The Black Jersey

by Jorge Zepeda Patterson

  I took Lombard’s graphics out of my suitcase and spread them out on the bed. The route designed by the organizers was savage. The first climb was in the first 20 kilometers; then there was the legendary Col de Galibier in the middle of the day. After that, there were 45 kilometers of steep descent, Steve’s turf, until the foot of the Alpe d’Huez, a 15-kilometer wall more suitable for goats than for bikes. That’s where the Tour would be decided, assuming we were all alive at that point. The course was one of the shortest of the competition—just 110 kilometers—but almost five and a half hours long, which said it all.

  I stared at the X on kilometer 106, four kilometers before the finish line. That was the place where I would separate from Steve and our lives would change forever. I visualized the image on TV: me on the pedals, my leader’s face twisted by rage, the commentators’ screams, the audience’s frenzy at the unexpected turn of events.

  I thought back to the colonel and looked forward to hugging the old man before starting the course. I remembered what he had said to me a few days before—This Saturday you’re going to make me the happiest man in the world. After that I can die in peace—and now I understood it wasn’t senile sentimentality, but his goal for his literal last days.

  I kept trying, without success, to reach Fiona, all the way up until the signature ceremony. I managed to avoid any personal contact with Steve, using the pretext of having to attend to a couple of reporters. Finally, I was able to get to Lombard and dragged him around behind the team bus for some privacy.

  “Colonel, how are you? How do you feel?”

  “Very well,” he said with a frozen grin he tried to pass off as a smile. Now that I knew the truth, I noticed the faint yellow color of his skin. “I couldn’t be better, now that you’ll be champion.”

  “Fiona told me everything. You shouldn’t be here; you should be fighting this in a hospital. Why didn’t you tell me before? Not even Bernard knows!” I scolded him.

  “I’m where I should be. I wouldn’t miss what’s going to happen today for anything in the world. This is worth my life—many lives! You in the yellow jersey…” he said, spellbound, and for an instant his eyes seemed to be two fiery embers in the dry desert of his face.

  “What I don’t understand is why you sold the Ramoneda. If you needed money for treatment, you should’ve said so, colonel; we would’ve all helped out. There was no need for you to lose your house,” I said, scolding him again, but lovingly.

  “When you have kids, you’ll understand what you’re willing to do for them, Marc,” he responded.

  Getting rid of the family home wasn’t exactly a way of helping your child. And using the money to create a professional team and launch me as a leader seemed absurd if he only had days to live. I thought of the episodes of dementia Fiona had warned me about.

  Before I could get any concrete answers, Axel interrupted our chat and took me by the arm, saying Giraud was waiting. I said goodbye to the colonel as best I could and joined the rest of my teammates inside the bus, where they had gathered around the DS.

  “Everything is cooking perfectly, but you have to know when to take the pot off the stove and serve the soup. Not too cold, not too hot,” he told all of us, although his eyes didn’t move from mine. Kitchen metaphors were his favorites, whether they made sense or not. Giraud was a glutton even when it came to talking.

  I gave a sideways glance at my friend’s long leg, stretching into the aisle of the bus. Four tiny bicycles ran down his calf, along with the outline of a fifth. Today I’d make sure he’d regret that confidence.

  “Like yesterday, let’s stay very conservative: a firm rhythm but nothing that will tire out Steve…or Marc,” said Giraud after an obvious pause. “We’re going for one and two. Except for Paniuk or Matosas, let anybody go who breaks away. It’s not about winning the stage. If a big group takes off, say, twelve or fifteen of them, then two of you can follow. Preferably Guido and Tessier so that Steve will have climbers in front of him in case he needs to change up. Everybody else stay around Steve, protect him from falls and keep him away from the peloton. I don’t want any heroism today. I want the jersey and that’s it. Clear?”

  It wasn’t a plan that I liked. If Steve still had two or three domestiques when he arrived at the X on Lombard’s map, it would be difficult for me to get the minute and a half I needed to steal his crown. On a good day, Guido or Tessier, our other climbers, could pull him almost all the way to the finish line. The worst of all worlds would be to launch an attack for all the peloton to see and come up short by half a minute.

  When we got to the middle of the climb up the terrible Galibier, it was clear to me most of the teams were using the same strategy as Giraud. There were only a few battles, and these were personal, between rivals in the rankings. The rhythm was disturbingly slow. Two or three small groups, all ranked very low, had broken out earlier, including two racers from Fonar whom Giraud had encouraged to do so, but we’d catch up to them on the last mountain. If the day went on this way, a good portion of the peloton would arrive intact at Alpe d’Huez. That would be fatal to my plans.

  I decided to risk everything for everything. I put Fonar in the front, as if I wanted to protect Steve by separating him from the rest of the racers. But as soon as Alanís, one of our remaining domestiques, went up to the head, I signaled for him to pick up the pace. He obeyed, but the change was almost imperceptible. I signaled again for him to increase his speed, and although he looked at me with curiosity, he only picked up the rhythm the tiniest bit. My strategy wasn’t working. At that speed, we weren’t going to drop anybody.

  Five hundred meters later and still a few kilometers before we reached a peak, I got impatient and took over the front myself. In my role as the team’s primary domestique, I would usually hold out for the last summit, but it was also not rare for me to relieve whoever was in the front at some climb along the way. Given that I was number two in the rankings, it was a move that didn’t go unnoticed. I picked up our speed, and that seemed to wake up a couple of important racers who were afraid of dropping out of the peloton. There was a momentary frenzy in which several of them tried to move up to the front, worried Fonar was about to play another dirty trick.

  My strategy proved successful, at least for the moment. The peloton intensified its cadence, and what had been a compact mass began to stretch out: that famous multicolored serpent sinuously climbing the mountain.

  “What are you doing, Marc?” Giraud yelled into our earphones. “Get back behind Alanís’s wheel. Slow down the pace, goddamnit!”

  “What…? Yes, of course,” I said, as if I had been distracted. I pedaled vigorously for another twenty meters and then backed off to position myself next to Steve. I never should have done that: My “bro” looked me up and down and read my intentions as if he could tap my neurons the same way he tapped my phone. The look of indignation and fury he shot at me was the same as when I scored a goal in the PlayStation game ten years ago.

  Without me in front, we returned to a desperately slow rhythm. Things looked like they were going to go down exactly as Giraud had said they would. But instead, to everyone’s surprise, they went down the way Steve wanted.

  With about eighty meters before the Galibier peak, I heard him say “Now!” I didn’t know how to interpret that. Suddenly, Alanís cut in front of me and two other Fonar teammates fenced me in against the outside curb, effectively blocking me. I knew what was coming next. Steve gathered speed and left us behind so he could crown the peak and begin the long descent. It was a masterful play. It would take me precious seconds to break my siege, and by the time I managed it, Steve would be long gone, starting down the nearly fifty kilometers that would take us to the foot of the last summit. With his talent for descents, he could add a couple of minutes to his lead, and once he reached Alpe d’Huez, he’d have the support of the two Fonar racers who’d been among the first to break away. />
  I was an imbecile. I had spent so much time analyzing where and how to betray him, I never considered the possibility I’d be the victim instead. Steve had played me completely, and probably without any help from Giraud. With my attempt to speed up on Galibier, I’d shown my cards too early, and he’d put his devilishly efficient contingency plan into play.

  Paniuk and a few others chased after Steve. When I was finally able to break the block by my own teammates and reach the summit, I’d already lost sight of their backs. But to my surprise, I heard someone behind me: Radek and Matosas had been following my route. The Italian caught up with me and said something about not letting those killers win. Radek passed me muttering incomprehensible psalms.

  I figured my chances weren’t good, but they could be worse. Matosas was still a great climber and Radek descended like the gods, at least in the sense that he thought he was immortal. He positioned himself in front of Matosas and me and began taking the curves like a motorcyclist, his body implausibly inclined, his knee to the ground, and his strokes almost perfect. His wheels hit the gravel at the edge of the abyss on more than one occasion, and his jersey had a sleeve torn from when he rubbed up against the mountain on the inside curves.

  I dedicated myself to riding behind him, copying him perfectly, following every millimeter of his tracks, as if we were crossing a minefield in a straight line. Matosas did the same behind me. That’s how we rode for more than forty kilometers at preposterous speeds. We passed a few of the racers who had been the first to break away, and we found the rest on the small stretch just before the ascent to Alpe d’Huez. But there was no trace of Paniuk, Steve, and his two domestiques. That was not a good sign. Not only had I lost the yellow jersey, but now it looked like I’d dropped behind the Czech as well.

  A few meters later, Matosas told me Steve and his gang were 50 seconds ahead and there was no one between them and us. My earphone had been quiet for a good while; I imagined my team had found a way to cut me off. Without coming to an explicit agreement, Matosas, Radek, and I began to take short turns leading at a breakneck pace. A kilometer later, we passed Tessier—the first of Fonar’s two guns had burned out—and there was now just Steve and Paniuk, as well as Guido. Their lead had been reduced to 46 seconds, but it was little comfort given the 2:19 Steve had on me overall. The enemy now was not just time but distance. We’d consumed 5 of the 13.8 kilometers on the Alpe d’Huez. There were less than 4 kilometers before Lombard’s turning point, but the colonel had come up with that mark thinking Steve and I would be riding together as we crossed it; there was no scenario in which he foresaw I’d be three hundred meters behind.

  And if that wasn’t enough, Steve had one more advantage. While the three of us were taking equal turns, up in their group Guido was carrying all the weight in the front to preserve Steve’s energy. I assumed all was lost. I could shoot out by myself and maybe—maybe—reach Steve before we got to the finish line, but overcoming the lead he’d built up would be impossible.

  As if he’d heard me, Radek said something unintelligible, passed in front, and signaled me to follow.

  “He said he’s going to give you two kilometers,” Matosas translated, and we glued ourselves to Radek’s wheel.

  The Pole is an unpredictable cyclist. Racers like him are terrifying because they compete exclusively to win single stages. They’ll spend three days effortlessly riding along in the back of the peloton, letting themselves come in fifteen minutes after the winner of the stage, and then the next day, they’ll explode with all their might, fully aware that after all that effort, they’ll have to rest again on the following days. But the day they explode they can go harder than the Tour champion.

  Giving me two kilometers meant he would climb as if it were the end of the Tour, more or less like what Guido was doing for Steve, the difference being that Radek was better rested. He shot forward with such force, I thought he had been too optimistic in promising two kilometers; with that kind of cadence he’d bottom out halfway through that distance. I had to ask him to pull back a little so as not to leave us behind. Finally, we got on his pace and I lost track of myself, concentrating everything on staying a hand span behind the Pole’s bicycle.

  I don’t know if it was two kilometers, but when Radek pulled over to one side and unblocked my view, I could see the yellow jersey getting lost around a curve a little more than 100 meters away, maybe 130. There was still a kilometer left before Lombard’s mark, and only Matosas was left for me. Or what was left of Matosas. The Italian had also paid the price of the brutal pace imposed by Radek. I looked back and saw that the Pole had stopped, his bike between his legs, trying to catch his breath. He had literally given me his last kilometers.

  “I can’t anymore,” said Matosas, panting. “I’ll never catch up to Paniuk for third place, but I’ll give you what I’ve got left; you get that fucking americano.”

  Matosas stood up on his pedals, overtook me, and pushed a few hundred meters. It was true, he had no way to snatch third place from the Czech, who was four minutes ahead of him in the rankings. Even catching up to him before reaching the finish line would have been a useless effort. On the other hand, his fourth-place prize wasn’t threatened. Medel, who was in fifth, had fallen back many kilometers ago. So the leader of Lavezza, whom I had thought of as a criminal for more than half the Tour, offered me his last supply of fuel so the real killers wouldn’t get away with it.

  He burned out a little before the fateful mark, and I left him behind. I recognized the rock Lombard had photographed; it now sported a stroke of blue paint. I wondered if he had painted it himself, or if he had taken advantage of a preexisting stain. Then I remembered that blue was the background color on the regiment’s dragon crest. And, if there was any doubt, ten meters ahead there was the colonel himself, hidden under a straw hat.

  “Twenty-five seconds, Marc!” he shouted. “He’s only ahead by twenty-five!” He handed me, as best he could, a little radio with earbuds, and I hung them from the bike’s handlebars; I had thrown my own silent earbuds away some time ago. Lombard tried to follow me, but he could only make it a couple of steps. By then, half the crowd was screaming my name. Finally I was French among the French.

  If my calculations were correct, I was right on the threshold of the five-second margin. That meant I would have to catch up to Steve within the next kilometer and then beat him by 30 seconds in each of the three remaining kilometers. That seemed inconceivable, but I climbed on the pedals, aware of the fans piled up along the path. If I was going to lose, I wanted to show them it had been in spite of putting my all into the effort.

  As I came around a curve among a mess of arms and faces, I almost ran straight into Guido, still rolling as hard as he could, completely exhausted. It was an unexpected boost to my spirits. It meant Steve was going it alone. That was confirmed an instant later when a clearing opened and I could see him twenty or thirty meters ahead. Paniuk, a better climber than him, had moved forward, hoping to win the stage and, why not, the Tour itself.

  I finally had Steve right where I wanted him, with no defenses or domestiques and mid-slope. Alone with his soul. Unfortunately for me, there were only a little more than two kilometers left before the end of the race and I still had to make up for the minute and a half he held over me in the rankings, not to mention catch up to Paniuk. Fortunately for me, we were on a mountain. I shortened the distance that separated me from his bike, and when I passed him, I changed gears to push forward as hard as I could. I wanted to make him feel clumsy and helpless; I wanted the dragon Fiona saw in me to burn him with the trail of its fiery passage. I didn’t have much energy left either, but the stimulation of leaving him behind could have pulled me out of a coma. “Beatriz says, ‘Fuck you, prick!’ ” I yelled at him as I passed, and a meter ahead I shouted, “And Fleming!” but I don’t know if he heard me.

  I kept pedaling with vigor, still standing up, as if I had ju
st started the race, until I assumed he had lost sight of me around a curve and I could sit back on the seat and catch my breath. I had boosted my pulse far beyond the norm and was burning watts of power I’d need later, but the insult to Steve had been worth it.

  Paniuk rolled just seventy or eighty meters ahead, but I knew I had to pull myself together before even attempting to go at him. The crowd was closing in around my bike, trying to spur me on, but it was having the exact opposite effect. I felt like I couldn’t breathe in those tunnels of naked torsos and the suffocating smell of tanning lotion and sweat. I thought that if Steve had a second contingency plan, this would be the moment for it. Anyone trying to slap me on the back or shouting at my legs could knock me over and say it was an accident. I shook my head and refocused on the kilometers ahead.

  I knew I was running out of mountain, so I had to shoot forward after Paniuk. If I wasn’t going to win the Tour, at least I would come in first today. I had no way of knowing how far I really was from Steve’s numbers; all I could do was pedal like crazy and reach the last shirt between me and the finish line.

  Only then did I remember the earbuds Lombard had given me by the blue milestone. I grabbed them off my handlebars and put them on. I heard Bernard’s voice and felt less alone. More important, he started telling me about the progress of my push. The first thing he said was, “You finally put them on, you bastard! You’ve gained fourteen seconds on Steve; you still need eighty more. You’ve got a kilometer and a half.”

  I shook my head when I heard that. The numbers were unreachable given the state I was in. My lungs tried to pull in oxygen that didn’t exist among the clouds of human heat and the penetrating scent of grilled meat and spilled beer. A cramp threatened to lock up my left leg, the shorter one. I thought with dread that I might be suffering the first symptoms of burnout. If that was the case, all would be lost. Steve himself could pass me at any moment; I imagined his look of mockery and scorn—the humiliation of the domestique who wanted to be king.