‘Will you promise to keep your fists in your pockets if I tell you something in confidence?’ he asked.
‘Why do you want me to keep my fists in my pockets?’
‘Because I’m a heavyweight and I wouldn’t want to take you apart like an old carcass.’
‘Don’t you think I’m a match for you?’
‘No chance.’
‘In that case, let’s stop this right now.’
He stood in my way. ‘It’s for your own good, Turambo, I promise you.’
‘Have you been asked to lecture me?’
‘So what if I have?’
He may have been trying to act tough, but I could tell from the look in his eyes that he was genuine. ‘Why are you all so worried about me?’
‘We’re a family, little brother. Times are hard and we have to stick together.’
‘All right. Say what you have to say and let’s have done with it. I need to get some fresh air.’
‘Let’s go in the park. They say it’s more romantic.’
Mouss was patronising me, his voice throaty and drawling as if he was trying to put me to sleep. I suppose his phenomenal strength made people look tiny to him. The journalists hated him for his arrogance, but he didn’t give a damn. As long as he punched right, he didn’t care about anything else. But he was generally credited with being honest, he wasn’t the kind to flirt with trouble or fix matches – which was common enough in that world. I think he admired me, and even respected me. He didn’t come and congratulate me after fights, but he’d watch me from a distance, stand to one side so that I could see him give me a secret sign, then stride off into the crowd. I admit I didn’t like him much. He often made a fuss about nothing to draw attention to himself. His narcissism irritated me. We both came from the same terrible beginnings, from the lowest of the low, but we weren’t climbing the ladder for the same reasons. In the ring, Mouss was a bulldozer. He hit to kill. His gloves were fashioned out of flesh. He didn’t fight to make his career or fortune, he fought to prove to himself that he hadn’t died with his family, to get his revenge for the blows he had received without being allowed to return them. He had lost his family very young. His father, a slave, had been whipped to death by an overseer and his mother had thrown herself off a cliff … For Mouss, when the bell rang, it brought back to life the dead and the absent and awoke old demons. He saw his opponent simply as an antidote: by making mincemeat of him, he was able to cure himself.
It wasn’t the same for me.
As far as I was concerned, boxing was neither a cure nor a redemption, it was just a way of making a living.
We walked to a little paved courtyard lined with wrought-iron benches and opted for the shade of a weeping willow leaning over a fountain. Mouss stretched his neck to the right and left, pushed back his tartan cap, placed his big bear-like mitts on my shoulders and looked me full in the eyes.
‘De Stefano wants what’s best for you,’ he said. ‘He’s a man who knows what he’s talking about. If I hadn’t listened to him when I was starting out, I wouldn’t be wearing these smart clothes and I wouldn’t be sleeping in a bed …’
Swaying slightly, he sniffed loudly and looked to the right and left like some pick-up artist.
‘I could have taken a wife and settled down,’ he went on. ‘That’s not enough for me, little brother. Before, I was just another Negro good for nothing except unloading carts. By boxing I’ve become somebody. Who even notices the colour of my skin? My gloves are my visiting card now, and they can open any door. I weigh a hundred and twenty kilos, but I feel as light as a feather. I can have all the women I want, and all the privileges, and nobody asks questions. You know why? For one reason, and one reason only: I’m alive, and I take full advantage of it … You mustn’t get things mixed up, boy. Making love is one thing. Love itself is another matter entirely; it limits you. You don’t reduce the world to a woman, however wonderful she is … Why be content with a queen when you can have a harem? That’s just being stupid. You can’t put a rope round your neck without condemning yourself to the leash or the gallows.’
‘Is that what you have to tell me in confidence?’
‘I’m coming to that. I’m a heavyweight after all, I move slowly … Personally, I agree with De Stefano. He’s not just a sage, De Stefano, he’s a saint. When he tells you to throw in the towel, you throw in the towel and don’t try to understand.’
‘Please get to the point, my head’s going to explode.’
Mouss took his hands off my shoulders and folded his arms over his chest. An enigmatic smile hovered on his lips. ‘Irène isn’t the right girl for you. She’s playing with your innocence.’
‘Oh, really? And where do you know Irène from? Did your ancestors have a word with her while you were in a trance?’ I was deliberately trying to wound him.
He ignored my provocation. He merely strutted about on the spot then said, ‘Does she still have that strawberry-shaped mark on her right buttock?’
My fist flew of its own accord.
He swayed, but didn’t fall. ‘You promised to keep your fists in your pockets, Turambo,’ he grunted, casually rubbing his jaw. ‘It isn’t right not to keep your word … Sorry you’re taking it like this. I wasn’t trying to offend you or manipulate you. I thought you had a right to know and I had a duty to tell you the truth. As far as I’m concerned, I did what I had to do. You do what you want now. It’s not my problem any more.’
He lifted one finger to his temple in farewell, pulled his cap down over his eyes and strode back to the bustle of the streets.
It was dark by the time I got to the farm. Drizzle was falling on the mist-shrouded countryside. Big clouds jostled in the low sky while a cold that was unusual for the time of year was sharpening its claws. A small, dirt-encrusted car stood outside the house, its door wide open. The Ventabrens had a visitor. A young doctor dressed in black was examining Alarcon Ventabren, who lay on his bed looking pale, sweating profusely, laid low by fever, rings under his eyes, his mouth cracked and dry. Irène stood in a corner of the room, wringing her hands, overcome with anxiety.
The doctor put his gear in his bag. He looked ill at ease. ‘I’ve given him a sedative,’ he said. ‘That should bring his temperature down. It isn’t a chill and it isn’t indigestion, and I can’t explain the vomiting. It may be a virus, maybe not. If his condition doesn’t improve, drive him to hospital.’
Irène walked the doctor to his car. I stayed by Alarcon’s bedside, upset and useless, my mind full of Mouss’s revelations. During the drive from Oran to the farm, his voice had reverberated in my head until it felt as if it would explode. I couldn’t see the road winding in front of me or the mist on my windscreen. Torn between sorrow and the fear of confronting Irène, I twice almost missed a bend and nearly ended up in a ditch.
What was I doing here?
I was unhappy, buried beneath a mountain of despair, disgusted with everything.
Irène returned, looking ghostly. Was it her father or the darkness in my eyes that bothered her? She sat down on a stool near the bed, dipped a handkerchief in a pan of water beside her and began moistening her father’s face. It was as if she had guessed what was making me gloomy and sad, as if someone had told her what had happened between Mouss and me.
Alarcon muttered something in his sleep. Irène listened carefully but couldn’t grasp the meaning. I didn’t react, stuck in a glass mould that forbade me the slightest movement. Blood pounded in my temples at regular intervals, like a leaking tap.
‘I don’t know what’s wrong with him,’ she said at last. ‘He came down with it suddenly.’
I didn’t know why the effect of hearing her voice took away half my fears.
She stood up and walked past me, her mind elsewhere. I followed her into the kitchen, where the dishes from lunch were waiting to be cleaned. Some of the food hadn’t even been touched, suggesting that things had deteriorated without warning.
‘He really scared me,’ she admitted.
‘I thought he was going to die. I ran to the village to fetch the doctor.’
She grabbed a plate and emptied the food into a cardboard box.
‘If you’d come earlier, I wouldn’t be in this state. I was lost, I didn’t know where to turn. I was in a panic …’
‘Mouss mentioned the mark you have on your lower back.’
I had said it. I would have given anything to take back my words, to swallow them. Now wasn’t the time, I thought, scolding myself. Too late! The burden that had been weighing me down had come out into the open, taking away all my anger and anxiety. I felt as drained as a possessed person from whom the devil has been driven out, liberated but in danger, like a bird that has left its cage and is exposed to the perils of an unknown world.
Irène froze. She stood over the sink for a few moments, speechless, the plate in her hands. Her shoulders slumped suddenly, then her neck. She let the plate drop into the water, took several deep breaths, then slowly turned, her face scarlet, her eyes glistening with tears. ‘What are you trying to say?’ she asked in a hollow voice.
‘Is it true that he knows?’
The colour returned to her face and her eyes darkened. ‘He wasn’t blind, if my memory serves me well.’
‘He says —’
‘Shut up,’ she interrupted me. She wiped her hands on her apron and leant back against the sink. When at last she had her breathing under control, she folded her arms over her chest and looked me up and down with a disdain I had never seen in her before. ‘How long have we been together, Amayas?’
‘Almost a year.’
‘Do you think I was born that day?’
‘I don’t follow you.’
She leant more heavily against the sink, increasingly in control of her anger. ‘I wasn’t a virgin when you had me in the bushes, don’t forget. That didn’t seem to bother you. Worse, you decided to love me all the same. You even thought about starting a family with me.’
‘Yes, but —’
‘But what?’ she shouted. ‘There are no buts. Have I ever tried to find out about your past?’
Her lips were quivering and her eyes held me, motionless, like the double barrel of a shotgun. She was waiting for a word from me to continue. I didn’t know what to say to reproach her.
‘In life,’ she said in a curiously calm tone, ‘you don’t just wipe everything out and start over again. It’s more complicated than that. I’d had a few affairs before you. I’m only flesh and blood. I have a heart beating in here, and a body that demands its share of excitement. But not once did I cheat on my husband before the divorce. And not once have I looked at another man since you took me in your arms … You have to take all these things into consideration.’
She came and stood in front of me, so close that her breath burnt my face.
‘We aren’t from the same class, young man. Or the same race. Or the same culture. And the world is bigger than your tribe. In your world, a woman is her husband’s property. He makes her believe that he’s her destiny, her salvation, her absolute master, that she’s merely a rib torn from his skeleton, and she believes him. In my world, women aren’t an extension of men, and virginity isn’t necessarily a guarantee of good behaviour. We marry when we love each other; what happened before doesn’t matter. In my world, a man doesn’t renounce his wife, he divorces her, and they each go their own way. Our women have a right to live their own lives. There’s no shame in that. As long as we don’t harm anyone, we don’t have to justify ourselves. And for us, a crime of honour is simply a crime; the law doesn’t find extenuating circumstances for it, let alone give it legitimacy. If you seriously thought I was going to wait patiently for you, locked up in my room, doomed perhaps never to meet my Prince Charming, then you’re even more stupid than your people.’
With that, she tore off her apron, threw it in my face and left the room, slamming the door behind her.
I jumped at the noise of the door. A jolt went right through me, as if I’d had a solid right to the jaw. The kitchen seemed as cold and dark as a cellar. I collapsed onto a chair and held my face in both hands, convinced that I had just committed the worst blunder of my life.
Alarcon Ventabren’s cries roused me from the thoughts that plagued me. I ran to him, half blind in the dim light of the oil lamp. Irène was trying to stop her father’s arm waving about in the grip of an attack. The poor man was choking, the corners of his mouth streaming with whitish drool. The upper part of his body was convulsing jerkily. I pushed Irène aside, put my arms round the patient, pulled him out of bed and hoisted him onto my back. His saliva dripped on the back of my neck. Irène ran to open the back door of my car, helped me put her father inside and got in next to me. I started the engine and set off before I’d even switched on the headlights.
We were alone in a grim corridor where faded paint was peeling from the walls, Irène crouching beneath a window, her hands clasped around her mouth, eyes fixed on the tiled floor, and me walking up and down from one end to the other. From time to time, a nurse would emerge from a room or a cupboard and disappear before we had time to catch up with her. The terrified cries of patients reached us intermittently, then silence would fall again on the hospital, as disturbing as a bad omen.
I found it hard to look at Irène. I hated myself for not having respected her emotion, for not having waited for the right moment to lance the boil. I felt bad for her and for me. Yet, seeing her huddled over her sorrow, there in the middle of that corridor lashed by draughts, on a night so black it seemed resistant to prayers and miracles, I was certain that my love for her was unchanged, that the misunderstanding between us had merely strengthened my feelings for her. I loved her, there was no doubt about it, I loved her with all my heart – rightly or wrongly didn’t matter! My heart beat only for her and no tomorrow, no horizon would have glow or meaning without Irène. What did thunder matter when the storm was simply passing; what did an insult matter if a kiss could heal wounded lips? For me, life was starting again, with greater intensity now that a new page had been turned. Irène was the chapter I had chosen for myself in order to be me and only me, an ordinary person whom love would glorify more than any success in the ring. I didn’t need any signs from my hands, I didn’t need anything; it was Irène I wanted more than anything else in the world.
At last, after two hours, a doctor appeared. ‘I’m Dr Jacquemin.’
‘How is he?’ Irène asked urgently.
‘For the moment, he’s asleep. Go home, there’s no point waiting here.’
‘Is it serious?’
‘It’s too soon to give a diagnosis. In my opinion, it may have been a major attack of anxiety. That sometimes happens to those who are paralysed, but it looks more serious than it is. Rest assured he’s in good hands. I’m taking personal charge of him. Come back tomorrow and I’ll be able to tell you more.’
He gave us an encouraging smile and apologised that he had to leave us.
The drive back to the farm was extremely uncomfortable. Irène had chosen to sit in the back seat, a sign that she was still angry with me. I found it hard to drive, looking both at the road and into the rear-view mirror. Irène was stubbornly turned to the window, staring out into the darkness. Her profile stood out in the gloom, sulking but beautiful, her features finely chiselled, bare but regal. She was even more gorgeous now that her anger had dissolved into thoughtfulness.
When we reached the farm, she got out of the car without even looking at me. I grabbed her by the wrist just as she was getting ready to go up to her room.
‘Please,’ she moaned, ‘I want to sleep.’
I drew her to me; she resisted and tried to pull away; I forced her to turn towards me and she pushed me away without success, twisted, bit my hand; I wouldn’t let go, crushed her to me; she let out little cries of rage, tried to scratch my face, drummed her fists on my chest for a long time, continued to struggle, silently but intensely, then, exhausted, abandoned herself to her sobs. I lifted her chin. Her tear-streaked fac
e glistened as much as her eyes. I kissed her on the mouth. She turned her head away. I kissed her again, forcing her; her teeth closed on my lips; I felt the blood seeping onto my tongue. Suddenly, she wrapped her arms around my neck and started kissing me with almost savage passion. Freed of our sorrows, we gave ourselves up body and soul to the joys of our reunion. We were together again, made for each other, restored to each other. We lay down on the floor and made love as never before.
Towards midday, we lunched briefly in the kitchen, reconciled. The looks we exchanged didn’t need an interpreter. Words would have been absurd, even out of place should they have misrepresented what our silence excelled in expressing. There are moments of grace when saying nothing allows you to accede fully to the quintessence of the senses. The heart then entrusts the eyes with its deepest secrets. With the truth laid bare, there is nothing to be said, or else everything will disappear. We were serene because we knew that our relationship would finally know happier days.
Irène wanted to go with me to the hospital. I told her I had urgent matters to settle in town and promised that I would be back to pick her up later.
8
The Duke opened his arms wide. He was in shirtsleeves behind his desk, his hairy shoulders sloping above his chest. Seeing me open the door, he leapt up and almost ran to hug me. I didn’t respond to his embrace. He moved back to look at me and his ardour cooled immediately.
‘What’s the matter? You look strange.’
‘Haven’t you been told?’
‘About what?’
‘About my decision.’
‘What decision?’
I came straight out with it. ‘I’m giving up boxing.’
He froze for a moment, astounded, then threw his head back and laughed heartily. ‘Oh, you really had me there … You joker, you really had me going for a minute.’
The Angels Die Page 31
