The Penalty Area

by Alain Gillot

  Cosmin was no more than thirty yards from the goal. He prepared his move and Rouverand was already opening the inside of his foot to take his offering. But no. Cosmin continued running toward the goal. Costes had already moved, trying to block that imaginary pass to Rouverand. Cosmin ran into the penalty area and followed up with a cross that was perfection itself. He had indeed hogged the ball, run with it, and produced a beautiful piece of improvisation. But as I, and the boys on the field, watched wide-eyed, what happened next belonged to Léonard, and only to him. Just when it all seemed done and dusted, he got down on the ground full length and deflected the ball with his fingertips.

  Where had he come from to make a save like that? How had he guessed the right side? The break, the feints, Cosmin’s final play, everything had been too fast, and too well-executed, for the ball not to end up at the back of the net. Unless it met an exceptional goalkeeper on its way.

  Cosmin ran back to his own team without making any bad-tempered gestures, incredulous rather, and the game resumed, but I could see from their faces that it was somehow over. If you couldn’t beat Léonard with a move like that, nobody else had any chance of success, and his team was bound to score eventually. And that was what happened. Hervalet scored an own goal, as a sign of discouragement. What could you do against a Martian?

  23

  I walked with the boys to the locker room. That was something I didn’t usually do, thinking that after a training session they’d already seen enough of me. But I had a premonition that something was going to happen, something bad. The day had been too perfect. Something was going to complicate everything. Life wasn’t just that moment of grace when my nephew had lain down on the ball.

  Some were already in the showers, others still recovering on the bench, but the atmosphere was strangely silent compared to the usual. Even Marfaing didn’t make any of his terrible jokes. It was then that Rouverand yelled at Léonard. He spoke as if he represented the whole group and, in a way, it was true. He asked a question and I felt a flush of heat rise in me.

  “Congratulations, Léo, on your save. But tell me something. Did you take a chance, or did you know he was going to put it there?”

  It was now that things were going to turn nasty, of course. Changing the forks in a drawer, sitting on a couch watching videos: all that was just a game, just as Léonard himself had said. Quite the opposite of a locker room full of fourteen-year-old boys with raging hormones.

  “Cosmin knows, he was in the front row, man!”

  It was Marfaing who had spoken, and others said much the same. It was if everything held back so far was exploding. They all started talking at the same time, until Costes intervened.

  “Hey, let’s hear what he has to say!”

  “Sorry, guys, but I can’t answer. I put everything into my cross, that’s all I can say. Léo’s the one who knows.”

  This was it. They were all going to turn to him now, and the trap would close. He would give them one of those lectures he was so good at. They would hate him. And we’d have to start all over again from scratch.

  “I took a chance.”

  “What?”

  “A chance. That’s your answer.”

  There was a moment of complete silence. Léonard’s face was as inscrutable as ever, and everyone wondered for a moment if he wasn’t playing a trick on them. Then there was a first burst of laughter, followed by another.

  “Hell, Léo, if on top of that you’re just lucky . . . ”

  “I don’t agree,” Bensaid said. “It was champion’s luck.”

  “He’s right!”

  “In any case, it was great, man. Do the same for us against Valenciennes. That’s all we ask!”

  I waited for Léonard in the car. The locker room had given its verdict, but I was still postponing mine. My nephew joined me, and as soon as he closed the door I asked him the question that was on my mind.

  “What you told Kevin, was that the truth?”

  “No.”

  “So you lied?”

  “Yes.”

  “I didn’t think you ever lied.”

  “This time I had to.”

  “Why?”

  Léonard gave a slight grimace, then started swaying gently in his seat. He must have made a considerable effort to overcome an invisible barrier inside himself. “I remembered that other time with him, when things went wrong.”

  I inserted the key in the ignition and started the engine. I couldn’t help smiling. He’d constructed a new box.

  “How did you know what Cosmin was going to do?”

  “1973. AFC Ajax versus Bayern Munich. Johan Cruyff is in line with the goal, with two players backing him up. He feints to the left, then the right, and keeps the ball. The last feint to the right means that his cross goes to the left. That’s the most frequent move.”

  “Frequent?”

  “I don’t have any example of a shot to the right when the last feint is to the right.”

  “What would you have thought if he’d shot to the right and beaten you?”

  “I’d have added that variation to the others. But he didn’t do that.”

  If he was capable of lying now, he was almost ready to live in society, so he might as well take part in an official match. When we left the parking lot, I turned right, not left as I usually did.

  “Aren’t we going home?”

  “No. We have some shopping to do.”

  I drove onto the avenue that led to the center and parked close to the pedestrian zone. Léonard didn’t ask me where we were going, as if he already knew I wasn’t going to answer him. We crossed Place de l’Horloge and took the first street on the right. There it was. The last sports store in town that wasn’t part of a chain. Gossin and Son. The only place that still sold hand-stitched boots.

  “What are we doing here?” Léonard asked in front of the window.

  “Getting some gear.”

  I went into the store, and Léonard followed me. I pointed him to the bench where the customers sat. A bald, thickset man of about forty came out from the back of the store. This was Gossin the son. He had a face like a bulldog, but when he recognized me, it lit up in a smile and he crushed my hand. Raymond had been a junior international, but had had to take over the family business when his father died unexpectedly. He always came to the stadium on match days, and without really talking much, we’d immediately liked each other.

  “What can I do for you, Vincent?”

  “This young man needs a pair of Zifrelis. And gloves. Do you still have your Buffons?”

  “I don’t get much opportunity to sell any, you know. A Stradivarius in Sedan, you know what I mean . . . But I’ll see.”

  Léonard’s face was inscrutable, as always. He waited, motionless, on the bench, looking at the posters of soccer legends that plastered the walls. Raymond came back, his arms loaded with boxes, but the first pair of boots was the right one. The Zifrelis fit snugly, while ensuring perfect stability. And it turned out there were still some Buffons. Léonard put them on and his hands stopped moving as if by magic. We left the store without saying anything to each other. It was the time when people were doing their shopping and the streets were crowded and noisy, with everyone in a hurry. Neither of us felt like walking quickly. Just before we got to the car, Léonard finally broke the silence.

  “The boots I had were fine, you know.”

  “Fine for training, maybe. But for an official match, good gear makes all the difference.”

  He said nothing for a moment or two, as if unsure he had understood correctly. “Am I going to play in an official match?”

  “Yes. Next Sunday.”

  We got back in the car. Léonard kept the boxes on his knees. “Thank you,” he said.

  “It isn’t a gift, it’s a loan. You’ll pay me back when you sign your first contract.”

>   “You really think I can become a good goalkeeper?”

  “You already are.”

  “Does that cancel out your promise?”

  “What promise?”

  “You were supposed to learn chess. Do you remember?”

  “It doesn’t cancel out anything at all.”

  The traffic was heavy and it took us a good quarter of an hour to get out of town and reach the suburban area where my house was. I turned onto my street. There was a van in front of me moving slowly and, when it moved aside, I saw her, Madeleine. She was searching in the trunk of a garishly colored car, which she had parked right across the gate. She seemed very nervous. So she was the reason for my premonition. I’d gotten it wrong.

  24

  She had a new hairstyle, with bangs. She seemed even more nervous than the first time she’d come, but as if she’d read my thoughts, she made an effort to put on a big smile as if to say that she was in good shape.

  Léonard was waiting on the sidewalk, holding back a little, and when Madeleine rushed to him and put her arms around him, he remained inert and looked away. My sister hugged him to her, kissed him several times, then, sensing that he didn’t know what to do with this flood of affection, freed him from her embrace and turned back to me.

  “You see, I kept my word, I’m even early!”

  “Was your course shorter than expected?”

  “No. I dropped out, and I’m not the only one. It was a scam.”

  “I thought the teachers were great.”

  “At first, but afterwards everything went wrong. I swear to you, it was crap, and besides, it’s a race against time to open the bar by the beginning of November.”

  “The bar?”

  “Patrice’s bar in Rheims. You have no idea what’s involved, especially as Patrice has left everything to me, he’s taking care of raising the money, you understand, and finding sponsors. Without sponsors there’s no point even opening, the clientele depends on word of mouth, the local bigwigs, the movers and shakers, that’s the way it works!”

  It was a real verbal Niagara. No way to stop her. She told me that she had to supervise the work, fight with the suppliers over the phone, deal with a thousand details a day. The way she told it, she was working 24–7.

  “And with all this going on, what are you going to do about Léonard?”

  “I admit I did wonder about that. I even thought to ask you for a bit of an extension. And then Patrice took things in hand, that’s the way he is, you know, he’s a man of action.”

  This Patrice was clearly a godsend. He’d managed to get an appointment at the best school in the region, and apparently it was possible to take in Léonard in the middle of the school year, except that the only day the principal of this sought-after establishment would agree to see them was tomorrow. Madeleine stopped to catch her breath. She looked at me for a moment. In spite of the effort I was making to hide my irritation, it must have been obvious.

  “You don’t seem pleased to see me. Is it because I arrived unexpectedly? I know you hate that, but it’s in a good cause, I’m setting you free!”

  There was another detail that had changed as far as her appearance was concerned. She was wearing high heels.

  “I’m going inside, okay?”

  I went into the house and Léonard walked past me and straight to his room. I remembered what Catherine Vandrecken had told me the first time we spoke. Children with Asperger’s didn’t have the same relationship to affection, to ties. They needed security and routine, but it wasn’t linked to any person in particular. He could find all that in Rheims, and for a longer time. What did I have to give him that wasn’t temporary? That’s what I should have been thinking. The rest was misplaced sentimentality.

  My sister now came into the house and headed straight for the kitchen. She’d found what she was looking for in the trunk of the car. It was a glass bottle containing a greenish liquid.

  “I hope you don’t mind, I’m going to eat my soup. It’s all I eat, but I’m ravenous.”

  “Are you on a diet?”

  “Have you noticed how fat poor people are? Poor people don’t order champagne in trendy bars. Having a good figure in my work is really important. Did you see my bangs?”

  “It makes you look different.”

  “It makes me look younger. That’s Patrice’s doing. He always says the secret of success is in the details.”

  She heated the soup in the microwave and poured it into a bowl. She sat down at the table to drink it, but it was too hot. Her high heels were hurting. She took her shoes off under the table. She started blowing on the surface of the liquid.

  “Apart from that, anything to report about Léonard?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “I don’t know, any problems you’ve had with him.”

  “No.”

  “Did you really manage to get him playing sports?”

  “Yes.”

  The last thing I wanted was a discussion, let alone an argument. Anything that might make it obvious I was unhappy about his going.

  “And he’s been getting on okay?”

  “Pretty well.”

  “You know, I really appreciate your help.”

  “I didn’t exactly have any choice.”

  “I know what it cost you.”

  “Let’s not exaggerate.”

  “And you must tell me what you spent on Léonard. You’ll be repaid along with the rest.”

  “The rest?”

  “The loan.”

  I looked at my sister. She put down the bowl. She realized we weren’t on the same wavelength. She turned very pale. “You forgot.”

  “No. But I told you we’d talk about it face-to-face.”

  “You mean you can’t do it.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  She launched into a sales pitch that included the fabulous prospects for the bar, Patrice’s ability to generate money, like Jesus with the loaves, and even offered me a schedule of repayment with an 8-percent rate of interest. I made her out a check to stop her talking. I wanted them to leave quickly now.

  Léonard came out of his room. He’d put his things in a plastic bag and was holding his chess set under his arm. He was ready. I walked them to the car. Léonard sat down in the passenger seat. My sister started the ignition. It was a pseudo-sports coupé, which compensated for its lack of power with lots of noise. I tried to imagine what Patrice looked like. There was something that didn’t quite tally between the friend of bigwigs and the chromium-plated wheel rims of that car. I stayed on the sidewalk watching them drive off. The rear spoiler was loose.

  I went back inside and locked the door. I tried to make myself coffee but there were no more cartridges. In Léonard’s room, the two boxes from Gossin and Son lay on the chest of drawers. My nephew hadn’t taken either the boots or the gloves with him. I sat down on the edge of the bed, as he often did, and looked through the window at nothing in particular. I’d been right not to change the wallpaper. Everything passed. You could never build anything.

  25

  I went back to my life the way it had been before Léonard. I left after nine for training without anybody waiting under the clock to put pressure on me. I’d never realized how silent the house was, apart from the leak under the sink, which could be heard more and more distinctly. As a safety measure, I replaced the bowl with a bucket.

  I had a call from Catherine Vandrecken. When I saw her name, I didn’t pick up but listened to the message. She asked after Léonard and suggested we meet this weekend. I was pleased to hear her voice, but I didn’t call her back. I couldn’t. I didn’t see what we could say to each other, let alone do together, now. She left another message the next day, a very short one, asking me simply to call her back, then nothing else.

  The day of the match against Valenciennes arri
ved. In the locker room, the boys were very nervous, as if they foresaw disaster. I’d told Favelic to go back to his old place in goal, but nobody was reassured by this decision, he least of all. None of the players mentioned Léonard as they put their shirts on, but everyone was thinking about him. They were going to miss the Martian, as Catherine had nicknamed him.

  The match was a real disaster. Everything conspired to turn it into a humiliation. First of all, the guys from Valenciennes were pretty good, well-organized, realistic, while on our side, the team was like a building that had collapsed from the inside. The front held up for ten minutes, then everything fell down. Favelic communicated his restlessness to his defense, the midfield had to play very deep to compensate, which meant that the strikers didn’t have enough ammunition. In other words, defeat was pre-programmed. I tried my best to shake them up at half time, but I didn’t believe in it myself and they felt that. They conceded four goals and, frankly, there was still room for two more. The referee’s final whistle came as a relief.

  In the parking lot, the faces of the supporters and the few club members who’d braved the cold to come and watch this mess of a soccer game were unequivocal. They were worried. It was a friendly match of course, which didn’t count for the championship, but the championship was starting in a few days and it was obvious that the team wasn’t going to be transformed in such a short time. I saw the club’s deputy chairman, Armand Vauquier, approaching. He’d come with his wife, and the poor woman was stamping her heels to warm herself, in a hurry to go.