The Spectre of Alexander Wolf

by Gaito Gazdanov

“You credit it with such significance?”

  “Why not?” he said. “Life goes by without leaving a trace: millions of people disappear, and no one remembers them. And of these millions only the smallest handful remains. What could be more remarkable? Or look at it this way: take a beautiful woman, like Marina, for whom dozens of people are even prepared to die—a few years and there’ll be nothing left of her other than a rotting corpse. Now is that really fair?”

  “Truly, one can only pity that you aren’t a writer.”

  “Ah, my dear friend, of course. And you thought I was grieved about this for no good reason! I’m a simple man, but what’s to be done if the thirst for immortality resides within me? I’ve led a very rakish life—all girls and restaurants—but it doesn’t mean that I’ve never given serious thought to anything. Quite the contrary, after the girls and restaurants, in peace and solitude, that’s when you remember everything, and when it rests especially heavily on the heart. Any libertine or drunkard can tell you this.”

  Now he was in a contemplative mood and was almost sober. He eventually adopted a tone that elders sometimes use when speaking to their juniors: “When you’ve lived as long as I have…”, “You, of course, are too young…” The conversation then returned to Wolf, but Voznesensky revealed nothing new about him.

  Several more weeks passed by, and in all this time nothing was added to my knowledge, even as far as my own speculations were concerned. I didn’t receive a single letter from London. More than once, the thought crossed my mind that the situation might for ever remain at this impasse: Wolf might die, I might never meet him, and my sum knowledge of him would be confined to “The Adventure in the Steppe”, my personal recollections of those torrid summer days and what Voznesensky had told me. Again I would recall the road, the white-and-green town on the Dnieper, the sounds of the piano in the little villa, and the jangling from the bracelets around Marina’s arms—then everything would gradually fade and grow dark, and finally almost nothing would remain, except, perhaps, for the book written in that taut, precise language, whose title sounded to me like distant mockery.

  I continued to frequent the restaurant from time to time, although my visits never coincided with Voznesensky’s. He had, however, lost a significant portion of my interest. The gramophone connected to the radio apparatus played its records as usual, and every time the deep woman’s voice began the song:

  There’s no need for anything,

  Not even late regrets…

  I would involuntarily raise my head and imagine the door swinging open and Voznesensky walking in, swiftly followed by a man with fair hair and the fixed gaze of those grey eyes. I now remembered clearly that he had grey eyes, despite their being clouded over by the approach of death when I first saw them; I noticed their colour only because it had taken place in such exceptional circumstances.

  The mode of my life remained as it always had been. Nothing about it changed; everything was, as ever, chaotic and unhappy. At times I was unable to detach myself from the impression that I had been living like this for an endless length of time and, to the point of deathly ennui, had already witnessed all that I was destined to see: this city, these cafés and cinemas, these newspaper offices, the same conversations about the same things with practically the same people. Then, one day in February, during a mild and rainy winter, without forewarning or anticipation of anything new, events were set in motion that, as a result, were to take me a great distance. In fact, their origin cannot in any way be put down to chance, at least not as far as I am concerned. Just as I had been writing obituaries some time ago, filling in for Bossuet (who had now, thankfully, regained his health and, with unaccountable zeal, once again taken up writing his lyrical obituaries), so now I was to stand in for another colleague, a sports correspondent who had gone to Barcelona to attend a highly important—as far as he was concerned—international football match. The day after this, a no less significant event was to take place in Paris, namely the light-heavyweight world championship final, and I had been entrusted to cover the fight. The outcome of the match greatly interested me. I had a complete overview of the careers and respective merits of both opponents, and their clash held a particular appeal. One of the boxers was a Frenchman, the renowned Émile Dubois; the other was an American, Fred Johnson, whose European debut this was. Dubois was the popular favourite. I was among the few who thought that Johnson would win the match; I had information at my disposal that was unknown to the majority of the public and even that of journalists, and so I had grounds on which to base my theory. I had long known of Dubois; over the last few years he hadn’t lost a single match. Despite this, however, he was not what could be called an outstanding boxer. He had an undoubted natural ability, but this was due in principle to the absence of certain faults rather than the sum of his merits: he was noted for having exceptional stamina, he could withstand an onslaught of ferocious blows, his heart and lungs were excellent, and he was able to maintain a constant, steady control over his breathing. Those were his positive traits, but they were insufficient to aver any keen professional originality. The tactics he employed—always the same—testified to a complete lack of imagination and creativity; they had proven successful a couple of times, and so thereafter he never altered them. He had short arms, and he was neither quick nor agile enough. He won his matches through frequent corps à corps, his blows always struck at his opponent’s ribs, and he only had two top-class knockouts to his career—both complete flukes. He had cauliflower ears, and a disjointed nose from taking direct hits; he usually charged at his opponent like a bull, dropping his strong head and bearing the barrage of blows with unquestionable, blind bravery. He was the European light-heavyweight champion, and on this occasion all the papers predicted a swift victory for him. In his private life he was a stupid but extremely kind-hearted man. Incidentally, he never levelled any complaints against journalists, regardless of what they wrote about him, and anyway, to top it all off, he read with difficulty and took little interest in what the papers said.

  As far as Fred Johnson was concerned, I knew only what the American press had written about him. It required a great effort to extract from the mass of publicity pieces any real information by which to judge him. Johnson had been unable to complete his university studies, because he lacked the necessary funds, and it was precisely this that caused him to choose boxing as a profession. That in itself was odd enough. A second peculiarity of his—without doubt purely professional—was that he carried almost all his matches right through to the final round. A third, which nearly everyone who wrote about him found cause to lament, was that he lacked the necessary power behind his punch, leaving the number of knockouts in his career negligible. Still, they would occur every now and then, causing general amazement each time, but since it happened so rarely it was always soon forgotten. All those who wrote about him, without exception, remarked on the unusual speed of his movements and the variety of his tactics. I had seen his photograph many times: Johnson’s face, as opposed to the majority of other boxers’ faces, bore no trace of disfigurement. Reading through a few dozen articles about him and charting the results of his matches, I drew a few, purely theoretical, conclusions, which I was now intent on proving. My conclusions were as follows: firstly, Johnson was intelligent, at least as far as boxing was concerned, and this gave him an instant sizeable advantage over his opponent. (I greatly admire boxing, but I’ve long been convinced that nine times out of ten any illusions as to a boxer’s presence of mind or his having even an elementary degree of ingenuity, if only in the technical sense, are completely baseless.) Secondly, Johnson evidently possessed no less stamina than Dubois, since only a boxer with exceptional physical ability could allow himself the luxury of holding out for ten or fifteen rounds each time. Thirdly, he had mastered the technique of defence—the evidence being that, despite this career in boxing, his face had escaped relatively untouched. Lastly, and most importantly, he did indeed seem to have the requisite power behind
his punch to deliver a knockout when absolutely necessary, but used it only on exceedingly rare occasions, preferring to win his matches on points. Also, he was younger than Dubois by six years; this too bore a certain significance.

  I was confident that my conclusions were correct; however, they were based on unreliable secondary sources, such as sporting reports in American newspapers are wont to be. Johnson’s challenge in this match came down to one thing only: that he ought to hold Dubois at a distance and avoid corps à corps. I was sure that Johnson would recognize this necessity and that, on that basis, his technical superiority should secure him the match.

  It had been a long time since I last saw such a crowd or such a mass of motor cars as I did on the evening of the match, in front of the entrance to the enormous Palais des Sports. Tickets were sold out far in advance. The American ambassador’s colossal vehicle was parked right in front of the Palais. Outside, a multitude of people thronged under the fine winter drizzle; the odd ticket tout could be seen hiding from the police in some dark corner. I’d hardly taken a few steps when an acquaintance of mine called out to me; he was a young architect whom I knew from my student days in the Latin Quarter.

  “You lucky devil!” he shouted, shaking my hand. “You don’t need to find some scoundrel to sell you a twenty-franc ticket for a hundred and fifty francs! Damn it, I need to get a press pass, just like you. Are you betting against Dubois? I’m down for ten francs. Oh, there he is!” he shouted, spotting a little man in a cap. “There’s my ticket! See you later.” And with that, he vanished.

  That instant, with only a hint of a foreign accent, a female voice said to me very calmly and flatly:

  “Excuse me, but are you really a journalist?”

  I turned around. Standing in front of me was a woman of around twenty-five or twenty-six, well dressed, with small grey eyes and a rather beautiful, placid face. The style of her hat accentuated her clear, well-shaped forehead. I was astonished that she had approached a total stranger; it seemed out of character. However, she spoke so freely and with such ease that I immediately replied that, yes, indeed I was a journalist, and would be glad if I could be of some assistance to her.

  “I couldn’t get a ticket for the match,” she said. “I’d really love to see it. Couldn’t you get me in?”

  “I’ll try,” I answered. In the end, after lengthy talks with the management and having bribed the ticket inspector, we were both admitted to the hall. I offered her my seat, which she accepted without any embarrassment, while I remained standing beside her, next to a concrete barrier that separated our seats from some others. Never once thereafter did she even glance at me. Before the match began, barely turning her head, she asked me:

  “Who do you think will win?”

  “Johnson,” I said.

  By then, however, the boxers were already in the ring, and so the conversation ended there. The two fights preceding the championship match had been of no interest whatsoever. Finally, the moment had arrived when the main event was ready to begin. I glimpsed the broad, stocky figure of Dubois in a dark-pink Turkish robe; he approached the ring, accompanied by his manager and two others brandishing towels. His placid, vacant face wore that typical apathetic smile. The crowd applauded and cheered; shouts of encouragement could be heard from above:

  “Vas-y, Mimile! Fais lui voir! Tape dedans! T’as qu’à y aller franchement!”

  I failed to notice Johnson approaching the ring. He literally slid under the ropes and sprang up next to Dubois. As occasionally happens, a single random movement (in this instance, how he bent under the ropes and then straightened up again) can reveal how a whole body is possessed of a perfectly balanced range of movement. Johnson wore a navy-blue robe with vertical stripes. Once they disrobed, the difference between them became immediately apparent. Dubois seemed much broader and heavier than his opponent. Again, I saw his round, strong shoulders, his hairy chest and thick, muscular legs. With Johnson, I was struck first and foremost by how lean he was—his protruding ribs, and arms and legs that seemed especially thin in comparison to Dubois’s. However, on closer inspection I saw that he had an immense ribcage, broad shoulders, legs of almost balletic beauty, and, on his hairless torso, his modest, flat muscles moved freely and obediently under his glistening skin. He had blond hair and an ugly, animated face. To look at, one would have supposed him to be around nineteen years old; he was, in fact, twenty-four. The audience applauded him too, but not, of course, as they had done Dubois. He bowed without smiling. At the sound of the gong, the match commenced.

  I was immediately alarmed that Johnson’s defensive position, similar to Dempsey’s classical stance (both fists almost at eye level), was clearly unsuited to a match against Dubois, as it left his torso completely open. After the first round, however, I realized my mistake: Johnson’s true defence lay not in one stance or another, but in the rare speed of his movements. Dubois opened the match at a blistering pace, which was out of character for him; he had evidently bowed to the advance instructions of his manager. One could see that he had trained superbly; never had I seen him in such perfect form. From where I was standing I had a clear view of the relentless barrage of blows, and I could hear their dull, pounding sound, similar from afar to the soft, uneven thud of hooves. They landed on Johnson’s exposed chest; he drew back, circling the ring. Dubois’s attack had been so unremitting that the public fixed their attention solely on him. No one, it seemed, was thinking about Johnson: “He’s not there, he’s not in the ring, I can’t see even see his shadow!”—“It’s not a match, it’s a massacre!” screeched one woman’s voice. Spurred on by the crowd, Dubois bore down on his opponent all the more fervently; you could see his round, energetic shoulders, the heavy, repetitive movements of his massive legs, and from an outsider’s point of view it began to seem as though any resistance to this living, breathing, unstoppable machine was out of the question. The whole crowd thought likewise, and even the odd spectator, managing to keep his cool and follow the fight attentively, had to be of the same opinion.

  “It’s always the way with Americans,” shouted my neighbour. “They work miracles in America, but they’re given a drubbing in Europe!”

  Because of the incredible speed with which the first round seemed to pass, I could not judge to what degree Johnson had the upper hand. Only during the time-out did I notice that he was breathing calmly and evenly, and on his face was that same intense, assured expression that I remembered from his photographs in the newspapers.

  The second and third rounds were re-enactments of the first. I had never thought Dubois capable of such a swift, fierce attack, but it was already clear that he would be unable to achieve his sought-after corps à corps, from which Johnson would constantly back away. Dubois kept striving for it and spared no energy. His body glistened with sweat, but the blows kept falling with that same rhythm, never abating even for a minute. Johnson was continually drawing back, making almost full circles around the ring. At the end of the fourth round, it seemed as though the match had been decisively won and all that remained were a few formalities for a final ruling—the blows had continued to rain down on Johnson, who, by some miracle, was still standing: “Coup de grâce! Coup de grâce!” shouted shrill voices from above. “T’as qu’à en finir, Mimile!” Then, suddenly, there was a movement in the ring, like lightning, so quick that literally no one managed to catch it; the instant thud of a falling body rang out, and I saw that Dubois had gone crashing down with all his weight to the ground. It was so unexpected and so inconceivable that the noise from the crowd—a monstrous, simultaneous groan—swept through the whole of the enormous Palais des Sports. Even the referee was so taken aback that he did not immediately begin the count. At the count of seven, Dubois’s body was still motionless. At eight, the sound of the gong rang out, declaring the end of the round.

  From the fifth round onwards, the match acquired a completely different character. Just as until the fourth interval it had seemed as though only Dubois was
in the ring, so now it was with Johnson. Only then was it possible to assess Johnston’s extraordinary qualities. It was a masterclass in first-rate boxing, and Johnson was the unmistakable teacher, incapable of making a single error. Moreover, he was clearly going easy on his opponent. Dubois, half stunned, moved almost blindly, invariably running into Johnson’s fists. He fell many more times, but would always get up with that same incredible strength of his. Towards the end, he almost gave up defending himself, covering his face helplessly with his hands, and, with his typical (and now barely conscious) courage, endured every blow. One of his eyes was swollen, and blood was trickling down his face; he licked it away mechanically, audibly gulping down his saliva. It was unclear why the referee didn’t put a stop to the match. A few times in the middle of the round Johnson raised his arms, looking questioningly now at Dubois, now at the referee, and I distinctly heard him say: “But he’s dead.” However, he shrugged his shoulders and continued with the now unnecessary demonstration of his amazing art. Only at the beginning of the sixth round, with that same quick movement, but this time seen by everyone, did his right fist strike Dubois’s chin with an almighty power and precision; Dubois was carried out of the ring unconscious. A great cry went up in the room, amorphous and incoherent, and the crowd began slowly to disperse.

  The winter rain poured down unceasingly. My companion and I stepped out into the street; I hailed a taxi and asked her where she was going.

  “You’ve been so kind,” she said, already sitting inside, with the door still open; “I don’t know how to thank you.”

  “How about a cup of coffee? It’s good for you after intense excitement,” I said. She agreed, and we set off for an all-night café on rue Royale. Raindrops beat against the car windows, dimly glinting in the light from the street lamps.

  “Why did you think Johnson would win the match?” she asked. I explained my reasoning to her in detail.