Tomorrow Pamplona

by Jan Van Mersbergen

  Pamplona. He has a goal and someone to take him there. He is on his way. There’s nothing to see in the wing mirror now, just the hard shoulder, the crash barrier and the green of the fields.

  It’s stopped raining. The windscreen wipers are still. They’re approaching another bridge. The road is suspended on two enormous white metal arches, with a river flowing beneath, calm and wide. They cross the river and the landscape changes, becoming even more bare, with just the occasional house or a farm with a few outbuildings. They pass a local bus with dirty windows. The driver’s the only person on the bus. Robert speeds up, moves into the left-hand lane and overtakes a car. As they drive past, Danny sees a big black dog jump up against the back window. It rests its front paws on the window and barks silently. White slobber flies from the corners of its mouth and drips down the glass. The old man at the wheel keeps his eyes on the road ahead.

  The photo on the dashboard glints in the light. Danny leans forward to look at their faces. The little boy’s smile is forced and the girl and the woman are scowling into the lens. A word is printed on the plastic of the dashboard just beneath the photograph: AIRBAG. There’s a Volkswagen in front of them. The VW logo on the back of the car is getting closer. Airbag, he thinks. Again, he tries to imagine the dangers of Pamplona. He tries to picture himself facing the bulls. And suddenly he sees how everything in the car is designed to take Robert safely to Pamplona. And back home again.

  *

  Music was blaring out of the speakers. As he walked past, he turned his head to escape the noise, but even when he reached the corridor to the changing room the din was still thudding away in his temples. The air was ringing, his ears were ringing. Ron walked beside him. He had slung his nylon hooded gown and towel over his arm and was carrying a sponge bucket and a drinking bottle. He held out the bottle to Danny.

  In a minute.

  They went around the corner and into the changing room, where Richard was leaning against the wall. Well done, mate, he said.

  Danny sat down on the bench.

  Four rounds, said Ron, repeating it a couple of times. He put the bucket on the floor and the bottle on the bench, dropped the gown and towel beside it and clapped his hands a few times. Then he started pacing across the changing room from the bench to the door and back.

  Four rounds, he said again. He went over to Danny and started to unwrap his hands. His right eyebrow was cut. They’d used something to seal the wound between the second and third rounds, but it had bled pretty badly and he had blood on his gloves, his chest and his shorts. Ron wet the sponge, wrung it out over the bucket and wiped Danny’s face. It made the wound sting.

  You got any more of that stuff?

  Richard shook his head. You’d better get some stitches put in that.

  Now?

  I’ll go and fetch someone who can do it for you, Richard said. He got up and went back to the sports hall.

  Danny stood up. His legs had felt heavier after other fights.

  You could go another four rounds right now, easy, said Ron, unlacing Danny’s boots.

  Leave it, said Danny. He sat down against the wall and breathed in deeply.

  Someone knocked on the open door. A man in a wheelchair appeared in the doorway. Ron looked up and said: Mr Varon.

  Rosenberger Junior.

  Everything okay?

  Couldn’t be better, said the man. Ron walked over to him and they shook hands.

  Come on in, said Ron. Congratulations.

  The man looked at Danny and said: Yeah, I think congratulations are in order.

  He rolled into the changing room, headed straight for Danny, shook his hand and said: Gerard Varon.

  The man in the wheelchair had to look up at the other two men, but he was still a formidable presence. It was me who organized all this, he said.

  Ron came and stood beside Danny.

  That brother of yours wasn’t exaggerating.

  Ron said: We know what our boys are capable of.

  True enough, said Gerard Varon. And so did your dad. Good old Rosenberger.

  He was still looking at Danny. They were sitting opposite each other: Danny on the bench, the man in his wheelchair.

  I used to have a lot of lads from Rosenberger’s. But there weren’t many like you.

  No, said Ron.

  That Bulgarian was no pushover.

  He didn’t have a cat in hell’s chance.

  Maybe he was tired from the journey. He only got here yesterday.

  Our Danny’s still good for another few rounds, said Ron.

  Danny listened to their conversation. His heart was thumping. It was thumping harder now than during the fight. He looked at the man, at his grey hair and his coat and the shirt he was wearing underneath it. The collar was long and pointed. Two white patent-leather shoes sat on the wheelchair’s metal shelf.

  I heard this was your twenty-ninth fight.

  That’s right.

  He’s modest, our Danny, said Ron.

  But most of them had an early finish.

  He doesn’t like doing things by halves.

  Or are you not keen on counting points?

  You could say that, said Danny.

  Someone tapped on the door. It was a metallic sound, maybe a ring. A woman with long black hair appeared in the doorway. She looked Asian, Thai perhaps, or Filipino.

  Here you are, she said. Her skin was dark, like copper. The make-up around her eyes accentuated them. Green eye shadow.

  Gerard turned briefly to look at her and beckoned her in. Then he looked back at Danny and Ron.

  This is Ragna, he said. She works for me.

  Danny watched her as she came into the changing room. She had long legs and was wearing calf-length trousers. She appeared not to walk but to glide across the floor. When she reached the wheelchair, she stopped. She didn’t shake hands. A bag hung over her shoulder and both of her hands stayed firmly on the bag.

  Hello, Ron mumbled. Danny did the same.

  Ragna’s impressed, said Varon. And she knows what she’s talking about.

  Danny lowered his head and breathed in. Then he sat up straight, pushing his shoulders back against the cold brick wall.

  In fact, everyone’s impressed, the boxing promoter continued. He signalled to Ragna. She took a slim metal case from her bag, popped it open, slid a card out of it and handed it to the man, who passed it to Ron.

  Will you give that to your brother? We should have a chat. Maybe we can work together again.

  As the man spoke, he looked at Danny with tired eyes that had dark red veins running through the white.

  Thanks, said Ron.

  Get him to call me, eh?

  I’ll pass on the message, Ron replied. Gerard gave him a tight smile. The woman had stepped away from the wheelchair and was running her fingers through her black hair. She was looking either at Danny or at the wall behind him. Her eyes were dark and shining.

  I hope to hear from him soon.

  The man shook hands with both of them, turned his wheelchair around and rolled himself to the door. As he passed the woman, he placed one hand on her back, and she allowed herself to be guided out into the corridor without saying a word. When they’d gone, Ron said: How about that? I thought he might have something for me.

  Danny was breathing heavily.

  Richard came back into the changing room. The doctor will be here soon, he said. He looked at his brother, who was waving the business card in the air. What have you got there?

  They like the look of Danny, said Ron. He passed the card to his brother. He left this for you.

  He was actually here?

  Yes.

  Varon himself?

  Yeah.

  Richard stroked his cheek with the card, rasping it against his stubble, and slowly said: Very good. Very good indeed.

  Danny didn’t say anything.

  Richard laughed. Very good, he repeated. And at least that guy pays.

  He wants you to call him.


  Yeah, very good indeed, said Richard, tucking the card into his pocket. I tell you, this is going to be a great year.

  Just as well Dad’s not here to see it, Ron replied.

  Yeah, Richard agreed. He sniffed and wiped his nose on the back of his hand. Then the future wouldn’t look quite so bright, eh?

  Danny glanced over at the doorway, where her image was slowly fading.

  *

  Now that he knows his destination, his thoughts have calmed, appearing one after another as though in a slideshow. He sees the yellow and orange of the slippery floor as a blurred mosaic, liquid, sweat. People all around him. He straightens up. The crowd shrinks back and he takes one last look at the floor, sees an arm lying there, bent and motionless.

  Robert lets a Renault overtake. Then he says: So, boxing. Is that much of an earner nowadays?

  Depends who you’re boxing for.

  No idea who you box for. I’m just asking if you can make a good living.

  Good enough.

  Do you need to have another job?

  No.

  Do you get paid per fight?

  Per drop of sweat. Satisfied?

  Robert’s gaze passes over Danny’s face, over his body, to the car’s bonnet. He hugs the steering wheel, pushes back into his seat. The only sound is his finger tapping on the wheel. Danny nods, the smallest of gestures.

  Maybe bull running’s a bit like boxing, says Robert. But with a whole load of people against a bunch of mad bulls instead of just two men.

  Danny shakes his head. Boxing’s completely different.

  Yeah, sure. But I mean maybe the sensation in your body’s the same.

  Danny doesn’t respond.

  How many times have you fought?

  About thirty.

  Right. So you’ve been doing it a long time.

  A good few years.

  Robert overtakes a car. When they’re back in the right-hand lane, he says: Why did you stop?

  What?

  Why did you stop?

  I just did, Danny manages to say. He swallows. He hears the sound of the people watching, so close by. A man shouting: Stop. A woman screaming something over and over, her voice so high it could shatter glass. Something falling to the floor with a thud, like a stone, and then bouncing up again before landing and splintering into hundreds of pieces with a smash as clear as the bell between rounds.

  You won your last fight, did you?

  That’s what I said.

  I once heard that boxers always give up boxing after they’ve lost a fight.

  Danny stares at the white line between the car and the crash barrier. He doesn’t respond.

  They pass beneath a flyover and a shadow falls over their faces. When they plunge back into the light, Danny glances over at Robert’s twitching lashes. They pass a petrol station with a few cars and caravans in the car park behind the building. Danny tries to work out where they are. They’ve been driving for less than an hour, but he feels like he’s been in the car all day. He tries to picture Pamplona and the long drive ahead of them, but he has no mental image of the city. His thoughts keep returning to where he came from, to the chaos, to the lights, to the chrome chairs and the small tables, and the blind fury that seized him, fuelled by the sounds all around him. Now that fury is shivering up his spine again, to his neck, to his head. The fury was what made that fight different from all of his previous fights, when he kept his cool and watched and waited, just as he is forced now to wait in the car and to watch the motorway, to keep himself calm.

  *

  The fly buzzes high up against the back window. It hums and twitches its way along the window towards him, until it settles on the glass and Danny can get a closer look at it. Its head is big and bloated. It drops down and disappears behind his seat.

  Mind if I put on some music?

  It’s your car, says Danny, looking at the radio, at the buttons and the tuner.

  Let’s see if we can find something decent, says Robert, pressing a button. The radio lights up, the speakers on the parcel shelf crackle. The sound of a guitar and a man singing, applause, cheers slowly becoming quieter and fading away. The music continues.

  Haven’t heard this one for a long time, says Robert. Our first holiday. We played it the whole time.

  The song finishes and a man starts talking. He’s rattling on about something he read in the newspaper. For a moment, Danny freezes in his seat. His left hand shoots out and hits the button. The man’s voice disappears.

  Don’t you want the radio on?

  Not that crap.

  Well, you could have just said.

  Robert slides his hands around the steering wheel, nodding his head up and down as though the music’s still playing.

  That was a good one, says Robert. Now that the music’s stopped, he hums the tune to himself.

  Danny coughs.

  Want some water?

  Yeah.

  In that bag.

  Danny takes the bottle of mineral water out of the grocery bag. Robert says he doesn’t have any glasses, so he unscrews the cap and drinks from the bottle. He has another swig, hands Robert the bottle, and then takes the bottle back, screws the cap on and puts the bottle between his feet.

  Robert looks over the edge of the steering wheel and hums. He frowns. That was our first holiday, he says. With that music. And with our first car.

  Danny isn’t listening. Ragna appears in the rear-view mirror. He retreats inside his head and struggles to make sense of what happened. He closes his eyes, sees her lying there on his bed. On a coloured sheet. She’s sleeping. The other side of the bed is empty.

  The traffic in front of them is slowing down. Robert brakes, joins the vehicles in the right-hand lane, swears a couple of times. They slowly approach a lorry lying on its side in the verge. A red car is parked on the hard shoulder behind the lorry, its door open. A man stands directing the traffic into the left-hand lane. The sounds from outside filter through into the car. Someone shouting. As they get closer, Danny sees chickens all over the road. Hundreds of chickens are huddled together on the tarmac and there are wooden crates all around, with chickens inside. Another man is trying to chase the chickens onto the verge. In one single movement, he kicks two of the birds onto the grass. Then he bends down and flaps his hands to drive the creatures along.

  Lucky we can get past, Robert says as he joins the left-hand lane. Damn lucky. The whole motorway’ll be clogged up before long. There’s going to be a huge tailback.

  He sees flashing lights approaching from behind them, moving along the hard shoulder. No siren though – that’s just in Danny’s head. A police car, followed by a fire engine. The blue lights dance over the toppled lorry, over the feathers and beaks and eyes peering out between the slats of the boxes.

  Even when they’re past the chicken lorry and driving along in the right-hand lane, the siren’s still blaring in Danny’s head. The sound slowly changes into a human scream. Danny narrows his eyes and the motorway becomes a thin grey strip. His heart beats faster. He takes a few deep breaths. He can hear the high-pitched sound clearly now. It surrounds him, like the noise of two cats fighting in a courtyard at night.

  Danny clenches his fist and winds the material of his white T-shirt around his knuckles, like a hand wrap. He closes his other hand around the white fist and squeezes hard.

  *

  They pass a town and see a strip of football pitches running alongside the motorway, and a row of flats with glass balconies beyond. Danny looks out at a tower block and a tall structure that could be a radio mast. After the town, they drive past a farmhouse. The smell of chicken shit hangs in an invisible cloud over the motorway. The car battles its way through. As the smell slowly clears, Danny turns his face to the door, looks at the mirror. He remembers the wall of mirrors in the gym at the boxing school, the way they reflected the flash of his eyes as he circled the punch bag, jabbing in rapid combinations. His bandaged fists flashed too, against the leather, which was damp w
ith his sweat.

  A small, brightly coloured car overtakes them. A woman is driving; she has long hair and the same colour skin as Ragna. He watches her as the car becomes smaller and smaller and is finally swallowed by the horizon.

  Get a good look? says Robert.

  Danny doesn’t react.

  Want me to follow her?

  No need.

  That was a fine-looking woman though, Robert says, shifting his hands to the bottom of the steering wheel and resting his little fingers on his thighs. He leans one elbow on the door and rubs his chin.

  Know what struck me about that lorry?

  What?

  Those chickens. They just stayed where they were. He pauses. They could have flown away, but they didn’t.

  Chickens can’t fly.

  Well, they could have walked away, says Robert. Anyway, they must be able to flap about a bit. Whatever, it just goes to show they’re already half-dead. Not like the bulls in Pamplona – they’re a completely different story.

  Robert sucks on his bottom lip. It makes a squeaking sound.

  Danny waits and listens. They’re zooming along in the left-hand lane, but it feels as though they’re crawling.

  Don’t you think?

  I don’t know, says Danny.

  The monotone hum of the engine accompanies them on their journey south. Danny’s thinking about the bulls, not as Robert sees them, but as he sees them, as a static image.

  Do you know what I think? Robert says. Chickens are stupid.

  Danny looks straight ahead. The photo on the dashboard becomes larger. The woman and the two children nod at him. He feels like pulling the photo out of the frame and ripping it up.

  Robert rests his hand on the gearstick, but doesn’t change gear. For a long time, they sit in silence. They cross the border. The motorway curves high above Antwerp. The houses of the city lie in a tangle beneath the road. He spots a gym. Cars jostle around the exits for the city centre, but Danny and Robert stay in the bypass lane, which slowly changes appearance as they drive on, leaving Antwerp behind. Robert says: Sometimes running away is the best thing to do.

  Danny glances over at him, at the steering wheel, at the hand casually resting on it. The needle of the speedometer quivers between 120 and 130.