by Paul Park
Soldiers and black-uniformed janissaries made a passage for the cadi. With his hand over his holster he led Peter up the stairs into the grandstand. It was mostly deserted, as was the one across the way, for reasons that were soon apparent. Men bet money on these matches and the odds would change even when the fight was on. It was a complicated process and required an open area for negotiation—the bettors’ circle around the pitch itself.
Even when the match had started, it seemed to Peter no one paid attention. Instead they hunched over their calculations, calling out numbers, paying out money, arguing among themselves. Peter sat between Turkkan and the soldier in the front row of the grandstand directly over the railing. A hundred feet away over the heads of the crowd, two enormous naked men, their skin greased and slippery, grappled and fell back.
The umpire blew his whistle. “Who are they?” Peter asked.
Turkkan shrugged. “It’s not important. They are condemned prisoners. If one of them will win eleven matches, he’ll be free. It has never happened.”
He glanced back at Peter and smiled. “You must not think about this. This is not for you. This is by special permission only. In the morning you are gone away. No, I am sorry to remind you! Tonight we are friends—watch! Watch! Would you like some lemon sherbet? It is very good.”
Turkkan bought some sherbet on a stick, as well as some sugar-cane juice. “This will chase away the green serpent,” he said. “These are the simple pleasures—look at that black man. But he will take a fall!”
After a moment Peter found himself watching the fight, and then the next one, and the next. He could not take his eyes away. The men fought on a bed of black sand that stuck to them. Some of the wrestlers were subtle and quick, others relied on force. When they grappled there were many tiny tricks of balance, and Peter found that he could soon predict the outcome just by looking at the wrestlers’ hands, the placement of their feet.
He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “Ho, you find it interesting, our little display!” Turkkan said. “I’m sorry you will not be here for the yagli-gures—let me give you some pistachios. And let me ask you, do you see that old man across the way? In the place of honor in the front. That toothless old man with the red beard—do you recognize him? No? I’ll tell you that is Mehmet the Conqueror who is always coming to this place. Men shake his hand, boys ask for his blessing—what about you? In this city he is a great man.”
Peter followed the pointing finger. There in the first row of the opposite grandstand on the far side of the pitch, the man sat. His red hair was streaked with gray. To call him old and toothless was not fair. He was smiling and talking to his companion, who shook his head.
Embarrassed in a way he didn’t understand, Peter raised his eyes. A few rows up in the grandstand there was almost no one. But Andromeda was there as he had hoped, carefully dressed as a young officer, and she also was nodding and smiling to her companion, a squat, fox-faced little man in a leather cap and an old leather coat, decorated with patches of fur.
“By God, who is that?” muttered Turkkan beside him. He pointed with his fly whisk and then spoke rapidly to the soldier on Peter’s other side, who stood up to get a better look. Peter was still watching his friend, who now appeared to see him for the first time; she smiled and blew a kiss.
“By God, who is that?” shouted Turkkan. He stood up in his seat as the soldier hurried down the steps. Now janissaries were pushing through the crowd. Peter saw Andromeda slide underneath the seat of the grandstand. She must have dropped through the scaffold underneath, but it was no use. The guards caught her at the barricade. They led her back into the bettors’ circle until she stood under the cadi with an insolent smile on her face.
“Not that one!” shouted Turkkan. “You idiots—where is the other one? Find him for me.” But in the confusion of the crowd, the fox-faced man had disappeared.
“This is the one,” said a policeman. “This is the pickpocket of the Ali Pasa Carsisi. I am sure.”
But Turkkan interrupted him: “It is not the man I want. By God, don’t you think I know the difference between a dead man and a live one? Have I not seen him in my court since he was ten years old? Imbeciles—that was Jacob Golcuk!”
All this time he had been speaking Turkish and Peter had not understood him. But he understood that name and now he realized he had recognized the man in the leather coat. Turkkan stood up in his seat, waving his fly whisk—“This is a catastrophe! How dare you answer me? Release this man!”
The policemen stood away from Andromeda, but Turkkan was not satisfied. “No, you fools—this one! This one here! Strike off his chains!”
“Sir?”
“I will answer for it. This is on my authority. Is this a nation of laws?”
Red-faced, spectacles glittering, tarbush slipping from his forehead, Aristophanes Turkkan shouted and gesticulated to the crowd. The wrestlers, who for several minutes had been pushing at each other halfheartedly, now stopped altogether, though the umpire had not blown his whistle. Covered with black sand—for each had taken a fall—they stood uncertainly under the lights. Janissary policemen gathered near the barricade, but not one moved to do as Turkkan had suggested, not even the soldier who’d come with them in the car. They seemed anxious for another authority, and then they found it. Adnan Mejid Pasha was striding through the crowd.
There was a language of gestures, and Peter understood it. But then he looked into the faces of the people where he saw a range of passions. The wrestlers stared up at him with piglike eyes. Across the way, Mehmet the Conqueror had struggled to his feet.
Andromeda stood close to Peter on the other side of the railing. When he looked at her, she winked. Alone in that gathering, she did not seem excited or upset.
Adnan Mejid Pasha had climbed into the grandstand. Now he pushed forward to where they were, in the middle of the first row. It was obvious to Peter what he was saying, though it was in Turkish: “What are you doing? Are you drunk? How can you bring this prisoner here?”
“He is no prisoner! My friend is a free man. The Chevalier de Graz is free to go!”
Peter’s name caused a ripple of sensation as it was flung into the crowd.
“What is this madness? Turkkan—I command you. Lower your voice at least.”
“I will not lower my voice. I will proclaim this. I have seen Jacob Golcuk—you have all seen him. I am the judge in this case and I declare that I am satisfied.”
“Where did you see him? What does this mean?”
“He ran away. It doesn’t matter—I was not mistaken. Ask this man.” And Turkkan pointed to Andromeda below the rail.
As interesting as this was to try to interpret, Peter only gave it half of his attention. For he was watching as Mehmet the Conqueror pushed slowly through the crowd, his right hand on the barricade around the wrestling pit.
“It is true,” remarked Andromeda, smiling and cool. “That man was Jacob Golcuk.”
Mejid Pasha leaned down to look at her. “And you are…? Bah, I don’t care—this is insanity. What motive could he have?”
Mehmet the Conqueror, as he approached, seemed to have trouble walking. His big hand was on the barricade and he limped with every step, favoring his left leg. Though tall, he was bent over and his chest was sunken in. His hair was red and gray, as was his beard.
“So we must catch him to find out,” retorted Aristophanes Turkkan. “In these past months I have signed several warrants for his arrest. There are reasons he would want to seem as dead.”
“Then why give his name to this stranger? Why would he come here?”
Andromeda said: “He gave me a false name but I recognized him. He’s not the only man who cannot stay away from these matches. I believe he makes his money here.”
“You shut up! You have no standing in this place. Am I right to think you are a subject of Roumania?”
“He’s a pickpocket,” added one of the policemen.
Peter was looking at Mehmet the C
onqueror. Now he had left the barricade and was crossing the bettors’ circle to the grandstand. He was dressed in evening clothes, and his lapel was adorned with a commemorative ribbon and a crescent moon. Now Peter could see a cane in his left hand, and he leaned on it as he limped slowly through the crowd, a smile on his face. “It is the Chevalier de Graz,” he said. “By God, it is the Chevalier de Graz.”
Tears stood in his eyes. He made one final push and flung himself onto the railing in front of Peter. Then he brought up his cramped, massive hands and seized Peter by both forearms above his manacles. The gold-headed cane clattered to the ground.
Peter looked into his bleared, rheumy eyes. The old man’s hands were still powerful, and they pulled him forward so that Mehmet the Conqueror could kiss him on the cheeks. “Why is this man chained like a criminal?” he asked in English. His teeth were yellow as old ivory, and his breath was flavored with mint or fennel.
The crowd had gathered close now. They pressed against the railing where Peter sat. Even the naked wrestlers had come out of the pit. Mejid Pasha spoke to one of the policemen. “You must take him into custody to the Saraclar station house. Tomorrow he is off to Trebizond.”
The crowd pressed against the railing. “No,” said Mehmet the Conqueror. “I will see him fight again.” Again he pulled Peter down to whisper in his ear in English. “All my life I never took but three falls.”
Now there was a lot of shouting. Turkkan had his hand upon his gun and made a broad pantomime of drawing it. The janissary police, who’d seemed so numerous before, now were scarce in their black uniforms. But Mejid Pasha had not given up. “I tell you he’s a criminal. He is the butcher of Nova Zagora—does anyone remember? Am I to let him go on the word of a drunken fool and a Roumanian thief? Captain—”
Now a blacksmith was coming to the rail with a big hammer and a chisel and an enormous pair of shears—a bolt-cutter with handles several feet long. The policeman and Mejid Pasha stood together in earnest conversation—the policeman was unarmed, Peter saw. And now suddenly Mejid Pasha pressed his way out of the grandstand, and the police retreated to the edges of the crowd. “He’ll come back with a company of soldiers,” said Andromeda. Then to Aristophanes Turkkan: “Sir, there is a night train to Bucharest, I beg you—”
The blacksmith had the bar of Peter’s lock in the small beak of his bolt-cutter. But he could get no purchase on the hardened steel. Then Mehmet the Conqueror pushed him aside and took the ends of the bolt-cutter in his massive, cramped, arthritic hands. Four hard snaps and Peter was free. Once the manacles were off, he could feel how much the chains had hurt him. His wrists and ankles were chafed raw.
Turkkan reached to shake his hands. “My friend, I am glad for you. You see in their own way these people can appreciate our art.”
Again Peter found himself staring into the face of Mehmet the Conqueror. And he felt something inside of him as he looked at the old warrior. It was not sentimentality. Instead it was a wave of ferociousness that filled his mouth with spit. “I want to fight,” he said, words which astonished him. “You’ll let me fight.”
There was a sudden silence as all the chattering around them ceased. Then Andromeda raised her voice. She spoke to Turkkan, “Sir, there’s no time. That man will return in half an hour.”
“Bah! What are you talking about? We are here as watchers only.”
“I want to fight,” Peter said. The words sounded less strange at the third repetition.
The cadi shook his head. “But it must be impossible. You are my guest and you have seen these people. There are no champions here.”
“I know the rules,” Peter said, surprising himself. “Isn’t there a spectator’s challenge?”
“Yes,” confirmed Mehmet the Conqueror. Several people in the crowd nodded their heads. Then no one said anything until Andromeda interrupted the silence once again:
“Sir, you must know that man will come with soldiers. If you could lend us some money, there’s a train to Bucharest—”
“He can do nothing! Mejid Pasha! I am the judge in this case.”
Now suddenly Turkkan had changed his mind. “Bah, if it will give you pleasure! A friendly match, a single fall, if you are sure. Afterward you come back to my house to celebrate. All Roumania will be my guest.”
The crowd, who had been so eager to free him and protect him, now was eager to see him in the pit. Peter stood at the rail, squeezing his wrists, looking over the expectant faces. Of course. They had been raised on stories of his skill. He would not disappoint them and dishonor himself.
Andromeda grabbed hold of his arm. He leaned down to listen, and she whispered in his ear. “What is your problem? What do you think happens when you lose?”
He shook off her hand. He looked up to see a man step into the pit. He was dressed in a towel-cloth robe, which he now dropped. Naked, he put his hands on the barricade—“I am Roderick of Burgos. Champion I may not be, but I have heard of Nova Zagora. Even in the Spanish Empire we’ve heard these stories. Now I stand here for the honor of my adopted country, against a man who has stepped out of a children’s fairy tale and a pagan sorcery that has kept him young and strong. I, too, am strong. So now I spit.…”
Peter understood none of this. But he understood the language of the Spaniard’s body. He recognized the formal, measured, flowery phrases that indicated an official challenge. The recognition came from far inside. The crowd had opened up in front of him, from the railing of the grandstand to the barricade around the pit. Without thinking, Peter spat into the dirt.
Andromeda reached to take hold of his arm again. She pulled him down, though he resisted. He could see the golden hair that glistened on her cheeks. She whispered in his ear. “You’ve got to know you’re not the Chevalier de Graz.”
“Shut your mouth,” he said, and his voice was light, harsh, ugly.
“All right. I’ll put my money on the other guy.”
She let go when he swatted at her, pushed her away. “One thousand piastres on my friend!” shouted Aristophanes Turkkan. The crowd was shouting and cheering as Peter ducked under the railing and stepped down. The bettors in the circle now were haggling and calling. Folded banknotes stood out from between their knuckles as they gesticulated and made their calculations.
For a while Peter stood there in the gap. The lights seemed harsh and glaring now. The crowd was massed along an open corridor between the grandstand and the pit:
Thousands of their sailors looked down from their decks and laughed,
Thousands of the soldiers made mock at the mad little craft,
Running on and on, ’til delayed,
By the mountainlike San Philip, of fifteen hundred tons.…
From the grandstand, Roderick of Burgos had not looked so big. Peter judged he was about thirty years old. He was clean-shaven and his hair was black and curly. Scars and welts stood out on his shoulders and biceps. But his legs were small, Peter noticed, and he had a purple bruise over his right knee.
As if by reflex as he stepped forward, Peter found himself measuring and judging each characteristic and detail of the man in front of him, from his high-arched, hammer-toed, broken-nailed feet, to his heavy, scarred eye ridges and forthright stare. His nose had been broken at least once, and he was missing a tooth. His knuckles, also, were thick and bruised. He’d had a couple of falls in his career, Peter thought.
There was a feeling in his stomach that was not fear but a species of relief. Since his arrest and long before—perhaps since that terrible night with Raevsky on the bridge, perhaps since the morning he had woken in the snow with his new hand, or perhaps since his first school days at home—in various parts of his mind he’d been afraid. To function he had had to live with fear. To close out fear had been to close out sections of himself. But now the barriers were down. Air moved through him end to end. As he stepped between the two masses of spectators, he felt the world under his feet, the paths that led to him and away. Behind him stretched the Aegyptian desert,
and in front of him the earth curved north into Roumania, and there were the mountains, valleys, great rivers, and forests, and there was work to be done and wrongs to be set right. And there was a dream that was languishing in danger, and a woman he had sworn to protect. And his way to her was at that moment blocked by a rickety barricade. And behind it stood a broken-down Spanish fighter named Roderick of Burgos whom he’d beat with one hand because his left hand was weak—that was his shame, his secret to hide. He felt no anger or urgency. He saw himself duck under the rail. Roderick of Burgos had retreated to the center of the pit.
The crowd made a noise like the sea. Peter stood testing the sand under his feet. Then he stripped off the pumpkin-colored shirt, the pumpkin-colored trousers. The boy came with the oil but he waved him away. He would fight in the Roumanian fashion, ungreased, though he might give up a small advantage. He disdained any stretching or preparation. He stood with his legs splayed, his eyes closed, listening to the directions of the umpire—they would fight a single fall, apparently.
The ending of the poem now occurred to him, as clear as if he saw it on the page:
And the water began to heave and the weather began to moan,
And or ever that evening ended a great gale blew,
And a wave like the wave that is raised by an earthquake grew,
Till it smote on their hulls and their sails and their masts and their flags,
And the whole sea plunged and fell on the shot-shatter’d navy of Spain …
At the same time other images occurred to him as he stood with his eyes closed. They were like a series of photographs or flash cards, changing as he looked at them: faces, stone buildings, landscapes, horses, dogs, none of which had been part of his life in Berkshire County. They came in such profusion he could not make sense of them. They did not combine into a net of stories. They suggested nothing to be put in language. But each one brought with it an emotion, which he experienced as waves of hot and cold, dark and light.
Then he felt a blow upon his chest and he almost fell. Roderick of Burgos was there. Peter opened his eyes and saw the great heavy hand come swatting at him again. But it seemed to travel slowly as if pushing through an obstruction—Peter himself at that moment was not capable of moving quickly. But he could move faster than the ponderous hand that seemed to make a noise as it pressed through the air. Around him was the roaring of the crowd.