‘He’s the boss, Gino. What could I do? You saw I wasn’t pleased.’
‘I didn’t see anything of the sort. That shit stood in my way and you just stared at your feet. You should have insisted he let me go with you to Aïn Témouchent.’
‘I didn’t know how these things work. It was the first time I’ve had a fight. I thought De Stefano was within his rights.’
Gino was about to protest, but changed his mind and pushed away his plate.
I was sufficiently angry not to put up with Gino’s complaints. I turned on my heel and ran down the stairs. I needed to clean myself at the hammam and put my thoughts in order. I spent that night at my mother’s.
I skipped training for three days running.
De Stefano gave Tobias the job of reasoning with me, but Tobias didn’t really need to do much; on the contrary, I was glad of the opportunity not to lose face, because I was starting to find the days long and monotonous. I went to the gym and got back in the ring like a dunce approaching the blackboard, not really applying myself, out of revenge for the dirty trick played on me in Aïn Témouchent. De Stefano realised how much his casual attitude had hurt me. He didn’t like the fact that I was behaving like an idiot but, not wanting to complicate things, he kept quiet about his feelings. To redeem himself, he did a lot of negotiating and managed to find me a serious opponent, a guy from Saint-Cloud who was starting to make a name for himself. The fight took place in a little town, in the middle of a stony field. It was such a hot day that there wasn’t much of a crowd, but my opponent had brought most of his home village with him. His name was Gomez and he knocked me out in the third round. When the referee finished the count, De Stefano threw his straw boater on the ground and stamped on it. It was Tobias who offered to give me a talking-to. He came and found me in the hut where Gino was helping me get dressed.
‘Are you happy now?’ he said, his hands on his hips. ‘That’s what happens when you skip training. De Stefano paid you more attention than you deserve. If he’d set his sights on Mario, we wouldn’t be in this position.’
‘What has Mario got that I haven’t?’
‘Self-control. Humility. He’s someone who thinks, is Mario. He knows his business. He has ideas. Ideas so big that when he has two of them at the same time, one has to kill the other so they can both stay in his skull.’
‘Why, don’t you think I have ideas?’
‘Yes, but they’re so feeble, they dissolve on their own in your pea-sized brain. You think you’re punishing De Stefano by losing a match? You’re making a big mistake, my young friend. You’re ruining your prospects. If you want to go back to your souk and watch the donkeys being eaten by flies, no problem. You can do what you like provided you don’t come back and complain about the flies, which’ll be after you this time. De Stefano will get his hands on a champion in the end. There’ll only be one loser, and it won’t be him.’
Gino said much the same thing to me when I got back to the flat. ‘There’s no shame in losing,’ he said. ‘The shame is in not doing anything to win.’
I knew I’d been wrong, but every cloud has a silver lining. Losing so painfully to Gomez was the moment I woke up. With my pride hurt, I vowed to redeem myself. It was no longer De Stefano running after me, but the other way round. I trained twice a day. On Sundays, Gino would take me to the beach and make me run on the sand until I was dizzy.
Around mid-July, a military boxer from the naval base at Mers el-Kébir agreed to fight me. A ring was set up on one of the quays, in the shadow of a huge warship. The area was packed with sailors. Officers in their dress uniforms occupied the front rows. When night fell, floodlights illuminated the quay as if it was broad daylight. Corporal Roger appeared in a white robe, a tricolour scarf around his neck. His arrival set off a wave of hysteria. He was a close-cropped, hefty-looking man with bulging muscles, his right shoulder adorned with a romantic tattoo. He danced around a bit, waving to the human tide, which waved back. The bell hadn’t stopped ringing when an avalanche of blows landed on me. The corporal was trying to knock me out from the start. His comrades cupped their hands around their mouths and yelled at him to kill me. There was a terrible silence when my left hit him in the temple. Cut short in his frenzy, the corporal staggered, his eyes suddenly empty. He didn’t see my right coming and fell backwards. After a moment of stunned silence, cries of ‘Get up’ were heard, and spread through the base. In pride of place among his fellow officers, the commander was on the verge of eating his cap. Much to the joy of the sailors, the corporal braced himself against the floor of the ring and managed to get up. The bell stopped me from finishing him off.
Salvo slipped a stool under my backside and began to cool me down. The minute’s break went on and on. There were people in the opposite corner and the referee was deliberately not disturbing them; he was letting the corporal recover. De Stefano was ostentatiously looking at his watch to remind the man in charge of the bell of his duty. The fight resumed when the corporal at last deigned to tear himself away from his seat.
Apart from his buffalo charge, which sent him flying into the ropes, the corporal was no firebrand. His right was weak and his left was just hot air. He’d realised he was out of his league and was trying to gain time by subjecting me to exhausting clinches. I knocked him out at the end of the fourth round.
As good losers, the officers invited us to the mess, where a banquet awaited us. The banquet had been intended for the victory of the local champion, which they had thought was a foregone conclusion, and the band that were supposed to have appeared that night left their instruments where they were and didn’t turn up at all. It was a grim party.
De Stefano was on cloud nine. Our clash of egos was nothing more now than a distant bad memory. I resumed my training with ferocious determination and had two successful fights in the space of forty days, the first in Medioni, with an obscure celebrity, the second with Bébé Rose, a handsome guy from Sananas who collapsed in the third round from an attack of appendicitis.
In Rue Wagram, the local kids were starting to make me their hero; they would wait for me outside the gym to cheer me when I came out. The shopkeepers would raise their hands to their temples in greeting. I still hadn’t had my picture in the newspaper, but in Medina Jedida, a legend was spreading through the alleyways, embellished as it passed from mouth to mouth until it verged on the supernatural.
3
Gino told me that a group of gypsies from Alicante were appearing in La Scalera and that he wouldn’t miss them for the world. He lent me a light suit for the evening and we set off for Old Oran. The coopers were going back to their cellars and the street vendors were putting away their gear. Night had taken the city by surprise while the people on the street were still living their daytime lives. It was always like that in winter. The people of Oran were used to the long days of summer, and when these grew shorter without warning, they went a little crazy. Some automatically went home, others lingered in the watering holes for want of anything better to do, until night brought out its own, and the few shadowy figures who still dawdled here and there were suspicious.
We strode across the Derb and took a few short cuts to get to the Casbah. Gino was really excited.
‘You’ll see, it’s a brilliant group, with the best flamenco dancers in the world.’
We climbed several stepped alleys. In this part of the city, there were no street lamps. Apart from the wailing of babies that could be heard every now and again, the quarter seemed dead. Then at last, at the end of the tunnel, a semblance of light: a lantern hanging as if crucified over the door of a stunted shack. We climbed more stepped alleys. From time to time, in the gaps between the houses, we glimpsed the lights of the harbour. A dog barked as we passed and was yelled at by its master. Further on, a blind accordionist tormented his instrument under an awning, standing there in his wretched state like a statue. Beside him, watching over his whores huddled in the shadows, a potbellied pimp, his loose-fitting jacket open to display hi
s flick knife, was dancing a polka. Gradually, in places, life resumed. We came to a kind of disused barn where whole families had piled in to watch the gypsy show. The performance had begun. The group of musicians occupied a stage at the end of the room. A stunning beauty in a tight-fitting black and red dress, castanets on her fingers and her hair in a tight bun, hammered boldly on the floor with her heels. There were no free seats and the few benches in front of the stage were collapsing under the weight of the people on them. Gino and I sat down on a hump to see over people’s heads and … What did I see, on a patch of beaten earth, aping the dancer? I had to rub my eyes several times to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating. Yes, it was him, stamping his heels on the ground frenetically, moving his hips and buttocks in grotesque contortions, drunk but still lucid, his shirt open on his ebony torso and his tartan cap pulled down over his face … Sid Roho! Sid Roho in the flesh, still delightedly making a spectacle of himself! He couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw me waving at him. We threw our arms round each other. The noise of our reunion made the spectators turn to look at us; they frowned and raised their fingers to their lips to silence us.
Sid Roho pulled me outside and we hugged each other again.
‘What are you doing around here?’ he asked.
‘I live in Medina Jedida. And you?’
‘I have a place in Jenane Jato. For the moment.’
‘And how are you managing?’
‘I’m always in two places at the same time; sometimes I’m in a mess, but I get by.’
‘Do you like it in Jenane Jato?’
‘Of course not! It’s a dangerous place. A big-city version of Graba. Lots of fights and the occasional murder.’
He was speaking far too quickly. His words jostled in his mouth.
‘It wasn’t so bad when I arrived,’ he continued, in a sharper tone. ‘But ever since this ex-convict has been parading around with his gang of wild dogs, life’s become hell. El Moro, he’s called. With his scars, he’s the ugliest bastard you’ve ever seen. Always making trouble. If you aren’t happy, he kills you with his knife.’
Suddenly, he perked up.
‘I’ve made a name for myself. Oh, yes! Your brother’s no slouch. He has to leave his mark. He’s the Blue Jinn … What about you, what are you up to? You’re looking good. Big and strong. Do you work in a butcher’s?’
‘I do a bit of everything. Do you still hear from Ramdane and Gomri?’
‘I haven’t heard from Ramdane at all. He went back to his douar and has not been seen since. As for Gomri, I left before you did. I have no idea where he is … Do you remember his “fiancée”? He was the only one who thought she was pretty. A mouse hypnotised by a snake, was Gomri. If you’d stabbed him, he wouldn’t have woken up. Maybe he married her after all.’
After a silence, we again embraced. Tall and gaunt-faced, Sid Roho was as thin as a skeleton, and his wine-reeking breath betrayed how far he’d fallen. Although he laughed heartily, there was no laughter in his eyes. He was like a stray animal exposed to the blows of everyday life. With no family and no points of reference, he trusted his instincts and nothing else, like those wild-eyed thugs who haunted the dark alleys.
I asked him if he had plans and what he wanted to do with his life. He laughed for a moment, then said that someone like him didn’t have any more of a future than a sacrificial lamb and that, if he drifted from season to season, it was because he was a bit like a tree that loses its leaves in winter, only putting on its finery in the spring to play to the gallery instead of advancing in life.
‘You dream you’re a king,’ he said, bitterly. ‘In the morning, when you come back down to earth, the first thing you see shatters your crown to pieces. Your palace is nothing but a slum where the rats pass themselves off as fabulous animals. You ask yourself if it’s worth getting up, because the only thing waiting for you outside is what was there yesterday, but you have no choice. You can’t stay where you are. So you go out and lose yourself in all that crap.’
‘You used to be thicker-skinned than that.’
‘Maybe. As time goes on, the only person you can still deceive is yourself. The God who created me wasn’t too sure about me. He stuffed me in a cupboard and I can’t stand to be gathering dust any more.’
‘You always landed on your feet, didn’t you?’
‘Yes, but I’m not a child any more. I’ve reached the age where you have to face facts, and the facts aren’t good. I met a girl,’ he said abruptly. ‘A girl from Tlemcen, as blonde as a ray of sunshine. I was ready to settle down, I swear. Her name was Rachida. She said to her cousin, “Sid brings light into my life.” Her cousin laughed and said, “And when you switch off the lights, how do you find that Negro of yours in the dark? Especially when he closes his eyes?” … I decided never to see Rachida again.’
‘You were wrong.’
‘It’s words that ruin everything, Turambo.’
‘I thought you were stronger than that.’
‘Only beasts of burden are strong. Because they don’t know how to complain.’
He admitted that he expected nothing of the future, that the die was cast and that, if he pretended to enjoy himself as he had this evening, it was simply to make the best of a bad job.
‘Chawala used to say, “Life is nothing at all; it’s up to us to make something of it,”’ I reminded him.
‘Chawala was crazy; he didn’t even have his own life.’
His tone was full of sadness and disappointment, and he punctuated his words with sharp gestures.
A drunkard we hadn’t noticed in the darkness moved the tip of his nose into a beam of light and said to Sid in a thick voice, ‘Excuse me, son. I haven’t been eavesdropping, but I couldn’t help hearing what you said. I feel sorry for you, with your stories, except that you have an ace up your sleeve: youth. Believe me, it’s those who go through hell when they’re young who get tougher as they grow old. When I was thirty, I was rolling in money. Today, at sixty, I’m wading through shit. Nothing can be taken for granted, and no misery is insurmountable. The good life is all bluster. You laugh as you lie to yourself, you take it easy as you sink, you don’t give a damn about other people and you don’t give a damn about yourself. But poverty, now that’s serious. You take it on the chin and that keeps you alert. Whatever you say, nobody hears you. You learn to count on nobody but yourself.’
Sid Roho wasn’t convinced. ‘I’ve seen how the rich live,’ he grumbled. ‘From a distance, it’s true, but I’ve seen them stuff their pockets and have a good time. Well, with all due respect, I’d give all of my youth for a single one of their nights.’
We sat for a long time on a flagstone, hopping from one subject to another. Behind us, the group of gypsies were bringing the house down. We heard cheers and applause, but something was stopping Sid and me from enjoying the celebration.
Some time later, Gino joined us. When I hadn’t come back into the hall, he had imagined the worst. He was relieved to find me safe and sound. I introduced him to Sid. The three of us decided it was time to go home.
On the way, Sid teased a few whores before taking up the offer of a big woman with overflowing breasts. Naked under her green tulle, she merely had to flash her enormous behind for Sid to abandon us on the spot, but not before he and I had agreed to meet in the Haj Ammar café, at the entrance to the Arab market.
I saw Sid again the next day, and over the following few weeks. We spent our days wandering around different neighbourhoods or scouring flea markets. Sometimes, he would come with me to De Stefano’s gym, although he’d always be gone by the time I finished my training. Nor did he come to my match with Sollet, whose trainer was forced to throw in the towel in the fifth round. De Stefano had invited quite a lot of people to celebrate my sixth victory in a row and Sid refused to join us, claiming that he had some urgent business to deal with. In reality, he didn’t much like the fact that I was mixing with Roumis. He didn’t dare reproach me openly and waited until he was drunk one night
to tell me: A man who tries to sit between two chairs ends up with a crack up his arse. I had no idea he was referring to me.
At first, Sid gave the impression he hadn’t changed a jot. He was funny, a bit scatterbrained, but engaging, even fascinating … It didn’t take me long to become disillusioned. Sid wasn’t the same as before. Oran had made him even crazier. He reminded me less and less of the kid I had loved in Graba, the famous Billy Goat who laughed about everything, even his own disappointments, who knew just what to say to cheer me up when I was down and had a head start on all of us. That was ancient history. The new Sid was randy, wild-eyed and foul-mouthed. I wasn’t sure if he’d matured or if he’d gone bad; either way, he worried me.
‘Why did you start drinking?’ I yelled at him one night as he staggered out of some shady dive, his shirt open.
‘To have the courage to look at myself in the mirror,’ he replied immediately. ‘When my head’s clear, I turn away quickly.’
I didn’t agree with what he was becoming. I reminded him he was a Muslim and that a man had to remain sober if he didn’t want to lose control.
Sid railed against me as he walked through an Arab neighbourhood, crying out, ‘God would do better to take a look at all the lousy things that happen in this world instead of spying on a failure who drowns his sorrows in a glass.’
I had to put both hands over his mouth to muzzle him, because words like that were capable of starting a riot in our neighbourhoods. Sid bit me to break free and continued blaspheming at the top of his voice, while passers-by looked at him menacingly. I really thought we were going to be lynched on the spot.
I pushed him up against a wall and said, ‘Find a job and get on the right path in life.’
‘You think I haven’t tried? The last time, I applied to a wholesaler. You know how that son of a bitch greeted me? Do you have the slightest idea how that fat, red-faced pig greeted me? He made the sign of the cross! He made the sign of the cross like an old woman who sees a black cat run across her path at night! Can you imagine, Turambo? Before I’d even come into his shop, he made the sign of the cross. And when I offered my services, he dismissed them with a wave of his hand and told me I was lucky not to have chains on my feet and a bone through my nose. Can you imagine? I told him I was the son of an imam and a child of my country. He laughed and said, “What does your black father know how to do apart from knocking up your mother and wiping the arses of his masters’ dogs?” He added he had no maids to marry off and no dogs in his house. He was proud of his words. The find of the century! Where does he know my father from, eh? My father would have dropped dead on the spot if he’d heard that, he was so pious and had such respect for my mother. You see, Turambo? We aren’t worth anything these days. They insult us and then they’re surprised that we’re hurt, as if we didn’t have the right to an ounce of pride. Rather than put up with insults like that, I prefer to keep my distance. There’s nothing for me, Turambo. Not on earth and not in heaven. So I take what belongs to other people.’
The Angels Die Page 15