We Begin Our Ascent

by Joe Mungo Reed

  They talk about how to grease their thighs to slip wet suits off faster. They debate the taste and digestibility of different energy bars. They touch upon many odd things, and in the midst of all this banality, they discuss methods of doping.

  “It’s fascinating,” Liz said. She sat back and looked at me. “These people are so driven.”

  “They’re nuts, triathletes,” I told her.

  She nodded. She wanted to stay serious. B was asleep in the room next door. He would wake soon, we both knew, and go through his routine of trying to reclaim his soft limbs from slumber, this body new to itself, reestablishing its bounds. She told me about an experiment some scientists in San Diego had done on pigs. They put the pigs on a treadmill and made them run. Through surgery, they loosened the pericardium membrane that surrounds the heart of each pig. The pigs were set trotting on the treadmill again, and with this membrane cut, their endurance was 30 percent better. “The heart’s capacity increased phenomenally,” she said. There was probably some terrible side effect to slicing into this protective membrane, Liz said, but she thought someone would try doing such a thing in humans. “It’s crazy,” she said, as much in admiration as reproach. “Someone will try it, for sure.”

  I didn’t linger too long on this kind of stuff. It felt beyond what I needed to know. Liz was surprised by my limited interest in the subject, almost offended. She was like a Victorian explorer, arrived on a volcanic island and perturbed to find the islanders using pumice and swimming in thermal pools but entirely uninterested in the geological phenomena that had produced such things.

  * *

  Rafael, sitting in a canvas chair near the bus, watches Fabrice and me approach. “That was racing,” he says. “We showed all the fucking fucks.” The mechanics come and take our bicycles. We stand in front of Rafael. “You know what?” he says. “Tonight my balls will not be aching. No one is chewing on them, no sponsors, no journalists, no other teams, no riders. You know what also?” We shake our heads. “Tomorrow is your rest day. You will have some recovery. Perhaps you will see your significant others.” He winks at me.

  “It’s a good day,” says Fabrice.

  “Yes,” says Rafael thoughtfully. “I am just a man like any other man, but it seems people are always trying to fuck me where I do not want to be fucked.” He shakes his head happily, stands and slaps Fabrice on the back. He is in one of his moods of forceful geniality, of overbearing fellow feeling. He pinches my shoulder. Sometimes he descends from his position to move among us. He does so with the ease of an aristocrat in a pub: an ease born not of commonality but of an inability to distinguish the suspicion with which he is viewed.

  I think of the middle of winter, on a preseason training camp, when Rafael joined Fabrice and me for a ride. We were in the Spanish sierras. I sat on a bench outside our accommodation, jogging my legs in the chilly morning air, enjoying the sun that had just risen at the head of the valley. To my surprise, Rafael appeared beside me in full kit. “I’m riding with you boys,” he said.

  Fabrice had arrived too. “Lucky,” he said. “We’re going slowly. Today is a recovery ride.”

  “Do you know how many races I’ve won?” said Rafael.

  “You’re retired,” said Fabrice.

  “True,” said Rafael. “But remember what I retired from. I rode in the age of champions.” He walked away from the bench toward the garage in which our bikes were stored. It was a shock to meet him at this hour, so close and intense. Fabrice and I followed.

  “There are champions in any age,” said Fabrice.

  Rafael spat air. “But I rode in the old days, before the benefits you have: the new bikes, the doctors, the assistance.”

  There was a silence.

  “Of course, that’s the way it is,” said Rafael. “That’s just the way.”

  “You were so full of pills you rattled when you hit potholes,” said Fabrice.

  “God!” said Rafael. “And what good it did us? Have you ever raced on amphetamines? Yuck. You feel terrible, and what is the result? You ride like a crazy fool. You, my children, do not know how lucky you are.”

  In the garage Fabrice and I took our own bikes, Rafael Tsutomo’s. The road was empty and we rode three abreast. “You do know,” said Rafael, “that I don’t want to do it?”

  “What?” said Fabrice.

  “The substances,” he said. “All of that.”

  “Yes,” said Fabrice. A car came up behind us. We didn’t shift. Its engine changed in pitch as it dropped a gear, swerved around us to overtake.

  “But it happens,” said Rafael. “We have to make money. The sponsors have certain expectations. I do not want to wear a raincoat, but if it rains . . .”

  “Yes,” said Fabrice dully. “I understand this. This is how I work, knowing this.”

  “I think about it,” said Rafael.

  “I know,” said Fabrice. He was uninterested in hearing more. I could sympathize. His disquiet was that of a patient faced with a doctor who insists on “laying out the options.” He had ceded control, abdicated choice and the incumbent worries. He changed to a higher gear, stood on his pedals, and surged away. He idled and let us catch him. “It’s a good day,” he said. “I feel good.”

  * *

  At the end of the camp, Rafael drove Fabrice and me to the airport. The whole team was being split amongst different cars, and he made an effort to pick us as passengers, as if he still had something to prove. “You’re part of something,” he said. “You both understand this?”

  “Yes,” said Fabrice. “Of course.”

  “This is your year,” said Rafael to Fabrice.

  We drove steadily down the mountains, toward the sea, the landscape drying as we lost altitude and then becoming verdant once again as we approached the ocean. We did the drive mostly in silence. Despite his knowledge of the Beatles and Bon Jovi, I have never witnessed Rafael listening to music. I have seen him take whole plane journeys simply sitting blankly. I am still unsure whether his mental life is immensely rich or utterly minimal. Once I offered him a newspaper during a flight. He looked at me surprised. “I am a patient man,” he said.

  We reached the coastline and turned south. “We’re going to be early for your planes,” said Rafael, looking at his watch. “I have somewhere I want to take you.” The road ran along the top of a steep slope overlooking the sea. Little lanes plunged down to secluded beaches and coves. Above us steep hills, lightly forested with pine trees, built to a range of cliffs. Rafael clicked the indicator and turned off the main road, down one of the lanes to the sea’s edge. We switchbacked down, feeling the muted winter warmth rising off the rocky landscape through the open windows of the car. “This is a treat,” said Rafael. “A real treat for both of you.” Asphalt gave way to a stony track and we crunched on toward a fishing village. “Beautiful, no?” said Rafael.

  “Sure,” said Fabrice.

  “Come on,” said Rafael. “Look at this place. Relax. What do you think is going to happen? We’re going to see somebody, somebody great, and you’re not even going to get poked with a needle.”

  Five or six houses huddled where the sea cleaved into a bay. There was a short concrete jetty and a circle of dust behind the houses on which four cars were parked. Rafael stopped the car and got out. Fabrice and I followed him. The air smelled salty. I could feel the moisture in the light wind. “What do you think?” I said to Fabrice.

  “No idea,” he said.

  “His mother?” I said.

  “I don’t know,” said Fabrice. “That would assume he was born of woman.”

  Rafael walked over to the back door of one of the houses. He knocked and waited. A cat appeared from around the corner of the building and brushed itself against Rafael’s leg. He gave it a gentle kick. A woman, about the same age as Rafael, opened the door. “Rafa,” she said. She hugged him. She saw us over his shoulder and beckoned us into the house. “It’s good to see you,” she said to Rafael. “We’ve been getting bored of each oth
er here. I’m not going to say it’s been easy.” Her Spanish accent was thick, a little hard for me to follow. She beckoned us over. She guided us through the cool center of the building. It smelled of dried cat food and coffee. “Visitors are unusual these days, I’m afraid,” she said.

  Rafael shook his head. “How could I pass by?” he said.

  She opened a door and stood at the threshold. “You’ve always been one of the good ones,” she said to Rafael. She stroked the back of his head as he passed.

  The room had a syrupy airlessness. Black-and-white photographs covered the walls. Between them, old woolen cycling jerseys were tacked up, their colors fading, their sponsors long bankrupted, renamed, or subsumed into other companies. An old man sat in a leather chair, his small body almost lost in its plushness. He looked at us through large glasses that sat on a tumorous nose. He smiled wanly at Rafael. Rafael pointed to him, then looked at Fabrice and then me, grinning. “Eh?” he said. “A dream come real, no?”

  Fabrice smiled. “Oh . . . yes,” he said. He moved to shake the old man’s hand.

  Rafael frowned. He looked between us. “You know, no?” he said. “The Crazy Hare, la Liebre Loca?”

  A tiny hand reached from the folds of the chair to join Fabrice’s.

  “Remind me,” I said.

  “Jesus,” said Rafael. “You really are just pairs of legs, you boys.”

  “He’s familiar,” I said. “I just asked for a reminder.”

  “Today riders threw themselves at the Galibier like spiders trying to climb from a bath tub,” said Rafael, projecting his voice from the back of his throat. “The heat on the climb was intense, and the gradient shattered the peloton apart. Great climbs such as these are the domains of great riders and today a young man from the south of Spain, whom they call the Hare, staked his claim for consideration on these terms . . .”

  Fabrice released the old man’s hand and the man’s arm fell back to the chair as if it were something dropped. “Pleased to meet you,” said Fabrice, “An honor.”

  “L’Équipe,” said Rafael. “I could recite the whole story if you wish.”

  I moved toward the man. I thought I should greet him. His skin had a disquieting looseness; in places it was cracked and chalky, at others glossily translucent. I have never done well with old people. I took his hand and he blinked. His palm was cold. “A pleasure to meet you,” I said.

  His left eye closed slightly. “Good morning,” he began to say, until the phrase broke into a racking cough. He jerked his right hand out of mine, toward his face, but it reached a limit of strength or flexibility just beneath his chin and stayed there clawlike and shaking as he coughed. His left arm remained at his side.

  Rafael nudged me out of the way. He took a tissue from a box next to the Hare’s chair. He put his hand gently behind the old man’s skull, his fingers running through the greasy gray hair. He lifted the man’s head and put the tissue to his mouth. The Hare’s fit reached its conclusion. Rafael lifted the tissue from the face, a fibril of saliva stretching between it and the man’s lip, and dropped it into a wastepaper basket. He put a hand on the Hare’s shoulder and looked directly into his eyes. “All right?” Rafael said. He leaned in and kissed the Hare on the cheek. “It’s good to see you, old man,” he said.

  Outside the house, the Hare looked different. It had felt, walking him slowly from his back room, that the coastal sunlight would rip through him. In reality, it plumped him out, gave depth to his wrinkles. In the manner of abandoned boats and old agricultural machinery, he looked picturesque. Rafael held the Hare’s left arm at the elbow and gestured expansively with his free hand. “Quite a day,” he said. “Eh?”

  The Hare was warming up. “Yes,” he said. “This is my weather.”

  Fabrice stood looking out to sea. “Fabrice,” said Rafael, “this, here, is a true champion.”

  “I know,” Fabrice said flatly. “Those great days. The newsreels. Don’t think I don’t know.”

  “This was his childhood home,” said Rafael. “This is where it all comes from. This man invented us.” He breathed in as if the air around us should contain some trace of the origin he spoke about. “There is a line unbroken from him to you. Think of this. It is worth very much to preserve, no?”

  The Hare saw the car branded with our team’s logos, its lurid fluorescent striping. He raised his right arm and pointed a bent finger. “The car,” said Rafael. They walked toward it.

  The woman had come out of the house and she stood next to me. “Are you his daughter?” I said. She nodded.

  “I’m glad you came,” she said. “Rafael is a good man. It’s a shame he never became a father.”

  She looked at the others standing by the car. “The bikes,” she said. “He’ll want to see the bikes. You should get your bikes out.” She shouted to Rafael. “The bikes, Rafa. Show him the bikes.”

  Having taken a bicycle from the car and reassembled it, we passed it to the Hare. He steadied himself by gripping the white-taped handlebars. Behind him, Rafael held both the Hare and the bike.

  “You know,” said the Hare’s daughter, “I think he wants to ride. Let’s let him ride.”

  “Really,” said Fabrice. He looked at the Hare. “Do you want to ride?”

  The Hare flinched in an attempted shrug.

  “I’m not sure he’ll be able to,” said Fabrice.

  The Hare frowned. “I can,” he said.

  Rafael and the Hare’s daughter worked with the bike and the Hare. They took down the saddle. They radically inclined the bike to one side and lifted his leg over it. They clamped his hands to the handlebars and placed his feet onto the pedals. Rafael held him upright, seated now on the saddle.

  The old man looked purposefully ahead. His daughter bent and quickly tucked his canvas trouser legs out of the way of the chain, into beige woolen socks. Rafael smiled. “Are we ready?” he said. “Are we ready for the moment of truth?”

  The Hare’s mouth turned down a little. The expression preceded, by a moment, his pressing on the pedals. Then his knees began to move slowly. Rafael started to walk with him. The tires of the bike crunched over the grit and dust. He was still leaning severely into Rafael as he rode. Rafael struggled to hold the small man with his own slight frame. The Hare began to pick up speed. He began to describe a circle around the parking lot.

  They made a full turn before the holding got too much for Rafael. He gestured to me. “Swap me out,” he said. “We need somebody larger.”

  I came over and took the Hare’s weight. I clasped the handlebars where Rafael had been gripping them. The Hare’s body pressed against me. I smelled his sour smell. I was so close to him that I could feel his limbs vibrating in their fragile, old-man tenseness. He started to push the pedals again. I was on the inside of the circle and he pedaled leaning in. He sped up a little. I trotted, and the pressure against me became less, though he was still unsteady.

  The Hare grunted with the effort of it all. I had a sense, in the moment, of why we were there, of Rafael’s intentions in bringing us to meet the man. The glories of his past were present to the Hare as he cycled. He was a better set of quadriceps and lungs away from being able to race as he had last done forty years ago. He grunted again: a hoarse, hollow sound, as if he were being emptied. We would have to stop soon. He was riding to his limit, tiring himself as he had when he raced, simply to do these tiny laps. He had time-traveled from his prime, from when things were last so vital. Forty years though, I thought. Forty years.

  * *

  I pad slowly through the hotel again. I have had my massage. I have eaten a snack. I wait for dinner.

  The hotel has a roof garden: some decking laid down between architectural gestures. I go up and stand in the wind. Air outlets sprout fungally from the hotel roof. Cloud is striped in fine lines across a mackerel-skin sky. Cowls creak. I find a protein bar in my pocket. I eat it. I ball up the wrapper and drop it onto the decking, where it begins to twitchingly unfurl again. I feel the ev
ening breeze coursing over the rooftops. I open my hand and hold it above me, letting the air play through my fingers. This is what I aim for: not the podiums or flowers or paychecks (or not only them), but the feeling of justified exhaustion, the satisfaction of having done what was asked of me. I hear some cats fighting, and somewhere far in the distance an emergency vehicle. The heavy door to the roof opens, clangs shut again.

  “Hello,” says Rafael. His hands knead each other. The satisfaction of the race finish must be wearing off.

  “The pickup has been organized,” he says. “I have spoken to Liz.”

  There is something I dislike in hearing Rafael use my wife’s name. It’s the same feeling I have had on trains, carrying B, chatting happily to him and yet encountering the glare of another passenger who appears not to think I respond to B’s gurgles and demands as I should.

  Rafael departs, and I stand and wait for the feeling of satisfaction to return to me. It does for a time, though the wind is now pulling up goose bumps on my forearms. I will see Liz, I think. I will see B. I leave the roof and close the door behind me. I walk back to the room, pleasantly giddy with my tiredness, with the thought of the two of them arriving so soon.

  * *

  Before I left for this race, Liz, Davina, and I had dinner at an Italian restaurant. Katherine watched over a sleeping B back at home. The high summer sun was still up as we were seated, and we sat at a table by the window and watched people leaving the park across the road. Liz and I talked about B, and our lives around him, and only when we had talked for some time did we ask Davina whether anything was new in her life. “I’m having an affair,” she said. She laughed, pleased by the effect of saying it this way. She had met a man who worked for a commercial shipping company, she said. He lived in Newcastle and came down to London for work every couple of weeks. The two of them went to cheap hotels in the afternoon. “The logistics are difficult,” said Davina.

  “It sounds like work,” said Liz.

  “It’s fun,” said Davina. “The subterfuge. It makes you think people care.” She laughed again.