The Miracle of Yousef: Historical and political thriller

by Gonçalo Coelho

  A guard approaches from inside the Arena.

  “Is everything ok here, Murat?”

  “Yes, everything’s under control,” he replies. Then he turns back to Luiz with a severe expression. “Correct?”

  “Ok, Murat. Enjoy your gossip mags,” says Luiz by way of goodbye, playfully raising his hand to his temple in a facsimile of a military salute.

  Luiz turns his back heading for his car, but as he prepares to cross the street he is surprised by the scalper who accosts him directly suddenly springing from his apparent torpor.

  “Hey! Ticket for tonight’s show?”

  Luiz waves him off and crosses the street. Without hesitation as he reaches his car he orders the driver to their next destination:

  “I’m hungry as a lion, let’s get something to eat. And then, to the Hilton!”

  3

  2:34 p.m.

  Luiz goes into the hotel and asks for Mercedes Soler. He introduces himself vaguely as a friend to the middle-aged receptionist. In response to her reluctance to give him Mercedes’ room number, he tries the same tactic he used at the Arena: a hefty bribe. This time, however, the receptionist refuses, perhaps because there are too many people around, perhaps because of hidden cameras, or perhaps because she actually is an ethical person. Even so, she informs him that Ms. Soler has gone out a little earlier, and suggests that he wait in the hotel bar if he wishes to stay until she gets back.

  At the bar, he orders his first drink, a Bacardi with two ice cubes, and sits down at a table, willing to wait all day if necessary. His ideas begin to dissolve in his head as he waits, and he orders a second Bacardi. After a while, he feels sleepiness come calling. He fights it off, gets up, takes a few steps and sits down again, but eventually he can no longer sustain the weight of his eyelids.

  Ciénaga, Colombia

  1974-1983

  Luiz Gonzalez, the Caribbean Hurricane, was born in 1974 in the outskirts of Ciénaga, a Caribbean coastal city in northern Colombia. His mother, Rosário, did not want him, and was too poor to give him a decent life. The truth is that she could barely support herself. When he was just a few months old she abandoned him, leaving him an orphan on the doorstep of an orphanage run by the city. The shame and burden she bore in her conscience did not allow her to place so much as a foot beyond the threshold in the hot, dark early morning hours on her way back from another night working in a bordello. The only way to reduce her anguish and endure it was to convince herself that little Luiz would end up having a better life than hers when, one day, he left the orphanage. A week later, however, she changed her mind, made her way to the street of the orphanage but then, trembling, immersed in a haze of tears, she backed off. Instead of attempting suicide, an idea that tormented her at first, she ended up moving to Barranquilla determined to try to start a new life far from everyone and everything she knew in Ciénaga. Luiz stayed behind, where the orphanage would look after him, and here he would grow into boyhood.

  When he was eight, a man appeared at the orphanage and took Luiz with him, essentially because he needed another worker, and because Luiz, who had already tried to run away several times, had become too heavy a burden for the sisters. So it was that they willingly handed him over to the man whom Luiz came to call Uncle Miguel, who was no uncle at all, but signed certain papers as though he were, as agreed upon with the authorities at the orphanage. And so Luiz moved to an hacienda not very far from Ciénaga to begin what amounted to his first job.

  After the age of eight he spent his childhood working, always eating less than the children of the uncles and aunts he saw passing through the household, and always, invariably, receiving infinitely less affection – to say nothing of money, of which he saw none. However, from a tender age, little Luiz showed signs of his inclination towards behavior consistent with the nickname by which he would come to be known in boxing rings all over the world: the Caribbean Hurricane. At six, still at the orphanage, he got into his first fight worthy of the name when others deliberately turned over his plate of food. At eight, shortly after his arrival at the hacienda, two kids decided to play a prank on him, placing a frog under his pillow. It scared him to death, and everyone laughed their heads off, but as soon as little Luiz got a hold of himself, he sought satisfaction from the pranksters, and without a word spoken, began to slug it out with them. Uncle Miguel tried to whip him into line, show him who was boss, but not even the marks of his black leather belt could put a dent in Luiz’ taste for fighting. This taste didn’t come from simple out-and-out aggression, but from the sweet taste of asserting himself over others. From the respect he won by fighting. From the rawness and strength he felt his body acquiring. It’s true that he hated Uncle Miguel, but he also respected him, and knew that this was so because he beat him, because he had the power to threaten to cause him pain, and in his child’s mind, if there was one thing he knew well from a very early age, it was the phenomenon of winning respect by instigating fear, and, in the final analysis, by inflicting physical violence. With each fight, little Luiz perceived that here was a powerful weapon that, if he could master it, would make him respected in a world that insisted on denying him respect. A little while after the prank with the frog, they made fun of his clothes, which were almost always the same, which only by rare coincidence ever fit him, and to top it off, were usually torn somewhere. He took offense and, glimpsing the possibility of another fight, did not spurn it, while also availing himself of the opportunity to absorb a rain of lashes in his child’s back from Uncle Miguel’s belt. Later on they also teased him for having a slightly crooked nose (though it was this very characteristic that later on, would make him seem even more menacing to his opponents in the ring). At nine, the Hurricane would not stand for these slanders about his nose, and channeled the fury coursing through his veins so skillfully on the twelve-year old boy who mocked him, that he left him lying inert on the ground under a scalding tropical sun, the dirt and blood melding into a single stream that ran like a river down his battered dark face. Luiz would say later that he didn’t kill him only due to divine intervention, since at that time he had not yet learned to control the fury that rampaged in his blood. On that day it took two grown men accustomed to back-breaking farm labor to contain the fury of Luiz who, in a rage, would not let anyone come near him, and as the two men closed in on him, he was not only punching, but kicking, spitting and biting. This episode eventually reached the ears of everyone at the hacienda and many people in the surrounding area. The rebukes and punishments came as a torment that was more severe than ever, but on this occasion they were also exacerbated by the fact that Luiz was compelled to quit school without even having managed to finish the first grade, since with all his troubles at home, Uncle Miguel’s vile temper, his physical exhaustion from hours of labor, and the hunger that often followed him to class, the poor boy was unable to learn anything at all no matter how hard he tried.

  And yet this episode when he was nine would prove extremely precious to him. For one thing, he felt more than ever that the other kids were really beginning to fear and respect him. They stopped mocking him or, if they persisted, the moment they met his fixed gaze, they made themselves scarce in a hurry. Many of them now avoided him. They left him alone. And to him this constituted a tremendous victory. It meant respect and recognition. Under the welts of Uncle Miguel’s belt, Luiz experienced a mighty feeling of pride and self-esteem. The boy also saw that they had stopped feeling sorry for him, and this only redoubled his feeling of pride. He took it as an added advantage that Uncle Miguel had decided to double his load of chores as a form of punishment. He felt his muscles and physical endurance hardening. He saw that he was stronger than the other boys his age. When he mowed now with a scythe in the fields in the hot sun and looked at the fields around him, the sky, the clouds and the sun, he knew that in the force of his muscles and his fists there was something that could one day lead the whole world to fear and respect him. He knew that all he had to do was to become a fortress of pu
re steel, and he would have the world at his feet. In his mind, he saw his battered colleague, older than he was, falling unconscious to the ground after he had delivered one of his powerful punches, and he thought, One day I will be so strong that everyone will respect me. Even Uncle Miguel! He dreamt of trips he would take all over Colombia, with the whole world at his feet, a world from which he would snatch all the beautiful things that up to then had been missing from his existence.

  It was in the midst of these thoughts that, one day, Luiz was taken by surprise by a dark man of humble appearance, tattered clothes, a slight beard and curly hair, who approached him from behind.

  “Hey boy! Are you Luiz Gonzalez?”

  The image of this man startled Luiz like a bolt of lightning, yanking him roughly down to earth from the height of his dreams.

  “Who are you?” asked Luiz, his childish face taking on a threatening and plainly defensive air. “Whoa. Easy, Luiz. I just want to talk to you, that’s all,” said the stranger, trying to calm down

  the hostile boy.

  “By the fierceness of your look, I can tell that you’re exactly the one I’m looking for.”

  Dazed, Luiz had no idea what to say. The stranger resumed talking, introducing himself.

  “My name is Juan Alvarez. I’m a teacher, but not the kind you’re thinking. You don’t need to make that ugly face. I mean you no harm.. But hang on to that fighting spirit ‘cause it could come in very handy somewhere down the road. In this life you have to know how to fight. If you know how, then you’re set for the future. If you have help, you can go a lot farther than you imagine.”

  “Nobody ever tried to help me. Why would you do that for me? You think I’m stupid? Get out of here right now. I can’t waste time on strangers.”

  Juan Alvarez smiled with satisfaction. Without a doubt, this was the one they had told him about.

  “I don’t want to be your enemy. What’s more, I don’t think anyone in his right mind would want to if he knew how to read that wild look as I do, full of the will to fight for your life and for what’s yours by right, that burning desire to seize by brute force the respect and dignity that you deserve. You’re special, Luiz. Don’t ever let anyone tell you different. Your eyes tell me that, if you have to, you’ll be as fast as a hare, agile as a cat and wise as an owl. And I’ll tell you something you already know: you’ve got to do something to develop that gift you’ve got. You don’t belong here. You’re special and you know it, Luiz.”

  The boy was struck dumb. He was more astonished and confused than ever to hear such talk.

  “I’ll give you your first lesson so you can get out of here, and that will last you your whole life long: there’s nothing really worthwhile in this life that a man can do completely on his own, with his back to the world. Consider that your first lesson, Luiz! Tomorrow afternoon I’ll come looking for you, with Uncle Miguel’s consent, and then I’ll show you what I do, and what you can do, too. You can go very far, Luiz! Until tomorrow, my little warrior!”

  Juan Alvarez moved off until his figure dwindled and disappeared on the line of the horizon in the direction of the sunset. The 9-year old boy felt as though he had wings and was flying high above the fields, the trees, Uncle Miguel’s house and all the rooftops in the village. Everything seemed to him so small and insignificant. What’s more, everything seemed smaller than him as he flew freely above all the wretched things that had made up the contours of his world until that day. He didn’t know where he was flying to, but the important thing was that flying was allowed, and this filled his heart with joy.

  Uncle Miguel found him asleep on the ground, and obviously didn’t spare him. In addition to yelling and giving him a good clout, as a punishment he forced him to work an extra hour and have his dinner later, eating others’ leftovers. Yet none of this could dislodge the joy in little Luiz’ heart. Indeed, he didn’t even want to eat dinner, so great was the excitement and anxiety that he felt. Once home he did end up eating but only so no one would suspect what was going on inside him.

  The next day, Juan Alvarez came looking for his apprentice to give him his first lesson. What were his motives? On one hand, it was true that he wanted to be able to do something for the boy, but he saw no point in snatching him from Uncle Miguel’s claws unless he were capable of giving the boy the weapons he would needed to be free forever from mistreatment. The solution was to give him basic lessons in boxing. If he enjoyed it, Juan could teach him and prepare him for life. Boxing would protect him from the wrath of his uncle and from any of life’s other misfortunes. On the other hand, Juan had completed his own professional schooling two years earlier to start his career as a trainer. As a professional boxer, as key items on his résumé, he had a handful of regional titles, two losses for the national title of Colombia and an appearance at the Olympics with no special brilliance and a defeat in the third fight. Now, as a professional trainer, he risked getting stuck in the same mediocrity unless he could find a true born talent. And yet the most talented and promising young fighters invariably sought (and were sought by) trainers who were more highly regarded and experienced than Juan, which meant that finding a talent that he himself could hone to perfection who could one day become a champion, was proving to be an arduous undertaking. It was in Luiz Gonzalez that Juan finally found the opportunity he was looking for, this talent, this hidden diamond in the rough, with his look and his way of being in life that Juan always felt had deserted him in the decisive moments of his own career, this ardent desire to win, body and mind carved for battle from the very outset.

  After lunch that day Juan went to get the boy at the hacienda as planned, and with Uncle Miguel’s consent, took him to the boxing tent, where a number of boys were training, all quite a bit older than little Luiz. Despite his wary expression, from the outset the boy proved to be very inquisitive and interested. It might be said he was set on discovering this new reality that was so different from his unpleasant and, unfortunately, routine daily experience. He observed everything around him with his eyes wide open and alert. He noted a number of boys scattered around the tent, nearly all of them in trunks with bare torso and boxing gloves, muscular, sweating, sparring in the ring, skipping rope, taking and giving punches, others training for speed and solidity of movement, socking leather bags or simply working out and lifting weights. Luiz stopped by a twenty-something fighter pounding a small leather bag with a repeated movement of his fists faster than anything he had ever seen in his life. The little leather bag was oscillating so fast that only the shadow of its leather bulk could be seen flying blurred through the air, such was the rhythm of the blows, and the boy couldn’t take his eyes off this phenomenon, which he found absolutely astounding, evidently thinking, if I could do this I would conquer the world! At this point the boxer stopped and looked into Luiz’ eyes.

  “Never saw this before, kid?”

  “How do you do it so fast?” asked Luiz, without being discomfited by the boxer’s bad mood. “Training,” answered Juan, interrupting the dialogue. “Everything is achieved through

  training. That and much more. Let’s go, Luiz. Good work, Ernesto, keep it up.”

  The boxer resumed his training with the same rhythmic continuous movement as before, as Luiz and Juan moved away. They went into an area filled with old gym machinery that looked heavily used, where two young men were doing exercise to build up their muscles. Juan greeted them and took the opportunity to give them each a hint or two of approval or criticism about their work. From here they moved on into a very long new space with a ring in the middle and a number of chairs arranged around it, some chipped, some scarred, some painted, others busted. It was a place where people could watch informal fights hidden from most of the public. Illegal fights with betting and their very own rules. Juan climbed into the ring. Luiz smelled the air heavily saturated, very damp and hot. He felt the blood rising to his head, and something like dizziness that made him lose his balance, but he kept a steady and very respectful gaze on
the ring, as though he were looking at Christ on an altar, the only thing he didn’t do was to cross himself. Juan looked worried; for this boy who earlier had seemed so fierce, now seemed deathly afraid to climb into the ring. Or perhaps some kind of special chemistry was being generated between the boy and the ring? He preferred to believe this, and so he kept his mouth shut. The boy then emerged from his apparent apathy and climbed the steps. He grabbed the ropes with his calloused little hands and, slipping between them agilely, he entered the ring. Moving to the center, he cast an inquiring glance at Juan, as if signaling that he was now ready for the next step.

  “Kid, what do you know about boxing?”

  “Boxing? All I know is that this place smells like fighting.”

  “Fighting, you say? And what does fighting smell like?”

  “It smells like sweat, which is the smell of nerves.”

  Juan laughed.

  “It smells bad, you mean.”

  “Yes.” The boy took a step to the right. “And this here on the floor is blood. I sure do know what blood looks like.”.

  Juan felt a surge of pity, but at the same time he grasped that this little boy before him was a true warrior.

  “Kid, boxing is a martial art where you use your fists both for defending as well as attacking. Fights consists of twelve rounds of three minutes each, where each fighter has to land as many accurate punches as possible on his opponent, and prevent his opponent from doing the same to him. An accurate punch, at the right spot and the right time, can change the course of a fight. That’s why it’s as important to know how to defend as it is to know how to attack. One simple moment of carelessness on the defense can cost you the fight. The objective of each boxer in each fight is to get his opponent to go down and stay there for a count of ten seconds, which is done by the referee. If this objective is achieved before the end of the twelve rounds, we have a winner by KO, otherwise there will be a panel of judges deciding who was the winner based on points that are assigned to each boxer throughout the fight. Are you following me, kid?”