The Penalty Area

by Alain Gillot

  “You know, he really won’t be any trouble to you if you leave him at home,” she said.

  “I believe you. But I’m taking him to the field anyway.”

  9

  Madeleine drove me to the garage so that I could pick up my car, and when we got back she went and woke her son and told him he was staying with me.

  Soon afterwards, I saw the boy walk his mother to the door. She gave him a kiss, which he didn’t seem to want. It was all over, without a word, without any particular emotion.

  I suggested breakfast to Léonard, and he filled a bowl full of cereal and took it to his room. I left him alone for at least an hour, then told him I’d decided to take him to training. He didn’t show any surprise, or disapproval—no enthusiasm either, of course. He simply asked me when exactly I was planning to leave, which seemed to matter more to him than what had just happened, his mother’s departure, the fact that he’d be staying in this house with his uncle who was a complete stranger. I told him we’d be leaving at nine-thirty and then went to take a shower. When I came out of the bathroom, Léonard was waiting under the clock in the hall. It was nine thirty-two and something seemed to be disturbing him. He was walking around in circles. He seemed worried. I pretended not to pay any attention to his little game, and we left the house a few minutes later.

  He got in the front and I started the car. I had no intention of having a conversation with him during the ride. I’d always found it ridiculous the way adults tried to win children over by asking them questions about school, their friends, or what they wanted to do later in life.

  When we got to the stadium parking lot, my boys were just going into the locker rooms. Two or three were lagging behind, as usual, and they looked insistently at the passenger I had with me. I thought I should have a word with them about my mysterious companion. Just tell them the truth, without going into details.

  Léonard got out of the car. There was a bit of wind and he wrinkled his nose. I had the impression that all that space disturbed him more than anything else, and I remembered what my sister had said, that more than anything he loved staying in his room, sleeping and playing chess.

  “You can sit there,” I said.

  I pointed to the stands and Léonard immediately headed for them and sat down at the end of the first row of benches.

  Training a group of young people had taught me a fair amount about behavior and, even though he seemed so unusual, Léonard wasn’t so different than a certain kind of player. The kind you must never force, the kind who’ll come onto the field of their own accord, or never. That’s why my idea was to let him watch a training session and see how he reacted.

  The boys came out of the locker room in no particular order. I saw that Marfaing wasn’t there, and neither was Hamed. Every day, there were a few absentees. At least two. They all knew they had to run ten laps around the field to start with, and they hated that.

  “Who’s the guy with you, sir?”

  “My sister’s son. She asked me to keep him during her vacation.”

  “Are you babysitting, sir?”

  “If you like.”

  “It’s weird that you have a sister!”

  “Why?”

  “Dunno, it’s just weird. Doesn’t he play soccer?”

  “We’ll see. Right, we’re going to work on corner kicks today, and I want to see discipline and aggressiveness.”

  “We’ll crack a few heads, sir, promise.”

  “Just crack the net, Bensaid.”

  I glanced at the stands. Léonard was still sitting in the same place. I was too far away to be sure, but it looked as if he was watching.

  I divided the boys between attack and defense in front of the least damaged goal, and chose Cosmin to take the corner kicks. Of all of them, he was the one with the greatest potential. He was capable of wrong-footing an opponent and placing the ball on the head of a teammate from thirty yards. His one problem was that he didn’t know whether it was really worthwhile spending fifteen years running around a soccer field, with all the uncertainties and risks that involved, when he could easily take the much less tiring option of following in his father’s footsteps and running the bar opposite the railroad station.

  The session started. Cosmin took some time to settle, because the ball was heavy and the wind that had swept away the rain was blowing slantwise. Two or three balls went way over their heads, another was much too off-center, and predictably that loudmouth Hervalet yelled that he never got the ball. Cosmin of course responded by giving him the regulation finger, and Bensaid, who was Hervalet’s pal, joined in. Within two minutes, it was like the Gaza Strip. I used the whistle and announced that we’d drop the corner kicks and play a match on half the field.

  “The first team to score three goals wins. If I see one of you heading straight for the goal all by himself, I’ll send him off. If anyone else tries a between-the-legs pass instead of looking for back-up, I’ll send him off too, I want a structured, properly thought-out game, is that understood?”

  I went back to the touchline. I was looking down at the ground as I walked, and thinking hard. I still had a few weeks before the beginning of the championship and I really didn’t think I had a team. I looked up at the stands. The bench was empty.

  I walked to the other side of the building. I told myself that Léonard couldn’t be far away, but there was nobody there either. I looked all around. Nobody. I thought I had the situation under control, but maybe I’d been wrong all down the line! What if, beneath his impassive exterior, Léonard had been playing his cards close to his chest? What if he hadn’t really accepted his mother’s departure? Maybe it had stuck in his throat, and now he’d run away without even knowing where he was going, just to show his anger with adults who didn’t understand.

  I carried on to the edge of the ground and the sports complex. Nothing, no trace of the boy. A thought occurred to me. He might be in the car. In fact that was the most plausible explanation. He’d felt cold and taken shelter there. Like when he’d waited for my sister to come and get him, that first evening. Hadn’t she told me he loved sitting it in all by himself? I walked straight to the parking lot, hoping I was right, but he wasn’t there either. Above all, I mustn’t panic. I needed a vantage point from which I could get a wider view of the surrounding area, and I decided on the stands. From up there, I had a chance of spotting him even if he’d gone and taken refuge over by the cemetery. I walked over to the bleachers and started climbing. And almost immediately, I stopped.

  There was Léonard, lying on the ground between two rows of seats. That was why I hadn’t seen him. He hadn’t run away. He’d fallen asleep.

  10

  I sent everyone to the showers. The score stood at two all, and Bensaid protested, convinced that his team could still win. He was clearly the only one.

  In the meantime, Léonard had shut himself in the car. I walked around the hood, sat down at the wheel, and set off. Léonard had put his head against the window and was looking sideways at the road as it drifted past. I had no intention of asking him what he’d thought of the training session. He’d already given me his answer by falling asleep in the stands. We were halfway home, and not a single word had been uttered. I stopped at a grocery to buy something to go with pasta, and when I got back to the car Léonard hadn’t changed position. I assumed he was asleep. We weren’t very far from the house. The first street lamps came on.

  “I don’t like soccer,” Léonard said. “It’s too simplistic.”

  I heard again that odd, affected tone of voice, which was hard to believe came from a boy of thirteen.

  “You say that because you haven’t seen a real match.”

  “One of my mother’s friends used to watch soccer on Sunday evenings.”

  “That was the French championship. It isn’t a good example.”

  He’d sat up and was staring at the dotted lin
e in the middle of the road, as if hypnotized by it.

  I parked outside the house. Léonard got out first and stood by the door, waiting for me to open it. Before he could go to his room, I pointed to the couch facing the television.

  “Sit down. I have something to show you.”

  I went down into the basement and opened the door of the windowless room that contained Robert Herbach’s “treasure.” Robert had been my chief instructor when I was training to be a coach. He’d been like a father to me, sometimes surly but always close, and since his retirement had coincided with the end of my course, he’d given me this priceless gift, by way of farewell: his collection of videocassettes.

  I switched on the fluorescent light and walked down the narrow aisle. In his thirty-year career, Robert had built up a collection of videos that traced the history of soccer, no more no less, through the greatest matches. Some of these records were known to everyone, others were very rare. There were the finest feats, the most dramatic situations, the moments of grace, and the fiercest altercations, everything the game can produce when it rises above mediocrity. And quite apart from the fact that, for anyone who loved soccer, seeing those images was a source of intense emotion, the collection was a first-class teaching tool. I’d inherited that treasure and felt responsible for it. I’d been worried about the age of some of the cassettes and had converted them to DVD. I’d also categorized the matches by theme, in order to make it easier to access the information. Robert Herbach had died of cirrhosis two years after hanging up his boots, and I’d tried to make that heritage of his bear fruit. I might forget about the treasure for weeks on end, but I always went back to glean something from it. To be honest, my relationship with the collection varied. Sometimes I felt Robert’s benevolent presence in it. But sometimes I found these wonders too overpowering, because they represented a superior form of the game that I’d never have access to.

  I stood in front of the wall of DVDs. Ever since Léonard had uttered the word “simplistic” on the way back, to describe the kind of sport that soccer was, I’d had a match in mind. One that seemed an appropriate response to his verdict.

  I moved the little stool closer. The Champions’ League matches were on the top. There it was, the one I was looking for. I checked the label. Manchester United vs. Real Madrid. Champions’ League quarter-final. 2003.

  Léonard was waiting in the living room, sitting on the couch. He was doing some kind of relaxation exercise with his hands, but at high speed. I loaded the DVD in the player, switched on the TV and pressed Play.

  “Watch this while I make us something to eat. Especially the first half.”

  I didn’t try to catch his eye. By now I was getting used to his ways and knew he would pay attention. His hands had stopped moving.

  I went into the kitchen and washed the leeks. I diced and blanched them for my favorite pasta dish. I heard the sounds of the match coming from the living room. I knew it by heart. I had time to take a shower. Through the wall, I could hear the drone of the commentator. The second half had just started. Zidane was about to pass to Roberto Carlos, who was running forward at top speed, and Carlos would cross it back to Ronaldo, who just had to knock the ball into the goal. I slipped on a clean sweat suit and put the water to boil. I laid two places, facing each other. While I was throwing the pasta into the boiling water, I realized that the game had finished and that Léonard had paused the DVD player.

  I heard a slight noise behind me and turned. My nephew was sitting at the table. He had moved his plate in order not to sit directly opposite me.

  “There are more combinations in this match,” Léonard admitted. “They’re executed with greater speed and precision too, but they’re still quite predictable. It’s like I said. Number 5 moves like the bishop and Number 11 like the knight. When 11 moves diagonally, 5 moves into the middle and always passes back to 11. 11 shoots, or else he again relies on 5 to get closer to the line and then shoots. Four times out of five, he shoots into the left-hand side of the goal but when the ball is given to him on his right foot.”

  I preferred to say nothing. I drained and served the pasta, and Léonard started wolfing it down in a way that contrasted with his affected way of speaking.

  “But I want to see other matches. Do you have any more?”

  “Quite a few, yes. But why continue if it’s such a limited game?”

  “I learned chess in a café where Ma often left me. There were lots of players. I used to watch. They weren’t very good, but it was interesting all the same. I like to use my brain. It’s what I like best.”

  He finished his portion of pasta in three mouthfuls. Then he stood up without asking me anything and went back to the living room to watch the second half.

  I calmly finished my dish and looked at the time on the clock in the hall. It was nine o’clock. I went back to the video library and selected other matches, all from different World Cups. I brought back a pile of DVDs, at least six boxes, which I placed on the low table in the living room, while Léonard still had his eyes riveted to the screen.

  “Don’t go to bed too late.”

  “When I’m tired, I sleep.”

  “Yes, I noticed that.”

  11

  I shut myself up in my room. I needed to feel at home. I settled some overdue bills, threw out some circulars, then waited for my sister to call. It was what we’d agreed, but when the call didn’t come, I dialed her number. All I got was a message saying she couldn’t be reached. I went to bed and read L’Equipe. It was the issue from two days earlier. I skimmed it quickly. I hadn’t really missed anything. Items about doping, astronomical transfer fees, fixed matches. It struck me this was the kind of thing my boys read every day.

  The Manchester United–Real Madrid match must have finished. There was silence from the living room. Then I heard the anthem from one of the World Cups. Léonard had started on the pile. I sank into sleep.

  I woke at eight in the morning. I hadn’t set the alarm, because training was always in the afternoon. Since I had nothing urgent to do, I lay in bed, letting my eyes wander along the crack in the ceiling and trying to get my thoughts in order. It was then that my cell phone started ringing. I checked the number on the screen. I’d never seen it before. I hated picking up and hearing those sales people who asked you if you were satisfied with your payment plan and then tried to get you to switch to a new option. I let it ring twice more, then remembered that my sister was having problems with her provider. I picked up at the last moment.

  “Madeleine here. I’m calling from the phone of a girl I’m doing the course with, so I’m not going to stay on the line for a long time.”

  “You really should get a phone of your own.”

  “I’ll sort that out. In the meantime, I’ll give you my roommate’s number. She’ll pass the message on if it’s urgent. The course looks brilliant. The teachers are great. I have to go, it’s not my phone, and we’re going back into class in a minute.”

  “Léonard’s fine.”

  “What?”

  “I said, Léonard’s fine.”

  “Did you take him to your training session?”

  “Yes.”

  “And?”

  I opened my mouth to answer, but just then we were cut off. Maybe it was a problem with reception, or maybe Madeleine had hung up.

  Léonard was asleep on the couch. He must have just dropped off, as he always did. The pile of DVDs had vanished, he’d gotten through the whole of it, but that wasn’t all. There were others on the table, at least twice as many, which he’d brought up from the basement himself. He must have spent the night watching them. I went to him. He was sleeping curled up, his head against his arm. My eyes came to rest on a school exercise book at the foot of the couch. I remembered what my sister had told me about these exercise books where he noted down possible chess moves. I bent down, picked it up, and leafed through it
. Sure enough, the pages were filled with chess games. You could follow the movements of the pieces on the board, the attacks, the parries. It was quite impressive. And then I continued skimming through pages until I came to the last drawings. I frowned. I wasn’t sure I understood. These were no longer chess pieces that were shown, but players on a field, and the ball was moving around between them according to a very specific tactic.

  I sat down on the edge of the couch. I had to face the facts. Léonard had spent the night viewing a dizzyingly large number of soccer actions. And he hadn’t just watched them. He’d carefully noted down a whole lot of combinations and tactical patterns connected with this simplistic game called soccer.

  I made breakfast and waited for Léonard to wake up. I had my coffee, watching him as he lay there surrounded by the piles of DVDs. This strange specimen was trying to reduce the history of world soccer—nothing more, nothing less—to a few drawings. I wondered if I should laugh in his face or take him seriously. At last, he opened his eyes and saw the cornflakes on the table. He stood up and filled a bowl.

  “I saw what you drew in your exercise book.”

  He didn’t answer, but started eating. I went and fetched the exercise book, sat down next to Léonard, taking care not to face him, and opened the book at one of the pages devoted to soccer. There was a drawing of a backward pass after a successful overlap of a winger.

  “You know, the most difficult thing in soccer isn’t inventing combinations, it’s actually performing them on the field in real time. You can take more cornflakes.”

  I turned another page. This time the drawing depicted a kind of play typical of the Italian national team, Gli Azzurri. The scorpion tactic. You draw your opponent to you, create gaps in his lines, then hit him with a lightning counter-attack.

  “If you understand what your opponent’s going to do,” Léonard said, looking down at his bowl, “it’s easier to respond.”