“I don’t know why you go and watch these races. They don’t do you any good,” his wife said when she saw him sitting in his armchair, eyes closed.
“I thank God for having given me the chance to see Abebe Bikila run,” he answered.
There was a long gallery at the school that gave onto the recreation area. Prefect José María used to walk from one end to the other during the morning break, in order, he said, “to take the air” and to perform three other tasks: first, to keep an eye on those who had been kept in as punishment and make sure they were doing the work they had been set; second, to observe those playing sport down below and see if anyone showed unusual talent; third, to check in the newspaper for any reports of handball matches, especially those involving his favourite handball team, Salleko.
He was a heavily built man, and the older students called him “Hippo”, short for “hippopotamus”. He had a big head of curly hair, moist green eyes and creamy white skin.
In his welcoming speech, he would tell the new students: “The first word you should learn in this school is ‘Salleko’. Along with Madrid Athletic and Granollers, they’re the best handball team in Spain! Two years ago, we came second in the League. Last year, we were third.”
The team was very dear to his heart, because they spread the name of the school throughout Spain and because he had personally discovered some of the star players when they were still only adolescents, having spotted them from the gallery during break-time in the recreation area.
“Perhaps one of you will turn out to be a really good player and make us league champions.”
The new students would listen, smiling and slightly embarrassed.
When he reached the end of his speech, he would speak more gravely.
“Lastly, one very important thing. The matter of my name. Everyone here calls me ‘Hippo’, which is fine. I even rather like it, but …”
He left that “but” hanging for a few seconds.
“… don’t let me hear you using it. If I’m within earshot, refer to me either as ‘Prefect’ or as ‘Brother José María’. Do you understand?”
All the new students, without exception, nodded.
Once a week, Don Santiago and the Prefect would patrol the gallery together, along with Don Ramón the priest, and would use this time to review the sporting situation. In January 1968, during their first conversation after the Christmas holidays, the future looked rather grim. Salleko was having a very erratic season and was only fifth in the League; as for football, Real Sociedad had improved slightly after a disastrous start – when they were beaten 9–1 by Real Madrid – drawing with Barcelona in Camp Nou, but they were still very low down the table. And there were no new developments in the hand pelota stakes, for it seemed certain that the final would be between Atano X and Azkarate.
The talk shifted from professional sport to amateur, and they began discussing cross-country running.
“What are we going to do about this year’s Junior Championship, Don Santiago?” the Prefect said. “It’s only a couple of months away.”
He leaned on the balustrade, looking down at the recreation area.
About fifty students were playing football. Another ten were on the pelota court. The others, scattered around the recreation area, were eating their break-time sandwich. It appeared, at least at first sight, that no-one was smoking.
“I’m feeling a bit depressed about it really,” Don Santiago said. He, too, had gone over to the balustrade and was gazing down at the recreation area, without looking at anything or anyone in particular.
“What’s wrong, Don Santiago? Do you think the Jesuits are going to win?”
“Certainly not!” Don Santiago exclaimed. “They won’t even make the first ten.”
“Won’t ours either?”
“López might, but I’m not sure. He’s been very slack lately, almost as slow as Ganuza.”
“I think our cross-country team needs some new blood,” the Prefect said, putting his arm around Don Santiago’s shoulder. He was smiling broadly.
“Who did you have in mind, José María?”
The Prefect pointed to one of the students playing football.
“Aguiriano. The long-legged boy in the navy-blue jersey.”
Don Santiago studied him closely. The boy cut rather a gawky figure, but he had a good, long stride. And he was strong too.
“He runs from the station to school every day,” the Prefect told him. “He arrives five minutes ahead of the students who come on the train. He’s a good lad. From a village too, not from the city, like López and the other rich kids. Why not put him in the team, Don Santiago?”
“He’s not exactly a graceful mover, José María.”
The Prefect again put his arm about his shoulder.
“Remember Zátopek. He was the ugliest runner in the history of athletics, and yet he was one of the best ever. People called him “the Czech locomotive”.”
Don Santiago took another look at Aguiriano.
“He’s certainly strong.”
“Why not give him a go?”
“Alright, I will.”
They went down into the recreation area to talk to Aguiriano.
Once the runners reached the station and turned to the left, they found themselves at the rear of the barracks, where they were out of range of Don Santiago’s binoculars, and all of them – López, Leblanc, Vergara and Ganuza – would then take the opportunity to have a rest. They would stop running and walk instead, until, at the end of a long wall, they again came within range of the binoculars.
When they reached that point on Aguiriano’s first training day, he was surprised to find that his companions had stopped running. He looked back, ran round in circles a few times, then, not knowing what else to do, continued on. López shouted to him:
“Where are you going? Stop!”
The rest of the group began shouting at him. Was he stupid or something? What was he doing, going off on his own like that?
Aguiriano hesitated. He disliked any kind of cheating and couldn’t understand their attitude. Besides, it frightened him. If Don Santiago found out and reported back to Hippo, the Prefect would be terribly angry. And he didn’t want that. Hippo was very good to the poorer students from the villages. On the other hand, he didn’t want to fall out with his fellow runners, certainly not on the first day.
They began to run slowly. Aguiriano and Ganuza went ahead, with Vergara, López and Leblanc about five yards behind.
Vergara spoke loudly enough for them all to hear.
“It’s our fault. We didn’t explain the rules. That’s why he didn’t understand what was going on.”
“Rules? That’s the first I’ve heard of any rules,” Ganuza said. “I thought we were just skiving.”
Vergara told him to be quiet and ran to catch up with Aguiriano.
“Those are our rules, you see. Up until the first of March, we take it easy and keep the training as light as possible. We have a bit of a rest when we reach the barracks, then take it in turns to be the leader …”
“If we do it often enough, Plati thinks we really are putting our all into it. An optical illusion,” Ganuza said.
This was the first time Aguiriano had heard Don Santiago’s nickname, “Plati”. It wasn’t particularly ugly, but he knew he would never use it. The thought of that piece of platinum lodged in Don Santiago’s head set his teeth on edge.
They left the wall behind them and headed down the path by the allotments. A hundred yards further on, they would be back in full sight of the binoculars. They continued jogging slowly along, almost at walking pace.
“So no overdoing it until the first of March, Aguiriano,” Vergara said. “We all stick together, right? From then on, though, and up until the championship, it’ll be full steam ahead and every man for himself.”
“You talk too much, Vergara,” López said from behind. He seemed annoyed.
“He’s worried,” Vergara whispered to Aguiriano. �
�Up until now, he’s been the best in the team, but now that you’ve joined, he’s feeling a bit nervous.”
“The day you beat López, I’ll be a happy man,” Ganuza said. “He’s always making fun of me. Do you know what he calls me?”
Aguiriano shook his head. He found his companions frankly alarming.
“He calls me ‘Sixty-seven’. Good morning, Sixty-seven, Good afternoon, Sixty-seven. Because that’s where I came in last year’s championship.”
“Don’t you two get on?” Aguiriano asked.
Ganuza lowered his voice: “No, not really.”
“Don’t exaggerate. It’s not that bad,” Vergara said. “We’re all part of the La Salle team.”
“Binoculars on the horizon!” Leblanc shouted, and they all speeded up.
February was cold and rainy, and the training sessions were getting harder. The five runners would return to school covered in mud and always in the same order: López first, Aguiriano second, then, some way behind, Vergara, Leblanc and Ganuza. They were working as a team, respecting the pact they had made – stopping when they reached the rear of the barracks and taking it in turns to be the leader over the last mile or so – and they were all making an effort to create a positive atmosphere, even López; one day, he brought along some liniment and shared it with them all; on another, he brought a camera to take a picture of the team.
Aguiriano felt he was steadily improving. He really enjoyed being a cross-country runner, although he did sometimes feel a little awkward, especially in the showers, when López and the others stripped off outside the cubicles, and he couldn’t help seeing their bottoms and their private parts; however, Leblanc – the most silent among them, but also the most sympathetic – told him:
“No need to be embarrassed, Aguiriano, this is normal among sportsmen. You wouldn’t expect us to get showered fully dressed, would you?”
Vergara was also friendly, possibly the friendliest of them all, and one day he took Aguiriano to one of the Sunday dances and introduced him to lots of pretty girls. But there was something else too, something that helped him feel at ease in the cross-country running team. During their training runs, when they were heading towards the barracks, or along the muddy path by the river, with López in front and him behind, he had the feeling that he could easily, almost effortlessly, overtake him. Could he be the best runner in school? A little voice in his head was telling him that he was.
Towards the end of February, there was heavy snow, and a new idea alighted imperceptibly in his mind, like another snowflake. López was good and last year had come eighth in the championship. If he was better than López, how far could he go? He once asked Vergara about this, as discreetly as he could:
“What goal do you think I should set myself?”
“I think you should always set yourself the highest goal possible,” Vergara said.
The students who travelled on the train used to make fun of him because of his habit of running from the station to school, but then they weren’t sportsmen, they were smokers, people whose vice had been punished more than once by Hippo; and yet, despite that, he did make friends with one student called “Lawrence”, who had an incredible memory for sporting records. After Aguiriano joined the cross-country team, Lawrence would sometimes sit next to him and fire questions at him as if he were a quizmaster:
“What was Alain Mimoun’s winning time in the Melbourne marathon?”
Aguiriano would happily join in and give the answers, although these were usually wrong. And yet he always got Zátopek’s times right. Zátopek was his idol.
“What was Zátopek’s best time over ten thousand metres?” “Twenty-eight minutes, fifty-four point two seconds!”
Lawrence always used to say “winning time” or “best time”, and Aguiriano adopted these terms too.
The second day of March was a Wednesday, colder even than in February, and, at first, Don Santiago watched from inside the house; however, five minutes later, he was out on the balcony, oblivious to the cold, amazed at what he was seeing through his binoculars: Aguiriano was in the lead as they ran along the icy bank of the river, a good ten yards ahead of López, fifteen yards ahead of Vergara and Leblanc and forty or fifty yards ahead of poor Ganuza. What Aguiriano lacked in style, he made up for in speed.
“Come on! Come on!” Don Santiago shouted, his breath forming a cloud in the air. As if he had heard these words, Aguiriano accelerated and increased his lead still further.
Don Santiago was reluctant to go home. He would have liked to stay on at school until late and share his thoughts about the upcoming championship in the light of that last training session and the new hierarchy in the team; however, his preferred companion, the Prefect, was away on retreat, and so he had to take his ideas to bed with him. As he lay dozing in the darkness of his bedroom, he imagined Aguiriano running hard along the frozen river path, with the others being left ever further behind.
When the Prefect returned to school and came to watch the runners doing their training, Don Santiago received him with a broad smile on his face.
“You look very pleased with yourself, Don Santiago,” the Prefect said. “Had some good news?”
“You’ll see for yourself in a moment, José María.”
They waited until the five runners had covered the first part of the course, from the school to the station and from the station to the barracks. Then, when they reached the allotments, Don Santiago picked up his binoculars and began to follow them.
“Take a look, José María,” he said after a while, handing him the binoculars.
“Our village boy can certainly run!” the Prefect said. “What an improvement! He’s showing López a clean pair of heels, alright.”
“Keep watching, José María, keep watching.”
The runners had reached the path along by the river.
“If I wasn’t seeing it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t believe it. He’s put on a spurt now and is even further ahead. There’s more than ten yards between him and López,” the Prefect said.
“La Salle has found its runner, José María!” Don Santiago cried. “All thanks to you.”
He was filled with the same emotion he had felt on the day he watched Abebe Bikila run, a mixture of laughter and tears. Reality and dream were now running along the same track.
That night, back at home, his wife looked at him very hard and said:
“Santi, tell me honestly: have you started drinking again?”
“No, I haven’t. I’m just happy, that’s all.”
“If you have started drinking, that’s your lookout. Don’t forget you’ve got a piece of platinum in your head. Taking to drink again is the worst thing you could do.”
The nightmare also had its place on the track, but no matter. In his own way, he was a locomotive too. Like Zátopek and like Aguiriano.
Don Santiago could not stop talking about Aguiriano, whether walking up and down the gallery with Don Ramón, in the chapel after Mass, or at meetings with the other teachers. La Salle finally had a runner who could well become junior champion of Guipúzcoa: Aguiriano.
He went to see the head teacher.
“We’ve had an outstanding handball team for some years,” he said, “but from now on, we’re going to be big in athletics too.”
The head teacher offered to help. They would organise a bus for those students and teachers who wished to go to the championship and cheer on Aguiriano.
“He already has a lot of fans, I believe,” he said. “I hear them urging him on during the training sessions.”
It was true. Some teachers allowed their students to skip the last class in the afternoon so that they could go and watch the runners training. At the end of the four-mile circuit – with Aguiriano a long way out in front, followed by López and Vergara, and, much later, by Leblanc and Ganuza – his fellow students would greet him with genuine fervour.
On March 14, a week before the race, all the team members apart from Aguiriano appeared at the
door of the Prefect’s office.
“Take a seat,” he said when he saw them.
They obeyed and sat down, eyes fixed on the floor.
“What’s going on?” the Prefect asked, but he already knew. He knew the moment he saw them. Suddenly, everything fitted, and the variables of the equation became clear.
“It was all a joke,” Vergara said, without looking up. “We were just having him on.”
The Prefect said nothing. He wanted a full explanation.
“We didn’t mean any harm,” Vergara went on. “Aguiriano seemed such an innocent and took the sport so seriously. We decided to play a trick on him and let him win.”
“He’s not really that good,” Leblanc said. “About my level really.”
Vergara looked up, but still without meeting the Prefect’s eye.
“We wanted to stop, but, by then, it was too late. Aguiriano is convinced now that he’s a great runner.”
López pulled a sad face.
“We didn’t set out to do it,” he said. “It happened almost by accident.”
This was the only way of avoiding punishment, by alleging that there had been no evil intent, that it had all been a joke. If they lost points for bad behaviour, they wouldn’t be allowed back to school for a month.
The Prefect asked them about the running times. Aguiriano had lopped a whole minute off the time they normally took to complete the circuit. That was what had fooled him.
Nevada Days Page 18
