The instructions did nothing to better my opinion of the commissioner. I had gone from being his man in the peloton to his man inside Fonar. The bastard was asking me to spy on my own team. Then he surprised me again. When he reached the hall, he half turned and put a hand on my shoulder.
“And congratulations on your second place in the rankings; I feel very proud,” he said. “It’s been more than thirty years since a Frenchman won the Tour,” he added before quickly disappearing.
So a police officer, an ex–military man, and the chief inspector of mechanics—Favre, Lombard, and Fiona—all held out hope that I’d win the Tour, although I supposed each had their own reasons. I wondered if the killer also wanted me to win. And, if that was the case, was this psychopath sick with patriotism?
That night I tried to get some sleep while turning over the idea that I was less than a minute and a half away from the yellow jersey. A heretofore unknown sensation: excitement, in spite of the unease I’d experienced in the past few hours. I wondered if Fiona was as proud as the commissioner. Although the real question was if she would continue being proud once I disappeared from the top rankings. Sooner or later, Giraud, in his determination to take care of Steve, would make sure that was the case. And even if I managed to subvert his strategies, there was still the risk of falling victim to the killer on the loose. A fanatical French patriot? Matosas, a desperate Italian? Giraud, a ruthless narcissist?
The possibility that my own DS could be a threat ended up scaring away sleep. If I didn’t manage to get some rest before confronting the rough climb that waited for me the following day, I wouldn’t need a killer or a hostile strategy: Fatigue would do me in all by itself. Little by little, I managed to relax thanks to the sweet mantra I used every night.
GENERAL CLASSIFICATION: STAGE 11
RANK
RIDER
TIME
NOTES
1 STEVE PANATA (USA/FONAR) 41:03:31 Good and getting better.
2 MARC MOREAU (FRANCE/FONAR) +1:43 Steve and I in first and second place. A dream.
3
ALESSIO MATOSAS (ITALY/LAVEZZA)
3:37
We hit the bastard back.
4
MILENKO PANIUK (CZECH/RABONET)
3:56
He failed in the conspiracy with the other three.
5
PABLO MEDEL (SPAIN/BALEARES)
3:59
I don’t understand Medel’s betrayal, he was a friend.
6
ÓSCAR CUADRADO (COLOMBIA/MOVISTAR)
6:02
7
LUIS DURÁN (SPAIN/IMAGINE)
6:41
8
SERGEI TALANCÓN (ROMANIA/ROCCA)
7:56
9
VIKTOR RADEK (POLAND/LOCUS)
8:21
10
ROL CHARPENELLE (FRANCE/TOURGAZ)
8:42
2010
When I tell Fiona that Steve is my brother, she thinks it’s just an expression; she doesn’t understand that, in many ways, Steve is my brother. For years after I left Colombia, I barely heard from my mother Beatriz. In the first months of my military service, I sent her long letters in which I described the landscapes in Occitania and life in the barracks. I wanted to tell her I missed her, but I didn’t know how. We were never close or affectionate, but amid all that hostile soldierly noise in which I was “the Colombian” in spite of my last name and my accentless French, my memories of Beatriz’s brusque care transformed into a devoted expression of maternal love.
I didn’t give up in spite of the silence that followed my letters, and the next Christmas, fourteen months after I’d left, I called home. She responded in a joyful and melodious voice that went mute the minute she realized it was me. The few monosyllables with which she responded to my awkward questions weren’t angry or rancorous but, rather, bewildered, the result of surprise and discomfort. Maybe she was concerned I was calling to tell her I was coming back to Medellín. After a few minutes she said something about a pot on the stove and passed the phone to her husband. We dragged out a conversation that neither one of us was interested in and hung up quickly after wishing each other a Merry Christmas. At least his bad breath was inoffensive from eight thousand kilometers away.
In the days that followed, I tried to accept that—as far as her affection was concerned—I was dead to my mother. Although, to be honest, it wasn’t entirely clear that I’d ever really been alive to her or that I’d ever been anything other than an obligation. She had me when she was seventeen years old with a forty-two-year-old man whom she initially found impressive but whom she ended up detesting just months later. It took them eight more years to separate, although toward the end they rarely saw each other because my father had been assigned to the embassy in neighboring Venezuela. I imagine my blue eyes and rosy cheeks reminded her of the man she loathed. She was all about gardens and flowers, music and parties; Colonel Moreau was jealous, controlled and controlling. It was a combination that made their time together unsustainable, and I became the proof that some bad decisions are irreversible.
In spite of this disappointment, I refused to give up. I refused to accept that the hoodlums from Lyon and Marseille whom I had to share my barracks with were more loved than I was. They had whole clans show up for calls and visits, and received boxes with cigarettes, nougats, or hard rolls baked by a fond great-grandmother. So I simply told myself my mother was forcing herself to reject me in order to have a chance at building a new life with the doctor and his two young daughters.
As I had done years earlier when my teacher left for Bogotá, I fooled myself into thinking the bike would be the way to bring back my mother. I would become a world champion, rich and famous, and one day I’d go to Medellín, pick her up in a chauffeured limousine, and take her to see the house I’d just bought her. That’s when she’d realize how wrong she’d been to deny the calling of her heart.
But as the months went by, Lombard and the bike became my life, and not just the instrument with which I dreamed of recovering my mother. I embraced my French surroundings and ended up accepting that I might have been nothing more than some sort of divine punishment for Beatriz Restrepo. She did what she had to do to bury the memory of me once and for all. I tried to do the same.
Steve changed all that. When we decided to move together to Lake De Como, we shared a place the first year. My friend’s parents were constant visitors and they soon adopted the grateful and cautious boy who had become their son’s best friend. His mother, Diana, thought my measured temperament was a good influence on her son’s rash impulses and optimistic naïveté.
On one occasion, Steve’s father flew to Bogotá on business and the couple decided to extend their trip and turn it into a vacation through various South American countries. In part out of gratitude and in part out of curiosity, they built in a visit to Medellín where they’d meet my mother. I’d barely talked about her, and when I did, it was in the vaguest terms. Their inquisitive natures were piqued.
Beatriz must have felt honored to receive a visit from such fine people. They took her to eat at the restaurant in the famous hotel where they were staying, and they spoke glowingly about the son she had in France. When the meal was over, Mrs. Panata gave her an exquisite gold bracelet from a fashion designer in Santa
Fe. It was probably a mix of pride and obligation that made her write the brief missive we received a few days later:
Steve and Marc,
How wonderful to know everything is going well. It must be very beautiful over there. Congratulations. Make your parents proud.
Beatriz Restrepo
Steve considered it a triumph, though to me, it was an affront more offensive than her silence. It was not a letter from a mother to her child; it seemed to me that it was really addressed to Steve and was fully motivated by her desire to not appear ill-mannered to his parents.
My friend got in the habit of sending my mother a postcard whenever he wrote to anyone in the United States, as if our coupling on the bike extended into our personal lives and that, when it came to the division of labor, he was responsible for dealing with relatives.
Not used to these attentions, Beatriz would respond with short notes addressed to Steve, greetings and thank-yous written in a very formal style with her round, schoolgirl scripts. My friend would show them to me; I’d nod my thanks and then try to forget them. Deep down, I knew nothing between my mother and me had changed; these correspondences weren’t about me.
A few years later, we were living next to each other in the same neighborhood in Lake De Como. Steve came over to happily tell me that my mother was coming for Christmas. He was convinced he could bring parent and child into a reconciliatory embrace with a storybook ending. I later learned he’d spent months battling her objections and that he’d only managed to convince her after he sent her a first-class ticket to travel from Medellín to Milan. When I heard that, I knew he hadn’t really convinced her of anything. For my mother, it would be bad manners to reject such a generous gift.
In the following days, Steve enthusiastically brainstormed things to do with Beatriz during her visit. The heated restaurant with the incredible views, the tea boutique, the best souvenir shop, the sophisticated chocolatier, the cashmere coat and scarf with which we would welcome her. I resignedly and nervously agreed to everything, knowing this could turn into a terrible ordeal for her and a cruel reminder for me of all the reasons we’d given up on our relationship.
But my mother took care of it in her own way. One day before she was to get on the plane, a neighbor sent a telegram letting us know Beatriz was in the hospital dealing with her sciatic nerve, which had been bothering her for months and had ended up immobilizing her. The telegram was addressed to Steve. Her lack of love turned out to be stronger than any desire for courtesy.
Steve was disillusioned but not defeated. He sent a bouquet of flowers to the hospital and kept up the postcards for several years, although he never again tried to bring us together. I received the news as a great relief. The experience made it clear to me I didn’t have a mother and that, in the strictest sense, I’d never had one. But it also showed me I had a brother in Steve. That’s something neither Fiona nor Lombard would ever understand.
Stage 12
Lannemezan—Plateau de Beille, 195 km.
I woke up, got out of bed, and opened the window in my room. The fresh morning breeze seemed like a good sign considering what was waiting for us that day. Seven hours of sleep had managed to pacify my demons. But the next half hour with my teammates sent them packing.
Generally speaking, breakfast with the team isn’t the most lively activity of the day. A cockroach in a cloud of fumigation has more energy than the dazed and uncombed zombies that came down to the dining room a little after eight each morning. But today the Fonar table was downright merry: The four minutes Steve had over Matosas, who was in third place, had turned the Tour in our favor. We not only had the yellow jersey within our grasp, but we were leading the race as a team. Fonar was sweeping the scoreboard and the record books, and the team members’ pockets would all benefit.
Steve was at the head of the table, following an unwritten protocol that assigned seats according to a hierarchy. I sat on his right, like I did every morning, no matter what hotel we were staying at. Several of my teammates patted my back, and members of the French team AG2R, who were staying at the same hotel, congratulated me from across the room. In the past twelve years, no Frenchman had won on Bastille Day, a real national humiliation.
Steve was happy for the team, for me, and for himself. His smile and his enthusiasm radiated over the table. When Steve’s on, no one can be indifferent to my friend’s emotions, least of all me. Everything was good now. He’d practically won the Tour, I’d won a stage, and, at least for a few hours, I was the second best in the whole peloton. Not even in our greatest fantasies in that training camp back in Catalonia could we have imagined a triumph like we were about to achieve.
I later realized Steve’s euphoria was a little strident, a little anxious. More than happy, he seemed relieved. His exaggerated gestures seemed to belong to someone who’s had a great weight taken off him. Maybe Fiona was right: Deep down he regretted the opportunities I’d lost by condemning me to be his shadow. But if we both managed to climb the podium in Paris, I too would become a part of cycling history and any grievance would be forgotten.
Before we went our own ways, he hugged me. “No matter what Giraud says, make us both win,” he whispered in my ear before we returned to our rooms.
That day the starting line was just a few steps from our hotel, which let us rest for some precious extra hours. As I lay on my bed, eyes half-closed, Fiona knocked and edged into my room. I hadn’t been able to see her the night before, because the UCI had organized a long meeting of inspectors that forced her to stay in another hotel in a nearby small town.
I thought she’d come to congratulate me. She looked beautiful. My body imagined various ways I might be rewarded. But Fiona limited herself to a quick hug and a fleeting kiss. She hadn’t come for that. She pulled from her back pocket a folded piece of paper, which I imagined to be warm and slightly curved. My excitement refused to die down; when it came to Fiona, I was always an optimist. What she unfolded was a route plan.
“It’s fine if nothing much happens among the leaders today, Mojito. Just make sure Matosas doesn’t cut your time. If you make any move today, you’re going to tip off Giraud, and you still have a lot of stages to go. It would be better if you left everything for the last two days before Paris.”
Fiona’s strategy was correct—that is, if I wanted to betray Fonar. Today was the last lap in the Pyrenees; next we’d have four straight stages of hills and valleys in which we should have no trouble controlling our rivals. The Tour would conclude with four extremely difficult days on the high mountains of the Alps, and those would be decisive.
“We’re ready. We have better climbers than they do, don’t worry; we’ll be able to neutralize any attack,” I said carefully, without mentioning Steve. “I promise you I’ll still be in second place tonight,” I said, giving her a kiss goodbye. I didn’t know then that the killer would disrupt my promise just a few hours later.
At noon, we went to the team bus to get Giraud’s instructions for the stage that awaited us. It was then I realized the uproar my win had provoked. There are roughly a thousand accredited journalists who cover the Tour de France, but today it seemed like two thousand squeezed around the pavilion for the signature ceremony before the start of the day’s lap. They all wanted an exclusive statement or photo from me. In theory, reporters wait until the end of the race to ask the cyclists questions. They’re supposed to respect the time before takeoff, when the racers are trying to relax their muscles and concentrate on the effort before them. But today, the press was shameless about ignoring protocol.
“It’s been thirty-two years since a French citizen won the Tour,” said Axel Simmon when I finally got to the bus and he showed me the headlines he’d been reading: “France Comes Alive on the Tourmalet” gushed L’Équipe. Axel was the soigneur assigned to me, and one of my few compatriots on Fonar, even though the team was formally organized as a French organization.
The soigneurs on the Tour have an unusual job. They’re primarily massage therapists, but they don’t work until the end of the stage, so before then they do a little bit of everything: They carry the racers’ luggage to the next hotel, supply provisions for the competitors during and after each stage, and support the cars on the road. Axel continued: “You’re the new celebrity. Even I got some of the rebound: French TV just interviewed me. They wanted to know all about you.”
“What did you tell them?”
“That you’d won thanks to the massage. That since it was July 14th, I’d given you a special treatment,” Axel joked. Though he looked like a gargoyle from Notre Dame, he was a good guy and an even better masseur. In fact, that was the reason we’d ended up together: The rest of my teammates found all sorts of reasons to avoid him, as if his ugliness was a contagious disease that could be transmitted through his hands. But I, on the other hand, had no problem recognizing another unloved soul.
“I hope you didn’t tell them the massage has a happy ending.”
“Don’t worry, your secrets are safe with me. I didn’t want to spoil their party; they were talking about you as if you were the reincarnation of Anquetil.”
I thought about the legendary enfant roi Jacques Anquetil, as famous for his womanizing as for winning the Tour five times. My exploits in both areas were ridiculously lacking in comparison.
“You should have told them Steve is our leader and I’m a domestique,” I said abruptly. I didn’t want to continue the joke. “The minute and a half he has over me is a decisive distance, but even if it was only two seconds, it would be enough. There’s no need to feed that kind of stupidity.” Now in a bad mood, I climbed onto the bus to protect myself from the reporters in the few minutes before the start of the next stage. I felt bad for bringing down poor Axel: He only wanted to have a good time, but everything was starting to seem like a bad joke to me.
The Black Jersey Page 11
