“Fabrice is well,” I say. “Ask him on the radio.”
“Literally broadcast it?” says Rafael. “Let other teams hear? Come on. Think.”
“Okay,” I say. “Sorry. I think he’s feeling good.”
“Excellent,” says Rafael. “Tell him that he should be looking for a break in the last hour of racing. Tell him that I want him to try to make up time today.”
“Okay,” I say.
“These are my real instructions,” says Rafael. “I will broadcast some things over the team radio, but they will be diversionary. Today we need, as you might say, the element of surprise.”
“Okay,” I say. The window begins to rise with a mechanical moan. Rafael lets go of the last bottle and I lurch back into purposeful pedaling. The car pulls ahead of me to offer some wind shade as I ride back to the peloton. Chasing back to the group, I always fear that I have fallen too far behind, regardless of how often I have performed this maneuver.
I nudge my way through the pack to Fabrice and Tsutomo. I hand them their bottles and discreetly pass on their instructions. “Good,” says Fabrice. “I’m ready.”
In our earpieces there is the fizz of the radio channel being opened. “Whoa, we’re halfway there,” sings Rafael. “Whoa, we’re living on a prayer.” When he finishes the chorus, he sings guitar and drum parts.
“He’s serious,” says Fabrice. “Even when he’s silly, he’s serious.”
* *
One night in spring Liz came home furious. It was a warm day, one of the first of the year. I was home and had put B to bed. The windows of the kitchen were open, and I could hear traffic and the rhythmic clack of trains passing on the line half a mile away. Katherine was up in Norfolk.
“Things are fucked,” said Liz. We were in the kitchen and she put her bag on the table, pushed away some baby bottles, sterilized and drying. “The results are fucked.”
“Really?” I said. I thought of those dim rooms, the tanks of zebra fish, the grumble of all those machines.
“Yes,” she said. “The gene we had hopes for. Lbx3. There is no coherence in the results, no apparent effects. Our hypothesis is off.”
“So you’re ruling things out?” I said. “You need to try a different route?”
“It’s not like that,” she said. She shook her head.
She and I sat opposite each other. I didn’t know what to say.
“I don’t even know if everything has been done right,” she said. “If everyone has followed the protocol.” She picked at a hangnail.
“You can start again?” I said. “Can’t you study a different gene?”
“This is not a cake,” she said. “This is years of work, huge funding checks.”
I thought of my feeling after a bad race: the pain of the moment, and also the pang of considering all those days behind of training, collapsing into retrospective incoherence. To know her sense of desperation was not to know how to assuage it though. She stared at the table. I made her tea. I backed off and left her space.
* *
In the last fifty kilometers the route profile ripples like a child’s depiction of the sea. These are not big peaks, but they have the potential to break the peloton apart.
The atmosphere is tense. Riders know that the stage is to be won in these minutes. Some riders become more silent, others chatter, seeking to put off those around them.
Rafael opens the radio channel again and sings the chorus of “Satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones.
“Okay,” says Fabrice, beckoning Tsutomo and me to ride beside him. “One of you sticks with me, one of you goes off early as a decoy.”
“I stick with you,” says Tsutomo.
“You feel strong?” says Fabrice.
“Of course,” says Tsutomo.
Fabrice looks at me. “At the beginning of the next hill go as hard as you can for a minute. Then expect to be caught. As soon as you are, then Tsutomo and I will go.”
“A one-two,” says Tsutomo. “Like we are boxers.”
* *
I had to race two days after Liz brought home her disappointment. She was still going to work, of course. They had funding left. They were trying to salvage what they could. There was a weariness to Liz when she came home, however, even though she was back earlier than she would have been previously.
Katherine arrived before my departure and said she would take care of her daughter, “get her out of the dumps,” as she phrased it—a promise that concerned me more than it reassured.
Liz called me twice on those days when I was away. She was keen to hear that everything was proceeding as I hoped, more interested than usual in my results, in my form.
The race did go well. The team was in good shape. We controlled the peloton for a time. The race was won by others out on a break, but amidst the rest of the riders Fabrice seemed able to churn away with an ease which suggested good things for the rest of the summer.
I returned to Liz and B and Katherine, apparently happy in the kitchen. Liz was throwing bread out the window, and the three of them were watching the birds alighting on the back patio to collect it.
Liz and I talked about the race, about the conclusions that could be drawn. “It was good,” I said. “Rafael is very happy.”
“Did you win?” said Katherine. She was tearing up crusts of bread, piling the crumbs on the table for her daughter to throw.
“I wasn’t trying to win,” I said. “That’s not the aim for me.” I looked at Liz. She smiled sympathetically but didn’t step in. I was angered by Katherine’s question, by the sense that this was in fact her intention.
“She hasn’t learned,” I said later, when Liz and I were in bed. “She doesn’t know my aims. She can’t understand success.”
“She was picking at you,” said Liz. “She does that.”
“That doesn’t make it not annoying.” I had listened to Liz make similar claims about Katherine, and yet she was not in the mood to accept my protestations.
“Sure,” she said. “It’s a sign that she likes you.”
“Really?”
“That you matter to her, at least.”
“I’m not so certain.” The window was open. I could hear wind through the leaves of trees in the garden.
“She wants you to do well,” said Liz. “That’s how she encourages.”
“Encourages?”
“She expects a lot of people,” Liz said. “You have witnessed this, surely?”
“And yet she lives with Thomas,” I said.
“Thomas is fine.” Liz turned to face the window. The mattress creaked.
“Of course.”
“He’s reached his potential. He’s all he can be.”
“And I’m not?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“But you implied it.”
“Not on purpose.” Her voice was quiet now.
“Still.”
“She’s difficult,” said Liz. “That’s the message.”
“Do you think I could ever impress her?”
“I don’t know.”
“By my cycling?”
“Maybe,” she said.
“What could I do?”
Liz sighed. “If you won a stage. If you were a team leader. If the ladies in her book group knew who you were.”
“I can’t just do that.”
“I’m not saying she’s reasonable. I’m not saying you should.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m answering your question.”
“Do you think I’m trying hard enough?”
“What do I know about it?”
“What’s your impression?”
She thought. We both lay there in the darkness. The sound of the trains was gone. “I think you’re doing fine,” she said.
* *
We reach the bottom of the next hill in the midst of countryside. I can smell the stink of rapeseed in the air. Horses gallop across a field, startled by the television helicopter. The road tends
leftward as it begins to climb. It stretches up to a copse of trees a few hundred meters away. The peloton hugs to the left verge, cutting to the quick of the curve. I pull to the right, out of the main flow of the group, as if preparing to drop to the back for water. I feel a lurch of nervousness. I take a drink from my bottle and then throw it to the side of the road, where fans scramble to retrieve such a relic. I inhale deeply, change up a gear, and stamp hard into my pedals. I aim for the trees and think only of emptying my legs.
My strength is a surprise. The pace is unbearable, certainly, but it is a thrill to throw everything at the incline. The spectators call out, and it is strange in that instant to think that those shouts are intended solely for me. I count to ten and then count again. I am crouched into my handlebars as if in a position of prayer. It is only when I have counted to ten a third time that I allow myself to glance back—inclining my head downward, looking through the cage of my arms, beneath my left armpit—to see the peloton fifty meters behind me.
My pace is dropping, but I think that it is not yet time to submit. Perhaps today will be the day I earn a wing. The raw grating of my breathing is uncomfortable but no longer unsustainable. My thoughts glance the previous night’s injection, the steamy room, a warm red feeling. Ahead of me a man strays into the road, waving a French flag at his side like a matador. “Go,” he shouts breathlessly, “go.”
Past the copse of trees, the road bends right and steepens. I cut into the corner, causing the fans to step back. I ride hard out of it and look back to see that I still have some lead on the group. I decide that it is not yet the time that I need to let myself be caught. My motions feel sprung, necessary. I take note, for the first time, of the motorbike ahead of me, its passenger turning in the saddle to level a television camera at my face. I try to catch up with it. I look up and see electricity wires strung over the road up ahead. I set my concentration onto making it past them.
Passing under the wires, I look with panic for another thing onto which to latch my gaze. The road tends leftward once again and there is another copse of trees on the horizon. I push for these trees and think I see the lens of the camera ahead winking: a reflection of sunlight or the result of a change of focus. The crowds at the side of the road get thicker as I ascend. Sometimes I make out shouts, facial expressions. I notice an old man, sitting back from the road in a canvas chair, eating a sandwich.
As I make the trees, something else looms into my line of sight: a stark chunk of color. I realize that I am seeing the summit of the hill and, marking this, an inflatable arch. I must have been riding for more than two minutes. We will descend for a time now, and it will not be possible, going downhill, for Fabrice and Tsutomo to sprint away and deliver the second blow of our planned one-two.
I stand on my pedals as I make up the final yards to the summit and wonder what I should do. As I pass under the arch, I look back and see no one on the section of road visible behind me. I fold myself down into my bike and begin the descent.
I take the corners as fast as I can. I fly out of the exits, no more than a couple of centimeters from the verge. The few spectators on the descent retreat from my frantic progress. The television motorbike does not try to keep pace ahead but follows me from behind.
At the bottom of the hill, I pick up a pedaling rhythm again. It feels natural, despite my growing tiredness. I wonder in the moment whether this could really be sustainable, whether this could be my day.
My radio coughs into life. “Get back. Get back,” Rafael sings. “Get back to where you once belonged.”
I keep my head down. I think that I will keep riding. I will take my moment at the front. They ask me to ride, I think. They would be foolish to rebuke me for riding too hard.
I change my grip on the bars; I move forward in the saddle. I shift up a gear. I suck my teeth. Then, however, the road begins to slope up again. I drop three gears. I concentrate on paddling the pedals around. I keep my shoulders steady. I clench my jaw.
We enter a town and I see the spectators looking past me, down the road. They are waiting for something else. I am not the actor but the thing to be acted upon. I look back. The peloton comes up the road like a wave. It sweeps up to me in seconds. It flows around me. I turn to see Fabrice. “You made us wait,” he says, and it is hard to tell whether his rising tone expresses surprise or consternation. Then he nudges out to the right of the mass of riders and puts in a sudden burst of speed. Tsutomo follows. The fans jostle to catch a glimpse of it all, shifting and shouting, open mouths and waving arms.
With Fabrice out in front, I gratefully sink to the back of the pack, happy to watch the break make time. Reports among the riders say that a group of seven has coalesced around Fabrice. He is gaining on his rivals in the overall classification. Everything is going well. I remind myself that I have done my duty for the day. I will my legs around. I try to enjoy the respite of riding at the back of the group and ignore what only I know: that this recovery was not chosen but necessary, a humbling.
Chapter 7
I roll into the finish to find that Fabrice has stayed near the line to greet Tsutomo and me. He grabs me into an embrace while I am still on my bike. His race kit is soaked with sweat, clammy now that he has stood waiting for us to arrive. He came in in the first group, making time on his rivals. To Fabrice’s side, Tsutomo stands over his own bike, his elbows resting on his handlebars, his head bowed. “My boys,” Fabrice says. “My friends.”
In the finish area, there is a crush of photographers, journalists, officials, VIPs, and men handing out water. A man in a fluorescent vest takes hold of Fabrice’s arm and pulls him toward the mic zone, past fans leaning over the barriers and shouting, reaching out to brush their hands against us. Fabrice keeps hold of me. I step off my bike and am dragged behind him. We come to stand on a carpet in front of an array of cameras and microphones. Riders to our left give interviews. Arms extend toward us holding microphones and recorders. Red lights turn on. A monitor to our right plays footage from the stage finish. The road turned a sharp left and steepened in the final half kilometer of the stage, and now, on the screen, I watch Fabrice accelerating around this final corner, spinning away from the breakaway group with a striking smoothness. He had no need to fight for the stage win today. He was seeking time on other contenders in the group behind, and probably would have done better to sit and grind his way to the line rather than engaging in the bursts and fakes of riders setting themselves for the finish line sprint. I watch his mouth in slow motion, gasping air, his lips pulled back against his teeth. The fans are screaming, thrilled, banging against the barriers, all arms and eyes and camera flashes.
Fabrice sees me looking at the TV. “I got carried away,” he says quietly, as the footage shows the other riders catch and surge around him, as we watch him tuck with great difficulty into their slipstream. He looks at the carpet. Shakes it all off. “It was a good day. I didn’t need to do that.”
I gesture at the fans leaning over the barrier. “That’s why they love you,” I say.
He smiles coyly at this, like a teenager paid a compliment. Then he gathers his resolve, turns to the journalists, his arm around me. “I brought a buddy,” he says in a different, confident voice. The reporters look at me briefly, then back to Fabrice.
“A good result?” someone asks. The crowd shifts. The clump of microphones pressed in front of us bristles like a living thing.
“Oh,” says Fabrice, “certainly. You know me. I just try to do my best.” He lolls a tongue out of the side of his mouth in a pantomime of fatigue. “Luckily, today my best was good enough. Or wait.” He pulls me closer toward him. “Me and my team’s best.”
Another journalist asks Fabrice how his tour has gone in general. “Ups and downs, my friend,” he says. “I have been on the roller-coaster.”
How come, a short lady with a sun visor and a Dictaphone wants to know, Fabrice has improved so quickly after the previous days’ disappointments? “It is,” she says, “pretty incredib
le.” She gives full time to each syllable of the last word. The implication is not difficult to recognize.
Fabrice waits and then smiles. “Thank you,” he says. “It is always nice to get compliments.” There are some laughs from the journalists.
“I’m glad,” says the woman, deadpan, matching him, “but I was also asking how.”
“Oh.” He sighs, suddenly weary, catching the eye of another journalist. Then he breathes in, smiles widely again. “You would like some tips.” There are more laughs. He pauses to take a prolonged drink, taking care to display the branding on the bottle’s side to the cameras. “I am afraid there is no magic formula,” he says. “I have worked very hard this year. I have made small gains in many places. My training has improved. My race preparation has improved.” He points to me. “My team has improved. I have made changes to my diet.”
“What kind of changes?” asks the lady.
Fabrice points to the logo emblazoned across his racing jersey. “Chicken nuggets,” he says. “Healthy, nutritious, and full of energy.”
Those clustered around us laugh again, louder now. Fabrice raises a hand in farewell and we fight our way back through the crowd and toward the team bus. The journalists want to believe him. Fabrice’s strength, his unlikely response to the previous stage, is the thing that makes the narrative today. You are allowed one piece of magic, no more, and he has been careful to not ask too much of their faith.
* *
In late spring I returned from a training ride to find Liz scrolling through a triathlon website. The important information about performance-enhancing drugs is easily accessible on the Internet, prosaic in contrast to so many other transgressions possible in cyberspace. Amateur triathletes are the ones who are truly uninhibited. Their Internet forums are extensive. They all seem to have day jobs in finance and bring their ruthlessness and asymmetric personalities to bear on their hobby.
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