The Angels Die

1

Rue Wagram echoed to the yells of kids kicking a rag ball. It was one in the afternoon and the sun was beating down. De Stefano’s gym was below street level, facing Porte du Ravin, with the date 1847 — the year it was built — above the door. It was a huge, ugly building, its walls full of cracks, and had once been a stable for thoroughbred horses before being transformed into a makhzan towards the end of the last century. Threatened by a landslide, it was evacuated by the military, padlocked and abandoned to the ravages of time and rats before being taken over in the 1910s by lovers of boxing. The area smelt of horseshit and of the drains that ran off into the wild grass of the gully.

Overcome by the heat, a wafer vendor was dozing in the shade of a basket shaped like an African drum. Facing him, two scrawny brats sat on the pavement, swathed in moth-eaten rags, their eyes as empty as their bellies, like two puppies staring at a piece of sugar. Not far off, a housewife was emptying dishwater outside her front door, her dress pulled up above her knees. Further down, a gang of urchins were harassing an alley cat while an amused old drunk looked on impassively.

The wafer vendor woke when he heard me approach and immediately became defensive. I gestured to him to calm down.

The doors of the gym were open. I walked into a large, depressing-looking sports hall. Light filtered in through the holes in the roof and the shutterless windows and bounced off the filthy tiled floor. To the right of the door stood a small table littered with the remains of food, a dirty glass and a Paloma bottle filled with water. To the left were a few crinkled posters of boxers on the walls. An old boxing ring was just about holding up on a platform, its ropes hanging loose. Behind, a shapeless punch bag hung from its gallows. At the far end, a dilapidated cubicle could be made out through the gloom. I could hear two men arguing, one angry, the other conciliatory.

I took an instant dislike to the place. It stank of mould and defeat.

Just as I was about to leave, a tall, thin man emerged from the toilets, hopping on a wooden leg. ‘Who are you looking for?’ he asked, walking back to the table near the door.

‘De Stefano.’

‘He’s busy. What’s it about?’

‘He asked me to come by.’

‘Was it De Stefano who asked for you and not somebody else?’

I didn’t reply. Doormen often grant themselves an authority they don’t have and shamelessly abuse it. He waved me to a bench.

‘You chose the wrong time, son. At this hour of the day, they’re either eating or sleeping.’

He collapsed onto his chair and started biting into his sandwich.

The two men in the cubicle were still arguing.

‘Why does he call me a monkey?’ one of them said excitedly. ‘Did he pick me off a tree?’

I recognised De Stefano’s voice saying, ‘You know what they’re like at Le Petit Oranais. They aren’t journalists, they’re madmen and racists. They hate wops. Plus, they’re jealous.’

‘Are you sure it’s because they’re jealous, and not because I’m Portuguese?’

‘Absolutely. That’s the way the world is: there are those who become legends and those who make lots of noise because that’s all they can do.’

The doorman swallowed his last mouthful, washed it down with a gulp of water, let out a formidable belch, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and said to me in a low voice, ‘Rodrigo’s a nutcase. He’s never been in a ring in his life. He’s made up this idea that he’s a champion and he believes it totally. When he’s having one of his attacks, he comes here and drives us all up the wall. He tells everyone the press are giving him a hard time, that he’s had enough, and so on and so on, and De Stefano likes to tell him he sympathises and tries to encourage him …’

I nodded out of politeness.

‘I think De Stefano gets a kick out of it,’ the doorman went on. ‘He thinks he’s really encouraging a champion and that makes him feel he’s important. He used to be big. He had a whole lot of promising fighters in his stable. Then it all fizzled out, and all he’s left with is nostalgia. So he keeps Rodrigo around in order not to lose the thread, and waits for the good old days to come back …’

The little door of the cubicle opened and a gangling, pale-eyed individual in a threadbare jacquard pullover and a pair of crumpled trousers came out, strutted across the room, saluting the poster of a champion as he passed it, and went out into the street without taking any notice of us.

De Stefano opened his arms wide to greet me. ‘So you made your mind up at last …’

In the street, Rodrigo started shouting abuse at us.

‘That’s Rodrigo,’ De Stefano said. ‘A former champion.’

Behind him, the tall, thin man wagged his finger to deny this.

‘Well, Turambo? To what do I owe the pleasure?’

‘You asked me to come by, so here I am.’

‘Congratulations! I promise you won’t regret it.’

‘I don’t see anyone here …’

‘It isn’t time yet. Most of our boxers have to work to make ends meet. But in the evening, it’s bedlam, I can assure you …’ Then, turning to the doorman, ‘Did you deliver the package, Tobias?’

‘Not yet. There’s nobody to mind the shop.’

‘Go now. You know how Toni is. He doesn’t like being neglected. Take Turambo with you. That way, he’ll find a few boys in the ring when he gets back. And tell the baker to send me a snack. I’ll take over; try not to dawdle, please.’

Tobias started to clear the table, but De Stefano told him he’d take care of it and pointed to a package in the corner.

‘Can you carry it for me?’ Tobias asked me. ‘It isn’t heavy, but with my wooden leg …’

‘No problem,’ I said, picking up the package.

Tobias walked fast; his wooden leg banged on the road surface and made him lurch to the side.

‘Did you lose your leg in an accident?’

‘In a garden,’ he said sarcastically. ‘I stepped on a seed, the seed got embedded in the sole of my foot, and in the morning, when I woke up, a wooden leg had grown under my thigh.’

We walked in silence for a while. Tobias was very well known. Everywhere we went, people greeted him. He would trade insults with some, jokes with others, and throw his head back in a shrill laugh. He was a handsome man, very clean beneath his old clothes; without his disability, he could have passed for a commercial traveller or a postman.

‘I left my leg on a battlefield, at Verdun,’ he admitted suddenly.

‘You were in the war?’

‘Like millions of other fools.’

‘And what’s it like?’

He wiped his forehead on his forearm and asked me to pause because of his wooden leg, which was starting to torment him. He sat down on a low wall to catch his breath. ‘You want to know what war is like?’

‘Yes,’ I said, in the hope of understanding a little of what had happened to my father.

‘I can’t make any comparison. It isn’t like anything else. It’s a bit like every nightmare, and no nightmare could describe it. You’re simultaneously in a slaughterhouse, a bullring, a chamber of horrors, down the bottom of a toilet and in hell, except that your pains never end.’

‘Do you have children?’

‘I had two. I don’t know where they are. Their mother walked out on me while I was trying to survive in that abattoir.’

‘Haven’t you tried to find them?’

‘I’m too tired.’

‘I had a father. He was a good man. When he came back from the war, he deserted his family. He left us one night and abandoned us in the mud.’

‘Yes, that kind of reaction is common. War is a strange kind of excursion. You go to it to the sound of bugles, and you come back in the skin of a ghost, your head full of noises, and don’t know what to do with your shitty life afterwards.’

He pointed to a monument behind us and an equestrian statue in a little park at the corner of the street.

‘All those statues tell us about the madness of men. When we put flowers on them on Remembrance Day, all we’re doing is hiding our faces and lying to ourselves. We don’t honour the dead, we disturb them. Look at that statue of a general over there. What is it saying? Just that however much we fight and burn towns and fields, slaughter people while proclaiming victory, and make the tears of widows flow, the heroes end up on marble pedestals for pigeons to shit on …’

He pulled up his trouser leg and adjusted his prosthesis. His brow furrowed.

‘I’ve never understood how each generation can allow itself to be deceived. I suppose the nation is more important than the family. Well, I don’t agree. You can have as many nations as you like, but if you don’t have a family, you’re nobody.’

He pulled down his trouser leg with an abrupt gesture. The furrow on his forehead deepened.

‘Amazing, isn’t it? You carry on with your daily routine, calmly, you cultivate your garden, you put your meagre savings away in a safe place, and in a corner of your head you make plans, modest plans, as small as a wisp of straw. You look after your kids, convinced it’s going to be that way till death do us part. Then, all at once, some high-ranking strangers you’ve never met decide your fate. They take away your little dreams and land you in the middle of their crazy scheme. That’s war. You don’t know why it’s there, but you fall into it like a hair into soup. By the time you realise what’s going on, the storm has passed. When the light comes back on, you no longer recognise what was there.’

He hauled himself up.

‘War is only an adventure for those fools who believe a medal is worth a life. I wasn’t the king of the world before, but I didn’t complain. I was a railway worker; I had a home and reasons to hope. Then something got into me and I left everything to wave a flag and march to the sound of drums. Obviously, that threw my life off course. I don’t blame anyone. That’s the way it is, and that’s that. If I had to do it all over again, I’d pour wax in my ears so that I couldn’t hear the bugles, or the orders, or the cannon fire … Nothing is worth a life, my boy, neither glory nor a page in the history books, and no field of honour can equal a woman’s bed.’

*

By the time we got back, the gym was looking a bit livelier. A few young men in shorts were doing body-building exercises. De Stefano was talking to a thickset young man whom he dismissed when we arrived. He asked Tobias if Toni had had any objections. Tobias told him that the fellow in question had grumbled a fair amount, but that the misunderstanding had been resolved. De Stefano grunted something, then took me aside.

‘Get in the ring,’ he said.

‘I don’t have the right clothes, or gloves.’

‘It doesn’t matter. Get in as you are; don’t take your shoes off.’

I did as he asked. The thickset young man joined me on the platform. He had put on gloves and sports shoes. He came and stood in front of me, cracked his neck, did a few knee bends and took two steps back. I was expecting to be given instructions. There weren’t any. Without warning, the boy started punching me in the face. I lost my bearings, unsure if I was supposed to respond or just take it. My opponent kept pummelling my body. I felt as if a piston was trying to crush my sides. The floor gave way beneath my feet. While I was down, the boy continued jumping up and down on the spot.

‘Get up!’ De Stefano cried. ‘Defend yourself!’

No sooner was I on my feet than I had to shelter behind my arms to withstand my opponent’s frantic assault. My few counterattacks went nowhere. The boy was quick on his feet, elusive; he dodged my punches, pushed me away whenever I tried to hold on to him; he would feint at me, his head never in the same place for more than a second.

He knocked me down again.

De Stefano ordered the boy to leave, and me to get down from the ring.

‘Now you know that boxing is nothing like street fighting,’ he said. ‘On the ground, you’re a single person, a nobody. In the ring, you’re asked to be a god. Boxing is a science, an art and an ambition … I’d like you to remember this day, my boy. That way, you’ll realise how far you’ve come the evening you score your first victory. There’s a whole programme to get through, and you’ll have to follow it to the letter. Buy yourself a duffle bag, a pair of shorts, a vest and some sports shoes. The gloves are on the house. Tobias will explain the training schedule. As of tomorrow, I want to see you here every day.’

‘I have to look for a job.’

‘That’s what I mean by training schedule. There are three timetables, just choose the one that suits you. The members of my club also work. You have to have something to sink your teeth into before you can think of breaking other people’s teeth.’

For the first few weeks, I wasn’t allowed in the ring. De Stefano was waiting for me to earn that privilege. He had to clear away the cobwebs first, and so he started by testing my stamina: I had to go up and down the hills of the Ravin, run as far as the pine grove at Les Planteurs, climb the sides of Murdjadjo clinging to the bushes, listen to my body, push it to the limit, control my breathing, adjust my stride to the uneven terrain and end with a sprint. By the time I got home, I’d be all in, with my tongue hanging out and my throat burning. Mekki, who didn’t look kindly on this self-imposed ordeal, tried to discover what I was up to, suspecting I was in some kind of trouble. As I couldn’t admit to him that I’d chosen to be a boxer, our conversation ended very badly, and Gino, to put an end to my rebellion, suggested I stay with him. I accepted without hesitation.

I felt much better on Boulevard Mascara. Not having to give any account of myself to anyone, I devoted myself fully to my new vocation.

On Sundays, Gino would come with me to the gym, where we would see Filippi, the mechanic who’d worked with us at Bébert’s garage. Whenever he had time off, Filippi would come to De Stefano’s to keep fit. He had boxed in his younger days, without much success, and continued to go to the gym and train his athlete’s body. He was enthusiastic, a bit of a show-off, and he was good at motivating me. The three of us would set off together to tackle the hills and paths. Gino often gave up halfway, unable to maintain the pace we set ourselves, but Filippi, in spite of his age, excelled and really inspired me.

At home, on Boulevard Mascara, Gino and I made bodybuilding equipment from bits of scrap iron and cemented metal cans; we were proud to display our pectorals to the girls hanging out their washing on the neighbouring rooftops.

Sport proved to be excellent therapy for Gino and me. My friend was mourning his mother and I was mourning my love … Ah, Nora, how beautiful she was! She was as dainty, graceful and frail as a poppy, and when she smiled, the world glittered with promise. Our hearts had beat as one, I had thought. I had believed she was mine, believed it so firmly that I’d never even thought of a future without her … Alas, our future is determined in spite of us. We have no hold or rights over it, and it will still be there when we’ve gone.

In the evening, after a good sweat and a hot bath, we’d go out on the town, looking for fun. There’s nothing better than the bustle of the city to drown out nasty voices calling from the depth of torment, and nothing better than crowds to shake off missing loved ones.

Oran’s nights absorbed our anxieties like blotting paper. We couldn’t afford much, but we could still have a good time; we just had to go where our steps led us. Everything was worth looking at in Oran, the carriages and the cars, the drunks and the entertainers, and everything was there to be seen without any obligation to touch it, window shopping. The cinemas, lit up as bright as day, attracted as many night owls as a lantern attracts insects. The neon signs outside the nightclubs splashed colours on the façades opposite. The bistros never emptied and were always filled with noise and tobacco smoke.

Gino and I were the valiant surveyors of the night. After doing the rounds of the open-air dance halls or coming out of the cinema, we would go to the seafront to look at the lights of the harbour and watch the dockers bustling around the freighters. The sea breeze cradled our silences; we sometimes even daydreamed, our elbows on the parapet and our cheeks resting in the palm of our hands. Once we were tired of counting the boats, we would sit down on a terrace, eat lemon ices and watch the girls swaying their hips on the esplanade, looking wonderful in their guipure dresses. Whenever a pick-up artist made a teasing comment to them, the girls would turn to him, laugh and walk away like wreaths of smoke. The man would then flick away his cigarette end and swagger along behind them, before eventually returning to his post, empty-handed but determined to try his luck again and again until there was nobody left in the streets.

They were strange people, these pick-up artists. Gino was certain that they were more interested in the chase than the catch, that their happiness lay not in conquest, but in the process of picking up. We once watched one of them closely; as far as smooth talking went, he had no equal, but whenever a girl took the bait, he would realise that he was out of ideas and would stand there dumbly, not knowing what to suggest.

As there was no chance we’d find soul mates for the evening, Gino and I made do with going to the rough end of town and watching the prostitutes. They would emerge from the shadows like hallucinations, show us their big breasts, swollen by anonymous mouths, make dirty remarks and snap the elastic on their knickers. It made us laugh, and our laughter was a way of overcoming our fears and silencing those rasping voices that echoed inside us like warnings.

It was the days that were difficult. Once Gino had gone to work, I was back on the scrapheap again. Nothing interested me. Nora had given me back my heart, but I didn’t know what to do with it. It had been beating only for her. The sun would turf me out of bed like someone unclean, the streets made me go round in circles until I was seeing things and, when the time came for taking stock, I was convinced I had once again taken a wrong turn.

I needed a task to assuage my hunger.

After running all over town, I’d end up at De Stefano’s gym, exhausted and angry. I would train hard to rise above my fate, impatient to get into the ring. De Stefano deliberately kept me on the ground. The honour of stepping into the ring had to be deserved. For two months, I limited myself to physical exercises, jogging, controlling my breathing, the basics of boxing. I had to learn the different positions of my arms and fists, coordinate my reflexes and my thoughts, feint and punch in the air, smash the punch bag. De Stefano paid me more attention than the others. I could see an excitement in his eyes that he found hard to conceal. Although in his opinion, I still had some way to go to develop the right aggressiveness, he acknowledged that I was making progress, that my moves and flexibility had something, that my attacks and retreats were elegant.

I had a champion’s instincts, he would say.

Rodrigo sometimes came back, playing the victim, brandishing an ‘enemy’ newspaper, inventing deadly conspiracies. He wasn’t just eccentric, he was insane. Some people at the gym didn’t rule out the possibility that one of these days the poor devil would end up killing someone or setting fire to a newspaper office. Tobias was convinced this case of split personality would end badly. Sometimes, in sheer exasperation, he would take it upon himself to throw the Portuguese kid out. Rodrigo would continue his performance in the street, rousing the kids and the dogs, in the hope of seeing De Stefano come out to calm him down, except that De Stefano no longer needed to encourage anyone now that he believed the good old days were back.

When at last, after months of waiting, I was allowed to get in the ring and face a sparring partner, it was as if all at once I was reborn, discovering a secret faith buried in my unconscious. I was on a pedestal, noisily demanding laurel wreaths a thousand times bigger than my head. I knew immediately, as my opponent tried in vain to dodge my punches, that I was made for boxing. People were already talking about my left hook and I hadn’t even had my first fight.

2

My first fight was on the third Sunday of February in 1932.

I remember there wasn’t a wisp of cloud in the sky.

We took the bus for Aïn Témouchent very early in the morning: De Stefano, Francis the pianist, who handled the gym’s paperwork, Salvo the second, Tobias and me. De Stefano hadn’t given permission for Gino to come with us.

I was nervous. I was shivering a little, probably because of the four days of hammam I’d imposed on myself to make weight. On the seat in front of me, a veiled old woman was trying to calm two unruly chickens in a basket. A few peasants in turbans were also on the bus, silent and morose. Some Roumis sat at the front, one of them smoking a pipe that made the atmosphere, which already smelt of petrol fumes, stink even more.

I opened the window to let in some air and watched the landscape drift past.

The countryside was green, glittering with dew in the rising sun like millions of sparks. On either side, the orange groves of Misserghin looked like Christmas trees.

De Stefano was leafing through a magazine. He was trying to appear confident, but I sensed how tense he was, clinging to his magazine, stooped, his face inscrutable. His silence spoke for him. For two years he’d been waiting to finally see one of his protégés in a ring that mattered. He was only a believer when he was forced to be, and I’d seen him cross himself before he got on the bus.

We were a few miles from Lourmel when I saw her …

A beauty, on horseback, her hair blowing in the wind; she was galloping flat out on the ridge of a hill, as if she had emerged from the blazing dawn to seize the day. As if drawn in Indian ink, her slender silhouette stood out clearly against the pale-blue horizon, like a magic pattern on a screen.

‘That’s Irène,’ De Stefano whispered in my ear. ‘She’s the daughter of Alarcon Ventabren, a former champion who’s now confined to a wheelchair. They have a farm behind the grove over there. Some really good boxers sometimes go there to recharge their batteries before big fights … Beautiful, isn’t she?’

‘She’s too far away to get a proper idea.’

‘Oh, I assure you she’s dynamite, is Irène. As pretty and wild as a freshwater pearl.’

The horsewoman climbed a hillock and disappeared behind a line of cypresses.

It was as if all at once the countryside had lost its beauty spot.

Long after she had gone, her image stayed in my head, giving rise to a strange feeling. I knew nothing about her, apart from a name whispered by De Stefano over the rumble of the bus. Was she young, blonde or brunette, tall or short, married or single? Why had she taken over the countryside, replacing the daylight and everything else? Why did that fleeting apparition refuse to go away? If I’d crossed her path, if I’d had her face directly in front of me, I would have attributed the quiver that went through me to a kind of love at first sight and thus found an explanation for the dizziness that followed. But she was only a remote, elusive figure speeding to some unknown destination.

Later, I would understand why an unknown horsewoman had, for no apparent reason, raised so many questions for me.

But that day, on the morning of that third Sunday in February 1932, I was a long way from guessing that I had just met my destiny.

The ring had been set up in the middle of a cleared stretch of waste ground at the entrance to the town. The scaffolding left a lot to be desired, but the organisers had transformed the place into a party zone. Hundreds of pennants and tricolour flags flapped on ropes and around poles erected for the occasion. From the bus, you could see workmen hurrying to put up the last garlands before the match, which was due to start at one in the afternoon. A little welcoming committee greeted us as we got off the bus. We were quickly shown to an isolated policeman’s hut, not far from the stadium. De Stefano wasn’t happy. He had been promised a hotel, photographers and journalists, as well as a good meal before the match, and now it looked almost as if they were hiding us. A large man in a severe suit tried to explain to us that the mayor’s instructions were clear and he was merely carrying them out. De Stefano refused to be fobbed off and threatened to return to Oran immediately. Someone ran off to fetch one of the organisers. He appeared, a broad smile on his face, took De Stefano aside, put his arm round his shoulders and spoke into his ear. De Stefano demonstrated his anger, stamping on the ground to underline his threats, then, when the man slipped an envelope into his pocket, he lowered his voice and his gestures grew less brusque.

‘More funny business,’ sighed Francis the pianist, who hadn’t missed a thing.

De Stefano came back to us, pretending to be indignant. He ordered us to go into the hut and get ready, then went back to the organiser.

The hut smelt like a putrid coffin. There was a thin metal wardrobe in a corner, a school desk with a fitted bench and a corroded inkwell on the rim, two stools and a ramshackle camp bed. The paneless window looked out onto a path that led to a bare hillock where an old dog was looking in all directions, its tongue hanging out. For a historic day, it was depressing.

‘You’d better get changed,’ Salvo said. ‘And please try to knock the bastard out in the first round. I don’t want to be gathering dust here.’

Salvo had also been expecting a warm welcome. As a native of Oran, he couldn’t stand being treated this way by provincials.

Tobias wasn’t exactly delighted either. Something was bothering him. He hadn’t liked the way De Stefano had become less forceful because of an envelope he hadn’t even opened.

For his part, De Stefano pretended to take exception to everything, but he was totally unconvincing. The organiser, aware that he had the upper hand, was more relaxed; he spoke with an affected air, his hands in his pockets, and, at the slightest thing, he would throw his head back and let out a neighing laugh, pleased to see the first spectators converging on the stadium in their best clothes and straw boaters.

I opened my bag and started to change.

Tobias began fidgeting on the camp bed. He leant over to Salvo and said, ‘I have more and more problems with women.’

‘What kind of problems?’ Salvo said, scratching behind his ear.

‘You know what I mean.’

‘I don’t live in your head.’

Tobias leant closer and said in a low voice, ‘Before going to the brothel, I’m on heat, and, as soon as I’m in the room with a whore, it’s like I’ve taken a cold shower.’

‘You don’t have to take just any of them.’

‘I’ve tried with several and it still hasn’t worked.’

‘What do you want me to do about it, Tobias? If you can’t manage with your cock, use your wooden leg, that’ll be a real thrill.’

‘I’m not joking. It’s serious … You’re good at healing things. I thought maybe you had some tricks, potions, something like that. I’ve tried all kinds of methods, but I’m getting nowhere.’

Salvo assumed a solemn air and put his hands together under his nose to think. After meditating like a Buddhist monk, he looked up at Tobias. ‘Have you tried the Hindu method?’

‘I don’t know it.’

Salvo nodded sagely and said, ‘Well, according to a revered fakir, to obtain the ideal erection, what you have to do is sit down on your finger.’

‘Ha-ha. I suppose you think you’re funny?’

Angry now, Tobias went out into the yard, pursued by Salvo’s sardonic laughter.

A little boy in short trousers arrived on his bicycle, with a basket full of fruit, bottles of pop and sandwiches. Before leaving again, he asked me if I was the boxer and wished me good luck. De Stefano thanked him on my behalf and pushed him gently towards the exit. We ate in silence. Outside, we could hear the roar of the crowd around the ring.

Salvo bandaged my fists, tied my gloves and realised he had forgotten my gum shield. De Stefano shrugged his shoulders and asked everyone else to leave except me.

‘You have to take it easy, son,’ he said, embarrassed, when we were alone. ‘This is a friendly match.’

‘Meaning what?’

‘Meaning there are no bets. It’s the show that matters, not the result. People are here to have a good time. So don’t get too excited and make the pleasure last. Keep your left hook for next time.’

‘What is all this? I thought this was going to be a serious match.’

‘I thought so too. The mayor of Aïn Témouchent lied to me.’

‘In that case, why not cancel and go home?’

‘I don’t want any problems with the council, Turambo. And besides, it’s not the end of the world. It’s still a fight. You’ll get a chance to see what it’s like to have a hostile audience. You have eight rounds. The organisers decided on that. Try and see it through to the end. You don’t have to finish off your opponent before that. In fact, you shouldn’t. It’d spoil the party.’

‘The party?’

‘I’ll explain later.’

He wiped his face with a handkerchief and asked me to follow him outside. He was so sad for me that I stopped complaining.

The stadium was divided in two by wire fencing. Inside, the stony part of the waste ground had vanished beneath the crowd. There were only men in suits and white hats, some with their children on their shoulders. Behind the fence were a few Araberbers in burnouses and Arab kids perched at the height of the barbed wire to see over the heads of the crowd.

I waited a good twenty minutes in the ring before my opponent arrived. And what an arrival! The town hero appeared in a horse-drawn carriage, preceded by a blaring brass band. Cheering wildly, the crowd stood back as the procession passed. Standing on his seat, my opponent raised his arms to greet his fans. He was a tall, strapping, fair-haired fellow, his head shaven over his temples, with a long thick lock of hair falling over his face. He was hamming it up, shadow-boxing, flattered by the pennants frantically waving around him. Servants helped him out of his carriage and into the ring. The clamour grew even louder when he again brandished his gloves. He gave me just a quick glance before once again offering himself up to the crowd.

De Stefano avoided my eyes in embarrassment.

The referee motioned my opponent and me to approach. He gave us our instructions and sent us back to our corners. As soon as the bell rang, that huge mass of muscle, who was a whole head taller than me, rushed at me and started to grind me down, galvanised by the lively yells of the crowd. He had no technique, he was banking on his strength. His aim was rough; he simply lashed out. I let the squall pass and managed to push him away. My first left hook made him take several steps back. Shaken, he stood there for a few seconds in bewilderment before coming back to his senses. He hadn’t been expecting my counter. After moving around me, sizing me up, he got me in a corner and covered me with his hulking body. De Stefano yelled at me to use my right, just to remind me of his instruction to ‘make the pleasure last’. I was disgusted. My opponent kept letting his guard down; I could have knocked him out any time I wanted. At the end of the third round, he started to tire. I begged De Stefano to let me finish him off. I couldn’t stand being just a punchbag for a conceited idiot any longer. But De Stefano wouldn’t yield. He admitted to me, while Salvo was cooling me down, how much he regretted the way things had turned out, and promised me it wouldn’t happen again. Just this once, he said, I had to play the game through to the end because he’d given his word to the organisers.

The rottenness of it stuck in my throat. I tried as best I could to dismiss my black thoughts, but anger kept gaining the upper hand. I was punching now to hurt. My opponent reacted in a surprising way. When my blows hit home, he deliberately staggered from one rope to the other or else bent double, waggling his behind and pretending to throw up over the referee. Clearly he was just playing to the gallery. There was no tension in his face, no doubt in his eyes, just a theatrical, grotesque, ridiculous aggressiveness. Only one thing mattered to me: I wanted this nonsense to stop! This wasn’t my day; there was nothing historic about this damned Sunday. And to think that the night before, I had been so worried about my first fight that I hadn’t slept a wink! I was so incensed that I found myself popping out my left, which stopped my opponent’s clownish kicks dead in their tracks. He again had a few seconds of confusion, as if he suddenly couldn’t place me, then resumed his attacks, hitting any old how before retreating, pleased with himself, and monkeying around for the audience. He was playing the clown, concerned more about the amusement of the crowd than my retaliation.

This farce went on until the sixth round. Against all expectation, the referee decided to stop the match and officially declare my opponent the winner. The crowd went wild. I looked for De Stefano. He had retreated behind our corner. My opponent swaggered around the ring, arms raised, eyes popping out of his head in childish joy … It was only on the way back, on the bus, that I learnt that the hero of the day was called Gaston, that he was the eldest son of the mayor of Aïn Témouchent, and that he wasn’t a boxer at all but had fought this, his first fight, as a way of celebrating his father’s birthday. Next year, he might pay for a swimming contest, or else a football match during which his teammates would make sure that he scored the winning goal after the referee had rejected those of the opposing team.

De Stefano tried to talk me round. I changed seats every time he came and sat down next to me. Tiring of it, he went and sat at the back of the bus. I felt his eyes on the back of my neck all the way to Oran.

‘I told you I’m sorry, damn it!’ he exploded when we got off the bus. ‘You want me to go down on my knees or what? I swear I didn’t know. I genuinely thought the boxer was a local champion. The organisers assured me he was.’

‘Boxing isn’t a church service,’ Francis the pianist said, anxious to see De Stefano take out the envelope the official had slipped into his pocket. ‘The paths of glory are paved with trapdoors and banana skins. When money’s involved, the devil is never very far away. There are sponsored fights, fixed fights, fights lost in advance, and when you’re an Arab, the only way to deal with biased referees is to drop your opponent so that he doesn’t get up again.’

‘This is between me and my champion,’ De Stefano cut in. ‘We don’t need an interpreter.’

‘Understood,’ Francis said, looking significantly at De Stefano’s pocket.

De Stefano took out the envelope, extracted a wad of banknotes, counted it and gave each person his share. Tobias and Salvo took theirs and left, pleased that they hadn’t come back empty-handed in spite of my ‘defeat’. Francis remained where he was, not happy with his cut.

‘What do you want, my photograph?’ De Stefano said.

Francis immediately beat a retreat.

‘His eyes are bigger than his belly, that Francis,’ De Stefano grunted. ‘I’ve divided it equally, but because he knows how to sort out the paperwork and do the typing, he thinks he deserves more than the rest of us.’

‘I don’t want your money, De Stefano. You can give it to Francis.’

‘Why? It’s fifty francs, damn it. Some people would sell their mother-in-law for less than that.’

‘Not me. I don’t want money that’s haram.’

‘What do you mean, haram? You didn’t steal it.’

‘I didn’t earn it either. I’m a boxer, not a comedian.’

I left him standing there in the middle of the street and ran to join Gino on Boulevard Mascara.

*

Gino wasn’t in a good mood. He didn’t look up when he heard me come in. He was sitting barefoot at the table in the kitchen in his vest, dipping a piece of bread into an omelette he had just taken off the stove. Since the death of his mother, he had been unusually moody and no longer turned a deaf ear when he was provoked. His language had grown harsher, and so had his look. At times, I had the feeling I was disturbing him, that he didn’t want me in his home. Whenever I slammed the door to go back to my mother’s, he wouldn’t try to run after me. The next day, he would waylay me on my way out of the gym. He wouldn’t apologise for his behaviour the day before and would act as if nothing had happened.

‘Aren’t you going to ask me how it went in Aïn Témouchent?’

Gino shrugged.

‘The only things missing were Buster Keaton and a pianist in the hall.’

‘I don’t care,’ he said, wiping his mouth with a napkin.

‘Are you angry with me?’

He pounded furiously on the table. ‘How dare you let that imbecile treat me that way? I’m not a dog. You should have shut his mouth and demanded that I go with you.’

‘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 his 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.’

‘Some of our people have succeeded. Doctors, lawyers, businessmen …’

‘Oh, my God, why don’t you take off your blinkers, boy? Look at the masses begging around you. Your heroes aren’t even allowed to be citizens. This is our country, the land of our ancestors, and we’re treated like foreigners, like slaves from the savannahs. You can’t even go to a beach without them sticking a notice in your face telling you Arabs aren’t allowed. I saw a kaïd revered in his tribe called a lousy Arab by a mere white ticket seller. You have to think about these things, Turambo. The facts are there in front of you. You might try to disguise them, but the truth shines through … I refuse to be nothing but suffering. An Arab doesn’t work, he gets fucked up the arse, and I don’t have an arse that’s big enough. Since nobody’s handing me anything on a plate, I grab a good time for myself where I can. Hunger and deprivation have instilled this philosophy in me: live life as it comes, and if it doesn’t come, go looking for it!’

I had the feeling I was dealing with a pyromaniac.

Sid had chosen a path that wasn’t mine. He scared me. One evening, he actually dressed up as a girl (he had put on a haïk) and slipped into a hammam to ogle the naked women. After getting his fill of that, he started running round the building, looking for a virgin to lay in the laundry room. It was pure madness. He could have been killed in a stairwell. In Medina Jedida, you could get yourself killed for even minor sins. But Sid Roho refused to calm down. The air of the city had gone to his head like a blast of opium, except that he never sobered up. He saw everything from the point of view of his ‘exploits’, thus putting the theft of a piece of fruit and the honour of races on the same level. His morbid self-confidence blinded him to the point where the closer he came to disaster, the more he clamoured for it. He drank where he shouldn’t, which was an offence according to Muslim custom, stole in full view and full knowledge of everyone, and dared to go hunting for women in neighbourhoods where they didn’t take kindly to strangers. He was bitter and suicidal, and was constantly putting himself in danger. I wondered if Rachida, her cousin and the wholesaler were merely excuses he’d made up, big stones he’d tied to his feet so as to sink as deep as possible and never come up again. He seemed comfortable in his descent into hell, as if he felt a wicked pleasure in taking revenge on himself and bringing about his own misfortune. Obviously, he had plenty of reasons to behave the way he did, but what is a reason if not, sometimes, a wrong that suits us?

Not wanting to be a witness to his eventual lynching, certain that sooner or later he’d fall into his own trap, I started declining his ‘invitations’ and saw him less often.

It didn’t take him long to notice.

One morning, he waylaid me near the girls’ school. I’d have bet anything that he wasn’t there by chance.

‘Well, well, Turambo!’ he said, pretending to be surprised. ‘I was just thinking about you.’

‘I have an appointment with the boss of a warehouse. He’s going to give me a trial. Gino is already there to introduce me.’

‘Mind if I walk with you?’

‘As long as you don’t slow me down. I’m late.’

We hurried to Place de la Synagogue. Sid Roho was looking at me out of the corner of his eye. My pace and my silence were bothering him.

Just outside a haberdasher’s on Place Hoche, he stopped me with his hand. ‘Are you upset with me about something, Turambo?’

‘Why do you ask me that?’

‘You’ve been doing your best to avoid me for weeks now.’

‘You’re imagining things,’ I lied. ‘I’ve been looking for work, that’s all.’

‘That’s no reason. We’re friends, aren’t we?’

‘You’ll always be my friend, Sid. But I have a family and I’m ashamed to be sponging off them. I’m nearly twenty-two, don’t you see?’

‘I see.’

‘I’m late.’

He nodded and took his hand off my shoulder.

Under the statue of the general, a blind man was playing a barrel organ. His music made my friend’s distress seem somehow irreversible.

A little further on, again bothered by my silence, Sid said, ‘I’m sure you’re upset with me, Turambo. I want to know why.’

I looked him straight in the eye. He seemed disconcerted. ‘You want the truth, Sid? You’re really not with it these days.’

‘I’ve always been like this.’

‘Precisely. You don’t seem to realise.’

‘Realise what?’

‘That it’s time for you to settle down.’

‘Why work when you can help yourself, Turambo? I have everything I need. I just have to reach out my hand.’

‘Someone will cut it off in the end.’

‘I’ll get an artificial one.’

‘I see you have an answer for everything.’

‘You just have to ask.’

‘My mother says that when we have an answer for everything, we might as well die.’

‘My father said more or less the same thing, except that he died without finding an answer for anything.’

‘Apparently, I’m wasting my breath. You won’t listen. I really have to meet Gino now.’

‘Gino, Gino … What’s so interesting about this Gino? The bastard isn’t even funny, and he blushes when he accidentally looks at a whore’s arse.’

‘Gino’s a good person.’

‘That doesn’t stop him being a bore.’

‘Drop it, Sid. A friend doesn’t have to act like an idiot to earn the right to be considered a friend.’

‘You think that’s why I’m acting like an idiot?’

‘I didn’t say that. Gino has helped me a lot. Friends like him are a rare commodity and I want to keep him.’

‘Hey, I’m not setting you against him!’

‘I don’t doubt that for a second, Sid, not for a single second. Nobody could set me against Gino.’

He stopped dead.

I went on my way, without turning round. I was far from suspecting that this would be the last time I saw him.

I suddenly felt uneasy. In trying to reason with Sid, I had hurt him. I realised it as I walked away. I caught myself slowing down every ten metres, then stopping at the corner of the street. We shouldn’t have parted on a sour note, I told myself. Sid had never refused me anything; he’d always been there for me.

I ran back to where we’d parted company …

The Blue Jinn had vanished into thin air.

*

I looked for Sid in Jenane Jato and Medina Jedida, in the bars where he was a regular, but without success.

After a week, I gave up. Sid Roho must have been playing the fool somewhere, in no way affected by what I’d said. He couldn’t bear a grudge against anyone, let alone a friend. He’d show up eventually, and even if it wasn’t what he would have wanted, I’d ask him to forgive me. He’d brush aside my apologies with a sweep of his hand and, still unrepentant, drag me with him on a thousand dreadful escapades.

But things didn’t work out that way.

I learnt later that I wasn’t the cause of his disappearance. Someone had challenged him and Sid had taken up the challenge. He had vowed to steal El Moro’s dagger in broad daylight, right there in the middle of the souk. The former convict loved to strut around in public with his dagger under his belt, flaunting it like a trophy. And Sid dreamt of getting it off him.

He was caught with his hand on the hilt.

He was first beaten to within an inch of his life, then dragged behind a thicket and raped in turn by El Moro and three of his henchmen.

At that time, a man’s honour was like a girl’s virginity: once you lost it, you couldn’t get it back.

Nobody ever saw Sid again.

4

We were in the cubicle, talking about my next fight, when Tobias opened the little door. He didn’t have time to announce the visitors before they pushed him aside and came in. There were two of them, both dressed to the nines.

‘Are you De Stefano?’ the taller of the two asked.

De Stefano took his feet off the desk to look more businesslike. The visitors said nothing, but it was clear they weren’t just anybody. The tall man must have been in his fifties. He was thin, with a face like a knife blade and cold eyes. The other, who was short, seemed on the verge of bursting out of his grand suit; he wore a huge signet ring on his finger and was puffing at an impressive cigar.

‘What can I do for you?’ De Stefano asked.

‘Forget it,’ grunted the man with the cigar. ‘It’s usually me being asked for help.’

‘And you’re Monsieur …?’

‘You can call me God if you want to. I fear that may not be enough to absolve you of your sins.’

‘God is merciful.’

‘Only the Muslim God.’

He looked us all up and down — Francis, De Stefano and me, Tobias having left — one after the other, in a silence like the lull before a storm. It was hard to know whom we were dealing with, gangsters or bankers. De Stefano couldn’t keep still on his chair. He stood up slowly, eyes alert.

The man with the cigar abruptly took his hand from his pocket and held it out to De Stefano. Startled, De Stefano took a step back before realising that he didn’t have a gun pointed at him.

‘My name’s Michel Bollocq.’

‘And what do you do for a living, Monsieur Bollocq?’

‘He calls the shots,’ the thin man said, visibly annoyed that his companion’s name meant nothing to us.

‘That’s quite something,’ De Stefano said ironically.

‘You’re telling me,’ Michel Bollocq said. ‘I have an appointment and I’m in a hurry. Let’s get down to business: I’m here to make a deal with you. I saw the last match and your boy made an excellent impression on me. I’ve never seen such a strong, quick left. A real torpedo.’

‘Are you involved in boxing, Monsieur?’

‘Among other things.’ He gave me a sidelong look, chewed his cigar and came up to me. ‘I see you’re more interested in my clothes than my words, Turambo.’

‘You look very smart, Monsieur.’

‘Just the coat costs an arm and a leg, my boy. But you’ll be able to afford one just like it one of these days. It all depends on you. You may even be able to afford several, in different colours, made to measure by the best tailor in Oran, or in Paris, if you prefer, although our suits are just as good … Would you prefer a tailor from Oran or Paris?’

‘I don’t know, Monsieur. I’ve never been to Paris.’

‘Well, I can give you Paris on a silver platter, however big Paris is. And you could walk around in a coat and a suit like this, with a red flower in your buttonhole matching your silk tie, diamond-studded gold cufflinks, a hundred-gram signet ring on your finger, and snakeskin shoes so classy that any arse-licker would be happy to wipe his tongue on them.’

He went to the window and gazed out at the backyard, his hands behind his back, his cigar in his mouth.

The second visitor bent over De Stefano and said in such a way as to be heard by all of us, ‘Monsieur Bollocq is the Duke.’

De Stefano turned pale. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down in his throat. ‘I’m truly sorry, Monsieur,’ he stammered, his voice barely audible, almost obsequious. ‘I didn’t mean to show you any disrespect.’

‘That would have been very stupid,’ the man said threateningly, without turning. ‘Can I speak frankly? From what I’ve seen, things aren’t exactly going well around here. Even a fugitive with a price on his head wouldn’t want to hide out in this fucking circus. Your gym’s on the skids, your safe’s clearly full of cobwebs, and your ring leaves a lot to be desired.’

‘We lack funds, Monsieur,’ Francis cut in, ‘but we have ambition by the barrel.’

‘That certainly makes up for a lot of difficulties,’ the man admitted, puffing his smoke out over the fly-blown window pane. ‘I like fools who wade through shit while keeping their head in the clouds.’

‘I don’t doubt it, Monsieur,’ De Stefano said, glaring at Francis.

‘Shall we talk business now?’

‘I’m all ears!’ De Stefano almost cried out, pushing a chair of chrome tubing in the man’s direction.

I’d heard of the Duke. It was the kind of name you didn’t have to remember since he moved in high circles, in other words, in a world beyond the reality of people in our situation, but which, once you were aware of it, became imprinted on your subconscious, remaining lodged there in dormant form, so that the first time it was mentioned, the memory of it came flooding back. In boxing circles, people instinctively lowered their voices when the name came up in conversation. The Duke was a real bigwig; he had a stake in everything lucrative in Oran and aroused as much fear as admiration. Nobody was sure of the exact nature of his business, his stamping grounds, the people he rubbed shoulders with. For many people, the Duke was someone to be mentioned fleetingly in idle talk, like the prefect, the governor or the Pope, a kind of fictitious character who was the subject of rumours or news items and whom you were never likely to run into. Seeing him in the flesh had a strange effect on me. The top dogs you hear about are seldom like the image you have of them. When they come down off their clouds and land at your feet, they disappoint you a little. Stocky, with stooped shoulders and a paunch, the Duke reminded me of the Buddha I had glimpsed in a second-hand shop on Place Sébastopol. He had the same solemn, morose air. His round, shiny face formed flabby jowls at the sides before ending in a resolute chin that was almost out of place in that mass of fat. His hairy hands were like tarantulas waiting for their prey as they lay on the armrests, and the gleam in his eyes, barely perceptible above his excessively high cheekbones, went through you like darts from a blowpipe. In spite of all that, seeing him sitting in a worn armchair in our dilapidated cubbyhole in Rue Wagram, where respectable people seldom ventured, was a huge privilege for us. Our gym wasn’t highly regarded. It hadn’t produced any champions for ages, and lovers of boxing cold-shouldered it, calling it a ‘factory for failures’. The fact that an important man like the Duke should honour it with his presence was a rehabilitation in itself.

The Duke puffed on his cigar and sent the smoke swirling up to the ceiling. His stern eyes came to rest on me. ‘What exactly does Turambo mean? It isn’t a local name. I’ve asked educated friends and nobody could explain it.’

‘It’s the name of my native village, Monsieur.’

‘Never heard of it. Is it in Algeria?’

‘Yes, Monsieur. Near Sidi Bel Abbès, on the Xaviers’ hill. But it’s vanished since. A rise in the water level swept it away seven or eight years ago.’

The other visitor, who hadn’t moved from his place since he’d come in, pursed his lips and scratched his chin. ‘I think I know where it is, Michel. I’m sure he means Arthur-Rimbaud, a village that was buried in a landslide at the beginning of the twenties near Tessala, not far from Sidi Bel Abbès. The press reported it at the time.’

The Duke looked at his cigar, turning it between his thumb and index finger, a grin at the corner of his mouth. ‘Arthur-Rimbaud, Turambo. What an abbreviation! Now I understand why, when you’re dealing with Arabs, you can never find the right address.’ He turned to De Stefano. ‘I saw your boy’s last three fights. When he knocked out Luc in the second round, I said Luc was getting old and it was time for him to hang up his gloves. Then your boy polished off Miccellino in one minute twenty. I couldn’t figure that out at all. Miccellino’s a tough customer. He’d won his last seven fights. Had he been caught unprepared? Maybe … But I admit I was impressed. I wanted to be certain in my own mind, so I made sure I attended the match with the Stammerer. And again, your boy took my breath away. The Stammerer didn’t last three rounds. That’s quite something. True, he’s thirty-three, he boozes and runs after whores, and he skips training sessions, but your boy made short work of him, and I was staggered. So my adviser Frédéric Pau here’ — he gestured reverently to his companion — ‘suggested I sponsor your boy, De Stefano. He’s convinced he’s a good investment.’

‘He’s right, Monsieur.’

‘The problem is that I hate buying the wrong merchandise and I hate losing.’

‘Quite rightly, Monsieur.’

‘This is what I propose. I believe your champion’s meeting Rojo in Perrégaux in three weeks’ time. Rojo’s young, strong and dedicated. He has his eye on the title of North African champion, which is no easy task. He’s already seen off Dida, Bernard Holé, Félix and that bruiser Sidibba the Moroccan. I was on the verge of sponsoring him, but Turambo’s really come on in the past few months and I told myself the next match will clinch it for me. If Turambo wins, he’ll be my protégé. If not, it’ll be Rojo. Have I made myself clear, De Stefano?’

‘I’ll be delighted to work for you, Monsieur.’

‘Not so fast, my friend. The ring still has to decide.’

The Duke threw his cigar on the floor, stood up and left, with his adviser hard on his heels.

We were speechless for two whole minutes before De Stefano started mopping himself with a handkerchief.

‘You know what you have to do,’ he said to me. ‘If the Duke takes us under his wing, nothing can harm us. The man is manna from heaven. When he bets on a cat, he turns it into a tiger. How would you like to dress like a nabob, Turambo?’

‘It’d make a change. Right now, my clothes are falling apart.’

‘Then go and kick the arse of that cocky Rojo.’

‘Just watch me! Luck only smiles on you once, and I have no intention of letting it slip through my fingers.’

‘That’s the wisest resolution I’ve heard in my whole damned life,’ he said, taking me in his arms.

Gino found me on a café terrace in Medina Jedida, a pot of mint tea on the table. He sat down next to me, poured himself three fingers of tea in my glass and casually lifted it to his lips. Opposite us, on the esplanade, Moroccan acrobats in shorts were performing amazing feats.

‘Guess who came to see us today.’

‘I have a bit of a headache,’ he said wearily.

‘The Duke.’

That woke him up. ‘Wow!’

‘Do you know him? They say he’s rolling in it.’

‘No doubt about that. He’s so rich he hires people to shit for him.’

‘He came and said that if I beat Rojo, he’ll take me under his wing.’

‘Then you have to win … But watch out, if he offers you a contract, don’t sign anything if I’m not there. You’re not educated and he might put a leash round your neck that even a dog wouldn’t want.’

‘I won’t sign anything without you, I promise.’

‘If things work out for you, I’ll leave the printing works and take care of your affairs. You’re starting to make a name for yourself. Would you like me to be your manager?’

‘I’ll hire you right now. We’ll share everything fifty-fifty.’

‘A normal salary would be fine … Let’s say ten per cent.’

We shook hands to seal the deal and burst out laughing, amused by our own fantasies.

The Duke wanted to make sure we got to Perrégaux feeling fresh and on good form, so he sent a taxi to pick us up from Rue Wagram. The five of us bundled in, Francis and Salvo on the fold-up seats, Gino, De Stefano and I on the back seat. The driver was a tense little fellow, his cap pulled down as far as his ears, so tiny behind the wheel that we wondered if he could see the road. He drove slowly, in a stiff and sinister way, as if he was going to a funeral. Whenever Salvo tried to lighten the atmosphere by telling dirty jokes, the driver would turn to him with an icy look and ask him to show some restraint. Unsure if he was the Duke’s official driver or an ordinary cabman, De Stefano didn’t want to take any risks, but he didn’t like the idea of this obscure celebrity teaching us good manners.

It was a fine May day. Summer had come early, and although it wasn’t yet quite at its height, the hills were carpeted in yellow and the farms glittered in the sun. The luxuriant fields and orchards meant that the cows would be nice and fat this year. We took the road to Saint-Denis-du-Sig by way of Sidi Chami, much to the dismay of Francis, who couldn’t understand why we had to make so many detours when the railway led straight there from Valmy. The driver told us this was the route decided on by the Duke himself … It was nine in the morning. A horde of veiled women were climbing a goat path in the direction of a saint’s tomb, their children limping along far behind in single file. I looked up at the tomb, which was at the top of a hillock, and made a solemn vow. I hadn’t slept well in spite of my mother’s herbal teas. My sleep had been disturbed by tortured dreams and heavy sweating; by the time I woke up, my head was burning hot.

Opposite me, Francis was excited, his eyes shining. Discreetly, he rubbed his thumb against his index finger and batted his eyelids to amuse me. All he thought about was money, but seeing him like that made me less anxious. Gino gazed out at the landscape, fists clenched. I was sure he was praying for me. As for De Stefano, he just kept staring at the back of the driver’s furrowed neck as if trying to melt it with his eyes.

Perrégaux appeared after a bend in the road. It was a small town in the middle of a plain dotted with orchards. Here and there in the distance, patches of swamp shimmered like pearls. At the side of the road, amid the fig trees, Arab carters offered their harvest, while kids, their containers filled with snails, waited patiently for buyers. In a field, a thermal spring gurgled, shrouded in white steam. A fat colonist with a guard dog was watching a male donkey circle a female donkey on heat. I had the feeling I was seeing scenes from my native countryside.

The taxi slowed down at the entrance to the town, jolting over the railway track so cautiously that it almost stalled.

De Stefano looked at his watch; we were an hour late.

Frédéric Pau, the Duke’s adviser, was waiting for us on the steps of the town hall. He took his watch from the pocket of his waistcoat and looked at it meaningfully when he recognised our taxi. He was angry and at the same time relieved that we’d arrived at last. The pavement was packed with cars all the way to the post office. The driver chose to park under the palm trees on Place de France, near the covered market. Curious people came to take a look at us. Someone cried, ‘That’s him, that’s the boxer from Oran. Our Rojo will polish him off in no time at all.’ Two policemen, sent by someone or other, held back the hordes of kids who had started to scream when we got out of the car.

‘I was starting to get worried,’ Frédéric Pau cried. ‘Where did you get to, damn it? We’ve been waiting for you for more than an hour.’

‘It’s the driver’s fault,’ De Stefano said, gesturing with his thumb over his shoulder. ‘Where did you get him from? An undertaker’s?’

‘It was the boss who insisted he get you here in one piece, but I think he overdid it. Now let’s get a move on, they’re getting impatient inside.’

The Duke was lounging in an armchair, facing the mayor’s desk, his cigar clamped in the corner of his mouth. He was wearing a white linen suit, with a hat and moccasins of the same colour. He didn’t stand to greet us and simply gestured with his arm at the man sitting behind the desk.

‘Let me introduce Monsieur Tordjman, the patron saint of the town.’

‘Let’s not exaggerate, Michel,’ the mayor said without moving from his seat. ‘I’m just a humble servant of this place. Now how about some food?’

‘Provided you give us a taster you can vouch for,’ the Duke said, heaving himself up. ‘I don’t want any cook with bad intentions laying my champion low before the fight.’

‘Our Rojo doesn’t need that kind of help, Michel. He’ll make short work of your little town mouse.’

‘We’ll see, Maklouf, we’ll see.’

The mayor was offering a ‘light meal’ on a colonial estate; it was actually a mammoth feast. The banqueting table stretched for several metres, covered in white tablecloths and bristling with an assortment of trays and baskets of fruit. There were about forty guests sitting on either side, mostly colonists and civil servants as well as dignitaries from Sig; the mayor sat in the middle, opposite the Duke. There were no women anywhere to be seen, just men with thick moustaches and bulging bellies, their cheeks scarlet and their mouths dripping with gravy, who laughed at anything and greeted every remark of the mayor’s as if it were the word of a prophet. Salvo dug in, sucking in his cheeks, his eyes darting greedily from dish to dish. Francis kept kicking him under the table, trying to restrain him, but he just grunted like an animal being disturbed and ate twice as much, completely unconcerned. As for De Stefano, he was sizing up Rojo, who was sitting next to the mayor. The local champion was eating calmly, heedless of the commotion around him. He was as tall and broad as an advertising hoarding, his face copper-coloured, his jaw square, his nose so flat you could have ironed a shirt on it. Not once did he look up at me. Cheers went up when servants in djellabas appeared with the méchoui, whole roast lambs served on large dishes strewn with lettuce leaves and onion slices. At that moment, Rojo raised his head; he gave me an enigmatic pout and took advantage of the scramble to leave discreetly.

The match took place in the open air, on a cleared area of the town’s park. A cheerful crowd jostled around the ring. As I was getting ready to step up and join the referee, an Araberber in a gandoura whispered in my ear in a Kabyle accent: ‘Show them we’re not just shepherds.’ Cheers rang out when Rojo stepped over the ropes. He greeted his fans simply and walked slowly to his corner. His robe was taken off. He braced himself against the ropes, did a few knee bends then straightened up, his muscles tense and his face inscrutable. The first three rounds were well balanced. Rojo hit straight and hard and took my punches with Olympian calm. He was correct and polite, a real gentleman, following the referee’s instructions to the letter; conscious of his skill, he was managing the fight like the good technician he was. His feints and dodges delighted the crowd. De Stefano yelled at me to keep my distance, to avoid exposing myself to my opponent’s sudden jabs. Every time I hit home, he would bang his fist on the floor of the ring hard enough to dislocate his wrist. ‘Put him under pressure!’ he would cry out. ‘Keep your guard up! … Don’t cling to him! … Watch his right! … Back up, back up fast! …’ Rojo kept his composure. He had a plan and was trying to make me fall in with it, as if he knew me by heart — as soon as I prepared my ‘torpedo’, he would make sure he veered to the opposite side to throw me off balance. In the fourth round, as I trying to avoid being forced into a corner, he surprised me with his left. My gum shield shot out of my mouth and I saw the sky and earth merge. The floor of the ring fell away beneath me. De Stefano’s voice reached me as if through a series of walls. ‘Get up! … On your feet! …’ Salvo’s grimacing face looked like a carnival mask. I couldn’t quite figure out what was happening. The referee was counting, his arm coming down like a machete. The yells of the crowd made me lose my bearings. I managed to grab hold of a rope and pull myself to my feet, my calves wobbling. The bell saved me … ‘What the hell got into you?’ De Stefano cursed while Salvo rubbed my face and neck with a towel soaked in water. ‘I told you to keep your distance. Don’t let him get you in a corner. It isn’t his right you should watch out for, it’s his left. Work on the body. I don’t think he likes it. As soon as he moves back, go in with all guns blazing … He was starting to hesitate, damn it! He’s yours for the taking …’ The fifth round was an ordeal for me. I hadn’t recovered and Rojo didn’t give me any respite. I sheltered behind my gloves and stoically withstood his onslaught; De Stefano was almost apoplectic. The minutes dragged on. The blows echoed inside me like explosions. I was choking, dehydrated and thirsty. Between two dodges, I looked for Gino in the crowd as if the smallest sign from him could save me; all I could see was the Duke’s disapproving pout as the mayor teased him mercilessly. In the seventh round, exasperated by my stamina, Rojo started to lower his guard. His punches became less and less precise and his moves had lost their spring. I took advantage of a badly managed clinch to land a series of punches that catapulted him onto the ropes. Just as he charged, I hit him with my left cut on the tip of his chin. He slumped and collapsed on his stomach. Silence fell over the park. The referee started counting. ‘Stay down!’ someone yelled at Rojo. ‘Get your strength back!’ On the count of eight, Rojo stood up. His eyes were blurred and his guard was weak. He tried to retreat and lean on the ropes, but I pursued him with a shower of blows that took him aback. He’d had enough of dodging; he punched in the air and clung to me, literally thrown off balance. By the time the bell came to his rescue, the champion of Perrégaux didn’t even know where his corner was. De Stefano was jubilant; he was yelling things in my ear, but I couldn’t understand a word he was saying. I had my eyes fixed on my opponent. He was at the end of his tether and so was I. I had to find a flaw in his apparatus, a fatal flaw. I was shaken, exhausted, certain I couldn’t hold out much longer. Rojo handled the next two rounds bravely. I was leading on points; he knew it and was trying to catch up. In the eleventh round, just as my strength was about to give out, my left hook set off from deep inside me, drawing on the last ounce of its effectiveness, and split the air. I thought I could hear the bones in Rojo’s neck crack. My fist smashed into his temple with such power that I felt a terrible pain explode in my wrist; its shock wave went through my arm and inflamed my shoulder. Rojo whirled around and fell, throwing dust up from the floor. He didn’t get up. De Stefano, Salvo, Francis and Gino climbed into the ring and threw themselves on me, mad with joy. I had the vague feeling I was weightless.

The Duke came to see us in the changing rooms as we were packing up our things. He shook my hand without taking his cigar out of his mouth.

‘Congratulations, son. It was hard, but you held out.’

‘Thank you, Monsieur. It’s the first time I’ve fought a real champion.’

‘Yes, I like his technique a lot.’ This was said to the whole team. ‘To be quite honest with you, I’d have preferred Rojo to win. He’s a great artist.’ There was regret in his voice.

De Stefano scratched his head under his straw boater, puzzled by the Duke’s attitude. ‘Turambo didn’t let you down, Monsieur.’

‘I didn’t say that. He was perfect.’

‘But you don’t seem pleased, Monsieur.’

The Duke threw his cigar to the floor and crushed it with the tip of his shoe. ‘I still have to think about it. Turambo can take the blows, but Rojo’s more agile, more elegant and more technical.’

De Stefano grabbed his handkerchief and mopped his face. His Adam’s apple stuck in his throat and he had to swallow several times to dislodge it. ‘What is there to think about, Monsieur?’

‘Let’s just say your boy didn’t convince me.’

‘But, Monsieur,’ Francis said in a panic, ‘Turambo’s only just starting out. At this stage of his career, Rojo was spending most of his fights clinging to his opponents like an octopus.’

‘I said I’ll think about it,’ the Duke said resolutely. ‘I’m the one who’s going to invest heavily, not you. This is my money we’re talking about, and money doesn’t grow on trees. I want my own champion and I’m prepared to spare no expense to have him. But I need guarantees. Turambo didn’t give them to me today, not all of them. I found him less good than before. He was variable and lacked determination.’

That wasn’t how De Stefano saw things. He felt betrayed. His flushed face looked as if it was about to fall apart. He took his courage in both hands and dared stand up to the Duke. ‘Turambo won, didn’t he? That was your condition, Monsieur. Rojo has had sixteen professional fights and this was the first time he was knocked out.’

De Stefano could use all the arguments in the world, the Duke wouldn’t budge. He motioned to Frédéric Pau to follow him and left us standing there in the changing room.

We weren’t allowed a taxi on the way back.

We returned to Oran by bus, surrounded by rough peasants, baskets filled with cackling poultry and bundles smelling of manure.

5

De Stefano had cherished a lot of dreams since the Duke had dangled the prospect of financial help in front of him. He thought he might renovate the gym, install a new ring, along with punch bags and all the other paraphernalia that went with it, recruit potential champions and relaunch his career. It was too good to be true, but he had to believe in it after so many pious wishes. For years now he’d been asking luck for a helping hand, without ever giving up. Did he have any choice? The gym was his whole life; he’d fallen into it before he’d learnt to stand. He’d known highs and lows, gone from the peaks to the gutter, and not once had he considered throwing in the towel. For him, there was nothing after boxing, no income, no relaxation, just a total blank. With the Duke as his sponsor, he was sure he could force the hand of fate. Already, in boxing circles, people had started to be jealous of him. He himself had no qualms about telling everyone that the Duke had come to see him to discuss business and lay the groundwork for a fame that would mark entire generations. At night, in the bars, he would gather around his table a cluster of friends and make their heads spin with his staggering plans. To prove to them it wasn’t just wishful thinking, he’d buy rounds; his slate looked like a complicated maths puzzle, but the barman didn’t need to be asked twice, convinced as he was that the gym in Rue Wagram was getting a new lease of life.

Every day for a week after we got back from Perrégaux, De Stefano would go through the press, hoping to come across an article praising my victory over Rojo, one that might make the Duke see reason. But neither L’Écho d’Oran nor the evening paper Le Petit Oranais said anything about my fight. Not even a short item. De Stefano was outraged. It was as if the gods were conspiring against him.

I didn’t really grasp what was at stake. I’d go so far as to say that De Stefano’s dismay didn’t affect me. I knew that the Roumis had a strange mentality, that they complicated their lives because they didn’t really believe that ‘everything is written’. As far as I was concerned, things obeyed imperatives that were outside my control; I just had to make the best of it. To rebel against fate, far from averting it, might bring even greater misfortunes down on your head, pursuing you even to your grave … I trained morning and evening, with growing flair, certain that fortune was smiling on me and that my salvation was at the end of my gloves. The press might have ignored me, but the Arab bush telegraph was buzzing to its heart’s content, spicing up my matches and building statues to me on every street corner. In Medina Jedida, not a single café owner would allow me to pay for what I consumed. The children cheered me and old men stopped telling their prayer beads when I passed and called down blessings on my head.

I invited Gino to dinner at my mother’s. My latest victories having brought me a small fortune, I wanted to celebrate that with the family. Mekki joined us reluctantly. He didn’t like the fact that I’d become a boxer, but he didn’t hold it against me too much. I wasn’t a child any more.

My mother made us a wonderful dinner of chorba with chickpeas, roast chicken stuffed with Jerusalem artichokes, grilled liver kebabs, seasonal fruits and two large bottles of Hamoud Boualem pop bought from an Algiers grocer.

Before we sat down to eat, I begged her not to rekindle Gino’s grief. My mother had a tendency to lament the dead woman every time he came to share our meals, which rather spoilt our get-togethers. My mother gave a maraboutic sign and promised to avoid painful subjects. She kept her word. At the end of the meal, as she was getting ready to clear the table so that she could serve tea, I took a box wrapped in a kaftan from my bag and gave it to her.

‘What is it?’ she asked.

‘Open it and see.’

She took the gift cautiously and undid the ribbons. Her eyes opened wide at the sight of the solid gold kholkhal in its casket.

‘It’s not as beautiful as yours, but it’s heavy. I looked in all the Arab jewellers’ and it was the best one I could find.’

My mother was stunned. ‘It must have cost you an arm and a leg,’ she panted.

In his turn, Mekki stood up, went to his room and came back with a cloth tightly wrapped with string, knelt in front of my mother and undid it. On the table, he placed the kholkhal with the lions’ heads.

‘I didn’t dare sell it or pawn it,’ he said. ‘I kept it for you because it’s yours. I wouldn’t have let another person have it for anything in the world.’

Moved, shaking all over, my mother put her arms around him, then around me. She kissed me. I felt her heart beating against my chest and her tears sliding down my neck. Embarrassed by Gino’s presence, she hid her face with her scarf and ran to take refuge in the kitchen.

I walked Gino home. It was a magnificent night, fragrant with amber and mint. The sky glittered with millions of constellations. A group of young men were laughing their heads off under a street lamp. We walked in silence to Boulevard Mascara. An empty tram passed us. I felt light, fresh; an honest joy filled my lungs. I was proud of myself.

‘I’m sleeping at my mother’s tonight,’ I said to Gino when we got to his door. ‘I’ll just go up and drop my bag.’

Gino put on the stair light and went up ahead of me.

When he reached his mother’s room, transformed into a living room, he gave a start. On the chest of drawers stood a brand-new horn gramophone and a pile of records in their sleeves.

‘It’s my gift to you,’ I said.

‘You shouldn’t have,’ he said with a lump in his throat.

‘Do you like it?’

‘Of course I do!’

‘And I got you all the Jewish-Andalusian music I could find. This way, you won’t have to venture out into dangerous areas at ridiculous hours.’

Gino looked through the pile of records. ‘Where did you buy these?’

‘In a very smart shop in the centre of town.’

Gino burst out laughing. ‘Well, smart or not, they took you for a ride. These are all military band records.’

‘No!’ I said in astonishment.

‘They definitely are. Look, it’s even written on the sleeves.’

‘The crook! How did he know I couldn’t read? I was all dressed up like a matinee idol, with brilliantine in my hair. I swear I insisted on records of Jewish-Andalusian music. I told him it was for someone who loves that kind of thing … The bastard! Plus, they cost me a fortune. I’m going to have a word with him tomorrow morning.’

Touched by my disappointment, Gino let out another boyish laugh. ‘Come on, it’s not that bad. Now I won’t need to go to the bandstand to hear this kind of music, that’s all.’ He gave me a big hug. ‘Thank you from the bottom of my heart.’

*

Two weeks later, De Stefano stopped me in the doorway of the gym. His face was radiant with a joy he couldn’t contain. The Duke had thought it over! ‘It’s in the bag,’ Francis said, rubbing his hands. Frédéric Pau was perched on the edge of the ring, his legs crossed, his thumbs in his braces, smiling from ear to ear. ‘Put it there, son,’ he said, holding out his hand. ‘From now on, we’re partners.’ He told me that his boss was inviting De Stefano and me to his house to seal the deal. I told him I wouldn’t sign anything without Gino, much to the dismay of Francis, whose face immediately darkened. Frédéric told me we hadn’t got to that point yet, that this was just a friendly meeting. In the afternoon, a gleaming car pulled up outside the haberdasher’s on Boulevard Mascara. Gino and I were on the balcony, sipping orangeade. Filippi got out of the car in a tight-fitting bellboy’s tunic, a cap jammed on his head. He stood to attention and gave us a military salute.

‘Did Bébert fire you from his garage?’ Gino shouted down to him.

‘No.’

‘Then what are you doing in that uniform? You look like a soldier in his Sunday best.’

‘I’m a chauffeur. The Duke was looking for a driver. De Stefano told him about me, and the Duke hired me immediately. He has a good business head, the Duke. For the price of one employee, he’s got himself a chauffeur and a mechanic … I have something for Turambo.’

‘Come up, it’s open.’

Filippi carefully took a package from the back seat and joined us upstairs. There were two suits in their wrapping, one black and the other white, two shirts and two ties.

‘They’re from the boss,’ he said. ‘He wants to see you looking handsome tonight. Go to the hammam and get yourself cleaned up. I’ll pick you up at seven thirty. Make sure you’re ready; the Duke’s a stickler for punctuality.’

Filippi came back at sunset. I’d had my bath and put on the black suit, and Gino had helped me knot my tie. I stood in front of the wardrobe mirror, combed, scented … and barefoot. I didn’t have any suitable shoes. Filippi offered me his own shoes, not the ones he was wearing, but the ones he had at home, in Delmonte. It was on our way. We made a detour to pick up De Stefano and, at eight on the dot, we were at the Duke’s door.

The Duke lived in a big villa in the south of Saint-Eugène, or to be more accurate a magnificent manor house surrounded by a huge, luxuriant garden. An Arab guard opened the gate, which had a gold thistle on it. We had to go a good thirty metres along a gravel drive lined on either side with hydrangeas and small bushes pruned into cubes before we reached the canopied front steps of the house.

Frédéric Pau was waiting for us on the top step in a charcoal-grey frock coat that made him look like a heron. He adjusted De Stefano’s tie, asked him to take off his straw boater, then looked me over and adjusted a few things, a crease in my jacket, a hair out of place.

Members of polite society were chatting in a big, high-ceilinged room, beneath a massive chandelier. There were elegant ladies with elbow-length gloves, accompanied by distinguished-looking gentlemen with outlandish moustaches. When he saw me, the Duke opened his arms wide and cried, ‘Ah, there’s our hero!’ He didn’t embrace me, or even hold out his hand; he merely introduced me briefly to his guests, who looked me up and down, some with interest, others with curiosity, before turning away from me and returning to the sophisticated hubbub. They were all of a certain age, women and men, probably married couples, reeking of successful business and high positions. De Stefano whispered in my ear that the fat man with the swollen nose was the mayor and the skinny gentleman with the greying temples was the prefect. Out on the veranda, a Parisian dignitary in a tailcoat and top hat was pretending to take the air in order to distance himself from the locals and enhance his metropolitan aura.

A servant passed between the guests with a tray of glasses. De Stefano eagerly accepted a glass of champagne; I didn’t take anything, intimidated by the luxury around me, the ladies’ sophisticated clothes, their companions’ regal disdain.

A neat, bouncy young girl approached me, hands twisted behind her back, her face red with embarrassment and curiosity.

She was cute, with her blonde plaits and her big blue eyes.

‘I’m Louise, Monsieur Bollocq’s daughter.’

I didn’t know what to say in reply. In the distance, De Stefano winked at me, which annoyed me for some reason.

‘Papa’s convinced you’re going to be world champion.’

‘The world’s a big place.’

‘When Papa says something, it always happens.’

‘…’

‘I love boxing. Papa won’t take me to see matches, so I listen to them on the radio. Georges Carpentier’s fights are amazing. But I won’t cheer him on the way I used to now that Papa has his own champion …’

Shyly she went up on tiptoe. Her tongue moved back and forth over her thin lips.

‘How can you take the blows round after round? The announcer almost fainted when he described the flurry of blows you exchanged in the ring.’

‘You train a lot to keep going.’

‘And does it hurt when you box?’

‘Not as much as a toothache.’

A refined lady came along and cut short our conversation. She must have been in her forties and was very grand and aggressive. Barely glancing at me, she seized the girl by the arm and led her away from me.

‘Louise, my dear, you should leave this young man alone. We’ll be sitting down to eat soon.’

She was Madame Bollocq.

Louise turned several times and gave me a sad smile before disappearing among the guests.

At the table, the Duke delivered a solemn speech in which he promised that Oran would soon have its North African champion — me, of course. This fine city deserved to have idols it could flaunt in the faces of those snobs in Algiers, and it was imperative that we all work together, politicians, businessmen and sponsors, to restore the lustre of the most emancipated city in Algeria. He spent a long while boasting of my potential and my achievements, insisted on the need to stay with me until I reached the top, and warmly thanked the mayor, the prefect and the other dignitaries who had agreed to join him and make this evening the beginning of a new era crowned with trophies, sensational titles and outstanding sportsmen. At the end of his speech, he raised his glass to all those who, in a large or small way, out of self-interest or loyalty, with their money or simply with their hearts, were contributing to the rise of the wonderful city of the two lions.

All through the dinner, while the ladies and gentlemen stuffed their faces and laughed at the Duke’s anecdotes — he was on truly entertaining form — Louise kept looking at me and sending me friendly signs from the end of the banqueting table.

*

Gino came to my room, curious as to why I hadn’t switched the light off, or why I was lying fully clothed on my bed, staring up at the ceiling. He sat down on a chair next to me, lit a cigarette and blew the smoke in my direction.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Do I look like something’s wrong?’

‘No, but you’re up to something. Your silence worries me, and your insomnia too. Have you signed something behind my back?’

‘I’ve already agreed with De Stefano. It’s you, and you alone, who’ll handle my business affairs.’

‘So why aren’t you asleep? You have two training sessions tomorrow and your next fight’s in three weeks.’

I was silent for a while before confessing, ‘I think I’m in love.’

‘So soon?’

‘I guess you’d call it love at first sight.’

‘Is it serious?’

‘Yes, seeing that I can’t sleep.’

‘And who’s the lucky girl?’

‘Her name’s Louise. She’s the Duke’s daughter. The problem is that she’s only fourteen or fifteen.’

‘Are you sure that’s the only problem?’

‘I’m a man now. I need a wife and children.’

‘Stop putting a spoke in your own wheels. You really don’t need to complicate your life with all that. You’re too young to have a noose round your neck. Get that idea out of your head, and fast. A champion needs a good punch bag and his freedom. And anyway, the Duke would give you a beating if he found out you had a crush on his daughter.’

‘What do you know anyway?’

The next day, halfway to the gym, I turned round and hopped on the first tram that came along. In a florist’s in Saint-Eugène, I bought a pretty bunch of pink peonies and found myself ringing at the Bollocqs’ gate. The Arab asked me what I wanted. I showed him my flowers. He asked me to follow him to the front steps of the manor and await Madame’s instructions. Madame Bollocq didn’t seem pleased to see me. I told her I’d brought a gift for her daughter. She told me that was kind of me, but that there was no need, and asked the guard to walk me back to the gate. I didn’t have a chance to catch a glimpse of Louise.

Towards midday, Frédéric Pau informed me that the Duke wanted to talk to me. Immediately. I got down from the ring and went to change. Frédéric was waiting impatiently in the car. He drove me straight to the Duke’s office, which was on the seafront.

The Duke dismissed his adviser and closed the door behind him. We were alone in a big room adorned with old paintings and figurines.

‘It seems you came to the house,’ he said, taking a big cigar from a gold case on a chest of drawers.

‘That’s right, Monsieur. I was in the area and I thought —’

‘I have an office, Turambo,’ he cut in, putting the cigar down and glaring at me.

‘I wanted to give Louise flowers.’

‘She has a whole garden full of them or didn’t you notice?’

I’d been expecting to sign papers or talk about matches, and the Duke’s remark threw me. I had no idea where he was going with this, but it was clear he blamed me for something.

With his finger, he motioned to me to follow him. We crossed his wood-panelled office and went out onto the balcony, which overlooked an inner courtyard in the middle of which stood a huge plane tree. The Duke leant on the wrought-iron balustrade, sniffed the air, moved his face into the sun’s rays then, without turning to me, pointed to the tree.

‘You see that tree, Turambo? It was here long before my great-grandmother. Probably before the first civilised people even settled in this barbaric country. It’s survived invasions and a whole lot of battles. Often, when I look at it, I wonder how many love affairs started beneath it, how many confidences were exchanged in its shade, how many plots were hatched under its branches. It’s seen generations pass and yet there it is, imperturbable, almost taciturn, as if nothing had ever happened … Do you know why it’s survived the centuries and why it’ll survive us? Because it’s stayed stubbornly in its place. It’s never going to trample on the roots of other trees. And it’s right. The reason it’s fine where it is, relaxed, well-behaved, is so that no other tree can come and overshadow it.’

‘I don’t understand, Monsieur.’

‘You should know this, young man. To me, you’re just an investment. You’re not a member of my family, you’re not a friend. You’re a racehorse on which I’ve bet a lot of money. I may indulge you and spoil you, but that has nothing to do with affection: it’s so that you don’t disappoint me or short-change me. But whatever the satisfaction you give me, you’ll always be the little Arab from the souk who’d do better not to take for granted the favours people do for him. Do you follow me?’

‘Not really, Monsieur.’

‘I thought as much. I’m going to try and be clearer.’ He tapped on the balustrade with his finger. ‘I don’t want you to ring my doorbell without being invited, and I forbid you to go anywhere near my daughter. We aren’t of the same class, let alone the same race. So stay in your place, like that tree, and nobody will step on you … Have I made myself understood, Turambo?’

My hands had left damp patches on the edge of the balustrade. The sun was burning my eyes. A cold shower would have been less of a shock.

‘I have to go and train, Monsieur,’ I heard myself stammer.

‘An excellent idea.’

I wiped my moist hands on the front of my trousers and walked back to the main door.

‘Turambo!’ he called.

I stopped in the middle of the room, without turning round.

‘In life, as in boxing,’ he said, ‘there are rules.’

I nodded and went on my way.

That day, I let myself go on the punch bag until my arms were almost pushed back into their sockets.

6

‘The Duke would give you the moon if you asked him,’ Frédéric Pau said to me, ‘but you can’t even swat a fly without his permission. He’s strict with everyone. He and I have known each other since we were barefoot boys in the gutter. We stole fruit from the same orchard and bathed in the same trough. And yet I’m at his beck and call. Because he’s the boss … I acknowledge he’s been hard on you. He admits it himself. But don’t make a big deal of it. He just wanted you to know that there are lines that mustn’t be crossed. I assure you he has an enormous amount of esteem for you. He wants to make you a legend. He’ll get you to the top, I guarantee it. Only, he insists on certain principles, do you follow me? Otherwise, how can he get people to respect him?’

It was after midnight. Gino and I had been sleeping when there was a knock at the door. Going down to open up, I’d been surprised to see Frédéric Pau standing in the street, puffing on a cigarette. He’d apologised for disturbing us. It was obvious he wasn’t there by chance. The way he was smoking betrayed a nervousness I’d never seen in him before. I’d stood aside to let him come up. It occurred to me the Duke might have fired him; I was wrong. Monsieur Pau had come to lecture me …

Gino joined us in his pants in the living room, which was dimly lit by an old oil lamp because of an electricity blackout. As soon as he was seated, Monsieur Pau got straight to the point. He’d been given the task of clearing up that afternoon’s misunderstanding, following the words the Duke had said to me in his office. Gino, still half asleep, couldn’t follow much of the discussion. His eyes darted from my tense mouth to Frédéric Pau’s conciliatory hands, trying in vain to grasp what it was all about. I hadn’t told him about the incident in question. The Duke had wounded me deeply and I had preferred to save my resentment for Sigli, my next opponent, an arrogant fellow who was constantly shouting from the rooftops that he would polish me off in the first round. So I was furious with Pau. He was revealing everything without realising the embarrassing situation he was putting me in. However many pained looks I gave him, in the hope of making him aware of his indiscretion, he just kept on talking.

A sound reached us from the end of the corridor. Much to my relief, Pau at last fell silent. He asked Gino what the noise meant. Gino reassured him it wasn’t a poltergeist but might have been a rat overturning something in the kitchen.

I took advantage of this unexpected interruption to divert the conversation. ‘When are we going to sign the contract, Monsieur Pau?’

‘What contract?’

‘What do you mean, what contract? I work for your boss now, don’t I?’

‘The Duke never said anything about a contract.’

‘Well, it’s time we sat down round a table and clarified things. In three weeks, I’m meeting Sigli. I’m not getting in that ring without first sorting out the details of my career. The Duke wants me to follow the rules. Let him do the same. And please note, it isn’t Francis who manages my affairs now, but Gino here. From today, you’ll have to negotiate with him.’

‘All right. I’ll see what I can do.’

‘And now, go home, Monsieur. Tomorrow, very early, De Stefano is picking me up to go to Kristel.’

Pau took his hat off the table. His hand was shaking. ‘What should I tell the Duke?’

‘About what?’

‘About what happened in his office this afternoon.’

‘Nothing happened in his office this afternoon.’

Pau was confused. He didn’t know how to interpret my attitude. I pushed him gently outside, making sure he didn’t trip on the dark staircase, and slammed the door behind him.

‘What was all that about?’ Gino asked.

‘All what?’ I said, going back to my room.

The next day, when I got back from Kristel, Gino told me that Filippi had come to fetch him and take him to see the Duke and that, although he hadn’t signed any papers, the situation was looking better than he’d hoped. He informed me that Monsieur Pau would be coming round that evening to bury the ‘misunderstanding’ once and for all and that, in order to do that, I needed to have a good bath and put on my formal suit.

‘Will you come with me?’

‘Not this time. The situation has changed. From now on, whenever you’re invited, you’re not expected to bring your tribe with you. You just do what you’re told, full stop. But don’t worry, I’m looking after your interests whether I’m there or not.’

That evening, the car driven by Filippi pulled up outside the haberdasher’s. Frédéric Pau opened the door for me in person. From the balcony, Gino gave me a little wave and mouthed something I read as Have fun.

The seafront was swarming with people in loose shirts, and the ice-cream parlours overflowed with holidaymakers. Ladies were strolling on the esplanade, their hair blowing in the wind. Leaning on the railing overlooking the harbour, young people were gazing at the setting sun, its fire in marked contrast to the silhouette of Murdjadjo. From the top of the mountain, Santa Cruz watched over the city, hands joined and wings outstretched. In Oran, summer was a party, and the neon signs were conjuring tricks.

The car turned off from the bustle of the streets and glided slowly into the thick silence of the countryside. A strip of asphalt climbed to the heights of the Cueva del Agua. On this side of the city, you turned your back on the wonders of nature. Now wasn’t the time for contemplation. Poverty was born out of misfortune, and both were accepted as a given, like a curse handed down as punishment for an unknown crime. Huts of hessian flapped in the dust-laden breeze. On a mound of rubbish, ragged children, watched by a sad, rheumy-eyed old dog, were learning to overcome their sorrows … Further on, a sign announced the entrance to the village of Canastel. Filippi turned onto a track and plunged into a thicket filled with the sound of cicadas. We passed little cabins hidden behind reed trellises, crossed a deserted clearing, and finally came to the gate of a comfortable-looking residence perched on a belvedere overlooking the sea.

Filippi parked in a little courtyard and rushed to open the door for Monsieur Pau. Pau waited for me to get out first before getting out himself.

‘Where are we?’ I asked him.

‘Somewhere between heaven and hell.’

I looked up at the big house with its tiled roof. Tall windows with austere curtains cast their subdued light on the surrounding area. Pau motioned to me to climb the three front steps.

‘Isn’t Filippi coming with us?’ I said, a little disorientated.

‘Filippi’s a chauffeur. He’s fine where he is.’

An Arab dressed like an Abbasid eunuch — turban pinned at the front, a shimmering kameez above a baggy sirwal, horned slippers and a broad sash around his waist — bowed when he saw Pau on the steps.

‘Larbi, tell Madame Camélia that Monsieur Pau is here.’

‘Right away, sidi,’ the man whispered before disappearing down a hidden passageway.

The main room, which had a faint odour of perfume and tobacco, was twice as large as that of the Bollocq house. At the time, I couldn’t have put a name to the gargantuan furniture in it. The walls, hung with cold materials, were adorned with dark frescoes, paintings of naked odalisques, sophisticated lamps, bevelled mirrors and hunting trophies. On potbellied chests, bronze statuettes rubbed shoulders with porcelain figurines and hieratic candelabra. Opposite the cloakroom, presided over by a pale-faced old lady, was a wood-panelled counter, blood-red in colour, above a silver cabinet filled with crystal objects. A smartly dressed young man in a bow tie was working the lever of a chrome-plated machine with all his might. He greeted us with a slight nod before being hailed by a client who seemed about to fall into a drunken coma. Couples kissed on sofas in alcoves covered in Florentine mosaics, not at all disturbed by prying eyes. Their casualness shocked me more than the brazenness of their embraces. I had thought that kind of shameless display only happened in shady bars where whores fleeced sailors and fights were always breaking out; seeing it in these hushed, opulent surroundings, practised with the most disgusting audacity by men in white collars and dance-hall starlets, was a great surprise to me. I had thought that distinguished people cared about appearances …

A red-carpeted marble staircase led to the upper floor, where an old harridan with exposed breasts sat on guard duty, smoking a cigarette in a long holder. She watched over an assortment of young girls in suspenders, with arched backs and plump buttocks, perched on high stools at the counter, glasses in their hands. All around, on padded and brocaded banquettes, other slightly drunk women chatted with smartly dressed gentlemen, some of them sitting on their knees, others letting themselves be boldly groped.

‘Come, let me introduce you to a future champion of the world,’ Frédéric Pau said, bringing me back down to earth. He led me to the far end of the room where a tall black man in a three-piece suit was lounging on a sofa, with two barely pubescent girls all over him. The man was a force of nature. He was drinking a glass of brandy, knees crossed, crushing one of the girls, a blonde, with his free arm, while she writhed with pleasure. Both girls were carefully made up and wore satin lingerie through which their firm breasts and frilly knickers could be seen. They seemed captivated by the man.

‘Is it true you hit Jacquot?’ asked the other girl, a brunette with short hair, eyes half hidden by her curly fringe.

‘It was a misunderstanding,’ the man grunted in a lazy voice.

‘I saw him at the casino,’ the brunette went on, ‘and didn’t recognise him. What did you hit him with? His nose was completely flattened. The poor man’s profile was ruined.’

‘I’d rather not talk about it.’

‘Please tell us why you hit him,’ the blonde said excitedly, cuddling up closer to the man.

The tall black man put his glass down on a table in front of him, buried the blonde beneath his armpit and let his other hand run over the brunette’s thighs. ‘I was training hard when Jacquot said to Gustave, “What a stud, your boy.” So I punched him in the face.’

‘But that’s not an insult,’ the blonde cried, ‘in fact it’s a compliment. It means you’re in great shape.’

‘Yeah,’ the black man sighed, ‘except I’d never heard the expression before. Gustave explained it to me later. I told him Jacquot could have found another way to flatter me …’

The two girls fell silent when they saw us standing over them. Intrigued by his companions’ sudden silence, the tall man turned his head, frowning.

He drew his lips back displaying a row of gold teeth. ‘Are you listening at doors now, Frédo?’

‘Not at all,’ Frédéric Pau reassured him. ‘I wanted to introduce our new champion.’

The black man looked me up and down.

I held out my hand; he looked at it scornfully.

‘I haven’t got my white gloves on, boy,’ he grunted rudely.

‘I have a feeling we’ve met before,’ I said.

‘In your dreams, kid,’ he said, turning his back on me.

Frédéric took me by the arm and dragged me away.

‘Who is that brute?’

‘His name’s Mouss,’ he said in a low voice. ‘He’s a heavyweight. It’s hardly surprising you thought you knew him. You’ll have seen his posters on walls and his picture in the papers.’

‘Did you see how he treated us?’

‘He has a bad attitude. He’s very full of himself. One day, someone asked him, “Who are you?” He replied, “I’m Me.” “Don’t you have a name?” And Mouss replied, “I don’t need one because I’m unique.” See what I mean? I thought he’d be delighted to make the acquaintance of a promising colleague from his own community. I was wrong. But we shouldn’t let that stupid megalomaniac spoil our evening.’

A woman looking like a priestess, an artificial beauty spot on her cheek and her blue eyes adorned with false eyelashes, came towards us. With her hair swept back into a large bun and her haughty bearing, she carried her sixty years as if carrying a sceptre. She was beautiful, with an indefinable but impressive charm, but her hardness and arrogance immediately intimidated me.

‘How wonderful to see you again, Monsieur Pau,’ she said, wearily dismissing the servant scurrying behind her.

‘No happiness is complete if it isn’t shared, my dear Camélia.’

She briefly glanced at me with a regal eye. ‘Is this the young man Monsieur Bollocq told me about this morning?’

‘That’s right.’

In a hurry to get rid of me, she sent a coded sign to the old harridan sitting upstairs and told me to go up and join her. As I hesitated, not understanding what was expected of me, Frédéric Pau said encouragingly, ‘What are you waiting for? Go on.’

The woman passed her gloved hand under my companion’s arm and drew him over to the bar. ‘Let’s have a drink, dear Frédéric. People as polite as you are becoming increasingly rare around here. Tell me, how’s your lovely wife? Still a slave driver?’

They abandoned me on the spot.

I climbed the stairs unsteadily. I had an unpleasant feeling in my stomach. The harridan, clearly some kind of maid, stubbed out her cigarette in an ashtray and seized a fan, which she waved over her garishly made-up face, her blouse open on the bulges of her belly, her navel as big as the barrel of a musket. She led me down a maze-like corridor with a polished floor. On either side there were doors. Through them, bursts of laughter, noises of lovemaking and orgasmic moans could be heard. My unease increased as I advanced. The old harridan opened a door at the end of the corridor and I found myself looking into a cosy room where a young woman sat at a pretty dressing table, brushing her long black hair, which fell all the way down her back. She threw me a look that made me freeze.

‘Aïda,’ the maid announced before withdrawing, ‘here’s the young man you were expecting.’

Aïda smiled at me. With her finger, she motioned me to enter. As I stood stunned in the doorway, she got up, gently drew me inside and closed the door. She smelt good. Her big doe-like eyes enveloped me with an intensity that choked me. My heart was pounding in my chest, I had a lump in my throat, and I was sweating profusely.

‘Is something wrong?’ she asked.

I couldn’t swallow.

She examined me, amused by my embarrassment, then went over to a low table covered with bottles. ‘Would you like a drink?’

I shook my head.

She came back to me, a little disconcerted this time. ‘I assume preliminaries are a waste of time for young Arabs.’

With a mystical gesture, she undid the braid of her shirt and the thin muslin veil that covered her slid silently to the floor, revealing a perfect body, with high breasts, full hips and slender legs. The woman’s sudden nakedness threw me completely. I turned on my heel and almost ran out of the room. I got lost several times on the way back.

The maid frowned when she saw me beating a retreat.

Once in the little courtyard, I braced myself against my knees and breathed deeply to shake off my dizzy spell, which was now turning to nausea. The breeze outside refreshed me a little.

Filippi got out of the car. ‘Are you all right?’

With my hand, I motioned him away.

I needed to snap out of it. Frédéric Pau joined me, completely taken aback by my reaction. I demanded that he take me home immediately. He asked me to calm down and tell him what had happened.

‘You should have told me,’ I said.

‘Told you what?’

‘That we were going to a brothel.’

‘Why?’

‘I wasn’t prepared.’

‘It isn’t a boxing match, Turambo. Don’t tell me you’ve never slept with a girl …’

Filippi guffawed. ‘Is that why you’re so upset?’

‘Filippi!’ Frédéric snapped. ‘Get back behind the wheel and start the engine.’

‘I can’t believe it,’ Filippi exclaimed. ‘The giant slayer collapses at the sight of a nice frizzy pussy. I wasn’t prepared,’ he aped me in a grating voice. ‘I suppose you should have got some training in first in the toilets.’

Frédéric put his arm round my shoulders and moved me away from Filippi. ‘Sorry. I didn’t know you were a virgin. It was the Duke’s idea. Camélia’s is the most prestigious brothel in the region. Only important people go there. The girls are healthy, they know how to hold a conversation and they get regular medical checks. Plus, you don’t have to spend any money. It’s all on Monsieur Bollocq.’

He turned me towards him and looked me in the eye.

‘You’re still young, Turambo. At your age, starting out on what looks like being a fabulous career, the only thing you should think about is victory in the ring. I know that in your community, people marry very young. But you don’t belong to your tribe now. You have a legend to build. Everyone in Oran, from the dignitaries to the flunkies, the ladies to the harlots, is behind you, the Duke at the head of them. You want a wife? We can offer you concubines by the shovelful. At Camélia’s, no scenes, no worries, no judges and no dowries. Just a bit of well-earned relaxation. You come, you have a good time, and it’s thank you and goodbye … Imagine you have an important fight and your wife is ready to go into labour, imagine you have a title fight the night your kid complains of appendicitis, imagine that as you get in the ring you’re told your daughter has fallen down the stairs, what would you do? Do you put your gloves on or do you jump in a taxi and rush home? … So, girlfriends, marriage, all that mess, forget about it. You have mountains to climb, titles and trophies to win. To get there, the first thing you have to do is get rid of anything that could slow you down or distract you.’

It was clear that Gino was behind this ‘trap’. He had said the same kind of thing the other day when I had told him about Louise. Angrily, I pulled Frédéric’s hands off my shoulders and said, ‘I want to go home now.’

Gino was waiting for me calmly in the kitchen, eating a sandwich of kosher sausage, a napkin round his neck, his braces undone. A lock of hair dangled over his forehead, adding an unusual serenity to his charm. The way I slammed the door behind me and climbed the stairs four steps at a time, cursing, didn’t disturb his mocking, slightly distant smile. He seemed more interested in the gramophone droning in the living room than my bad mood.

‘What are you playing at?’ I screamed.

He cut me off before I’d finished giving vent to my temper. ‘You chose me to run your affairs,’ he reminded me, ‘so do as I say and shut up.’

The following evening, he himself went with me to Madame Camélia’s. The fact was, I wanted to go back. I was angry at myself for not having kept a cool head and dodged things honourably. Filippi’s sarcastic laughter was still ringing in my ears. I had to make amends for my self-inflicted insult …

Aïda received me with exaggerated solicitude. In spite of her efforts to put me at ease, I couldn’t relax. She told me about herself, asked me questions about my life, my plans, told me innocent jokes that barely raised the ghost of a smile, then took my jacket off, laid me on the bed and began touching me very carefully and whispering in my ear, ‘Let me see to it.’

I was in a kind of stupor when I got back in the car, where Gino and Filippi were waiting for me and sniggering. Filippi suppressed his giggling and ran out to crank up the car. Gino joined me in the back seat.

‘How was it?’ he asked.

‘Fantastic!’ I cried, drained of all my toxins.

Three days before my fight, not quite sure if it was to overcome the pressure Sigli was putting me under with his thunderous declarations or simply to rediscover a corner of paradise in Aïda’s arms, I took my courage in both hands and went back to Madame Camélia’s. All by myself, like a grown-up. With the private conviction that I had reached a turning point and was now in a position to decide my own fate. I was determined to take control. I stopped Aïda from undressing me, anxious to prove to her that I was capable of doing it myself. Aïda had no objection.

I undid her bodice, gazed admiringly at the undulation of her hips, followed the voluptuous swelling of her breasts with my finger, kissed her lips, which quivered with desire, then, after switching the light off in the room to make my senses fully alert and reduce the world to nothing but my sense of touch, I carried her in my arms and put her down on the bed as if placing a wreath at the foot of a monument. All I could see were her eyes shining in the darkness, but that was all I asked.

And so I discovered the sweet, irrepressible torments of the flesh.

The Duke was determined to put his own stamp on the event. He called on the best photographers and drummed up support from a whole lot of journalists to make my match the fight of the year. His photograph had been appearing on the front page of L’Écho d’Oran for several days. To ensure the greatest impact, he hired a huge hall in the centre of town used by the city council for big occasions and galas. When I got there, the street outside was swarming with onlookers. Flashbulbs popped and the men of the press jostled one another to get an opinion or statement from me. Gino and Filippi had to elbow their way through the crowd to let me through. On the opposite pavement, a group of Araberbers were shouting and gesticulating in the hope of attracting my attention. They were all in their early thirties, with ties and parted hair.

‘Hey, Turambo!’ one of them shouted at me. ‘Why won’t they let us in? We have money to buy tickets.’

‘It isn’t fair,’ another cried. ‘You have to box for us too. You’re the jewel in our crown.’

‘You’re the champion,’ the first one went on. ‘You can demand it. Insist that they let us watch the match. We’re here to support you. Those are just your enemies around the ring.’

A big red-faced man keeping watch outside the main door of the establishment asked me to go to the changing rooms without delay.

‘Why won’t they let them in?’ I asked him.

‘They didn’t provide any animal skins in the hall,’ he retorted, ‘and these apes don’t know how to sit properly on chairs.’

Gino seized me round the waist to stop me hitting the man and pushed me into the lobby, where a welcoming committee were waiting impatiently. From the hall, the din of the audience reached us. Frédéric Pau immediately led me to the changing rooms. Salvo and De Stefano were already there, nervous and sweating.

‘All the elite of the city are here,’ Frédéric said. ‘It’s up to you to get them on your side. If you win, the sky’s the limit for us.’

Frédéric wasn’t exaggerating. The hall was packed and overheated. In the front few rows sat the dignitaries, the journalists, the judges, and a restless character surrounded by microphones for a live radio broadcast. Behind, a tide of faces crimson with excitement, cooling themselves with fans and newspapers. There were just Roumis in suits here, yelling at each other, jumping up and down on their seats, or looking for each other in the chaos. Not a tarboosh or fez in sight. I suddenly felt alone in the midst of a hostile throng.

As I got in the ring, jeers rang out, soon drowned out by the clamour of a crowd getting ready to celebrate. Spotlights shone down fiercely on the ring. I thought I recognised Mouss in a corner, but the blinding lights forced me to turn away. Applause came from the left side of the hall and spread in a crescendo through the whole room. Whistles and the squeaking of chairs were added to the loud cheers. Sigli emerged from the shadows and made his way through the crowd in a white robe. He was a big, fair-haired man, his head shaven at the temples, with skinny legs. I had seen him fight two or three times and he hadn’t made a particularly good impression on me. He was one metre ninety tall, which protected his head, and he used his long arms to keep his opponents at a distance, his punches being much more of a reflex than genuine aggressiveness. I knew he was only fairly good at taking blows, and there weren’t many people who rated him highly. All the same, everyone was expecting a miracle and praying that someone would shut the mouth of the dirty Arab whose meteoric rise was starting to upset people. Sigli raised his arm to greet his fans and did a quick dance step before climbing over the ropes to thunderous applause. Below the ring, cigar in mouth, the Duke gave me a thumbs-up. Salvo gave me a drink and adjusted my gum shield. ‘Let him come,’ De Stefano whispered in my ear. ‘Walk him around a bit and then get in there with your right to rile him up. He’s a madman. If you hit him first, he’ll try and get back at you at all costs, and that’s when he’ll lower his guard.’ The referee asked the seconds to leave the ring and Sigli and me to approach. He began by reciting the instructions. I didn’t hear him. I saw my opponent’s muscles quivering, his jaws clenching in his tense face, his faltering breathing, and I sensed that he was sick to his stomach and that all his loud declarations were just a feeble attempt to help him overcome his doubts.

Sigli folded at the first blow. He fell onto one knee, his hand to his side, his mouth grimacing with pain. People stood up in the hall, stunned by my ‘lightning move’. Jeers rang out across the ring. Sigli staggered to his feet. What I read in his eyes was a mixture of terror and rage. He knew that he was outclassed, but was hoping he could hold out for three or four rounds. He charged at me in a desperate surge. My left caught him on the tip of his chin. He collapsed to the floor, determined to stay there to the end of the count. The fight had lasted less than a minute. The audience showed its annoyance and started leaving the hall, overturning chairs and whistling in anger. Even the Duke was disappointed. ‘You should have made their pleasure last,’ he said to me in the changing rooms. ‘When a whole lot of people take the trouble to attend a show, they want their money’s worth. Especially when the seats are so expensive. You were too quick. The latecomers didn’t even have time to sit down.’

I didn’t care.

I had won and I didn’t give a damn about the rest. There was only one thing I wanted to do: run and throw myself into Aïda’s arms.

As soon as I had done up my bag and put on my suit, I apologised to my comrades that I couldn’t celebrate my victory with them as planned, jumped into Filippi’s car and went straight to Camélia’s to give myself a well-earned bit of relaxation.

7

Place d’Armes was in jubilant mood. The trams disgorged their hordes of passengers; the carriages swayed under the weight of their occupants. The few policemen didn’t know which way to turn in the carousel of cars and pedestrians. Beneath the gigantic trees around the fountain, families in their Sunday best were taking the air, the men with their jackets over their arms, the women under their parasols, the children trailing along behind like reluctant chicks. On the steps of the theatre, a throng of spectators was waiting for the box office to open, ignoring the Arab shoeshine boys fluttering around them. Soldiers in dress uniforms were vying with eccentric young men for the attentions of the girls, each using his seductive skills with the care of someone lighting fireworks. It was a gorgeous, colourful day, as only Oran could provide, softened by the breeze coming up from the harbour and fragrant with delicate scents from the gardens of the Military Club. We were sitting at a table on the terrace of a brasserie — De Stefano, Salvo, Tobias, Gino and I — some of us drinking anisette, others iced lemonade. Gino was telling me about the party the previous evening, to which many local personalities had been invited. Salvo was praising in great detail the succulence of the dishes served at the banquet.

‘You shouldn’t have run off,’ De Stefano said reproachfully. ‘It was your victory we were celebrating. Lots of the guests were upset not to see you at the restaurant.’

‘You’re not a street pedlar any more, you’re a champion,’ Tobias said.

‘The Duke wasn’t pleased to see that you weren’t there. He gave Frédéric an earful because of you.’

‘I was tired,’ I said.

‘Tired?’ Gino said. ‘That’s no excuse. There are conventions.’

‘What conventions? I have a right to rest after a fight, don’t I?’

‘They were honouring you,’ Tobias reminded me. ‘Honours are important. The same people whose shoes you used to shine were there to shake your hand, damn it! To congratulate you. To cheer you. And you run off and throw yourself into the arms of a whore.’

‘What of it?’

‘It’s unreasonable behaviour,’ De Stefano said calmly.

‘Inadmissible,’ Tobias corrected him.

‘It’s time you learnt good manners, Turambo,’ De Stefano went on. ‘When people honour you, the least you can do is be there at the ceremony.’

‘It was just a dinner,’ I said. ‘A big one, but a dinner. Plus, there was pork and wine on the menu.’

‘Do you ever stop for two seconds and think?’ Gino said angrily. ‘Try to understand what we’re telling you instead of listening only to yourself. You’ve become someone, Turambo, a hero of the city. And honours can’t be negotiated. When an event is organised in your honour, things turn sour if you’re not there. Do you follow me? There were highly placed people who’d come specially for you; even the mayor was on time, and you were nowhere to be seen.

‘It’s not the end of the world,’ I said, anxious for them to change the subject.

‘Maybe not, but take care, it might be the end of everything for you. A champion mustn’t snub his people, especially if he depends on them. And he mustn’t do the first thing that comes into his head …’

‘Provided he even has one,’ Tobias sighed.

‘Why, do you?’ Salvo retorted.

Tobias didn’t take the bait. Since his arguments with Salvo often ended up to the latter’s advantage, Tobias wasn’t keen to make a spectacle of himself. The few jibes at me were mere diversionary tactics. The fact was, he was bored in his corner, and his expression was sombre. He kept staring at the jug in front of him, without touching it.

‘Weren’t you at the party?’ I asked him, determined to move on.

‘Oh, yes,’ he grunted, scowling so that his eyebrows met like two hairy caterpillars.

‘He’s hopping mad because Félicie refused to dance with him,’ Salvo said. ‘Was she scared he’d stick his wooden leg in her foot?’

‘Wrong. Félicie is sulking because I didn’t give her a jewel for her birthday. I gave her flowers instead. That’s more romantic, isn’t it?’

‘Maybe,’ Salvo said, ‘but it doesn’t count.’

Tobias scratched himself behind the ear. ‘Mind your own business, egghead. I don’t like your insinuations.’

The two men looked stonily at each other.

‘What have you done with your ring, you randy bastard? Did you leave it up the arse of some old bag?’

‘Watch it, Tobias, I wasn’t being vulgar.’

‘Don’t worry. It might get jammed.’

‘You’re on good form, pegleg. What did you eat this morning?’

‘You’re the one who smells bad. Your mouth’s a sewer — when you open it the whole city starts to stink. Men like you can only do it up the arse.’

De Stefano laughed, making his paunch wobble.

‘You’re lucky I don’t have my knife on me,’ Salvo muttered.

‘I’d gladly lend you mine,’ Tobias said. ‘What would you do with it? Circumcise me?’

Gino and I were convulsed with laughter.

Francis joined us, his nostrils quivering with rage and indignation. He brandished a newspaper as if it were a tomahawk. ‘Have seen today’s paper?’

‘Not yet,’ Gino said. ‘Why?’

‘Those bastards on Le Petit Oranais didn’t pull their punches.’

Without taking a seat, preferring to remain standing to dominate us with his fury, Francis opened the newspaper with a peremptory gesture and spread it in front of him. ‘It’s the most disgusting article I’ve ever read in my life.’

‘It’s just an article, Francis,’ De Stefano said, trying to calm him. ‘Don’t have a fit.’

‘It isn’t an article, it’s a hatchet job.’

‘Someone from the editorial board told me about it this morning,’ De Stefano said calmly. ‘I know pretty much what it says. Sit down and have a beer. And don’t spoil our day, please. Look around you. Everything’s going well.’

‘What’s in it?’ Tobias asked.

‘Crap,’ De Stefano said wearily.

‘Yeah, but we want to know what,’ Tobias insisted.

Francis, who had just been waiting for permission to start, cleared his throat, took a deep breath and began reading so feverishly that his nostrils dilated even more.

‘THE SHOCK OF EXTREMES.’

‘What a headline!’

‘Spare us your comments and let’s hear what’s in the damned article,’ Tobias said.

‘Here we go then!’ His voice throbbing, Francis read:

‘Our dear city of Oran invited us to a truly dismal spectacle at the Salle Criot yesterday. We were expecting a boxing match and we were treated to a fairground attraction in very bad taste. In a ring transformed into a Roman arena, we were forced to witness a display of absurd sacrilege. On one side there was a fine athlete who practises boxing in order to contribute to the development of our national sport and who had come to impress the audience with his technique, his panache and his talent. Opposing him was a fighter like a wild beast who should never have been released from its cage. He was devoid of ethics. What can we say about this terrible farce other than express our intense indignation at seeing two conflicting worlds confront each other in defiance of the most elementary rules of decorum? Is it right to set the noble art up against the most primitive barbarity? Is it right to apply the word “match” to the obscene confrontation of two diametrically opposed conceptions of competition, one athletic, beautiful, generous, the other animalistic, brutal and irreverent? Yesterday, in the Salle Criot, we witnessed a vile attack on our civilisation. How can we not consider it as such when a good Christian is placed at the mercy of a troglodyte barely escaped from the dawn of time? How can we not cry scandal when an Arab is allowed to raise his hand to the very person who taught him to look at the moon rather than his own finger, to come down out of his tree and walk among men? Boxing is an art reserved for the world of the enlightened. To allow a primate access to it is a grave mistake, a false move, an unnatural act …’

‘What’s a troglodyte?’ I asked.

‘A prehistoric man,’ Francis said, eager to continue reading out the article.

‘Let us be under no illusion. To treat Arabs as our equals is to make them believe that we are no longer much use for anything. To allow them to face us in a boxing ring implies that they will one day be granted the opportunity to face us on a battlefield. Arabs are genetically destined for the fields, the mines, the pastures and, for those able to take advantage of our vast Christian charity, for the signal honour of serving us with loyalty and gratitude by doing our washing, sweeping our streets and looking after our houses as devoted and obedient servants …’

‘What prehistoric man are they talking about?’ I asked.

‘Don’t you get it?’ Francis cried, annoyed at being forced to interrupt his reading. ‘He’s talking about you.’

‘Do I look as old as that?’

‘Let me finish the article and I’ll explain.’

‘You don’t have to explain anything,’ Gino cut in. ‘We’ve heard enough. That article is just like its author: only good for wiping your arse on. We know the journalists who work on Le Petit Oranais. Fanatical racists, with as much restraint as a bout of diarrhoea. They don’t even deserve to be spat at. Remember the anti-Semitic massacre they caused in the Derb a few years ago. In my opinion, we should ignore them. They’re just low-grade provocateurs who prove, through their editorial line, that the civilised world isn’t always where we think it is.’

‘I don’t agree,’ Francis yelled, spittle showing at the corner of his mouth. ‘The man who wrote this rubbish has to pay for it. I know him. He used to go to the Eldorado cinema when I worked there as a pianist. He wrote film reviews for his paper. A pathetic nobody with a face like a barn owl, as thin as a pauper’s wages, ugly and untrustworthy. He lives not far from here. I suggest we go and have words with the bastard.’

‘Calm down, my boy,’ De Stefano grunted.

‘No Algerian can keep calm without forcing himself. If we give in, we lose face.’

‘Shut up, Francis!’ Tobias roared. ‘You can’t fight journalists. They’ll always have the last word because they’re what counts as public opinion.’

‘Tobias is right,’ De Stefano said. ‘Remember how those bastards on Le Petit Oranais treated Bad-Arsed Bob, or Angel Face, or Gustave Mercier. They lifted them up only to dump them. Bob ended up in an asylum. Angel Face killed his poor wife and ended his career in jail. Gusgus works as a bouncer … Fame is also paid in kind. What matters isn’t the occasional blows we take, but the nature of the marks they leave on us.’

All eyes turned to me.

I raised my glass of lemonade to my lips. The jibes, the filthy names, the vulgar insults: I’d hear them again and again every time I climbed into a ring. They were part of the atmosphere. There is no fight without abuse. At first, the jeers and the racist remarks hurt me. With time, I learnt to handle them. The Mozabite, my uncle’s partner, would say to me, ‘Fame can be measured by the hatred it arouses in its detractors. Where you are praised to the skies, others trip you up; such is the balance of things. If you want to see things through to the end, don’t linger over the droppings you crush beneath your feet, because there will always be some on the path of the brave.’

‘Are you going to let this go?’ Francis said.

‘It’s the only way to move on to serious things, don’t you think?’ I said, meeting his indignant gaze.

Francis slammed the paper down on the table and walked away, giving us the finger and telling us to go to hell. We watched him until he had disappeared round the corner. Calm returned to our table, without the open camaraderie that had prevailed a few minutes earlier. Hands grasped glasses and tankards; only Salvo had the courage to go further. De Stefano heaved a big sigh and sank into his chair, visibly annoyed by Francis’s intrusion. Gino picked up the paper, opened it at the offending page and read the article to the end in an unsettling silence. To dispel the unease that was starting to affect all of us, Tobias hailed the waiter, but then didn’t know what to order.

For my part, I had found Francis’s anger excessive, even unlikely. He himself had no qualms about kicking the backsides of Arab boys who tried to sell us snacks. Seeing him defend my honour so ferociously made me sceptical. It really wasn’t like him. I had often caught him complaining that I behaved ‘like an unpredictable, narrow-minded country bumpkin’. Whenever I disagreed with him about something, he’d raise his eyes to heaven as a sign of irritation, as if I wasn’t entitled to express an opinion. He had never really taken me to his heart. Even though he did his best to hide it, I knew he hated me for preferring Gino to him. According to him, I had pulled the rug out from under him … This business of the newspaper article was only a way of driving me to do something wrong, with, as a bonus, a long stay in prison that would put a definite end to my career as a boxer. Francis was quite capable of going that far; he was cunning and resentful.

A one-armed beggar approached our table. He was wearing a tattered cape over his naked, grimy torso, a rag that must once have resembled a pair of trousers, and torn canvas shoes.

‘Clear off!’ Salvo cried. ‘You’re going to attract every fly in the place.’

The beggar took no notice of him. He was examining me with a smile, his chin between his thumb and index finger. He was young but skeletal, his face withered and furrowed. His arm had been severed at the elbow, displaying a horrible bare stump.

‘Aren’t you the boxer in the posters?’ he asked me.

‘I might be.’

His face seemed familiar, but I couldn’t place him.

‘I knew a Turambo once, years ago,’ the beggar went on, still smiling. ‘In Graba, near Sidi Bel Abbès.’

A succession of faces flashed through my mind — the Daho brothers, the kids in the souk, the neighbours’ children — but I couldn’t place this man. And yet I was certain he was familiar to me.

‘Sit down,’ I said.

‘Out of the question!’ thundered a waiter standing in the doorway of the brasserie. ‘How will I disinfect the chair afterwards?’

The beggar was already beating a retreat. He crossed the road and hastened towards the Derb, limping slightly. He quickened his pace when he heard me running after him.

‘Stop, I just want to talk to you!’

He hurried on straight ahead. I caught up with him behind the theatre.

‘I’m from Graba,’ I said. ‘Do we know each other?’

‘I didn’t want to upset you. It wasn’t right, what I did. You were with your friends and I turned up like that and made you feel ashamed. I apologise, really, I apologise —’

‘Never mind that. Who are you? I’m sure we know each other.’

‘We weren’t together for long,’ the beggar said, impatient to go on his way. ‘And besides, it’s all in the past. You’ve become someone; I have no right to bother you. When I saw your picture on the poster with your name above it, I recognised you immediately. And then I saw you at that table and I just had to approach you. I couldn’t help myself. Now I know I was wrong. I realised it when your friends were embarrassed by me.’

‘Not me, I assure you. But tell me who you are, damn it!’

He looked at his stump, weighed up the pros and cons then looked up at me and said in a thin voice, ‘I’m Pedro the gypsy. We used to hunt for jerboas. And you often came with me to the camp.’

‘My God! Pedro. Of course, Pedro … What happened to your arm?’

‘You remember I always dreamt of joining a circus.’

‘Oh, yes! You could juggle, throw knives, wrap your legs round your neck …’

‘Well, I did join a circus in the end. I wanted to be a trapeze artist. The owner had seen my work but didn’t want to take any risks. I was too young. To keep me on, he hired me as a stable boy. I’d feed the animals. One morning, I got careless outside one of the cages, and a lion took my hand in his mouth. It’s a miracle he didn’t pull me in through the bars … The owner kept me on until my arm healed, then started to find excuses, and finally threw me out.’

‘My God!’

‘I’m hungry,’ he admitted, turning towards a soup vendor.

I bought him a bowl. He crouched on the pavement and started eating very quickly. I bought him a second bowl, which he knocked back in a flash.

‘Do you want another one?’

‘Yes,’ he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘I haven’t eaten a thing for days.’

I waited until he’d finished his fourth helping. He stuffed the food into his mouth without taking the trouble to chew. His chin was dripping with sauce and his fingers left black marks on the rim of the bowl. It was as if he was trying to fill himself up to prepare for fasts to come. Pedro was nothing but a walking scarecrow. He had lost his teeth and some of his hair; his eyes wore a veil as faded as his face. From his wheezing, I guessed that he was sick, and from his sallow complexion that he might be dying.

‘Would you buy me some shoes?’ he said suddenly. ‘I don’t have any skin left on the soles of my feet.’

‘Anything you like. I don’t have enough money on me now, but I’ll wait for you tomorrow in Rue Wagram and we’ll go shopping. Do you know where Rue Wagram is?’

‘No. I don’t know anyone here.’

‘You see that alleyway crossing the Derb? At the end of it, there’s a little square. On your right, there’s a workshop. The gym where I train is opposite. Just ask the doorman and I’ll be there for you. I’ll buy you shoes and clothes and take you to have a bath. I’m going to take care of you, I promise.’

‘I wouldn’t like to take advantage.’

‘Will you come?’

‘Yes …’

‘Do you give me your word?’

‘Yes, my word as a gypsy … Do you remember when my father used to play the violin? It was good, wasn’t it? We’d sit around the fire and listen. We didn’t notice the time passing … What was your friend’s name?’

‘No idea.’

‘Is he still with you?’

‘No.’

‘He was weird, that boy …’

‘And how’s your father?’

Pedro passed his good hand over his face. His gestures were jerky, his voice shaky. When he spoke, his eyes darted in all directions as if trying to escape his thoughts.

‘I don’t know where my people are … I’ve met lots of caravan drivers, nomads, gypsies, nobody has seen my people. They may have gone to Morocco. The Mama was born there. She was determined to be buried in the place where she’d come into the world … Thanks for the soup,’ he said, getting up abruptly. ‘I really needed that. I feel better now. And I’m sorry if I embarrassed you in front of your friends. I have to go …’

‘Where are you going?’

‘I have to see someone. It’s important.’

‘Don’t forget, Rue Wagram tomorrow. I’m counting on you.’

‘Yes, yes …’ He stepped back to prevent me hugging him. ‘I’m crawling with insects. They jump on anyone who comes close to me, and then you can’t get rid of them.’

He nodded by way of goodbye, gave me a last smile and descended the steps leading to Old Oran. I waited for him to turn round so that I could wave goodbye to him, but he didn’t. Something told me this was the last time I would see him. My intuition was correct. Pedro didn’t come to the gym, either the next day or ever, and I never found out what happened to him.

8

Aïda planted her elbow on the pillow and rested her cheek in the palm of her hand to watch me getting dressed. The satin-soft sheet emphasised the harmonious curve of her hip. She was magnificent, posing there like a nymph exhausted from lovemaking and getting ready for sleep. Her long black hair flowed over her shoulders, and her breasts, which still bore the marks of my embraces, were like two sacred fruits. How old was she? She looked so young, so fragile. Her body was like porcelain, and whenever I took her in my arms, I was careful to be gentle with her. For two months now, I had been coming here to recharge my batteries in her perfumed room, and whenever I saw her, my heart beat a little faster. I think I was in love with her. Born to a great Bedouin line from the Hamada, she had been married off at the age of thirteen to the son of a provincial governor somewhere in the High Plains. Rejected after a year because she had not given birth, Aïda was disowned by her family, who considered her dismissal an insult. Now that she was known to be infertile, none of her cousins deigned to take her as a wife. One morning, she set off across the plains, walking straight ahead without turning round. Nomads dropped her at the entrance to a colonial village where she was found by a Christian family. Late at night, her employers’ sons came in turn and abused her in the cellar where she had been given lodging, surrounded by spiders’ webs and old junk. When the abuse turned to torture, Aïda had no choice but to run away. After weeks of wandering about, she was forced into prostitution. Passed from one pimp to another like contraband goods, she at last found herself at Madame Camélia’s.

In telling me of her misfortunes, Aïda showed neither anger nor resentment. It was as if she were recounting the tribulations of a stranger. She took her misfortune with a disarming stoicism. When she realised that her misadventures made me uncomfortable, she would take my face in her hands and look deep into my eyes, a sad smile on her lips. ‘You see? Don’t force me to rake up what might spoil our evening. I’d hate it if I made you sad. That’s not what I’m here for.’ I confessed to her that it was hard for me to remain insensitive to her sorrows. She would give a little laugh and scold me. I asked her how she managed to bear these trials which clung to her like ghosts. She replied in a clear voice, ‘You learn to cope. Time sees to it that things are bearable. So you forget and convince yourself that the worst is behind you. Of course, when you’re alone the abyss catches up with you and you fall into it. Curiously, as you fall, you feel a kind of inner peace. You tell yourself that’s the way things are, and that’s all there is to it. You think about people who suffer and you compare your suffering with theirs. It’s easier to bear your own after that. You have to lie to yourself. You vow to pull yourself together, not to fall back in the chasm. And if, for once, you manage to pull yourself back from the edge of the precipice, you find the strength to turn away. You look elsewhere, at something other than yourself. And life reasserts itself, with its ups and downs. After all what is life? A big dream, nothing more. We may buy, we may sell ourselves, but we’re only passing through life. We don’t possess much in the end. And since nothing lasts, why get upset about it? When you reach that conclusion, however stupid it is, everything becomes bearable. And so you let yourself go, and everything works.’ It was the only time she really confided in me. Usually, one sentence was enough to start her talking, and then I wished she would never stop. Her voice was so soft, her words so full of sense. She gave the impression that she was strong and resolute, and that calmed me a little. I wanted so many things for her; I wanted her to be Aïda again, to draw a line under her past and start again on the right footing, hardened but triumphant. I forbade myself to think for a second that her life could end in this dead-end place, on a violated bed, at the mercy of cannibals with contaminated kisses. Aïda was beautiful, too beautiful to be nothing but an erotic object. She was young and pure, so pure that the stains of her profession disappeared on their own as soon as she was alone in her room after her clients had gone. I liked her company a lot. Sometimes, I didn’t feel the need to take her; I was content just being near her, sitting face to face, she on the edge of the bed and me in the armchair. When the silence became oppressive, I would regale her with stories about my life. I told her about Sid Roho, Ramdane and Gomri, and she would laugh at their quirks as if she knew them really well. I was proud when I amused her and I loved setting off her crystalline laugh, which always started from below, like little bells, before reaching the heights, so high that it touched the sky … But our time was limited. I had to leave at a certain time. I had to wake from my dream. Aïda had other lovers waiting in the parlour. Much as I tried to ignore them, the maid with the impassive face keeping guard on the landing was there to rebuke me. She would knock at the door and Aïda would open her arms wide as a sign of apology.

What I felt for Aïda belonged only to the two of us. I parted from her with the feeling I was leaving my own body.

How I wished we could walk together through the thicket and forget ourselves in the shade of a tree, far from the whole world! I had suggested that she go with me to the city, but she couldn’t. The rules of the house only allowed its residents to go to Oran once a month. Not to walk about, but to buy clothes. A car would take Aïda, with other prostitutes, to the same shops, closely guarded by a servant. Once they had made their purchases, they were taken directly back to the house. No prostitute was allowed to wander in the parks or even sit down on a café terrace, let alone greet a client in the street.

It was like being in prison.

The maid knocked at the door. Insistently this time. Aïda got out of bed.

‘He’s just getting dressed,’ I heard her whisper in the corridor.

‘It’s not that,’ the maid said in a low voice. ‘Madame sent me. She wants to see the young man before he leaves.’

‘All right. He’ll be down in a minute.’

I tucked my shirt into my trousers. Aïda came up behind me, planted a kiss on the back of my neck and put her arms round me.

‘Come back soon, my champion. I’m going to miss you.’

‘I’d like to introduce you to my mother.’

‘I’m not the kind of girl you introduce to your parents.’

‘I’ll tell her you’re my girlfriend.’

‘That kind of word is not part of our traditions, champion. And besides, can you imagine me turning up at your mother’s house dressed and made up like the wanton woman I am?’

‘You’re not a wanton woman, Aïda. You’re a good person.’

‘That’s not enough. Your mother mustn’t suspect that her beloved son goes with whores. She wouldn’t be able to bear it. For our people, vice is worse than sin … Hurry up, Madame hates being kept waiting.’

The maid was lying in wait for me at the end of the corridor. She gestured to me to hurry up. At the foot of the stairs, Larbi the servant was chuckling at my tardiness. In the main room, the girls in their flimsy camisoles and lace knickers were busy bewitching their clients. At the counter, their victims were ruining themselves to impress their harem. Mouss, the tall black man, was in an alcove, with two languid beauties on his knees. Automatically, perhaps to thank him for coming to my last fight, I waved at him. He bared his gold teeth in a grin and grunted, ‘Don’t proclaim victory too soon, kid. Sigli’s just a nobody who thinks he’s the cat’s whiskers. He’s nothing but a lot of hot air.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ I retorted angrily. ‘He didn’t hold out for a minute.’

‘I wasn’t surprised. He was already scared to death before he got in the ring.’

Larbi pulled aside a curtain and pointed to a padded door at the end of a corridor. Madame Camélia sat enthroned behind a small desk, with her severe bun and her inscrutable face, a twill shawl over her shoulders. There was no window in the room, which was dimly lit by two candles on a chest of drawers. The mistress of the house seemed averse to electricity. She must have felt more comfortable in the semi-darkness, which gave her a certain mystical air.

Her eel-like smile was intended as a barrier between us.

With her hand in its white elbow-length glove, she pointed to a velvet-upholstered chair, waited for me to sit down, then pushed a piece of paper in my direction.

‘What’s this?’

‘The address of an excellent little brothel in Oran,’ she said in a falsely cheerful tone. ‘Not far from the centre of town. The girls are pretty and very nice. That way, you won’t have to get Monsieur Bollocq’s chauffeur to bring you all the way here. You can just hop on a tram or even walk there; it’ll only take you a few minutes.’

‘I like it here.’

‘Young man, all these girls are alike. Isn’t it better to have them close at hand?’

‘I’m fine here. I have no desire to look elsewhere.’

‘Nobody’s forcing you. Go to that address and judge for yourself. I’m sure you’ll soon change your mind.’

‘I don’t want to change my mind.’

Madame Camélia pursed her lips in a disappointed grimace. She breathed deeply through her nose, betraying an effort on her part not to implode. Her eyes had an unhealthy gleam in the flickering light of the candles. ‘Does Monsieur Bollocq know about your constant comings and goings in my house?’

‘He’s the one who sends me his chauffeur.’

‘When charity is blind, it makes beggars greedy,’ she said in a drawling voice full of disdain.

‘Pardon, Madame?’

‘I was talking to myself … Don’t you think you’re abusing your benefactor’s generosity, young man?’

‘You benefit from it more than I do, don’t you?’

She put her fingers together and placed both hands on the table, inwardly struggling to keep calm. ‘I’m going to be honest with you, my boy. Some of my clients are complaining about your presence in my house. They are men of a certain rank, if you know what I mean. They don’t like to share their private moments with strangers from a world … how shall I put it? … not entirely accustomed to the special features we offer. My clients are officers, financiers, businessmen, in other words, important people, and they are all married. They need to preserve their reputations and their marriages. In this kind of place, discretion is of the essence. Put yourself in their shoes …’

‘I’m not in the habit of shouting what I see from the rooftops, Madame.’

‘This isn’t about you. It’s about their state of mind. Your presence makes them uncomfortable.’

I leapt to my feet. ‘Then why don’t you give them the address you just gave me?’

Before she had a chance to put things right, I left the room and slammed the door behind me. I was sure my presence didn’t bother anyone and that this whole thing was merely the result of the loathing she felt for me. An Arab in her house damaged the special character she was striving to give it. Wasn’t it her ambition to make her brothel the most exclusive in Oran?

Madame Camélia didn’t like me. It wasn’t by chance that she had ‘assigned’ me a Muslim girl. As far as she was concerned, I wasn’t worthy of laying my hands on a European woman. I don’t think she liked anybody in particular. There was too much bile in her eyes, too much venom on her lips; if she had a heart, she would have made sure nobody ever got to it … I didn’t like her either. I hadn’t liked her since the first time we’d met. Her ‘aura’ stank of sulphur. As arrogant as only vice can be when it brings virtue to its knees, she really despised her clients, who, the second they hung up their prestige and status in the cloakroom, let themselves be debauched by a glass of vintage wine and a mechanical show of affection. Her good graces concealed deadly traps; her charisma was tinged with a cold duplicity. She wasn’t made of flesh and blood: she was nothing but calculation and manipulation, the obscure priestess of a despised Olympus where the soul and the flesh were quartered on the altar of desire, having nothing but blatant contempt for one another.

I wasn’t there for her. Or for her girls. I was there for Aïda, and only for Aïda. And although she also belonged to other men, Aïda was mine. At any rate, that was how I saw it. I didn’t just sleep with Aïda, it was a kind of marriage. I had respect for her; I hated the fate that had led her to this centre of lust and vice, this den of demons and perverted angels. In that purgatory of sensuality, it was tit for tat, love reduced to a sordid commodity. Even a false smile had to be paid for; you bought the moment, you traded the sexual act, the least look was added to the bill. Only one aim prevailed: to ensure the client spent excessively and, in order to make this happen, to reduce him to his base instincts, a consenting, devoted slave in search of ecstasy, ready to lose himself in an orgasm only to be born again and again to the craziest fantasies, never satisfied, always demanding, since everything was paid for in cash, since nothing could resist the power of money when the clock on the wall turned into a money-making machine. Aïda didn’t work that way. She was generous and sensitive, without malice or deceit. She was just as good as those respectable women you raised your hat to in the street. I was unhappy to see her being a receptacle for dregs and vomit, offering herself indiscriminately to perverts who, in other circumstances, wouldn’t even have dared look at her. That wasn’t the role of a woman who loved as she could love. Aïda had a soul, an unusual grace, a kind of nobility; she was nothing like her profession, and it was obvious she wouldn’t survive it — with time, I was sure, the little humanity she had held on to would rot in her breast and she would die of it as of a cancer … But what could I do except dwell on my bitterness and clap my hands? Whenever I arrived at the brothel and was told she had a client and I would have to wait my turn, I couldn’t see any light at the end of the tunnel. And when I took my leave of her so that another man could immediately replace me, I felt I was burning in a kind of hell. I would return to Oran so sad that my room welcomed night faster than usual. In the morning, when I got to the gym, the punch bag would sag under my blows and I swear I heard it moaning and begging my forgiveness.

*

My conversation with Madame Camélia had left its mark. I was asking myself questions. Did my presence really bother the clients of the brothel? Was I abusing the Duke’s generosity? Strangely, Filippi started sneaking off whenever I asked for him, claiming he had urgent business to attend to or an errand to run for the boss. At the gym, my training left a lot to be desired; I listened only absently to De Stefano’s entreaties. My lack of concentration almost cost me dear. At the end of the month, I had a great deal of difficulty finishing off my opponent, a tough fellow from Boufarik, who was ahead of me on points until the seventh round. My left hook saved me at the last moment. Disgusted by my performance, the Duke gave me a dressing-down in the changing rooms. We returned to Oran by train, each racked by his own anxieties.

At night, when I switched off the light in my room, I would slide my hands behind my head and let darkness overcome my thoughts. Aïda occupied my mind. I would wonder who she was sleeping with at that moment, what impure hands were crushing her. I was jealous, and I was unhappy for her. What future was there for a prostitute? One evening, they would realise that she was no longer as young and fresh as she had been. Her lovers would prefer other courtesans. They would start to desert her, then mock her. The priestess would ask her to pack her bags and give back the key to the room. Aïda would go and stagnate in some rooming house in the outlying districts where the beds were cold and the sheets rank. When she didn’t have enough to pay the rent, she would wander from dive to low bordello, from mezzanine to stairwell, before going back on the streets and using up her last resources walking the pavements. She would pass from a docker to a penniless carpenter, so common and drab now that no pimp would deign to take her on. Then, after hitting rock bottom and absorbing every insult, she would end up in some insalubrious bolthole, defeated, sick, hungry, worn to the bone, coughing blood and longing for death.

I had nobody to share my distress with. Gino was too busy buying himself suits and mixing with polite society to worry about my moods. We hardly ever saw each other. While he strove to become the Duke’s shadow, the Duke having promised him an office in his establishment, I wondered how to overcome the doubts that Madame Camélia had sown in me. I had to come to a decision. I missed Aïda. Confiding in Gino struck me as wasted breath. He would try to dissuade me, would laugh at the feelings I harboured for a prostitute. Wasn’t he against lasting relationships? He would find words to disarm me, and I had no desire to agree with him. I needed to listen to my heart. Lots of boxers were husbands and fathers; they didn’t seem to suffer because of it.

I asked my uncle’s partner the Mozabite for advice. Of course, I dreaded his verdict. In order not to arouse his suspicions, I told him that a friend of mine was in love with a girl of easy virtue and was planning to marry her. The Mozabite, whose wisdom I appreciated, didn’t know what to reply. He wasn’t keen. He told me that my friend might regret it one day. Then I asked him what the attitude of our religion was to that kind of thing. He told me Islam wasn’t against it, and that it was even honourable for a believer to rescue a lost soul from prostitution. He advised me to send my ‘friend’ to see the imam of the Great Mosque, the only person qualified to pronounce on the subject. The imam received me with consideration. He asked me questions about my ‘friend’, if he was a Muslim, if he was married, if he had children. I told him he was a bachelor, healthy in body and mind. The imam wanted to be sure that the prostitute could be trusted, that she hadn’t bewitched her lover and wasn’t interested only in his money. I told him that she didn’t even know of my ‘friend’s’ intentions. The imam opened his arms wide and said, ‘Restoring her honour to a poor woman robbed of her soul is equal to a thousand prayers.’

I was relieved.

A week later, after thinking about it until my brain was exhausted, I bought a ring and asked Filippi to drive me immediately to Canastel.

Aïda wasn’t free. I had to wait downstairs for an eternity, unceremoniously repelling the other girls’ diligent advances. It was after eight; night brooded at the windows. An excited client was torturing an upright piano by the bay window. His erratic playing interspersed with bum notes got on my nerves. I was hoping that someone would say something to him or that a girl would entice him to the counter, but nobody seemed interested in him. I concentrated on the first-floor landing, where the maid was keeping her eye open. Every time a client appeared at the top of the stairs, she would look down at me and shake her head. Every passing moment was wearing down my patience. My hands were damp from so much fidgeting. At last, a fat, bald, red-faced, shifty-looking man appeared. This was the one. I ran up the stairs, deaf to the protests of another client, who was waiting on a sofa. The maid tried to run after me; the glare I gave her stopped her in her tracks.

Aïda was finishing powdering herself at the mirror. Her hair was still loose and the sheets on the bed were rumpled. I stood there in front of her, trembling from head to foot. I found her more beautiful than ever, with her big doe-like eyes smiling at me.

‘I wasn’t expecting you,’ she said, mechanically unfastening her corset.

‘That’s not what I came for.’

‘Have you found someone better elsewhere?’

‘No woman could distract me from you.’

She gave me a sidelong glance, eyebrows slightly raised, then reknotted the braid round her neck and turned to face me. ‘What’s the matter? You seem agitated.’

I took her hands firmly enough to break them and placed them on my chest. My heart was pounding. ‘I have great news for you,’ I said.

‘Great news? Great in what way?’

‘I want to marry you.’

‘What?’ she cried, pulling her hands away abruptly.

I’d been expecting that reaction. A lady of the night doesn’t imagine she will hear such declarations. In her mind, she wouldn’t be worthy. I was so happy for her, so proud to be rehabilitating her, to be giving her back her dignity and her soul. I took her hand again. Her eyes went through me like shafts of light that a branch deflects in the wind. I understood her emotion. In her place, I would have leapt in the air.

‘The imam assured me that, for a believer, to save a woman from dishonour is equal to a thousand prayers.’

She took a step back, more and more incredulous. ‘What imam? What dishonour?’

‘I want to give you a roof, a family, some respect.’

‘I had all that before.’

Something was eluding me.

Aïda’s face had turned white and I couldn’t understand why. ‘Who says I want to get married?’ she said. ‘I’m fine where I am. I live in a beautiful house, I’m fed, protected, I want for nothing.’

‘Are you serious?’

‘Why wouldn’t I be?’

‘Do you realise what I’m offering you?’

‘What are you offering me?’

‘To make you my wife.’

‘I haven’t asked anything of you.’

My temples tensed.

Thrown off balance, I tried again. ‘I don’t think you understand. I want to make you my wife and take you away from this indecent life.’

‘But I have no desire to depend on a man,’ she exclaimed, with a brief, nervous laugh. ‘I have lots of men and they all treat me like a queen. Why do you want to shut me up in a slum, burden me with kids and make me work hard? And besides, where do you see the indecency here? I work. I have a job and I love it.’

‘You call that a job, selling your body?’

‘Don’t workers sell their hands, don’t miners risk their lives in deadly tunnels, don’t bearers sell their backs for next to nothing? I find the struggle of a poor devil killing himself with work from morning till night for pennies a lot less decent than the exhilaration of a whore who takes pleasure in making more money in a month than a track-layer in ten years. And what about you? Do you find it decent to have your face smashed in a boxing ring? Isn’t that also selling your body? The difference between your profession and mine is that here, in this palace, I don’t receive blows, I receive gifts. I sleep in a real bed and my room is more luxurious than anything I’d find in a home, even if my husband was a champion. Here, I’m a sultana, Turambo. I bathe in hot water and rose water, my toiletries are of silk and essential oils, my meals are banquets and my sleep is soft as a cloud. I have no complaints, I assure you. I was born under a lucky star, Turambo, and no honour could ever compare with my little joys here.’

My legs failing, I collapsed into the armchair and put my head in my hands; I refused to admit that Aïda could talk to me like that, so uncompromisingly, her words as final as a funeral. I found it hard to control the ideas swirling around in my mind. Sweat was spreading down my back in a tangle of shivers, freezing my body and my blood.

I didn’t recognise my voice as I said, ‘I thought I wasn’t like the others, I thought you loved me.’

‘I love all my clients, Turambo. All in the same way. It’s my job.’

I no longer knew right from wrong. I’d thought I was doing the right thing and now I realised there were other logics, other truths a million miles from those I had been taught.

Gino burst out laughing when I told him how I had been rejected by Aïda.

‘You have a problem with your emotions, Turambo. You’ve been very badly brought up. Aïda isn’t wrong. All things considered, you owe her a lot. Don’t fall in love with every woman who smiles at you. You don’t have the means to maintain a harem. Just try not to shoot yourself in the foot. You can’t get in the ring when you’re walking on crutches.’

He struck me on the shoulder.

‘We live and learn, don’t we? And yet it’s never enough to protect us from disappointments. Come,’ he said, throwing me a jacket, ‘there’s a wonderful group performing in Sid el-Hasni. There’s nothing better than a folk dance to get rid of evil spirits.’