Tomorrow Pamplona

by Jan Van Mersbergen

  What about you?

  Daniel. But everyone calls me Danny.

  Danny.

  Robert takes his right hand off the steering wheel. It looks as though he’s about to shake Danny’s hand, but he doesn’t. He puts his hand back on the wheel, leans forward and studies Danny. Then he looks back at the tarmac. I’m in insurance.

  Danny nods.

  What about you? What do you do?

  Danny puts the Alfa on the dashboard. The toy car rolls from one side to the other, gets stuck on a bump, goes into reverse, bounces back and hits the bump again. He says: I’m a boxer.

  A boxer?

  Yes.

  You fight in proper matches?

  He hesitates, then says: I just fought my last fight.

  Are you well known?

  Yes.

  What’s your surname?

  Clare. Danny Clare.

  Robert looks at him. Yeah, now that you mention it. You say you’ve just had your last fight?

  Yes.

  Well? Did you win?

  He sees Ragna’s face again. Her eyes are closed and her hair is spread out over the pillow. The white moonlight is shining through the roof window, illuminating one of the corners of the pillow. He looks away and takes hold of the soft fabric of his trousers, squeezing it between his thumb and index finger.

  Yes, I won, he says.

  Robert doesn’t ask him any more questions. A bird flies low over the meadows, its shadow gliding beneath it like a dark patch on the wet grass. Danny winds down the window, rests his elbow on the door and feels the fresh wind on his face and his arm.

  *

  He began training at seven o’clock. At that hour, there were only a few lads at the Rosenbergers’ boxing school, working with their stocky Turkish trainer. Richard said he’d once been the Turkish army welterweight champion. He’d been living in Amsterdam for ten years and he certainly wasn’t a welterweight any more.

  Danny stood in his usual corner, beneath the steamed-up windows. The boys worked through their programme. Every time the bell went and they took a breather, they looked over at Danny. When the bell rang for the next five minutes, they carried on training. Danny warmed up with some stretches, followed by a few strength exercises on the mat.

  Then Ron arrived. He and his brother Richard were almost like two peas in a pod. The only difference was that Ron was completely bald – and he’d once been a boxer himself and had broken his nose at some point. He was bigger than Danny and must have outweighed him by twenty kilos. Danny said hello to them and when Ron had got changed into his training gear he helped Danny put on his gloves. Ron took the boxing pads out of the cupboard. The junior boxers had all gone home by then and the seniors were trickling into the room one by one. Ron set the clock and they worked through a few jabs and combinations. They trained for over seventy-five minutes. Danny held back because the other boxers were all amateurs. He gave them the occasional pointer. He sparred with a guy from Russia who’d trained at boxing schools in Tula and Kiev, and who didn’t say a word, just smiled whenever Danny explained something to him. Towards the end of each interval, Ron stepped things up, clapping to set the tempo and to encourage the boxers to keep it up until the bell rang. Ron’s T-shirt was damp and his bald head was beaded with sweat.

  Danny went off for a shower after the training session and then headed to the canteen. One of the younger boxers was sitting there with a bowl of water in front of him. He was a tough-looking Surinamese lad with drowsy eyes and he was wearing a padded jacket with a huge hood. Ron came out from behind the bar with a plastic mouth guard in his hand. He dropped it into the warm water. His first gum shield, he said to Danny.

  When’s your fight?

  Two weeks, said the boy.

  His first match, said Ron. He squeezed the mouth guard to see if it was soft enough. Then he shook the water off it and told the boy it wasn’t going to hurt.

  The boy nodded. Ron told him to open his mouth and said: If it fits okay, just bite down on it.

  He held the back of the boy’s head with one hand, pushed his head against his hip, and pressed the mouth guard onto the boy’s top row of teeth with his other hand. The boy closed his eyes and put a brave face on it.

  Don’t worry. You’re in the hands of an expert, Danny said.

  The boy just groaned.

  Bite down on it for a while, make sure it fits properly.

  Ron left the boy sitting there while he went to the bar. He poured himself a coffee and then took a carton of fruit juice out of the fridge for Danny and poured him a glass. Danny downed the juice in three gulps. Ron topped him up.

  That long enough? the boy grunted.

  You have to keep it in all night, said Ron. Oh yeah, and all the way through Christmas dinner too.

  The boy laughed. He carefully removed the guard and studied the imprint of his teeth. Then he thanked Ron and left him alone with Danny.

  Ron poured out a bowl of peanuts and joined Danny at the bar.

  Right, mate, he said. If you fight like that, he’ll be down within three rounds.

  Ron stuffed a handful of peanuts into his mouth.

  I heard someone else was scheduled to fight him.

  That’s right.

  What happened? Did he drop out?

  Don’t know. Rich sorted it.

  Danny took a swig of juice, put the glass down on the bar and looked out at the sky through the tall windows. The clouds were grey.

  Do you know why Aaron’s not boxing?

  No idea.

  When I heard there was a fight coming up with the Bulgarian guy, I thought he’d be doing it.

  Don’t ask me, Ron said with a shrug.

  Aaron’s a good boxer and he’s younger than me. I thought he’d fight. Or that other guy. What’s his name? The one who always wears those red shorts.

  Sando?

  He’s in my weight class too.

  You seen him recently?

  No. Has he stopped coming?

  I don’t know.

  Is he back inside again?

  No, it’s not that. Rich bumped into him somewhere or other not long ago. He was off to another of those salsa parties of his.

  Salsa?

  Haven’t you heard? He goes to these salsa parties. To pick up women.

  Danny looked at him.

  He’s never told you? said Ron. He goes along to the parties, but it’s certainly not for the salsa. It’s just for the birds. They all want to shag him.

  What? Sando? Sando from here?

  You really didn’t know? They pick him up and they take him home. And they actually pay him for the pleasure.

  What? They pay him for sex?

  Yeah. Rich said he was all done up like a dog’s dinner. Because he’d had such a good night the last time. Know how much they pay? You’ll never guess. A hundred a go. He made four hundred in one night the last time. With the same woman. Then another hundred in the morning. Says he’s at it like a bloody rabbit.

  Bunch of madwomen, said Danny.

  Rabbits, the lot of them, Ron said. He looked at Danny and grinned. Hey, I can see the cogs turning. If that tosser gets a hundred a go, reckon I could ask two hundred.

  More like three.

  Ron smiled and said: All I know is they wanted you to fight the Bulgarian.

  Danny shifted on his barstool.

  You ever done any work for him?

  Who? Gerard Varon? Ron cupped his hands around his coffee. Training sessions, he said. Only after Dad was gone though. He wasn’t that keen on him.

  They say he takes good care of his people.

  You’d have to ask my brother about that, Ron replied. He knows about that sort of thing. All I know is I’ve never had any problems with him. Can’t say the same about Dad though. He always called Varon a dirty old man, but that’s what he called everyone who wasn’t wearing training gear.

  Danny slid down from his stool and stood there, looking at Ron. I seem to remember seeing your dad in a suit
from time to time. With a tie and everything.

  Yeah? Well, that must have been when he was off to visit the queen.

  *

  They’re driving along a concrete section of the motorway, the car thudding over the ridges between the slabs. The blue Alfa 1300 rolls from one side of the dashboard to the other. Danny picks it up, spins the wheels, tests the suspension and plays with the doors. Robert says: Did I tell you where I’m going?

  No.

  Spain. Pamplona. His voice is lower now. To the bull running. Ever heard of it?

  Of course, Danny lies.

  But you’ve never been to Pamplona?

  No.

  Then you can’t possibly understand it.

  A long silence. They drive past fields that are crisscrossed by straight drainage ditches. Danny sees a row of willows leaning over a ditch, their roots in the water.

  He rolls the toy car across his palm. He slides over to the window and says: So you’re going to Pamplona?

  Yeah, for the twelfth year. It starts tomorrow morning. I’m going to run with the bulls.

  Robert holds his breath and his chest swells out over his belly. He coughs. Between the blinks, Danny sees a sparkle in Robert’s eyes, like a little boy who’s about to do something naughty.

  Tomorrow morning, I’m going to come face to face with a bunch of bulls, Robert continues. He taps the steering wheel. I’ll be standing there on one of those streets in Pamplona, in my white shirt, together with all those other people in their white shirts. Then they let the bulls out and you’d better start running.

  Running? Danny asks. It’s hard for him to find a neutral tone, but he manages.

  Robert nods. Yeah, as fast as you can and as far you can. He blinks. Down those narrow streets, in your white shirt and white trousers. With a red handkerchief around your neck. Which is also somewhere in one of those bags.

  A thought flickers at the back of Danny’s mind. He grips the Alfa tightly. One of the wheels pricks his skin. He says: You actually let a herd of bulls chase you?

  Yes. Six massive bulls, each of them over five hundred kilos. He points at the car in front of them. See that car? One single bull is more powerful than that. So imagine six of them coming for you.

  Robert waits for the cars in the left-hand lane to pass the Volkswagen. Then he overtakes too. The motorway curves uphill.

  Danny pulls at the seatbelt and lets it spring back into place.

  So why exactly are you going there?

  What?

  Why are you going all the way to Pamplona to let a bunch of bulls chase you?

  Yeah, I know. You’re probably thinking: What the hell’s he doing? A man like him, driving all the way through France and down to Spain, just for that. You wouldn’t be the first to wonder. Plenty of people think I’ve got a screw loose. But I still go. Every single year.

  He looks in his wing mirror and overtakes a lorry, an old Scania with a long bonnet. He chuckles to himself.

  So do you do it for the kick?

  Danny puts his hand on the window winder.

  Try to imagine, Robert says, what it feels like when they release the bulls. The noise is incredible. Your whole body’s shaking. It’s like your heart’s racing but standing still at the same time. And then, when the people around you start moving and you know the bulls are coming, it just gets worse and worse. You hear the bulls coming closer. You feel the ground shaking beneath your feet. And when you see that first bull and it’s time to run, everyone starts screaming. You can’t even think. All you can do is run as fast as your legs will carry you.

  Robert tilts his head back and stares up at the roof of the car. Then he glances over at Danny, gives him an awkward wink and looks back at the road.

  Danny clenches his teeth and looks in the wing mirror, at the grey clouds. A thin strip of blue sky is appearing at the top of the windscreen.

  They’ve been doing it for over four hundred years. Can you think of anything we’ve been doing for that long in the Netherlands? Except maybe for boxing.

  The two men look at each other for a moment.

  It’s a tradition, Robert continues. It’s a celebration. It’s danger. It’s real life.

  But why would you want to do something like that?

  Why would I want to do something like that? Robert laughs. He pauses before continuing: I have a family and a house and a nine-to-five job, he says. Five days a week, all year round. Except for that one week in Pamplona.

  So Pamplona’s your escape?

  It’s more than an escape, Robert replies. And it’s not just about the kick. You’ve got to have your own reason for running with the bulls. I once spoke to this man in Pamplona, a Spanish guy, who said he went every year. He was wearing this long white robe thing, so I asked him why he was going around in a dress. It wasn’t a dress, he said. It was a penitential robe. And Pamplona was his pilgrimage. He went there to wash away his sins.

  And is that what it is for you? A pilgrimage?

  Robert hesitates. I don’t know, but there’s something true in what he said. I work all year for my family, but half the time I don’t even know why I’m doing it. You get what I’m saying? Let’s just say I’m not the easiest of people. Bit of a naughty boy sometimes, if you know what I mean. And, somehow, Pamplona helps. When you’re standing there and those bulls are coming for you, you forget everything else. You don’t even need to be wearing a dress.

  You could just join a monastery.

  But these Spanish guys, their religion is on the streets. At least that’s the way it was for that one man I met. He doesn’t need to crawl through Spain on his knees the way people used to. He just goes to the fiesta once a year. It’s like an express pilgrimage: three minutes of running have the same result as months of crawling. You get it?

  Robert’s driving faster now. The car’s flying down the motorway. Danny sees the meadows whizzing by and the trees flicking past and realizes that he really has left it all behind. The car is pushing ahead and, all around him, everything is rolling and moving. He swears to himself. Crawling, he thinks, down on your knees.

  And that’s what it’s all about, says Robert. But you have to experience it for yourself. When you’re running through those streets and the bulls are coming after you, that’s when you really feel it. You run because you’ll die if you don’t. I’m telling you, that’ll clear your mind in an instant.

  Danny doesn’t move. He listens to the hum of the tyres. In his mind, he can see the bulls coming, all six of them, hurtling down a narrow street. They advance on him as a single unit, a snorting, steaming herd, their hoofs stamping on the cobbles. The horns coming closer and closer. Pamplona, he thinks. He feels the name in his mouth and repeats it a few times, the echo reverberating around his head, like a sigh in three parts.

  Pam-plo-na.

  He spins the Alfa’s rear wheels and says: How far is it to Pamplona?

  *

  Robert weighs up his words as he answers. It’s in the north of Spain, he says, just over the French border. If I keep on driving and don’t stop for too long, I’ll get there early tomorrow morning.

  They’re at the highest point of the bridge now, which has no water underneath it, just another motorway. A few cars and a minibus disappear under the flyover. They descend slowly and see the landscape after the bridge lying flat and green beneath a grey sky.

  Do you want to come with me?

  That was what he was waiting for. He looks at Robert. He really wants to say yes, right away, but he holds back and manages to say nothing. He keeps quiet and he waits, as you sometimes have to when you want to get results. He slowly opens and closes the Alfa’s passenger door, open, closed, open, closed.

  Robert says: For a man who doesn’t have a specific place in mind, Pamplona is a great destination. Maybe the best destination of all.

  Yeah, maybe.

  You’re welcome to come. If you like.

  Pamplona, Danny thinks, flicking the door shut.

  If you�
��ve got the guts.

  Robert takes his foot off the accelerator. Then he presses down again and lets the engine roar.

  Danny snorts. It’s not about guts, he says.

  Yeah, I’ve heard that one before.

  I’ll come with you.

  Good, says Robert. You’d better put on one of those T-shirts before you get pneumonia.

  He points at the bag on the back seat.

  Danny struggles out of his wet T-shirt. He slides his arms from the sleeves and drapes the T-shirt over one of the bags. Then he takes a white T-shirt from another bag and puts it on. It’s too small for him. The material feels tight around his chest and his upper arms.

  Tomorrow we’ll be bull runners, says Robert.

  Danny nods. He toys with the car door again, pulls it open. There’s a snap and he feels the door give way. It comes off and drops onto his lap. He glances over at Robert, who is staring at the car in front. Danny picks up the door and slides it inside the toy car, which he then hides in the glove compartment.

  After a while, Robert says: I saw that.

  It was an accident.

  I know.

  Danny doesn’t respond. He looks at the boy in the photo and hears Robert say: Don’t worry about it. These things happen.

  Danny looks at the motorway and clenches his jaw; his head feels heavy and a nerve is twitching in his temples. The snap of the door coming off the little Alfa echoes around his head, along with the sound of his fists pounding the body lying before him, limp and twisted. Hitting the spleen, the liver, again and again, swinging back and hitting again. Now the stomach.

  The lanes of the motorway are wedged between concrete noise barriers, which are the same grey as the tops of the buildings rising above them. Robert tells him that the start of the route that the bulls will run tomorrow morning looks just like this, but much narrower, and with no tarmac, of course, and no greenery. An alleyway between high, windowless walls, with cobbles underfoot that are slippery with rain or early-morning dew. Danny stares at the concrete and feels the bulls coming again. After the noise barrier, there’s a village. A few houses line the road beyond. Then the landscape is empty for a long time. Danny’s head empties too and he feels a little calmer.