by Takis Würger
“Wait, wait, wait. What?”
I dropped my arm in astonishment. The phone lay on my blanket. I looked at the clock on the display. Three and a half hours till weigh-in. I was too light; I knew it. Since the fight in London I’d eaten almost nothing but beer and bananas because I hadn’t had the appetite for anything else. I didn’t have a clue what I weighed.
I hung up without saying goodbye, and immediately regretted it. I pulled my laptop out from under the bed, Googled “clenbuterol” and read that it makes the body burn a lot of fat very fast, and that it was actually a medicine used to treat people with asthma. And as a labor suppressant in cows.
The phone rang. Priest just went on talking. I interrupted him.
“Does the head coach know?”
“He begged me to call you. Billy, this is your chance. You hear me, son? We’re gonna box tonight. Fucking hell, we’re gonna box.”
A ray of light poked through the curtains. I looked at my tiny room and the sloping wall, on which I’d hung a rainbow flag, the ends tacked to the wood with drawing pins. Daft, I know.
Why would anyone need more than a few square meters to live in?
I’d been dreaming for years of bringing home the boxers’ light-blue blazer. The red lion on the breast pocket. My father would be proud. I thought about my ringwalk music.
Three and a half hours later I was standing on the scales at the venue. The Oxford boxers were waiting in a corner of the room. None of them glanced over. I’d weighed eighty-eight kilos that morning—not nearly enough. Priest said I should drink two liters of water so I wouldn’t be too light, or it would give my opponent an advantage. Heavyweight means the boxers have to weigh less than ninety-one kilos. Most weigh exactly that. Priest said energy was mass times speed and talked about psychological warfare. I drank until nothing more would go in, after which I weighed 90.5 kilos.
After the weigh-in I went to the toilet in a side room off the hall. When I opened the door again a young man in a dark blue Oxford tracksuit was standing in front of me looking the opposite of relaxed. He was almost as tall as me and much broader. He looked like a weightlifter. His biceps made me think of honeydew melons. He planted himself in front of me, shoulders rising and falling with each breath.
“Are you the heavyweight?” he asked.
“Yes.” It was a quiet yes. I felt my knees turn to jelly. The man was breathing right in my face.
“I’m gonna smash your skull tonight,” he said. His accent sounded Australian.
“Let me through,” I said.
The heavyweight didn’t move. His breath smelled as if a couple of papayas were rotting in his stomach. I knew that boxing matches were won in the mind, at least that was what people said, and if it were true, then right now my opponent was winning.
I’d never picked a fight in a pub and I was ashamed of having hit the wing commander. I’d written to him to apologize; I didn’t like uncontrolled violence. I’d always seen boxing as a sport—violent, but controlled, disciplined. Now, though, I would have to go against my principles.
I grabbed the Oxford boxer by the neck and flung my whole weight against him, shoulder to chest, shoving him all the way across the room to the washbasin where I pushed his neck down and bent over right in his face. His eyes were wide; he hadn’t reckoned with this.
“See you tonight,” I said. I let go and walked out of the door.
Outside I shoved my trembling hands in my pockets and left the building as if nothing had happened. Gray clouds were gathering in the sky. I felt like having a beer. Or three.
Hans
Charlotte was waiting for me on the college roof overlooking Chapel Court. You weren’t allowed on the roof; perhaps that was why she’d wanted to go up there. She was sitting on a blanket, her skin covered in little raindrops; she looked as if she’d already been there for a while. That morning she’d told me to meet her on the roof, and asked if she could accompany me to the boxing hall afterwards. It felt a bit melodramatic to me—it was only a boxing match—but I’d said yes. I couldn’t stop thinking about how wounded she had seemed when she told me about being raped. I wondered what it meant for us. I opened a plastic umbrella over her head and sat down beside her.
I’d thought a lot about the Pitt Club in the last few days. I was disgusted that its members had hugged me, that I’d drunk with them from the same glass.
When she’d finished telling me her story she had put her hand over her mouth, the way people do when they’re scared. I couldn’t stop thinking about that gesture.
Alex had told me right at the beginning that my mission had something to do with the boxers at the Club. If I wanted them to respect me, I had to win the match against Oxford. This was about more than just a blue blazer.
After the weigh-in that morning Priest had told me my opponent had once been the junior champion of Scotland, but that it shouldn’t make me nervous. I wondered what it would be like to lose.
My mother’s necklace was in my tracksuit pocket. I’d taken it off after my first visit to the Pitt Club because I felt uncomfortable wearing it while pretending to be someone I wasn’t. Today I’d taken it out of the shoebox where I kept my passport and a few photos of my parents.
Charlotte’s cool, damp hair stuck to my shaven neck. The rules of the Amateur Boxing Association of England required fighters to be clean-shaven. I stroked her arm; when I touched a spot below her elbow, she flinched. I pushed up her sleeve. She struggled to pull away, but I held on tightly to her wrist. There was a deep cut on her forearm; it was freshly healed and looked as if it had been made with a razor. At boarding school I’d known a boy who used to cut his arms; I knew what the wounds looked like. The boy was called Ferdinand; when he was twenty-two he drove his father’s Porsche into Lake Starnberg and drowned. The obituary said it was an accident.
Tears were pouring down Charlotte’s face. “I can’t do this any more,” she said.
I wrapped my coat around her shoulders and took her in my arms. I could be strong for both of us until I found out who had hurt her. I couldn’t conceive of what would happen after that. We sat there for a long time. Her breathing slowly grew calmer. The rain got heavier, drumming on the umbrella. I hoped there would be lightning.
I took the necklace out of my tracksuit pocket and put it in Charlotte’s hand.
“Please wear it this evening. It belonged to my mother.”
Charlotte shook her head and moved her lips as if she were trying to say something. Her fingers closed silently on the necklace.
“I want to get away from here,” she said.
I looked up into the clouds and thought of her pressing her face to the bark of the apple tree. Perhaps I should have told her how, when I was a child, I liked nothing better than to run off and climb the poplar, or how I used to run up the steps of the church tower at boarding school and sit up there all on my own. All my life I had run away, done what other people had told me. I wasn’t going to run tonight.
“I’ll find them,” I said.
The clock on St. John’s College Chapel had no hands, like the grandfather clock in the house in Somerset. I wondered whether this was significant.
Charlotte carried my sports bag as we walked to the venue. We went through the porters’ lodge; the porters gave me the thumbs-up, but judging by their expressions they weren’t too bothered. That morning I’d found a card in my pigeonhole: Knock him dead. Wishing you the best of luck, Alex.
The first spectators were waiting outside the hall. The fights would start in two hours. When the people saw my team tracksuit they stood aside and made a corridor for us. Someone shouted something; someone else slapped me on the shoulder.
Charlotte and I looked at each other and nodded before I walked on alone through the door of the hall. Charlotte was different this evening, perhaps because of the fight. I could smell the carpet in the entrance; it had been sprayed with something lemon scented. The fights were taking place in the old Corn Exchange. A sign above the door
read showtime. I didn’t know where the dressing room was, so I went into the auditorium and contemplated the empty plastic chairs. A little light fell through the narrow windows near the ceiling; the rest of the room was in semi-darkness. In the middle stood a boxing ring.
I sat on the edge of the ring and lay down with my back on the mat. I thought of the cut in Charlotte’s arm, closed my eyes, and for some inexplicable reason fell asleep, waking only when the spotlights were switched on. I’ve noticed since that in certain situations I tend to become calm while other people are practically crawling up the walls. I stared into the light, trying to count the lamps, but they were so bright I got confused each time I reached the middle of the lighting bar. I wasn’t sure, but I thought one of the lights wasn’t working.
Hans
The dressing room was on the first floor. The boxers were sitting on chairs lined up against the wall. Josh was watching a film on his iPad, Magic Mike was eating Cocoa Krispies from a plastic bowl. The coaches were pacing up and down, saying things nobody heard: “Always use your full reach” and “This is what you’ve been waiting for, lads.”
After I’d changed I went downstairs, positioned myself behind a curtain and peered out at the crowd gathering in the hall. The curtain was red velvet; it was soft against my cheek. The venue was full: 1,300 spectators, sold out. It was warm and smelled of popcorn and beer. In the third row was Angus Farewell, wearing his light-blue blazer; Charlotte sat beside him in a long-sleeved black dress that was too thin for a cold March evening. The material concealed the cut on her arm. She was wearing my mother’s necklace around her neck.
The first match went to Cambridge. Theo, a black guy who was our featherweight, moved as if he’d been boxing his entire life. I saw the lust for blood and pain in the spectators’ faces. I would never understand why people watched boxing matches.
1:0.
The second boxer was Magic Mike. He walked in to a Wagner aria. A few spectators laughed. As he walked through the crowd to the ring, I saw how thin he was. He’d made his body his enemy.
I don’t know whether there’s such a thing as a soul, but if there is, I believe that boxing can change it.
“It’s Magic Mike,” some of the lads shouted from the stands. He knelt down in a corner of the ring and crossed himself three times. His expression was serious. The bell rang; his opponent floored him with his first left hook and broke his jaw. It happened so fast that I stepped forward through the curtain, but no one was looking in my direction. They were all looking at Magic Mike, who was kneeling on all fours with no expression at all any more. Saliva poured down his chin. The referee counted him out.
1:1.
Magic Mike walked straight up to me as he came out of the ring. He stopped and stared at me as if seeing me for the very first time. His jaw hung slack.
Priest put his hand on my shoulder.
“Quick, son, warm up,” he said.
I punched the mitts a few times. I was in a cold sweat. I didn’t like the spectators because they were so loud. I jumped rope for a few minutes, staring at the fire extinguisher on the wall. A sign beside it said in emergency, smash glass.
Steve, our light welterweight, lost on points.
1:2.
I’d spent a long time thinking about what music would feel right. I’d even asked Charlotte, but regretted it when she suggested a chanson. I didn’t listen to music; I jogged without music, boxed without music. There’d been music at my parents’ funeral. I asked Priest if I could walk in in silence, and he just shrugged.
I walked into the ring without any music. I didn’t cheer, didn’t raise my arm, just walked into the ring. Hardly anyone clapped; it was as if they didn’t see me. That was good. I slipped between the ropes, bowed to the referee, and looked my opponent in the eye.
He looks like an old man. Priest saw in his fight record that the Scot’s nineteen years old, but he’s already balding on top. The bell rings. Ding ding. My opponent throws a combination. He’s better, he’s simply better, I sense it right away. One of the first punches breaks my nose. Blood runs down my throat; it tastes of copper. How do I know what copper tastes like? Work at range now. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Left, left, right. The Scot is too fast.
End of round one. Priest puts an ice pack on my head and gives me a pep talk. He smears half a pot of Vaseline on my face and plugs up my nostrils, which stops the bleeding for a few seconds.
I’m back in the wine cellar at boarding school. Father Gerald is smiling. Do the opposite of what your opponent expects. He used to say that all the time. He had such a lovely laugh. Why did I never write to him?
I can see the night sky through the windows in the roof of the hall. Lightning at last.
In the next round I take up a position in a corner of the ring. The dead zone, my first coach used to call it.
“Get out of the corner!”
No idea who’s shouting that; doesn’t matter.
The Scot throws a couple of straight punches to my face. He’s good; I want to tire him out. I leap forward, grab him and fling him onto the ropes. Now he’s the one in the corner. This is my chance. He dodges; I punch and punch. I feel his cheekbone through my gloves. I lean over him in the corner. Hang on to my neck, you’re not getting out of here. I can smell the shampoo he used to wash his tonsure. Apple scented. I hit him in the stomach and the ribs. I feel the heat. I hit. I hit. I hit.
In the second break the head coach is jumping up and down, waving a towel. I peer through the ropes. Angus is standing right beside the ring; he gives me a nod.
I’ve never been so tired. I could fall to the floor and it would all be over. The Scot’s first left hits me smack in the face; he’s still fighting. I hear my nasal bone dislocate. The sound seems to come from right inside my skull. Halfway through the round the Scot’s on the ropes again. I throw hooks and upper cuts and breathe through my open mouth. With every punch I yell out my anger. When the bell rings I know that I’ve won. The referee yanks my arm in the air. It’s over. No one can take this away from me. Victory. I should be happy.
2:2.
I step out of the ring. My nose feels fat. On the way back to the dressing room Angus is standing there; he puts both hands on my shoulders.
Hans
When I came out of the shower I was still sweating. I’d stuck rolled-up toilet paper up my nostrils. Someone told me Josh had won. Knockout in the first round. When I left the dressing room it was 4:4.
Now Billy had to win. His music was booming from the speakers so loudly that many in the hall were flinching: the sound of a trumpet. One thousand three hundred spectators were staring at the red velvet curtain, waiting for the Cambridge University heavyweight. The room was hot; nobody was sitting in their chair any more. They were all clapping hard and shouting Billy’s name.
Billy
“You hear those people out there, my son? They’re calling for you. I want you to think of all the people in your life who’ve done you wrong. You’re gonna hit every one of ’em tonight in this ring. Hear me, Billy? Now get out there. You show ’em, Billy, come on, lad, you show ’em!”
Hans
Billy strode forward through the curtain. He was holding a flag with both hands, stretched out above his head. It was the rainbow flag from the wall of his room. He gazed up into the light. All the other boxers had walked through the curtain and headed straight for the ring. The coaches had told us the referees didn’t like it when we put on a show. Billy stood in front of the curtain, drinking it all in, holding the flag up high. Priest stood beside him and raised his left fist towards the ceiling, his right hand on Billy’s shoulder. The spectators started clapping in a hard, slow, deliberate rhythm. The noise in the hall was deafening.
Billy’s opponent was already in the ring, running from corner to corner. Someone had told me he was from Samoa and was actually a rugby player. Billy walked up to him, stepping lightly. I realized how much I’d missed Billy. In the past few weeks
I’d spent more time with Josh than with him; I’d felt bad about it, but I knew it was important, because Josh knew everyone in the Pitt Club. When the fight began, Priest wrapped the rainbow flag around his shoulders. The head coach yelled at him. Priest’s right arm shot down; the movement was fast and precise, nimble as a boxer who had once been good and knew how to use his hands. He grabbed the head coach by the jaw and hissed something in his face.
Billy’s hands were flashing in the spotlights. The Samoan leapt forward and swung at him; Billy dodged the blows as if he could see them all coming. In the first break Priest stood in front of him in the corner. Billy didn’t sit on the stool. The two of them stood facing each other in silence, breathing calmly. I moved closer. I remembered how Billy had been beaten up in the Pitt Club at the start of the year, and wondered when he’d learned to box like that. At the end of the break Priest said just one sentence: “I’m so proud of you, my son.”
The sweat glistened on Billy’s skin. At the start of the second round he floored his opponent with a straight right. All I could see were the whites of the Samoan’s eyes. The ringside doctor leapt into the ring and pulled his tongue out of his throat—he’d swallowed it.
5:4.
Victory. Billy had done it. I felt so light at that moment. I climbed into the ring and hugged him. We probably said something to each other, but I don’t remember what, only the spotlights, all of which were shining.
Someone passed up a bottle of champagne through the ropes; Josh poured it over Billy’s head. I saw Priest down below, outside the ring; he took the bucket of water, the towels and Billy’s colorful flag and walked out of the hall.