Neither Man Nor Dog

by Gerald Kersh

  Laughter roared through the spectators like a wind through trees. Ali was up, growling. Fabian took the belt from Kration’s hands, muttering, as he did so: “Liven it up a bit, can’t you, you two? Don’t play about like kids in a bloody nursery! Come on, now!”

  Kration evaded Ali’s slashing right hand, threw himself back against the ropes, and fired himself across the ring like a stone from a catapult. His right shoulder struck Ali in the abdomen. Ali fell backwards, with a tremendous gasp, but even as he fell, rolled over with a grunt and caught Kration below the ribs in a scissors-hold.

  Kration felt like a man in a train smash, pinned by a fallen ceiling. He writhed, but Ali held fast. The crowd screamed. Kration breathed in short coughs: “Assss . . . Assss . . . Assss. . . .” He tensed all the iron muscles of his stomach. Ali still struggled for breath: every exhalation, blowing through the blood which still ran from his nose, spattered the mat with red drops: “Prup-aghhh . . . prup-aghhh . . .” He realised that he could not hold Kration for more than another ten seconds. Cramp crawled in the muscles of his thighs.

  Kration ground the heel of his hand into Ali’s mouth, and broke loose; leapt high in the air, and came down backside first. Ali saw him coming, but could not move quickly enough. Kration’s fifteen stone dropped, like a flour-sack falling from a loft, on to Ali’s chest. Wind rushed out—“Afffffffff!”—with a fine spray of blood. Darkness descended on the Turk; for perhaps one second he became unconscious. His mind floundered up out of a darkness as deep and cold as Siberian midnight. He found himself struggling to his feet.

  Adam’s voice reached his ears as from an immense distance: “Careful, Ali, careful!” Kration was upon him again, on his blind side, and had caught him in a wrist-lock.

  Ali’s brain flickered and wavered like a candle-flame in a draught. There was a counter-move; something . . . something . . . he could not remember. He put out all his might, and caught one of the Cypriot’s wrists; grunted: “Hup!” like a coal-heaver and used his tremendous weight to spin Kration round and swing him off his feet. As Kration staggered, Ali caught one of his ankles; twirled him round, six inches off the mat, in the manner of an acrobatic dancer, then let go. The Cypriot fell on his face, kicking and heaving like a wounded leopard. Ahai! yelled Ali, springing forward as Kration rose to his hands and knees. “Waho!”

  “Nice work!” screamed Adam.

  Ali had Kration in a headlock. Kration crouched, gathering his strength; then began to strain left and right, in spasmodic jerks. Blood from Ali’s nose fell like rain on Kration’s back. Both men were red to the waist, slippery with blood. Ali’s grip was slipping: Kration was as hard to hold as a flapping sail in a raging wind. . . . Kration’s head was free. Ali caught a glimpse of his face, purple, swollen, split by a grin of anger that displayed all his teeth, white as peeled almonds. Then Kration swung his left arm. His hard, flat palm struck Ali in the face: one of his nails scraped the surface of Ali’s eye.

  A blank, bleak horror came into the heart of the Turk. “My eye! My last eye! If I lose this eye, too!” Then he roared like a maddened lion, buried his fingers in the softer flesh above Kration’s hips, lifted him above his head by sheer force, threw him across the ring, and followed him, growling unintelligible insults and spitting blood——

  Clang! went the gong.

  Ali groped his way back to his corner, and sat limply. Adam sponged him with cold water, adjusted his sash, and wiped the blood from his face.

  “My eye,” said Ali, “my eye!”

  “It’s badly scratched,” said Adam.

  Ali’s eye was closing. The lids, dark and swollen, were creeping together to cover the blood-coloured eyeball.

  The crowd shouted. One voice screamed: “Carm on, Nelson! Carm on, whiskers!”

  Ali sucked up a mouthful of water and, like a spouting whale, sprayed it towards the crowd. “Cowards!” he shouted. “Cowards!”

  Figler muttered: “This is disgusting. Let’s go.”

  Lew, shaken by emotion, did not answer, but raised his piercing voice and called to Ali: “Good work, Ali. I’ve not seen anything better since you beat Red Shreckhorn in Manchester.”

  Ali called back: “Thank you for that!”

  “Go easy, for God’s sake go easy,” said Adam.

  The gong sounded, Kration advanced, smiling. To Ali, he looked like a man half-formed out of red mist. He thought: “If I do not get him within five minutes, this eye will close, and then I shall be a man fighting in the dark!”

  This thought was indescribably terrifying. The curtain of mist was darkening. Now, by straining the muscles of his forehead and cheeks, and holding his mouth wide open, he could barely manage to see.

  A voice cried: “Look out, Kration! He’s going to swallow you!” Another shouted: “Oo-er! Look at ’is whiskers! They’re coming unstuck!”

  Ali’s moustache had, indeed, fallen into a ludicrous Nietz-schean droop, matted to a spiky fringe with congealing blood. Kration snarled, leapt in, struck Ali across the neck with a flailing arm, and seized his moustache. He tugged. If the hair had not been slippery with the blood from Ali’s nose, Kration might have pulled it out. But it slid through his fingers. Ali, weeping huge tears of pain, grasped blindly, and caught the Cypriot by the biceps of his right arm. The darkness had come. He knew that if he relaxed that grip he was lost. As Kration jerked back, Ali followed. The Cypriot began to gasp with pain: “Esss-ha; esss-ha . . .” Everything in Ali’s body and soul focused in the five small points of his finger-tips. He was blind, now, utterly blind, lost in a roaring, spinning ring, dumb with agony, choked with blood, deafened with howls of derision and encouragement which seemed to have no end—and in this world of sickening pain there was only one real thing, and that was the arm of his enemy, in which he was burying his fingers. . . . They clung together, spinning round and round like two twigs in a whirlpool; the Cypriot groaning, now; Ali silent. He felt cold. A ring-post ground into his back. He groped with his other hand, and found nothing. The noise of the crowd was becoming fainter, his face seemed to be swelling and swelling, while in his breast his heart thundered like horses galloping over a wooden bridge. Something knocked his feet from the mat. He fell, still clutching Kration’s arm. The Cypriot said: “For Christ’s sake!” Ali replied: “You feel my grip, eh?”

  Voices were shouting: “Stop the fight! Stop it!”

  Out of his midnight, Ali roared: “Stop nothing! Ali never stops!”

  Suddenly he released Kration’s biceps, slid his hand down until it reached the wrist, where it shut like a bear-trap; swung his other hand to the elbow. The Cypriot’s arm broke. Ali heard his scream of pain, but still held on. Kration became limp. Ali held his eye open, with the first and second fingers of his free hand. He could see nothing except an interminable, fiery redness. Somebody tried to prise open his fingers, which still gripped Kration’s wrist. Ali struck out blindly. A voice said: “Stop! You’ve won! It’s me, Adam!”

  “By God,” said Ali, “that Greek went down like bricks.”

  The crowd was delirious. Fabian said: “You certainly gave those sons of bitches their money’s worth.”

  Adam led him back to the dressing-room.

  Ali found his voice: “Did you see how I beat him? Did you see how I broke him up? Did you see how I pulled him down? Did you see how his arm went? Did you see my grip? I could have beaten him in the first ten seconds, only I wanted the public to see a fight. Did you see my grip? What Ali grips, God forgets!”

  “You were great, Ali.”

  “Now am I fat?”

  “No, Ali.”

  “Now am I old?”

  “No, Ali.”

  “Now have I no teeth?”

  “Teeth like a tiger.”

  “Now can I wrestle?”

  “Better than ever, Ali.”

  “Now am I undefeated?”

  “Still undefeated, Ali.”

  Ali raised his head, brushed back his moustache, twirled it again to fine points,
and said: “Nobody on God’s earth ever beat me. Nobody ever will. Look at me. If he hadn’t scratched my eye, I should be as right as rain.”

  “Have a rest, Ali.”

  “Close the windows,” said Ali, “there’s a devil of a cold wind.”

  The windows were already closed.

  Ali muttered: “I wonder if my eye is badly damaged? Get me some boracic acid crystals and a little warm water——” He stopped abruptly and said: “Put your hand on my chest!”

  Adam did so. In Ali’s chest, he felt something rattling, like a loose plate in a racing engine.

  Ali exclaimed, with an astounded expression: “The clock’s stopping!”

  “Nonsense, Ali! Rest.”

  Ali struck his vast belly with a colossal fist, and murmured: “What a meal for the worms!”

  Those were the last words he ever uttered.

  That night he died.

  An Undistinguished Boy

  “It’s potato soup,” the mother said. “You like potato soup. Be a good boy, now, Dolfie, and eat it all up.”

  The boy shook his head.

  “Aren’t you well?”

  He shook his head again: then nodded, swallowed and managed to say: “Yes, I’m all right.”

  “Then why don’t you eat?”

  The boy said nothing.

  “It’s getting cold. Come on now, eat your nice soup, Dolfie.”

  “Stop calling me Dolfie!”

  “Adolf, then. A lot of boys would be glad of nice soup like that in times like these.”

  Little Adolf shrugged.

  “Has somebody been upsetting you, then?”

  “Oh, leave me alone!”

  The father folded his paper and said: “That’s what it is. They’ve been on at the kid again. Why can’t they leave him alone?”

  The mother sighed and left the dining-room. The father rose, and laid a big, gentle hand on his son’s head. “Come on, son, what’s the trouble?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Anybody been bullying you? You tell your Pa.”

  “I’m all right, I tell you.”

  “I know. You came low in the class this term. Is that it?”

  Adolf did not answer.

  “Ah, I guessed it. Well, now, you eat your soup and don’t you care. Keep your chin up like a Brit—I mean, you keep your chin up like a man, and keep smiling. You’ll do better next term. Why, when I was your age——”

  “It isn’t that.”

  “Bad conduct? Well . . .”

  “No.”

  “Attendance? Been playing hookey? Say if you have. I won’t punish you, son. So long as you tell the truth, I shan’t mind. Every boy plays hookey once in a while. It’s natural.”

  “It isn’t that either.”

  “What is it, then? Tell your old man.”

  “Nearly everybody’s getting a State Service Medal on Speech Day.”

  “Ah. And you’re not getting a State Service Medal?”

  “No.”

  There was something like elation in the man’s voice as he said: “To hell with their silly little tin medal, and eat your dinner.”

  “It isn’t tin. It’s solid nickel. And it isn’t silly. Everybody’s getting one, almost, except me.”

  “Well, Dolfie, you’re only eleven. Maybe you’ll get one next year.”

  “Hermann Macdonald’s only eight, and he’s getting one.”

  “What for?”

  “He caught a spy.”

  The father frowned. “I’ll tell you what, son. What say we go fishing on Sunday?”

  “Don’t want to go fishing.”

  The man looked down at the red cropped head which seemed too heavy for the thin white neck. Something in his breast seemed to swell and grow taut; something oppressive, where his ribs parted and the strong pulse throbbed. “Poor old fellow,” he said, and took out his watch. “Did I tell you I had a watch for you?”

  The boy looked up. “A watch?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “But that’s your watch.”

  “It was. It’s yours now. So stick it in your pocket and eat up like a good fellow.”

  “Coo . . . thanks.”

  “Your soup’s got cold. I’d better get your Ma to warm it up for you.”

  The father carried the plate out to the kitchen. The boy sat looking at the watch. It was a handsome one, many years old, with a silver case and heavy black numbers. There was an extra hand which jerked in a fascinating way as it went from second to second . . . 15 . . . 30 . . . 45 . . . 60 . . . When his father returned, the boy Adolf asked: “Honest? Can I really?”

  “Certainly. It’s yours now. But take care of it. Your grandpa gave me that for my twenty-first birthday. Solid silver. They don’t make ’em like that any more. You don’t find watches like that every day. That’s better than your silly old medal, isn’t it?”

  The boy, eating, said nothing.

  “Gah! You and your old State Service!”

  Adolf sat silent.

  The mother, returning, said: “What’s the matter with him, George?”

  “He’s upset because he isn’t going to get a State Service Medal this year.”

  “Oh dear. What a shame!”

  The father rose suddenly. His face was red. He cried out, striking the air in a furious gesture: “Shame! Shame! Shame! What the hell should we care about their damned tinpot medals? To hell with their State Service! And their State! Are we British? Or are we damned Ger——”

  “George!”

  “All right,” said the man, and went out.

  The mother said, nervously: “Your daddy doesn’t mean it, Dolfie. It’s only his way of talking.”

  Adolf shrugged. The mother, passing her hand over the bristles on his bony skull, felt a sudden pang of pity, of pity so overwhelming that she fell on her knees and clasped the boy in a desperate embrace.

  “Oh, Dolfie!” she said. “My poor darling Dolfie!”

  “Adolf,” said the boy, and writhed away.

  She saw him put on his little white cap. “I’m going to school,” he said. “Heil Hitler, mother.”

  “Mind how you cross the roads.”

  He nodded and strode out. His bony little legs kicked out in an absurd caricature of a military strut.

  Three boys were waiting for him. The biggest of them stepped forward to meet him. “Cry-baby!” he said, and struck Adolf in the face.

  Another asked: “Who came last in the hundred yards?”

  The others replied, in chorus: “Cry-baby Adolf Robinson!”

  “Who got nought per cent for gymnastics?”

  “Cry-baby Adolf Robinson!”

  “Who howled like a baby when he got walloped for clumsy saluting?”

  “Cry-baby Adolf Robinson!”

  “Who swats books and reads poetry?”

  “Cry-baby Adolf Robinson!”

  “Who isn’t going to get a State Service Medal?”

  “Yah! Cry-baby Adolf Robinson!”

  “Leave me alone,” said Adolf.

  “Look out, he’s going to cry!

  “I’m not,” said Adolf, and burst into tears.

  They followed him, hooting. At the school gate a very small boy accosted him and said: “I’m down for a medal!”

  “What for?”

  “I reported a Liberal. I’m going to get a medal. You’re not. I am. Cry-baby Robinson, Cry-baby Robinson!”

  Another boy said: “We ought to beat him up, just to give him something to cry for.”

  The leader of the three who had followed Adolf to school said: “Young Robinson is letting the class down. If we all had medals, we’d break the school record. We’d get a Special Mention. Last year, Class Three was congratulated by the Gauleiter in person, for getting twenty-nine State Service Medals out of thirty-five. D’you hear, cry-baby?”

  Adolf broke away from the group and ran into the school. One of his class-mates, passing, kicked him with considerable skill on the ankle, and pretended to apolo
gise.

  Adolf Robinson paused. His eyes were wet, and at the back of his throat there was something big and round, which he could not swallow. A bell began to ring. He stood, trembling, thinking of the coming afternoon; the ferocious scorn of the boys, and the savage contempt of the master, Old Josef Goebbels Edwards, who called him an “undistinguished boy”, and a “snivelling pup”. He bit his lip, wiped his eyes, and knocked at a door marked HEADMASTER.

  “Come in!”

  The boy stood stiffly on the harsh fibre carpet. “Sir, I beg to report.”

  “You are permitted to speak.”

  “I have information.”

  “What information?”

  “I have information relative to an enemy of the Reich, and beg to apply for a State Service Medal.”

  “Is there something the matter with your throat? Speak up!”

  “A man said: ‘To hell with the State’ . . .”

  “Proceed, Robinson!”

  That afternoon, the Headmaster issued a special announcement.

  “Adolf Robinson is to be awarded a State Service Medal of the First Class, together with a Dagger of Honour, for an act of patriotism worthy of a Brutus. His class, therefore, has broken the State Service Record for the entire school. Three cheers for Adolf Robinson!”

  Heil! . . . Heil! . . . Heil!

  One of the masters said: “Good for him: I never thought he had it in him.”

  Adolf was the last to leave school that evening. Ten of his classmates accompanied him, vociferously cheering. At the bottom of his street he stopped, and said: “Let’s go for a walk.” It was good to see how the rest agreed with him, and walked where he walked.

  But night came. One by one the boys went away. Adolf went home. There was a smell of burned food. His mother was sitting in his father’s chair. Her hair and dress were torn. Her face was bruised. She looked old, white, still, and lonely, like a stone.

  His father was not there.

  She raised her head. Adolf saw, in her eyes, a horror as at a nightmare or a monster. She said only one word: “Adolf.”