be back?’
‘No idea. We may go to dinner afterwards. These are important people. We have to cultivate them.’
‘I see.’
‘Don’t make that face. It’s your career we’re working so hard for.’
‘Take it easy, Gino, or the day we finally make it I’ll be putting flowers on your grave.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Because I’m fed up. You’re constantly shadowing the Duke, and I’m going round in circles.’
Gino adjusted his jacket collar and turned both ways to check the impeccable cut of his suit. ‘Turambo, my poor Turambo, millions of young men would like to be in your shoes, and you reduce the world to these little off-days of yours. Think about what you’ve become. You can’t go out on the street any more without a crowd mobbing you. You’re bored, are you? Some people don’t have that privilege. Take a look outside. People are working until they’re ready to drop just for a piece of bread. Think how much they’d give for a moment’s rest, instead of constantly wearing themselves out, slogging away in the hot sun, doing work even a beast of burden would refuse. Remember what you were just a few years ago and think of how far you’ve come. If you can’t be happy with that, it isn’t God’s fault.’
He took my chin between his thumb and index finger and looked me up and down.
‘You should sulk less and smile more, Turambo. Follow my example and do something about your image. There’s nothing worse than a jaded champion. Tidy yourself up and stop moaning.’
‘The Mozabite says: Only women are beautiful, men are just narcissists.’
Gino threw his head back and laughed. ‘That’s not so far from the truth … By the way, I almost forgot: the gym’s closed for work. The Duke’s planning to spend a fortune on a complete refurbishment. Now that we have a future North African champion, we can’t carry on working in a disused stable. The Duke has ordered a top-quality ring. We’re going to put in toilets, showers and a real office, repaint the walls, tile the floor, replace the windows. When you come back, you won’t believe your eyes.’
‘Come back from where?’
‘Didn’t De Stefano tell you?’
‘No.’
‘You’re going to Lourmel to prepare for your next match. To the house of a man named Alarcon Ventabren. Apparently, the best boxers often go there to get a change of scenery and do a bit of training. The Duke has spent lots of money so that you can benefit from the best facilities. You’re meeting Marcel Cargo in two months. And after that, with any luck, you’ll be able to make a claim on the title.’
Filippi didn’t look happy driving in the heat, sweating profusely in his chauffeur’s tunic. The summer was surpassing itself that late July of 1934. When we lowered the windows, the air burnt our faces; when we put them up, the car turned into an oven. In front of us, the road broke up into an endless chain of mirages. Not a bird ventured into the white-hot sky, not a leaf moved in the trees.
In the seat next to Filippi, Frédéric Pau sat brooding over old resentments. From time to time, he would make an exasperated gesture with his hand. Four of us watched him from the back seat: Gino, Salvo, De Stefano and me.
‘The Duke’s been giving him a hard time,’ Gino whispered in my ear.
On either side of the road, farms were bleached by the mother-of-pearl glare of the afternoon. The fields and orchards were deserted. Only a donkey with its forelegs tied was sliding down a steep path beneath its burden.
Frédéric at last stopped muttering to himself. He pointed to a fruit seller’s hut at the end of the road and asked Filippi to take the path just after it.
‘We can’t go to a person’s house empty-handed,’ I said.
We pulled up on the roadside next to the hut. The fruit seller was sleeping the sleep of the just, surrounded by piles of melons. He jumped up when he heard us slamming the doors, wound a moth-eaten turban round his head and apologised for having dozed off.